Christmas Day

We all had a LOT of fun this Christmas morning! Most of the enjoyment came from watching Kara. :-) She was absolutely wonderful and really seemed to soak it all in. When it came to opening gifts, Kara pulled on wrapping paper, played with tissue paper, and was very interested in all of the gifts she received. The 'playtime puppy' given to Kara by her sister, Samantha, was definitely a favorite. Kara made all kinds of happy sounds, waved her arms and kicked her feet to show how much she liked it!

Christmas Eve

The picture of the four of us was taken in front of our Christmas tree in the family room. We clean up pretty good--don't we?! We were all ready to take Nana & Papa to the candlelight service at our church. After church, we changed Kara into her PJ's. We had to show everyone the cute pictures of Kara smiling wearing her Santa hat--too cute! It's a tradition in our family to open one present on Christmas Eve. We took a picture of Kara ripping the paper off of the present she received from Micara & Daniel Coats--her birth-grandparents. Kara loves to rip paper! Kara opened a beautiful pewter covered picture album that had a giraffe, toucan and hippo on the front. It will go perfectly in her bedroom.

Kara's 1st Christmas outfit

This is the outfit Kara will be wearing when she wakes up on Christmas morning. Isn't she adorable?! Aunt Karen gave her the cute bib she has on. Kara's Nana & Papa will be going with us to the candlelight service at church on Christmas Eve and then spending the night...which means they'll be here to help us celebrate Kara's 1st Christmas! Then, Kathy's sisters and their families will be over in the afternoon on Christmas day for dinner. We will have a full house, and lots of fun celebrating the birth of Jesus! :-)

Kara is doing better today

Kara ate better today, and there were no instances of vomiting yesterday, or today (so far--hope I don't jinx it). These are some cute pictures we took of Kara lounging on our family room pillows--full of smiles!

Update on Kara's health

The doctor called today to let us know that Kara's x-ray came back normal. Which is great news! Unfortunately, it doesn't get us any closer to understanding why Kara isn't eating normally and continues to vomit once a day. Yes, she had another vomiting incident today, which makes it three days in a row. It occurred while Kara was at the babysitter's house this morning. The doctor wants us to call her on Monday morning to let her know if Kara continues with the vomiting problem over the weekend. If so, we will need to take her to the doctor's office on Monday. Kara will then need to be catheterized for a urine sample.

From the pictures above, you can see that even though Kara is sick, she still has periods of contentment and happiness throughout the day. Here she is sitting on her mommy and daddy's bed, and daddy is making funny noises while mommy is taking the pictures. Kara loves to laugh at her daddy's funny antics! :-)

Kara is 5 months old today!

It's amazing to think how quickly the last five months have flown by! As many know, Kara has been sick with a head cold since Thursday, December 6th. We have taken her to the doctor twice since then, and talked to the doctor on the phone two additional times. Kara has a nasty cough and is extremely congested. The worst part of this is that her appetite has decreased pretty significantly, and she has had three instances of projectile vomiting. Kara lost a few ounces from last Friday's doctor appointment to her appointment on Monday. It doesn't sound like a big deal, except for the fact that she's so young and small to begin with. Kara went from 12 lbs 11 oz on Friday to 12 lbs 8 oz on Monday. We want her to keep growing and gain weight, not lose weight! The doctor actually gave us a referral for Kara to get an abdominal x-ray today at the hospital. Kara was an angel during the procedure, and actually thought it was great fun to lay on the x-ray table completely naked while playing with the sheet! We hope to get the results of the x-ray soon, and we'll post the results then.

Kara's experience with Santa

Yesterday, we celebrated our nephew Sean's 3rd birthday. We had a pancake brunch and then went to the Manassas train station to ride the Santa train! Kara saw Santa, who stopped by our seat to personally greet her. She also listened to a local high school choir sing Christmas carols, while riding on a train for the first time! All the kiddos had a good time. We will upload some photos as we receive them, because in our hurry to get out the door and down to Virginia, we forgot the camera.

Kara is sitting!

Kara's new chair, the BebePOD, came in the mail yesterday. It is designed for babies her age so that they can sit up. It will also help strengthen her back muscles so that she will be able to sit up on her own. Doesn't she look cute in her new chair?! You can also see some of one of our Christmas trees in the background. Kara loves the lights! In the last picture, Tim was making loud "raspberries" (which Kara loves) and her eyes got really big!

Another Crazy Hair Moment!

Daddy gave Kara a bath this evening, and the picture shows just how curly her hair gets when it's wet. Look at those big, beautiful, blue eyes!!

Kara's 1st Thanksgiving!

We celebrated Thanksgiving with Kathy's family at one of her sister's homes yesterday. There were 15 of us and we had a good time and lots of great food! We took several pictures of Kara smiling for the occasion. We also took pictures of the Kathy's mom with her oldest grandson, Aidan, and Kara with her youngest cousin, Hunter. Aren't they cute together?!

Sweet Sisters

Just love this picture of Samantha and Kara together! You can tell just how much they love each other. Don't they look alike too?!

Kara is 4 months old!

Kara had her 4 month doctor appointment today. She weighs 11 lbs 7 oz and is 23 1/4 inches long. Definitely growing...but still our little Kara! We are able to start feeding Kara a small amount of rice cereal, but the doctor wants us to increase Kara's intake of formula. Kara is now up to 5 ounces of formula at every feeding. She received the same four shots that were given to her at 2 months. Kara cried a lot, but she calmed down pretty quickly. Unfortunately, she developed a high fever as a reaction to the immunizations. We've given her a sponge bath, and her pediatrician said we need to give her a dose of Tylenol every 4 hours. Yes...even while she's sleeping. So, tonight is going to be a long night. :-( We're supposed to call the doctor in the morning and let her know if Kara still has a fever. The good thing is that even though Kara isn't feeling her best, she's still eating well and has eaten at least two, 5 oz bottles today. Kara has also played a little under her activity gyms! In fact, she was pretty happy, and gave mommy lots of smiles during her sponge bath. The first two pictures are of Kara eating rice cereal for the first time--and she really seemed to like it! The last two show Kara sitting on daddy's lap and playing with her Dumbo toy!

Our Family Photographs

We had our first professional family pictures taken a couple of weeks ago, and we just got them back from the photographer yesterday. Didn't they turn out beautifully?!

Kara is ready for church!

Kara looked even cuter than usual this morning in her outfit for church! Our friends, the Hadley's, got her this outfit when she was first born, and she is just now fitting into it. As we've mentioned before, our Kara is a petite sweetie. :-)

Nana & Papa came to visit!

Kathy's parents came to our home to visit with us today. Kara was adorable as usual! We had a nice time visiting and an awesome dinner together at a local Italian restaurant!

Beautiful baby girl & smile!

These pictures of Kara were taken last night. The first one is a little blurry because Kathy didn't get the camera focused quickly enough, and just had to catch Kara smile! Isn't that smile beautiful enough to light up a whole room?! We think so! The second picture was taken when Kathy called Kara's name and said, "Look at mommy"! Kara actually turned and looked right at Kathy! Doesn't Kara look like she's up to something in the last picture?

More Halloween Pictures!

Happy Halloween!

Kara's Aunt Karen sent her the cute pumpkin hat, shirt, and socks to deck her out for Halloween! Kara says a big "thank you" to Aunt Karen for helping her to look so adorable for the holiday. Kara helped mommy and daddy pass out candy to all of the children that came trick or treating to our house--and we had a LOT of them! Thanks to our friend, Laura, Kara was the cutest Dumbo, the elephant, we've ever seen! :-) Samantha went trick or treating with some good friends from school and a couple of their dads. They came through our neighborhood and looked like they were having a great time! They all looked great in their costumes too!