Pics to enjoy

Enough of my me-centered posts. Here are some new pics of my obsessions: my girls!

Here's Jana playing in her sandbox. At least we don't have to worry about her being afraid of getting dirty.

"I love my sandbox!"

Here's my little stinker in her chair. Yes, you see it right... that is bbq sauce on her forehead. Needless to say, meal times have gotten interesting around here with her new strides toward independence.


Kara and Daddy chillin'. Tell me that baby doesn't look relaxed!

Apparently we have some work to do on teaching her that pants go on the bottom, not on the head.


Kara is staring at her new friend: the whale.


Jana's into dressing herself in her accessories. I guess it was just a two hat kind of day.


I remember being so strict with Jana about teaching her to nap in her crib. And here is Kara's napping place... her swing. I'm so bad.

Here' s my goofy girl in her baseball hat, playing with her house. She was being too cute, so I had to take lots of pics. Here are my faves.

Kara Mae is 2 months old

Since I can't focus on my work and I need to focus on something happy for a while, I'll do this post a day early.

I can't believe my little girl is already two months old. I've started realizing that we are most likely done and that makes me sad, so I try to treasure every moment I have with my baby girl.

She rolled over at about 6 weeks old I thought it was a fluke, but then she rolled over three times in a row at 7 weeks old. We haven't had much since then, but that is mostly our faults. It is so hard to find time to put her down on the ground. Jana has already stepped on her once and poor Kara let out the saddest sounding cry. Jana has no concept of how her actions could hurt, so she is not even remotely careful around Kara. She's gentle with Kara most of the time, but just not careful when she's walking around her.

Kara has started smiling. I love that gummy smile. I've missed gummy smiles. She loves to smile at her daddy, but I get some too, occasionally.

She's an erratic sleeper. Some days she sleeps from 9 pm to 6 am, then 9 am. Other days she sleeps from 9 pm to 1 am, 4 am, and 6 am. Most days she sleeps from 9 pm to 4 am, 6 am, then 9 am. Most days she has been letting me run after the 6 am feeding. Some days it has required her to sleep in the swing in her room (I know, bad me), but at least I can still run.

Here are some new pictures of my baby girl.

Mama and Kara Mae at the park with Daddy and Jana.


Jana and Kara on the floor. Big sister kisses. Kara is thinking: enough with the kisses already.


Mama-Kara cuddles.


Hanging out in the stroller while big sis plays at the park.


Hanging out on the patio, AWAKE, watching big sis play on her new swing set.

Two new toys in one day

Jana got spoiled yesterday and she got a new rocking toy as well as her swing set.

She's obsessed with the rocking horse at my inlaws, but is unable to do it herself, so she needs help. When I saw this rocking tigger on Craigslist I just had to get it for her. She loves it!

Apparently even Tiggers needs kisses too!


As if that wasn't enough, her swing set arrived yesterday. She had a blast "helping" daddy assemble it.


She also enjoyed playing on the slide... while it was on the floor.



But nothing was as joyful as actually being able to play on it. She even got to stay up until 9:00 pm to play on it (an hour past her normal bed time). The swing was the hit.

Eventually she played on the slide, but only after about 20 minutes of swinging.

But when all was said and done, she went back to her favorite play-thing... rocks and dirt! Please notice the hat. It's 8:45 pm and she'll wear the hat, but would rather carry it during the day when she needs it! Gotta love toddlers!

Jana's 17 months old

Oh how my girl is changing and growing up so quickly.

Her new favorite thing to do is play "dress up." (Or at least that is what I think she's doing.) Her gpa brought back mardi gras beads from his trip to New Orleans and she loves them. She is constantly taking them off and putting them on. She is also showing an interest in bags/purses. She has a soft sided bird's nest that has a handle that she wears around like a purse. She also loves hats. She steals daddy's if she can't get to her own. So, I guess she is becoming my accessory girl! :-)


She walks everywhere now and is experimenting with running. She loves playgrounds, so we try to go to the park every other day. She loves swings and slides the most, but enjoys any rocking toys. We bought her a little slide and swing set (toddler sized) that should be arriving today. We hope she likes it. (She even insists on wearing her beads there, too.)

Her language development is amazing. She picks up new words and phrases all the time. She loves the word "pants" right now. I guess it is fun to say. She is also babbling a ton these days, but they sound a lot like sentences. I can tell already that once she learns how to put her words together, this child is going to be a talker.

She mostly enjoys Kara. She is still a bit rough with her at times. She wants her to play and gets frustrated that she can't. She still loves to kiss Kara. Here she is trying to read to Kara.

We're doing a better job of introducing foods to her. She loves all the ripe fruit right now. She loves watermelon and bananas still, but has found a new love for blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries.


I am afraid that she is going to be the class clown at this rate. She will do anything for a laugh or smile. Here she is squeezing her chicken in her hands, tensing every muscle in her body, and saying "EEEEEE!!" She did it once and I burst out laughing and now it doesn't stop.

She still loves giving kisses, which we adore, of course. She is also now into climbing on us if we're on the floor. In her mind, if we're lying on the floor, we are free game for climbing.


Our newest adventure (since Mama got a new bike) is to go on the family rides here in town. I couldn't go last week, but Daddy and Jana got dressed up and went. You can't tell, but she's wearing a Discovery team yellow jersey.

Lastly, here is our trip to the water park a few towns away. It's one of the parks that has the fountains that kids can play in. She wasn't so interested in the water, but had a wonderful time in her bathing suit walking all over the place.

Jana amazes me

Man, I love that little girl! I love Kara too, don't get me wrong, but there is such a difference when the child can interact with you.

She's giving kisses more and more. She still loves to kiss Kara and her toys the most, but we've been the recipients of a few of those kisses.

She's talking so much now!

We were at Lowe's the other day and Jana was sitting in the seat of the cart and Kara was in the basket in her car seat. Kara started fussing and Jana turned around and said, "Hi, sis." and started rocking the car seat with the handle.

I dropped something while in the kitchen the other day and Jana looked at me funny. So, I said, "Oh that silly mama. So clumsy." For the rest of the day, she was saying, "Silly Mama."

I absolutely love that she calls Kara "sis" now all the time.

She says "Good dog" and "Move dog." She also says "I do it."

She loves to say "shoes" and has mastered "up, please" and "down", but we 're working on the please. She still doesn't have "thank you" yet.

She's trying to figure out this running thing. She tries to walk faster and ends up falling on her face. It's so cute, she then always says, "ooooh." We've really tried to temper our responses when she falls, so she rarely gets upset and is usually back up without missing a beat. She's become a good walker.

On the 4th of July, she was a total crack up. Her favorite thing to do was to walk up and down our drive way, despite it being steep. She needed a hand to keep her balance, but I think we walked 10 laps up and down. She also discovered that her Little People SUV rolls down the hill. So she would go to the top of the street and let it go. Then we would follow it down the hill to the bottom of the culdesac. It was the cutest thing.

We've discovered, however, that this kid needs something to play on at our house. So we've started the search for a play toy. We have found two that we're looking at. One is on back order until tomorrow. It's from the catalog "One Step Ahead" and it has a swing and slide. There's a Little Tykes one that is similar. But, we can 't seem to keep Jana active enough unless we go to the park everyday and that is just too hard with Kara and the heat.