My little Pavarotti

The perfect day

Yesterday was a Wednesday. I LOVE Wednesdays. Why? Because I get every Wednesday off to hang out with Kai. This has been the case ever since I started my new job a couple of months ago, but without fail I get so caught up in work that on Tuesday I will tell the team see you tomorrow as I leave work only to have them remind me that I don't work on Wednesdays. It's like an unexpected gift from the universe every time!

Really, it's hard to go wrong on a Wednesday. But I knew this Wednesday was going to be extra fantastic when I opened the windows first thing in the morning and was greeted by warm rays of sunshine... for the first time in weeks! Then, when by some miracle Kai slept in until 8:30AM, I knew it was destined to be the best Wednesday ever.

When I finally went in to get Kai, he was smiling from ear to ear reading a book. And his smiles just kept on coming. We played outside together for an hour or so until my friend Josie arrived with Kai's favorite friend, Macy for a play date.

 The kids played so well together while Josie and I chatted away.

 An hour later, Christine arrived with her two-month-old, Grant. He was so adorable and snuggly, it almost made me miss having a little one so small.

Our friends left and Kai took a marathon nap. He woke up just in time for us to meet up with our  next friends Kaari and baby Blakely on Santana Row.

The good weather continued so we spent the next four hours shopping, talking, eating delicious food, and letting the kids run around (ok, Blakely just sat there and looked ridiculously cute, while Kai ran around). I found cute clothes (on sale), ate myself sick on The Counter's sweet potato fries, and soaked in some much needed vitamin D.

Honestly, I could have died a happy woman right then and there. 


I was too busy enjoying myself to take any worthwhile pictures, but I still posted what I snapped if only to remind myself of the wonderful day that I had. This should come in handy some rainy Monday morning!

The many faces of Kai

The name's Andersen, Kai Andersen

An'mals!

Kai is still in a big animal phase (an'mals, as he calls them). He loves reading books about them, making animal sounds, and petting any neighborhood pet that is brave/dumb enough to come within reach. So today, when Kai fell asleep on the way home from church, Yo and I decided that we would just keep on driving and headed on up to the San Francisco Zoo.

Our favorite part of the SF zoo is the petting zoo area. The last time we took Kai there he was barely walking. Oh how times have changed! This time around we could barely keep up with Kai as he chased down the free roaming goats, sheep, and ducks. Luckily for the livestock, Kai is as gentle as he is enthusiastic and luckily for Kai the livestock are as tolerant as they are tame.

Kai and Macy

It's good to have a friend who's always got your back.

 

How to scam a scammer

The other night I was fondueing it up with some awesome ladies when we got onto the topic of Nigerian scammers. First of all, what's up with scammers always being from Nigeria? Is there nothing better to do there? Second of all, how does anyone fall prey to these people with their weird-o broken English? Anyway, it reminded me of my favorite Nigerian scam story that my hilarious friend Josie shared on her blog many months ago. I tried to do it justice with the ladies, but it is best shared in Josie's own words. Hope you don't mind me regurgitating this one Josie:

Yesterday, somebody hacked into Justin's email and facebook accounts. They were pretending to be him and had this tragic story about getting mugged in the UK and needing wired money.

At first, I thought it was just a generic email this person sent out, but we quickly realized that this person was sending personalized responses to everyone that emailed back. And they were also chatting with Justin's friends on facebook. So bizarre.

So Justin's cousin Drew sent us a copy of the conversation that he had with "Justin." It's pretty funny and worth the read:

So here is a conversation on face book that i just had with the nigerian, or wherever he is from, who hacked your account. pretty funny.

Andrew

what is the urgent help needed?

5:55pmJustin

thank God you're here andrew

we're stuck in wales uk....as we speak

5:56pmAndrew

oh yeah?

5:56pmJustin

got mugged at the park of the hotel where we stayed

all cash credit card and cell phone was all stolen off

5:57pmAndrew

oh sh@#!

what can i do??

I am the very most worried about you!

Do you need my help?

5:59pmJustin

it was a brutal experience for us

we really need your help in getting back home

5:59pmAndrew

OMG I can totally imagine that such a thing would be very brutal

were you guys very scared?

6:00pmJustin

we're in pains with injuries and bruises

6:00pmAndrew

No! what sort of pains and injuries??

I have very worries for you guys!

6:01pmJustin

we need your help andrew

6:02pmAndrew

Wait, should I get the guy who got you? I have a .45

I am not even scared to seek vengence for your hurts and pains and injuries and bruises

6:02pmJustin

omg..

do you wanna help out or not?

6:02pmAndrew

Yes! I said I do!

Tell me how to help! I am so worried! an attack in the UK! I cant believe this has happened to you

6:04pmJustin

am damn serious here

6:05pmAndrew

is Charlie okay?
?

6:05pmJustin

yes

6:05pmAndrew

and dillan?

what about Timothy?! Please for the love of god, tell me timothy didn't get hurt

6:07pmJustin

dillan is in pains and timothy is fine

our return flight leaves in about some few hours from now..but we're having problem settling the hotel bills

6:07pmAndrew

Did they take Timothy's prosthetic leg??

6:08pmJustin

no

wondering if you could pls loan us some little piece of cash to get the bills sorted out and get a cab to the airport

will def refund it back as soon as we get back home

6:09pmAndrew

I guess i could give you some cash.

how much do you need?

6:10pmJustin

$1,480

6:10pmAndrew

I will only send you cash if you swear in your wrath that you will buy little Timothy a sack of corn nuts. he must be devistated

6:11pmJustin

omg...

6:11pmAndrew

SWEAR TO ME!

6:11pmJustin

we need help here andrew

i swear with my life

i will

6:11pmAndrew

how can i even know if you are speaking true?

6:12pmJustin

am damn serious here

6:12pmAndrew

how can i know that Timothy is really okay??

HOW CAN I KNOW EVEN!!

TELL ME OR YOU GET NO CASHES FROM ME FOR ANYTHING NOT EVEN TIMOTHY"S CORN NUTS!

6:14pmJustin

he is fine and doing good

6:14pmAndrew

what color is his prosthetic leg???

how can i even get the monies to you even?

6:15pmJustin

you can have the money wired to my name via western union money transfer

6:16pmAndrew

i dont even know if you are damn serious right now

6:16pmJustin

i have my passport with me to pick it up at the western union outlet

6:16pmAndrew

how damn serious are you even??

6:16pmJustin

OMG...

if am not i won't tell you to wire money to my name

you and i know that i will need a proof before i can pick it

6:17pmAndrew

well, what name should I send the monies too?

6:18pmJustin

you will need my name and location to wire to

*the

money

Here's my info below
Name...JUSTIN
Location...47 LOUNDOUN SQUARE
Cardiff, GLAMORGAN CF10 5JN
UNITED KINGDOM

got it?

6:20pmAndrew

wait, I am really close to where you are at!

Ill just bring you the monies!

I can be there in 15 minutes!!!!

6:21pmJustin

omg...

6:21pmAndrew

Does that sound great!?

6:21pm Justin

you just have to go down to a western union outlet near you and send the money

6:21pm Andrew

That way, I can make SURE timothy gets his corn nts!

No, dumbass, I am only a few blocks away!

I can just HAND you the monies!

6:22pm Justin

do you wanna help out or not

tell me let me know

6:22pm Andrew

Yes, And i also called a police officer, because I am worried about your pains and bruises. he will be coming to that address shortly

and then I will bring you the cash!

Look who's talking

Sister Wives

 
Anyone who knows me, knows that I like to give Yo a hard time. Over the years it's become a sort of sport to harass Yo in new and ever-more-creative ways.

There was the time that I prank called Yo from a new cell phone and pretended to be some random lady in the ward who really wanted to drop off some meatloaf for him. And the time I had him worried that they wouldn't let me board my return flight to Utah because I forgot my passport (I was in Arizona). Or, one of my personal favorites, the time that I had Yo completely convinced that I was into man thongs. (Don't worry, I let him in on the joke before he actually bought one, but only after he proved to me that he was willing.)

Not only has Yo been the victim of my many pranks, he has been the brunt of my abuse as I have found countless ways to drive him crazy for my amusement. One of my favorite games is to talk about my final wishes that I would like him to respect if I ever die an untimely and premature death. For a while I told him that I wanted him to marry my sister if something ever happened to me. It drove him crazy.

When she got married over a year ago, I identified a list of other potential mates that I would like him to consider (basically consisting of any single lady that we knew over the age of 60).

My latest method of harassing Yo? Requesting that he find me a sister wife. Yo and I discovered the horrific TLC show, Sister Wives, last year and have had a morbid fascination with it ever since. So now, whenever I have the house to clean, the family to feed, or Kai to take care of, I tell Yo that if he loved me he would find a sister wife who would do these things for me...I mean us.

In fact, I would like to have two or three sister wives so they could cook me food, clean my house and watch my kid (all without costing me a dime). Seriously, I'm surprised women everywhere haven't thought of this solution before.

So if any of you know any (preferably crusty-looking) eligible bachelorettes (over the age of 60...or 70 for that matter), tell them that Yo and I are in the market for some sister wives... especially if they can also bake pies.

Yo just grimaces and rolls his eyes whenever I breach the subject. Which makes you wonder, with a first wife like me, why wouldn't Yo want another?

What? Too much of a good thing. That's what I was thinking, too.

Kai likes yogurt

 

 

A tree, a trim, a questionabe win

Not so long ago I posted a picture of this monstrosity:

 

So you can imagine my shock when I came home from work to see this:

 

I seriously laughed out loud when I saw it. It must have taken a lot of work to tame that wild fro. The best part about our tree's new look is that now it's branches are cut back enough to allow some sunlight to shine into our front rooms.  

Maybe I was inspired by the tree, or maybe I was tired of Kai's toupee-like hair flapping asymmetrically in the wind. Whatever the inspiration, I decided it was time for Kai's first trim. At first, all I intended to do was to cut a few wispy, longer hairs that were growing over Kai's ears. So while Kai was pinned down in his high chair and chomping happily away on a banana, I grabbed my eyebrow trimming scissors and went to work.

A few snips here and a few snips there later, I stepped back and felt pretty pleased with my work. So I decided to tackle his uneven bangs. A snip or two later and he was looking like a new baby.

Let's be honest, that's where I should have stopped....

After all, it's not like I have a great track record for cutting hair. There was Barbie when I was 6. I thought she would look cute with a bob, but when the bob didn't work out she ended up with a pixie cut that looked more punk than pixie. Then there was the little number that I did no my own head of hair when I was 10 and got frustrated about a strand of hair just above my ear that refused to stay back in a ponytail so I just cut it off, right at the root. It took a good 5 years for that one to grow back all the way. And then there was poor Ryan, a low maintenance guy I dated briefly in college who convinced me that there was no way I could ruin his hair. So he trustingly handed me some clippers. Try as I might, I just could not get his hair to look even. My roommates giggled behind me as his hair kept getting shorter and shorter. I think in the end, poor old, low-maintenance Ryan, ended up bicking his hair. He looked like a Skin Head for weeks before it grew back.

So I should have stopped...but I didn't. I decided to tackle a funny flap of hair on the back Kai's head instead. It all started off innocently enough. But, let's be honest, hair-cutting is not my forte. Try as I might I could not get the area that I cut to blend into the rest of his hair. I was tempted to keep going, but Yo finally begged me to stop and insisted that it would only get worse if I tried to make it better.

Luckily Kai's hair is so blond and so fine that my "mistakes" aren't all that noticeable, unless you're looking for them (at least that's what I keep telling myself. Please don't correct me if I'm wrong).

What I should do is take him to a salon to get his hair fixed, but I'm just not ready for him to have big boy hair, or a beauty regime that actually costs money.

Here's a before and after shot: Don't judge. (And by that I mean, me, not him.)

Before

After

Before

After

I'm just hoping that with a face this cute, no one is going to be looking at his hair anyway:

 

 It's a good thing that Kai's papa is pretty cute, too, because here is the conversation that we had today. 

Yo: Hey! How's your day going?

Me: Fine. Why?

Yo: I have some good news.

Me: What?

Yo: I think you should get a maid and that we should go to Hawaii!

Me: You just bought a luxury car, didn't you.

So ladies, if you are wondering what it takes to get a cleaning lady and a trip to Hawaii, the answer is one of these:

Somehow, I think I'm still getting the short end of the deal on this one!

Hola, me llamo Kai

 Since his father is from Norway, it may not surprise you that Kai is bilingual...until you learn that his second language is apparently Spanish. It certainly surprised me. Kai was sitting in his high chair eating his breakfast yesterday while I was unloading the dishwasher. I was putting away some glasses when Kai pointed to his sippy cup and said, as clear as can be, "Agua."

When I didn't immediately grab the cup down for him, he pointed and said "agua" again. So I pointed at the sippy cup and said, "Agua?" To which Kai replied, "Si!"

If only his Norwegian were coming along so well.

Happy Hollows

I've been complaining to Yo over the past few weeks that we spend every weekend cleaning the house and never have time to do things as a family. I was hoping Yo would see that the obvious solution to this was hiring a cleaning lady to clean the house for us, but instead we ended up cleaning the house on Thursday night after a long day of work. By the time we went to bed that night, I was exhausted, but come Saturday, it was nice waking up to a mostly clean house and realizing that the whole day was ours.

After some debate how to make the most of our free time, we decided to check out Happy Hollows in San Jose, a zoo/amusement park geared to young kids. With a $6.00 admission price thanks to our zoological society memberships, we figured that we couldn't really go wrong. Discount aside, we were pleasantly surprised by the park.

There was a petting zoo section with farm animals. Kai got a kick out of the goats which he kept pointing at and referring to as dogs.

There were also a lot of rides geared toward young kids. We started off on the carousel. Kai wasn't happy when I perched him on his seat and snapped the seat belt around him, but as soon as the carousel kicked into motion, his face lit up into a look mixed with shock and pleasure.

 

After the carousel, he was a pro at the rides. On the next ride he had a choice between a police car and a fire truck. He was adamant that he wanted to ride in the police car. As he circled around and around he smiled and waved every time his card passed by his Papa. 

 

By the next ride, Kai was just chilling. He had this whole ride thing down.

 

After riding a few more rides, we enjoyed a nice picnic lunch before hitting up the zoo. Kai saw some more animals that he identified as dogs, rode some more rides, and enjoyed a nice long stroll around the park in his stroller before we decided to call it a day. 

We were walking back to the car when Yo looked over and told me that Kai had fallen asleep on my hip as I was carrying him. For those of you who know Kai, he never just falls asleep like that. I told Yo that he had to capture a picture of Kai just so we could remember this moment:

 

If this is the effect that Happy Hollows has on Kai, I have a feeling that we will be making a return visit really soon! 

Some things you should know about Kai

Mr. Personality will officially be 16-months-old tomorrow. I cannot believe how big he is getting and how fast he is changing. So I wanted to make sure to capture some of his funny Kai-isms at this oh-so-fun age. Here are 16 things you should know about Kai:

1. His vocabulary includes: bath, binky, banana, baby, bumpy, bus, ball, bottle, cat, car, cracker, dog, done, dump truck, fan, gone, Kai, la la la, mama, papa, plane, prayer, star, tent, vroom, and water.

2. No matter how inconvenient it is for Mommy, Kai insists on feeding himself these days. He especially loves trying to use a spoon or a fork. So meals take a lot of concentration on his part and a lot of patience on mine. Most meals end with Kai in the bath and Mommy mopping the floor. The mess is annoying, but I still love that Kai is so independent and determined.

3. When the ground is cold Kai walks on his tip-toes. (Just like his Mommy does.)

4. He sleeps with one binky in his mouth and another in each hand.

5. Recently he's learned how to shake his head "no" and does so in response to almost any question you ask him (even if he really means "yes"). Sometimes he gets to shaking his head so emphatically that he knocks himself off balance and falls over in the process.

6. He loves to sing and dance. He knows all of the hand motions to The Wheels on the Bus, Row Your Boat, The Itsy Bitsy Spider, and 5 Little Monkeys.

Showing off some of his sweet moves

7. When he is trying to be extra sweet, he will put his head on your shoulder and pat you on the back.

8. Kai took his first steps when he was 11.5 months old, but he still hasn't figured out how to run. Instead he goes up onto his tip toes on his right foot and walks flat-footed on his left. The effect is hilarious. We call it his gangsta swagger.

9. His favorite books of the moment are: My First Truck Board Book and My First 100 Animals

10. It took a long time for Kai to grow a head of hair. To this day he hasn't had a haircut. I keep thinking that I should at least trim the hair around his ears which is a good inch longer than the rest of his hair, but haven't been able to bring myself to do it so far. Kai's hair is baby find and curls in the funniest ways. Usually the ends just flip up in the back of his head, but sometimes (like today) he gets a crazy wave on the top of his head.

 11. He likes to lecture Papa and I by wagging his finger at us and saying "Doh Doh!"

12. He is obsessed with cars, motorcycles, trucks, bikes, trains, anything with wheels.

13. My dad thought I was the most ticklish kid ever when I was little, but I think I've met my match in Kai. He is ticklish every where, especially on the underside of his arm.

14. As it turns out Kai takes after me in other ways, he seems to share my affinity for housekeeping and can often be found sweeping our floors with the Swifter.

15. He likes to wave at every single person that he sees and will keep waving (sometimes inches from your face) until you acknowledge him and wave back.

16. His favorite method of transportation is his sweet new car (that we have on loan from some of our friends...thank you Kaari. Just when I swore I would never take him shopping with me again because he would scream like a hyena anytime I strapped him into the seat of a shopping cart, we discovered that Kai will happily go anywhere in this: