Kai is stringing several words together. We've made great strides on the verbal front so it's never quiet. Here are a few samples:

• Kai calls everyone (including himself) a pig. It's an endearing term to him (since he likes reading the 3 little pigs over and over again.
• When it's bed time, Kai likes to ask for "one more kiss" and "one more ug" (hug).
• He calls Sierra "Yawya"
• He "rats her out" when she does something she's not supposed to or if she did something to him "Yawya hit arm, boo boo, right, der" (there).
• They both like ordering us around ("sit der" "read, mommy, read, mommy, read mommy")
• He pronounces Jim "Bim"
• When we had the blow up pumpkin for Halloween, Kai would want to "wake up punkin" in the morning and when we'd leave, he would say "bye bye punkin, be back"

Sierra is a real talker and every day seems to be adding more words together Some of them are:

• Sierra has started periodically calling Mom by her first name, which she pronounces "Cala." Sometimes she might elaborate by saying Mommy Cala. But other times, it's just "Cala, wait up" or "Cala, juice please" or "Cala read book." Strangely, she doesn't do this to Daddy.
• She has really started expressing emotions verbally (and sometimes adds the sign language and/or facial expression to go along with them). Here are some key phrases: "I like it" (pronounced with a long I which she picked up from mom's accent), "I love it" or one of our favorites "I excited" (again with the long I sound).
• The order of things is another area that Sierra verbalizes. She likes to dictate which order we should do things in, for example: "Park first" or "Kerrigan first" because she wants to go see Kerrigan before our errands. One of her favorites is "Era first" - she drops the "Si" when pronouncing her name.
• She climbs a lot of things and is used to hearing mom and dad say "be careful" so now she tells herself that "Careful mommy see"

Kai and Sierra both like pretending to be other people (i.e., Kai is Diego, Sierra is Dora, Daddy is Boots, Mommy is Isa - all characters from Dora the Explorer and Go, Diego, Go). Then they proceed to tell us that Dora is in trouble. When you ask why, they may say, "Dora bit Kai, trouble, timeout, not nice." Real people get interjected in this type of pretending all the time (i.e., our neighbors entire family, Memaw/PawPaw etc. It wouldn't sound as funny to someone else when they're plugging in real people's names in the context of hitting/biting etc. They think it's hysterical.

Sierra is a great procrastinator about going to bed. She will request "one more hug" "one more kiss" "one more hug" etc.... it could go on for hours if we let it. They get to take one animal to bed (in addition to their favorite sleeping item - hers is the big Shamu Paw Paw won for her at SeaWorld). She sometimes uses this as an excuse ("nother animal" for another animal" or "one more"). When we cut the back/forth off and leave, she starts bucking into a nice tantrum that lasts about 30 seconds before the world becomes "right" again.

During naps or in the morning, it's not uncommon to see her standing in the windowsill looking for us (while we're taking the dog out). She waves and very happily says "Hi Daddy" or "Hi Mommy."

Kai makes references to witches and monsters all the time. He sees the "bad guy" in some children's movies and calls them all either a monster or witch. He doesn't seem afraid but always wants to point them out and tell you they are "not nice."

Any card that comes in the mail is a prompt for Sierra to break out singing "Happy earthday to you" (she plugs in names of family members or her favorite characters while singing).

He does not like a mess and insists on it being cleaned up or doing it himself (i.e., Daddy brought firewood in the other night and Kai helped. AFter they brought it in, he went and got Sierra's little vacuum and started cleaning up the pieces that dropped on the carpet - unfortunately, his little vacuum doesn't have suction) .

We're officially calling Kerrigan, Sierra's first best friend - she thinks Kerrigan hung the moon - it's like the big sister she doesn't have. She likes to talk to her on the phone when she can't see her. She loves going up to her and tickling her while saying "tickle, tickle" in a somewhat high pitched voice.

Kai and Sierra get along most of the time but like any normal siblings, they have their battles. Sierra usually whacks Kai if he's doing something she doesn't like, whereas he gets her in a seemingly greco roman wrestling move. He pulls her shirt from behind, wraps his arms around her from behind and rolls back bringing her down with him. It doesn't happen often but he's finally figured out that he's bigger and heavier and can "hold his own." Sierra liked the days better when Kai thought of himself as a "victim."