Verbiage

Kara's been saying some really cute things lately, which have me laughing for days later...

We took her to a Japanese steak house the other night and when the chef lit the fire on the stove she looked at me and said "WOAH!!!" (Much better than the crying response we thought we were going to get!)

As I walked into the house yesterday after doing some gardening Kara ran up to me and exclaimed "MOMMA!!! I go poo poo's!" And yes, her Nana and father were inside w/her, but I guess she knows who changes her diapers!

And my favorite of all time, when she see's a frog whether it be in a book, on t.v. or a stuffed animal she yells "FROG!" except it comes out as another 4 letter word beginning with "F." :)

Gotta love toddler hood vocabulary!

My Little Helper....

Lately Kara has become a real copy cat. Or shall I say, she imitates everything her mommy does. I love watching her walk around with her baby dolls putting them in their high chairs, feeding them "nummies" and then asking them "all done?" just like I ask her. She'll then wrap them up in blankets and read them books and say "night night." Then she'll put her purse on and say "bye bye" (not really sure where she gets that from?? does she think I go out on the town every night when she goes to bed?)
My favorite is when she puts the dolls on her potty and tells them to go potty. Not only has she become a little mommy, but she wants to help do everything around the house, which sounds nice in theory.... but usually ends up like this.....

Kara's interpretation of folding laundry.....

Sunny Days

Yesterday was Sesame Street Live here in Des Moines. We took Kara to see her first "live performance" ever.
She did great and loved every second of it. If you remember, a couple months back we took her to her first movie , sort of as a practice for the "big day." And lets just say, she did much better yesterday, didn't make a peep the whole time. She was definitely "star struck!"
It was just another one of the moments where I looked at her and wondered where has the time gone? This is my little baby, growing up on me, becoming her own little free spirit. The baby I used to swaddle in my arms, who now can just jump into my arms when she feels the need to be hugged. I seriously don't know how I could love anyone or anything the way I love her.

Mothers Day Art

This is Kara's masterpiece that she created for her Nana for Mothers Day. I bought the plate and mug at Bed Bath and Beyond and "helped" her decorate some of it, then I gave her the markers and let her go to town. She had a blast scribbling all over them and didn't want to stop! This is the art that only a mother and grandmother could love!

Happy Mothers Day to all of you wonderful Mommies out there!

The Man's got Skillz....

The artwork at the top was created by my very talented, very professional, and oh so serious husband. He is going to kill me for spilling the beans, but I have to give him props when props are due! When I told him about my blogs big debut in the Des Moines Juice edition he told me I had to up my ante a little on my somewhat boring background. So it was his idea to bring a "kid oriented" drawing into the blog. Yes, he drew that all by himself. The other night after we put Kara to bed we got out the Crayola's and started playing. We were up to the wee hours drawing, taking pics of the drawings and cropping and pasting. I can only wonder what our nanny thought the next day with our artwork spread all over the living room floor! Ha!
As Curt informed me, this isn't his expertise, but I just thought it was so cute to see this serious business man on the floor drawing with crayons all for the love of his wife and her "not so serious" life!
Love you babe!

Breaking The Habit

Of Thumbsucking.... My poor little girl, she takes after her mother in so many ways, one of them being the self soothing dependency she learned as a 2 week old infant. After waking up night after night in the first week we brought her home looking for her paci/binky or whatever you choose to call it, Kara learned a much easier way to soothe herself, her left thumb! Then, other than the occasional midnight feeding, we were never woken up in the middle of the night again to find her sucking device for her. Kara has carried this habit with her through the last 20 months of her life. Along the way she has grown very attached to a lovey called "Mr Bunny" whom she strictly associates with her left thumb. The good thing about this though was that she only seemed to need these 2 companions when falling asleep. That is why to my surprise a couple months ago when she developed a blister on her thumb and we took her to the doctor to have it drained and they informed us it was a staph infection I was completely astonished. Its not like she was one of those kids who went around sucking her thumb all day long, it was only at night and nap time! Luckily the 10 day course of antibiotic killed the infection and we forgot about it from that point forward. I should say that during that 10 days we were told to wrap her thumb up with gauze to prevent her from sucking it. HA! Yeah, after the first day of that the child figured out how to unwrap all of the medical tape and gauze and find her thumb. We then got mean and put a mitten on her hand and wrapped medical tape around that all the way up her arm. She did not like it, but after the 10 days, she went right back to the thumb.
Well, just this past week we had to get meaner. Kara developed another infection, and this time, her doctor told me it was time to break the habit. (Yeah ok doc, got any good suggestions?) Well she didn't, but I found one on-line. It is called "The Thumbguard."



We decided to go with this, because honestly the thought of wrapping our childs hand in a wool mitten with rolls of medical tape just doesn't sound so good, especially when the warm days of spring are around the corner! So, I ordered "the device." The first 24 hours was pure hell! It took my once easy to put down child, over an hour to fall asleep, and then I heard her wake up several times in the night wimpering. Then, to top it all off, she was up at the crack of dawn, wailing, and would not be coaxed back to sleep! My little baby who once used to lie happily in her crib talking to her lovey and sucking her thumb until we came in to get her just wasn't having it any other way! Nap times are harder now too, I have to go in several times to lay her back down before she falls asleep, and while she used to wake up and sometimes sit and play, thats it, when she's up she's up now! But I will take all of this over the infections she seems to attract so easily.

And I'm hoping in the long run she'll thank me. Not like her mother who at the age of 15 was still sucking her thumb at night! It took my younger sister getting braces and me seeing how pretty her new smile was for me to coerce myself into quitting the habit, and let me tell you, it was NOT easy! But I am now the proud owner of a straight smile thankyouverymuch!

Thumbs Up Baby!

Giving it a try!

So I got suckered into this myself now too. I put up the ad sense bar just for fun. I figured, what the heck? I'll try it! My hubby has this program he wrote wootSnoop and anytime somebody clicks on the ad's on his site it gives him a little bit of money. Every now and then I'll see a check come in the mail to him from Google. Not sure how much it is for, probably not much. But I figured, hey! I can do this too! Nothing wrong with getting some cash for free right? We'll see....