Fun times at Coconut Point

Siriana loves to look at shells and hermit crabs on the beach. She'll also spend lots of time picking up rocks and throwing them into the ocean. Erick and Siri spend hours at the beach which gives Melissa and Helen time to rest.
Since Helen has arrived Siri has become a lot more cuddly. She wants to be held more often then before. She has a very independent nature in general, but seeing us hold Helen all of the time has resulted in a lot more requests for us to pick her up as well. Clearly she loves cuddling with her daddy.
These are our neighbors Kelani and Denali. Siri loves playing with them. Denali is just a few months older than Siriana. The girls just went to the library and got a ton of books. They spent some fun time reading them together.
What you can't see is Siri is naked- her favorite state of being- and covered in sidewalk chalk. She loves to color on our front porch and her new favorite part is to also color her legs with the chalk.
Siriana loves to be next to Helen. As soon as we go to change her diaper she jumps right up on the bed or couch and lays next to her. It's pretty cute.

Helen just reached her four week birthday and is getting very chunky. She is a great eater and my milk has been coming in only when she needs it which makes my life more comfortable. She has also been doing a great job at night of letting me sleep for at least three hours at a time.

Helen's fast asleep

Helen loves to sleep. She just had a bath this morning so you can see that her hair is much darker than Siri's but it has a light reddish tint in some lights. It also has a ton of curl to it.

Siri turns 2

On November 9th Siriana turned two. We had a wonderful birthday. The weather was great and we had many of our neighbors come to celebrate. The morning started off a bit rough though. She had the beginnings of an infection on her leg. Basically, she gets bit by mosquitoes, scratches till it bleeds, then plays out in the ocean. It was inevitable that she would end up with an infection at some point despite how hard we try to keep her legs in good shape. We spent the morning in the ER so that we could get her on antibiotics right away and you can see the bandage. It is all healed up now and she did a fantastic job taking her medicine for the week. Daddy made her a chocolate birthday cake. Siriana helps Dad make birthday pancakes.

She got to open one present early. Grandma Julie sent her a picture of Elmo and our puppy Artimus. She loved it! The picture is currently hanging in her bedroom.

She has grown up so much over the last two years. She is talking a lot. Her favorite word is "No" and she even says it in Samoan: "Owa." She can say her alphabet and count to 10 and sometimes she'll go to 20 if we help. She understands basically everything that we say. She is also great at brushing her teeth and going poddy in the bathroom, although we still put a diaper on her because she still forgets sometimes. She loves the ocean and will spend hours with us down there now. She is learning the names of shells- her favorite is a Cowry. She still loves to read, but now she will grab our books off the shelf. She loves Ericks textbooks with birds and fish in them and wants us to tell us what each and every bird and fish is, even if they look alike. She loves to climb and is very tough. She falls and gets right back up and does the same thing again. Siri does not like to swing but loves to go down the slide and stand on the top of the slide and hang from the side of the slide.

A present for Siri and Helen

Our friends Sam and Karen Gordon sent a package full of goodies for us. Unfortunately it was sent to Siapan first (see the red stamp). We thought it was hilarious. How do you get American Samoa and Siapan confused? Is this enough postage to send to Siapan? At least it finally made it to us. Siri is wearing a shirt that they sent. It says "Big Sister." She loves it. She is doing so great as a big sister. She is a great helper. She is also very good at saying Helen and she is getting better at being patient when we have to attend to Helen first and her second. But- when Helen is sleeping we give Siri tons of attention so she is certainly not starved for that.

Halloween

Our neighbors Clif and Julia had a Halloween party that was lots of fun. A bunch of families with kids were there and Siri had a blast running around with glo-sticks and candy.  It was a pirate theme party, so we just put on bandannas and called it a costume!