15 Months Old

Karys is really almost 15 1/2 months old, but it's occurred to me over the last couple of days that she's doing so much stuff now, and you'll just love it! :) Some new things she can do:

* Give hugs--as shown in these cute pictures with her puppy. This puppy dog was given to me by a school co-worker and I put it away when she was little and just remembered it a couple of weeks ago. He is a huge hit!! Karys loves him so much! :)

* Eats like a champ!! So much so, that today she decided she REALLY loves her milk! She was hugging all over her milk cup. :)

* Gets into things she's not supposed to (while Mommy takes her picture!)

* Grabs her puppy whenever I come to get her out of bed, carries him, and hugs all over him!

* Has learned some new animal sounds:

- Cow (she says, "Mmmm"

- Sheep (she says, "Aaaaa"

- Dog (she makes a whimper-type sound)

- Snake (she can make a "hiss" sound)

(The cow, sheep, and dog she can remember on her own and just has to be asked what they say! :)

* Knows where her eye is. Ryan taught her this one, because she kept trying to poke his eye, so he taught her, "Where's Daddy's eye? Where's Karys's eye?"

* Can "flap her arms like a chicken" with Elmo! Ryan taught her this one too. Usually, she'll do it with both hands, but she couldn't drop the puppy!!

* Can play pretend. She watched me pretend to drink out of a cup, and now she can do it too! She makes a smacking sound, which was basically what I was doing, while holding the cup to her face. :)

*She can also follow the directions of "sit down, stand up", but I couldn't get it on video today! :)

Nothing Big :)

I haven't posted in forever, but I don't know that I really have a lot to post about!! We have moved into a duplex now and we're still in the unpacking process. The stuff that's left is pretty much just junk, I guess, but it still needs a place!! :) It's starting to drive me crazy to have all of this stuff around and not have the place totally together, but I know it'll come. :) We're really thankful that our house sold with no complications and that it didn't take months to sell even though it's really sad to be out of our house and into a place that doesn't feel like "home" as much as a place to live. (Yes, there's a difference!). However, things are okay. The main time I miss our house is when it's raining because I don't have a garage anymore!! :)

I haven't really been taking pictures lately, but I'll share a few cute ones that I took back in August and September:

What I saw looking into the backseat one day...such a cutie!! :)

Wearing the princess stuff she got at Ethan's birthday party...and making a silly face! :)

She loves her princess wand!!

I love this picture!! This was taken at our last play date with Ethan and Stephanie before Ethan moved to Amarillo (We miss you, Ethan!!). Karys was not happy about something, but we were trying to take pictures of the babies. So here she is screaming, while Ethan gives one of his best smiles! :)

And finally, back at our old house, all of the baby utensils were in the bottom drawer in the kitchen. Karys had figured out how to open it and loved taking out a spoon for herself and just carrying it throughout the house!

Dancing Queen

I promised my sister I had a funny video to post of the baby, since I never seem to make time to post anything!! However, the video I told her about needs to be edited down and since I don't feel like doing that tonight, I'll post a funny video I took tonight. Karys got the LeapFrog Fridge Farm for her birthday and just now started "dancing" to the songs it plays. She does it every time and it's total cuteness!! :)

Happy Birthday, Karys!!

Thursday was one of those surreal days in my life. My sweet Karys turned one!! It is so hard for me to believe that she's actually been in our lives for a whole year. I'm really excited about all the things that are to come in her life, and yet it's also a little sad that her first year is already over and she's really not even considered a baby anymore. It feels like a lot to take in all at once!

Over this past year I've learned a lot about this sweet little girl:

• She is funny!! She'll do anything for a laugh. :)


• She has a really easygoing personality. I've thrown changes in her schedule at her for various reasons and she's really good about just going with the flow.


• She loves people and loves for people to love her. :)


• She's the only kid most people have ever heard of who sucks both of her thumbs at the same time!


• She is loved by a lot of people!

We decided to have her birthday party on her actual birthday because my sister is going to be in a wedding this weekend and wouldn't have been able to come if we had waited until the weekend. Prior to the party we had her open the presents from us and ones that had been mailed to her. Ryan was most excited about her opening a push toy that we got for her to hopefully motivate her to start taking some steps. She has the capability and has even stood independently for a few seconds. But when she catches herself standing independently she feels the need to sit down, or balance herself in some way. Now that she has tried out and liked this push toy, we're hoping walking is just around the corner. (Although, I'm sure once she starts walking we'll be chasing her around even more!!)

In hopes that we'd have a happy baby, we scheduled her party for the evening knowing that naps would be done with for the day and she should be good until bedtime. And for the most part, everything went according to plan. This was my first time doing a child's birthday party so I felt a little like a fish out of water but everyone seemed to have a good time. (Especially since we grilled hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner!!) Here's one of our party pics:

I posted this one on facebook and had people ask what was on the walls. It was my way of saving money buying party decorations. :) I typed up a sheet for every month of the last year and listed the important things she did that month and put up pictures from that month around it. This went all the way around the room. We also had everyone play a game where we had two funny pictures of Karys and everyone was supposed to write a caption for each picture. The winners of each picture got a prize. :)

Here are some more fun pictures from the party:

This one is funny in a sad way...I picked her up from crawling on the floor so we could start opening presents. Can you tell that idea was not well-received??? :) But she got the hang of it and got happy again!

And now, the best pics from a one-year-old's party....the cake!! I made cupcakes for the party. At first, she was really excited about trying to touch the flame!!... ...And then mad that we wouldn't let her!!Then she played in the icing for awhile...


...but when she finally touched some icing to her lips, it was on!! :)

Happy birthday, sweet girl!

Funny Faces and Funny Places

This is mostly just a blog of funny pictures you need to see!!

Here is one of Karys's new funny faces~ wrinkling up her nose...so cute!!

And another new face-- she kind of puckers up her lips!!

And these pics are what happened the other day while I was blowdrying my hair and she was playing in the closet. I thought she was just pulling laundry out of the basket, but instead....

And this is what happens when you're in the laundry basket...it opens up a whole new world of things to find!! (P.S. I have no idea how she got in here because I never heard anything!! I do know how she got out because I watched her. Only, I don't think this was how she meant to get out!! She kind of leaned forward and the basket fell over, and she landed on the floor! No crying, though! :)

Beach Blanket Baby :)

Today was Karys's first time to wear her new swimsuit and play in a swimming pool!! She didn't really seem all that thrilled by the whole experience. Hopefully that was because it was new. I tried to put her in a baby floatie and she cried, so we didn't do that anymore!! She kept a serious look on her face most of the time but eventually started splashing the water a little bit. And then when she got to sit down in the water (the pool we were at had a beach entrance) she seemed to be a little bit happier. Check out this cutie!(I only put this in here because it shows off most of her swimsuit...I'm not trying to model mine for anyone!! :)
Bathing beauty

Playing in the water

Things "Bad Moms" Do

I think this probably qualifies as something on the list of things that "bad moms" do. :) She did all this by herself while I was drying my hair...and then when I saw her, of course I grabbed a camera!! :)

She's so proud of herself!! :)

First Pig Tails

We spent Friday night and all day Saturday in Forney with my family, partly because my mom, sister, and sister's fiance were all participating in the Forney Relay for Life.

*Side note: My mom had breast cancer when I was a child. At Relay, cancer survivors wear purple shirts that say "Survivor" on the back and do a special lap all together at the start of Relay. Watching that at the Longview Relay always brings tears to my eyes---just thinking about all that these people have been through, what some are still going through, and the strenght of the survivors and their families. Watching my MOM walk that lap felt even more emotional. I was so young when she was going through it that I barely remember it, but the fact that she never had a relapse and it was caught early and she's still HERE just makes me that much more appreciative of her!! :) *End Side Note :)

My mom and my sister are always buying things for Karys and this weekend was no exception. My mom got her these cute little flower clips which really excited me because I've been wanting to try her hair in pig tails, but knew I needed two matching bows for that. So here are the results!

(And here she is playing with my parents' cat...which actually was the cat I had in college. :)

I Love My Cat!!

Our cat, Simon, likes to spend a lot of time outside (probably to get away from a baby who chases after him!! :) Now that Karys is pulling up, she loves to look out the window and we have the perfect windows for that because they are low to the ground. Whenever she's going to be around playing, I pull up the blinds so that she can look out the window. (Otherwise, she'll just play with the blinds!!) This has happened a few times, but I was able to get a couple of pictures the other day...she loves this cat!! :)

"There he is!!"

"Where did he go???"

"Siiiiimonnnn...." :)

First Trip to the Zoo

Two Fridays ago, I told Ryan we should take Karys to the zoo sometime. He asked when. I responded, "How about now?" (This was around 8:30 or so in the morning...Ryan's job has him off on Fridays). So we decided to make a spontaneous trip to the zoo. So spontaneous that when we were almost ready he asked if he should call his sister and see if she and her kids were interested in going. Even with the VERY short notice, we all got to go together! :) We had a blast and Karys definitely enjoyed herself. I might have a zoo obsession now because I've talked my friend, Alison, into taking the three kids she's babysitting this week to the zoo and Karys and I are going with her. That way, between me and Alison, we'll each be in charge of a baby and a big kid. :)

Here are some of our fun zoo pics.

Looking in the pond with Daddy

(I was so excited for her to get to wear this hat!!)

Karys and Daddy...awww!!

I forget what these things were called, but right as we were standing there one of them started peeing!! (This happened to us with several of the animals!)

In front of the lions

Looking at the penguins

The cousins

This is what happens when I try to ask Ryan to take a real picture!The petting zooThe goats really liked Connor's wheelchair!! Eventually they were all pretty much climbing on him!!I just found out recently that the Caldwell Zoo here in Tyler is the best zoo in this area (better than both Dallas and Fort Worth), so I'm happy that Karys has been to it. It's possible we'll be going to San Antonio this summer with my family and I just read a list of the Top 10 Zoos in the country in Parents magazine and the San Antonio Zoo made the cut!! :)

Clean up!

This is Ryan's way of getting Karys to help clean up toys. He holds her over a toy, waits until she picks it up, "flies" her over to the toy basket and waits for her to drop it it. :) Kinda reminds you of the crane game at the arcade, huh? ;)

New Laugh

I'm finally getting that video posted that I wanted to show off. This is Karys's latest laugh...well, basically an addition to her laugh! She does this sniffing thing...too cute! :)

(And yes, that is Ryan in the background humming the "Spiderman" theme song! :)

9 Month Stats

We went for Karys's 9 month checkup last week, only to find out she's still long and skinny! (Gosh, I wish I was her!!) She weighed 17 lbs. 2 oz. (18th percentile) and was 28" long (63rd percentile). And either her head was measured wrong last time or it grew a lot this time. Last time it was 16 1/4" and that was the 7th percentile. This time it was 17 1/4" and that was the 43rd percentile!

I did find out that she's old enough to have soft table foods. I got really excited about that and went out and bought all kinds of things for her to feed to herself. And realized really quickly that it wasn't going to be that easy. Check out these pics of her eating Cheerios!

Checking them out

After I put one in her mouth!

I have since slowed things down and am trying to get her accustomed to eating the 3rd level baby foods that have chunky pieces. Oh, and she's getting better at liking the Gerber Puffs. Yesterday I decided she was never going to get used to them if we didn't practice eating them more often so I broke up a few pieces and put them on her tray. When she would pick one up, I'd guide her hand to her mouth so she could feed herself. I then put a couple of whole ones on the tray for her to experiment with while I sat in front of her, filling out her calendar of things she's done this month. Then I start hearing this gagging noise and she has one of the Puffs too far back in her mouth so I had to pull it out...and upon doing that, realized, "Hey, she put this in her mouth by herself!!"

I will be posting a video soon of a funny thing she does lately. While laughing, sometimes she will scrunch up her nose and do this sniffing thing that is so funny! My sister used to do it when she was little...kinda funny that Karys does it now too. The only reason I can't post it right now is because I haven't downloaded it to the computer. I'll do my best to get to that ASAP. For now, I'll leave you with some of our latest pictures:

Our latest play date with Stephanie and Ethan:

And some fun bath time pics: