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365 pictures say a thousand words: Week 10

Kari — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 19:40:09 +0000

March 5: A little snack and some playtime on a nice afternoon at Central Market.
March 6: She loves playing with her Little People Discovery City. Great consignment sale find.
March 7: Chocolate frozen yogurt topped with fruit. Yummo.
March 8: Snack time!
March 9: Picnic time!
March 10: A little shopping, but not before we stop at the mall’s play area.
March 11: Please, Daddy! Of course Daddy gave in. It was a fun toy until it went flying across the parking lot, never to be seen again.

I can walk!

Kari — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 16:02:10 +0000

It’s been a long time coming, but finally our munchkin can walk on her own! We’d been starting to get a little nervous, because 18 months is when the doctors start to get concerned if they’re not walking on their own, and we’re just a few weeks away from that appointment. But finally Maya decided it was time. (We think it helped having Nana here to watch and encourage her, too.) So I think it was March 2 or so when she actually took her first steps on her own, with Nana and I cheering for her. And she’s continued to show off since then. I think we’re up to about 25 steps at once. So don’t think it’ll be long before all she does is walk. (She already likes to walk everywhere, she just insists on a hand to help her.) Talk about waiting until the last minute.

365 pictures say a thousand words: Week 9

Kari — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 15:54:43 +0000

And we’re caught up….

Feb. 26: Love to play in the wood chips at the park.
Feb. 27: We watched the cattle drive in the Stock Yards with Nana and PopPop.
Feb. 28: Striking a pose before bed.
March 1: Reading with Nana.
March 2: Cuddles with Bailey dog.
March 3: Beautiful day for a trip to the zoo!
March 4: Dinner at Fireside Pies, one of the many newish places in the West Seventh development.

365 pictures say a thousand words: Week 8

Jason — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 04:03:26 +0000

Getting caught up this week… My family has been visiting since last Saturday, and mom is here until Tuesday, so we’ve all been busy hanging out and having a good time. More on their visit later, but needless to say, Jason and I have loved having so much help and being able to go on so many dates. And out with friends sans-baby… a nice change. Have to make sure our friends actually like us, and not just the cute kid who’s always tagging along!

Feb. 19: Fun day at the park. She loves going down the slide, but makes a hilarious face sometimes!
Feb. 20: For real? A bow? No way, mom.
Feb. 21: Lounging around.
Feb. 22: Moving in for the kiss.
Feb. 23: All smiles in mom’s hat.
Feb. 24: This comes with two photos… We told Maya it’s not nice to stuff teddy in the oven. So she moved him to the microwave.
Feb. 25: Check out the curls! And all of her hair! It’s getting hard to manage.

365 pictures say a thousand words: Week 7

Jason — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 03:41:36 +0000

Feb. 12: Check out my hair!
Feb. 13: It’s never too early to start watching the Simpsons. (Don’t worry, she doesn’t really watch TV yet.)
Feb. 14: Happy Valentine’s Day! Dirt is just as good as chocolate, right?
Feb. 15: If I jump, will you catch me?
Feb. 16: Lunch break in the park downtown with dad. If you’re from Fort Worth you’ll recognize the Man with a Briefcase.
Feb. 17: Great day to blow some bubbles.
Feb. 18: Bedtime cuddles with mom.

365 pictures say a thousand words: Week 6

Kari — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 02:29:18 +0000

Can’t believe we’re this far into February already. Hope everyone had a great week. We were down a car, so one or the other of us spent much of the week stuck at home with no way to leave! But that was OK midweek, when we had another winter storm that shut the city down. (A little bit of an overreaction this time, I must say.) One day we’ll get to go back to Little Gym, says Maya… But finally, it seems spring might be here.

Feb. 5: Tried to make Sports Center downtown, but some major car troubles got in our way. But made it to Delaney’s for dinner with Carla (in the photo), Alyson and Karalee. At least we could forget about the car for awhile!
Feb. 6: Celebrity hunting with my Maya’s pal Karalee and daddy. Karalee has been Maya’s new best friend lately.
Feb. 7: So tired!
Feb. 8: Before-bed snuggles. Kiddo looks a little tired here too!
Feb. 9: Emptying daddy’s wallet is a fun game.
Feb. 10: This fork is very interesting….
Feb. 11: Finally, some nicer weather! Time to play outside.

Super Bowl week

Jason — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 04:07:03 +0000

Despite the weather and the cancellation of some of the events we had hoped to go to, it was fun having the Super Bowl in our city.

ESPN was set up in Sundance Square downtown, so we made several trips by to watch them filming their shows, both TV and radio. But the most fun we had was a little star chasing with our friends Karalee and Carla. Karalee was obsessed with trying to see Jennifer Aniston up close, so we headed downtown to try to catch a glimpse of her and Adam Sandler because they were going to be on the ESPN pre-game show on Sunday.

It was fun on its own to just see the ESPN personalities put on their show up close. But then we staked out the area where they would be coming out and walking to the set. Jason and Karalee were in the first row, so they got some of their own photos. (Ours weren’t great, but you can seem them at least.) But mostly we had a fun morning out in the sun with our friends.

Snoop showed up next, but we had to head home for Maya’s nap so we missed him. While Carla and I were strolling around she started chatting with Allen Covert, who was in the movie “Big Daddy” and some others with Adam Sandler. I think he was party of Adam Sandler’s entourage. Maya and I took a photo with him later, after he gave her a little walking advice. He was a very nice guy!

365 pictures say a thousand words: Week 5

Kari — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 17:08:09 +0000

This was one crazy week, with the Super Bowl in town and the worst weather we’ve had since we lived here. School was out every day but Monday and the city was virtually shut down. Jason had to miss a Super Bowl party he was supposed to go to Tuesday night because driving to Dallas would have been crazy. Unfortunately, when you work from home you don’t get any time off! Luckily the roads around our house weren’t impassable, so we still managed to get out here and there. We’d go nuts trapped in our house for four days, I think!

Jan. 29: Having a little fun with Bailey outside, in between visits to the Stock Show and the Science Museum.
Jan. 30: Sunday was a beautiful day: the temp hit 70. If only we knew what was to come. Lunch outside with our friends was a great way to enjoy the weather, but so was digging in the dirt in this flower pot!
Jan. 31: She always manages to get her hands on soap, or something else she shouldn’t be playing with. But it’s so much more interesting than a toy.
Feb. 1: Our winter wonderland makes its first appearance.
Feb. 2: Maya’s kitchen that she got for Christmas by far keeps her entertained longer than any other toy she has.
Feb. 3: The girl has decided she HATES getting new diapers and getting dressed after bath time. (You can see she spent most of the week in PJs, thanks to the cold, snowy weather.)
Feb. 4: After a few days of mostly ice, we got more snow!

Snow Day!

Jason — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 16:39:45 +0000

Like most of the country, we were slammed with cold, snowy, icy weather this last week. It doesn’t bother me too much, although they don’t do a good job of sanding the streets down here, so the roads were pretty dicey for a few days. But the good thing that came out of the storm: Maya got to try out her snow suit! My mom bought this for her quite awhile ago, and it’s still too big. Next year it should fit perfect. It wasn’t so big we could try it on her though!

She looked like a big marshmallow. The jacket and pants probably tripled her size! So hilarious to look at, but she’d beg to differ. She wasn’t crazy about not being able to move around very well! But she stayed in it long enough for us to snap a few photos… and then she broke down. So we have a nice sequence of a very unhappy girl, who eventually tipped right over from a seated position she was wearing so much bulk. I know… we’re cruel to photograph this, but it was too cute. And Jason was on his way to rescue her while I had the camera on the sports setting… so really, it wasn’t even a minute of tears.

Bailey on the other hand loved everything that had to do with the snow. He must have been born up north somewhere before he made his appearance at the Human Society in Fort Worth. The dog loves the snow.

Parents’ Day Out

Jason — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 20:28:38 +0000

Monday was a big day for our little girl. She was “dropped off” somewhere for the first time: Parents Day Out. I work from home on Mondays and until a few weeks ago Kelly, Maya’s babysitter, had come on Monday mornings to spend a few hours with her while I worked. But her schedule at TCU doesn’t allow her to help on Mondays anymore. So instead of hunting for another sitter (an agonizing process we wanted to avoid if at all possible) we decided it would be kind of nice for Maya to be around some other kids her age. So we thought we’d take advantage of this opportunity.

So now on Monday mornings she’s going to go to a Parents Day Out program at Central Christian Church, which is less than five minutes from our house. The people and teachers we’ve met there seem to be great, and we’re hoping she’ll like it. PDO goes from 9-2 at this school, but I’m going to pick Maya up at noon. They eat lunch at 11:30 and then all take naps for an hour or so. At home Maya naps from 1 until about 3:30, so I have no intention of messing with that! So I’ll pick her up at noon so she doesn’t have to nap there.

There will be three other kids in the room with her with two adults, so she’ll get lots of attention and get to be exposed to a “school-like” environment with other kiddos her age. Eating at a table… taking walks as a group… things like that. But mostly just playing!

Her first day went pretty well, but she was a little teary when I picked her up, so I don’t think she loved her first day. But I’m certain she will start to be happy there once she knows her teacher and isn’t in a totally new place. Sometimes we leave her at the kid-care they have at our gym – usually for only about 40 minutes – and she loves that now, although it took a few times. So hopefully this will be the same! If not, we’ll figure something else out.