Snow Day

We got our biggest snow yet early this morning. Caroline enjoyed exploring the yard with Maggie and was much more adventurous than past times. It was a complete disaster getting her to come back inside though with a full blown tantrum. I think it took me as much time to get her calmed down as was spent outside... still weighing if it was worth it or not. She's definitely a two-year old!

Swim Lessons

We had our first swim lesson today and I think we're going to really enjoy them. Caroline was very excited to go swimming today and jabbered all about swimming on the way to our lesson this morning. It was a little strange putting on boots and coats over our swim suits, not to mention driving through snow to and from, but the indoor pool was nice and warm and our instructor is great.
Miss Monica taught us how to hang on the side of the pool, we worked on getting out of the pool using our elbows and knees, bobbing in the water until it came over our mouth, kicking, and she even went down a small slide into my arms several times. We ended the lesson with fun songs and Caroline did not want to get out of the pool. All in all, a successful first swim lesson.
I obviously couldn't take pictures and be in the water with her, so I took one to mark the occasion once we were back in the locker room getting dressed. I had just told her what a good job she did swimming and then snapped the picture - so her expression shows she was very proud of herself!

Two Year Stats

Caroline had her two year check-up this morning. She is 34.5" tall (50-75%) and 26 pounds (25-50%) fully dressed. All is well, and the doc said we could continue to give her whole milk if we want since she's such a string bean and would live off dairy and fruit if we let her. She's still not a big fan of the doctor's office (other than getting stickers at the end) and was very happy to get back home to Maggie and her remaining balloons from the birthday bash.

Happy 2nd Birthday Caroline!!!

Today is Caroline's 2nd Birthday! We had a little party for her on Saturday afternoon. All the grandparents, Aunt Amy, Uncle Rob, cousins: Haley, Mary Pat & Madeline, her friends Sanjay and Joey and their respective parents all joined us to celebrate. It turned out to be quite a crowd and with that many little ones, you can imagine the chaos. The decibel level in the family room reached a new high, I think. We had lots of fun though and Caroline has been asking us to sing Happy Birthday to her every night since then.

Here are a few pictures from the party....




Some of my favorite things she's doing these days are... Singing lots of new songs - Itsy Bitsy Spider is very popular right now as is Ring Around the Rosey. Saying "No Ma'am!" really loud when she's out of my sight and doing something that she knows she's not supposed to do (like stand up on a chair to look out the window) - which really cracks me up because I probably wouldn't catch her doing it if she weren't telling on herself as she did it. Saying "Com'ere" with hands waiving upward when she wants one of us to pick her up. Constantly telling Maggie that she's a "good girl, Maggie" like in the video. Also, she likes to tickle you and when she does she says "giggle-giggle-giggle" because that's how "tickle" comes out when she tries to say it really fast continuously.

Winter Outings

The winter weather has pretty much kept us indoors the past 6 or 8 weeks, so we've had to be creative in finding fun things to do with Caroline so we don't get too stir crazy in the house. Fortunately, Cincinnati has a lot to offer in this department and we are taking advantage of it all.

We have made several trips to the children's museum, once last week and I took a few pictures.


It's the perfect size for a toddler because you can pretty much play with everything in a few hours time and get home to crash for a nice long nap! Some of her favorite things to do there include the toddler-only play area complete with a slide, playing "house," overseeing the construction zone, and trying out the musical instruments.

She made me laugh when she was playing house because when we arrived at that particular area, no other children were in there. She promptly rocked all the babies and put them ALL in one crib, covered them up with a blanket and then sat down for a little break for herself (after all, it's hard work tucking in four babies at once!).




You can see in the next picture, another little girl entered that area and pulled all the babies out of the crib - just check out Caroline's expression.... she was not pleased about this.


Today, we went to the zoo for a "Singing Safari" class. The instructor was wonderful and had them all very engaged in singing and dancing like different zoo animals. We got to see (and touch!) a lizzard, owl and rooster during the class too which was a first for Caroline. She was very interested to touch them and didn't cower at all like some of the other kids (and her mother!).

SUPERbowl

We had a little super bowl gathering last night. Caroline represented the family's true colors and we weren't disappointed (even though it was the other Manning holding the trophy)!

Latest Video: Furry Pillow

Caroline discovers how warm and cozy a pillow Maggie can be. Maggie, as always, is tolerant to the end.