Back to Main Page
Kaira's Picture Gallery
07/01/05 - Trying to stall before naptime, I thought they were cute pictures.
07/01/05 - Playing with Playdoh - cutting shapes with cookie cutters and rolling it into snakes.
06/29/05 - Playing dress-up with Mommy's shoes
06/24/05 - Waiting to go outside to play in the pool, and showing off her new Nemo swimsuit (She has about 4 different suits now! I bought a couple new ones and then discovered the ones from last year still fit too).
06/24/05 - Sleeping beauty
06/24/05 - Trains, trains...
...and more trains!
06/20/05 - Playing in our pool in the backyard. I'm not sure which was more fun - the pool or the hose. I didn't think she was strong enough to work the hose. I set it down to do something - she picked it up and hosed me down! She thought it was just about the funniest thing ever chasing mommy around the yard with the hose.
06/19/05 - Seeing how much fun Kaira had with the sprinklers at school, I went out and got one for us to play with at home. I also found some sidewalk chalk and she was pretty excited about being able to color all over the ground
06/15/05 - Kaira's newest obsession - Thomas the Train! We are quickly acquiring a massive collection of trains and tracks, which she insists on playing with every day.
06/09/05 - During the summer at Kaira's school, they have some sprinklers built into the playground for the kids to play in. Everyone gets dressed up in their swimsuits and has a blast running through the water. They'll get to do this twice a week all summer long - and she's been having a blast!
05/28/05 - Kaira playing with her trains.
05/28/05 - Being silly with Daddy - tracing hands on the doodle board
05/26/05 - A day at the park!
05/19/05 - Playing with "baby" (still no name, poor thing!)
05/14/05 - Working on another masterpiece...
04/28/05 - Kaira putting her bear, Julia, to bed... First a story ("Goodnight Moon" of course), then a drink, then tucked in tight.
I finally got around to adding some new stuff to this page. I've been holding onto some good pictures that I haven't had time to load until now - like pictures from Easter! I made it through midterms, and now finals are fast approaching. So far I have 5 A's and one B (an 89% - so close!), but of course finals can make or break all that. Kaira is getting ready to graduate to the next class room at school (Classroom 2B for 2 1/2 to 3yr olds). The move will hopefully help us out with potty training too - she's doing good at home, but they can't do much for her in her current class, so that puts a bit of a damper on things. I'll be soooo glad when we are finally done with the diapers for good! Well, on to the pictures...
04/19/05 - Kaira playing with a feather boa we found while cleaning out the back of a closet.
04/15/05 - Kaira and I recently got easels (thank you Grammy and GiGi!), and have had a good time playing with the paint. I even found her a smock that looks just like Mommy's - very cute.
04/02/05 - Kaira spending a little quality time with Uncle Mike while he was in for a visit.
03/27/05 - Making breakfast on Easter morning... Kaira is getting to be a pretty good helper in the kitchen. She pours, counts and stirs (and makes a mess sometimes!). She has also appointed herself in charge of licking any beaters.
03/17/05 - A day at the zoo - the Baton Rouge Zoo is small, but it's nice because all of the animals are very close. As you can see in one of the pictures, a friendly giraffe came right up to the fence and reached over to eat grass out of Kaira's hand. We have a year membership and have been making regular trips to the zoo.
03/16/05 - Chowing down on oranges at snacktime, one of her favorites as you can tell by the cheesy grin.
03/13/05 - A picture Kaira drew on her doodle board.
03/13/05 - Bathtime fun!
03/03/05 - We made waffles for breakfast this morning - and Kaira helped!
Feeding baby her bottle, and of course she needs to be burped when she's done; Playing with some new picture flashcards
03/02/05 - Like father, like daughter...
03/01/05 - Sick day... camping out on the sofa couch. We went to the doctor this morning - another ear infection! Not as bad as the last one though (last one was both ears, sinuses and throat all infected!). Both this time and last, there was no fever so it was hard to be sure. But she wasn't sleeping well, and that's her big signal that something is wrong.
03/01/05 - Kaira putting baby down for a nap - patting her on the tummy and reading Goodnight Moon to her.
02/27/05 - John brought home a new toy for Kaira one day recently - a Thomas electric train. Of course we had to get a track to run him on, and the collection quickly grew. She now has 2 Thomas' and a James engine, and the tracks that came with the kits, complete with train station. The only problem with multiple trains on one track - frequent collisions, but I guess that's part of the fun. This has been a recent favorite.
02/26/05 - Kaira discovered a Santa hat while we were rummaging through some stuff in the garage, and wore it around the house for the afternoon.
02/22/05 - Tucking baby in and rocking her in her new cradle (thank you Grammy!)
02/22/05 - Playing with her cars (and feeding them to baby?)
02/16/05 - Picking wildflowers from the yard, and the finished wildflower bouquet
02/14/05 - Opening and playing with Valentine's Day presents: the big, pink bear (from Mia) and the little Blue and Playskool ABC/123 game (from Grammy & PawPaw).
Feb 8th & 12th - Kids always look so sweet when they are asleep, don't they? Haven't done any sleeping pictures in a while, so figured it was time.
02/06/05 - Kaira managed to get a hold of a baby powder bottle while I was in the other room doing laundry. When she was quiet a little too long, I went in to check on her... and found her powdering all of her Little People. By the time I found her, the powder was everywhere! So I just let her continue and went to grab the camera. At that point, there's not much else you can do but laugh and take pictures. I eventually got the vacuum out, and she got hers out too and helped me clean it up.
02/06/05 - Kaira cooking up some fried bananas in her kitchen (another favorite is carrot & pumpkin soup - I'll never figure her menu out!)
1/18/05 - It was warm enough to play outside today, which we've been having to avoid the last couple of days. Kaira was thrilled to be outside. Her hair wasn't in pigtails like it usually is, and the static from the playground made her hair a little wild.
1/15/05 - Kaira dressed herself this day. She ended up with purple pants, a pink shirt, her Pooh bear hat, and her hot pink dress-up shoes. She was quite proud of her selections.
1/10/05 - Taking "baby" for a ride in her new stroller. She has her baby all tucked in with a blanket and even has a diaper bag for her too.
1/8/05 - Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a wonderful time during the holiday season. I have been enjoying the time off between semesters. My most recent project was moving Kaira out of her baby room and into her "big girl" room. Check it out:
01/01/04 -
12/16/04 -
Kaira helped me bake cookies today, and we made such a mess!
She helped measure and pour the flour and sugar,
helped stir the batter, poured in the chocolate chips,
and of course taste tested everything. She had a lot of fun
though, and of course had to lick the beater when we were done.
. . . . . . . .
12/15/04 - Just being a goofball after dinner one night. Playing peek-a-boo with the bib and making funny faces.
.
.
The Fall semester is finally over! Final grades on Karen's Page
12/09/04 - NEW BIKE!
While wandering around the toy store a couple days ago, Kaira discovered the bike section in the back. We had been thinking about getting her a tricycle, so I started checking things out. To my surprise, she hops on a 2-wheeler (with training wheels, of course) and starts cruising around the aisles! I decided to get her a bike instead of the tricycle.
Since we will be traveling to Flordia for Christmas, and can't carry it with us (too big), we decided not to wait to open it. John's parents (Grammy & PawPaw) were also in town visiting, so they got to catch this first with us. I got a helmet and pads to go with the bike, so we straped them on and took the bike for a spin. Once we got the seat and training wheels fixed just right, she was cruising up and down the street. She seems so little to be on a "big kid" bike. But she looked rough and ready with her gear on.
12/07/04 - Julia dilemma
For those of you who don't know, Julia is Kaira's favorite bear that she takes with her EVERYWHERE. So of course when we went to the mall to pick up our Christmas pictures from Sears, Julia came along. While at the mall, we walked across the entire mall to get to the playland they have inside, and checked out a couple stores on the way. Packing up to leave the playland, I suddenly realized that Julia was no longer in the stroller. She had apparently taken a dive out somewhere along our path in the mall (and we had covered a lot of ground!).
After retracing the entire path twice and asking every store clerk along the way, we still came up empty-handed. I decided I would just cheat for the night and run to buy a new "Julia" since she came from Babies'R'Us, right next to the mall. As my luck seems to go, they just happened to be out, next shipment not expected for a couple days (and no guarantee that more Julia's would be part of the shipment either). Kaira won't sleep without Julia - we can't wait a couple of days! But the lady said Toys'R'Us usually also carries them... and they were out too!
I went home empty-handed, with visions of a long, tearful night ahead. I guess it was lucky that I had spent so long trying to find Julia, because by the time we got home it was late and Kaira was sound asleep in the back of the car. I carefully took her to bed without waking her, so she didn't have a chance to notice the missing Julia. The next day I managed to find a similar bear - same exact bear except for the color, which happened to be purple with pink spots - yikes! I managed to convince Kaira that Julia had 'changed clothes'. I decided to call the stores in the mall to leave my name and number in case anything turned up, and to my extreme joy - someone had turned Julia in to the Lost and Found. So by bedtime that night, she was back home safe and sound... thank goodness!
While she was missing, we ended up ordering another one to be shipped 2nd day air. So we now have 2 pink bears, and a purple one with polka dots too. But at this point, I would rather have a couple extras than to be without again. Whew - what a day!
12/05/04 - Playing with some of the Little People
12/4/04 -
11/23/04 - I think we have gone outside to play with the bike everyday for weeks now. She rides it, she makes us ride it, she chases us while riding it, sometimes even Julia (bear) rides it. Today she decided it needed a little tune-up. She ran inside and came back out with her tool box. She tinkered on it like a pro for quite a while. She hammered, tightened screws, checked the handle bars (and even sawed the wheels, but I'm not sure that would have been entirely productive). She even knows the names of most of the tools. It was funny "operate" with her - pass me the hammer..."hamma", pass me the wrench..."wench", pass me the screwdriver... well, she's still having trouble with that one.
11/17/04 - Kaira has been doing very well at school lately. She has started to nap consistently and has been coming home with "Happy" checked off on her report sheet every day. She even napped the full two hours for the first time this week (she usually gets about an hour or so). She looks forward to going in the morning now, and has been coming home with some neat projects. She's learned a lot at school, both good ("Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star") and bad ("Mine!"). She often comes home all sorts of good stuff on her clothes - from dirt to paint to food. I guess that's the sign of a good time!
10/08/04 - Some pictures from earlier this week:
10/07/04 - I think I mentioned earlier that Kaira has been feeling icky the last few days. She's been congested, a touch of coughing, and a low fever on and off (nothing high enough to even get her sent home from daycare though). During the day, she usually does just fine, though sometimes very cranky. I figured that was just from her missing naps at daycare and being short on sleep. At night time get gets a lot worse though. She gets so congested she can't breathe and wakes up multiple times every night, and then wakes up for good in the morning around 5am - ouch! I finally took her to the doctor yesterday to see if she could do anything for her, and I'm glad I did. Turns out her ear and throat are infected! She's on some antibiotics now so she should be feeling better within a couple of days. Maybe we can all go back to getting some sleep!
She did really good at daycare yesterday. John said she didn't even cry when he dropped her off. She lingered by him for a minute, then saw all of the other kids playing outside and went off to join them. She's still picking at her food, but not eating a ton. And she actually napped for the first time, but it only lasted for 10 minutes... guess it's a start.
10/05/04 - I'm feeling a little under the weather, so I am going to keep this one short. Kaira did much better at daycare yesterday. She still threw a fit when John dropped her off, and still no nap, but I picked up a happy, playful kid. Here are some pictures from the last week:
10/01/04 - Each day is getting a little better at school. I was worried about today because Kaira has been feeling icky the last day or two (runny nose, a little warm). She actually did better today though. We get a report sheet at the end of each day to tell what her day was like - what/how much she ate, how long she napped, what the activities/theme/songs were that day, mood (happy, chatty, tearful...), etc. Today was the first day we got one back that didn't have "tearful" checked off - yeah! She cried when John dropped her off for a little while, but after she calmed down, that was it. Still no nap though, so early bedtime tonight. She actually had bags under her eyes yesterday - how sad! I have been trying to get her to bed earlier to make up some of the sleep, but she has been congested and keeps waking up. I'll check in again after we see how Monday goes.
09/29/04 - Today went a little better than yesterday, but she's still not happy about being left at school without us. Once she gets to know her teachers and the other kids a little better, I think she will start to have a lot of fun. She started being more friendly with a few of the other kids today. And she came home pretty dirty, so she must have had a good time on the playground. She still didn't nap today (you can guess what kind of mood she was in tonight after missing a much-needed nap two days in a row!), but she actually laid down on her little cot the whole time like the other kids - just didn't sleep. I think it helped that we brought her blanket from home and Julia (the pink bear). She also actually ate lunch today, so that's an improvement. She goes back next on Friday, so hopefully the progress will continue. But I'm sure she will be thrilled to get to stay home with Mommy tomorrow.
09/28/04 - Kaira's first day of "school" (daycare) was today. Today was actually the trial day, and tomorrow she starts for real. We both went with her this morning and stayed there the first couple of hours to let her get a little more comfortable. She did great while we were there.
When we first got there, the kids were outside on the playground, and of course she loves the playground. After they got settled inside, John and I tried to make our exit. As soon as we said goodbye, she started wailing! We stood out in the lobby for a little while to see if she would stop. She would calm down for a minute and start right back up. We finally just left and hoped for the best. When we went to pick her up, they said she did about normal for a first day. She was fussy and isn't used to the routine yet, but she should do better over the next week or so. She didn't nap and didn't even eat lunch! But she let her teacher (Ms. Antoinette) hold her, she enjoyed checking out all of the toys, and she was talking a lot - so not too bad overall.
09/26/04 - I got the new pictures of the bed up. These are of her playing in it yesterday. We spent plenty of time pretending to sleep and tucking in friends.
She did very well last night - stayed in her bed the whole night w/o waking at all, and not even a mention of the pacifier! This morning when she woke up, she climbed out of bed and played quietly in her room. After a while, she finally opened her door and called for me.
I could definitely get used to this!
09/25/04 - Kaira got her "big girl" bed today (it's a toddler bed), and has been playing in it all day. She is having such a blast. She actually stayed in it at naptime too - I was afraid she might wander because nothing was holding her in. She is actually still in her room playing quietly, so I am really enjoying this. I will get some pictures of the bed up as soon as I can. She's very happy about getting this big girl promotion. Now we are going to see if we can get away with leaving the pacifiers in the crib as we make this transition. She hasn't needed them for a long time, just likes to have them around - hard habit to break too. She did fine without at naptime today, so hopefully that will continue. If we can make it a few days, then we are in the clear.
FROM THE PICTURE GALLERY
Just being goofy - playing "ni-nite!" She tucked in herself and her fleet of friend and was pretending to sleep.
Vacuuming the house (not like I'm going to stop her!)
Naked girl in the tub!
