Kangaroo

My auntie makes the latest stuffed animals--Kara LOVES her Christmas present!

Playing with Food

Kara has become a total ham for the camera lately. I got these pictures at dinner.

Kara says "dob" (dog), "nuh nuh nuh" (no no no), and yells at the dog if we tell the dog not to do something. I am so grateful that I.have the opportunity to stay home with her. We love her sooooo much!

Mmmm, Chocolate.

Kara's First Christmas

I think she liked it. Thank you to all of her (many) grandparents and aunts and uncles who love her so much and gave her such wonderful gifts!

A Post on Love

Dear Kara,

My sweet, mild tempered, happy baby--you are the light of my life. You bring me joy every day. As cliche as the phrase has become, I feel so blessed to be your mama.

I especially love the way you bounce or "dance" whenever you hear music. Or the way your face lights up whenever you see daddy, grandma, or the dog (even though I tried to make you love cats). I love squeezing your cute little baby-thighs when I am getting you dressed, and the way you lay your head on my shoulder when you're tired. I love that you do "pat-a-cake," and that you will try to quickly shove an entire fist full of food (any kind of food--even dog food) in your mouth before I can take it away from you. I think my heart grew 1,653,895,024 sizes the day you were born, and it's growing more every day.

I love you,

Mama

Trunk-or-Treat

Wasn't Kara a cute kitty?

Halloween Preview

Here we are headed to the church party. I'll post a full pic soon!

Today

"Mom, I love playing with my cousin's toys, and I can't wait until I'm five too."

Eating

Kara is very good at feeding herself, as long as you put the food on the spoon for her. She's too cute for words (and a little messy too)!

Kara Has a Tooth!

Finally! I got mine at 4 months, but Kara waited a little longer. I was feeling around in her mouth today and felt/saw one that finally broke the surface!

Kara Wanted to Say This:

Happy Birthday Aunt Shelley!

Just Because

I am at practice right now, actually--I'm making the kids run a couple miles. They hate me now, but they'll thank me later! Anyway, since I had some free time, I decided to write a blog post.

Kara loves B sooo much! You can just tell by the way she's looking at her in this picture! The only downside is that Kara is 7 months old going on 5 years! She wants to play with barbies and dress up and dolls! B is not such a fan of this--I constantly hear "Kara, you should have TOLD me you drooled on that! That's what happens when you don't listen to your cousin!"

They really do love to play together though :)

Mmmmm, Dog Food

Last night after I got home from work, I had Kara come sit in the kitchen with me while I fixed dinner. I turned around at one point and noticed that she was chewing on something...and happened to be sitting near the dog food. Sure enough, she was chowing down on the dog's dinner. I moved her away from the dog food only for her to crawl right back and start sampling some more pieces. Finally, she got tired of me moving her and dumped the entire bowl over, and then grabbed some in her fist and absolutely REFUSED to let me take it from her.

Meanwhile, Cassie sat patiently and waited her turn. They're great pals!

Baby Quilt

My friend is having her first girl, so I sewed her a quilt. She had her shower last night, so I can post pictures!

I don't have a machine that will do the quilting for you, so I had to take the presser foot off, put the free-motion/darning foot on and do the quilting myself. The quilting is my absolute favorite part though, so I wouldn't want a quilting machine! The quilting for this quilt took me about five hours, and I just LOVE the way it turned out! (There is a small flaw on the back, but it hopefully wasn't too obvious!)

Gettin' Around

Kara is incredibly active. She really tries to pull herself up on things (I helped her pull herself up in this picture), but she especially will try to pull herself up if she sees something interesting. In this case, it was the remote, which she is STILL playing with.

Sleeping Baby

Kara has had a busy day today. She untied all of the ties on her crib bumper, crawled around the entire living room and pulled several items out, drummed on some toys, climbed all over mommy, flirted with daddy, got food all over herself, and at the end of all her adventures, fell plumb asleep mid-dinner.

Archie

My cat is clearly not worried about rules or the squirt bottle. We obviously aren't scary enough.

For the record, we don't normally let our pets lounge on the dinner table.

Mmmm, Steak.

(I get the feeling that I'm the only one who reads what I write on this blog, but at least I'll have it for posterity, right?)

Last night, we were having a yummy dinner of steak and vegetables. Kara got tired of sitting in her seat, so my mom picked her up and set her in her lap. Well, not two seconds later, Kara lunged for my mom's fork (which had a bite of steak on it) and immediately shoved the whole bite in her mouth. It was pretty funny!

A few minutes later, we looked at her, and she was biting down on a napkin and letting the rest of it hang out of her mouth. We started cracking up, and once she realized we were laughing at her, she did it over and over and over, as well as bang her hands on the table. It made for quite the entertaining dinner! Unfortunately, I was laughing too hard to get a picture!

Scrunchy Face

Kara has started doing a "scrunchy face" to us to make us laugh (or pick her up. She knows she's cute). This picture doesn't quite capture how cute she looks with her scrunched up nose, but she sure makes me laugh when she does it!

We drove home from Denver today, and she did surprisingly well, especially since she just out of the blue rejected her pacifier a few days ago (did I mention she did that? She's nearly impossible to soothe now unless she's being held). I have no idea what prompted the pacifier rejection, but I'm certain it hasn't helped in the cranky department.

We enjoyed our quick trip, but it's always nice to be home. I really enjoyed spending time with my dad though--it would definitely be nice if we all lived closer.

I Guess This Means Naptime is Over

Love

I'm just crazy about this baby! (Pictures from my phone... Of course!)

I was only in the bathroom for a minute...

B: "She was cold, so I put her in the bag."

Baby in a bag. Kind of like pigs in a blanket?

Faces

What is this face for? Can't figure out where it came from, but it's Kara's new favorite facial expression.

Maybe we smell funny?

She also likes to laugh at herself. She'll be "talking" and then will giggle at herself. I'm afraid she gets that from me--I laugh at my jokes more than other people laugh at them. (And I get that from my dad. Guess it runs in the family!)

Baseball

My brother was watching the baseball game. (We have an ongoing rivalry--I like the Rockies, he likes the Mets. Truth be told, I like the Mets too, just not as much as the Rockies). Anyway, he felt that Kara needed to watch the game with him. Aren't they cute?

Cousins

Kara tried to tell her older cousin that she doesn't like being a princess when they were playing dress up.

But it was better than the sparkles that were all over her head the last time they played dress up. Fairies have to sparkle, y'know.

Bathtime

Kara loves her bath!

Crawling pictures

Sorry they're blurry! It was hard to get one of her staying still! She was trying to get to her green frog.

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She's off!

Kara is crawling! She doesn't quite have it down perfectly, but she's getting around! She started rocking on her knees today, and all of the sudden started awkwardly crawling to the side and to the back this afternoon. It seems like it happened overnight!

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6 months!

Kara turned 6 months old Monday (can you believe it!?) and we had her checkup today. She is 25 inches long (25th percentile) and 14 lbs (20th percentile). Time sure flies by!
B and Kara and I spent the last day of summer vacation at the park (which is where I took the pictures above). I can't believe school is already starting again, and I'm a little bummed. B is starting kindergarten, and I have to admit, I'm going to miss spending all day with her!
Swim team preparations are in full swing as well. I feel like October is going to be here WAY too soon--and then I won't have a life until March! I really love it though, and I'm looking forward to a new season.

Kara's Latest

Kara has changed sooo much in the last few weeks. She is on the verge of her first word--probably "mama" because she's started saying "mmmmmmmmmma" lately. She is also starting to sit up on her own! It happened almost overnight, but she started pulling herself up in her chairs, and started supporting herself when I put her down.

Her newest "trick" is to copy when somebody waves at her. She hasn't quite figured out that it means something, but she knows she's supposed to do something with her hand. It is so cute!

She'll be 6 months old in about a week. I can't believe how fast time has flown!
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Guess how Kara feels about carrots?

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Cousin Seb

My cousin Brittani has a 10 month old son named Sebastian. We were able to visit when I was in Colorado, and the babies were able to play together. Sebastian was more interested in his Uncle Justin, but he was also pretty fascinated with Kara's toys.