Let's Go West!

On May 27th, we headed out West to visit family out in Colorado.  Traveling to Colorado from South Carolina with a baby is quite an adventure, but Kara did great!  She was pretty grumpy most of the day, but was relatively calm during the flight (though it would have been great if she'd slept on the plane, but she didn't).

The first day in Colorado, we just chilled at Grandma and Grandpa's house, letting Kara decompress.  The next day we had friends from Colorado come over to the house to meet Kara.  We got to see a lot of people (though we didn't get to see everyone).  I think everyone had a good time with Kara, and Kara had a lot of fun playing the crowd.

On Sunday, we went to Arvada to visit Great Grandma (G.G.) K. and Aunt Amy.  And for Memorial day, Dad and Grandpa went to Boulder for the Bolder Boulder.  Grandpa ran, lazy Dad just watched.  In the afternoon, we had some more people over to visit Kara.  Overall, we had a great time visiting people!

While we were in Colorado, Kara continued to develop her crawling skills.  She refined her army crawl and then moved on to crawling with her torso off the ground.  She did that for about a day before she decided that she needed to start pulling herself up (see the pictures).  Grandma and Grandpa's house has some steps in the family room, which Kara pulled herself up on.  She started with pulling herself up to her knees but quickly moved on to pulling herself to her feet.  Crazy girl!

Link to pictures

6-Month Birthday!

Kara is now officially a crawler. She started off in early May with dragging herself around the room. It was rough, but she could get around. She quickly moved on to an army crawl and would occasionally balance herself on all fours. She doesn't want to take the time to master any skills, she just keeps on learning new things!

Kara recently had her 6-month check-up with the Dr. She said that Kara looked great (the Dr. was very impressed with how well Kara would sit).  Kara measured 26 1/2 inches long (78th percentile) and weighed in at 15 lbs, 10 oz (43rd percentile), so she's long and lean.  We don't know where she gets that from...

Several people came up to visit Kara in May.  Around May 9th, Patrick and Akila stopped by.  It was great to see them and catch up.  They were amazed at how much Kara had grown since the last time they visited.

A couple of weeks later, Grandma and Grandpa H. came up to see the little girl. They had a great time visiting and couldn't believe how well she could crawl (she was doing her fairly coordinated army crawl at the time).

Link to pictures

The Mobile Baby

Kara is such a joy these days!  She greets us with a smile in the morning and it stays on her face for much of the day.  She's even giving us a few more chuckles and squeals.  Kara is becoming more aware of the world around her every day.  She reaches for things she's interested in (pretty much everything), and loves it when Mommy points out and names many of the items around the house.

A couple pretty major things seem to be happening in front of our eyes - Kara is becoming much more vocal and MOBILE (we're happy and more than a little nervous about the latter).  She "ahhhs" and "ohhhhs" mostly, with a few "ghassss", "heys", and "huhhs" thrown in for fun.  She'll make these noises for minutes at a time, which is quite a departure from our quiet-except-for-crying baby of yore.

And our little girl is *so* close to crawling (we think).  Amazingly, she pretty much goes wherever she wants now, without crawling or walking.  She'll lunge, roll...over and over, and drag herself with her arms across the room.  Kara will hardly even stay still for a book or to eat!

Another fairly new development is a strong aversion to naps and bedtime.  She's still sleeping but not without a fight and screaming.  She just likes playing with Mommy and Daddy way too much! (ha ha ha)  Guess there could be worse things in life!

Link to pictures

Road Trip!

We took Kara to visit the grandparents (and Uncle Trey and Great Grandma B.) down in Alabama this past weekend, which was her first trip outside the Greenville area. She had some rough spots on the drive down there and the drive back (5 hours in a car is a long time in baby world), but overall, the trip was a success.  She slept through night like a champ and enjoyed playing with all the people (and dogs) during the days.

On Saturday, Heather, Justin, and Sean came down from Auburn to meet Kara.  Sean thought Kara was very interesting.  Kara worked the crowd by talking the whole time and impressing everyone with her rolling over skills.

Grandma, Grandpa, and Great Grandma had a great time playing with Kara, feeding Kara, and reading with Kara during the weekend.  Thanks again for having us!

5 months old already? Wait, what happened here?

Kara is growing up so fast!  The first three months or so (with the short naps during the day and several wake-ups during the night) seemed to be in slow motion, but since then, time has been in fast forward.  We can't figure out where the last month went!  I always thought it was silly when parents said "They grow up so fast", but it's true!

Kara smiles much more these days, though she makes you work for them.  It seems like most of our days are spent trying to make her smile or laugh (dancing, singing, making funny faces).  She enjoys playing Pat-A-Cake with Mommy, watching Daddy do Itsy Bitsy Spider, reading Quick As A Cricket, or playing the piano with Mommy.

Kara still hasn't figured out how to crawl but she's desperately trying to.  She's getting really close, but still hasn't gotten the coordination down.  She has, however, figured out how to roll over from her back to her stomach.  Which is good, except that she does it during naps and then can't figure out how to roll from her stomach to her back.  Hopefully that'll be the next thing she figures out.

The big news these days is that Kara is sleeping through the night.  She's slept through the night every night (except a couple times) since March 30th.  Life is much better when everybody's getting sleep during the night.

Link to pictures