Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!!!

We cannot wait to celebrate Christ's birth for the first time with our daughter! It's such an exciting time, especially it being our very first Christmas as a family! Jason and are trying to figure out what traditions to start, whether it be reading the Nativity story about Jesus' birth or something like that. It's kind of hard, but I do know, traditions will just come as the family grows and I can't wait.

Nevaeh has changed and grown so much in the last month. She is now walking (crazy, she's only 10 months!), talking and throwing her first tantrums. She can walk across the room but gets too excited and falls down. It's so cute. She says 'daddy', but doesn't quite know who that is yet. She waves, says and knows the word 'doggie'. It kinda sounds more like 'aggie', but she knows! And yes.... she has an attitude. She throws tantrums when we continually discipline her for something. It's hard not to laugh at it while we're teaching her!

Here are so many pictures and a couple of videos. We will see you after Christmas!!!

"I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord" (Luke 2:10b-11, NIV).

Isn't she a cute little miss santa? this is the only hat that she has not ripped off her head while screaming!!

She just (and I mean just) figured out how to turn individual pages to her books. She sat there for at least 15 minutes turning pages and looking at pictures! She's going to be my reader.

She is just getting so big and growing up so much. She does not like baby food anymore, if she can't pick it up with her fingers or eat it on her own, she really doesn't like it. Except for apple sauce, she could eat a whole thing of that in one sitting!

She is starting to realize she can close her eye before the flash comes on, so this is what a lot of our pictures look like.

hee hee

She has found her nose! She started sticking her finger up her nose one day and now we have a hard time from stopping her. It doesn't help that some people encourage it!!

These are just a couple more pics by the Christmas trees.

Here are just a couple videos of her talents! Enjoy!

Jingle Bells, Batman smells and We love Christmas!!!

'Tis the season, again, and this year it is much more exciting!! I can't believe it's been a year, but, alas, it has and now we have a 10 month old wobbling (yes, she can take up to 6 or 7 steps!) around. CRAZINESS!

We're a little late in putting up our Christmas things, but after an hour or so, they are beautiful. The funny thing, it's like a Christmas corner in our duplex. There is no sign of Christmas except in this little corner, I think I need more decorations! Hobby Lobby, here I come (when its all 90% off)!

Nevaeh doesn't bother the decorations too much, but she wants to rip the paper off the presents! We have to get after her quite a bit, but she listens and we still have all our presents intact! Please, no re-wrapping for me!

Here are a few pictures we took after everything was set up. Don't worry, there will be plenty more. She is so adorable!

Merry Christmas,

love and God Bless.

Hee hee, she woke up and her hair was crazy. I really don't know how it happens, but it does!

so much to be thankful for...

Well, Thanksgiving has past already and we hope you had a wonderful weekend. We had a very busy and not so relaxing weekend but we are still very thankful!

I'm so thankful for my wonderful little family! I know that is the common thing to say, but its so true! Nevaeh has given us such a joy that can not be described! She has taught me and she's only 9 months old! She is always to happy even when she's completely exhausted.. she just always, always has a smile on! She has started to snuggle a little more, and guess what? She's taking four or five steps now!! Can you believe it! I didn't think it would be before Thanksgiving, but it was!

I'm also so thankful for my ever patient husband. I don't know how he got so patient, but he is always calm when I can be freaking out! He is such a wonderful husband and dad, and I love to watch him with Nevaeh.

God has blessed me so much! Thank you my Father in Heaven! I praise you and follow you until the ends of the earth. Thank you!

Playing with her buddy, Nathan. She loves to have another to play with everyday!

she is starting to climb into everything! She can spend so much time climbing in and out of her tub of toys. She also likes to take things out and put things back in over and over!

This is our Thanksgiving day family picture

I loved this family picture!!! She looks like a purple puffy marshmellow!

My little marshmellow!

Clapping, standing & walking!

Bonjour!

How are you all? We are doing great over here! I couldn't wait for another week to update and tell you all about the wonderful things happening with our family!

Nevaeh is probably 20 lbs now, and as energetic as ever. She has started clapping and loves doing it! We are still trying to learn "more" (in sign language) on a consistent bases, but she gets it when she really wants something she likes. 

She is also standing on her own, and walking with help of a pushing toy. I think she will be walking on her own before Christmas... ahhhh. Its amazing to think about how fast her little mind and body is going and growing! 

We have found she loves other kids and is so friendly with them. She cries when we have to leave after meeting a new friend!

On another front, the sale of our house is still going. We have an open house in 2 days and I'm getting a little more anxious the closer it gets. We have praying for this open house, that someone will like it and a sale will happen. We also have been looking into houses and we are finding some really good deals. 

Also, an advertisement, if we don't sell our house in May we will probably need new renters, so if you know of anyone, please let me know!

Big girl!

She loves to snuggle when eating!

Look at her go!

Sophisticated baby talk..

This is going to be a short, but very, very sweet post....... drum roll please......pdddd

She signed her first word!! We have been working on "more" for the last 3 months and she finally did it! Along with clapping (which she does all the time!), she signed a word!  I gave her a bite of my mushy Honey Nut Cheereos and what did she want? More, of course! :)

Along with that wonderful news, she was 9 months old yesterday. Time is flying by and before any of us knows it, I will posting about her first birthday. "Ahhhh"- that was a Home Alone moment!

First Hallween

Well hello! It has been a while.

There hasn't been huge adventures since the last. We did have a infected toe that doubled in size (about as big as my thumb) and had puss oozing out. She had to have antibiotics, but now she is good and her toe looks like it went through a war. It's kinda gross to look at!

She is talking all the time and has yelling matches. She does a short, but very fierce ;) "eee" sound, and we do it back. She gets louder and louder, its quite laughable. 

And today was her first Halloween! My family has a tradition of sloppy joes every Halloween, so we just bought her a pumpkin shirt and passed out candy. She tried to eat her first Halloween candy, but we got to her first. Maybe next year! 

Have a wonderful month and we will see you a couple days after Thanksgiving! Oh, one super de-duper thing, in 5 more days, she will be 9 months!!! CRA-AZY! 

Does she look like a boy??

She said MaMa!!

Howdy y'all!

It worked! The picture isn't all that great because it's from my phone, but it's still cute none the less!!  Enjoy......

Don't eat yellow snow!

Well, who knew that Iowa would really bring us snow this early in the year (am I really underestimating Iowa's weather?!)? 

But, alas, it came and went quicker than you could even say, "It's snowing!" 

Although it was gone within minutes, we did bundle Nevaeh from her head to her toes and took her outside for her FIRST snowfall.... as little as it was. She didn't know what to do. It was bright, cold and well, cold again, but she did do what every kid does. She ate it! As she examined it, it slowly went to her mouth.(Note: we did make sure it wasn't yellow, or any other color, so don't worry.) I think she will come to appreciate it as much as her mommy!  :)

She is, also, battling her very first full out cold. Her nose is running so much, but isn't coughing or running a temperature. The amazing part... she is still her happy self. I don't think anything can get this girl down! I think I need to learn a little something from her...

Other than that, all is well. We are waiting for our house to sell, trying to stick to a budget and saving for a down payment. For Jason, football is almost done, but basketball is right around thecorner. I'm not going to lie, half of me is excited to take her basketball games, but the other half isn't because now I'm not going to be able just sit and watch the game. I have to get over the latter half though :). 

We hope you are getting excited for snow! 

God Bless to all,

We love you!

This is what I found after I finished cooking dinner. She is so adorable!

YAYAYAYA snow!!!

this is GROSS!

I had to share this. I was in the kitchen and Nevaeh had the biggest blow-out there could ever have been. The poop just seeped right out the top of her diaper and this is what happened.... ... .. .

Yes, yes, this is poop... NASTY!

And, please do not worry, I called the doctor and he said there is nothing to worry about. Thank goodness because she put it in her mouth like it was pudding!

CUTE NAKED BABY!

Hmm... where to start? She will be 8 months in 3 days!!!! Wow... I can't believe how the time has flown. It's crazy!

She is just growing so fast, right now she is looking into a mirror at me (I'm behind her) and laughing. It's so cute!

Now she thinks she can walk, so she lets go of the bars, the chair or whatever and makes a break for it. She doesn't get to far, as her feet don't really know what to do yet but she tries. It is quite funny to watch, and if I could upload video, I would but it won't upload! 

In the meantime, she has finally figured out how to get everywhere and anywhere by crawling. We're teaching her not to get into things and it's so amazing how much they actually understand at 8 months. They are just incredible little people, it's so fascinating. 

She has such an individual personality. She is the happiest baby, even when she's tired, she still smiles. The only time she cries is when I'm putting her down to nap and she whines when she's hungry, other than that she is smiling. She enjoys sitting on my lap reading books, and doesn't like to be ignored for too long. She loves Peanut (our dog) and has a temper (I think it's the Irish in her :)  ). 

Jason and I are just so amazed at her, and we are doing great! Jason is such a good husband and matches me perfectly. When I'm stressed, he knows how to calm me down. We just put our house on the market, and are praying that we can buy a house big enough to be able to grow in. We're saving for a good down payment and, right now are about half way there, and hopefully we can there before next spring. God only knows though. 

Enjoy the pictures, we love you all!

this is her "jail cell"

cute naked baby!

bath time pictures; the water has a neat affect

this is tiger, she loves him!

Ms. Daredevil

Whew... the last two weeks have been pretty long. It's been trying but we're getting through in mini strides and God is definitely teaching me something about being a mom... patients galore... and I don't have any.

Nevaeh's nap sleep was messed up when the schedule changed from summer to school and when she teethed. Now she isn't falling asleep for nap time on her own. So it's been a long two weeks trying to get her back into a routine and get rejuvenated with sleep. Whew....

She's also becoming quite the daredevil. Sunday she had herself pulled up on her "jail cell", turned toward the chair (2 feet away), completely let go and went for it. It was great, though she fell flat on her face, but a great attempt none the less. She hasn't done that again but she has been letting go and standing on her own for about 2 seconds. She's going to be walking in no time and I'm still adjusting to her crawling! 

Her personality is growing everyday and it is so neat to see her learn. We are just starting redirection which can be described as training but that sounds to much like a dog. She is learning what a phrase means, such as "Nevaeh, we do not play with that" and she listens! She's such a smart girl. We are also teaching her sign language and are super excited to see her first sign. 

Jason makes her smile by singing songs with his own words. He's very talented and I keep telling him we should record them for her! It's not an easy thing to do and he's amazingly good at it!

All in all, things are always going with her and everyday has challenges, but we're growing as a family and learning to go with the flow. God has blessed us!

Grandma Val got a new toy! Ride 'em cow girl!

She loves to sit on her lion walker thingy.

playtime with hudson

we tried shoes on for the first time. she's so cute!

Go Hoover!

Growing so much...

Wow...

There has already been a couple of changes in the last couple of days. It's crazy!

First, she is now officially, 100 % crawling. She hasn't realized she can go everywhere yet so i'm still preparing myself.

Second, she is now standing! Not on her own of course, but she pulled herself up ,in her "jail cell" for the first time a couple days ago. Jason and I were eating supper, we looked over to find our daughter standing up smiling at us. It was quite funny!

Third, she has teeth!! Her bottom two teeth came in and it was such a surprise! She didn't really have any signs like drooling, wanting to bite, or acting cranky. She has had a hard time taking naps and sleeping, but other than that, no showing that she was teething. She took my finger to bite it and I felt them. I was excited! She is growing up so fast!

She has, also, grown so much in her personality. It's crazy how a little person can grow. I don't understand how people can watch a human being grow from an egg in their mothers womb to a live, adult human being and not believe in an everlasting, wonderful Creator!

Praise the Lord!!!

Hey Fam!

Hello and welcome to all!

I want to explain the blog's name first... since Karaidos is just Karaidos plural, people started saying Karaidi (which I think would be correct). It's just more fun to say!

Second, I wanted to create this to keep all I don't see, as much as I would like, a little closer. Also, I have always wanted one of these!

So, today Nevaeh Grace is 7 months and probably over 18 pounds. She is crawling but doesn't do it all that much, as she gets around much faster by army crawling. She is the most observant, adventurous little girl I've ever met. Anything new she wants to touch and explore. I think she'll be the one to bring me toads and bugs with a huge smile on her face. She loves grass and concrete, trying to pick at the blades and rocks.

We are transitioning back into the school year right now. It's difficult for Nevaeh, seeing daddy most of the day, to not seeing him much because of coaching, but her face just lights up all the more when he comes home!

Well, have a wonderful weekend and a great September!

God Bless,

Sam