Fun weekend with Gramps, Dave, and Jenny visiting

We had a fun weekend with nice weather and wonderful company: Gramps, Dave, and Jenny were in town.

On Saturday night, with Dave, Jenny, Meghan, and Shaun snowboarding and Grandma sick, we had Grampa and Gramps over for dinner. I was busy making dinner while Dada and Jana were outside playing. Kara had a container of puffs and was happily munching away while sitting on the floor. I heard the sliding door open from outside, then Kara squealed, and finally the door closed again. I thought that was Kara upset because she was out of puffs and was going to bring her more when I looked out the door and there was Jana with Kara's container of puffs. Little stinker.

And here's the little stinker herself, looking so innocent with Daddy.

I'm so sad this picture is blurry, so I'll need to get another one. This is Jana's version of "binoculars". (Thanks Diego).

Here's silly Kara Mae with her binkie backwards while getting her diaper changed.


Our little tech-girl thinks that anything that plays music is an ipod. So here she is carrying around Grampa's Ipod (really it's just a radio).

On Sunday, the boys were loading a bunch of things into the trailer to take to the storage unit, so we were outside. Jana decided she needed to help and was playing with rope.

Grampa had the great idea of tying one end on to Dave and Jenny's car, so Jana decided she needed to pull the car. She actually got a bit frustrated when the car wouldn't move.

Here's my pretty girl looking very girly! She saw that I bought her this tank top and insisted on wearing it. I managed to convince her to wear a shirt underneath it because it was not warm enough. She put on the shirt, spun around and announced that she was, "Princess Jana."


Silly goose figured out how to climb on the back of the couch and balance there.

And finally here is Jana with Max. He lives across the street from Gramma and Grampa. She had a good time with him, until he got too huggy. Then she insisted that I hold her. :-) Good girl. Keep those boys away.

What happens at Gramma and Grampa's stays at Gramma and Grampa's!

It's like one of those Vegas commercials.

I have always wondered what really goes on when I drop them off, but was always too scared to know for sure. Gramma and Grampa are wonderful and I know the girls are in such good hands, but Jana seems to find more to get into at their house than at ours.

But since I was subbing in the afternoons all week, the girls spent quite a bit of time over there this last week. And Gramma and Grampa decided to share the pictures....

Jana and Moosey riding the tractor across the kitchen floor while Jana was still in her pjs.


Queen of the Grampa Mountain! Hope you didn't really want to read that paper, Grampa!

Hmmmmm! Think we had some fun with the deck of cards? Also please notice the drawer of the table is open and things are sticking up out of the drawer - a sure sign that she's been rifling through it again.

Another angle on the devastation in wake of our beloved Toddler Tornado. (In case you don't know Gramma and Grampa, their house is always immaculate, so this picture is quite shocking to us all!) Who knew someone so little could make a mess so big!



And she's found the stickers!

Apparently Jana decided she wanted to feed Kara. Pairing a toddler who still struggles with the use of utensils at times, and a baby who wants to know what is going on in every corner of the room at all times, you can guess how this one is going to end.



The Line Up. You tell me who looks like the guilty party.

And finally, my favorite.

I arrived back at Gramma and Grampa's before Jana woke up. She started to make noise and I headed upstairs to get her. Grampa warned me before I got to the stairs that Jana took "two new friends to bed with her." Uh, oh! (Jana has been collecting new friends from Gramma's sheep collection and bringing them home when she refuses to part company with them.) Come to find out, the friends weren't sheep. They weren't stuffed animals at all. They were two rolls of toilet paper - fully wrapped. This is what greeted me as I went to retrieve Jana. There was a chorus of "Oh Grampa" sighed as we discovered the mess.

Thanks Gramma and Grampa for loving our wonderful girls so much and taking such wonderful care of us all! We love you very, very much.

Kara's 11th Month

Oh our baby is getting so big! This was a big month for her.

Kara is now prolific at scooting backward and actually intentionally goes from sitting to her belly, which is pretty amazing for the kid who hates being on her stomach.

Kara, finally, has her two top front teeth. The left one broke through a few weeks ago and the right one, just within the last few days. The next ones on top are just right below the surface, so we're hoping they break through soon. Dada is convinced that Kara has his mouth sensitivity because getting teeth seem to be pretty hard on her. Everything goes in her mouth right now.

Kara is also clapping now. She started doing it to the music on the TV show Jana was watching and now does it all the time.

We've also found the sure-fire way to get smiles and giggles out of Kara - have Jana do something silly. It's so cute to see how much joy Jana brings Kara. Today Kara flopped from sitting to on her back on the carpet. Jana decided she wanted to help Sissy get up, so she was trying to pull her up by hugging her. Kara, who had no desire to be sitting, was cracking up the whole time Jana was trying so hard to get her up.

Kara is a mama's girl through and through. She wants to be held most of the time and by mama as much as possible. She is very choosy with who she wants to be held by. There's only one person (sometimes two on a good day) that she'll let hold her at the gym. She spends most of her time wanting to be held by Gama when given the choice too. She loves her Daddy very much; in fact, he gets much bigger smiles than I do!

She's a cuddler! The best is when she snuggles her head under your chin when she gets tired. She'll do that and let me rock her before bed.

We're trying to expand her diet a bit. She likes baby food and likes chunky finger food; however, she does not like chunky baby food. We've tried some new things like shredded cheese, peas, and carrots. She, of course, loves cheerios and puffs, will eat diced pears, but has a hard time with different textures (she does not like the texture of peaches).

She also loves her tongue. She chews on it, loves to play with the texture of foods with it, and it's almost always out when she smiles.


She has this face that is our favorite. We've worked so hard to get it on video, but she's the kind of kid who stops what she's doing as soon as the camera comes out. We at least were able to catch the face in a picture, but your missing the quick sniffles in and out through the squished nose. It's the funniest thing to watch.
And here it is again.

Here is Kara playing with some of the toys at the indoor playground. She's starting to enjoy it more, but it's hard to play with a whole lot yet because she's not mobile.

She's getting more tolerant of hats. Daddy just put his hat on her and she didn't scream and immediately rip it off. It's good that she's getting used to them - she's going to have to wear hats all summer, my little fair skinned cueball!

Here she is getting ready to go outside on our 80 degree day. Here's the scary thing about this picture... this is the same outfit that Jana wore all last spring and summer (14 months through 18 months) and Kara fits into it now.


There's that silly tongue again.


How blessed we are each day to spend it with these amazing little girls!

Funny Moments

Apparently I'm a little sappy and not wanting to clean, so I wanted to share some funny moments lately with our girls.

Kara's had both teeth front teeth finally break through, but the next ones on each side are visible and so close to breaking through too. Because of this, she's been a bit of a crank pot; her teeth really bother her. Also, she chews on everything! We have to be really careful because EVERYTHING within reach goes into her mouth. Here she is at Gama and Gapa's. She found the beads after Jana was done wearing them.


When the stomach bug hit our house last week, we pulled up the rug and covered the couch with a sheet, to help protect things from the fountain of puke! This sheet is a bit "crispy" and slick, so Kara slid as soon as she wiggled. She managed to slip onto her side, but then didn't know what to do from there.

Auntie Meg watched the girls this week while Mama had to work. She was so impressed at how Jana lets you play with her hair while she eats her breakfast. Meg had a wonderful time and here was the result.


Last year we looked at these little kid chairs and tables. So we went to Target the other day and decided to finally get them. She decided she needed to set them up in the familyroom.

She set up a chair for Pooh and then sat down.


Every few visits to Gama and Gapa's Jana insists on bringing a friend home with her. They usually make it back there, but I'm not sure this one is going to return without a fight. This is "Gama's baa." As you can see, Baa needed to be carried like Mama carries Kara in the Baby Bjorn. I don't know if you can see Baa peeking out of the top of the zipper of her hoody.

Kara is semi-mobile. Does she crawl? Not forward. She is a pro at scooting backward and is starting to figure out how to get places by going backward and then turning around. :-) She is also rolling around the floor now. Yes, I realize most babies do this much earlier, but now that she wants to be mobile, she's using whatever means necessary to get to what she wants.

She started on the rug, but dumped her container of toys out of reach, so she flopped herself back and forth to reach them, taking blankie along for the ride.
And finally, from today, Jana wanted to play with her balls, so we got out her balls. She was in a mood, to say the least, if you can't tell from the shades and hat that she just had to have.


Maiya promptly grabbed Jana's Dora ball (the one she already popped) and was chewing on it. Mama took in away and corrected Maiya by reminding her, "that's not your ball." Well little Miss Thing then decided it was her job to continue correcting Maiya by getting in her face and scolding her, "Not yours Maiya!" Thank goodness for a patient pup!

What month is this?

Last Sunday:




This Sunday: Yes, that is snow! We came downstairs this morning to find it snowing so hard - real snow showers.

Kara Mae claps

Here is what our little one surprised us with today!

Jana: 2 years, 2nd month

I always feared 2 because of the title of "the terrible twos". While there are the terrible fits, there is also the emergence of an amazing little personality.

Her vocabulary is amazing and we're floored by what her little brain comes up with.

When she's trying to think of what she wants, she'll say "How be bout...." (How about)
She makes all the sounds, without help and in perfect rhythm, when we read "Mr. Brown Can Moo."
When I come home from work or when she gets up from her naps she says in this voice that melts my heart, "I missed you so much."
We're finally getting "I love you so much."
If you ask her to be quiet, she puts her finger to her lips and says in the cutest whisper, "Shhh. ___ is seeping (sleeping)." Most of the time she says Maiya, who's always sleeping, but if she knows anyone else is sleeping (Kara, Mommy, or Daddy), she'll use their name instead.
She still pronounces her name "Gee naa" (with the g pronounced like get)


While Jana hasn't been an overtly cuddly girl, she is such a sweetheart. When she loves people (and her stuffed friends), she loves them so much. Here she is loving on Arianna during our visit.

She's very interested in what big people are doing, so she's wanting to "help" with anything we're doing. Here she is helping me cook by playing with the spices.

If left to her own choices for activities, I think she'd be playing with water until her pruney little fingers hurt. She loves to "wash a hands". We've been trying to incorporate her into our daily chores, so she helps us wash dishes sometimes too.

She's also becoming a master of stairs. I know at 2, she should be having no trouble with stairs, but when the stair height is the same as the length as your shin, going down stairs is a bit of a challenge. She loves to show off how big she is by walking up the stairs.

She's still eating pretty well despite becoming two (knock on wood). Her favorites are yogurt, grapes, strawberries, Cheerios, "Dilla" (veggie quesadilla), "cheese sandwich" (grilled cheese), hot dog with ketchup, or anything bread. "Pizza Steve" (pizza, with a reference to the movie Multiplicity - thanks Dada) is still a top choice and pasta is rarely turned down. Heres' my little messy marvin with a pasta sauce smile.


She is less tolerant of sitting while she eats and wants to eat on the move now - who are we kidding, she just doesn't want to stop moving for any reason. And she wants to eat "big" food. This means that things can't be cut up as small anymore or she gets upset. "Big hotdog" means a hot dog not cut up, and "big cheese" means the whole stick of string cheese. Here she's cramming in a third of a banana.
And now that she can reach the counters, we're having to rethink our baby-proofing strategies. She didn't believe me when I said the banana was all gone, so she's checking the peel.


Occasionally we get treated with some fabulous cuddles. She asked if she could climb in with Daddy. It was short-lived, but who doesn't love some cuddles from your favorite toddler?!?!
All these pictures are from the same day (the pink shirt and overalls day). While the overalls were on their first wear, we discovered that they aren't going to work for Jana. Why do you ask? Because she can get them off and after a few quiet moments, this was how we found Jana. "Nakedy Girl" and "Nakedy Bunny".

We've been trying to spend more time getting Jana's energy out during the day, so we took a trip to the indoor playground. The cutest part of this picture is that she's playing peek a boo with Kara - who I was sitting by me.

She's finally decided that she likes the sandbox again. It's been a while since she's played in there.

Oh the joys of the bouncy house! She LOVES to play in it. She hasn't gotten the hang of jumping and being able stay on her feet, but she loves to try to run/jump until she falls over.

Running across the bouncy house.

We had a beautiful 80 degree day over the weekend and Jana did not want to spend any time inside. Her shopping cart was in the garage, so she walked around the neighborhood with assorted things she found, placed in her shopping cart. She found my water bottle, "a mommy bottle" and it needed to ride in the seat of the cart.

Her favorite thing to do is to go to the top corner of our backyard, yell "ready, set, jump", jump off the blocks, yell "a-run, run, run" as she runs down the grass and down the ramp for the lawn mower.

And here is the silly goose bear-crawling across the lawn.