These are a few of my favorite things...

Karina loves her Sesame Street Look and Find Book

"I love bathtime...especially with my new bath toys!"

"Yum...plastic and water!"

I love this photo! Tom, Karina and Bart are all in virtually the same slouched position! Just lounging around the house...yup, that's all we do...

Karina loves this ride because she gets to pull Daddy's hair!

"Come on...I'll race ya!"

Karina loves playing with Bart and surprisingly Bart is actually very patient with Karina's rather rough and spastic interactions.

The Girls' First Christmas: Christmas #3

Merry Christmas from Karina and Elsa!

The matching hats are presents from Sharon and HeatherIsn't it cute how Karina has her hand on Elsa's shoulder?

Christmas Evening we went over to Opa and Grandma Mary's for Christmas with the Heinrichs...and much to Karina's pleasure that included the canine Heinrichs. Aunt Katie made sure that everyone was on their best behavior...and believe me that mostly meant keeping the dogs safe from Karina and not the other way around! But as you can see Karina just loves Tess...she'd never try to hurt her on purpose! Unfortunately since Karina isn't a tennis ball, Tess really didn't care too much about Karina one way or the other. Oh well...as soon as Karina can throw a tennis ball, I'm sure then Tess won't leave Karina alone!

Karina greeting Tess

Karina getting up close and personal

Karina showing Tess that she knows how to roll around on the floor, too

Karina making sure that Tess can hear her by screaming in her ear...what a good dog!

Here's Karina checking out a few of her many gifts...a puppet monkey that screeches, Tickle-Me-Ernie and a Bounce and Spin ZebraThe Heinrich children had this great plaque designed and made for Opa. It's a rendition of the Heinrich family crest. It turned out nicely...Opa was very surprised and seemed to really like it!

And finally, here's Karina asleep after the ride home...just exhausted from all of the fun!

Christmas Morning: Christmas #2

After an exciting Christmas Eve with the Matterns, we had a relatively quiet Christmas morning at the Heinrich residence. Karina's only new gift was a Radio Flyer Wagon from Mommy and Daddy. Karina also turned 11 months old today!

Karina wore her "I've Been Good All Year" Christmas pajamas

Karina and Bart checking out the new wagon

A happy Christmas smile

Going for her first wagon ride...around the house! Notice she's "reading" her new book from yesterday's presents!

Christmas Celebration #1

Christmas at home

So this was Karina's first Christmas Holiday Season and boy did she do it up! She went to her first Christmas Party back in early December and she attended four different Christmas Celebrations! The first Christmas Celebration was on the 24th at our house with the Matterns...Gammy, Quentin, Lisa, Mommy and Daddy were present. Unfortunately, Grandpa was really sick and had to give a performance at midnight mass later that night so he stayed in Grayslake to rest up. We all missed him very much!

Karina opening her first gift...with a little help from Gammy

"This is awesome!"

Karina playing with her second gift...a crib toy that she just loved! I highly recommend it to all parents. It has lots of things to press and has dozens of songs and sounds. The only problem is that it's so interesting that we had to take it out of the crib so Karina could fall asleep! It works well hanging on her Pack 'N Play or on the baby gate.

Karina really getting into the present opening process...by throwing things over her shoulder!

Karina was so funny because she definitely got the concept of taking things out of boxes and bags and was completely focused on getting absolutely everything out of that bag. When the bag was empty...and only then...did she stop to take a look at the objects! Look at her throwing her new clothes over her shoulder. If Gammy didn't help her move whatever she'd just "tossed" and it happened to still be touching her or if Karina could still see the tossed item she'd pick it up again and try to throw it even further away until it was "gone!" Funny!

Look at how annoyed she seems at the tissue paper not being more easily tossed away!

Enjoying one her Christmas gifts with Uncle Quentin

Karina's All-Star Week

She stood up on her own!

We waited months for Karina to crawl and now within one week she's crawled, pulled up to standing and learned to do expressive dance!

Today I was wrapping some presents and I had the lid for the wrapping paper container on the floor next to the end table. (see below) Karina crawled up to the lid, used it to kneel and then grabbed the edge of the table and pulled herself up. She was very proud...and she immediately began to pull everything off of the table...of course!

Karina looking less than thrilled while she stands using only one hand to support herself. Ho Hum!

This picture just cracks me up every time I look at it! I believe she's trying to lift up the whole table! What a funny girl! Look at that expression...you can practically hear her grunting she's working so hard...and standing on her toes, too!

Most Fridays, Quentin and Lisa are kind enough to trek over to our house to spend some time with us...although we know they're really only coming over to see Karina. This last week, there was some music playing on the TV and when Karina seemed to be listening to it, Quentin began dancing in his seat. Karina watched him for a few seconds, smiled broadly and then began dancing herself. The amazing thing is that she didn't just dance like most kids...just kind of bouncing straight up and down...but rather she began "grooving!" I mean she was rotating her shoulders, arching her back, tilting and shaking her head, leaning side to side...and this was all while sitting on the ground. As we replayed the music segment...thanks to TiVo...and we helped Karina stand up, she and Quentin really got going. It's the most hilarious when she sticks out her rear end and kind of writhes around to the music. She's really got rhythm! Since then Daddy has taken this opportunity to reintroduce Karina to music of the 80's...some of Daddy's favorite music...and has found that Karina seems to enjoy it, too. Apparently, one morning while I was away, they were jamming to the 80's and Karina was crawling around but would stop periodically to wag her head and bottom to the beat. Unfortunately, although we've captured the dancing on video, it's not well reproduced in photos, so here's another cute picture of Karina instead!

I love my Exersaucer!

Karina Crawled!

Karina crawling!
* Note picture may not depict Karina actually crawling.

Last night Karina finally crawled! It was two months ago when I thought she was just about to crawl any day...clearly I was wrong! It's very interesting that she did crawl so late...relative to most babies who crawl closer to 8 or 9 months old...because I believe that she had the strength and coordination to do it. I think that she was just content with being minimally mobile with her lunging and rolling technique. She' s always been pretty happy being wherever she is...except for the first couple of months of her life when she wanted to be carried a lot of the time...and it was actually really obvious to me that about a week ago, she started getting frustrated with her level of mobility and wanted to move faster and more efficiently.

Karina playing with her Winnie the Pooh Airplane

When she did crawl, it caught me totally by surprise...because I've been waiting so long, I'd sort of stopped looking for it to happen. We were in the foyer, and Karina was trying to get to a shoe and suddenly instead of diving forward, she rocked forward but stayed up on all fours! After that she didn't seem to have much trouble crawling...although the hardwood floor was a little slippery and didn't provide good traction. I wonder if the slippery floor helped her finally get that bottom leg untucked so that she'd be on all fours rather than sort of pretzeled up before she would usually have dove (dived?...neither one sounds right!) forward. I managed to get it on video, but I'll tell you what...it's really hard to get a good picture of someone crawling because they're in motion! So in lieu of some crawling photos, I'll just add a few really cute ones that don't have anything to do with anything! Writers privilege!

Karina after she dove into the tunnel

I told Gammy and Grandpa that we all got our Christmas present from Karina early...we'll get to see her crawling at Christmas!

Cold #5

Karina got her fifth cold today! The good news is that it's been two months since her last one...which is longer than the one month interval that she had between colds in the past.

Karina, Zoe and Elsa Take in a Show

Today Karina had a big day! She went to her first concert! The Chicago Brass Quintet was playing in Brookfield...a relatively rare thing for The Quintet to be playing just a few minutes away...so everyone wanted to hear Karina's Grandpa play. For many of the Heinrichs this would be the first time they'd ever gotten to see Grandpa Jim perform...outside of their own living room that is!

The turn out of Milwaukee residents was tremendous, as well as the turn out of Karina's family and friends. Present were Karina and her Mommy and Daddy, Gammy Joy, Grandma Mary and her friend, Great-Aunt Beth, Great-Grandma June, Aunt Lee and Cousin Elsa and the wife of the french hornist, Karen Flint and her daughter Zoe, who was born one week before Karina.

We tried to get the babies to be quiet but learned exactly how hard of a job that is when Zoe's mommy took her out of the concert hall before the music began, Karina's mommy brought her out within the first few minutes due to her "singing" along with the music and although Elsa remained in the concert hall the longest...perhaps a minute or two longer than Karina...she made the biggest impact of all three of the babies when she let out a piercing wail after a particularly loud and startling opening to The Quintet's second piece. According to Aunt Lee the crowd was particularly forgiving and just laughed when they heard Elsa's contribution.

However, even though the girls and their Mommies (and Gammy Joy) spent nearly the entire concert out in the lobby (we were able to let Aunt Lee go back in since she'd never heard The Quintet before), the music was piped out into the lobby so we got to hear them play and a great time was had by all three girls...although Elsa needed nap by the time the intermission was over. Unfortunately, I didn't bring the camera along so I don't have any pictures of the event...which is a shame because the girls all had such cute outfits on for the occasion!

Uh-Oh!

In the past week Karina's really been cracking us up with her personality. She's been laughing more and while she used to do this funny forced laugh now it's becoming more spontaneous and contagious. Also in the realm of self-expression, Karina has learned to say "Uh-oh." The first time she did it, Tom was with her and thought it was so cute they kept echoing it back and forth. It's really funny because Karina loves to say it, but seems to have no understanding of the appropriate context for the phrase. So, although she'll say it when she "drops"...or should I say "throws ", ahem... something to the ground, she'll also say it when I just glance at her or when she's just sitting on the floor. I guess Mommy and Daddy need to do a better modeling job on the appropriate use of that phrase!

Karina and Daddy playing

Also this week, Karina took her first cruise step! I occasionally stand her up so she can hold onto the baby gate, and to encourage her to take a side step, I wedged one of her toys in the gate just out of her reach (evil Mommy!), and she quite shakily transferred her weight and moved towards the toy. You could practically see her little brain working so hard to tell her muscles how to do what she wanted them to! Who remembered that it was that difficult to do the things we take for granted every day!

Karina proudly standing at the baby gate

Also in the realm of coordination, Karina has adapted her ability to pull herself up to a kneeling position on the changing table, to being able to get to kneeling while on the floor. That's been a really fun thing for her because now she can reach a lot more...and it's been an eye-opener for Mommy and Daddy who are just starting to realize how much stuff we're going to have to move to higher ground. For example, the remote control that we usually keep lying around on the foot stool, is now an easy catch for a kneeling Karina...and she loves that remote control! We even dug up and old useless remote so that Karina could have her own remote to play with instead of the one we really need to control the TV/TiVo, but of course she doesn't like that one and will throw it to the ground and continue to try for the "good" remote! Ugh! She's too smart for her own good!

Well, I guess I really shouldn't say that, but we've been forced to realize that it is a double-edged-sword to have an intelligent child. Take the frustrating preference of the "good" remote control on one hand, while on the other hand Karina's intelligence allows her to be entertained by the Sesame Street crew. Compare this with my friend's 17-month-old who has just barely begun to "get" Sesame Street enough to sit through fifteen minutes or so. Karina not only can watch an entire episode in one sitting but she also actually laughs at some of the "jokes," especially when funny noises or exaggerated expressions are used. Like most kids she loves Elmo, but will actually laugh at Grover when he's doing his slapstick, Cookie Monster when he says "hello" and she always giggles at Susie Kabloozie, a cartoon character with crazy hair and a very silly voice. Don't worry...I try very hard to keep the TV babysitting to a minimum, but it's just the reality of being home alone with a baby...you need a little help...and I figure this way she's certainly got a good chance of passively learning the ABCs and the numbers up to 20 before Nursery School!

Christmas Photo Shoot: Take Two

Since the first time at the studio with Elsa didn't produce as many really great photos of just Karina, we went back to try again a few days later. As you can see, it went much better, and this time we did get some really great photos.