Happy Sunday to ya :)

 

Karlie loves her kitty!

I thought that Karis was obsessed with her kitty, but I don't think it started as early as with Karlie. Karlie will seriously kick and squeal and roll and try her hardest to crawl to the kitty if she catches a glimpse of him. And then she completely falls apart if he walks away from her. I mean, major meltdown. The other day, I put Karlie down for a nap and left the house for a quick errand. Unfortunately, she woke up right as I was pulling out of the driveway and when she wakes up, she wants to eat whether its time or not! So poor Daddy had a hysterical baby on his hands, but as soon as she saw the kitty she started squealing and laughing and was happy enough for him to even get some phone calls made. Oh, and I generally do not allow her to eat the kitty but since I was taping her I thought it would make for a funny memory. Be assured that I cleaned all the cat fur out of her mouth as soon as I set the camera down :) Oh, and the cat loves Karlie, too. In these pics, the cat actually came and snuggled up to Karlie, not the other way around :)

Sitting pretty :)

After trying so hard all weekend, Karlie is finally able to sit up all by herself long enough for me to take a couple of pictures.... but as you can tell in the 2nd pic, I have to be close enough to catch her if she decides to topple over :) She first looks so surprised that she can do it and then she gets excited and starts bouncing around, which causes her to fall :)

Fun on Papa's swing!

My girls had so much fun playing on Papa's swing set this weekend!

Happy 4th of July!

We have had such a fun 4th of July! Lots of fun times with the family and tons of pictures (just a friendly warning :)
Did you ever think Mark and I would end up with such a blue-eyed, blonde-haired angel? :) She may not be brown like the rest of us, but we sure do love her!

Sweet Karlie Sue enjoyed hanging out on Mama while we played outside

Although she refused to smile in this picture, Karis thought Jack was the greatest thing ever!

And of course Lily ("Wiwwy" according to Karis :) and Mark had a great time together :)

Emily enjoyed some snuggling and drool from Karlie

And lots more pics to come!

Learning about nutrition -- a new favorite book!

Most of you know that I've gotten really interested in nutrition ever since Karis started eating food. The most thorough book in that arena is Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and I highly recommend it. I learned so much from reading it and it totally changed my mindset about food. However, it is long and a little overwhelming. It makes you want to completely change your diet, but its just too much to do at once. So it should be on your reading list, but just not the first book you pick up. There are a couple of others I'd recommend first:

Another one of my favorite books is Eat Fat, Lose Fat by Mary Enig. This book is an easy read and is awesome! It explains why the current low-fat diet is so bad for you and why your body needs "good fats" like high quality coconut oil, olive oil, and butter. And guess what? Eggs are awesome, too! (See why I like this book? :) The book also contains a bunch of good recipes that I use regularly, especially the cereal and granola recipes. I'd recommend this book to anyone, whether he wants to lose weight or not!

I've just discovered a new favorite author: Nina Planck. She wrote 2 books about nutrition that are easy to read, thorough, and actually make you feel like eating healthily is feasible. These are the 2 books I'd recommend anyone start with. Real Food: What to Eat and Why is the best nutrition book I've read for someone just learning about nutrition. She is honest about her journey to understanding nutrition and very personable and understanding. My only complaint is that she comes from somewhat of an evolutionary mindset, but her research is good nonetheless.

Real Food for Mother and Baby: The Fertility Diet, Eating for Two, and Baby's First Foods is a book I wish I had read before I ever even tried to get pregnant. Did you know that your body actually needs fat in order to conceive? Or that soy products can cause infertility? Or that pregnant women need meat and salt, not iron supplements? Delaying the introduction of certain solid foods doesn’t prevent allergies. Cereals are not the best foods for tiny eaters; meat and egg yolks are better. From conception to two years, the body’s overwhelming needs are for quality fat and protein, not for carrots and low-fat dairy. Yep, I learned a lot from this book and cannot recommend it highly enough if you are thinking about getting pregnant or have a baby under 2 years. Its my new favorite book!

why a little girl "needs" so many bathing suits....

You may have noticed that Karis has had on a different bathing suit in each water post.... ummm.... yes, she has about nine of them... (Did I really admit that?) ummm... yes, I'm a little obsessive (call me a sucker :) about cute bathing suits. But lest you think I'm entirely frivolous, half of them were given to her, most of them only cost a dollar at an awesome consigment sale, and the few remaining were bought on clearance last year before I knew I would be finding so many great deals at the consignment sale! Anyways, I just had to show you these pics to say that we are pretty rough on our bathing suits -- we wear them all the time to do nearly everything! And of course because I love her sweet smile:)

I love my laughing girl!

...I can't help but laugh every time I watch this video of Karlie laughing so hard :)

More fun in the sun!

Last year I found this Elmo sprinkler on clearance and it sure has come in handy during this hot weather! As you can see in the pictures, both Karis and Pup-pup really enjoy it :)







Karlie likes being outside, too!

Big girl at the mall

We took the girls to the mall the other day (which, honestly, I can't remember the last time Karis was at the mall :) and Daddy had the crazy idea to let my 2- year old get out of her stroller to push it (yep, I thought he was crazy and told him he would have to chase her all over the place! :) She actually surprised me and did very well, being super excited about pushing the stroller. She never tried to run away except when she saw BABIES! My goodness, you'd think the child had never seen a baby before! She'd scream "BABY!!!!!" and take off after the stroller. It was pretty funny, though, to see peoples' reactions as she (and Daddy) ran over to see the babies. Some people smiled and talked to her and some people ignored her completely (how they can do that, I have no idea!) Anyways, it was great fun seeing her wonder and amazement at all the people and displays. She especially loved the little rock waterfall outside.

Congrats Daddy!

Daddy loves tennis and has really enjoyed our local tennis association. He's been playing with them ever since we moved to the area. This season, he decided to play in a team doubles tournament, something he'd never done before. Guess what? His team won! And they put his picture in the paper last week to congratulate him, along with his fabulous teammates. So I just had to brag a bit :)

(Sorry these pics are so tiny -- I downloaded them from the tennis website and don't know how to make them any bigger)

Friday from Karis

Since Karis is still talking about our crazy day Friday, I thought I'd let her tell you about it:

"car? No. Soccer? no. Daddy? no. More soccer? no. Side? Yes! Water!!!!!!! Kitty hurt. (very sad face) Sssssssssssssss. (mean look) Poor Kitty. Doctor! Dogguh, *smooch*. Happy Kitty. Yay! Soccer! Daddy!

Translation: On Friday, I got the girls all ready for soccer and strapped Karlie in her carseat, only to find the car wouldn't start (we needed a new battery). Karis was very sad to miss sccer with Daddy. So we went outside instead. It was too hot to play, so I stripped her down and let her run through the hose. We went back inside and found a very unhappy kitty with a really swollen face. He needed to go to the vet, but I couldn't take him because the car wouldn't start!!! Daddy came home on lunch break, jumped the car, and dropped the kitty off at the vet. Karis was VERY worried about the kitty. The vet called and told us the kitty had been bitten by a snake but was going to make it. We went to pick up the kitty that afternoon at the vet's. Karis had a lot of fun seeing a dogs and fish. Kitty was doped up on medicine but a lot happier. We decided to meet Daddy at work before going out to eat and played with Daddy on the soccer field. What a day!

And Karis finds the day so exciting that she will ask me to tell it over and over... she'll say Kitty? Doctor? ssssssss? and then we go through the whole story from start to finish.... over and over and over.... it never grows old to her :)

Happy Father's Day!!

Yeah, I know -- its the "We're waaay late for a nap and the camera has a smudge on the lense" kind of picture. But I wanted to get one pic of my girls with their Daddy on Father's Day and I caught them on top of him while I was fixing lunch after church :)

Oh, and the girls just wanted me to tell Daddy thanks for all the tickles, dances, diaper changes, bedtime stories, unhealthy treats (ha, ha, Karis always tells on him :), crazy fun, lots of outside time, and the best hugs ever.

And I wanted to say thanks for helping with all the housework that I just can't seem to keep up with, giving me a chance to actually take a shower, loving my girls so incredibly much and being willing to do anything for them, and much more that I would write if my toddler wasn't screaming to get up right now.

We love you Daddy!

"More Jesus?"

I love having Karis in the church service with us (although I'll admit its a LOT of work :)because she will randomly pick up words or phrases that stick in her head and pop out unexpectedly later on. For instance, a couple of weeks ago, the teacher said the word "holy." She repeated it excitedly right in the midle of service, and then the next day she got really excited when she heard it in a song on one of her favorite CD's. Now several times a day she asks me to sing Holy, Holy, Holy with her, a song that never interested her before hearing the word at church. And it is just so precious to hear the way she says "howy? howy? Mama, Howy!!!!" when she wants me to sing it with her. We cannot swing outside in her playset without singing it at least 5 times now :)

This Sunday, "Jesus" was the word that stuck out to her. She repeated it after she heard it, and then that afternoon realized that it is in many of her favorite songs. There is one song in particular that she has always loved that goes, "...my little heart has a great big love, a great big love for Jesus!" She has always loved to dance to it, but now has me play it over and over. And do you know how she asks for it? "More Jesus! More Jesus!" Music to my ears :)

Karlie Sue at 5 months

Ahh, Sweet Karlie Sue! I really can't believe that she is already 5 months old. I thought time passed quickly with Karis, but it was nothing like this :)

Karlie is such a happy little baby. She pretty much squeals with joy the entire time she is awake until she starts getting tired, at which point Mama better be nearby to pick her up :) She entertains herself really well in her excersaucer and playmat, especially if the dog, cat, Daddy, or Karis are nearby to watch. She is utterly fascinated with all 4 of them. She rolls all around just for fun. Karis was rolling over at this stage, but she never really kept going to the point where she was mobile. But I wouldn't be surprised if Karlie took up rolling across the room before she learns to crawl because she seems to enjoy it so much. Karlie wants so badly to be able to sit up, but it only lasts a second before doing a funny faceplant into her toes. But that's ok, because toes are evidently quite delicious. (Especially if they have cocconut oil on them, which is what Mama uses for lotioning her babies :)

Sleep: Karlie had a two-week span where she was waking up every 2-3 hours at night to eat. I indulged her for several days, thinking maybe it was a growth spurt or her gums were bothering her. Then I stopped t he feedings and just giving her the paci. She got over it and now usually sleeps a total of around 12 hours, usually waking up just once in the middle to eat. I am so excited that her wake-up time is normally around 9:00 am! Karis has NEVER slept past 8:00 and sleeping past 7am has only been in the past couple of months. So I'm pretty happy with Karlie's current schedule, but not naive enough to think it will last :) Especially because I know we will have to take her out of the swaddle before long. I tried it for a day, and she was doing pretty well, but then Karis got really sick and I couldn't handle both issues at once and gave it up. She sleeps so well in the swaddle that I just hate to mess it up!

Nursing: Going really well, other than the fact that Karlie is at the point where she is easily distracted and its not like I can hide her in her room to nurse. Nope, Karis is pretty much always a willing distraction :) So some feedings are really short, but I figure she makes up for it another time.

Teeth: Oh, she is working on her bottom two teeth so hard! She has been soaking her shirts and chewing on anything she can get her hands on for a month now, so I sure hope they pop out soon and give her a break.

A random assortment

Daddy managed to get both of them to stay on his lap for a good 2.5 seconds :)



...Umm, are you supposed to be sitting there Karis?

That's better :)
my dancing soccer diva :)

I could eat her up :)
Yep, she's into hats these days :)

Very excited (and a little timid) to have a big pet turtle (he comes to visit every time it storms; we live near a pond )

The "Not me" gold medal

Ok, I can hardly type because I am laughing so hard at myself --this is undoubtedly one of the funniest things I ever did NOT do:

I did NOT just go to change Karlie's diaper and find that I had put a diaper on her without taking off her dirty one. I definitely did NOT unbutton her onesie and see the cloth diaper I had put on her an hour ago and unsnap that diaper and find the real diaper I had put on earlier in the day. It was NOT the fattest diaper ever since it had been on her all afternoon. I did NOT immediately call my Mom and find it impossible to tell her what I did NOT do because I was laughing so hysterically. I did NOT blame it entirely on Karis, who was NOT thoroughly distracting me by tearing the house apart when I was previously changing Karlie. I am NOT going to go to bed earlier tonight to make sure I don't do anything like this again!

sprinkler fun!!

When we went to visit Nina and Papa last weekend, they set up a really cool sprinkler for Karis to play with. She had the time of her life! I know that this post will probably take the prize for the most pictures ever, but I just loved them all and couldn't delete any of them :)

Karis at 2 years

Better late than never, right? This post is the last of my monthly updates. I plan to put them all in a book like this for her. (We made a 12x12 one for our 2008 family scrapbook and I highly recommend it -- I used to do Creative Memories but this is so much easier and since I have horrible handwriting it looks so much better :) I'll probably do bi-yearly updates on Karis from now on and when she is 10 (hard to think of that now!!!!) make a book out of those.

Have I really been a Mama to this precious girl for 2 years now? I am NOT going to get all emotional about it but I will simply include a couple pics from her 1st birthday so you can see how much she has changed in a year :)

At 2 years, Karis is the most fun, sweet, hilarious, and cute little 2-year old I've ever met! (I know, I know, but a Mama's allowed to be a little biased :) She loves her sister and other "babies" more than anything and her days are pretty much filled with taking care of them all. She will literally spend a hours or more chatting to her babies, bringing them toys, swinging them, dancing with them, and showing me their new "tricks" (like soccer stretches, etc :)

Did I mention chattering? This girl talks ALL DAY LONG, non-stop. Its a hilarious speech, very fast, never ending, with lots of emotions, sqeals, tone changes, and hand motions. Its a hilarious combination of jibber-jabber and "real words." It is undoubtedly the funniest and longest monologue I've ever heard in my life. Its been so much fun to hear her jibber jabber slowly gain more and more "real words." Karis had what I call a "brain spurt" right when she turned 18 months where she was picking up a handful of words every day. It happened again at 2 years and suddenly she can say anything. And I mean anything. We've learned a lot about how we talk the past couple of weeks. I evidently say "thanks" instead of "thank you," our dog is often called "bad dog" (ha, ha:), and I must say our pets are "silly" a lot because right now everything, whether alive or not often gets the title "silly." Today she put a hat on my head, laughed, and said "silly Mama!"

Physically, she is such a big girl now! Karis only has one speed, and that is full speed ahead! She runs so fast, no matter what the footing or what is in her way, and therefore has had the "perpetual knee bandaid" ever since it became too hot to wear pants. She can swing by herself and climb the bars to the slide all by herself and pretty much thinks she can climb anywhere. It is absolutely hilarious to watch her get excited about "jumping." Karis loves her soccer class and although she refuses to actually kick the ball in the goal, she has fun kicking the ball everywhere else and doing all her soccer exercises (she does the "butterfly" in all kinds of random situations just to pass the time and just ask her to show you how to wave her foot at 'cha :). She is, however, timid to try things in new situations and it is fun to watch her slowly warm up to people and new places.

Believe it or not, I think discipline was actually a lot more difficult a few months ago. She still does her own thing sometimes, and will scream when she doesn't get her way, but she usually stops fairly quickly when reprimanded. Our biggest problem is probably just to get her to stop talking during church, ha, ha. The girl loves to talk! I'm sure in a couple of months she will go through another "testing phase" but I am really enjoying her bubbly cooperative self right now.

I think (pray) that we've finally passed the picky eater stage! Ok, not completely, but at least she is willing to try new foods if she is not tired or grumpy. And she even likes veggies, sometimes more than her main dish! Her current favorite foods include: crispy almonds, applesauce, cream cheese, pizza, currents, frozen mini-muffins (yep, she will eat them right out of the freezer :), broccoli, ice cream/ smoothies, coconut oil candy, and french toast.

newsflash!

Evidently "baby" has a new name! See that baby that she is holding? Yeah, that's her favorite. Yesterday we realized that Karis keeps calling her favorite dolly "her baby." When I go to put her down for a nap, she begs for "her baby" When she falls down, she begs for "her baby." If she can't find her, we hear "Her? Her? Her baby? "Her?" (And no, she never says "my baby" :) Its pretty funny to listen to. I guess she has overheard Mark and I saying we have to go find her baby for her waaay too many times :) But I guess it makes sense because it falls nicely within our range of uncreative names (Pup-pup, Blackie, More Baby, etc :)

Lookalikes?

I had originally thought that Karlie looked pretty different from Karis, but as Karlie is getting older, I think she is looking more like her sister, especially in this picture.... or maybe its just that I keep putting them in matching clothes... :)

My laughing girl

Karlie does this pretty much every evening, so we finally thought about video taping part of it so we can always remember :)

Guess this book...

If a toddler begged and pleaded for the "kitty-fish-uh-oh" book, what popular kids' book would you search desperately to find?

I've decided to start recording the cute things Karis says on this blog (hope you don't mind :) I wish I would have started a long time ago when she first started talking because she makes me laugh so hard on a daily basis. So I'm going to label them "cute conversations" so I can find them easily any time I need something to make me smile. I won't always put a picture with it, though (*Gasp!) I plan to keep it short and sweet (can I really do short? ha,ha :)

But today a had a random pic of Mark playing micro machines with his girl and couldn't help but post it because I want to remember how excited she was about them :)

And in case you were wondering, the "kitty-fish-uh-oh" book that Karis wanted so desperately to read was The Cat In The Hat. Took me a while, but I finally alleviated the tears and figured out what she was talking about :)

more pink bows...

My parents' church has a pretty little gazebo so of course we had to take pics of the girls in their pretty dresses that Papa and Grandma found for them :)

What do you know? And will you share it?

Some of my friends from back home started a website that has really been encouraging to me. It's called the 5.2 project. Basically, its a place for everyone to share what you know about God and what he has done in your life. My friend Lauren gave an excellent description of the project HERE. So I'm just going to tell you how it has encouraged me...

So I subscribed to their I know blog... And this morning I read about 15 different posts from people all over the place telling me what they know about God and what He has done in their lives. And guess what? It has made me think more about what I know about God! Its been on my mind all day long! And that's a good thing! Its also made me think of how to share that with others, which is not really something that I am good at. I know God loves me. I know He has blessed me with a precious family and that He provides for us in ways I couldn't have ever imagined. How often do I give Him the glory for that and so many other amazing things that I know about Him?

The Day by Day blog is a blog where you can share what God has been teaching you in daily life. The Journal has practical tips, recipes, ideas, and encouragement for women. There is even a page for kids as well. EVERYONE is encouraged to share what they know about God!

The cool thing about this website is that it is not just for reading; you can encourage others as well by sharing what you know about God and what He has taught you. So what do you know about God? And will you share it?

Not-Me-Monday 6-2-09

This is NOT the first time in 3 weeks that I've actually written a "not-me" post on an actual Monday :) I do NOT have a lot of catching up to do :) Bear with me....

I did NOT give up potty training after 3 days because after being excited about running around naked and sprinkling a trail to the potty for 2 days, Karis decided that she suddenly hated the potty :) Not me; I wouldn't give up that easily! And I definitely would NOT have been relieved to have an excuse to wait another month or so before I have to remember to ask her if she needs to potty every few minutes:)

I did NOT buy my husband a super large ice cream cake for his birthday just so that we would have lots of leftovers. Because that would really be a waste of money. And if I did, I certainly would not have eaten a huge piece every single night for 5 days straight! Not me! Because that would completely go against my nutrition fettish :)

Speaking of nutrition, I do NOT read way too many nutrition blogs. And even if I did, I would NEVER have a real nightmare that I read the ingredients of my natural butter and it contained only soybean oil. And even if I did dream that, it would NOT bother me so much that I had to check the label as soon as I remembered my dream to make sure it was only a dream!

I am NOT shedding more hair than my dog and cat combined (thanks to crazy breastfeeding hormones :) and even if I were, it would NOT bother me tremendously because I remember that the same thing happened when I nursed Karis....

I do NOT absolutely LOVE the way Karis calls my parents' kitties "Hiney" and "Peences" instead of Honey and Princess and even if I thought that was cute, I would NEVER laugh hysterically when she adds an "h" to the word "sit."

I would NEVER allow my husband to use a humongous safety pin on Karlie's swaddle because the crazy baby keeps kicking free of it and waking herself up 15 times a night. That wouldn't be safe, right?

My husband did NOT put Karis' clothes on backwards this morning and even if he did, I surely would have changed it back to normal sometime over the course of the day, right?


And then there is our trip to VA this past weekend....

I did NOT let Karis play with my cell phone as I was strapping Karlie into the carseat as we walked out of the door because she was fussing for it. And even if I did reward that kind of behavior just once, she could NOT have totally lost it in our *perfectly clean house* in a matter of seconds. I did NOT realize this fact immediately upon finally getting both girls and all our stuff into the car and have to run back and search the house, leaving the girls strapped in. I did NOT then search the entire car and then the house once more before having this coversation with Karis:

me: "Karis, do you know where Mama's phone is?"
Karis: "YES!" (very confidently!)
me: "where is it?"
Karis points to the house
me: "Can you show Mama?" (she has proven quite competent in this on other occasions :)
Karis: "YES!" (once again very confidently!)
I unstrap her and we run to the house. Karis confidently leads me to the bedroom and looks under the bed. What do we find? THE CAT!! Of course!!

I did NOT completely gove up at this point and get in the car and go meet Daddy at work.

Karis did NOT chatter the entire 3 hour trip, even though it was right at her normal naptime and she surely must have been tired from tearing apart the house all morning while I packed.

We did NOT realize that night in VA that we had forgotten to put out a litter pan for our cat. Mark did NOT threaten to drive all the way back so that we would not have a stinking house when we returned. We did NOT really, really, really, wish that we had my cell phone at this point because it contained the phone number of our neighbor who has our spare key and could give the litter to the poor cat and save our house from utter stinkiness.

I did not spend 2 1/2 hours out of the 3 hour trip turned around very illegally in my seat so that I could try to comfort my carseat-hating baby. I did NOT allow Karis to have her water bottle that pours when turned upside down, knowing she would drench herself, her carseat, her favorite dolly, and her special blanket simply to keep her from being loud and waking up said baby when I finally got her to go to sleep.

I did NOT leave my house a complete wreck because who wants to come home after listening to a baby fuss for 3 hours and have a mess to clean up? And even if I did, I would NOT have just fallen into bed instead of straightening or unpacking a single thing, right?

NOT ME!

Papa's Pool!

We took a quick trip home this weekend to spend time with the grandparents and boy was it fun!! Here are some pics of the girls enjoying Papa's pool:

Karlie loved snuggling with Grandma on the swing
Karis on a mission to see the pool!
Blowing up her float just like Papa!
Yep, she had to have her float filled with as many balls as she could hold.... the rest of them she just threw in the pool :)

Trying to figure out Papa's BIG water gun :)

Her look of surprise and excitement when Daddy shot Mama with said water gun all the way across the pool :)

Not-Me (from the dog)

Yeah, I know its not Monday, but the dog and Karis had something to say so I thought I'd let them....

First, listen to Karis telling you everything the dog did NOT do:






Now, hear what the dog has to say:
I do NOT think I'm a cat and should sit in all high places...
I do NOT think I am a person and should sit in chairs...

I did NOT completely break Mama's rose tree just because I wanted to sit in the pot...
I do NOT break everything just because I sit on it...
I do NOT drive my Daddy crazy and he does NOT threaten to get rid of me every night... But we do NOT know that he actually loves me dearly :)


And I certainly do NOT love this little girl so much that I will let her do this to me...
...and this...
and this and much, much more :) I am NOT the luckiest dog in the world to have such a best 2-year old friend :)

I know; its ridiculous :)

Yeah, I know we took a ridiculous amount of pictures this weekend... but I don't want to forget how much fun we had so I just have to post them :)

Nina got the girls these matching play dresses. Have I mentioned how much I love to put them in matching clothes? Oh, it just makes me smile :)

Nina and Papa also got Karis the cutest little car to ride in! It took a ridiculous amount of time to put together, but with Karis' help, they somehow managed :)

Oh, how she loved her car, but there is something incredibly fun about sitting on top of a lawn mower...
Especially when Daddy and Papa need so much help fixing it :)
Cake 2 days in a row? Pretty lucky girl!
Did you know that big girls can swing by themselves now? I didn't, but evidently Daddy and Karis had been practicing for me :)
And just in case you wondered what Karlie was up to while Karis was having so much fun...
She enjoyed lots of loving and some new dresses, too :)

More birthday fun!

Grandma and Papa brought Karis a BIG bubble wand and she loved it! But chasing bubbles wasn't enough for her; Kariis wanted to do it herself! After all, she's 2 now and such a big girl!


They also brought her a sandbox, which she was really excited about! But she has a thing about her hands and feet being dirty, so it took a little convincing to get her to actually play in it :)
Another great present was an adorable pool! It has a great canopy for shade and blow-up butterflies that velcro to the sides that she can float in the water! Mama might even have to join her in the water this summer :)
Inspecting her new bathing suit, which she promptly threw in the pool because I told her it was to go swimming in :)
And no fun day is complete without playing on the hammock :)

Happy Birthday Karis!

Oh, she was sooooooo excited to have both of her grandparents here! We kept trying to get her to say she was "2 years old," but every time we said the word "2," all she would talk about was "TWO PAPAS!!!!!!"

Of course, she had to sit in the box :)
We decided that since she is so obsessed with kitties, we should have a Hello Kitty theme :) She was pretty excited about the cake and cupcakes she helped Mama to make!
Oh, I love that big grin!!!
She did such a great job trying to blow out her candles... she laughed and tried over and over again!

She finally decided to let Daddy help :)
Our big 2-year old!
Oh, how we love her!

Father Abraham, had many sons...

We love our church family for so many reasons, but last Sunday something happened that was hilarious and sweet and I was blessed and wanted to share it: First of all, worship was very different this week and I really enjoyed it. Our song leader did not prepare songs; instead, he had sent an e-mail asking the church family to pray and see what songs God lay on our hearts this week. It was neat to hear our church members share from their quiet times as they requested songs for us to sing together. It was a very special time. Karis, who LOVES our singing time because she gets to "dance" (meaning snuggle and sway to the music :) with her Daddy and I, repeatedly asked for "more dance" after just about every song :) And not in a quiet voice, either! Alan leaned over and asked if Karis had a favorite song we could sing. We laughingly told him "Father Abraham" because that is the song she asks to sing and dance to over and over and over and over at home. So he asked our church family to sing "Father Abraham" for Karis! Picture the entire church belting it out and pumping their arms up and down! (right arm, left arm... etc:) It was great! Of course, Karis got incredibly shy since everyone turned around and was singing to her so she buried her face in Daddy, but I could tell she loved it. And sure enough, after it was done, she turned to me and said, "more?" pumping her arm in the air furiously :) Thank you, church family, for singing Karis' favorite song!

The inevitable question...

I love taking my girls out with me. Sure, errands go by much more quickly without having to get them in and out of their carseat every time, but they just aren't as much fun by myself! When I'm with the girls, everyone who walks near me stops and chats. First, they comment on Karlie in my sling, because she just looks so happy and comfy and somehow they've never seen one before and think its the greatest thing. (Which it is, of course; I don't know what I'd do without it!:) And of course I hear how cute they are (what mother doesn't enjoy that? :) Then there's the "I'll bet they keep you busy!" comments. At which point I know the inevitable question is coming: "So do you want more?" they say with a laugh and knowing grin. To which I enthusiastically reply "Ooohhh, YES!" And you should see the look of amazement on their faces. They can't believe that after having 2 under 2 we could possibly want more. You think I am making this up, but I seriously get this question, along with the disbelief, pretty much every time I meet someone. It has become a joke in our house; I walk in the door and tell Mark, "yep, it happened once again" :) I don't mind the question; in fact, I look forward to a chance to tell people what an incredible blessing children are! But it does sadden me that the world seems to think that having more than 2 kids is crazy.

Karlie at 4 months

Oh, my baby is just so much fun now!! Cooing, squealing, laughing at every waking moment. She is so responsive and we "talk" back and forth for up to 30 minutes (usually when I am rocking her to sleep is when she gets wound up and wants to chat :) Life is so much more fun for her since she can now grab things and bring them to her mouth. Chewing on her fingers is great fun, as well as her paci and super-soft-silky blanket. Just grabbing at her toes is highly entertaining! Karis loves it because Karlie will respond to her as well, usually flashing her a big grin. And if when she laughs, Karis gets so excited and laughs along with her.

Karlie is still sleeping through the night pretty well. Most nights, I only have to get up once to feed her. But the most amazing thing for me has been her naps! At this age, Karis would hardly ever nap more than an hour. She would be awake an hour, asleep an hour, etc all day long. Karlie, however, has started taking a 3-4 hour morning nap! It astounds me every day :) I am so thankful, though, because I am actually starting to get things done aound here! Her afternoon naps are still unpredictable, but that morning nap is such a blessing!

We are enjoying sweet Karlie Sue so much. I wish she would stay at this stage forever, but I know next month I will be saying the same thing :)

Karis' new "swing"

Since we got our fence up, we decided it was time to bring out our hammock! To say Karis was excited is a tremendous understatement! She calls it her "big" (picture her arms outstretched) "swing" :)