January 2026- Kai Turns One!

 This post covers the parts of January when we were not in Tokyo. 

On New Years day we were all tired and grumpy and feeling a bit stir crazy. Then the sister missionaries sent me a text asking if they could do service for us. We said they could come help clean our windows and take down our Christmas decorations. It was so nice to have their help and it went very quickly. Then we had dinner with the sisters and played games. We got out the sparkling cider to celebrate the new year. We love having the sister missionaries in our home and are particularly close to these ones. I think the way they served us the most was bringing the light of Christ to an otherwise grumpy home and cheering us up. 

January 2 - Kai turned ONE! It is simultaneously heartbreaking and happy to have your baby grow up and turn one. We love our little Kai Guy so much. In the morning his siblings sang happy birthday to him and gave him their birthday cards.

Opening presents with grandparents on the phone:

I took him outside in his new outfit to play. 

This is what I wrote on Facebook. Kai turned one and has brought immeasurable joy to our family. The other day I read that Dolly Parton said, "I was born with a happy heart," and that is exactly how I think of Kai. He came to us as such a HAPPY soul.

Several years ago when we were deciding if we wanted to have another baby, I was paralyzed by fear. I worried if I could love another baby. I feared that the baby might disrupt my other kids' lives in a negative way. I feared what a new baby would do to mine and Brent's relationship. After much prayer and fasting, I received an answer that I would love what this baby would bring.

It is interesting to look back at what I feared because not only did my fears not come true, but the opposite happened. Kai has brought happiness to our home and increased the love in all of our relationships.

That evening we went to our friends, the Foster's house for dinner with several other families. At the end Nina came out with a cake for Kai and we sang to him. 

A video singing to the birthday boy:

Kai's babysitter, Lydia, wanted to make Kai a cake for his birthday. She let me choose a theme and I chose the ocean since that's what Kai's name means, and he loves to swim in it! We spread out the celebrating and Lydia brought his cake over the day after his birthday. Lydia has watched Kai since I went back to work from maternity leave, so since he was about 3 or 4 months old. She is the sweetest and we are so lucky to have her come for a few hours M/W/F. She homeschools and is able to walk down the street to our house. Didn't she do an amazing job on his cake?!

Singing happy birthday with Lydia and our other friends who came, the DeMartinis and Sister Palmer (my ministering sisters).

The cake was delicious! 

Packing for Tokyo was a bit complicated because we needed winter clothes! My parents had brought us coats in November (thanks to Tammy for going to Kid to Kid and buying coats for the kids!) and I had a coworker bring me my coat to the partner's conference in San Diego. I bought some essentials like hats, gloves, and socks online. I bought each kid one long sleeve shirt and one pair of sweat pants from Target. I didn't want to buy too many things to only be used for one week. 

Laying everything out and seeing what we still needed. I realized Audrey only had thin leggings for her pants, which wasn't going to be warm enough for 30 and 40 degree weather. Luckily my neighbor had gone to Utah for Christmas and lent Audrey their daughter's warm pants and thermal leggings at the last minute.

If I need Ava to watch Kai for me for a bit (cooking dinner, doing laundry, running to the store), she will put on a few of his favorite clips on the TV and he happily sits in her lap and watches them. His favorites are the songs from The Sound of Music and the opening from Rio (he loves the birds). This day he fell asleep watching with her. 

I took the kids to the beach the last evening of Christmas break. Kai just runs for the water every time, so I was able to get this picture by having Ava ready to catch him when he got to the ocean. Haha. Then I could put my phone back while she held him. 

I asked Ava to research the cultural norms of Japan and a little basic Japanese and present it to us in a family night lesson. She took her job seriously and made a powerpoint to teach us. We learned things like 1. Do not eat while walking 2. No talking on the subway 3. Be prepared with your own garbage bag to carry your garbage out of public places.

It was such a gorgeous evening dropping Brent off at temple, I had to take a video. 

I should also say that our safety standards of driving in the car are pretty laid-back while driving around Laie. Audrey sits in the front seat, Kai sits on someone's lap etc. Laie is so small that we're only driving a couple blocks away ever. If we go on the highway, everyone has to be buckled properly. This is all very typical of what everyone does around here and it has definitely rubbed off on us :)

Coen helping Kai steer his bike. I love Coen's giggle and how he always finds everything Kai does funny and cute.

I took a video to remember mine and Kai's lunch time. This day he was particularly giggly. 

Saturday beach day, this time with Dad! We went to Castles, which is Brent's favorite around here. He took a few pictures:

One day I asked Ava to sweep the kitchen. She looked at the messy floor and said, "This is basically all from Kai!" I told her, "I know, that's just what happens when you have a baby. The floor gets messy after every meal. But isn't he worth it?" Ava responded in a little teasing voice, "I don't know Kai.... are you worth it?" He gave her a huge teethy grin which made us laugh. Then it became her little joke to ask Kai, "Are you worth it? The answer is a resounding YES.

A video- "Are you worth it?"

All three kids fell asleep during their movie night in our room.

Kai went through a phase of scrunching up his nose and pretending to be annoyed, worried, or frustration. We could hear in his nasally voice when he was doing it! Sometimes it was done with a half smile still. 

A video of the scrunchy nose:

Kai loves birds so much. I taught him sign language for birds and he does the sign to ask to go outside and find birds. Here's a video of him chasing the birds.

I had to take a picture to remember carpool this year. We carpool with Aspen who lives on our street- she's a grade older than Ava, but they're funny together. Kai is never happy to get in his car seat so I often bribe him with a bottle while we go pick up the girls. Here's a sing a-long one day:

We went to Tokyo- see those blog posts separately!  

One of the presents we got Kai for his birthday is a tunnel. He likes crawling through it.

Audrey really wanted to go to the 6th grade fundraiser. After picking up Ava from school I asked if she would watch Kai for a few minutes while I took Audrey for some special time. We caught the fundraiser just barely at the end and she chose a rootbeer float.

This came up in my emails- 20 years since Emily and I met! We met at the beginning of January 2006 when she came out to BYU and moved onto my floor in Helaman Halls. I sent this to Emily and we were both shocked that it's been 20 years! She has been my best friend and one of the biggest blessings in my life. It has been so fun to get married and have our babies at the same time. We stay in contact weekly with Marco Polos or texts, supporting each other through the hard things in life, and laughing at the funny things. 

I felt like going on a walk down memory lane, so please enjoy a few pictures of Emily and me over the years.

What a blessing it is to have a friend like Emily. 

I happily took my new umbrella to watch Coen's basketball game to shield me from the sun. This year it was so rainy that so many of the basketball games were canceled though!

Audrey and our neighbors put on a funny play for me: 

We had Victoria (a past student of Brent's) & the sister missionaries over to dinner to tell them about our trip to Tokyo and show them our souvenirs.  That first week of being home from Tokyo was a little brutal with the jet lag. Because of the time change, it felt like we were going to school at 2:15am. I kept thinking, it will just take a couple days and it will be easier. Wrong. Every day we got more and more tired! Finally after about a week we all adjusted.