Kara: 2 years, 2 months

Our little monkey swinging on the railing on our way to Yellowstone.



My accessory girl with someone's gloves while on the trip.

Kara Mae looking too sweet at the wedding.

Daddy spoiled Mommy and brought the girls downtown to play at the park near Mommy's work during lunch time.



Kara LOVES the water.



Aren't these the greatest bribe-worthy pictures for when she becomes a teenager.


Another bribe-worthy picture.

My beautiful baby

Enjoying the sprinkler on a warm summer night.

Another bribe worthy picture on day 1 of attempt #1 at potty training.

A little fun this weekend!

Mama found a bike (intended for Kara) on Craigslist for $10. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a bigger frame than the bike we had for Jana... so, apparently Jana gets the new (to us) bike and Kara gets another hand-me-down. She doesn't seem to mind though.

Kara enjoying Jana's old bike.
Here's Jana on the new bike.

Jana's quite happy with the new bike.

We did this because Kara's now big enough to ride Jana's bike. She's sometimes getting the hang of pedaling, but at the end of the day, this is how it ends up... Jana ride and Kara running after her.

Since we're struggling with Jana napping, I've decided to try upping her activity level and see if that helps with her sleeping. So, we headed to the local park.

First, we hit the swings...




Then we enjoyed the rocking crocodile...



Off we headed to the grassy hill with the bridge.

Jana would run over the bridge and then throw herself down in the grass.

Then it was time for the big climber. Man, we have a couple of monkeys who like to climb.



What a fun weekend!!!

Jana: 3 years, 6th month

Ah, my sweet girl!


Really? She's 3 1/2?!?!?!?!?! How did that happen?

Mama's been home for two weeks now (hence the massive attempt to get caught up on here) and I feel like she's grown up so much in those two weeks... probably more that I didn't see it until now.

How sweet is our little girl?




Jana is waaaayyy into dancing right now. Any time she gets the chance, she dances. Sadly, she dances like her parents - badly. But oh how she loves it. I know that she would probably love to do some kind of dance class, but I have to admit that I'm a little scared that would make her girlier than she already is becoming. Yikes!







Oh and I can't forget to mention her "booty dance." I have no idea where she came up with this!!!

I have to say that she is becoming quite good with the camera, though. Check out this gorgeous picture she took of Kara.

She's become very aware of other kids and playing with them. She makes friends every time we got to a park, library, etc. Here she is with her new friend Makayla - Auntie Jenny's niece.

She's become quite the mimic. The day after Dave and Jenny's wedding, we caught Jana "playing the violin". So stinking cute!



Jana loves water, in all forms: creeks, rivers, pools, sprinklers.

Ah, yes. Little sassy pants posing for a picture before swim lessons.
Playing in the river while on vacation.

Here she's playing in the sprinkler in the backyard.
But, she especially loves the pool. She tolerates swim lessons, but her favorite is swimming with Mommy and Daddy. This was the last day of her swim class.









Jana and Breanna waiting their turn to go down the slide.

Here the go around the corner.
Climbing out to get her certificate from Goggle-Man.

She also is starting to get the idea of chores and being a helper. She decided to help Daddy paint the shed.




She wants to be big, but I'm so not ready for that. She soooo wants to be able to sit in the back seat of the van and use the seat belt.

This is a terrible picture, because I seem to never remember to get a picture of her, but here is both of our favorite outfit for her right now - and I wonder why she's getting girly!
Such a diva!
She does have a mind of her own, that's for sure. Here she is trying to direct us to take her somewhere she wants to go while on vacation.

She's now only napping every other day, but she has a hard time sleeping at night when she does nap. She now has the coolest reading light by the side of her bed and can read after bedtime if she's not sleepy yet. Unfortunately, sometimes that turns into hours and hours.

She really wants to start reading and write her own name, so on the non-napping days, those are the things we've been working on.

We've been very active the last few weeks. We swim a lot, go on lots of bike rides, and go to playgrounds as often as possible. I will say that it is getting easier to manage them at the same time.

Jana's newest saying that crack us up are:
"Kara's fine. She's just being a drama queen" (Oops!)
"I'm rambunctious today!"
"I'm so stylish."
"I need my sunglasses - I need to protect my eyes from the sun."

Oh, I love this kid!