alright, alright... so kai is 6 months old.

ok, before anyone chastises me for being an absentee blogger, let me first remind you that i have 2 kids now and when the latter, who is just 6 months old now, was 12 days old, we had to move a sick relative into our home (she's much better now, but still lives with us nevertheless).

when i left off, kai was just 4 weeks old. we pick up the story at the halloween festivities, of which there were many (which i hope also explains why it has taken me so long to catch up). we went to the pumpkin patch a couple a times, which was always a hit with hana. she talks about the patch year round so to finally get to go back after ll months of waiting was just too exciting for hana. the first trip was with jack and charlie. hana was dressed as tinkerbell and kai was dressed as a skeleton. these pictures show just how close jack, charlie and hana really are.

our little tinkerbell

for some reason, kai really enjoyed being on the ground amongst the pumpkins. he gave many gratuitous grins to be amongst the big kids and all these crazy pumpkins.

i LOVE this shot...

this might be my most favorite picture of kai ever!!!! such a sweet baby.

sometime after the pumpkin patch trip... hana asserted herself for the first time ever about how she wanted to wear her hair. she said that she wanted it "curly". so after a bath she had that afternoon, i put a little product in it, combed out the tangles and let it fly. personally, i LOVE it. it kinda gets on hana's nerves after a little while and she wants it out of her face but she still asks for curly hair every now and again. the major downside is that there are plenty of tangles that i have to spend a good about of time working through each day and hana definately does not love that. you might also note how much taller than the twins hana is at this point. shortly after this, the twins had a growth spurt which shortened the gap slightly, but it's hard to believe that these kid are only two weeks apart in age!

the second trip to the pumpkin patch she went with butterflies preschool (the daycare). the weather was unseaonably warm this day (in the 80's) but the big beautiful blue sky made for awesome pictures and fun times. the very first picture of this post, of hana on a play structure with said blue sky in the background, is from this day. this is jon's favorite picture of hana of all time (now you KNOW how many pictures that is, so that's saying a lot...).

the butterflies.

meanwhile, on halloween proper, butterflies had a big halloween party, and as with tradition, they walked in the halloween parade at the elementary school down the street. last year the parade was rained out so this was our first experience with this. lets just say that this was an excercise in barely controlled chaos. i don't know that i ever need to do that again, but hana had a good time. when we got back to ms. leona's we had a big party with plenty of treats and dancing. we supplied "hana's special dance party" playlist on my ipod which was a hit with the kids. ms. leona was grateful that she didn't have to play her alvin and the chipmunks cd for the 1 millionth time. i tell you, she has the patience of a saint.

kai loves being around all of the kids and the kids are so taken with him as well...

as you saw, all of the costumes were pretty cute, but there were several girls sporting some rather elaborate princess shoes that deserved documentation. check them out! fabulous.

the dance party in full swing... you might be able to tell the song by the choreography. that's right, "single ladies" by beyonce.

this. was. hilarious!

after the dance party wound down, (and believe it or not, there were naps), we headed to auntie daniela's and uncle aaron's for some trick-or-treating. their neighborhood really gets into it and there were hundreds of kids out it seemed.

hana was scared of this mummy but we convinced her that it was ok to be scared and if she was also brave she could hold her ground and get her candy and come on back. i don't know what she said to the mummy, but she handled her business for sure!

kai slept through much of the trick or treating. this was the debut of his peapod costume. it kept him nice and cozy on a chilly night.

surveying the haul... it was quite substantial acutally. it's almost six months later and we still have halloween candy.

p.s. kai seemed fine once we got back the house with the kids and started checking the candy. we got him out of his costume, he was up and social and in good spirits. we got his jammies on him, he nursed mightily and we drove home. when i took him out of his car seat at home, he was burning up with fever (102.5). this meant i had to take him on a late night run to the emergency room. they tested him for h1n1 but they did not wait for those results (he was negative) before starting him on tamiflu (which by the way, was $25 copay for less than an ounce!!!!). we were lucky because the week after halloween most of the kids at daycare were sick, one of them with h1n1. this cold of kai's took 2 weeks to recover from but he never had another fever after that night. it was scary how fast it came on, but he was feeling better by the next day.

so given that halloween night was kinda hectic (the picture we did get of him from halloween night was from jenny's camera), we didn't get any pictures of him really. so we crammed him back into his halloween costume once he was feeling better. (and i do mean crammed.) he cannont staighten his legs in this and it was all we could do to snap the top. and note how short the sleeves are on him. this costume was a 3-6 month costume but in this picture, he is 6 weeks old.

so there, now i'm done with october. there will be more... but you will just have to wait until i have another moment, can't sleep, or both. but you can expect to see some thanksgiving shots, christmas pictures, and many shots of the first trip to disneyland. and let's not forget kai's first school picture day in february. stay tuned.