May 2014

May was a very busy month. Between Kara's first year of preschool coming to an end, Mother's Day, a trip to the circus, and lots of playing, it felt like we were always doing something.

The weather for May was pretty nice for the most part. The weekend before Mother's Day, we got out the sprinklers because it was so hot. For Mother's Day, however, we were treated to a rare May snowstorm. Only about 2-3 inches stuck to the ground, but it was a very wet snow. Perfect for a snowman!

Kara's year of preschool came to an end. Her class had a family picnic for her last day and treated all the parents to a song. All the kids are going to be coming back for the next year, so that'll be fun!

Kara and Daddy went to the circus.  It was Kara's first circus experience, but she definitely knew what to get. She started off with some cotton candy before getting a hot dog and washing it all down with a snow cone. So much junk food! Kara liked the elephants, tigers, and the tumblers, but her favorite act was the man shooting out of the cannon.  She just kept looking at Daddy while he was getting the cannon ready and saying, "I think he's going to shoot out of there! I can't believe it!"

Emily is officially a toddler and full of mischief. She gets pretty clingy when she's tired or hungry, but she is often toddling around the house trying to keep up with Kara! The girls are starting to play together, which is very nice. Emily finally cut her two top teeth and it now up to 4. She has also been working on talking. She mostly relies on the old point and grunt method of communication but occasionally throws in words like da (dog), bur (bird), Biggo (Bingo, the name of her favorite stuffed dog), aada (all done), baba (baby), peeka (Peek-a-boo), boo (boo!).

Kid quotes:
"great. u took the chicken." - text message Emily sent from Mommy's phone to Daddy.  We're still not sure how she pulled that one off.

"Oooooh, nice!" - Kara when Daddy showed her a picture of the Dream Chaser, Daddy's new project.

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.

Emily's 1st Birthday!

Emily had her first birthday, and we celebrated by all getting sick.  When we say sick, we don't mean a little sniffle, we mean a nasty stomach bug that will take you down!  Emily got the party started by waking up on Friday covered in vomit.  Mommy and Daddy thought maybe Emily had just eaten something that hadn't agreed with her.  We were wrong. On Saturday, Emily's birthday, Mom started to feel sick around noon, and Kara started throwing up shortly thereafter. Daddy was able to hold it together through Saturday, doing load after load of laundry to keep everyone with clean clothes and bedsheets.  Daddy couldn't hold out forever, though, and fell victim Sunday.  Fortunately, Mommy was starting to feel a little better by that time and was able to keep everything together.  Fun times, huh?

The following weekend, we did a re-do on Emily's birthday.  Grandma and Grandpa came up, and we called Mimi and Papa on the iPad.  Emily really enjoyed her cake.  She didn't know quite what to do with her wrapped presents, but she eventually figured out how to tear the paper (not quite fast enough for Kara, though).

Emily has now mastered walking.  She can move pretty quick these days.  She has also been working on her communication.  She can usually convey what she wants through grunting and pointing, and we think she might be close to saying her first words.  She's said something that sounds a lot like "baby" (while looking at her Baby Beluga CD case) and "here you go" (when sharing her toys).  It's amazing how fast they grow up!

Link to pictures

Emily Walking

Emily is now an expert walker.  Just in the last couple of days she has gotten a new confidence and will walk 10+ steps routinely, even walking across rooms without any prompting.  We recently got one of her walks on video.  What a big girl! :-)

Link to video 

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