Halloween 2009

Jana decided months ago that she wanted to be a dalmation. Then, after we purchased the costume, she changed her mind and wanted to be Tinkerbell. Thankfully she went back to the dalmation idea. Kara wasn't too sure of what she wanted to be, but was happy to go with the idea of being a lion - a hand-me-down from Jana. Sadly, I didn't try it on her until this afternoon and it was WAY too small. Oops! She was quite content to be a butterfly instead (yet another hand-me-down). All night she kept telling everyone that she had shiny wings. :-) Silly kid.

Here they are all ready to go.

We first headed to a local high school that does a "Safe Halloween" where kids can trick or treat through the hallways. It was VERY well done and the high schoolers did a great job decorating and dressing up. They had themes and had Alice in Wonderland, Where the Wild Things Are, House of Mouse, Good Night Moon... It was very cute and very well done and it was about as much trick or treating as the girls could handle.

Then we headed to Grandma and Grandpa's for some pizza and handing out candy.


Can you tell they were tired of taking pictures?!?!?
We even headed to a friend of Mommy's house to trick or treat and the girls were hilarious with their decorations. Kara kept wanting to climb on this stuffed giraffe.

Daddy and Mommy had way too much fun with the pumpkins this year. The girls picked out what they wanted and helped me design the silly pumpkin face, and Jana did the Mr. Pumpkin (Potato)head, but other than that, it was up to Daddy and Mommy to finish the pumpkins.
Mommy's masterpiece

Daddy's amazing Snoopy!Snoopy all lit up.
Kara wanted Pooh.

And Jana wanted the Word World characters. Here's sheep. Apparently I didn't get a picture of the rest of them. I'll have to go back and do that.

Jana: 2 years, 8 months

Jana's greatest "plaything" these days is Kara. They love to play together. They are so funny about playing together and Jana insists on giving Kara hugs all the time. She gets quite insistent and gets quite upset if Kara doesn't reciprocate the hugs.
We went on a walk/bike ride and they started posing on top of the rock pile.
Jana's looking more and more like such a big girl. She did get her hair cut short and that has made a big difference in how old she looks.


She also seems to have Mommy's grace too!
Jana also started writing her name this month. She hasn't been too keen on writing because she hasn't wanted to do it well, but here it is for the first time for us!

Pumpkin Patch 2009

This last weekend we headed to our favorite farm to get some pumpkins, apple cider, apples, and a treat of apple cider doughnuts. Mmmmmm!

We met the whole gang up there and the kids had a blast.

First, of course, was a stop at the playground and the swings.

Here's Ari being silly in the swings.

Jana loved the horse-shaped tire swing.

And of course Kara Mae loved the swings as well.

Jana managed to swing right out of her boots. Hee, hee.
The girls swinging away.

Quenton got lots of snuggle time as we all took turns carrying him. Here's Grandpa and his boy!

There was much to look at and Ari took it all in.

Baby Q didn't seem too sure of the animals, but enjoyed the sights.
The little girls loved the baby goats. "They're sooo cute!" Kara kept exclaiming.

Kara didn't think the pigs were as cute as she kept calling them "dirty" and "stinky ".

And what trip to Baumann's would be complete without some pictures in the cutouts!

Here's the too-sweet-for-words Baby Q!
And Kara Mae.

Jana and Kara together

And all the grandkids together!

Then it was off to find the perfect pumpkins. We unfortunately started with the really big ones. Kara got inspired to give Ari a big hug and a "squeeeeeeze."
And then Jana had to join in, of course.
Then Jana was off to climb the hay bales.

And Ari and Kara posed by the REALLY big pumpkins! Such cheese-balls!

Proud Parents

Oh my goodness!!! Jana amazes us.

Today she requested to play her letter bingo game after Kara went down for her nap. So, we started playing, but she quickly lost interest. She requested to read the little books that came with it. They work on the short vowel sounds. We read the "Pets bed" book first and practiced sounding out many of the words, then practiced pointing out the same words over and over again (bed and red). Then she wanted to read the "Pig Sits" book. She opened the first page and sounded out the words. She read the first three pages to me without any help.

Holy moly!!!

I'm in awe. I know kids get bitten by the reading bug at different times, but I didn't know it could happen at 3 and 1/2.

We aren't totally surprised that she did it today because she's been practicing sounding things out and spelling things, but it's still amazing. This morning she heard me say the word "seven" and she sounded it out and then spelled it back to me. Yikes!

I'm so proud of her and so astonished!! Phew we're going to have our hands full at this rate. She still has two years before she's in Kindergarten. Yikes!

Kara: 2 years, 4th month

She is such a different kid these days! While we still have temper tantrums, usually as a result of Maiya going after her food or Jana taking a toy, they are far fewer. Her speech has taken off. We got a note the other day from her school saying that she does a wonderful job of using her words to communicate what she needs. :-) She also has started saying, "Oh (daddy or mommy)! I'm so happy to see you!" Talk about making a person feel good.

Her hair is finally growing. It's getting longer in the back, but the front is still shorter. However, oh my do we get some spectacular morning/nap hair!


She's such a happy and sweet kid!

She loves people watching. I think she was watching our friend Noah from across the room.

She's becoming so big. She's made the transition to the toddler bed. No more cribs in this house. Sniffle, sniffle!

We've had some big battles lately over the sandbo. Kara likes to throw sand and eat it. Ewwww! So we often have to close up the sandbox or sit with them to prevent sand from getting into every crack and crevice.

We had the pleasure of spending some time with Lexi while they were moving out of their house. The girls had a blast!

Kara's a total ham these days. We were able to see some of Mommy's old teaching friends and boy, did she turn on the charm. Here she is hamming it up for everyone!

And here are the girls on Kara's first day of school - the first day that both girls were there.

She did great. As you can see, she was off and playing as soon as we got in the room. She only had one minor meltdown - when she saw Jana on the playground. After a few days of crying every time she saw Jana outside, they adjusted the schedule so they aren't out at the same time. :-)