Emily's 4th Birthday!

Emily is now a 4-year old, which is kind of hard to believe.  Where have the last 4 years gone?

Emily's birthday fell on a school day, so she took tiny cupcakes to share with her class.

Emily decided she didn't really want to invite people over for her birthday, but she did want to do something fun.  Of course that meant going to Chuck E. Cheese's.  As soon as Dad got home from work, we headed out to have some fun with Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Amy.  Emily had a blast!  Fortunately, she decided that she'd rather have pizza from a restaurant than eat Chuck's pizza, so we stopped at MOD Pizza (the girls' new favorite restuarant) on the way home.

No 4-year old's birthday would be complete without cake.  Emily insisted Rainbow Cake (which is a white cake with rainbow sprinkles inside).  Happy 4th birthday, Emily!

Link to pictures

Christmas 2016

Christmas was great this year.  The girls are in the prime time of enjoying Christmas.  They definitely understand what's going on, but no one is too cool for all the fun yet.  The beginning of December started off a little rough with the second round of sickness working its way through the family (even Mom and Dad got pretty sick).  Very fortunately, everyone started to feel better right before Mimi and Papa came out to visit.  They flew out here the week before Christmas and Uncle Trey also flew out a couple days later.  It's been a couple of years since Trey's been out here, so the girls had a great time showing him all their toys and just hanging out with him in general.  We also got out a bit to check out the local attractions.

One day, we headed down to Denver to check out the Denver Museum.  Trey hadn't been there since he was just a little kid, so he had a great time checking it out.  We didn't get to see much since we got out a little late, and Emily ran out of steam shortly after noon.

The city sets up an ice skating rink every year around Christmas.  Papa, Uncle Trey, Dad, and the girls headed there the morning of Christmas Eve while Mom and Mimi did some prep work for Christmas.  Kara had taken ice skating lessons a couple of years ago.  She was a little rusty at first but was skating all around by the end.  Emily tried to skate a bit at first but ended up just letting Dad pull her around in a sled.  We were the first ones there, but within 30 minutes the rink was packed with people enjoying the nice day and the skating.

Emily learned the words to several Christmas carols - Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer were her favorites - and would sing them over and over again for everyone.  Kara enjoyed teaching Emily alternative versions of Christmas carols ("Jingle Bells, Batman smells...").  We bought a little bear that plays a version of Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" that Emily loved to dance to.  Unfortunately, we never could get a good video of her dancing.  Maybe next year.

Christmas day was a blast.  Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Amy came over early in the morning to get the day started.  The girls got some amazing gifts this year from Santa.  Emily was still a little slower with opening presents.  She always wants to play with her new toy, while Kara is definitely at the age where she just rips into all her presents.

The girls are already planning for next year!

Kid quotes:
"We need to keep up appearances... for Emily." - Kara, as we were putting out cookies and milk for Santa.  I think she's on to us...

"Drat." - Emily's favorite new phrase

Link to December pictures

Link to Christmas Day pictures

November 2016

November was a bit of a rough month. Kara came down with croup the second week of November and missed the whole week of school. Fortunately, she started feeling better just in time for her birthday party. Unfortunately, Emily started feeling sick just as soon as Kara started feeling better. We were supposed to travel to Mimi and Papa's house to visit for Thanksgiving, but Emily was a miserable mess. She had croup, a stuffed nose, and just generally felt terrible. The worst part was the lack of sleep (for everyone). She would wake up crying at least 2-3 times a night, and nothing Mom and Dad could do could really help her. She consoled herself by going through about a box of tissues every couple of days (we went through a lot of tissues). It would have been miserable trying to travel with such a sick little girl, so we we decided to cancel our travel plans at the last minute and reschedule for Spring Break. We took advantage of being home the long Thanksgiving weekend and got the house all decked out for Christmas. Dad even got out and hung up lights outside!

Link to pictures

Disney World Hangover

Emily picked up a little bug our last day in Disney, which made the travel day home quite unpleasant.  Unfortunately, she continued to have a snotty nose and a cough after we got home.  Dad came down with the flu a few days later, Mom came down with a cold a few days after that, and Kara finally developed a barking cough a few days after that.
Emily seems to be fine now, but the rest of us are still fighting the cold.  Good fun!

Emily's birthday was the weekend after we got back from Disney.  It was a little subdued since we were all a little sick, but we still got a cake, of course!  It's kind of hard to believe Emily is 3 years old already!

We got 2 separate heavy snow storms later in the month.  We got about a foot on March 18th, which happened to coincide with Kara coming down with the cold.  She wasn't too sick to go out and play, though.  The weather warmed up right after that and all the snow had melted by the time the second storm came in on March 23rd.  The second storm came in fast and furious, and we had 21" of snow on the ground by that afternoon.  It was Kara's spring break, so she didn't get a snow day, but that would have been her third one this year.  Crazy!

Unfortunately, the second snow didn't melt quite as quickly as the first snow, so we had to do our Easter egg dyeing and Easter egg hunt inside.  It's not quite as fun as outside, but the girls still enjoyed it!  Emily knew what was going on and jumped right in searching for the eggs (stopping to open up each one as soon as she found it).  Later in the day, we headed over to Grandma and Grandpa's house for Easter dinner.

Emily is starting to develop into an annoying younger sibling (Tyler's words).  She routinely does things these days purely to bother Kara.  She's also developing a bit of a rebellious steak.  She enjoys running away and slamming doors when Mom and Dad are trying to get her to do something (like get dressed).  She's landed herself in time out a few times.  Fortunately, she continues to loves hugs and cuddles and is still very empathetic and sweet.....80% of the time!

Kara is loving school and all the learning and friendships that go along with it.  In fact, when we got back from WDW, Kara said she enjoyed the trip but wished she hadn't missed a week of school! :O  Her written stories are getting more nuanced these days, and she's started story-boarding a motion picture involving unicorn superheros.  There are also 3-D paper mock-ups involved.  She has requested a videocamera, so stay tuned.  She's a hoot!

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

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

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

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

Christmas 2014

We got the Christmas season kicked off the day after Thanksgiving by putting up the tree and the decorations.  Emily had a good time looking at the decorations and enjoyed putting the star on top of the tree.  Kara particularly enjoyed putting decorations on the tree.  She even made quite a few decorations to add to the tree (see the pictures)!

A couple of weeks before Christmas, the city puts on a Dessert with Santa event for all the little kids.  Both girls enjoyed snacking on cookies and sipping on hot chocolate.  Eventually, we made our way up to talk with Santa himself.  Kara asked Santa for an electric toothbrush with Ariel on it that played music.  She was very specific. :-)  Emily didn't know quite what to think of Santa, but she knew she didn't want to sit on his lap and wouldn't let go of Dad when he tried to put her down.  Maybe next year.

On December 23rd, Mimi and Papa flew in from Alabama.  They spent Christmas Eve making gingerbread cookies and generally preparing for the Christmas festivities.

Christmas day started early this year.  Daddy suspects Kara was listening by her door for any little noise because she popped out as soon as Dad stepped out of bed.  She did go back to her room but kept popping out.  Eventually, Dad went and sat with Kara in her room (we didn't want her to wake up Emily since it was going to be such a busy day) until about 7.  Once we let her out, she quickly ran downstairs to check out what Santa brought her.  She was excited that she got an electric toothbrush, but she was a little disappointed it didn't play any music.  We made Kara wait on the rest of the presents, though.

Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Amy, and Cousin Jennifer showed up around 8:15 and brought another carload of gifts.  Kara was really into opening presents this year.  She had a great time sorting the presents into piles and would have torn them all open if we hadn't made her wait.  Emily, on the other hand, understood what was going on, but she wasn't too interested.  Mom and Dad started to feel bad after a while since she just wanted to play with her new presents, and we were just handing her presents to open. In the end, Emily just decided she was done and walked away, which was okay. Emily's favorite new gift was a Curious George stuffed animal, which she carried around with her the rest of the day.

In the afternoon, the snow started to fall, so we did have a white Christmas in Colorado. The snow came down pretty quick, so Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Amy, and Cousin Jennifer had to leave right after dinner (without eating any dessert).  Of course, they did take plenty of dessert with them.

A very merry Christmas was had by all.  Until next year!

Link to pictures

Fall 2014

Happy fall, everyone! The girls had a very eventful fall.  We had so much going on, we had to split it into two blogs (see the other blog for Halloween).

The weather most of the month was quite mild with no snow at all.  That made for some good leaf fun!  There was also a fun visit to the Butterfly Pavilion with Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Amy.

Kara started the month with her last couple of soccer practices for the fall.  She's still not 100% clear on the rules (she thinks it more fun just to chase after people than to actually kick the ball), but it's a great way for her to burn off some energy.

Daddy and Emily took advantage of the extra time Daddy had by going to the rec center on Fridays to swim.  Emily is very fearless.  She'll climb out of the pool and jump off the side, whether Daddy is ready or not!  Emily has also figured out running and jumping, mostly.  She can now run at a pretty good clip (she can't quite keep up with Kara yet, but she's working on it), and she has also figured out how to jump, kinda (check out the videos below).  She is also becoming much more opinionated.  We're in the phase now where she knows what she wants, but doesn't really know enough words to communicate what she wants.  Ah, good fun.

Link to pictures

Kara's Weekend at Grandma and Grandpa's

Kara spent the weekend of August 16th hanging out with Grandma, Grandpa, and their dog Ruby.  Kara had a great time, mostly she had two (and for a bit three while Aunt Amy was visiting) adults at her beck and call.

While Kara was gone, Emily had an explosion of words!  We're not sure if it was the fact Mommy and Daddy were able to give her their undivided attention, or if it was just that Kara wasn't there talking over her all the time, but either way, Emily was showing off her verbal skills.  She has been learning the names of the Sesame Street characters (though she's never actually watched Sesame Street, just read the books).  We took Emily to the library during her weekend, and she immediately gravitated to the computers, which had a picture of Elmo (the pied piper of children, as Heather has said).  She also knows the Count (she throws her head back for Mommy and Daddy to say "ha ha ha"), Cookie Monster ("cookie"), Bert (which she can say surprisingly well), and Zoe (though she calls her "I dunno" and shrugs her shoulders because that's what Daddy did when Emily first pointed her out).  Emily also had her first peach during the weekend, which she inhaled.  She's also been saying "Thank you" (sounds like tee go, but close enough) and "welcome".  Such a polite little girl!

Link to pictures

Spring 2014

The Colorado weather is doing its typical spring thing where it teases you with beautiful, sunny weather and then shifts back to cold and snow.

Easter was fun this year.  We started off the day with an Easter egg hunt in the backyard.  Kara immediately found her first egg and popped it open (there was a Peep inside) and got the day off to a sugar-filled start.  Emily was more interested in the birds and watching Kara run around than anything else.  Later in the afternoon, we headed over to Aunt Amy's house for another egg hunt and dinner.  Emily was kind of getting the egg hunt thing by the end.  There's always next year!

Emily is cutting her third tooth (for what seems like the fifth time), so she hasn't been sleeping very well recently.  She's also battling about her 100th cold of the season, which is fun.  Emily is starting to talk more recently.  She now says "dog", "bye bye", "Mama", and "baby".  She also developed quite a few hand signals to communicate her wishes to Mommy and Daddy.  She is also developing a very bothersome habit of throwing food (which is something Kara never did).  Most of the time she just drops her food or sippy cup off the side of her high chair, but occasionally she flings food pretty far.  We're hoping she grows out of that one soon.

Kara recently gave a presentation to her preschool classes about herself.  Mommy was able to get video of the presentation (see the videos below). Part 1 is pretty short, but Part 2 is quite long.  Fair warning.

We also did an overhaul on the backyard.  The grass mostly died last summer while we were in Florida, despite Lu's and Grandma and Grandpa's best efforts.  We hired a company to put in a new side fence, level the yard, lay sod, and install a sprinkler system.  Now we just have to upkeep!  Both girls have been enjoying playing in the grass.

Some other big news is that Daddy got a new job.  He is now working for Sierra Nevada on the Dream Chaser propulsion system.  The job is much closer to home (it's about a 10 minute commute) and doesn't require any travelling.  Let's hope the project is a success!

Kara quotes:
Mommy's hair is just black. That's not a cloud of bats, it's just Mommy's hair.

There's a boiling pot of dead skeletons in the principal's office.  You do not want to go there!

Kara plays make believe and tells stories almost non-stop these days.  A particularly interesting one started off with "a boy is reading a bedtime story with three, no, ten chapters.  It starts with a girl named Kara drawing a picture...." then she sat down and started drawing.  She continued to narrate what she was doing around the house as the chapters in the book, for quite some time.  It was pretty neat to watch!

Link to pictures






 And here is a link to our landscaping project pictures.

First Steps

Emily is now officially a walker.  Emily has been standing on her own, bending down and picking things up while standing, and cruising very confidently for a while now.  But she took her first independent steps on February 6th, taking two steps walking to Mommy (Daddy, of course, was on a business trip in Florida).  She held steady taking two to three steps for about two weeks, though Daddy didn't really consider two steps walking.  On February 21st, Mommy decided to work a bit with Emily to build up her confidence to take more steps.  It was mostly fruitless until Emily spotted her sippy cup about 3 feet away and decided to walk to it, taking about 10 steps on the way!  Emily was very proud to show Daddy when he got home from work that afternoon!  At the time Emily was holding a snack container of cereal in one hand.  Mommy thinks the feeling of holding on to something may have given her the confidence to walk without furniture.  Who knows?

Mimi and Uncle Trey visited the first week of February (to help out during the aforementioned business trip by Daddy).  They got to do some fun stuff while they were here!  One day, Kara, Mommy, and Mimi met up with Grandma S. and Aunt Amy to have afternoon tea at the Huckleberry.  Daddy and Uncle Trey took Kara sledding, which was a blast!  Mimi and Uncle Trey were also treated to an arctic blast.  The high one day was 4 deg F!

Emily is regressing a bit with night-time sleep.  She has been consistently waking up in the middle of the night (usually between 2 and 4 am) for no better reason than to say hi to Mommy and Daddy.  Emily is weaning herself off the bottle. It wasn't too long ago that she'd be drinking 24 ounces a day, but now she barely will drink 15.  It's great that she's adapting well to eating adult food, but she still need her calories!  Daddy is very excited that the end of bottle cleaning is near!

Kara has become very artistic lately.  She is constantly drawing pictures and telling stories.  She particularly likes to pretend that she's on a boat with Fifi.  Mommy had her first parent-teach conference with Kara's preschool teachers.  Her teachers used the terms "big personality" and "high energy" multiple times to describe Kara in class.  Mommy and Daddy are just glad they're not the only ones who think that.  They also said she is very engaged, tells great, relevant stories and loves playing and talking to everyone.  Ms. Larissa said Kara was telling a story about what was at the end of her beanstalk and she said "there was snow in the castle and I BURST WITH EXCITEMENT to make a snowman!"  So Kara can sum up her own general state of emotion pretty well. :)

Kara's thoughtful quote of the month:
"Emily's family job is pooping." - After trying to explain to Kara that everyone in the family has jobs to help around the house (Kara clearing her plate spurred the conversation).

Link to pictures

Christmas 2013

Christmas was a ton of fun this year. I have a feeling Christmas is going to get a little more fun every year as the girls get older!

Kara learned the words to many a Christmas carol, including: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, Joy to the World, and Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.  It's all very cute.  Kara really got into the Christmas spirit this year. Multiple times she exclaimed, "It's exactly what I've always wanted!" after opening a gift. In particular she seems to really enjoy her sleeping bag (she crammed all her stuffed animals in there and dragged it around for the next several days), her camera (it took her about 5 minutes to figure out it had video games), and a large book of Garfield comics she looks through every day.

Emily also enjoyed her gifts. She really likes to cruise around with her new walker. For the most part, however, she likes to play with Kara's toys!

The weekend before Christmas was also very exciting. Kara and Emily went to meet Santa. This was the first year Kara sat still long enough to tell Santa exactly what she wanted (Despicable Me). Emily did great as well. She sat there for about 30 seconds (long enough to get a decent picture) before deciding Santa was a little scary. Also that weekend, Kara went to her first movie at a theater. She and Mommy went to go see Frozen. Kara seemed to really enjoy it and is excited to go see another movie! If that wasn't enough, Kara and Dad went to the rock gym to try out rock climbing. Kara did great! She climbed up and down the wall for almost an hour until she figured out that it was a lot of fun to "fall" and let the auto-belay rope lower her back down. We'll have to try that again sometime.

Link to pictures

Kara's 4th Birthday

Kara had her first real birthday party this year.  It was at Mountain Kids Gym, where the kids got to run around and play on obstacle courses, rope swings, trampolines, and a foam pit for two hours.  It was a hit!  The kids had a great time, and there was minimal work for Mommy and Daddy.  Win, win!

We also had family over on her actual birthday (during the week) with cake and her favorite foods - pizza and soy beans!

At Kara's 4-year check-up, the doctor referred to her as a "perfect specimen."  She weighed in at 35 pounds (50th percentile) and measured up at 39 3/4" (50th percentile).  She also has better than 20/20 vision.  We'll see how long that lasts with her genes!  We're keeping our fingers crossed. :)

It's hard to believe it's been 4 years since Kara joined us.  We can hardly remember life without her!

Link to pictures

 

Easter 2013

Easter this year as quite the affair.  We had a full house with Mimi, Grandma S., Grandpa S., Aunt Amy, GG K, Cousin Jennifer, and her boyfriend J (and of course Mommy, Daddy, Kara, and Emily) coming over for Easter dinner!  Luckily, it was a beautiful spring day in Colorado, so we were able to hang out in the backyard.  Kara had a great time looking for eggs (she had an egg hunt in the morning and another in the afternoon).  Kara and Emily both cleaned up with presents and candy!  Emily, of course, was a little too small for the candy, so Kara volunteered to eat hers.

Emily is doing quite well these days.  She's getting a little bigger every day.  Some of her newborn clothes are starting to get a little tight on her.  It's amazing how fast babies grow!

And congratulations to our friends Patrick and Akila and their latest addition, Amara.  You guys are in for quite a ride, but a ton of fun!

Link to pictures

Baby Days (and Nights)

So far life with our newest addition is going pretty smoothly.  She's sleeping pretty well (at least for a newborn).  Mommy and Daddy were better prepared this time about the sleep deprivation, so it doesn't seem so bad.  Kara's adjusting to Emily's presence pretty well.  About once a day or so, she'll have a little melt down, but we're hoping that will subside as the weather gets better and we can get out more.

Mimi came out to help the Wednesday after Emily was born (March 13th).  She's been taking the first night shift (and helping out a lot around the house) while Daddy takes the late night/early morning shift.  Mommy, of course, is always on call. :-)

Link to pictures

Christmas 2012

Christmas here in Colorado was very merry this year!  It snowed a couple inches Christmas Eve, so it was a white one too!

The festivities started on the 23rd when Mommy was surprised to find Mimi and Papa H. walking through the door!  Daddy (and everyone else in the family) managed to keep their trip a secret, so that was quite a shocking/happy gift that Mommy received.  Kara was also very surprised to see them and asked if the baby was coming too - Mommy kept telling her that she wouldn't see Mimi again until the baby came...guess she has a pretty good memory these days!

Grandma S., Grandpa S., Aunt Amy, and GG K. came on Christmas morning to spend day the with Kara.  Most of the morning was spent watching Kara tear through her presents and trying to stop her from opening everyone else's gifts!  There were a couple of breaks taken to eat breakfast and play a new game here and there.  Kara got board games (Hi Ho Cherry-O was her favorite), books, DVDs, jewelry, and even a LeapPad!

Santa brought the jack-in-the-box that Kara wanted so badly, and she did play with it happily for the morning.  Then she decided she didn't like it and that it was scary.  Sigh...  Kara also got a turtle that projects stars on her ceiling at night.  She's in love with it.  Now if only she'd go to sleep with the turtle in her room....

We also had a couple friends join us for the afternoon and dinner that night.  Kara really enjoyed all the extra playmates that day. Our little house was full and hopefully everyone had a good time.  We sure did!

Link to pictures

Daddy, Let's Go Look for Bugs!

Almost every day when Daddy gets home from work, the first words out of Kara's mouth are: "Daddy, let's go look for bugs!"  Her favorite bugs are roly-polies (which were Daddy's favorites as well when he was a kid).  She also enjoys finding slugs, worms, beetles, ants, and grasshoppers (though those are very hard for her to catch).

Since we got home from our visit to Georgia, Alabama,  and Florida, life has been pretty busy.  Daddy has been working long hours on a recent project (which he successfully completed about a week ago), and Kara and Mommy have been keeping busy with gym classes, art classes, and play dates with the other kids in the neighborhood.  We also broke out the hiking backpack for our first hike of the year during Memorial day weekend.

The first weekend of June was an exceptionally busy weekend.  We kicked it off by visiting Louisville's Touch-A-Truck event.  Kara was very impressed with the helicopter they had there, but she was immediately drawn to the little train they had driving around the parking lot.  After waiting in line for about 15 minutes, Kara finally got her turn, which was very short-lived.  It was probably a little too much for her, and we got her out before the ride was over.  We spent the rest of the time crawling around dump trucks, bulldozers, and school buses.  The next day, we headed over to Aunt Amy's house for a "June Birthday" family party (Mommy's and Grandpa S.' birthdays are both in June).  Kara had a great time playing with Grandma and Grandpa's new puppy (a Chocolate Lab named Ruby), Aunt Amy's dogs (Belle and Briley) and running around the yard.

Some recent Kara quotes:
"You do it yourself!" - To Daddy after he asked her to help him clean up her puzzle.

"Those are the coolest socks I've ever seen!" - Checking out Daddy's work socks

"Look, a stinky sock!  I am making a mess with Daddy's clothes."

"I am being a goofball!"

"Let's go show this to Mommy" - excited to show off her latest bug find to Mommy (she seems to be particularly proud of her worm and slug finds)

"My rolling pin broke again, oh dear.  I need glue to fix it."

During the closing credits of Beauty and the Beast, Kara jumped up to dance and announced to Mommy, "I am beauty and you are the beast.  Let's dance!"

Link to pictures

Christmas 2011

Christmas was a lot of fun this year with Kara.  We got about a foot of snow a couple of days before the big day, so we got to experience our first White Christmas with Kara.  She more or less understood what was going on and got very excited about her presents.

Kara's big gift this year was a play kitchen complete with all kinds of play food, plates, pans, and cups.  Kara was so excited about the kitchen that she barely gave the big Mickey that Mommy bought (and we were sure she would be really excited about) a second look.

It was quite a full house with Mimi (aka Grandma H), Grandpa H., Grandma S., Grandpa S., Uncle Trey, Aunt Amy, GG K, and Great Grandma S. all coming over for Christmas day. While we were opening presents, Kara, Uncle Trey, and Aunt Amy would pick out presents to open from under the tree and Kara would deliver the present.  Kara got a kick out of guessing what the present was before it was opened, but if she couldn't figure it out, she'd say, "I don't know what that is."  It was Mommy and Daddy's first time hosting Christmas.  All in all, we think it was a successful Christmas and a good time was had by all.

Other than Christmas, we had quite an eventful month.  The week before Christmas, Cousin Travis stopped by on his trek from Indiana to California.  He and GG K came over for lunch one day and had fun hanging out with Kara.

Mimi, Grandpa H., and Uncle Trey flew in from Alabama on the 22nd.  Unfortunately, that was also the day the snow decided to come.  We had about a foot of snow on the ground that morning (Daddy got stuck getting out of the driveway), and it continued to snow until early in the afternoon.  We were getting a little worried that the flights would all get delayed or cancelled, but everyone eventually got here.  Once they were here, the snow ended up being pretty fun.  Grandpa H. and Uncle Trey had fun playing with Kara in the snow.  We also headed to Downtown Louisville and enjoyed a horse-drawn carriage ride around town.

The day after Christmas, Uncle Trey headed back to Alabama.  Unfortunately, he missed a visit from Cousin Brad, Maggie, Cousin Cassie, and Scot.  They stopped by on their way to visiting some family up in northern Colorado.  They didn't get to stay long, but it was great to see them.

We could almost write an entire blog post just filled with Kara quotes.  It seems like she comes up with something new and funny every day.  Here are a few selected quotes:
• "Very hot, let it cool down." - Telling Mommy she needs to let her spicy Thai food cool down a bit.
• "Let's do this." - Asking Mommy to dance.
• "That's pretty loud" - Kara shouting as she shakes a bell
• "Ta-ta new kitchen.  Ta-ta love cook!" - Telling Grandma S. about her new kitchen on Christmas Day
• "Ta-ta eat booger" - Kara's first words to Mommy one day
• "I have Fifi ... he love Ta-ta."
• "Thank you, Mr. Fifi, he a good helper." After getting Fifi to help open the door (Mommy really opened it)
• "Fifi, he inside dog"
• "I love Fifi!"
• Holding Fifi over the railing, Kara said, "he looks downstairs... nothing there."

Link to pictures from Christmas Day


And here are some pictures from the rest of December