Kara 2010

Kara has grown so much during 2010! She was just a quiet, little toddler when the year started, and now she is a talking, independent little girl! Kara is so fun to have around. She likes so many things. In this picture, she decided to get back into the tub after she was dressed. She LOVES water and going to the swimming pool. She has always liked baths and being in the water. She loves to roam the swimming pool and run around. She goes under quite a bit, but it doesn't seem to bother her- she just keeps going.

Kara really loves to look at books and read stories to herself. Of course, she likes it even better if someone is willing to read to her, but she often goes off by herself with a stack of picture books and tells herself a story. She also likes to color in coloring books and do puzzles.

I think Kara's greatest love is for FOOD! This girl loves to eat- and she eats just about anything. (It is SO nice!!) She even likes salad now. She likes just about every food and drink. She loves it when people leave out their snacks- then she gobbles them up!

I wouldn't call Kara shy- but she is generally more quiet when there's a big crowd of people around. Sometimes she shies away from people, but mostly she loves getting one-on-one attention. She really likes babysitters and "my class" at church. She likes going to play at other people's houses and already has a few friends. (By the way, this picture is from Father's Day...)

Kara is actually pretty good at cleaning up after herself. She almost always puts her dishes in the sink after meals, and she will throw wrappers in the garbage. If she asks to play with something out of the closet, I usually make her clean up something she has already played with first. So, she usually cleans it up (sometimes while singing the clean-up song), and brings it to me before asking for something else. She also likes to wash her hands in the sink and use a napkin at meal-times.

Kara adjusted really well to Cassie joining our family. I think that having Cassie during the summer helped, because Kara got more attention from her siblings. She seems to like Cassie, but pretty much treats her like part of the furniture right now. I'm sure that once she gets crawling...and grabbing toys...there will be more interaction.

Kara seems like a pretty mature toddler, until she does some of the typical toddler-messy stuff- like dumping out an entire bag of cereal, or clearing off an entire bookshelf in 5 seconds.

I think Kara enjoys going new places and having different experiences. She seemed to really like going to Utah this past summer and visiting friends and family.

Here she is when we were picking peaches. May I recommend NEVER taking a free-roaming toddler to pick peaches?? She had lots of fun finding all the yucky ones on the ground and throwing all the good ones into the boxes.

Kara turned 2 in September, and got a shopping cart and a few other random toys.

Kara loves chasing our cats around and grabbing them. She had fun getting this chicken!

Kara has grown and changed so much this year! She is now a silly, talking, dancing, playing-pretend, Dora-loving, little girl with cute little pigtails. I'm excited to see what the coming year brings!