It was a white Christmas in Nebraska

Check out the Pictures link on the right for more Christmas photos including 4 generation photos with the Smith's and the Klahs's. As foroOther January happenings here lets see. Mara is getting closer to standing and walking and thanks to visits from a few more mobile kids has discovered the stairs. She slept through the night for 2 nights in a row now (please don't be a jinx). Food tastes better off of big people silerware. A second bathroom demolition is underway. And were looking forward to the rain stopping and the sunshine more. Happy Lent everyone, shoot us a line or drop by for a visit anytime.

For Mara's Godbrothers

Merry Christmas everyone! This is for Aidan and Alex but some of the rest of you might like it too: http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1401603780

If Mara didn't keep us busy enough before all that has changed. She is crawling with the best of them now. Her favorite place to crawl you ask, well the coffee table of course to pull up on and snag a magazine, followed by the Christmas tree where she might snag a tasty ornament or two. She is also perfecting her walking technique with the help of any willing persons hands (and back). We'll be traveling to Nebraska for the holidays and are praying the snow trend can continue. We have our orders in for snow arriving late Christmas Eve and disappearing for New Year's to accommodate our travel.

Houston, we have teeth!

Mara finally allowed her teeth to be photographed (or rather Doe got lucky). Mara and I are having a wonderful week in Tulsa preparing for Thanksgiving. We however miss Daddy a lot and thought a photo post was in order.




Bath time is still a favorite, she currently loves to have toys, the washcloth or check out the running water. As you can see the curl on the top of her head is growing. The back is still miniscule (some might mistake that Mara is wearing a tupee).

At the grandparent's house life is good. You can go for a swing before even changing out of your p.j.s

And Buck is always entertaining. And he makes a very yummy dinner.





And there is plenty of time for playing with non-toys.

We'll leave you with the many faces of Mara.

Next time maybe if you're lucky there will be a video of Mara's newest trick, rolling across the room.

Recall Shmecall

No falling off counters here, but Mara thinks the Bumbo is great for learning to stand up.


"Hey AK, see I can do it I just don't want an audience."

Happy Halloween

Presenting our little Cheerleader!

(Thanks Anna for the great costume. I got lots of use out of it this year even if the sleeves are a little long.)


Thanks Doe (I mean the Great Pumpkin) for the bib. Mom and Dad have been reading me the books too.

And last but not least . . . Carrying on the tradition.


We went Trick or Treating to Mara's Great Aunt and Uncles last night. Her treat was to gnaw on some pizza crust and watch the dog.

And a little update about our growing girl since I don't post nearly enough. Mara is 7 months old now. Occasionally sleeping a whole 10 hours at night and liking food more and more (the secret was she likes it warm). She has had a bit of a rough week cutting her bottom 2 front teeth at the same time. She gets on her knees but can't quite figure out how to go where she wants which is oh so frustrating. But she is so proud of herself when she gets up onto her knees holding onto something.

Hopefully the earthquakes will stay away and this blog can go back to the regularly scheduled (ha ha) Mara updates.

Speaking of, the consensus on the earthquake seems to be if you were here in '89 this was nothing. If you are new to California in the last 15 years you were pretty frightened the other night like us.

Boo Earthquakes but we are A-ok.

In case you're checking in on us we are just fine like everyone else out here. After almost 18 months in the state of California we had gotten a little complacent about feeling an earthquake as we still hadn't. However, last night we were frightened to say the least by this, the largest quake in the area since the famous Loma Prieta quake in 1989 during the World Series. Kind of ironic now that I think about it because had this year's series not been so fast we would have probably been watching a World Series baseball game at the time. Next post will be happier with Halloween costume pictures I promise.

Oh the joys of this great state. As I was proofreading this, I get a call from Tom, "Are you ok?" "What are you talking about?" Evidently up at his office (which is much closer to the original epicenter they just felt another one, only 3.7 this time.

Picture time

Just a quick post to say I found an update for the software to upload pictures to our online album so there are new pictures in the Mara Kathryn Hall and Mara's baptism folders found by following the Pictures link in the right hand column.

What is Mara up to these days you ask? Well our big girl continues to grow like a weed and was still hitting 75 and 85 percentiles for height and weight at her six month appointment at the end of September (I know its been awhile). She loves to stand, sits like a pro and is thinking about crawling maybe (at least pulling onto her knees and on up to standing on us). She has started eating solid foods and she isn't too sure about them but the sippy cup is very exciting.

We'll be traveling for the holidays and try to keep you posted with some pictures of our adventures.