And then I was 9 months old..

Ta Da! Cara here. I am now NINE months old...can you believe it?
A quick list of things that I've been up to:
-Crawling and lots of it. I am completely mobile. There is nowhere I won't or can't go!
-Cruising. I am just this close to walking on my own. I think it's a game to walk with Mommy's help. I've been known to stand on my own but don't let me realize it!
-Talking. Lots and lots of gibberish. But it's cute.
-Siena is the funniest person on the planet. Wherever she is, there must I be also.
-If there is anything dangerous, pointy, of good amperage, or crashworthy, I seek after these things. (Seriously though...do you have any idea how many outlets are new house has? Apparently, Siena never even noticed those when she was my age. Sheesh.)
Now in this photo, the flash off my bald head makes it so you can't quite see that Mommy and Siena wrote my name on my forehead and drew a big bow.

Oh and I'm really getting good at Mario. (You'd think Mom and Dad could find a more constructive use of their time such as actually organizing my room.)

Our new toy!

Mommy and Daddy got a great new toy for us! We are very excited about it. It's a sweet bike trailer. Mommy and Daddy only have one car and are thinking about trying to ride bikes more and this was an obvious must.

Here's me and Daddy on our maiden voyage.

Unfortunately, Mommy and Daddy kept trying to take me for a ride at just the worst times for me. Such as just before bedtime and when I had been crying. It took me a few times to get comfortable with it. Everything finally came together and we went for our first family bike ride on Friday night. We went to the park that's just down the street. So much fun. We didn't take pictures though because Mommy was being naughty and neither she nor Cara had helmets. If you notice in the previous picture, I got a brand new panda helmet! Saturday we borrowed a much loved helmet from Uncle Eric. He, Aunt Becca, and Uncle Marty all had their names on this thing at one time, but none of them were this cute...sorry!

Then today we made it a "Gas Free Sunday" and turned the trailer in to a stroller and walked to church. Afterwards, we converted it back to a bike trailer and biked to Grandma's. This is what we looked like up on arrival.

All said and done, it's gonna be a good summer.

Zoo Photo Overload!

Now Mommy just helped me post about our wonderful Oma and our trip to the zoo, but since I've gotten so behind on my blogging due to a new house that needs to be unpacked, we decided to post some of Mommy's favorite photos from the zoo filled weekend. We were so cute. Cara and I got to ride around in a double stroller and we both LOVED the reptile house.
This little monitor was dancing and running back and forth trying to talk to us. He looked like he was waving. Cara wasn't even scared!
Mommy took us on the train and didn't tell the lady that I was two already so we got to ride for free. Oops!
I haven't taught Cara the rules about not smiling for the camera. She just lights up when Mommy brings that darn thing out.

Cara in her chariot.

See Cara's smiling looking right at the camera again

and AGAIN!

Finally she decides to eat wood chips instead of smile at the camera.


Some of our favorite moments from the zoo included
-running around the reptile house. Cara loved to stand up and stare in to the glass with me. She would squirm and wiggle until Mommy put her down.
-watching the baby Colobus monkey run around and hide from his mom
-the rhino bums
-just being OUTSIDE and somewhat in the sun

Can't wait for the bird show to come back in the summer!

Our wonderful Oma!

Happy Birthday to our wonderful Oma! We got to spend lots of time with her last weekend. She went with us for our very first trip to Ikea. (Apparently, we ain't got nothin' on Belgium's Ikeas!) That was so much fun, but my favorite time spent with her was at the zoo.

Our Oma is the best. She loves to play playdough with us and read books and color and visit fun places. She is so smart and so funny.

We have been meaning to go to the zoo with Oma since she came back from Belgium in August and it's taken us this long to do it. Luckily, the weather cooperated with us and we even got to go with Aunt Rachel, Romney, and Baby Emma! YEA!!! Mommy decided to rent a double stroller just like she had done the day before which sparked Romney to want to ride also. So we ended up with two double strollers and oodles of opportunities for cute cousin pictures. However Mommy had the only camera and it was low on battery so Mommy and Aunt Rachel managed to limit themselves. We had such a wonderful time looking at the baby elephant and seeing the monkeys. The baby tigers don't look so little anymore. In fact, it looks like they have four full grown tigers all hanging out together instead of a Mommy and her three babes. We're glad we saw lots of them last summer when they were still itty bitty. It was still fun because they were playing in the water up close to the window.
Check out our attempt at a group photo. Kinda like getting baby tiger cubs to "pose."

Lots of baby juggling.

Lots of hand holding.

One set of adorable girls...

And another set of adorable girls!

We finished off the day with a train ride courtesy of Oma. Thank you !

Happy Birthday, Mommy!

Happy Birthday, Mommy!

Exhaustion from trying to move into a new house, trying to get the internet working on both computers, and a quick delightful trip up north leave much blogging to be desired! At least we made it to the zoo for her birthday. (I think she likes the zoo more than us!)

My Brown House

So I have been in LOVE with this little wood house at Costco. Mommy promised herself a long time ago that if she got the house of her dreams then I could have the house of MY dreams. Well Mommy kept her eye on the house just in case the seven or so boxes that were left disappeared, but she felt she had to wait to buy it until we actually had a backyard and not just Grandma's. April 1st was just taking forever to come and then one Saturday near the end of March when we knew that Mommy's dream house was ours, Mommy saw that they only had two boxes left. She was there at 4pm and Costco closes at 6 pm on Saturdays. She went home and talked to Daddy and he decided to just go get it even though we couldn't actually put it in our back yard. He was there by 5:30pm and both boxes were GONE. Seriously this house had been sitting for at least 2 months AND at the first of the week had seven boxes left. He tried to get the floor model but one of the employees said they only sold the floor model if they were absolutely sure all the stock was gone. He checked in the computer and supposedly neither box was bought. They wandered for 30 minutes all through Costco with this guy to make sure the boxes hadn't been moved. Daddy didn't see anybody with them. Well unfortunately because these two boxes were still "in" the computer, Daddy was denied the floor model. So Mommy began a quest online. She hoped Costco.com might have it but she didn't find it. Then she searched other kinds of play houses, plastic ones, one with slides and other things attached and she started to get excited about those until she found that they charged "oversize" charges that were even more than the "free shipping." (We're talking 80 bucks.) And then as fate would have it Costco.com sent Mommy an email with Hot Buys for April. Lo and behold, a version of my dream house was a click away AND Costco ships it absolutely free! It wasn't quite as awesome and lacked a cute little gazebo bunch out front and the working doorbell and a few other things, but it did have a mailbox and some little shelves inside plus a little sink which was my favorite part anyway. She went for it.



And thank you Aunt Angie for helping Mommy put together 75% of the house. Daddy had gotten it started, but just ran out of time! Isn't it beautiful?! Once I realized what they were putting together in the backyard, all I could talk about was going to see my brown house. I actually kept requesting it once we got Mommy's new house as if I understood her promise.

And in Mommy's dream house news, the carpet and tile are done. The bathroom repaint went well. However, we're figuring out some technical difficulties involving the master bath toilet and Daddy just tonight lit the pilot light on the water heater. They are slowly bringing stuff in to the house and will be ready for the pictures soon. The house really didn't need a ton of work and Mommy and Daddy are just so excited. It's a real mess right now with grime from the tile work and putting toilets back on, etc and so we're still sleeping at Grandma's but that should be over this week. In fact, Cara and I took our first nap in our room. I slept in my new bed for the first time! I was already in a big girl bed up in SLC, but this bed is for the new house. And actually, just after I woke up from this nap, Daddy brought the box with my lovely purple bedspread and I got so excited to see my stuff. Every box is just better and better.



Oh and in a belated shout out, HAPPY BIRTHDAY UNCLE ERIC. Love you.

Fear...it's real

So in my Easter post I mentioned the digging in the backyard at my new house incident. I love digging in the dirt. You must understand this. I have cried when Mommy took me to the wrong park that has rubber ground instead of the one by our new house with a big sand box. Whenever we'd get to take a peak out our house before we bought it, I would go outside in the backyard and frolic in the red dirt of the unlandscaped variety. It's so much fun to just run your fingers through it and use a shovel and move it from the ground to the bucket and back. You get a delightful red tinge all over your clothes and as a bonus you keep some in your shoes. It's great!

Well as Mommy and Daddy were helping Uncle Christian with some home updates, I went out in the backyard to dig. I plopped myself in the forbidden "w-sit" and just began to muck around. Grandma showed up to show Grandpa the house in all it's concrete and tack glory and then to take Cara back home with her since Cara was trapped in her car seat or Mommy's arms due to the tack. Well as Mommy was handing over Cara, I came streaming in the back door saying "Scary" and pointing outside. I must have looked just upset enough because I didn't need to cry to get Mommy to come outside. Upon investigation, Mommy discovered that I had moved spots in the backyard and had started digging on top of an underground red ant colony. Near as I've been able to communicate to her, I was digging and they started crawling on my hands and all over the ground which freaked me out. So Mommy scooped me up and put me in the car with Grandma too. Well as she did that she discovered two ants stuck to my pants. They were seriously stuck and still alive very strange. So she pulled them off as best she could. This caused me to tense up and freak out just a bit, but she kissed me good bye and off I went with Grandma. This is where the drama began. When Grandma got me home, I started screaming and crying because I was petrified that I had ants on me. I made her take off all my clothes and then sponge me off in the sink because she couldn't put me down and then I wanted her to put new clothes on me and SOCKS AND SHOES. I am a big barefoot gal so very unusual. And then I just kept crying and wouldn't open my eyes and wanted to be held and kept my fist balled up. Grandma couldn't find an ant bite on me and eventually just called Mommy to help. Mommy came and was trying to distract me and touched my leg which caused me to panic and think I had ants on me all over again. Finally, Mommy just decided to give me Benadryl just in case there was an ant bite that we couldn't see. I curled up on the couch in the fetal position with Aunt Becca's towel wrapped around me and clenched in my fists with eyes shut as tight as could be for at least an hour. It took three almost four hours for the emotional aftermath to pass. Very traumatic.

And so now we know. I am terrified of bugs and not just ants. If I see a bug outside, I freeze at the door. I'll go into the backyard now but I'll stay on the concrete. I will not walk in the dirt. When we go outside, I point to the ants and say "look, bants" and smile but then run back inside. Spiders, flies, bees, anything that resembles a bug is not my friend. Mommy let me try and drown the ants in the backyard with the hose as therapy. I still won't walk in the dirt.

And now for something totally unrelated...pictures that I've been meaning to post because they were such fun. Aunt Becca went and got all pretty for her Preference Dance and while she was taking pictures with Aunt Angie, I talked Daddy in to putting me in a pretty dress too. Absolutely adorableness followed:





Those last two are Mommy's favorites...who can blame her?