Happy Baby!

Kara likes for someone to play with her and likes for someone to sing to her too.  I like to sing her songs and incorporate new sounds each time. She seems to like it.  This particular day it was the sound ow, like wow.  Everytime I would say it she would just squeal and giggle!  Oh how I need to cherish these days where saying bow-wow over and over will entertain her!

Three month birthday here I come!

Nearly a month has gone by since I've posted.  So much has happened....so many pictures have been taken!!  In order to get this up timely, I'll just cut to the chase and go right to the pictures.  Since that is most likely what you are here for anyway :)

The first couple are with Kara on her playmat.  She absolutely loves to watch and listen to the star face sing songs to her.

When I want to talk and play with her myself, I just lie her on a blanket.  She does love to talk and kick and laugh!

She is finally big enough to sit well in her bumbo seat.  Of course she prefers standing :)

She is now bigger than the ballerina bear :)  I think they were the same size when she was born!

Kara always wakes up in such a great mood!  In fact, it makes me laugh each morning because when you go over and start talking to her after you know she has waken, she will still have her eyes closed but this HUGE grin comes across her face.  It is just awesome!!  So on the days I have to go to work, I always like to play with her a little bit before I have to get ready and leave.  We usually get a couple of pictures to take with us just to remember her from the morning.  I do love phones with their great picture taking ability....spoiled we are!!

Usually when she sees a camera, she will stop playing and smiling and just stare at the camera.  However, if you have one person taking the pictures/video and the other person playing with her, she will continue on in her baby bliss.  So on this morning, Mark was taking pictures while I was playing with her.  So fun she is!!

Superbowl watching with Daddy. What you don't see here is that this picture was taken in the 10 minutes or so that she fell asleep, before we knew how short lived that would be.  You see, this particular weekend, Kara was having a growth spurt.  So Mark went to try and put her in her bassinet and she woke up.  And she was hungry.  So she ate...for the next 3 hours or so!  Off and on of course, but it was 10:30 before she decided she had enough to finally go to sleep!

When she isn't eating, this is what she did while in her growth spurt weekend.  She slept the better part of the day that day.  As of today, she is almost 10 lbs.  She weighed in this morning at 9.8 lbs.  Getting close to doubling her birth weight!  You go girl!!

These last couple of pictures were just a couple of days ago on my day off.  Kara was pure joy to be around this particular day!  She is normally a very content and happy baby anyway, which we consider ourselves quite lucky on!  But this day, she slept well, which made her awake time very playful.  She was constantly laughing and playing and having a grand time.  Probably the most fun day I've had with her yet :)



Anyway, hope you enjoy the pictures! 

Two and a half Months

It's been a couple of months since I posted. A busy, fun couple of months :) So I sit now, with Kara sleeping on my shoulder, to update. 
Thursday she will be 10 weeks old. Sooo hard to believe!! It's funny because it feels like forever since I was pregnant. I'm getting closer to feeling back to my pre-pregnant self. But then I still can't believe I have a baby of my very own. Maybe when she starts calling me Mommy it will start hitting home more, but it'll still take a while to really sink in.

Well, like I said, Kara is 10 weeks old this week. She had her first Christmas here in Fort Worth and she seemed to enjoy it :) She met so many people and was such a good baby! At two and a half months, she can hold her head up real good, likes to stand and jump, has started to smile and laugh, has gotten really good at spitting up and likes to talk to you while she plays on her back. I think she's getting cuter, but some may say I'm biased :) She isn't fond of naps, but doesn't mind sleeping on my chest (it's the easiest way to get her to sleep during the day, next to carrying her around in the sling). She has gotten easier to go to sleep at night though....thank goodness!!

Anyway, here's some recent pictures of her. Enjoy!

Kara Elizabeth is here!

It has been a busy, tiring and baby-filled last couple of weeks......Kara Elizabeth was born on 11/10 at 5:43 pm and came into the world at 5 lb 9 oz and 18 inches long.
To catch everyone up, here are some pictures from the last couple of weeks:

The first three are the morning of Kara's birth. 

I woke up at 3 am with my water breaking and knew it was the day I was going to have a baby :)  We had plans to get pregnancy pictures taken just two days later, on Saturday, but that didn't get to happen so we snapped just a very few pictures right before we walked out to go to the hospital.

Fast-forward about 10 hours and we pick back up later that evening....

Right after she was born.....I loved this moment!

This is Kara getting her first bath

And here is Daddy shielding Kara's eyes from the really bright lights....I think Daddy is in love all over again!

Kara's serious face :)

Now the next few are after she came home.....

Sleeping beauty :)

I added some bright things for Miss Kara to check out while hangin' out in her bassinet.  She seems to really like the pink butterfly!



Here is Daddy and Kara.  He really likes just chillin' with Kara!

And here is Daddy with feeding duty.  I am actually breastfeeding but Miss Kara doesn't like to stay awake long enough to get all she needs to eat, so we are now bottle feeding while I pump.  Although I'm looking forward to getting to breastfeed again once she gets a little bigger and once she can stay awake long enough, this way Daddy and Grandma get to feed her also.

Well that is all for now.  I'll post more soon!

Baby Wearing

I decided I wanted a baby wrap carrier after reading about them but they can be fairly expensive to buy one.  So I set out in the wide world of information and found a great tutorial on the web for this Mei Tai.  It seems like a well made design.  We’ll see how it turns out in real life, but those who have used the style and tutorial speak highly of it.  I made the carrier so that you could wear it reversible. Here’s the colorful side….

And here’s the plain (more dad-like) side.  There is the solid piece that keeps the baby in place and then there is a hood attached to the top that has the ties to secure it so it stays put while you are walking around.  You can use it to put over baby’s head if she is sleeping, or if it’s too sunny or drizzly, etc. 

Here’s a couple of pictures of me wearing a stuffed cow.  Just to see how it works/looks.  You can actually put newborns up to several years old in here and can wear the child either on your front or on your back (newborns would be front only though).  Anyway, I’m pleased with the way it turned out and about the only thing I may change is making the straps a little bit shorter.

Baby Lanier's New Room

So I know some of you are wondering what exactly the baby’s room looks like right now.  Well it is definitely still in a state of “coming togetherness” but there is progress to be seen.  Here’s an around the room view of its’ current state.

This first one is the entrance to the room along with the closet.  I decided I had to hang at least one thing up for pictures, so since I had already determined this piece would be going beside the closet, I went ahead and hung it up.  I remember having this in my room as a child and my Mom gave it to me not long ago, knowing I liked it.  It makes me smile still  :)

This next picture is just showing the inside of the closet. I’ve organized the many clothes I’ve already acquired into boxes according to sizes. I figure that will make it easier to change them out as the time comes. We’d like to eventually put in some permanent shelves in the closet to make more efficient use of space to store stuff but that is second to the other stuff which really needs to get done before she is born.

Panning over, this is the window in the room. It takes a large portion of the wall that it is on. The curtains are obviously temporary until I get the real ones made. I’ve just got to go find material that I like. In three weeks, I plan to start working part-time (and can’t wait!!) so I’m hoping I’ll have some more time during the day to do things like this.

Here is where the bed is planned to be, along with the rocking chair.  I’m looking for a small table to sit beside the chair that I can put a lamp on and other small stuff.  I also plan to find a place for books beside the chair also.  The mirror sitting behind the chair I plan to put on the small wall to the right of the yellow curtains and off to the left of the chair.  I figured baby girl will have fun looking at herself when she gets tall enough to stand in her crib.

This final wall is where the changing table/dresser will go.  We’ll be moving it in sometime in the next week or two.  Most of the stuff sitting there will either be going in or on top of the table.  And you can see the doorway off to the very right hand side, which is where we started our tour.

This is a mural that my friend Marianna is painting for me.  It is actually a collage and I just LOVE it!  It isn’t finished quite yet but when it is completed, I plan to put it above the changing table.  I’m so lucky to have talented friends and family!

That concludes the baby room tour for now! I’ll post an update once I’ve made some more decent progress on the room.

Baby Movement!

Baby Lanier was being particularly active last night!  We'd been trying over the last week or so to get video of her movements without much luck.  Last night paid off!