Kara's 2nd Birthday Party

Kara's birthday fell on a Saturday this year, so we were fortunate enough to be able to celebrate with a party on her actual birthday. Yay!

Our morning started fairly early - not as early as Daddy's though. Daddy was up around 5 am to get started on one of his fundraising rides for the LAF. He had 176 miles to ride, so he was up and out early.

Kara was in a great mood that morning and was proud to don her "It's my birthday!" beads.

After breakfast, we headed outside to go visit Daddy at the top of the hill (yes, he did 176 miles by riding around a .15 mile loop for the "100 miles of Nowhere" ride he participated in for his LiveStrong team: "Team Fatty.") When, we headed out the door, Kara - aka little monkey - just had to climb up on the patio furniture.
All ready to show off her Birthday beads to Daddy.

The girls were so funny chasing each other up the hill. Please notice the present in Jana's hands. She was so excited to pick out a present for Kara and helped me wrap it. She carried it around all day saying, "I have a present for Kara's birthday." We didn't realize until much later in the day that she was under the impression that it was a present for her for Kara's birthday. Oops! Good thing Kara doesn't mind.
The girls were so excited to wake up from their naps and see that Grammy had arrived; however, Maiya was just excited to see that Kara had a snack and tried to eat it.


Our happy little birthday girl.
Get the party started.


We were blessed with the arrival of many very special guests for Kara's celebration. Gramps and Glenna made the trip down from Olympia and the girls were so excited to see them.


And of course the girls were ecstatic with having Auntie (okay, soon to be) Jenny and Uncle Dave here.


After a lovely BBQ dinner, we opened presents. And, yes, "we" is fitting because it was a group effort. Jana was quite the helper (cough, cough) and Mama had to do quite a bit of helping too.



Our sweet girl (despite the bruises all of her cheek from deciding to try to keep up with Jana) playing with her Goofy bath toy that Jana picked out for her. It's been a winner!


And the great new cup from Auntie Meg and Uncle Sean.

Can you see a theme yet? Kara is obsessed with Mickey Mouse club house, so she got all kind of wonderful Minnie toys.
"A- Minnie" she tells us as she names all the characters that Uncle Patrick and Auntie Sarah got her.

"A-Daisy!"
Uh-oh time for a little cake and milk as the birthday girl is winding down.



Oh good, she's got a few more smiles left in her.

Thanks everyone for a wonderful day celebrating our sweet baby's 2nd birthday. We appreciate all that could join us and missed those that couldn't! Thank you!

Kara's 24th month.

My dear Kara Mae-

You are so stinking cute these days!!! You are so full of personality and such a sweet girl. It's so fun to see your little personality really take shape.

What a wonderful year we have had with you! I am astonished at how much change has happened in the last year. At 1, you were such a baby still, but now you are trying so hard to be a big girl.

A year ago you were just starting to crawl around and now you're running. You only had a few words and now you're talking in 4 or 5 word sentences. You have such a sweet personality - you are so happy and loving and yet sassy at the same time.

It's also fun to see how different you are from your sister, now that you're starting to express her own wants and preferences.
You have some pretty stinkin' cute sayings these days.
"A Mommy! Look at me!"
"I a ready a go Mama."
"I love you." (Very clear these days and unprompted too.)

You're such a snuggle bug still and I'm so glad you haven't lost that.

You love books. Your favorites are "Moo, Baa, La, la, la", "Blueberry Bunny" (which you recite perfectly on your own), and any book with Mickey or Minnie Mouse in it. You will also sneak away and sit in the little white chair reading the Little People pop up books.

Your favorite snacks are pretzels, fishies, and yogurt. If given the choice, you always choose a salty snack over a sweet one. You are still our meat eater. When eating pasta in meat sauce, you pick out all the meat first and then you'll eat the noodles. With toast, you eat all the crusts first - you eat around the outside, leaving the middle untouched.

You love to try to sing the ABCs and Twinkle Twinkle, but get stuck and then just start over.

You love to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. You love all the characters, but especially Minnie and Goofy. Your favorite one is "Goofy Baby." You ask to watch that one over and over.

You are still obsessed with shoes and "a jacket." We can only put jackets on you that have hoods because you insist on wearing all hoods up. If the jacket doesn't have a hood, you have a spectacular melt down. You also love to have your hair up in "piggies." We think you like how everyone compliments you on them. You put on any shoes you can find: yours, Jana's, Mama's - it doesn't matter.

Here she is in the car one morning. She wasn't so sure about being awake, yet, but being cute all the same.

Kara is set on trying to do everything that Jana does. They fight over the chair at the table without the booster seat all the time now. Apparently we need to take off Kara's booster seat. :-)


My sweet baby climbing on the rocks.

She's so curious about everything. She likes to watch and take everything in. Then she'll get a little braver...
and give it a bit of a taste test. Ewww!
She's getting so tall, too. We think she's pretty close to the same size that Jana was this time last year.
And here's our little birthday girl!


Happy 2nd Birthday my sweet girl! Thank you for two wonderful years. We love you so very, very much!

Funny Conversations with Jana

Oh the things out of the mouths of babes:

Jana: Mommy, is all my family here?
Mama: You'll get to see Gramps and Glenna today
Jana: Grandma is my grandma and Grandma is Daddy's Mommy. And Grammy is my Grammy and Grammy is your Mommy.
Mama: Yes, that's right.
Jana: So, who is Papa?
Mama: Papa is my Daddy.
Jana: Oooooh. I see.

At 5:15 am, when she needed to go to potty. (After waking up Mama by pounding on her door...):
Jana: Mama is it Kara's birthday today?
Mama: What ?!?!?!?!
Jana: Is it Kara's birthday today?
Mama: No, it's tomorrow.
Jana: Tomorrow when I wake up or tomorrow after sleepies?
Mama: Huh?
Jana: Why is it Kara's birthday?
Mama: Uhhh. Because it is.

Last night Jana and Mama went to the store to pick out a present that she will give to Kara for her birthday. It took her a while to pick out a present for Kara, because everything was, "well, I'd like to have this for myself." She settled on a Mickey Mouse bath toy (and a goofy one for herself, but shhh, we won't tell sis that they aren't both for her.)

Iris Festival 2009

Our town has a huge festival every year when the irises bloom. There's a parade, carnival, street fair, and all kinds of different events. Daddy participated in the street fair this year, providing information about LiveStrong and their survivorship support programs. Of course he did some fundraising as well. He had some wonderful conversations with people and people added links to the chain of people who have affected someone's life who has battled Cancer.

The girl had a wonderful time at the festival. Jana insisted on walking down to the rides, but decided that all of them were too scary! Hee, hee.

The two highlights of the festival for the girls was the music tent that was nice enough to provide music for the girls to dance to.


And the second was the rock sculpture/fountain, upon which the girls spent hours climbing.
Isn't it great to be a girl? One minute she's dancing and the next she climbing rocks!

Here's our little monkey climbing the rocks.


Monkey see, monkey do!

Jana doesn't have a whole lot of patience for Kara, so most of the time, as soon as Kara finally catches up, Jana's off again.

Kara was fascinated by the water and rocks.

And unfortunately we haven't outgrown the taste-testing phase. EWWWW!

Ah, our sweet girl!

Such concentration.
(By the way, this dress was one of Jana's favorites last summer. She insists on continuing to wear it, despite it being WAY too small. At least we can convince her to wear shorts under it.)

We were also able to go swimming with some friends and another time with Daddy as well as enjoy the weather by playing outside a ton. What a fun weekend!

Jana is 3 years, 3 months old

It seems like every time we turn around, Jana becomes more and more of big girl.

She's having a wonderful time at school and loves her friends.

This is Jana one minutes: sickeningly girly...
And the next, she's digging in the sand.
Oh my this child is full of personality. She's such a ham!

While she loves playing in the sandbox, she freaks out about bugs. She hates any insect that crawls, flies, wiggles or exists. She woke up in the middle of the night, a few weeks ago, hysterical because she had a dream that bugs were crawling on her.
Jana always wants to be "a helper." 9 times out of 10, it's not necessarily helping, but she is so proud of herself when she thinks she's helping. She is so excited about our garden. She is excited to do what she did last summer - pick the cherry and pear tomatoes and pop them in her mouth. Yum! I can't wait either.
Jana's so stinking sweet. She loves flowers and we're having trouble keeping her from picking flowers where ever she goes. There was a good patch of dandelions in the empty lot near our lot, so she decided to pick them. After picking them all (leaving none for poor Kara), she declared that they were for her friend "Auntie Meggy". The greatest part of all was that she refused to put them down and rode around the blog while holding the flowers... not to mention poor Carebear. Ever since Kara was a baby and I would wear her in the Baby Bjorn, Jana loves to put her "friends" in the front of her hoodie and carry them around.

Here's our little packrat - she loves to carry things with her where ever she goes. I don't think she's quite mastered the idea of possession because if she doesn't hold it in her hands, she struggles with the idea that it is still hers. So, she insists on carrying everything around - hence, the "friends" packed into the wagon. It was funny until Kara decided to crawl in with the "friends" and Jana freaked. Hee, hee.


Jana is fully entrenched in the "why?" phase. It's more than slightly amusing. My favorite (and very common) refrain:
"Mommy, who's car is that?"
"I don't know."
"Why don't you know?"
"Because I don't know everyone."
"I know everyone, Mommy. And everyone is my friend."

Hee, hee!

Here are some other favorite sayings this month:

"Be careful, Mommy. You don't want to break my muscles."

(When I play some of her music on my ipod...) "Mommy, when Daddy gets home, I need to tell him good job for getting my music on your ipod. Good job, Daddy!"

"I'm Jana Christine E*******. What's your name, Mommy?" (My response: Lindsay). Cracking up laughing: "No Mommy, you're Mommy and Daddy is Daddy!" (My response: What's Kara's whole name?) "I don't know. Sissy?"

"I miss my family. I miss Grammy and Papa, and Tyler and Justin, and their Mommy and Daddy, and Auntie Princess Kaley, and Grandma and Grandpa and ...." and yes she goes through everyone that she can think of.

"Mommy I smell something stinky. Kara, did you go poopy in your pants? Ewwwwww!"

"Mommy, I smell something yummy. I think it is... (something completely random, like...) a lemon or an orange or popcorn."

"I love you." (My response: "I love you.") "Oooh! I love you too, Mommy."

The things we're not so happy about her saying this month:

"Kara! Stop looking at me!" (And so it begins.)

"I'm a bad girl. I'm being naughty and making bad choices." (We chuckle at the "making bad choices", but can't figure out where she gets "I'm a bad girl." We don't say it at home and the teachers at school say they don't hear that from the other kids.)

Every night at bed time, Daddy asks Jana if she wants Mommy cuddles or Daddy cuddles. She always response with "Mommy cuddles"... except tonight. "Mommy, (sniffle, sniffle) Daddy was rubbing my forehead. I want Daddy to rub my forehead."

She's still a very sensitive girl and a sympathetic crier. We can tell when she's tired or hungry because she cries very easily. But at the same time, she gives amazing hugs and snuggles. She's become very affectionate lately. (I'm not complaining at all, but there was a time when it was torturous for us to hold her still long enough to get a hug.)

Good bye, Sweet Lexi!

We have been blessed, for almost two years, by having one of Mama's dearest friends move within two miles of us.

As young children, Suz and I dreamed of our futures: we'd both get married, be neighbors, and raise our kids together - the silly dreams of two little girls who have had the privilege of growing up together. Life took us to different schools for middle school and high school. College took us to different states. Through the process of growing up, growing apart, and growing back together again, our friendship has endured for almost 24 years.

Through an amazing twist of fate, Suz and her wonderful hubby came back to the Northwest - less than 2 miles from where we live. In the past almost 2 years (exactly one week short of two years), we have been near enough to share the birth of my second child, and the births of her two wonderful babes. I have been able to watch Alexis grow from an infant into a toddler, as well as meet her sweet baby brother, Jakob.

While this move is a wonderful opportunity for them, I'm very sad that they will be moving thousands of miles away.

I will miss my workout partners, garage sale-ing buddy, gardening mentor, and the girls will miss their playmate, Lexi (formerly "Weck-ski" and "Awexi"). I'm so grateful to have had this opportunity to share the last two years with them.

We headed over yesterday after naptime, for one last play date for the girls. While we had a few grumpy bears (a.k.a grumpuses) on our hands, bubbles seemed to be quite entertaining for them.


We desperately tried to get them to sit together for a picture, but we weren't so successful. With the bribe of some "chickies" crackers, we were able to get a few... of them sitting next to each other, stuffing their faces.

Then an airplane flew overhead and they were intrigued.

Bye Suz, Brad, Lexi, and Jake. We will miss you. We are all so glad we were able to share the wonders of what the last two years have brought us all. We've certainly enjoyed our time with you and wish we had more. Thank you for the wonderful friendships we've enjoyed! We love you all very much!