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!! :)