Happy Birthday Tim!

Today is Tim's 34th birthday! We had a nice steak dinner, and for dessert...an ice cream cake! Tim loves M & M's, so it was the perfect cake for him. :-)

Our Christmas Card

Merry Christmas!!

We wanted to post our card on the blog, because we didn't purchase enough (unfortunately) to send to everyone.

We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas celebration with your families, and we wish you a glorious New Year!

Samantha's Handi-work

Nana & Papa brought our family a gingerbread house kit on Thanksgiving. Samantha immediately offered to tackle the project. She enjoyed the process, but realized it was much harder than she thought it would be initially. We think she did a great job for her first attempt!

Kara loves Elmo!

Kara, like most children her age, loves Elmo! We found Elmo slippers for her while we were out finishing our Christmas shopping today. Kara usually takes her shoes and socks off shortly after we get home, and in these winter temperatures, her feet get so cold. She was very proud of her slippers, and didn't pull them off!

Our Child-Proof Christmas Tree

Keeping Kara out of the Christmas decorations, especially the tree, has been quite challenging this year! Purchasing the gate to put around the tree was a great idea. Kara can still enjoy the tree, but not pull it down on herself!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration with Samantha and Kara's Nana & Papa! Good food and great company! We only wish that Tim's parents could have been here to celebrate with us also.

Too cute!

Kara has been walking so much more--on her own, without any encouragement from us! She's also flat-footed 90% of the time. :-) We are enjoying this stage in Kara's life and looking forward to the next. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Kara is 16 months old today!!

Our beautiful, sweet Kara was born exactly 16 months ago! We wanted to share some videos of Kara's walking attempts with everyone. She still likes to walk & stand on her tippytoes, which makes her a little unstable. Even though...Kara looks likes she's having fun~as usual!

Visiting with family (cousins)!

Last Sunday Samantha, Kara and I headed to my sister Karen's home to visit with some of the family. Tim was sick, so he stayed home to rest...and Charlie, my brother-in-law, and Krista's husband was sick at home too. So, it was all women, except for Kevin, and the kiddos. My dad, Papa to the five grandkids, was out of town. The pictures of Kara (16 months old) and Hunter (14 months old) on Karen's deck are great! The older kids decorated sugar cookies, raked leaves and jumped in the piles and had a good time outside after we all ate lunch together.

Halloween Pumpkins & Decorations

Samantha and Tim carved our pumkins this year, and both did a good job. Interestingly enough, Samantha's pumpkin looks like a Wal-Mart smiley face! Don't you agree?!

Halloween Candy

The video is of Kara playing with the candy and putting it from the container we were using to pass it out, into her pumpkin pail. She has no idea what candy tastes like, but she loves to play with it!

Happy Halloween!

Kara, the furry, purple kitty had a so much fun this Halloween! She loved playing with all of the bright-colored paper & plastic-wrapped candy. It was easy to go trick or treating at our neighbors' homes while pulling Kara in the wagon. All of our friends thought she was so adorable, and we definitely agree. :-)

Samantha dressed up as a cute mouse last night for trick or treating in downtown Martinsburg, but she ran out of the house so quickly that I didn't get to take her picture. :-( She went to a birthday party tonight, and has a costume party to go to tomorrow night. No more mouse costume though, because Samantha wants to go as a football player--interesting, huh? We'll definitely take pictures tomorrow.

I can see!

Today was the day for mommy to give Kara a haircut--finally! She screamed and cried as expected, but loves being able to see everything without looking through hair. :-)

Havin' Fun

We took some pictures today of Kara enjoying her new wagon, and Samantha joined in on the fun. Don't you love those girls' smiles?!

Kara loves dogs...

Apparently, Kara also loves dog beds! Kara has been getting into this dog bed since she's been able to sit up and crawl. We finally got pictures of her enjoying our dog Leo's bed!

A Radio Flyer!

We picked up a Radio Flyer today for Kara. Trick or Treating this Halloween will be easy and fun while pulling her around in the wagon! Yes, Kara needs a haircut...but if you knew how much she screams (because she hates getting it cut), you would understand why we are procrastinating. :-)

More pictures of Kara

We took some cute pictures of Kara the other day that we wanted to share with everyone. The first shows Kara being lazy while drinking her milk--she is propping it up on the toy chest! :-) The next two were taken while Kara was playing ball with Daddy. She had a great time, and was so excited to see Daddy catch it when she threw or rolled the ball to him!

Kara is 15 months old today!

So hard to believe that it's been three months since Kara's 1st birthday! Kara is a very happy child and loves playing with her toys (especially the musical ones), and watching Dora, the Backyardigans, and Little Einsteins on TV. She is eating well and weighs over 19 pounds. Although she can still wear some 9 month clothes, she is able to wear many 12 month ones also. She is walking well holding one of our hands, or just a finger, and does it best in her Nike tennis shoes. :-) Kara got a Little People school bus a week ago, that she can sit on and ride. It also has a long handle on the back that she can stand and hold onto and walk. She loves it!

Today, we took her to Butler's Farm Market to pick out some pumpkins, mums, and a few other fresh veggies. Kara had a great time, and she helped pick out some very nice pumpkins.

Blue-eyed Dora

Many have said that Kara resembles Dora the Explorer, except she has beautiful blue eyes. Kara loved wearing her Dora shirt!

More photos of our little sweetie!

Kara received this cute outfit on her 1st birthday from one our great friends, Connie. Thanks, Connie!