evening light

Have I mentioned the rain? The non-stop, never-going-to-end, get-me-outta-here rain?  Yeah, it has been raining a lot. Of course, we need it. And it does make everything beautiful. But please, bring back the sun!  {It is here this morning. I hope it sticks around and my laundry dries. In one day. Is that too much to ask?}  Seriously, the rain has been out of control - and is unusual for this time of year.  One Saturday we even lit a fire at 8 AM and kept it burning all day.  I'm thankful for that fire place!

One of the many great things about Kijabe is the way the evening light plays on the trees, grass, gardens, etc. But we haven't seen it too much because it has been grey, foggy, rainy, miserable.  A week or so ago, Dexter managed to get some pictures of the rare evening light while I was feeding Kyalo.

 {God's promises remain}

Ahh...the beautiful Kijabe sky.  I'm glad Dexter managed to get these shots.

Last night, after another day of rain, the sky cleared and the sun came out! I quick ran out and got some more photos. Yes, I was probably a bit trigger happy, but we just never know how long we'll have the sun for these days. The pictures might serve as my only sun!

{sunbeams!}

sunset through an Acacia tree

Love all this beautiful light! And I love that today it seems the sun might really stick around for a while.  Kyalo and I might get a full walk in - without getting rained on!  

I've been trying to imagine what these weeks of rain would have been like if it had been snow! We would be totally shut in, I think.  At least we can be glad it hasn't been snow! Whew.

trapped

This just in: Kyalo now weighs 8.2 kgs/18 pounds. I did try to get him measured again: 65 cms/25.5inches, but that's significantly shorter than what he measured in October, so I think I'll just have to officially give up!

Now that Kyalo is on the move we need to be creative about baby-proofing the house, and finding ways to keep him in one location.  Our kitchen doesn't have a door into the living room, so I have to use chairs to block his way, otherwise, I'll find him in the living room eating pieces of wood.  At first I just used one chair, but he figured his way around them; now two seems to do the trick!

He is not too pleased with this arrangement:

To be fair, I was on the other side, and I guess he wanted to be with me. If I'm in the kitchen with him, he doesn't have this problem.  I try not to leave him alone for too long. I probably just needed to do something real quick.

Here are a couple of other pictures Dexter got the other day, with him under our dining table.

And, in other news: we'll be living in the US in three months. Gah.

forgot one

I forgot to include a picture of Dexter and Kyalo from yesterday, so wanted to get it up before {I fall asleep tonight} too much time passes.

I love Kyalo's expression here, and the way that Dexter is looking at him with a happy little grin.

What would I do without these two?

eight months

Wow. Eight months already!  This was a busy month for Kyalo.  This month he learned to sit up by himself, stand up (assisted), army-crawl, and then crawl, he's almost got his pincher grip figured out, and, AND! he's started going to sleep between 6 and 6:30 pm!!! He's not yet sleeping through the night {sigh}, but this new phase is so fabulous. Also, he's been better about taking naps, which has really helped.  I think I just needed to be harder on him me and let him cry it out a bit at nap time. I think the longest I've managed is 20 minutes. Any more than that, and I'm ready to pull my hair out.  I can't quite do that in the middle of the night yet, either. One thing at a time. Besides, I do actually treasure those quiet times when we're together in the middle of the night. He'll only be in my arms for so long, you know, and I try to keep that in mind.

He is so squirmy: non-stop movement, which means getting these monthly pictures is harder and harder.  I had to enlist Dexter's help, which still didn't work so well.  Here are the good pictures from the day.

 {my favorite photo, which is why it is so big :) }

We visited some friends of Dexter's a couple of weeks ago, and one of them kept commenting about how "jovial" Kyalo is. I think that is a perfect word to describe him.  He is such a happy, smiley, easy-going baby, and this has all gone way up since his sleeping has gotten better. I didn't think I could love him any more!  He doesn't seem to have any sense of "stranger danger" which is awesome when I want to hand him off to someone I know, but not so awesome when a stranger picks him up out of the cart in the grocery store as happened today.  Good thing I was right near by!

In other news, we've been inundated with rain. . .as in positively drowning.  But we had some moments of sunshine this morning and we took advantage of them -- I did laundry, with hopes that the blue skies would remain. Alas. I came home to very wet clothes -- and got Kyalo out in the yard.

If the sun would come out and stay, it would be so perfect right now, we'd be spending lots more time outside. As it is, we grab it in fits and bursts as we can.

We love this sun-loving little guy!

one more

Now that I've got this video thing figured out (Adam, hope you'll be able to watch them, too!), I think I'll be a video-maniac.  I'm fairly sure Grandma demands it! I'll try not to bombard you all too much.  But this video of Kyalo in his Johnny Jump Up is a must to be shared.

Yesterday he had a great afternoon nap (horaay) and woke up in a fabulously happy mood, and was very content in the jumper for a long time.  Seizing the moment, I grabbed this little video.

Ok, so this video won't win any academy awards (well, maybe for cuteness?) but you can see how happy Kyalo is when he's jumping away.  As I think I've mentioned he is so active and this is a nice way to corral him a bit, when I need to get something done and don't want to be chasing him around, keeping him from eating every speck of dirt on the floor, or going for the various power cords around.  (Someone please explain to me why it is that he passes by all his bright, colorful toys and goes for the black cords?)

trying again

Well, I think it could be that I did upload the videos in an earlier post correctly.  It is just that my internet is so slow I wasn't optimistic about it. So, I have some new (shorter!) videos that I'll try to upload...just for you...and we'll hope they turn out.

To start your morning out right, I give you, The Screech.  Just be glad that it is only a few seconds long, and not all.day.long. as it is here in real life.

Kyalo still isn't really crawling yet, but this slithering thing he's got going on is getting him where he wants to be (usually where Mama does not want him to be), so it is good enough for now.  Crawling will just mean he can get places even faster, and then I'll really be in trouble.

I've started calling this his army crawl.  He's ready to be all he can be!

I have another video of him in his Johnny jump up, but want to get a better one.  Besides, two videos seems like a good amount to start off with.

Can you let me know if these actually work??

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

soaking up the sun

Kyalo loves to be outside.  Every day we go for an afternoon walk around Kijabe. It doesn't matter how fussy or hard to please he had been during the day, the minute we're outside he's calm and happy, chewing on one of the toys I keep in his stroller, his little legs happily kicking away.

Yesterday was one of those days where he was fussy all afternoon, even after we'd done our walk and other things as well.  I was going to the garden to pick some rosemary for tea, and plopped him down in the grass for a sec. . .which turned out to be 15-20 minutes because he was so calm and happy.  It helped that the afternoon was beautiful (instead of torrential rain which is what a lot of afternoons have been), and so I seized the moment, and ran to grab the camera.

He really enjoyed being out there, having the sun on his face, the grass beneath his feet.  And yes, he did sample the grass a bit.  Oh well, boys will be boys. 

I wanted to get some different perspectives of his time out in the yard. Our yard is actually pretty big; if we were staying longer I would be looking for ways to section it off for him to have a play area.  Alas, it isn't to be.  Chances are good that when we move to NJ we won't have a yard this fab, but we'll have pictures to remind us!

{mmm}

Can you see how long the grass is?  Daniel just cut it last week; with all the rain it is growing so fast.  I think Kenya looks so pretty right now, all green and lush and inviting.  I think the drought in this part of the country is officially over.

(there's Daniel in the corner working on the garden)

And my two favorites from the day:

We're so grateful for this little house that we've had. We'll miss it!