Well, the day before Seth turns 22 months old we are scheduled to arrive in Hawaii! We are so thankful for the people of Hawaii that the tsunami missed the islands, and we can't wait to get out there and introduce Seth to all our favorite sights! He will be surprised that all of a sudden it is warm and we can go to the beach. I am also looking forward to going to places I haven't been before, like the zoo and the aquarium. We are very lucky to be staying with Cathy's parents on this trip! We will try to update the blog a couple times while we are there!

Things have been going well for us this past month. Knock on wood, just getting over some sniffles and hoping ten days in warm weather will help rid of us all the cold weather germs! Seth has really been enjoying fun times with his grandparents - visits from Grandpa Joe and Grandma Nancy, Geema, and Papa, and lots of video chats with Grams and Papa. In fact, Seth now says "check online" and "open Skype" when he wants to videochat! He has also been enjoying watching a video of his cousin Mira splashing in puddles - he likes to watch it repeatedly, and now he imitates her in the bath when he says "very VERY wet!" He is also going to take after Geema in terms of her love of UConn women's basketball - he calls the shirt she gave him his "Huskies shirt" and the other day he said "I'm playing basketball like Geema watches basketball!"

Speaking of grandparents, we are very excited that Grams sold her townhouse in Illinois and is due to arrive on the East Coast this week! She has had quite a busy couple weeks getting packed and ready to move out here, and we are very excited that she will be living out this way now!

Seth is definitely a talker now, if there was ever any doubt! He has learned how to say so many different things, it's hard to keep track! He imitates the familiar things we say to him at certain times. When Jason gets him ready for bed after bath, Seth now says "What pajamas you want?" and when I put him down for a nap, he now says "We had fun this morning."

He is a jokester - he made up this game where he says "My tummy is green...no...tummy is pink...no" and laughs hysterically when we play along. He knows it is funny if he treats inanimate objects as people, so he passes out his crayons to us, and then to the chair, the floor, the ball. He pretends to see animals - he says "Look a tiger...no" and laughs!

We have been doing a lot of drawing and painting with Seth. He started painting at daycare, so I thought it would be fun for us to paint at home, too. We paint in his highchair, and this is the only time he will agree to wear a bib, as long as I wear a bib, too (my apron!). He has painted many pictures, and he delights in seeing them hung up around the house - "I made that!!"

He is very much into his music now. He is experimenting with pitch, rhythm, and speed when he sings. He learned this song about making a snowman in daycare, and pretty much taught it to me himself. His favorite song right now is "Rig a jig jig" from his Music Together CD - there is a fast part that he calls the "running part" that he likes to hear on loop as he runs back and forth and back and forth through the house. He sings to himself when he is falling asleep in his crib - Row Row Your Boat and the ABCs song are favorites. He is also getting much better at picking out certain letters and numbers by sight! At daycare, they taught him how to spell his name - S-E-T-H, as well as say he lives in Suffield, Connecticut, and that his name is "Seth Kekoa HEEALLY!"

We have been having fun playing outside more now that the weather is getting a little nicer. He is able to walk with us more and more, and is starting to accept that we have to hold his hand or his hood while he is walking! He walked with us on the sidewalk the other day for the first time, holding both our hands, and got a kick out of it! But he was sure glad we brought the stroller along for the rest of the ride! There is a tetherball game up in the cul-de-sac at the end of our street, and he likes to play with this with us. He wanted to take the ball off (it's attached to a pole by a rope), so he told me I should go get scissors!

We met two little babies recently - baby Douglas from campus (who Seth named his baby doll after) and baby Samuel - Chuck and Jenn's new baby. Seth loves babies and thinks they are "cute" and that they cry a lot and sleep a lot! He is so funny - seeing babies definitely makes him want to snuggle more with us!

It is hard to believe our little baby is going to be two in almost two months. The time has gone by so fast! He brings so much joy to our life and our family. The other day, he laughed when I told him he used to call cats "maos" - then he started doing it just to humor me, I think!

We hope you are all doing well, and we will try to send some updates from Hawaii!