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

Visit to Shorter - Fall 2014

Early this month, we packed up the girls and went to visit the family down in Alabama. This was Emily's first flight since she was just a tiny baby, so we were a little nervous about her. For the most part, she did very well. She even passed out for about an hour, which made the time go by much faster. Kara, of course, handled the flight like a champ... as long as she had a screen (Mommy's iPad or her LeapPad) to look at.

While we were down there, Justin, Heather, Sean, and Robin McD came down to visit us at Mimi and Papa's house.  We hadn't seen them in almost two years, and we'd never met Robin!  To paraphrase Heather, "Robin and Emily are best friends, they just may not know it yet!"  Emily and Robin got along pretty well.  For the most part they just played next to each other, though Emily was not too happy when Robin took a ride on her Mickey airplane (her favorite toy at Mimi and Papa's house).  The girls even held hands walking around outside, which was pretty sweet.  Kara and Sean got along really well, mostly because Kara led Sean around the whole time they were there and Sean seemed okay with that.  Sean was such a good sport doing crafts and even reading to Kara.  We also had a little birthday party for Kara.  Overall, it was great to see our friends.  Hope to see you guys again soon!

On the last full day of our visit, we headed into Montgomery to check out the Montgomery Zoo.  It's a really great zoo for kids.  It's not too big, so we could check out almost the whole zoo.  Plus, it has a pretty awesome playground and petting zoo.  We even got to feed giraffes!  The girls both had a really great time.

The trip home was just plain no fun at all.  An arctic front moved into Denver while we were down in Alabama, which caused delayed flights leaving Denver.  We checked our flight status before heading to the airport.  At that time it said our flight was still on schedule; however, about 15 minutes after getting dropped off at the Atlanta airport, we got notification that our flight had been delayed.  In the end, the flight was 2.5 hours late taking off, so we spent almost 4.5 hours at the Atlanta airport.  The flight went pretty smooth except Emily was pretty irritable.  We realized about halfway through the flight that she felt quite warm.  We hoped that if she could just get a good night's sleep, maybe she'd feel better.  We landed in Denver about 8:30 (almost 2.5 hours late) to single digit temperatures.  While Dad was waiting on the jetway in the freezing weather, Emily was throwing up in the terminal.  Fortunately, after that, Emily started acting much better.  Then, Dad forgot one of our bags on the shuttle while we were trying to get everyone and everything to the car.  He had to chase down the shuttle through the icy parking lot in 0 degree weather.  Whew, that was brisk!  Fortunately, the drive home went off without any hitches, and our travel day concluded safely.

All in all, it was a good trip, and it was great to see everyone!

Link to pictures

Flying down to Alabama

This past week we flew down to Alabama to visit Grandma and Grandpa H. and GiGi B.  Kara had a great time chasing the dogs around (they have 4!), going for rides in her wagon, checking out the cows and horses, and just generally running around!

The week before we went down to visit, Grandpa H. got into a collision with a bicycle. Fortunately, he didn't break anything, but he did have a nice black eye while we were there. It didn't seem to bother Kara, though.

On Saturday, we took Kara into Montgomery to meet up with Justin, Heather, and Sean at the Shakespeare Festival.  There were ducks (and little ducklings), geese, turtles, and fish.  Kara had a great time chasing around the ducks and running around with Sean.  However, the best part was the fountain.  Kara got herself soaking wet splashing around in there.  Good thing Mommy brought a change of clothes.

Overall, Kara had a fantastic time in Alabama with Grandma and Grandpa H. and GiGi!

Kara has become a regular chatterbox these days. She just talks and talks all the time and every once in a while actually says a real word :). She's even starting to say two words in a row, like "Dad hat" and "doggie ruff".



And here are some pictures of our trip to the Blount Cultural Park (aka Shakespeare Festival)

The Elusive Smile

Believe it or not, Kara actually smiles quite a bit.  She smiles at Mommy and Daddy in the morning when they go to get her.  She smiles when Mommy sings to her and after Daddy throws her in the air (though we're not sure if she enjoys the throwing or is just happy it's over).  However, we were finally able to capture Kara's smile on camera.  Now we can share her toothless grin with the world. :-D

Kara's starting to be a little more fun.  Mommy enjoys playing with Kara during Tummy Time, and Daddy enjoys giving Kara rides around the house on his shoulders (we think Kara likes it too).  She's sleeping a little better these days, though she still doesn't sleep through the night.  We're hoping Kara gets that figured out pretty soon.

Visit from Grandma H. and the Blizzard of 2010

Grandma H. came up to visit this last week.  She was amazed at how much Kara had grown in the last 6 weeks.  Grandma had a good time hanging out with Kara, and helped Mom and Dad out by taking the night shift.

On Friday, we got a good-sized snowstorm down here in the Deep South.  Grandma and Grandpa H. got several inches of snow at their house in Alabama.  We got about 3 inches here.  Daddy and Kara got to go play in the snow for a bit.  Kara didn't quite know what to make of it, but Dad seemed to enjoy himself.

An over-tired Kara is an unhappy everyone!

Kara had an exciting week.  She got to see her first snow.  Not enough to play in, but enough to see from inside the warm house.  Kara continues to grow and become more aware of her surroundings.  She's starting to play with and grab things, including the rings on her bouncy seat (which she completely ignored the first two months of life) and Daddy's nose - see the pictures.  We're still working on establishing a sleep schedule.  Before we had Kara, we never realized a baby could get over-tired.  If you can catch her just right, she'll go down very easily, but if you don't, she will scream and scream (and she's got a good set of lungs on her) until she wears herself out (usually 10-15 minutes) and falls asleep.  Kara will take 4-5 short naps during the day, and will sleep for a couple long stretches during the night (6-7 hours at a stretch).  She once slept 10 hours straight (which got Mom and Dad very excited), but that seems to have been an anomaly.  She followed that up with a rough night with only 3-4 hour stretches of sleep.  We're still working on it. :)

Grandma H. came to visit with lots of new toys yesterday, so we'll surely have more pictures of those for next week.  Until then, enjoy!

PS - Check out the video of Kara enjoying her tummy time.

A Girl and Her Dog

Kara's doing well in her 10th week.  She seems to enjoy "tummy time" more and is warming up to the idea of sitting (still a long way off from doing it on her own).  She likes bein' naked and listening to music (Jazz, Irish folk, classical) while exploring her world.  She's a funny girl, and still doesn't know what to think of the big, stinky, hairy animal (George, not Daddy ;))!

Here's some video of Kara rolling over. It's about the only thing she does. :-)

Kara's First Christmas

Kara's first Christmas day was fairly anticlimactic, since we'd already done Christmas with both sets of grandparents and Santa didn't get very much for Kara this year.  On Christmas morning, we went to a neighbor's house for a Christmas brunch.  Other than that, it was just like any other day with a five-week old.

Hangin' with Uncle Trey

Uncle Trey and Grandma came up to visit Kara just before Christmas.  They took turns with the night shift while they were here, which was a great Christmas present for Kara's tired parents. As you can see in the pictures, Kara cleaned up this Christmas. Must be good to be the only grandchild on both sides.