My Little Giggle Monster

Right now, we have a routine where Kara gets up between 6:45 and 7:30 (cough, cough), but Jana doesn't get up until 8:00 or 9:00, so this leaves Kara and I some wonderful time together. She wakes up so happy most mornings and it just so much fun to be around her.

She has become so responsive - when you smile at her, she gives you a big slobbery, gummy smile back. It's so adorable.

I have to say that some of my very favorite sounds in this world are giggles from my girls. At this age, we had to work very hard to get Jana to laugh (which she does all the time now), but that's not the case with Kara's laugh.

Kara will giggle if you tickle her, jiggle her from side to side, tickle her under her chin, and even giving her Eskimo kisses.

Note to self: Beware of what you say!

Jana is such a little mimic right now!

We were in the bathroom and there was a commercial on the TV that was a cartoony commercial for a kids' cold medicine and the mama bear called the little bear "cubby." After hearing it once, I heard "cubby" for the rest of the night.

I was watching Oprah today and she said "Oh my." For the rest of the day, Jana was parroting "Oh My!" It was hilarious.

She has also learned how to crawl up on the chairs... and the kitchen table if we're not careful. We caught her up there twice in the span of a few minutes.

Kara Mae is 5 months old!

Oh my wonderful baby girl!

I love those gorgeous blue eyes that sparkle when you smile and laugh and that great big gummy smile.

Kara's getting so big; it's amazing. She seems to be growing up so much faster than Jana, but I doubt that's the truth.

She discovered how to roll from back to front today! The first time she did it, she cried because she was stuck on her tummy. Once I rolled her onto her back again, she promptly rolled to her tummy again, and then happily hung out on her tummy - exploring the world from her new perspective.

We're still having sleeping issues, which is about to drive me batty. I have no idea how I can help her, because she is so tired, but can't let herself sleep.

She's spending much of her time riding around in the baby bjorn these days. I feel badly because she's in there so often, but I guess it's not a half-bad way to see the world.

In the Baby Bjorn at the train park.

In the Baby Bjorn at the pumpkin patch.

Jana just adores Kara - it's the sweetest thing. Jana hates it when Kara's sun shade is down in the car and she can't see "Sissy." She has to show Kara off to everyone that comes around and introduces her as "sissy" with such pride - it's so sweet. And Kara just watches everything that Jana does. Jana's pointing out the dog to her before we head out for a run.

Here are some pics of our adventures this month and how big Kara Mae is getting.


Hanging out with Gramps.

We just had a blast at the pumpkin patch.

Chillin' with some ghosts.

"Look where? But I'm given great big smiles to you, mama!"

Teeter-tottering with Mama.


Swinging with Mama- (but watching big sis).
"Look Mama, I'm flying!"

Even helping me out while shopping for apples - she's holding the bag for me.

I'm not so sure how much crawling we're going to get out of her. She LOVES to stand. She's so strong - I barely have to hold on to her and she'll stand for quite a while. So, it's not a big surprise that she loves her exersaucer. (but we still have to stuff a blanket around her middle to keep her from leaning too much

Jana's first adventure in potty training

Jana's been alerting us when she's went for about a month now. She'll pat her diaper and say "wet." Last week she started waking in the middle of the night, screaming. When J went in to tend to her, she patted her diaper and said "wet." Once changed, she happily went back to sleep. Message: time to start potty training.

So yesterday, we bought "Duuuuura" (Dora pull ups) and we have started. Much to my surprise, we had success when I put her on the potty after nap time.

We went into the bathroom and next thing I know, she puts her hands up in the air and declares, "BIG GIRL!" That is when I realized that she went "pee pees in the potty." She was very proud of herself and wanted "new durrrras."

That was the only success yesterday and we haven't had any today, but I'm about to get her up from her nap and we'll see what we get.

The other big clue that it was time was on Monday when Grandma P got her out of her crib... with no pants. Apparently, she pooped and decided poopies were not comfortable and took off her diaper. Needless to say, everything got washed because there was a poopy footprint. The damage was minimal, but a sure sign it's time to get moving.

Here she is hanging out in her "monkey pants" as she calls them. We gave the big girl pants a try... and she promptly peed on my dining table chair. Oops.

My Little Chatter Box

Oh, Jana makes us laugh so hard!

Auntie Meghan and (soon to be) Uncle Shawn came to visit this weekend with their dogs Budha and Lily. Jana had a wonderful time flirting with Shawn and is still walking around saying his name. Budha and Lily were hanging out in the back yard and Jana is still going to the sliding glass door yelling "Booooooda."

Here are a few little video clips.

Colors: I was trying so hard to get her to say yellow, because her version of it is so stinkin' cute "yah-doo". She has decided that every color is "geen" (green), though and was being a bit of a stinker because she knew I wanted her to say yellow. Finally in the end, she relented and said yellow for me, but quickly followed it up with calling it "geen" again.



People: Then she went through the photo album (you can't see it in the video) and was naming the people in the pictures. A few note worth comments by her. She is so incredibly attached to Uncle Dave that you notice that he got special mention. (Also she has named Kara's very pink bear "Dave" as well. Hee, hee.) She now refers to herself as "yoooou" or "Gee nah."


Notice she stole Daddy's hat and is wearing it backward- she's such a little imp!

Enjoy!

Language Explosion

Everyone kept telling me that there is a "language explosion" once they being to talk.

Holy cow, she's hit it.

First she brought me a small board book this afternoon and said "Wiggo." At first, I had no idea what she was saying, but then I looked down at the book. It was one of her Wiggles' books. NO WAY!!!

During dinner, she came out with "yeddo" (yellow).

Then when we were looking at books before bed she correctly identified Pooh, Eeyore, Tigger, and Piglet.

Then as I was going through an ABC book and she was standing in front of me - looking at the book upside down. She flipped back a few pages and correctly identified "O". She repeated most of the letters as I said them, but then when I said "P" responded with "D". I started to say, no P when I realized that she was looking at the "P" upside down - which forms a "D". We were floored, to say the least.

She then picked up a shape book and went through all of the Pooh characters. When she got to Owl, she started saying "hoo, hoo." We haven't read Seuss's "Mr. Brown can moo" in weeks, which is the only place I can think of where she has heard that owls say "hoo, hoo". ARE YOU KIDDING? I'm amazed.

Then she pulls out a small stuffed "Roo" and she starts saying, "bounce" and bouncing it up and down.

I'm just awed by my little girl! She's becoming such a big girl.

Jana is 20 months old!

I have to admit that I'm not so okay with her approaching two years old. While I absolutely adore this age and love the personality that comes with her being a toddler, I'm so afraid of her growing up. She's just such a joy as a baby/toddler. You can just see that delightful, yet stinker-ish personality in these pictures of her.

This is the look that J will have to face and fight off the urge to cave into it. Can't you just picture this face accompanied by the pleading, "Pleeeeeease Daddy?"

"I can reach the door handle now.... Just wait a few more months and see what happens when you try to tell me I can't go outside. Hee, hee, hee!"

Her vocabulary has exploded this month and she is such a mimic. She is now copying our sayings and repeating them at appropriate times. She'll say "see you" when playing peek a boo and say "awwight" when asked a question. She will now ask for naps or to go to bed when she's tired, but the hilarious one is that she asks for a "baff" (visualize her doing the baby sign of rubbing her belly as she says this) multiple times a day. She is also pretending to know how to count. She plays this game with me. I'll say one and sometimes she'll repeat it, but when I say two, she'll say three. Or I'll say one and she'll say two. And just smile boastfully and giggle.

One of the most commonly heard words in our house right now (besides please) is "again." But, I will have to get an audio clip of it, because the description doesn't capture the true meaning. She looks up with those big blue eyes and says, "agin?" raising her intonation into a question.

I'm also so incredibly impressed with her vocabulary. She seems to come out of no where with words, unprompted.

Off the top of my head, these are the words she says (not just repeats)
Mama, Mommy, Mom , Dada, Daddy, Dad,
Gapa(Grandpa), Gama (grandma), Dave (Uncle Dave)
Hi, Bye-bye, Night-Night,
Doggy, Sissy, Sis-sis, baby, doll, ball
puppy, blocks, box, shoe, sock, bed
sleepies, nap, bath, bink, book, hat
hot, banana, apple, beeto(burrito), milk, juice
water, pizza, egg, blankie, fish, bike
swing, slide, walk, mail, seat, boobie (oops)
eat, owie, cheese, please, again, more

Here she is with her new friend "Meemow." (because kitties say Meemow).

She knows most of her body parts: eye, nose, ear, cheek, chin, mouth, teeth, head, toes, feet, arm, hand, leg.

She is becoming such a big girl. She was a total crack up this evening, climbing in and out of a box, carrying her scooter in the air, and making faces at us and then giggling. During dinner someone, who shall remain names (but wasn't me), passed gas at the dinner table and she got this horrified look on her face and declared "Stinky." When J and I started cracking up, she started laughing so hard. It's hard to imagine many better times than sitting around, eating dinner with J and the girls, laughing with Jana.

Despite being a absolute riot to have around, she has a bit of a temper on her. She can communicate so well most of the time, when she can't she falls apart. She also believes that when you say please, you should get whatever you were asking for.

She's been such a mommy's girl until this last week and now she's adoring her daddy. It's so fun to watch them.

Jana is so protective of Kara. If anyone walks up to Kara in her car seat, Jana immediately runs over, kisses Kara on the head and declares "sis" or "sissy." I really don't want them to grow up any faster, but I really want them to be old enough to interact - you can tell Jana wants to play with her.


Here are some recent pictures of Jana:

This was the night we celebrated Grandma E's birthday. After delivering her card to Grandma, she wanted to help open presents, but was VERY unhappy when Grandma started putting the presents back into the boxes. Jana was horrified when the frosting stained her fingers blue. It sent her over the edge and a bath was the only thing to bring her back.

While she has a potty, we've done nothing with it yet. She loves to tote it around the house and sit on it (fully dressed). She does tell us when she's wet and poopy and she sometimes wakes from naps or in the morning completely dry. We'll give it a try and we'll see what happens. The most hilarious part of having the potty in the house now is this... seriously, where does this kid pick this up?

She's so big now that she can get herself on and off the rocking horse and Grandma and Grandpa E's house.

Even though she's so big, she loves Kara's toys. We caught her trying to climb into Kara's bouncer. She did fit, but when she rocked in it, she bounced nearly to the floor.

We discovered that Jana loves bubbles... or I should say that she loves that Maiya loves bubbles. Maiya chases the bubbles and bites them. In fact, she jumps into the air to catch the bubbles, which sends Jana into hysterics.

Swings are still her favorite. I can tell already that this kid is going to be a roller coaster kid!

She loves dress up. She has two aprons that she loves to wear. I was only able to get pictures of her in the one, but there's another one, too.


But it doesn't stop at the aprons. I put her in dresses for church on Sundays and today she did not want to take off her dress or tights. She just continued to twirl around in it. She was literally in this dress from 8 am until 7 pm when we changed her for bed. We can barely make it through a normal day in the same clothes, let a lone in a dress.


And lastly here is one of her and I after she sat and watched me get ready for my interview. I rarely wear make up, but oh how she was enthralled and loved my powder brush. Hee, hee.

The Pumpkin Patch

There is a wonderful farm not too far from us that we went to last year with Jana. They have it all - petting zoo, corn maze, kid's corn maze, zipline, playground, flower gardens.... You get the idea. But this year, Grandma and Grandpa E came too and we had a blast.

It was actually a gorgeous afternoon, but just a little on the crisp side. It was a bit crazy as there were kids everywhere, but Jana loved it.


Here she is with the goat. She had no interest in the goat and thought daddy was "yucky" after feeding the goat. She had this look on her face like, "are you crazy?"

She wasn't so sure about the "baby moos" either, but then again, neither were we: they didn't look too healthy.


Jana loved the teepee and after playing in it with "Gapa" she insisted on showing J and I.

They had a gigantic grain "sandbox-type thing." Here she is standing outside of it, watching all the other kids, deciding if she's brave enough to go in.

She certainly enjoyed all the new experiences, but once she discovered the playground - it was back to her old favorites: swing and slide.

A little family teeter-tautering.

Jana discovered their pedal tractors and insisted that daddy push her around the track, again and again.


And then she discovered the John Deer tricycle. And they were off for a few more laps.

She finally got brave and decided to play in the "tunnel."

A little family swinging.

Too bad Jana doesn't like the swings. ;-) Hee, hee! She was being so silly and opening her mouth up as wide as it was would go as she was swinging. She kept us all giggling.


Posing for a pic before going down the world's narrowest slides. Whewie! I love the look on Jana's face here. It almost looks like panic... but in fact she's upset with us for pausing for the picture because she wants to go down the slide.


We have a thing about cutouts like this (we used to put our dog in them whenever we saw them - that was a funny sight. J lifting a 60 lb. lab and sticking her head through a cut out. I'll have to post those pic some day.) But anyway, here is Kara Mae hanging out with some ghosts. Pardon my head in the picture; I discovered it was very hard to get her face in the hole while in the baby bjorn and hide my head at the same time.

And here's my big girl!


Jana giving us "cheeses" (her posed smile).


Once again, an attempt at getting the girls in a picture together.


Kara in yet another cutout - poor kid!


One more shot at another family picture before we headed into the store to buy the most amazing apples and Asian pears.