Yay for pumpkins and black kitties!

Nina sent Karis a cute black shirt with a shiny pumpkin on it and Karis thought it was so fun to wear. But even better, the pants not only have pumpkins, but they have little black kitties on them, just like her kitty! Needless to say, it was hard to put them on her because she wanted to find every black kitty first :)

Online coupon tip

I tried doing the coupon clipping thing to save us money, and I was just never very successful at it. Not sure why, but I wasn't. But I just found out about the P & G e-saver website where you just click on the coupons you might use in the next 3 months, type in your Kroger member number, and then if you buy one of those items, it will automatically deduct the coupons from your total! I thought it was a great idea, because 1) it took under a minute to click on the coupons rather than the time it takes to cut them out and 2) I am not tempted to buy something I wouldn't normally buy just because I have the coupon! 3) I didn't have to even buy a newspaper! So if you are a Kroger shopper and don't want to fool with cutting coupons, check it out :)

Healthy Tip and Laughing at myself :)

Just in case you are interested, I put a post on my recipe blog about healthy substitutions for white flour. Click HERE to read it.

And then, I just have to share why I am still laughing at myself and my sweet baby...You can see in the picture that Karis is holding her plate with one hand...not something I usually allow, because she is in a "dumping food" stage that we are working on. I was just getting ready to take the plate away when I happened to look down at myself...I was pushed away from the table, holding my plate in one hand and eating with the other...EXACTLY like she was doing!! I mean, she copied every detail! How can I discipline her for just being like Mommy? :) So I burst out laughing and of course she did, too, and we just sat there and laughed for the longest time. I let her keep her plate and she didn't dump a bit of it -- she ate just like Mommy til she was done! (She had already made the mess on her tray before copying me :) Disclaimer: I wasn't eating oatmeal with my fingers, though, I was eating grapes :) Oh, how I love my sweet baby!

Interesting article on Vaccines + SIDS and a present from Daddy :)

A friend of mine shared THIS ARTICLE with me about the possibility of vaccines being related to SIDS and I found it pretty interesting. Definitely makes ya wonder...

I have to explain these pics: This first pic shows the look Karis gets on her face whenever she sees something she is so excited about and can hardly believe her good luck :) Its an adorable mixture of wonder, amazement, and excitement, and I wish I had gotten a front view instead of a side view. But she does it all the time, so I should get another chance :) Why the excited face? Daddy is in charge of the soccer program at a sports center that also offers a track-out sports day care for kids who go to year-round school. He filled in for an hour one day to give the workers a lunch break and the girls happened to be making bead necklaces. So he joined them and made one for Karis:) And she thought it was the best thing ever!

We finally bought Karis a new toddler carseat (thanks to Savannah Beckner for the great recommendation!:) and she played in the box for about a week til we got tired of it taking up so much space :)

My Little Dancing Queen

Karis absolutely loves to dance. Music generates an immediate response, but it doesn't even have to be the least bit melodious. She daily starts bouncing to the swish-swish of the washer or the pounding of Pup-Pup's feet against the floor when she has an itch :) And a lot of times, she just walks around the house dancing, as if she has a rythym in her head. So here are a couple of short clips I managed to catch of her dancing. The first one shows off one of her favorite toys, a Leap Frog magnetic puzzle that also plays music. Its great -- it sings a fun song when you get the puzzle right and tells you how silly you are if you put a duck's head with a pig's tail :) Even Pup-Pup loves it -- she will go up and push the button with her nose if she wants to go outside :) I've yet to catch that on video, but its
hilarious :)

In the second clip, she is dancing to her favorite song on our Michael Card Starkindler Cd. Its kind of Celtic and she loves dancing to it :)

Balloon fun!

Daddy brought home a balloon from work and to say that it made her day would be one of the biggest understatements ever! She carried it around all weekend long. It had to come with her in hide and seek and every other game she played :) The hardest part was keeping it away from Pup-pup; I really can't believe it has lasted this long! In the last pic, she is "hiding" it from me behind her back because I asked her where it was. It cracks me up because it looks like she is saying, "who me? what balloon?"

Daddy's Lil' Kicker

Since Daddy is now in charge of Lil' Kickers where he works, Karis can go for free! I know you must be wondering how they teach soccer to a 17 month old...well, its more just for fun and coordination and development skills at that stage. (And they are supposed to be 18 months, but we go anyways :) The parents are there, which means my back is breaking from chasing her around after a session :) We kick balls around, build cone towers and knock them down, play red-light, green-light, chase bubbles, and do all sorts of fun things with the parachute! Karis has sooo much fun and always takes a good nap afterwards. And of course, our main reason for doing it is so that we can see Daddy for an hour in the middle of his work day! He doesn't teach as many classes now that he is coordinator for Lil' Kickers, but he does teach the bunnies class (18mo. to 2 yrs) on Friday mornings. So we usually go to that one and maybe another one during the week if we have time and my back is up to it.

I was too busy chasing her around to get pics of her actually playing soccer with the kids, but maybe next time the grandparents are in I will let them enjoy the fun and I'll rest and take pictures :) But here she is in her cute little uniform :)

Healthy Hint on Recipe Blog

For those of you interested in becoming more healthy, I posted about the importance and how to's of soaking grains and legumes HERE on my recipe blog.

Only about 3 months left!!!

Hopefully, around this time time January we will be finally seeing our new little sweetie! Its hard to believe that January is so close, isn't it? Karis's pregnancy was so easy compared to this one, so I am really getting excited to make it to the 3rd trimester! I've had some issues with this pregnancy (not going to blog about them, but you can ask me if you really want to know), so my OB recommended that I go to Duke Perinatal and get a super duper ultrasound done to make sure everything was going correctly and our precious girl wasn't trying to make an early appearance. Thankfully, we both checked out fine so no worries there! She was measuring exactly for my January 24th due date and quite happy to race all around my belly to give the ultrasound tech a hard time :) But I did manage to get a cool 4-D pic out of the deal (my practice now charges $200 for a 4-D photo shoot, but this tech was super excited to give me a lovely free preview of my little angel! She decided to be an acrobat and cover up her eyes with her foot, but you can see her precious lips and cute nose if you look at it right :) The ultrasound tech was pretty excited about the shot and asked if she could have one of her own because she had never taken one quite so funny and cute at the same time :) I love it! Oh, and since we don't have a scanner, I just took a picture of the pictures to upload them so they aren't quite as clear as they should be :)

If you want to compare her 3-D pic with Karis,' click HERE

This is a pic of all her fingers spread out like she is waving at Daddy!

2 footprints horizontally -- the bootom one is not quite as clear as the top

17 Months old!

Hard to believe that she is almost a year and a half! What a joy to be around! She seems like such a big girl now and its amazing what she knows. I am convinced that she understands every single thing I say to her, although she can't always communicate it back. She daily tries to copy things that I say, which is hilarious because she doesn't have all the sounds down yet but she gets my intonations perfectly :) She has lots of words that she tries to say every day that are so cute, but you have to listen carefully to get them! She signs ALL the time, mainly her favorites: Please, Help, Thank You, and Milk. If she sees any kind of food in a book she will pretend to gobble it up :) And she reads her books by searching for babies and kitties and puppies and other favorite objects :) She gets so excited when she finds balls, apples, butterflies, stars, teddy bears, but especially babies, puppies, and kitties! She has also really gotten into pointing at every little thing so I can tell her the word for it. It takes a lot longer to read a book, but I love it that she is so involved!

Her personality shows up more every day. She is such a happy little girl, but very determined when she wants something! She loves to sing and dance, although of course you can't quite understand what she is singing yet. And boy does she climb everywhere! We finally just put a stool by the couch so that she can get up and down at will. She has fallen off a couple of times, but I fugure its good for her to learn :)

Eating is still frustrating sometimes because she will just decide to play even though its something I know she loves to eat! But she usually makes up for it the next meal so I try not to worry :)

She has officially dropped that second nap, but its ok because she will take such a long one mid-day. Its nice that I can both rest and get something accomplished in the same nap time! And she will still play nicely in her crib for about a half hour if I just desperately need to rest late in the day or if I want to straighten everything up before Mark gets home.

Oh, how I love her!

kitty cuddles

For those of you who have seen Karis meeting a new dog or cat and wonder why she gets down and rubs them with her head, this clip should explain it all :) And there is some random kitty talk for your viewing pleasure as well :)

Pigtails!!!!

I have been trying to put pigtails on Karis for quite some time now. Its not that she didn't have enough hair; I could have done it long ago. The problem is finding a time when she actually will sit still and let me do it. Usually, the moment I start gathering her hair in my hand, she starts fussing to move on and get away. I can usually manage a quick clip or if I'm lucky, one ponytail an the top of her head, but never two :) Today I let her play in her box of bows and she was so intrigued looking at each one that I had plenty of time to make pigtails. She didn't even notice what I was doing! They are definitely lopsided, but I love them anyways :)

Visiting with Great-Grandma and Baby Evi!

When we made a quick trip to VA last weekend, we stopped by to see Great-Grandma Connie. One of my dear friends, Mary Vargas, was sweet enough to meet us there since our time in VA was so short. Great-Grandma Connie was so excited to hold her precious baby, Evi, and I was curious to see how Karis would react to another baby getting all the attention. But Karis was totally intrigued and wanted to be up beside Evi the entire time! I was so excited that she didn't even seem to mind me cuddling Baby Evi! I think Karis is going to be a wonderful big sister :)

Isn't she a beautiful baby?!

Labor Day weekend!

I know that this is over a month late, but I just got the pics from my sis-in-law and I loved them too much to let them slip by without blogging. After church on Sunday, we went down to a pretty dock and playground by the lake.


Nina had to hold on tight! Karis kept trying to reach through the slats to touch the water, not knowing that it was over 10 feet below!

Nina and Papa with all the grandkids (until 2 more are born next year :)
3 peas in a pod :)


Nina's b-day party -- Karis' hair looks so dark because she just got out of the bath and it was still wet :)

flu shots and annual family pic

Dr. Sears has some super important info on this year's flu shots: click HERE for his blog update. He tells you which shots are available and which ones have mercury in them! Our family has decided not to do flu shots at all any more. Last year they were pretty worthless because they picked the wrong strands of the virus to make a vaccine for, and they really haven't been around long enough to know if they affect your body negatively. Anyways, if nothing else, make sure you don't get the shot that has mercury in it!

Every October, we take a family pic on my parents' front steps. I posted the one from last year first because its neat to see how much Karis has grown :)