Camping at Raystown Lake

We camped at Raystown Lake in PA last weekend. It was beautiful, and the weather was great! Our site was huge (wish I had taken pictures), and the lake was amazing. Unfortunately, the campground has an issue with skunks. They only come out at night, but they are very bold. We saw several running through our campsite while we were sitting around the fire.  The worst part of it was that the skunks were obviously unhappy because they were spraying something—thankfully not us—but the smell was horrible and overwhelming.  It was so terrible that we had to go inside and were unable to enjoy the campfire.  Too bad DNR doesn’t catch the skunks and release them somewhere else….We rented a pontoon boat and tube on Friday.  Tim whipped Samantha all around the lake, and she hung on really well!  Kara really enjoyed the playground as you can see from the pictures.

Smile

Don’t you love Kara’s cheesy smile in the pictures below?! She is cuddling the new blanket and pillow that goes with her toddler bedding we recently purchased…but we don’t have the toddler bed yet.  Kara has not tried to crawl out of her crib at this point, so we’re reluctant to rush her into  sleeping in a toddler bed.  Right now she wakes up around 6:15 am each day, but plays happily in her crib until we get her out at 7 am.  We probably could not continue this routine if Kara were to be able to get out of bed and come into our room whenever she wanted.  As cute as the new bedding is, and as excited as I am about changing her room from a nursery to a little girls’ room… I think we’ll wait.

Kara the princess

Kara loves her new princess dress, courtesy of Nana & Papa.  Mommy tried the dress on Kara to see just how big it was on our little peanut.  Then, Kara would not let us take the dress off of her! Kara was not too fond of the tiara, but we think she’ll grow into it. :-)  Needless to say, Kara is just like any other girl/woman—she loves to look like a princess, and most definitely likes to be treated as a princess!

 

Kara loves Grandma & Grandpa

Tim’s parents came from Ohio to visit, and Kara really enjoyed the extra attention from her grandparents!

 

Kara’s Elmo Party

Today was the ‘big party’ day for Kara! We had a house full of family, Elmo decorations,  Elmo cake and cookie pops, and presents!  Mommy and daddy saved the sand & water table gift for today—and Kara loved it! I think her cousin Hunter had fun too.  The weather was beautiful for a cookout and outdoor play, and the party was a great success!

Celebrating 2 yrs

Kara is officially 2 yrs old today! Because this birthday fell on a Monday, Kara went to daycare while Tim, Kathy & Samantha went to work.  For those who don’t know…Samantha is volunteering at the VA Medical Center.  She is really enjoying it!  We had a small family celebration when everyone got home.  Kara opened presents from us, and then we had  pizza for dinner (one of Kara’s favorites)! Next Sunday, the 19th will be Kara’s ‘Elmo’ party. Her grandparents from Ohio will be in town, and her grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins from Virginia will up for the party! 

What Kara is able to do….run everywhere, climb on everything, and communicate better!  Kara identifies certain colors by name (blue, green & yellow).  She says ‘Barney’, ‘Elmo’, ‘Dora’, ‘eat’, ‘wash’, ‘up & down’, ‘brush teeth’, ‘help’, ‘snack’, ‘yes & no’, ‘Papa’, ‘nana’ (for banana—sorry Mom), ‘fish’ (for goldfish), ‘fruit’, ‘pasi’ (for pacifier), ‘blanket’, ‘fall down’,  & ‘blocks’.  I’m sure I’m forgetting things.  Kara also mimics a LOT of what we say, and will usually repeat the last part of our sentence to us.  She definitely understands most everything we say!

The beginning of a 2nd birthday…

Kara looks adorable in the orange apron from Nana & Papa, while she listens to daddy read her the birthday card.  Kara said ‘cat’ and ‘balloon’ while looking at the card!  When her daddy asked her the color of one of the balloons, she said ‘green’—and yes, Tim was pointing to the green balloon! Our little girl is growing up!

Camping--4th of July weekend

We continued our tradition of camping over the Independence Day holiday, by making a trip to the KOA campground in Harpers Ferry, WV.  We like this campground a lot because of all the activities they have for all ages. As you can see, Kara was decked out for swimming.  We were able to pick our site this trip and it was HUGE.  We also had lots of beautiful trees around us to shade the camper, and the weather couldn’t have been more perfect!  Nana & Papa came up on Sunday to visit with us and eat dinner.  We walked around the campground, ate the traditional camping fare of hotdogs and cheeseburgers, and then had smores for dessert! YUM

Favorite Photo

Hi and welcome to my blog! I’m loving this favorite photo blog hop! You can click on the links below to hop around to other blogs and see some great photos.  It’s always hard to pick just one photo as my all-time favorite, so I’ll qualify this by saying that this photo is my favorite at the moment.  This is of our youngest daughter, sweet Kara, who will be turning 2 yrs old next week!  The picture was taken on vacation in Florida last month, and Kara’s smile just makes me melt.  

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Taco Night

We fixed tacos, rice and re-fried beans for dinner tonight—one of Samantha’s favorite meals.  Kara really enjoyed it too, as you can tell from the photos.  :-)  Just a tad messy…but oh so fun!

Kara Joins us for Dinner

Tonight was Kara’s first dinner at the big table in her booster seat with the rest of the family!  Notice that she was also eating exactly what the rest of us were eating—bow tie pasta with chicken, asparagus, covered with vodka sauce, her own small salad, and garlic bread  (a favorite of Kara’s).  She loved it, and we loved having four of us around the table for a family dinner.  Our little girl is growing up!

Stealing Daddy’s Dinner

Tonight’s dinner turned out to be quite hilarious! Most of the time, Kara is fed her dinner before the three of us sit down to eat.  Then while we eat, Kara watches a movie and plays with toys.  Kara had other plans tonight.  When Tim got up from the table to get something, Kara got up in his chair, grabbed his fork, and started eating his Beef Lombardy! It was so cute, that we had to take pictures.  :-)  Being the generous type, Kara eventually decided to allow Daddy to share the chair with her, and eat some of the dinner that she stole from him!

A Day with Nana & Papa

Last Saturday Nana & Papa came up to spend time with Samantha and Kara while Kathy & Tim went out on a date!  The date included seeing a movie in the theatre, and birthday shopping for Kara’s 2nd birthday coming up on July 13th!  In the pictures below Kara is wearing a new outfit that Nana  & Papa brought for her—too cute!  Kara LOVES to be read to, and Papa wasn’t in the house very long before Kara recruited him to read one of her new books. :-)