Snow Day - No School!

Kara had her first snow day on December 15th.  It wasn't really that big of a snow storm (we ended up getting maybe 6-8 inches of snow), but the rate at which it was falling and the wind made for very dangerous driving conditions, which Dad experienced first hand on his drive into work.  Kara didn't do anything too exciting on her day off.  She and Emily played out in the snow and were greeted at the door with hot chocolate.  They also watched a movie and enjoyed watching the snow fall from the warmth of the house.

Dad sported a righteous goatee and mustache for a couple of weeks at the beginning of the month. Emily enjoyed Dad's "whiskers", but the general consensus was that Dad should never grow facial hair again.  I guess it's not a great look for everyone.

Kara is enjoying more and more advanced games and puzzles.  One day, she and Mom got out Scrabble and played a game.  Kara didn't follow the rules exactly, but she did spell real words and actually beat Mom in points.  She's also learned checkers, Uno (which is her favorite game), dominoes, and Dino Math Tracks.  In addition, Kara has been working on some pretty complicated puzzles lately.  She recently completed a 200-piece puzzle all by herself.  She tried a 300-piece puzzle but got a little frustrated after a while (there was a large black area with very few features to help figure out where the pieces went).

We converted Emily's bed to a toddler bed the first weekend of December.  We were a little concerned that it would mess up her sleep, and we'd hear her wandering around her room all night long.  So far, however, she hasn't figured out that she can get out of the bed when Mom and Dad aren't there, so we haven't heard her after bedtime.  In general, Emily is a very happy, sweet little girl; however, she is definitely into the terrible twos.  She is very quick to cry and scream at Mom and Dad if they don't do what she wants to do exactly when she wants it done.  Hopefully it's just a phase...

Link to pictures
 

Christmas 2015

Christmas was a lot of fun this year.  We got the season kicked off right by attending the Christmas party that was put on by Grandma and Grandpa's neighborhood.  They had cookies, dancing, horse-drawn sleigh rides, and even Santa and Mrs. Claus.  Kara definitely was playing along with the Santa thing this year.  She sat on Santa's lap at the party (Emily watched from a safe distance), but she made sure Mom and Dad were aware of the gifts she was asking for from Santa.

 Kara has learned most of the Christmas carols and had a great time this year belting them out.  Dad earned himself some serious cool points when he helped Kara finish the Batman parody version of Jingle Bells that Kara learned at school ("Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg...").  What do they teach kids at school these days?

Mimi and Papa were not able to travel out here this year, so we Skyped with them on Christmas Eve and opened their presents then.  Kara exploded with happiness when she opened her Lego Scooby-Doo Mansion, and Emily spent most of the day playing with her new doll furniture.  We also Skyped with them again and Uncle Trey on Christmas day.

It was a pretty small crowd at the house for Christmas day.  Grandma and Grandpa S. and Aunt Amy showed up early in the day.  We were able to get the girls corralled to eat some breakfast before they (mostly Kara) just had to open some presents or they would burst!  Kara ran through her gifts, but Emily still wanted to play with each gift after opening it.  It took her quite a while to get all her gifts open.  Later in the day, Laura and Jared, friends from Dad's work, stopped by for dinner.

Kara's favorite gifts this year were probably a tie between a remote controlled car and her Scooby Doo Spooky Castle (860 pieces) Lego set.  Kara had fun for days after Christmas putting together her Lego's and racing her car around the house.

Emily really enjoyed her baby cradle and changing table.  She thought it was really fun to rock her baby and put her down to sleep (Emily is a nurturer).  She also got a cool Mickey Mouse train lego set that she enjoyed.  Some fairy wings and a glow stick wand from Aunt Amy were super big hits too!

Link to pictures

Visit to Mimi and Papa's and other November Happenings

For Thanksgiving this year, we headed down to Alabama to spend the holiday with Mom's family: Mimi, Papa, GiGi, and Uncle Trey.  We also got to meet Uncle Trey's new girlfriend, Jacie.  It was a whirlwind visit.  We flew down on Sunday and flew out on Friday.  In between, we went out to a hibachi restaurant to celebrate Kara's birthday, visited the Montgomery Zoo, visited Great Grandpa H. (who recently moved to a retirement home in Montgomery), and enjoyed some excellent home-cooking from Mimi.  We were able to meet up with the McDonough family, while they we in town to visit their family.

We kept things pretty low key for November other than Kara's birthday and our visit to Alabama.  We got a decent snowstorm in the middle of the month, which the girls enjoyed playing in.

As soon as we got home (and got mostly unpacked), Kara had us take out all the Christmas decorations.  Kara had a great time putting up the tree and all the ornaments.  Emily had fun setting stuff up, but was much more interested in playing with some of the decorations.

Recent quotes:
11/15: "I like Kara. Her my best friend." -Emily

11/15: "I love spending time with you, Dad." -Emily

Kara to Mom: "Do you know who the real Santa is? Because I do, and I'm looking at her and him (gesturing towards Dad)"

Link to November happenings pictures

Link to Shorter visit pictures

Kara's 6th Birthday!

For Kara's 6th birthday, she decided to have her party at everyone's favorite childhood birthday party destination: Chuck E. Cheese.  Kara's birthday happened to fall on the Friday before Thanksgiving break (the school district gives all the kids the whole week of Thanksgiving off), so Mom and Dad thought that maybe not everyone would be able to come.  As it turned out, every single kid invited was able to come.  It was a wild and crazy party.  The pizza was just as delicious as Mom and Dad remember, but the kids seemed to enjoy it.  The highlight for Kara was her turn in the Ticket Blaster, which is basically a phone booth full of game tickets that has a fan and blows tickets around as the birthday kid tries to grab as many as he or she can (see the video).  Now we're going to have to top this party next year!

Link to pictures

Halloween 2015

The month of October was a blur this year.  Early in the month, we made our annual trek to the pumpkin patch (this year we went to Rock Creek).  We always have a good time wandering through the fields to find the perfect pumpkin.  The tricky part is to leave with just a couple of pumpkins and not 20.  Rock Creek also has a play area with bouncy pumpkins and kiddie hay mazes.  The girls had fun running around and checking out all the activities.

The weekend before Halloween, Mom and Dad ran a 5k race at the local Monster Dash.  After that race, Kara ran a 1/4 mile race with Grandpa.  Kara's first race went pretty well.  She and Dad had been practicing doing windsprints in the backyard, but Kara and Grandpa decided to just jog and enjoy the actual race.

Emily was very indecisive on her costume choice for this year.  She oscillated from Spiderman to Monkey Pirate.  In the end, she went as Princess Anna from Frozen and Kara went as Queen Elsa, which the girls picked out early in the month.  The girls, of course, were adorable.

Kara surprised Mom and Dad one Saturday morning by informing us, very matter-of-factly, that there was no Santa and that the presents she got were from Mom and Dad.  We were kind of hoping that the magic would last for a few more years. Without lying too much, we tried to convince her that Santa was real.  She hasn't mentioned it since that morning, so we think she's just humoring us for now.  Oh well.  Though Kara has quite an imagination, she has had a pretty firm grasp of reality from a young age.

Link to pictures

Kara's Green Belt Test

Kara tested for her green belt mid-October. She did an awesome job learning all the moves, including breaking her board on her first try.  Check out the video!

Fall Professional Pictures 2015

One warm fall afternoon, we met a photographer at a nearby open space.  The girls did a great job, and we got some awesome pictures of everyone.  Enjoy!

Link to pictures

September 2015

Kara quickly adjusted to her morning routine and getting ready for school each day. Surprisingly, Kara wasn't late to school once and didn't give Mom too much of a hard time.. Kara has school every morning, but on Tuesdays and Thursdays she stays for a full day and has Kindergarten Enrichment in the afternoon. So far, Kara is really enjoying school. Kara is doing very well with her reading (she recently tested at a 2nd grade reading level) and with her math.  She's also having a lot of fun learning new science information.  She comes home everyday with some new little tidbit that she learned in school.

For Labor Day, Aunt Amy had a little party at her house.  The girls had a great time chasing Briley and Ruby and playing with all the adults.  The girls had a little extra fun once they got a hold of Aunt Amy's phone.  Check out the pictures.

We decided to plant a couple of trees in our backyard.  We planted an Autumn Blaze Maple and a Honeycrisp Apple.  Maybe we'll be getting some tasty apples in a couple of years!

The last weekend in the month, we headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park outside of Estes Park to check out the elk.  It was fun, but we probably won't attempt it again for a couple of years.  We had planned on having a picnic dinner and then hanging out for a couple of hours and watching the elk.  However, the girls were ready to leave right after we got there (long care ride). Fortunately, there was a bull elk waiting to surprise us in the tall grass!  We got our dinner out, sat down, and there he was!  The girls loved it.  We also saw several other elk and heard a little bugling in the distance before we left.

Kid quotes:
Emily: "This is my only choice" after she sat down on the sidewalk when Dad gave her the choice of either riding her scooter or walking home from the playground (see the picture).

Link to pictures from Labor Day

Link to other pictures from September

Another Summer Comes to an End

We crammed some end-of-summer fun in with Grandma and Grandpa - one morning we met them at the Boulder County Fair and another we met up at the Broomfield Bay water park.

The Fair day was quite hot (you can tell by Emily's picture...), but both girls enjoyed seeing the farm animals, and even saw their first clown show!  Emily was a little apprehensive, but quickly started to enjoy herself.  And Kara was cracking up!  Kara also got to enjoy some carnival rides with Grandma and Grandpa while Emily went home for a nap.

We only got to Broomfield Bay (small local pool/water park) one day this summer (same as last summer) and both girls had a blast!  It was a bit chilly for the adults, but we powered through.  Kara couldn't get enough of the big water slides, and Emily made Dad go down the medium slide over and over and over....

August also brought lots of bounty from our little garden.  We got several rounds of beans, lots and lots....and lots of zucchini, and yummy tomatoes!  Our carrots were very sad and the watermelons were a complete no-show (maybe we should have weeded?!), but we plan to garden again next year.  The girls really enjoyed watching everything grow.

Emily went with Mom and Kara to the hair salon one day and got her first salon experience.  Ms. Rose was very nice and shampooed Emily's hair and gave her a good blow dry.  Emily just thought it was the coolest thing.

Emily is going through an independent phase.  She wants to do everything herself (including getting dressed, getting into the bath, reading books) and gets very irritated if someone tried to do something for her or makes her do something before she's ready. It has been a little tricky to get her to do things sometimes...

Kid quotes:
Emily: "No thank you, I'm playing toys" when we asked her to come to dinner one night.

Link to pictures

Kara's First Day of Kindergarten

Kara's first day of Kindergarten was today.  It's hard to believe sometimes that the little girl we brought home almost 6 years ago is now in school.

Kara was really good on her first day.  She got dressed and did her morning routine (eating breakfast, brushing teeth, brushing hair, making bed) with almost no reminding from Mom or Dad.  Kara was even a couple of minutes early for class.   As Kara crossed the street and looked at her new school, she stated, "I'm prepared."  Mommy had a few tears in her eyes, but Kara was happy and ready to go.

After her long day of school (Kindergarten class in the morning, then lunch and enrichment in the afternoon), she was in great spirits.  At bedtime Kara said, "I can't wait for school tomorrow!" :)

Link to album

Backyard Camp-out 2015

On the evening of August 8th, Daddy and Kara had their 2nd annual camp-out.  The girls helped Dad get the tent set up early in the afternoon and the girls had a great time playing in and around the tent for the rest of the afternoon.

For dinner, we fired up the grill and had hamburgers and hot dogs.  We wrapped up dinner with S'mores (because what is camping out without S'mores?).  Both the girls really enjoy their S'mores, but Emily particularly enjoyed hers (see the video).

After dessert, Mom corralled Emily and headed inside while Dad and Kara got settled in the tent.  After a bit of goofing around with glow sticks, Kara settled down and had a a great night's sleep under the stars.

Emily was still a little young to stay outside for the night this year, but we're sure she will be out there with Kara and Daddy next summer!

Link to pictures

Tae Kwon Do Purple Belt Test

Kara tested for her purple belt on August 8th.  Kara, of course, did "outstanding" during her testing (all the kids did outstanding).  She did all the moves correctly and broke the board on her second try.

Kara is very proud that she did an outstanding job on her belt test (actual quote from Kara).  Mom and Dad are pretty proud of her as well.

Link to pictures

Summer Fun 2015

This summer has just flown by.  Between birthday parties, visitors, Grandma and Grandpa moving, classes, and camps, there was barely any time to relax!

Kara didn't have two consecutive weeks this summer without some sort of class or camp.  She did sports camp, swim lessons, Vacation Bible School, and Space Pirate Camp.  There was always something going on!

Early in June, we had a little party for Grandpa and Mommy's birthdays.  Nothing too big, but Grandpa let Emily blow out the candles on the cake, which Emily really enjoyed, especially after her candle experience for her own birthday cake...

Later in the month, we had Mimi and Papa come out to visit.  For the most part, we kept things pretty low key (except for our visit to the North Pole).

We put the girls in swim lessons during July.  Emily had been doing so well during her last swim lesson in May, so we signed her up for the next level up (without a parent in the water).  That lasted about 10 minutes or so until Emily figured out that Mommy wasn't going to get in the water with her.  She wouldn't get back in for the rest of the session.  Oh well.  Kara, on the other hand, got lucky and had a session with only one other girl (so she got a lot of personal attention).  By the end, Kara was able to jump in and swim the entire length of the pool all by herself!  Check out the video!

Early in July, Grandma and Grandpa finally closed on their new house.  They had us over one night to check out the new place.  The girls had a great time playing with bubbles in the backyard with Grandpa and Mom.

Whew, what an action-packed summer!

Pictures from Grandpa's birthday party:



Pictures from the rest of Mimi and Papa's visit:



Pictures from June:



Pictures from July



Emily playing some T-ball!

From 2015-07_1

Breckenridge 2015

At the end of July, we spent a long weekend with Grandma and Grandpa S. in Breckenridge.  For the most part, we kept it pretty low key. The girls played at the pool almost every afternoon and we did outdoor activities every morning (hiking or going to the adventure park).

The sleeping arrangements were a little interesting.  We had hoped that Emily and Kara could share a room, but it didn't quite work out.  All day, Mom and Dad kept telling Kara that she was going to share a room with Emily, but she was going to have to be quiet and let Emily sleep.  Well, Kara started off all excited and we could hear her whispering things to Emily through the baby monitor.  After about an hour, however, Kara was done and just wanted to go to sleep.  Emily, on the other hand, was just getting going.  She kept asking Kara, "What's that?" To which Kara would reply, "Emily, go to sleep."  That went on for about 30 minutes before Mom and Dad saved Kara and moved Emily's crib to another room.  After the move, everyone slept very well.  Oh well, we'll try again next year. :-)

Kara has started showing quite an interest in hiking.  There's a decent hike path that runs right next to the hotel.  Thursday afternoon Kara just started walking (with Grandpa in tow) and ended up going probably a mile up the trail before getting tired (and then hiked all the way back).  The next day, Dad packed Emily in the backpack and went with Grandpa and Kara on the same hike.  Kara, of course, led the way, and hiked right up the mountain.  Emily, on the other hand, got tired of hiking and was ready to turn back after about 30 minutes of hiking.  Kara and Grandpa were going to keep going up the hill, but Kara decided she was a little tired too and headed back.  A storm moved in Friday afternoon and rained the rest of the day.

On Saturday morning, we got up early and rode the gondola up to Peak 8 to check out the Breck Summer Fun Park.  Emily is still a little too young to do most of the activities, but Kara is getting into the target audience range.  Kara started off by trying out the bouncing trampoline while Emily checked out Ripperoo's Bounce Corral.  Kara had a great time bouncing, but she didn't get to bounce for as long as she did last year (there was quite a long line this year).  After that, Kara headed over to the rock climbing wall, but she was just a little too short to really reach most of the hand-holds, so she didn't get to climb too high.  On the way out, we did a little panning for gemstones, which both girls really enjoyed.

Another successful Breckenridge visit.  Can't wait until next year!

Link to pictures

Visit to the North Pole

Mimi and Papa came to visit us at the end of June.  We got the visit off on the right foot by heading up to The North Pole near Cascade, Colorado (just to the west of Colorado Springs).  The North Pole is essentially a Christmas-themed amusement park targeted for kids between the ages of 2 and 8, so Kara and Emily were definitely in the target audience.

As we were walking into the park, Santa and Mrs. Claus were there to greet the guests, which Kara thought was awesome.  From there, we hit some of the rides.  Kara was big enough to ride almost all of the rides (most of them without an adult), so she had a great time running from ride to ride.  Emily thought the rides looked great from the side, but quickly changed her mind once she got on some of them.  She did eventually do some rides with Kara and had a great time.

The coolest part (literally) was The North Pole, which was a pole covered in ice.  That was really neat to check out on a hot day.  In addition, we got to sit down with Santa and talk with him at his little cottage.  It took Emily a couple of visits until she warmed up to Santa (though she never would sit on his lap), but Kara jumped right up there and started telling all about superheroes (it was a little too far until Christmas for her to be prepared).

All in all, it was a really fun day (though a little hot).  Definitely a place we'll have to visit again!

Link to pictures

Wrapping up April and May

Other than a few big events (Easter, trip to Cancun, and Kara's Tae Kwon Do yellow belt test), April and May were pretty calm months.

Emily finished up her last swimming class.  By the end, she was getting very comfortable in the water and was letting loose with jumping into the pool (check out the video).

Kara "graduated" from Stepping Stones (her preschool class).  She's a little sad to move on from all her friends, but she's excited to start kindergarten in the fall.

One afternoon during May, Kara and Emily were having a snack at the kitchen table with Mommy.  Kara has started to become very curious about the world around her and beyond.  Mommy and Kara were discussing the universe and the possibility of aliens and robots on distant plants, not yet discovered (Kara thinks there is a high probability of this).  Emily sat there eating her strawberries and nodding.  Then, she added "Papa make big rockets!" (including hand gestures).  Not quite the same, but pretty impressive that Emily was on topic!

Link to pictures

Tae Kwon Do Yellow Belt Test

The testing group

Showing off a pose

Kara has been practicing her Tae Kwon Do quite a bit for the last few months and has been improving.  She has learned quite a few moves and is performing them confidently.  On May 18th, Kara tested for her yellow belt (everybody starts as a white belt and then moves up to yellow).  Daddy was able to videotape the whole test, which only a parent or grandparent would appreciate.  However, if you only watch one video, watch Part 5.  That's where Kara breaks a board.  We were impressed!

Cancún 2015!

Every May, Grandma and Grandpa S. head down to Cancún for a nice relaxing beach vacation.  Well, this yearthe timing worked out so we could go down with them.  The girls had an absolute blast playing in the pool and playing on the beach.  The ocean was really calm, so the girls could walk around quite a ways off shore (though Emily didn't really want anything to do with the ocean after touching some seaweed).

Emily did a great job adapting to her new surrounding, which we were really worried about (especially after our Colorado Springs trip last year).  Other than a couple of meltdowns, which were caused by sunscreen in the eyes or just getting a little tired in the morning before nap, Emily was very well behaved. She also played up the cuteness for Grandma and Grandpa.  One day, she decided to tell off a bird that was chirping on the balcony.  She told the bird "no, no, no, bird" while waving her finger. "Go away."  We got a video of her reliving the experience below.  She also was quick to tell Grandma not to touch her water (in a very cute way), "don't touch Emily water, OK?" Check out the video on on that one as well.

Kara really enjoyed swimming in the pool and making new friends.  She also enjoyed making sand castles and exploring the ocean with Grandpa.

Link to pictures



Don't touch Emily's water, okay?

No, no, no, bird. Go Away!

Swimming in the pool

Easter 2015

Easter in Colorado is usually a toss up as to whether you'll be celebrating in snow or in the sun.  Fortunately, the weather was great this year, so we got to do a lot of egg searching (perhaps a little too much egg hunting?), even though Easter fell a little early in the spring this year.

We got the day of Easter started off right by doing an egg hunt in the backyard.  Kara immediately went running off to look for eggs, but Emily took a more leisurely approach to egg hunting.  She opened her first egg and was pretty good with that.  We had to prompt her a bit to keep searching for eggs before Kara got them all!  Later in the morning, while Mommy, Kara, and Emily talked to Mimi and Uncle Trey on a Skype call, Dad went down the street to help hide eggs for a neighborhood egg hunt.  The girls had a great time with that one, running around with the kids and sneaking candy.  They were both crashing a bit from the sugar rush once we came home for lunch.

After lunch and quiet time, we headed down to Aunt Amy's house to meet up with Grandma and Grandpa S. for another egg hunt and Easter dinner.  After our third Easter egg hunt of the day, the girls had enough candy to last them for years!

Link to pictures

March 2015

First of all, yes, I know I've gotten pretty lazy with the titles.  I really need to pick up my game.  Be sure to check out the videos at the end!

Other than Emily's birthday, nothing terribly exciting happened in March.  Kara has continued her Tae Kwon Do lessons and will be testing for her yellow belt pretty soon.  Her reading has been improving as well.  We think she has memorized a ton of sight words,but still gets a little frustrated when she has to sound a word out.  She's getting pretty good though!

Emily has learned to count up to 5, consistently, though we've heard her count as high as 11.  One of Emily's favorite things is to race. She'll say, "ready set 1 2 go!"  Potty training is continuing.  Emily has figured out that the potty can be a very powerful tool in delaying bedtime.  Almost every day now, she'll say, "need potty" at some point during the night-time routine.  We want to encourage her to listen her body, so we'll get her down to the potty.  Most of the time she'll do something in the potty but is always very insistent she needs to do more when we try to wrap things up.  Emily has also learned the words "my" and "mine" and applies them to pretty much everything, even Kara's toys.  For the most part Kara is pretty okay with sharing her toys with Emily, but Emily has not learned the concept of sharing....

Near the end of the month, we got a visit from Mom's side of the family: Scot and Cassie (and their babies Amelia and Bryn), Brad and Maggie, and Uncle Randy and Aunt Tracey.  It had been a long time since we'd seen all of them.  Emily thought the babies were awesome.  She helped feed the babies, change a diaper, and pet the babies hair while saying "fuzzy".  Kara, on the other hand, was excited to have people to play with and spent most of the time playing ball with Brad and Maggie.

Kid Qutoes:
(playing a card game with Mommy)
Kara: "I got a 3-4-5."
Mom: "Kara, you're not supposed to tell us what cards you have."
Kara: "Oh, I was just kidding. I don't really have those cards."  She did.

"Oh boy!" Emily's new favorite expression.

"I conjured the toy behind your ear from thin air!" Kara explaining how she did a magic trick.

Link to pictures



Mom made chocolate chip cookies one day. They were a big hit. Here's what Emily had to say about them:


And here are Kara's thoughts:


Here's Kara showing some improvement in her Tae Kwon Do skills:


Emily has been practicing her tee ball skills (notice the hit right at the beginning of the video):

Emily is 2!

It's hard to believe that Emily's been with us for two years already.  It's been a blast, and we've had a lot of fun getting to know our little girl.  Emily has grown into an energetic, intelligent, sweet little girl.  Happy birthday, Emily!

Emily talks quite a bit these days, but we suspect she'd talk more if Kara didn't talk so much.  She's also proven to be a very active girl, always trying to keep up with big sister Kara.  She's become quite a good jumper, leaping off things with both feet.  Emily measured in at 34.25" in height (61st percentile) and 25 lb, 6 oz in weight (33rd percentile).

We did a family birthday for Emily this year.  We Skyped with Mimi, Papa, GiGi, and Uncle Trey in the morning.  In the afternoon, Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Amy came over for some cake and ice cream.  Emily enjoyed having everyone sing her happy birthday, even though Kara blew out the candles on her cake (see the video below).  Special thanks to Aunt Amy for some great pictures!

Link to pictures

February 2015

A couple decent snow storms late in the month rolled through, dumping almost 2 feet of snow over two weeks, which was quite a contrast with the first half of the month with record high temperatures.  It made for some good snow fun and some warm weather for playing outside!

Kara has been really improving with her reading skills.  She's been reading through some of our books at home (we mostly figured she'd just memorized the words); however, she really impressed Mom when she picked up a book at the library (Pete the Cat at the Beach) and read through it all by herself!  Kara has started Tae Kwon Do lessons.  She seems to enjoy it and is catching on quickly (see the videos).  It's great fun!  On the less fun side, however, Kara got her first cavity.  None of us are excited about that...

Emily has been continuing her swim lessons every Saturday.  She loves getting in the water and playing. Emily is speaking in 2-3 word sentences and impresses us every once in a while with a new word or phrase ("one more book").  She has started counting and frequently counts to 2 (as in "1 2 ears" or "1 2 eyes").  She knows the words for higher numbers, but she doesn't understand the concepts yet.  Emily has regressed a bit with potty training.  She's fighting Mom and Dad when they try to remind her she should use the potty.  Although, she has been getting better about feeling she needs to go and letting us know (usually after she's already peed in her pull-up).  Ah, fun times!

Cousin Cassie and her husband Scot welcomed their twin babies (Bryn Oliver and Amelia Rose) in January.  Kara and Emily got to meet their second cousins early in February, though they were more interested in playing with the toys than they were in the newborn babies.

Kid Quotes:
- Kara loves making up jokes and songs.  Here's a joke:  Kara:  "What do you call a hairless monkey?  A cold monkey!  hahaha"
- Kara: "Thank goodness Valentine's Day only comes once a year." Why? "Because of all the work I have to do to make my Valentine's card box!"
- Kara: "Gah, I talk as much as Papa.  I'm turning into Papa!"
- "Emily do!" Emily's favorite saying.
- "Step stool!" Emily usually demands to have the step stool, so that she can help out with things in the kitchen.
- "One more time."  Emily is always asking for just one more...
- "Love you"  ahhh, Emily now says these words.  With a sweet look and a hug, Mommy just melts!

Link to pictures

Farewell to Mr. George

Sadly, George was put down Tuesday, February 17th.  He had a rough night the 16th (he collapsed and wouldn't walk to his bed).  On the morning of the 17th, his body just started to shut down.  He was nearly 13 years old (not bad for such a big boy!).  George was a great dog and will be missed.  Here's George's Featured post from when Kara was a baby.  Also, here are all of George's Blog Posts (where he was mentioned).  Hope you enjoy the pictures of George.

Link to pictures

The Little Potty Returns

Emily has started to show some interest in potty training.  Mommy and Daddy were a little hesitant at first, but Emily was quite insistent.  Potty training is probably the most frustrating, grossest task for a parent of a young child.  Emily has actually been doing quite well with the potty training so far.  She still hasn't gotten a good grasp on the feelings, but if Mom or Dad guide her to the toilet, she knows how to take care of business.  She's still a little inconsistent, but has been showing improvement.  She has kept her diapers mostly clean and dry (except for nap time and bedtime) for the last couple of weeks.  Maybe she'll be one of those kids that more or less train themselves. *fingers crossed*

Emily has also started swim classes, which she does every Saturday morning with Dad.  She gets really excited every time we put on her and says, "Swim diaper, go swim."  The class mostly just focuses on getting the kids comfortable in the water, but Emily especially enjoys blowing bubbles and jumping off the side to Dad.

Emily is trying to do more and more things herself.  Whether it's helping get dressed, putting on shoes, or brushing her teeth, Emily has decided she can do it herself.  One day, she even helped Dad cook up some eggs.  Dad cracked the eggs and then just let her take care of it from there (under close supervision, of course).  She was so excited to eat her eggs!

We have started the process of getting Kara registered for Kindergarten.  She's pretty excited about the prospect of going to a new school, though it won't be much of a difference from the preschool she's already attending.

Kid Quotes:

"Come on!" - Emily's favorite saying these days as she drags Mom, Dad, or Kara somewhere.

"Tinkle, Tinkle, Toot!  Yay, I did it! Undies!" - Emily quoting the potty book after successfully using the potty.

"What are you going to do about it?" - Kara when Dad told her clean up her mess.  Oh, they start early these days...

Link to pictures

Mimi and Papa's Snowy, Frigid Visit

In addition to the 6-8 inches of snow we got Christmas night, we were also treated to another couple of inches followed by an arctic blast (the high was 4°F one day) a couple days later.  We had plans while Mimi and Papa were visiting (the Denver Aquarium, the Butterfly Pavilion, or maybe the Denver Museum), but with the snow and the cold, the roads were just a little too dangerous for unnecessary driving.  The girls started to get a little wild after a few days of being cooped up inside (see the videos).

Kara has started to really get into games.  She has learned Uno and must have played it 100 times with Mimi and Papa along with Operation, Trouble, and Let's Go Fishin'.  She's also showing an interest in more complicated card games.  Maybe she'll be able to get into the annual Christmas family card games next year!

In other news, Emily has found her scream.  She will often scream at us if Kara does something she doesn't like or if we won't give her something she wants.  Oh, it's gonna be fun with TWO screaming girls...

Link to pictures