doing my albums like mad

Apparently the pictures are first. This was a fun bathing session outside with Katie, her sister Laura and the girls day before we left:



This is the hotel room in Vancouver:
San Fran airport:



Rehearsal:
She was putting on sunglasses and was quite pleased with herself:



Kalista in her flower girl dress:







Kiera walking up the aisle:

Disneyland, castle behind us:

Family Photo:
One of her only smiles all day:
Kiera having a meltdown:
Carousel:

going up to Splash mountain:



I finally am pretty much finished Kiera's album. seriously it was taking SO LONG because every time I thought I was done, I found more photos to add. its ridiculous. now I just have to edit and make sure my font all matches and its off to the printers. I have all ready completed the first few pages of Kalistas album too. Looking over the blog I realised I stated a lot more of Kiera's progress in the langauge department than I have for Kalista. so for records sake:
words:
mama, mommyeeeeeeeeeeeee, buba, bubeeeeeeee, dada, daddy, nana (drink or food), what's that?, BO! (which is boo) she also signs "milk" when she wants some mama milk. she isn't even close to weaned, Kiera was done by this age. She was walking by 11.5 months. Even when she can't talk, she makes her wishes known. like this morning she was out of water in her cup so she put the cup right into my hand and pretty much yelled at me until I got the message that she was out of water. Yesterday she really wanted me to open her raisins for her so she did the same thing. When she is ticked at me, she pinches or hits me, she has been doing that since she was around 10ish months. She can be very charming when she wants to be, all smiles, giggles, etc. But when she is in a bad mood, she lets you know that is for sure. She tries really hard to sing all the songs with Kiera and play the same games. Like yesterday Kiera made up this hand slapping game that Kalista followed with her own version she thought was hilarious.
Yesterday we went to the zoo and put her on the train by herself, which she LOVED. Apparently just her speed. none of this crazy Waterworld business going down in big tubes. She was stoic, completely stoic. She tolerated it, not LOVED it like her crazy sister Kiera. She has almost all of her teeth at 14 months, minus her two year molars. She was/is a terrible teether, basically cries the whole time they are moving. not that I blame her. The biggest thing about Kalista that is different from her sister is that she she is/was a mommy pig. She wants me all the time, daddy can't soothe her. it makes for an exhausting time of it. she doesn't really sleep that well. She still wakes up once a night, at least. sometimes she cries for the entire time she is up. did I mention its totally exhausting? She loves the Beco, I like it too, hands free! I sling her a lot more than I ever did Kiera.

We have had a super super busy month. On June 21st we left for Japan. I was intuitively anxious about it, and it didn't look that great to get there. We got up at 4am Tuesday morning, got on our flight to San Fran quite easily. We sat in San Fran all day and got dusted from all the flights. I called Air Canada and we decided to try out of Vancouver, flew to Vancouver got a hotel and the next day discovered our tickets were not enough to use on the AC flight to Narita. so we then took a bus down to Seattle and spent the night at Nana and granddad's place (even though they were all ready in Japan) and went to the Seattle airport to try out of there. we didn't get on any of the flights to Narita, but we did get on the one to Hawaii at like 700pm or something. we were exhausted needless to say. we were also down to one bag, as it had been the trip of losing bags as we went. We got to Japan, and Doug's suitcase was there. Then we went on to catch our next flight, who told us they could clear us (THANK GOODNESS), but not our bags. so by the time we arrived at our final destination, we had just the backpacks on our backs. that's it. We did have the flower girl dresses with us though. which was good.
The wedding was lovely of course. the girls didn't do too badly considering it was like REALLY late their time, we were only there for less than 2 days by the time it was the wedding. Kiera was embarrassed and pleased at the same time that people looked at her. Though I had hopes that Kalista would hold her sisters hand and walk down the aisle, it didn't happen. She was very fussy and miserable for 90% of the trip. she nursed like a newborn, slept terribly and took almost 10 days when we got home to adjust again. I really really hate travelling with babies between the ages of 12-18 months, I remember it being the worst for Kiera too and we never crossed any oceans.
We stayed for a while after the wedding. the weather went back and forth between rain and sunshine. Kiera had a great time on the beach. In fact yesterday she told me she would like the ocean outside, just like at Nana's beach house. Funny kid. We decided to go to Tokyo Disneyland on the Monday before we left. it was great. It only solidified my opinion that Kiera is an adrenaline junkie. First we took her on her first coaster, the Gadget one. she LOVED IT. she even screamed. she went on it three times. We did a bunch of other smaller rides that Kalista could do with us as well, like the airplanes that flew above the park. and the Buzz light year one. she is only two inches from being able to do space mountain. anyway, she went on SPLASH MOUNTAIN! the first time she cried at the end and when I said the big hill was over, she said she wanted to do it again, which she did with daddy. now she calls it the "water coaster" and she asked us to buy it :P our trip home was totally uneventful, got the first flight we tried on, it was an ANA flight which was great because they had this bassinet thingy that Kalista slept for a little over half the flight. She is so squirmy I was happy that had that service. And we caught the first flight home.
anyway. we have been home for about 10 days now, Kalista is adjusted back with the help of melatonin. we have been busy with my mom being here we went to Water World and to the Zoo yesterday. its been busy but fun. my mom ended up having to stay an extra couple of days because of a buddy pass mix up. other than that, same old here.
here are the pics that I have: