Saturday, December 21, 2013

Mobile Baby, Part II

Here are some pictures of our baby-on-the-move.  Emily will still sit and play when the mood strikes (or when Kara is entertaining her with shenanigans), but for the most part she's in motion.  She's gotten quite steady on her feet and good at "cruising", but still needs a spot when climbing the stairs.  Actually, she hasn't fallen, but she makes Mommy nervous!  Emily is very good at bending down and getting up, crawling then sitting, and spinning around on her tush (very cute).  She can actually squat without holding on to something, but can't fully stand unassisted.

We're very proud of our little sweetheart!  Kara is also enjoying Emily more as she's getting older.  Emily enjoys playing with Kara's toys, and she thinks her older sister is HILARIOUS.

In the past few weeks, Emily has started giving kisses. Lovely, sloppy, sweet baby kisses. :)  Mommy and Daddy aren't sure how they got such a sweet baby, but we sure are enjoying her!

Link to pictures

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

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

 

Thursday, November 14, 2013

The Passing of GG

Sadly, GG K. passed away on the morning of Thursday, November 14th, 2013. She was just about 2 weeks short of her 81st birthday (or, as she would say, she was going to be 49 with 32 years of experience). She had checked into the hospital the previous Friday complaining of chest pains. The doctors did some tests and determined that she had some pretty significant blockages in her arteries. They put in two stents on Saturday, but couldn't get a stent in the artery with the most blockage (she had a 99% blockage of her left subclavian). Grandma decided that she wanted to put in the last stent in the hopes that it would alleviate some of the chronic pain she had been experiencing. The procedure, however, was not successful. The doctors found that the plaque in her arteries was too hard and they were unable to place the stent. Grandma never really recovered from the second procedure. She was disoriented and confused when Daddy went to visit her Wednesday afternoon. She's in a better place now.

Fortunately, Daddy had been able to take both girls down to visit GG recently. She loved the girls. The last thing GG said to Daddy was, "Take care of those girls." I certainly intend to.

Link to GG blog posts

Link to pictures of GG.

Saturday, November 9, 2013

Fall 2013 Professional Pictures

During November, we met up with Esther from BlueThistlePhotography to get some pictures of our family as the girls get older. It's getting trickier to get 4 people to all be looking in the same direction and smiling at the same time, particularly when you have a hyper 4-year old and a slightly grumpy 9-month old.  In the end, though, we got some pretty good pictures of the family.  Enjoy!

Link to pictures

Thursday, October 31, 2013

Halloween 2013

Halloween was a blast this year. We got the festivities started by attending a pumpkin-carving party at a neighbor's house, which was a lot of fun. We tried to go to a pumpkin patch, but we didn't get there until late in the month. By that time, the pumpkin patch was very picked over, so we had to get our pumpkin at the grocery store. Trick-or-treating was a lot of fun this year. Kara dressed up as Spiderman, and Daddy took her out with some kids on our street. Emily was a little too young to enjoy the trick-or-treating, but maybe next year!

October, in general, was a busy month for us. We spent the first couple of weeks just getting ourselves settled after spending almost five months living in Florida. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how you looked at it), Daddy spent the entire month of October working from home since his office flooded in September, so he was around to help out a bit. Unfortunately, Mommy, Kara, and Emily were sick most of the month.  Kara got sick with croup after only 4 classes of preschool. She was down for the count for an entire week and even lost her voice (which was very odd from Kara who usually almost never stops talking). She still has a pretty nasty cough, but she feels fine.  Emily and Mommy both got pretty rough colds (but not as bad as Kara's croup). Daddy, however, was able to avoid the plague, so there was at least one person functioning.

Emily is making progress on crawling. She now army crawls pretty much anywhere she wants to go and can pull herself up to a standing position, but she hasn't quite figured out how to propel herself with her torso off the ground. There's a lot of coordination that goes into crawling! Emily is also developing quite a taste for solid foods. She really enjoys green beans and peaches, but her favorite is pears and apple cinnamon oatmeal.

Link to pictures