Christmas 2012

Christmas here in Colorado was very merry this year!  It snowed a couple inches Christmas Eve, so it was a white one too!

The festivities started on the 23rd when Mommy was surprised to find Mimi and Papa H. walking through the door!  Daddy (and everyone else in the family) managed to keep their trip a secret, so that was quite a shocking/happy gift that Mommy received.  Kara was also very surprised to see them and asked if the baby was coming too - Mommy kept telling her that she wouldn't see Mimi again until the baby came...guess she has a pretty good memory these days!

Grandma S., Grandpa S., Aunt Amy, and GG K. came on Christmas morning to spend day the with Kara.  Most of the morning was spent watching Kara tear through her presents and trying to stop her from opening everyone else's gifts!  There were a couple of breaks taken to eat breakfast and play a new game here and there.  Kara got board games (Hi Ho Cherry-O was her favorite), books, DVDs, jewelry, and even a LeapPad!

Santa brought the jack-in-the-box that Kara wanted so badly, and she did play with it happily for the morning.  Then she decided she didn't like it and that it was scary.  Sigh...  Kara also got a turtle that projects stars on her ceiling at night.  She's in love with it.  Now if only she'd go to sleep with the turtle in her room....

We also had a couple friends join us for the afternoon and dinner that night.  Kara really enjoyed all the extra playmates that day. Our little house was full and hopefully everyone had a good time.  We sure did!

Link to pictures

Kara's 3!

About three days after we got back home from Disney World, Kara had her 3rd birthday! Since we had just gotten back from an eventful trip (and Thanksgiving was two days away), we just had a cake at home.  Kara seemed perfectly happy. :)

She has been playing pretend more and more.  She really enjoys playing the princess and having Mommy and Daddy be a beast, tiger, Prince Charming, etc.  The playing usually involves dancing, "dinner", and chasing her around.  It's fun to watch the wheels turn in her little head, but it does wear Mommy out by the end of the day!

Also, she has recently acquired an imaginary friend!  She has a mouse that keeps her company at night. She was telling Daddy she was throwing "millions of apple chips" at the mouse, and she told Mommy that the mouse had a cold and needed help blowing his nose.  Kara is also into exaggeration these days.  Here are some recent quotes:
 - "I'm making eggs and toast.  The best dinner in the world!"
 - "I'm the best dancer in the world!"
 - "I'm the fastest runner in the whole world!"

It's all pretty cute.

Link to pictures

Disney World!!!

Just before Kara's third birthday, we decided it was time to head down to Orlando and visit Walt Disney World!  Mimi and Papa H. along with Grandma and Grandpa all came with us for Kara's first Disney experience.

We started our adventure with a visit to Disney's Hollywood Studios.  It was probably a good park to start with since it has lots of shows and attractions as opposed to intense rides.  Kara's favorites there were the Beauty and the Beast show and the Muppet Show (we did that one twice).  We were able to do everything we wanted to do before lunch and headed back to the hotel for nap time (we were able get Kara back to the hotel everyday for nap time - nap time is even more important than Disney!). After the nap, we went back to the park to see the light show, which was really cool.  Kara enjoyed trying to catch the fake snow!

The next day was a visit to EPCOT.  Kara's favorite thing was Turtle Talk with Crush, which is a really cool interactive show where Crush (the turtle from Finding Nemo) asks the kids questions and jokes around with them.  We only got in a couple of rides in the morning, but we went back to the park in the afternoon.  That was when Kara had her first character greeting experience.  She was a little timid at first, but quickly figured out how to get the character's signatures and how to pose with them.  We grabbed dinner at the Biergarten in EPCOT.  Kara really enjoyed the live band and had a great time dancing on the dance floor.

Our third day led us to the Magic Kingdom, which is where Kara would spend the rest of the week except for a morning at the Animal Kingdom with Mimi and Papa and another morning in EPCOT.  Kara was enthralled with everything at the Magic Kingdom.  She loved the shows (Mickey's Philharmagic was her favorite) and the rides (she liked especially liked It's A Small World and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh Ride), but she absolutely loved the characters.  She had a great time meeting the princesses, Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, and, of course, Mickey Mouse!

All in all, Kara had a great time.  We got some great pictures and created some amazing family memories.  We're planning on heading back in 2018.  Who's with us?

Link to pictures

Halloween 2012

October and November have just been a blur. October was filled with visits to pumpkin patches, snow, and Halloween activities. Hopefully we can write more in the November post with details about our trip to Disney!

Link to pictures

Fall Visit from Mimi

Mimi came to visit us at the end of September (yes, we know we're getting this out late... but we figured it was better than never!).  She came to visit for ten days, but the time just flew by.  We went apple picking Ya Ya Orchard, just west of Longmont.  It was a lot of fun, but the trees were pretty small and more or less picked over (the season was very early this year due to the hot, dry summer we had here in Colorado).  We did get to pick some apples and they had some animals to feed (a couple of horses and donkeys).  Mommy shared a caramel apple with Kara, and Daddy and Kara even took a hay ride around the whole orchard!  It wasn't as much fun as Sky Top Orchard in Flat Rock, NC, however, which we highly recommend to our friends down South!

Another highlight of Mimi's visit was a trip up to Rocky Mountain National Park to see the elk.  Mommy and Daddy were a little worried that we were going to head all the way up there and then not be able to find any elk.  Well, we should not have been worried.  We drove past a large herd hanging out at a high school just south of Estes Park, before we even got into the park!  From there, we were able to find quite a few elk.  It was an exciting adventure for all of us (we included some pictures in the slideshow, but here's a link to all of our Rocky Mountain National Park pictures).

In baby news, we had our 20-week ultrasound last week.  The baby looks great!  10 toes and 10 fingers!  the big news out of the ultrasound is that Mommy and Daddy have decided not to find out the baby's gender until he/she is born.  We figured, how many times in your adult life do you actually get surprises?

Link to pictures