June 30th ohana b-days!

No pictures to post as we're not in Hawaii to celebrate tonight, but just wanted to give birthday wishes to Nana Kage and Uncle Chrispy.

Happy Birthday!!!

Wish we were there to celebrate!

Happy Birthday Lauren!

Happy First Birthday Lauren!

Kari was really good with Hannah.

Sophie was pampered by her Aunties: Flo and Vincy.

Auntie Vincy giving Sophie tips.

Kari with Hannah and Auntie Liz with Lauren.

Sophie is going through these hand motions of "what's with that" poses. Here she does it with rice all over her. Kari gave both babies some of her white rice which seemed like a good idea at first...

Hannah trying to eat rice.

Neil and Marcia with Soph Soph and Mommy looking on.

Soph Soph

Auntie Vincy & Hann


Thank you for inviting us!!!

Heavens to Betsy

Sophie is continually improving on her motor skills and in such a sudden and short time. Now she can crawl on her knees, go to a sitting position, stand up, stand with one hand, and cruise. Today she even stood by Der without holding onto anything!!! We think walking is coming around the bend fast.

You may ask what about Hannah? Well, we too are asking ourselves about that too. I think she is just not ready or she feels like what is all the hoopla with moving? She doesn't really try, so we all think that she just does not want to move at all until she's good and ready that is.

Today we bought the girls a gate and gated off the living room. Reason being that Sophie is crawling faster than we thought she could go and being out of shape we can't keep up, so we figure no better time than the present to start child proofing the house. Emi was not happy to be left out of the gated area and she was whimpering around outside of the gate. Kiki was curious and paced back and forth around the gate.

Sisterly love.

Sophie shows off. Hannah complains in the background.

Water Babies

Auntie Liz with Lauren, Mommy with Hannah, and Daddy with Soph Soph at last Saturday's final swim class.

The group with the instructor in action.
Only on the last day of class were pictures allowed to be taken.

Special thanks to Auntie Liz and Uncle Eric for the pics.

Celebration

Sophie celebrates her first standing up in her crib. Seems like she's just as excited as we are about her discovery :)

Here Comes Trouble

About a week and a half ago or two weeks ago, I can't remember the exact date, Sophie started to crawl commando style. She's still crawling that way, but slowly she's lifting herself up to the knee crawling position. Today she started to sit up from a lying position and we thought, "Wow! That is quite a milestone.". I also urged Der to drop one level down of the crib yesterday (because Soph was pulling the border material down and looked like she was trying to get up), but I think we may have under estimated Sophie because she started to stand up!!! Sitting and standing all in one day!!! Der will have to drop the crib yet again for Soph Soph.

Meanwhile our Hannah is very mellow and seems to not want to be mobile in any sort of way just yet. She enjoys just sitting up and and from time to time she will bend down to pick up a toy or two. She gets Mommy and Daddy all excited when she lunges forward, but she's just psyching us out.

I surprise Mommy and Daddy by sitting up from a laying down position :)

I shock Mommy and Daddy now by standing up!!!

Hannah not ready to be mobile just yet.

Sophie caught on film standing up on her own.

Photomania

Mmmm...spit.

I want this bib of yours.

Huh?

Oh that's right, "Cheese!"

Daddy's smiling girls :)

Sunday Morning fun with Daddy

Hey you're messing up my hair, quit it!

It's just you and me kitty.

Sophie look up! Hannah Hannah yay!

What a Wonderful World

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do
They're really saying I love you.

I hear babies cry, I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll never know
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
Yes I think to myself what a wonderful world.

Hot Thursday

The girls are getting over yet another cold (probably like the 4th or 5th virus since the time we went to Hawaii)!!! First Sophie got it last weekend from God knows where and then shortly after Hannah. They're finally getting better and by this weekend they should be back to normal again unless some freak of nature occurs and they get another strain of it. Must be the changes from the hot to cold to hot again weather. Today while driving home the car's outside reading temperature for Hayward was 97 degrees!!!

Sophie is continuing to get better at crawling everyday and meanwhile Hannah is very much into sitting up and chilling with her toys. I think the girls went through another growth spurt as Sophie is fitting nicely in the 12 month clothes and Hannah is getting out of her 9 month clothes. Amazingly size 3 diapers fits a wide range of weight, so they'll be in that for a while.

Sophie loves batting at the dangling toys and Hannah seems to be saying, "See my feet!".

It's hard to keep Sophie still these days. Hannah is giving the goofy smile :)

Sophie - Grrr that's my headbanger face. Hannah starts to do the who can drool on the entire outfit in 5 seconds flat contest. (Uncle Calvin's Mommy/Daddy's little headbanger onesies. Thank you!)

Let me bang your head.

Crawling caught on tape :)

Is it Sophie?

Or is it Hannah?


Keep looking.


Still looking?


And the winner is...

Soph Soph finally caught on tape :)

Happy First Father's Day!

Love Sophie

Love Hannah

Zoo, Graduation, and me

Saturday we had a lot of fun. First we went to the Oakland zoo with Auntie Dana, Auntie Liz, Uncle Eric, and Lauren. It was the first time for Mommy and Daddy to go there too. How did it compare to the Honoulu zoo? It was a bit more crowded and it seemed like they had less animals, but our favorite attractions (or shall we say Mommy's) was the meerkats and the sun bear. We decided to get a zoo membership as it is great to get out and get some exercise and see the real life animals too!

Later that afternoon we went to Christian's graduation party down in San Jose. Daddy got to meet up with some old friends and we got to see Uncle Alan. By the end of the day we were pooped!

Mommy, Hannah, and Sophie watching the camels nap by the fence.

Auntie Liz holding a napping Lauren, as we (Mommy & the twins) look at a variety of colorful birds.

We walk with the elephants.

Sssssh...sunbathing meerkats. They're so darn cute!!!

Hannah likes the plant outside of the bat cage.

Mommy, Hannah, and mister red froggy.

Ting Ting the cutest Malayan sun bear sitting with his kong toy.

Uncle Alan and Daddy sitting in a porch that Uncle made.

Auntie Christine and Hannah dancing to the music.

Daddy and Soph Soph hanging out.

How many ways can you say, "Hello"?

Yes, we are reading Baby Einstein to the girls. Hello, duck. Hola, pato. Bonjour canard, Ahiru-chan, konnichi wa., and sometimes Der will throw in Shalom, Mar Barvez. I figure we can learn along with the babies other languages and sign language. Although these days we put the baby signing time videos on hold, I think it's time to take them out again.

The weather in the last few days has gotten warmer and around some of these parts there are fires (nothing close to our neighborhood, but in Santa Cruz), so what to do on these hot summer nights? Take a walk around the complex. The girls enjoyed taking a walk in the side by side stroller. What's cool about this stroller is that both babies can look forward versus just one looking at the back of a seat. I guess it's good to mix it up a bit and throw in a different activity or two instead of being couped up in the house with two old fogies, a kitty, and a doggy.

Cuties at play.

What kind of conditioner do you use? It's so soft and smooth.

Sure it's not the greatest baby pic, but what are the chances of all my babies in one pic?

My healthy babies! You got to love those folds!!!

All our fun toys.

We are ticklish!

Special thanks to Eric's mom, Mrs. Ko, for the cute matching outfits!

Say Cheese!

I forgot to add tidbits in the last post that popped into mind after the fact, but the girls (and us) love Noggin's show called "Jack's Big Music Show". We religiously watch it in the morning after breakfast. We shamelessly sing along and dance (I'm talking about the the adults, when the babies do it, it sure is cute). Sophie likes to do this funny face where she scrunches up her face and breathes in and out through her two teeth and sounds like she's whistling with no sound, just air. When she gets excited you hear and see her do this. It's really cute, but we're always in trance when she does it, so we always forget to tape it. When Hannah gets excited she does this hula hoop dance with her hands waving in the air. Babies are a lot of fun and we find ourselves giggling and smiling uncontrollably at the silly things they do.

On a one day update, Sophie was starting to crawl!!! It's somewhat of a commando style crawl where she drags her legs and uses upper body strength, but hey we'll take that as a crawl. Hopefully we can capture that in the next day or two as tonight we are all pooped. Hannah hasn't had a glimmer of any action towards crawling, but we're thinking she will be the one to skip crawling and go right into walking.

I swear this smiling picture of Hannah is an exact replica of Derek when he was a baby!!! I had to share that and if Grandma and Grandpa Sakai, Uncle Jay, or Auntie Joy sees this they will know what I'm talking about :)

Do I have any daughter that smiles like me? ...maybe not, but I won't hold that against them hee hee hee! Sophie looks like Grandpa Kage smiling in this pic. Daddy put the ring on top of her head and Hannah helped Sophie take it off. I find myself taking more goofy smiles than ever before as they discover the world around them is just so silly.