What is she: daddy's girl or mama's?

I just wanted to clear up, if there is any doubt in anyone's mind, Karly is Nate's daughter. She is also definitely mine.

Example 1: Karly talks. A lot. About everything. She tells me what she's doing and where daddy is and what her book is about and what she wants to eat and about the airplanes and on and on. My mother-in-law has told me on countless occasions (and I have, obviously, experienced this) that Nate was a chatty child. Even when no one was listening, he was talking. :)

Nate's child.

Example 2: Karly sings ALL DAY LONG. Most of the time I love it (and actually get so used to it I don't notice it), but when I'm on the phone on an important call, it's really hard to love. I have a terrific video of one of her songs (which I'm convinced it complete gibberish with a few real words scattered in), but she's only in her underwear so the blogger world doesn't get to see it.

Alisa's child.

Example 3: Pennies. Karly has recently become OBSESSED with pennies. She sleeps with one in her hand (and often wakes up with it in her hand - if not, she asks where it is). She carries one around all day and a VERY common phrase in our house right now is "where's my penny?" She's getting a piggy bank and 100 pennies for Christmas. :)

Nate's child.

Example 4: Normal children sleep with a baby doll or stuffed animal or blanket. Something soft, right? My child sleeps with a book. She picks out a book every night (it varies, but is often One Fish, Two Fish by Dr. Suess) and seriously cuddles with it much of the night. So weird.

??? child. Neither of us sleep with books. But I guess we both of love reading, so Nate and Alisa's child. :)

Example 5: She loves to be tickled. Not like my brother tickles where you can't breathe, but softly tickled on her legs, back, arms, neck. I will occasionally make the mistake of tickling her lightly somewhere and for 20 minutes, she'll say "tickle my neck? tickle my legs? tickle my back?" I can only tickle for so long child. It reminds me of my grandma though. She was good at that.

Alisa's child.

So you see, Karly is ours. I love this age. I seriously laugh so much during the day (granted, I cry and get frustrated too - I swear it's like her ears just stop working sometimes and ONLY when I ask her to do something she doesn't want to :D). There's drama too, but she's just so fun!

I have good news and bad news:

Which do you want first?

The good news? Okay, here it is: the Ultrasound to find out the gender of this little squirmer* is in a month! September 12th people, so I'm putting up a poll, just because I think it's fun to see what people think. Also, COMMENT, because I want to know who thinks what and why and stuff.

The funny thing is, technically on September 12th, I will only be 18 weeks. I started this pregnancy at one dr. office and switched (because the first was kinda awkward - you don't want to start out awkward, yeah?) and the second doctor never got the ultrasound information from the first doctor, which showed that I was actually only 6 weeks instead of 8 weeks (as the internet and "first-day-of-your-last-period" crap will tell you), make sense? SO I'd better be able to tell what this baby is, or I'm going to be mad at BOTH doctor's offices. :)

Okay, so the bad news: I have to start watching what I say. I knew this day was coming and it's not like I say really bad things, you know, but Karly said "Oh crap" today (hey mom, don't tell dad, okay?). Nate and I of course kind of laughed, and then I told her not to say that - it's not nice, yadda yadda. Nate, on the other hand, says "Karly, we only say that at times like when you fall down or something." Great. I guess that's better than teaching her she can never say it when I do, huh?

And since I feel like blog posts are not complete without a picture, here is one of Karly swimming a couple of weeks ago. I think it's time for a new suit since she gets made fun of in this one... :D

Have a nice day!

*I am only 14 weeks, but I swear I've been feeling this kid move for at least 2 weeks. I read that you usually feel the baby start kicking around 16-22 weeks, but they also say you feel it earlier the second time around (since you already know what it feels like) and I felt Karly move at 15 weeks, so I'm not crazy! :)

The Bench Bunch is pretty awesome too!

So immediately after the Cox get together, we all headed out to Upalco, UT (if you have heard of that, I will be AMAZED and wonder why) for a family reunion with my mom's family. There was so much to do I seriously didn't worry about Karly at all. She was either jumping on the tramoline, looking at the new baby kitties, playing with toys, on the 4 wheeler with someone, eating, or sleeping. :) Nice huh? As I was looking through all the pictures family members took, I realized I was absent from a good number of them. Dang baby was starting to make me pretty sick and exhausted at this point. We had a lot of fun, though.

Just to show you how many people were there...

The guys spent a good part of each day shooting guns (either at targets or "rock chucks" - I have no idea what their real name is. Snipes maybe? I never saw one even though they said they shot lots of them...) Nate came home from the trip wanting to buy a 22 or something. The "need" has passed or at least subsided for now.
4 wheeling was a big hit.

In honor of my grandpa, the king of doing things the hardest, possibly most dangerous way, but ending up with something cool in the end, my brother, dad and cousins built a zip line in the above mentioned way.

I think there were people [read: children] on that zip line 90% of the reunion.

Karly also enjoyed the tree swing (once again being entertained by her awesome dad)
Another hit was the trampoline. Funny, all these things kept the kids entertained. What did the parents do? Sat around and talked without having to constantly worry about their kids.
Karly eating with some of her cousins (have I mentioned there are 4 girls cousins and 11 boys on my side of the family? They are all hoping I'm having another girl :D)
Bonfire (fell asleep putting Karly to sleep and pretty much missed the whole thing. This was followed by night games, which sounded like lots of fun. Too tired.
We went on a hike on the red rocks above my aunt and uncle's house - thanks Em for taking the cute picture!

Can't wait for Bench Reunion 2013!

The Cox Family is the best!

At the end of June, we went to Utah for a family reunion with my immediate family (all 29 of us!) followed immediately by a reunion with my mom's side of the family. It was so good to be with family and let Karly just run around with her other cousins. It was also nice to have so many other people willing to help out with Karly, so I could get a little extra sleep.

On the drive over. Trust me, it was not this pleasant the whole way. :)

Karly was in heaven getting to be outside so much. Nate and I kept saying to each other "we need a backyard for that girl."

Trying to "catch" a fish.

I swear the best part of this week was how often Nate was willing to take care of Karly. She adores him and loved playing with him. I think 3 or 4 people took pictures of this because it's just so stinkin' cute!

Male bonding...or something - we miss living near these guys!

The cabin we stayed in had a great TV room in the basement. We took full advantage and let the kids watch probably way too many movies. :) 10 bucks if you can find Karly in this picture.

There was also a hot tub that the parents (after bed time)...

and the kids took full advantage of.

We also managed to get lots of games in, despite the 15 children vying for attention (maybe this was during a movie? :D)

We took family pictures while we had all of us together, which was quite the feat, I must say.

I loved this one, taken accidentally - the chaos of trying to get everyone ready.

Which worked out pretty well, I must say! I sure love this bunch!

And the parents and offspring. Kinda hard to tell we're all related, huh? :)

It's a little depressing that I may not see most, if any of my family until after my next kid enters the world (and who knows when after that?). I keep trying to convince all of them how awesome Denver is, but there are these obnoxious things called jobs that keep people living where they are. :) Luckily, Shan just moved to Utah, so I at least have someone within 8 hours of me!

There is no better way to watch TV...

...than in just your underwear.

My child, the homeless one

If we are going anywhere or going to see people, I HAVE to fix Karly's hair. As in, get it wet and put it in pigtails or half pigtails or something. Otherwise, she looks like this:

(this last picture is not so bad, but trust me, when it's just down like this, she is constantly pushing it out of her face)