She is still our "baby" Karis ...

Look at the chubby cheeks on our adorable granddaughter ... can she possibly be turning three today?

Karis is a delightful little person ... she loves me ... and I love her too ... very much!

Karis is very fond of trains (WHERE could she have gotten THAT from?!). Here she is at Zilker Park standing next to the Zephyr, waiting to ride it with her Grandpa Jones ... whom she still refers to as "Boppa."

Karis loves her Boppa Jones ... and he adores her too ...

Here she is at the playground ... I love her beautiful eyes, her soft skin, her sweet smile ...

Karis can rough it up with her brother, but she is very much a girl. She loves dresses and the color pink and baby dolls and newborn babies too!

This is the bunny Karis has had since she was born ... a close friend of hers ... she takes very good care of bunny ...

This picture was taken at the Oil Ranch in Houston. Karis had been running and playing hard all morning ...

I love her in this little dress ...

... she is an excellent cook! If you play along with her, she will cook you up the yummiest snack!

I asked Sabrina what we could send this year for Karis's birthday. Olivia has a little china teaset that Karis really likes ... but since it is fragile, she really can't play with it without Olivia watching over her carefully. Could we possibly find a plastic teaset for her? I had no idea HOW MANY kinds of toy teasets were available ... fancy Disney ones from Beauty and the Beast, a nice Fisher Price one that plays music ("I'm a little teapot") ... but I liked this rosebud set the best. It came with pretend desserts (yum), fancy napkins, and a whole bunch of accessories.

And somehow, all of the baby bottles Karis had for her doll babies had gotten lost ... so we sent two new ones for her to play with. And a Melissa and Doug princess puzzle!

She also wanted some princess dress-up clothes ... there were a bunch of different sets to choose from and I think she will like this one ...

This is my favorite picture of Karis that I have taken. I've seen other beautiful ones from Sabrina's camera, as well as the pictures they had taken professionally before Christmas. But I took this picture of her last fall on her upstairs porch. We had just finished putting together a half dozen puzzles. I asked if she would pose pretty for me so that I could take her picture and she just ran over to the corner and smiled as sweet as could be!

In 2008, we only saw Karis and her family on two separate occasions ~ one week in the spring and one week in the fall. We get to talk to her every other week or so on the phone, though, and Sabrina SKYPES with us every now and again so that the kids and us get to see each other ... it helps bridge this very long 1200 mile gap between Austin and Belmont. I'm counting the days until our spring trip ~ less than four weeks now we are coming to see you, Karis! Happy Birthday, sweet little granddaughter!