Happy Birthday Aaron!

Today is Aaron's 32nd birthday. We celebrated yesterday with his family and tonight we are going out to dinner with his parents. We had a wonderful meal prepared by his mom and sisters. We had cake and ice cream, we played karaoke and opened presents. It was so much fun to have all of Kara's cousins over--even though she was pretty wiped out by the time it was over (as you can tell by the picture.) She is changing so much every day and is coming up with new behaviors that surprise me all the time. I know, I know...this is about Aaron's birthday. Anyway, it is today. Happy Birthday, My Love.

So Many Pictures

I took 209 pictures in the month of October and am overwhelmed trying to figure out which ones to put on the blog. I may just add a few more every day or so.

First of all, I am very saddened right now. I just found out that Michael Crichton died today. I have read all of his books (except 2 fiction that didn't interest me) and even his non-fiction books. I own them all and plan on reading them again eventually. He was incredibly intelligent and an amazingly talented writer.

We had a very fun Halloween and have been keeping busy. Kara is getting her 1-year molars and is just overall sad about it. The time change has been interesting as well. It has always been my favorite day of the year. Unfortunately you can't explain to an 11-month-old that she gets an extra hour of sleep and it is only 6:15 AM instead of 7:15 AM.

Last weekend Kara got to spend some time with her cousins. Taylor had a little baby doll that Kara was showing interest in so I got out one that I had bought. She LOVES it. She snuggles it, hugs it, holds the pretend bottle to its lips and kisses it. I can not believe how early she is starting such obvious imaginary play. Another really cute habit she has is stashing tiny toys in the space between my mattress and the wooden bed frame. If I ever can't find one of her little blocks I now know to check there first. It is so funny the things I have found in there...a toothbrush, and my bottle of Advil being the strangest. (Of course the bottle is childproof.)

This weekend we have a houseguest, a UCLA football game on Sat. and Aaron's birthday party on Sunday. I am worn out already. It is so much fun to have all of Kara's cousins over now that she is starting to interact more with them. We are also babysitting 2 of them on Friday night for a few hours. It is great we all live so close. This is the time of the year when we see eachother the most because we have about 15 birthdays between our families. We are trying to celebrate 2 or 3 people at a time but it is still ending up most weekends. Since I am an only child it has taken me several years to get used to all of it. Now I look forward to the get-togethers...especially with Kara having so many aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Walking?!

On Oct. 23 Kara took one step without holding onto anything. Tonight she took several steps all by herself! Her balance is getting so much better and every time she tries she takes one more step. What a big girl.

Time at Home

I am getting better at this video thing! :) We are all doing well and keeping busy. I think about posting all the time but just don't get around to it. Today my friend came over with her daughter who will be 2 in Dec. She got pregnant with Keira through in-vitro the same time my surrogate got pregnant with our twins. Our kids would have been only days apart. Amazingly enough, our beautiful daughters, Keira and Kara, are still less than a year apart. They are so sweet with eachother. They were sharing a snack and Kara had a piece of food stuck to her chin. Keira just reached over and got it off for her and handed it to me. I can't wait to watch them to grow up together.

Aaron and I were planning on going to my parents' cabin for the weekend but it is just too much work to pack everything for the three of us (including all the food planned and packed) and for both dogs. We are babysitting my parents poodle for the weekend. So we are just hiding out at home since everyone thinks we are away. Not that it would really matter because my parents are in AZ, Aunt Nicole is in OR, and my sister-in-law that is our family activity planner is out of town too. We are going to work on earthquake strapping a few things, grading book reports and covering new books for my school library. So there you have it. That is why I haven't posted much lately. Not much going on here. Just enjoying every moment of being with Kara.

Laughs

What a happy girl. We received her birth certificate on Sat. and today we went to apply for her Social Security Number. What an exciting day! All is official and done now. What a blessing.

Our Little Pumpkin

So sorry I have been MIA. My laptop completely died last week and it wouldn't even turn on. I am still having major problems with it and the tech guy isn't coming until Wed. I got a new battery for it today but figured out that isn't the problem. Grrr. I am going to post a few quick pics since it might be a day or two until I can get into it again. We took Kara to the pumpkin patch and it was so cute. She got to pet sheep and goats. She picked out pumpkins and just quietly took it all in. Aunt Nicole bought her a walker on Sat. and she cruises around downstairs with it. I have a video I will have to get on here when it works correctly again.

New Words and Cabin Trip

Kara has decided that she wants to communicate. Not only does she sign "all done," she says, "Da Da", "Hi", "Daisy", "Turtle", "Ahh Nah Nah" that we are assuming is Aunt Nicole and finally--as 0f Monday up at the cabin--"MA, MA"!!! Oh, it is music to my ears. It took her 10 months but it is so sweet. She laughs so hard at the strangest things and now gets this squinty eyed look that we call "The Stink Eye." It almost looks like a glare. She also gets so intense that she just stands there and quivers while her face turns almost purple! We aren't sure what the purpose or meaning of it is yet. Gas? Energy? Anger? Frustration?

She will be getting her 4th haircut tomorrow. She has lost a half a pound since she is so mobile now. She is so close to walking and has great balance--she even goes up the stairs all by herself. She is eating much more solid food now--she loves carrots and sweet potatoes and all fruits. Forgive me if I repeat this kind of stuff on the blog. I have a daily journal of her first year and I don't remember what I write in there or on here.

This video was taken last week. She is pretty quiet so you may have to turn your volume way up.

This past weekend Aaron had a four day weekend, so after the UCLA game on Saturday we went up to my parents' cabin in the mountains. We are babysitting my mom's dog so even Ellie got to bring a friend. Aunt Nicole came too. Aaron spent the whole weekend grading essays--yuck. I spent a lot of it sleeping; I think I may be fighting something.

Go Beavs?

This post is specifically for our Oregon friends, John and Donna, and Kara's birthparents who were both raised Oregon State fans. Donna bought Kara this outfit, down to the $9 official socks and I promised she would wear it. Tonight Oregon St. is playing USC so it is easy to be a Beavers fan tonight! Notice the score? USC 0--Oregon St. 14.

New Car Seat

We got this awesome new car seat for Kara. Supposedly it is the last one we will have to buy. We will see. It was quite expensive but had good reviews for safety and Kara liked the pretty pattern. My main concern is safety obviously because of my bitty 14-year-old Civic. I love my car and it will be awhile before we can afford a new car payment. Kara may be 18 before we even get her adoption bills and past infertility treatments paid off. It took quite awhile to get it to fit in my car but we got it securely in the center of the backseat. She still has to face backwards until she is one but she is definitely above 20 pounds already. We haven't actually gone anywhere in it yet. Tomorrow will be our first trip out.

Too Cute!

All those hours spent braiding My Little Ponies' tails finally paid off. I just can't stand how cute Kara is getting. She just gets more beautiful, loving, and cuddly every day.

I LOVE my schedule. This was my first week of work and everything worked out great. I have Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays off at home with Kara. On Tues. I have my Bible study at 9:15. My mom is working in the nursery at the church (for now) but I may just end up dropping Kara off at her house on my way. I am there until 11:30 and then start work (right up the street from the church) at 12. I pick Kara up from my mom's at 3. On Thurs. my mom comes to my house at 10:15 and I go to the market on my way home from work. Yesterday I got home with tons of groceries by 4. I am working 7 hours total and I love my job. The kids were so excited to see me when they came into the library this week. Since I job share they have either me or the other librarian and until they walked into the library this week they didn't know who they would be having for the year. She is great but I think I am more fun and definitely less strict. :)

Swim Class

Kara had her first swim class on Monday and her last swim class tonight. It was lame. We paid $77 for 9 half hour lessons. The first class included 7 other parents and their child under age 3. Tonight there were 3 of us there. We found out that there wasn't any type of structure, teaching or anything. Just time to hang out with our kids in the pool. Uh, we have an awesome olympic size pool that is part of our monthly homeowners fee. Our neighbors have an incredible pool that has a whole 'tanning' section that is only 2 or 3 inches deep that they said we could use any weekday since they are at work anyway. I could not justify the expense or the time. Of course Kara was absolutely adorable in her little swimsuits and had a great time today in the pool with Gramma. The first day she was a little unsure about it all since she had only been in spas and bathtubs.

Today's Discoveries

How much can one 9-month-old figure out in one day? Today she figured out how to stand up against the bathroom cupboards--no handles. While there she realized that she can make them OPEN! Dangit! She also figured out how to quickly stand up against the side of the toilet and stick her hand in the water while it was flushing--GROSS!

I realized that she totally understands a lot of the things I am saying to her and actually is able to follow simple directions just from verbal commands. Just today she has started trying to imitate what I am saying. I have a sea turtle on my desktop right now. I say, "turtle" and she repeats two syllables with 't's in it and the same intonation. She also tries "Ellie" and is babbling with more complicated sounds.

She is also getting quite the attitude. She will just stare at me and repeatedly stick her hand either on the laptop keys, a cord or in the dog water. I am sure this is what she is thinking... "I put my hand (fill in the blank) and Mommy freaks out and says something weird really loud and claps...weird. I think I will try it again!" Oh, and it is only 2pm. We still have the whole evening to see what else she comes up with! I could never work full-time. She changes SO much every day.

Beware My Poor Readers

I am going to see if I can even put these events into words--so bear with me. Yesterday I took Kara back to her Dr. because her cough had just gotten worse and her congestion had not gotten any better. She is now on a low dose antibiotic and a prescription cough/cold medicine. Anyway, she woke up at 5:30 AM coughing so hard it just sounds painful. (Yes Aaron, I am going to be switching tenses A LOT in this post.) So I carefully tried to roll her over and sneak in 2mL of cough medicine. Oh my, did the arms and legs start flailing! I carefully picked her up and turned on a lamp. I thought the human response to fear was either fight OR flight. Oh no, my daughter can do both at once. I am sure we are going to find grape cough syrup sticky marks all over her bedroom and everything in it for years. Luckily I was on my way down to put her on her rug when she pushed off and flew out of my arms and partially hit the basket full of baby items that I carry around the house. Then she cried, and cried, and fought and flailed. More lights, more cough syrup flying. By this time it is in my hair and all over her. I finally got her calmed down enough and awake enough to know what was going on and she swallowed it right down.

Now the fun begins. I turn off the lights, rock her and give her loves for a bit and gently place her back in her crib. Just when I think she is drifting off she starts coughing again...hard. So hard that she proceeded to throw up all over her sheets and her pjs. I place her on the floor, change the sheet, change her pjs and give her another dose of cough medicine. She calmly fell asleep like nothing had ever gone wrong. Phew.

At 8 she woke up again and was happily playing in her crib...with sweet potato poop leaking out of her diaper on to the sheet. I cleaned her up and brought her into my room for our usual, quiet together time. Which, thankfully, was very nice. We ended up both falling asleep for about 45 min. together.

Bath time. She loves the bath and loves to splash. I started filling the tub and got in to feel the temp. She now has figured out how to stand up on almost everything and was standing by the side of the tub waiting for me to pick her up and put her in. I took off her pjs while she was standing there holding onto the side of the tub. She was so cute and seemed so proud of herself. I took off her diaper just as Ellie came running in, grabbed her clean diaper for after the bath and starting shaking it to bits and pieces while running around the bedroom. I jumped out to catch her, decided it wasn't worth and turned around just in time to see Kara peeing on the one tiny bit of exposed carpet by the side of the tub.

But wait, there is more! After the bath (that still somehow had a couple of small pieces of sweet potato floating around in it) I was attempting to quickly throw on some clothes. Little, sweet, diapered Kara comes crawling into the closet wielding the door stopper (doingy thing) like a sword. I don't think those are supposed to come off. Hmmm.

While writing this post I have had to remove the doingy thing from her mouth (gross), remove her from the dog dish twice, change another squishy sweet potato diaper, stop the dog from barking at the pool guy on one side and the new neighbors' dogs on the other, answer a call from my dad while they are enjoying the beautiful weather in Oregon, feed Kara, give her cough medicine and her antibiotic, and attempt to heat up some old coffee from yesterday in the microwave.

Today is supposed to be my first day back at work too. (Krishawn, aren't you glad that I didn't have you babysit afterall?)

Oh my, another juicy toot from the little Kara Bean. Gotta run! Oh, and for no extra charge to my poor, poor readers--Gerber sweet potatoes are exactly the same on the way out as on the way in. Next time I am just going to open a fresh container, smear it all over the baby, several diapers and her clean sheets and just be done with it.

Sick

Our little Karabug got her first 'bug'. She has her first cold and it is so sad. She is almost over it already though. She had her 9-month check up today and luckily the cold hasn't turned into an infection of any kind. She had a runny nose and a cough. I broke all the rules and got PediaCare cough and congestion last night at the store. I only gave her less than 1/2 of the 2-year-old dose. She slept through the night without coughing. She woke up bright and early...and happy!

She is in the 90th percentile for weight at 21 lbs. 6 oz. and the 50th percentile for height at 27 1/2 inches. She has only grown one inch lenghwise but 4 pounds sideways. :) Now that she is crawling all over the place the dr. said she will thin out a little bit soon. It felt good to have the Dr. end the appt. by saying, "Good job, Mommy" since I feel so sad that she got sick at all and I went out and got medication without the doctor's approval. Everyone is amazed that she made it to almost 9 months without a cold though.

Let's see. In other news, she learned how to drink out of a straw last night. I bought her one of those sippy cups for 18+ months just to see how she liked it and she figured it out really quickly. She can pull herself to standing in her crib and peek over the edge--which I must say is the cutest thing ever. She is saying, "mum, ma, mmmm," more often now but the definite favorite is still, "Da, da, da." This week she discovered outlets and saw her first baby lizard.

New Toy!

Yesterday was Taylor's 1st birthday party. It was so fun to be around all of the kids. Kara had a great time in the baby pool. The water was from the hose so it was cold but she didn't even care!

Aunt Jamie let Kara borrow Katelyn's walker. Kara absolutely loves it. She has figured out how to turn around and back up when she gets stuck in corners.

Match Made in Heaven

I am extremely excited to blog about my brother-in-law, Byron, getting married. He married Hayley, who was my next door neighbor while growing up. They are both the youngest of 5 and the absolute perfect match. I have been trying to get them together for years but timing is everything. They were finally ready to meet and fall in love last Dec. It was very humid and hot the day they married but they probably didn't even notice. They were both stunning and smiling the whole day/evening. I love the pictures of Kara with all of her cousins. Only one nephew is missing--he didn't want to be in the picture at that time.

Kara is all over the place and loves her new freedom. It is so much fun to put her down in our room and ask her if she wants to take a bath. I walk into the bathroom and start running the water. By the time it is ready she has made it in to the bathroom and is so proud of herself. She has learned to clap and sits down to clap all of the time. We had such a great weekend with her. She seems to understand so much and definitely knows the 'no' voice when we say her name if she is about to touch something she isn't supposed to. (Electrical cords mostly.)

On The Move!

Well, it is official--Kara is crawling. I was getting in the shower a couple of hours ago and she crawled over to the shower like she had been crawling forever. She hasn't stopped moving since. Though she is so exhausted she is crying/whining the whole time right now. Her body knows a new freedom and she can't stop to rest. She is also trying to pull herself up on things. She did this last night at our friends' house for the first time. She pulled herself up on her knees on the side of the couch. Today it was the bathroom drawers and shower door. She just beams at me once she makes it as if she is so proud of herself. A whole new world has just opened up for her.

Back to Work (Edited)

I have been meaning to post for awhile and just haven't taken the time to sit and do it. I need to get back into my routine. We are starting to feel like we are mostly back to normal here at home. We had piles of stuff everywhere that still needed to be put away from unpacking.

Aaron's youngest brother is getting married on Thurs. so we have been trying to get our responsibilities done for that. The picture of Aaron and Kara is at their 'rehearsal' dinner. It was really fun. More on that later.

Today was Aaron's first day back at work. The kids don't start until Thurs. but he has a few days of meetings and set up time. I don't go back until after Labor Day. Yea! Tomorrow is sign-ups for a Mommy and Me swim class. She loves my parents' spa and I hope we get in to the class. There are only 8 spots. It meets 3 times a week for the month of Sept.

HOME!

We are home! What an awesome summer vacation. The lake was beautiful and it was wonderful to spend time with our lake friends. All were so excited to finally meet Kara. We are glad to be home though. We have missed our family, our friends but most of all our BED and internet service! :) Just kidding. We always appreciate what we have when get back home. We left the lake last night about 5:30 PM and pulled into my parents' house at about 6:45 AM. Kara was great on the drive but I thought I was going to go crazy. I could not get comfortable and didn't start drifting off until about 5:30 this morning. Aaron drove the whole way. I was ready to pull over and get a hotel at 1 AM and he just kept going. My parents took care of Kara and Ellie all morning/afternoon until we called about 2:30 to tell them we were awake. We unpacked the whole truck and began putting our house back together.

Kara got tooth number 8 today! I am so glad that she started getting her teeth so young. Either they hurt more coming in now or she is just registering pain and expressing it more. She is so grumpy and easily upset by the littlest thing. Teeth 7 and 8 have been the worst. Yikes for those to come!

I have added on some more lake pics of our last few days there. We were really ready for an In-N-Out hamburger. Unfortunately the first In-N-Out was 100+ miles further south than we were told. Man, was I ready for a Double-Double by Redding!

Pics

Ok, here are some pictures. The mountain picture is from our friends' backyard. It is Mt. Rainier. The dog is Missy--sunning herself. Obviously I am enjoying nap time with my beautiful daughter as much as possible. Oh, the one with Ellie and the cat is hysterical. Gizmo loves to tease Ellie through the window. She just sits there while Ellie absolutely loses it on the other side of the glass.