School's Out for Summer!

The fundraiser for Kara's t-ball team was selling tickets to a Rockies game and letting teams walk around the field before the game.  Kara had never been to a real baseball game, but she was excited!  It was Dad's first time down on field level at Coors Field (and Kara's, obviously).  It was a fun experience, and the Rockies even won (beating the NY Mets 4-3)!

Kara wrapped up her first year of real school at the end of the month.  She's excited to be a first grader next year!  She's got a busy summer planned with several camps lined up.

Emily is a pretty mild-mannered 3-year old.  She has the occasional melt-down, but her worst days are nothing compared to Kara when she was about the same age.  Emily is continuing to develop her voice and is getting better at communicating what she wants, which isn't always easy with a big sister like Kara who is very opinionated herself.  One of her favorite things to do is to sing the alphabet song to us.  She still has a little trouble with the middle (L-M-N-O come out ellam minnow), but she's getting better.  She can pretty easily count to 20 and can identify all the numbers up to 10 (though she sometimes gets 6's and 9's confused).  All in all, she's a pretty awesome kid.

Early May, we got out and started up our garden for the summer.  We planted a couple different kind of tomatoes, zucchini, beans, and pumpkins.  We'll see what comes up!

Link to pictures

We're Home!

After almost five months of fun in the Florida sun, we have headed back home to Colorado.  The travel day was quite an adventure, which included waking up at 4 am, checking in 6 bags, getting 2 strollers and 2 girls through security, and keeping everyone sane for the 3 hour flight.  We are definitely glad to be home!

Kara has adjusted very well to being back home.  She started preschool on our second day home and has been enjoying that.  She also has enjoyed all her "new" toys, which are toys that we couldn't take with us.

Emily is on the verge of crawling.  She will get herself from a sitting position down into a crawling position.  From there, she can kind of lunge and propel herself a foot or so in any direction.  We will have to start baby-proofing the house soon...

Kara quotes:

"I have made quite a mess here" - while helping Mommy clean up some toys

"This dress will really impress my friends tomorrow." - Discussing with Mommy about what to wear to her first day of preschool the next day.

Expecting Baby #2!

We are happy to announce that Kara will soon be a big sister! Baby #2 is scheduled to join our family on February 25th, 2013!  Kara is very excited for the new addition.

In other news, Kara is becoming more independent. She has started her first non-parent class.  For two days a week, she spends an hour playing games and singing songs at a class called Twoodles at the local Rec Center.  She's also started her first non-parent swim class, which is going really well so far.

Bedtime has become quite the ordeal lately.  For about a year there, Mommy or Daddy would read Kara a book or two and lay her down, and that would be the last we'd hear from her all night.  Well, these days, we still read the book, but now we have to sing her songs and then Kara will come out of her room about 5 times before she finally settles down.  Mommy and Daddy are hoping she grows out of this phase soon!

Kara Quotes:
- "Good night, go sleep in your bed and I'll sleep in mine.  Dream about being a bat flying in the nighttime sky.  Bye-bye!"  8/20/12

And she's come up with a lot of variations on the "Dream about..." theme
"Dream about cookies!"
"Dream about working!"
"Dream about making cupcakes for Santa!"
"Dream about butterflies!"