July 2016

The summer is just flying by.  It seems like every weekend is jammed packed with activities, and we still aren't getting everything done that we want to.

The first weekend of July, we headed down to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to check it out.  While we were there, we got an annual membership to the museum. If anyone wants to meet up there, let us know!  Both girls had fun, though Emily was ready to go back home well before Kara had seen everything she wanted to see.

Kara stayed up for the first time this year to see the fireworks on the 4th (they start around 9 pm).  Emily went down at her usual bedtime (and thankfully stayed asleep through the fireworks), but Kara stayed up and watched Zootopia with Mom and Dad.  There's a local fireworks show that we can see from our backyard.  After the movie, we got ourselves set up in the backyard and enjoyed the fireworks show.  We eventually got Kara down to sleep around 9:30.  We paid for it the next day, though, as Kara was quite grumpy and moody since she didn't get enough sleep.  Maybe someday we'll be able to do exciting things with the kids without worrying too much about sleep.

We went up to Breckenridge for several days later in the month (separate blog post to follow soon).  We attempted to do our annual backyard camp-out the weekend after we got back, even getting as far as getting the tent set up, but Kara had a bit of a melt-down as were getting everything ready.  It was probably too much excitement.  We'll try again in August.

Kid quotes:

- After dinner one night, Emily chose jelly beans as her dessert (the girls get a small dessert if they eat all their dinner). Mom said Emily could have 3 jelly beans since she's 3 years old.  Emily grabbed 4 jelly beans, and Dad pointed out that Emily was only supposed to get 3.  Looking very innocent, she quickly popped one into her mouth and showed dad the 3 left saying, "look there are 3."

- After our 4th of July grill out, Mom said, "Wow, I am stuffed!"  Emily promptly replied, "We don't having stuffing, we have bones inside!"

- We've been having some minor issues with rabbits eating things in our garden.  Emily noted, "Something's eating our plants like bunnies... or sharks..."

Link to pictures

Mid-Summer Visitors

The last week of June and the first week of July were kept busy with visitors to our condo. On June 28th, Grandma and Grandpa S. flew in from Colorado. They hadn't seen Emily since she was about 6 weeks old, so they were very excited to see how much bigger she'd gotten. While they were here, we went to check out the Brevard Zoo. Kara enjoyed feeding the giraffe and checking out the alligators.  Another day, Grandma and Grandpa took Kara to SeaWorld. She had a blast watching the sea lion and orca whale shows. We also hit the beach (of course) and went swimming in the pool. While they were here, Grandma had her birthday. We took her to port side restaurant called Grills. Kara made sure to tell the waitress that it was Grandma's birthday and that she needed some cake. :-)

On Thursday, July 4th, Patrick, Akila, and Amara (who was born 13 days after Emily) headed down from Atlanta for a visit. While they were here, we all headed to Kennedy Space Center to check out the new Space Shuttle Atlantis exhibit.  Daddy thought that was pretty cool, but Kara really enjoyed the movie on the Space Station development. She leaned over to Daddy at least twice and said, "I want to go to space." Maybe someday, Kara. On Saturday, we all headed down to the beach to check it out. Emily seemed to really enjoy putting her feet in the ocean, but Amara seemed to enjoy just hanging on the beach more. Both Emily and Amara are awesome babies (obviously), but it was interesting to see the similarities and differences between the two. It was great to see our family and friends!

Link to pictures from Grandma and Grandpa's visit

Link to pictures from Patrick, Akila, and Amara's visit

Breckenridge 2012

For the 4th of July this year, we headed to Breckenridge in the mountains with Grandma and Grandpa S. Unfortunately, due to the dry weather and wildfires around Colorado, the fireworks were cancelled in Breckenridge, but we had lots of fun doing other things.  On the morning of the 4th, we headed to downtown Breckenridge for the parade.  Kara really enjoyed watching all the cars go by and got really excited once she realized they were throwing candy.  She didn't get much, but she had fun anyway.  After the parade, we stopped at a face painter.  Mommy and Daddy were very surprised that Kara stayed still long enough to get some stars on her face and on her arm. Of course, right after that we headed back to the hotel, and Kara insisted on going to the pool where her stars were promptly washed off.

Speaking of swimming, Kara is starting to get very confident in the water (a little too confident for Daddy's tastes...).  When she's wearing her vest, she can actually kind of move around in the pool.  Not bad for a 2-1/2 year old!

Other than parades and swimming, we had fun going for some hikes and just hanging out in downtown Breckenridge.  Looking forward to next year!

Link to pictures

Potty Training - The Beginning

We have just recently started with potty training. Kara is getting to the point where she doesn't really want to wear diapers and seems to be interested in using the potty. She also starting pointing at the toilet and saying "pee pee, potty." So, Mommy went out and bought Elmo's Potty Time (which Kara watches almost every day) and a training potty. So far, Kara has not gone pee pee in the potty, but she has whizzed all over the bathroom floor on several occasions. Yeah, isn't potty training fun?

We've been keeping ourselves pretty busy for the last month. On the weekend of the 4th of July, our friends Drew and Stacy and their son Dax came over to check out our new house. Kara and Dax had a lot of fun playing in the sprinklers. Later that weekend, Mommy's Uncle Randy, Aunt Tracey, Cousin Brad, and Brad's girlfriend came to visit. Kara had a lot of fun entertaining the crowd.

Temper tantrums are pretty much a daily occurrence these days, with her first "major meltdown" happening today and involving animal crackers and the library...

Kara (who refers to herself as "Tata") has a vocabulary that is expanding quite a bit and she can usually get her point across. "Tata shoes out park!" "Music dance!" "Watch Mickey" "Mama lap sit read" "Tata poot" :) Kara will specify the books she wants to read - as in "Nigh Nigh George" (Curious George), "Chi Chi Boom!" (Chicka Chicka Boom Boom), "Eggs, Ham" (Green Eggs and Ham), "Waan tooo fish" (One Fish Two Fish...). It's pretty cute... when she's not yelling at you. "Bubbles! Bubbles bubbles bubblessssss!!" Ah, toddlerdom.

Link to pictures

Stairs? Ha! Next time, give me a real challenge!

Well, Kara figured out how to climb the stairs. Thus far, Mommy and Daddy have let Kara crawl all around the first floor, but they haven't worried too much about letting her crawl around the stairs. I guess we need to start worrying about that! On Friday evening, Kara just decided to start climbing the stairs. She figured out the first stair and just kept on going. She's also starting to cruise a bit more. She's so strong! Mommy and Daddy just wish she'd sit still for a little bit!

In other news, Kara is getting her first tooth. You can kind of feel it under the surface. So far, Kara's been taking it very well, not much change in her fussiness. Hopefully she keeps this up.

Happy 4th of July!!!

Link to pictures