Latest Video: Furry Pillow

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

Caroline's friend

Caroline has spent a lot of her social time, during our stay in Cincinnati, with one of Josh's co-fellow's son, Sanjay. They have become fast friends. We get together with them about once a week - so he's a constant part of her life these days. During Saturday's playdate, she made an effort to become more affectionate. Caroline told him that she was going to kiss him and when he offered his cheek (like a gentleman), she went all the way around for the lips. In time, I'll be sure to teach her the art of BEING chased... in time...
Here are some pictures of them. They are very cute together and it's her first friend that she actually asks about on a regular basis.

Catch!

Caroline's favorite game these days is catch. She was given a ball, glove and bat set for Christmas (that is pink with all the Disney princesses on all three parts) and has gotten really into playing catch. She insists that her catch partner wear the glove. Josh taught her to throw overhanded but her aim is still a little better underhanded. They were practicing last night and I couldn't help but take a picture... the pink glove just makes me laugh.

Catching Our Breath

Whew! What a whirlwind month. December is always busy but somehow this one seemed even more jam-packed.
We had a wonderful Christmas! Josh was on call Christmas eve, but fortunately it was a quiet night, so we enjoyed being home. This was our first Christmas playing Santa in our house and my parents got a play kitchen for Caroline which we (well, Josh) put together.

Christmas morning with a toddler in the house did not disappoint. She was really excited to see her new kitchen by the tree and opened gifts with much anticipation of what would be unveiled. After we opened our gifts, we loaded up the family, Maggie included, into the car and headed to Indianapolis to spend Christmas with Josh's parents, sister, brother-in-law and girls. With all the little girls, it was like a pink explosion in the living room after all the present opening. We spent the rest of the week in Indy and headed home on Saturday.



On Sunday, Mimi & Pappy came to visit. We went to the zoo that night for the "Festival of Lights" since it was a fairly warm evening to walk around outside. We all enjoyed the lights and Caroline was completely tuckered out after walking all over the zoo by the time we got home.
We rang in the new year at home with my parents - I think it's the latest I've been up all year! - and they headed back after New Year's Day.
Sadly, later that week, Josh's grandfather passed away, so we headed to Memphis that weekend to be with all the family and attend the funeral. We managed to squeeze in a little Memphis BBQ while we were there and heard some live music at the Blues City Cafe. Caroline loved the music - she was dancing on the make-shift dance floor and the band noticed her and invited us on stage. Uncle Mike took a picture of us, but I don't have it to post yet... It was definitely an experience!
Hopefully now that things have calmed down, I can keep up our blog a little better - maybe as a new years resolution.
New things Caroline is doing at 23 months old... she sings lots of different songs now (most of which are fairly recognizable) - like Row, Row, Row Your Boat and many, many Wiggles songs. She's gotten really good at her puzzles and she loves to play catch (and can actually catch the ball about a third of the time). She's very into pretend play - particularly with dolls and stuffed animals and her kitchen, of course. And she's working on her two year molars, which have not seemed to pose too much of a problem so far. Here's a recent picture of her.

More snow!

We had fun in the snow this morning and built our first snowman. Here's the proof!

22 Months

It's hard to believe that we are almost to the point of counting in years instead of months... so happy 22-months, Caroline! She is turning into such a big girl. I can't even count how many words she says now... she's moved onto sentences (very basic ones, obviously, but sentences no less). My favorite things that she does now are singing the alphabet, counting to 10 and when she takes a tumble she says "what happened?!" She's also become a lot more daring when it comes to climbing and running. I took her to an indoor playground in Mason called the Go Play Cafe (about 30 minutes away) with her little friend, Sanjay, and his mom on Tuesday since we've had such nasty wet weather all week. They have this 3 story set up of tubes and slides and climbing equipment big enough for adults to climb in too

- so we did, and she had a ball. I had to drag her out of there after two hours.

Otherwise, we've just been preparing for the holidays and trying to stay out of the cold, wet weather. We're supposed to get a pretty big snow this weekend so I know she'll have fun playing in that again. And this time I'm prepared.... we've got a snow suit, so hopefully we can last a little longer outside this time!

Snow Day!

We had our first snow of the winter overnight and woke up to a little over an inch of very wet snow... and it's still coming down a bit. Caroline had lots of fun exploring in our back yard with Maggie. There was one minor topple that ended in a complete face plant in the snow (which surprised her, but didn't seem to upset her at all). We made a tiny snowman on top of our table and I had to drag her back in the house when I started to get cold and thought that she might be too. The city was prepared for it though and it doesn't seem to slow anyone down around here (except me - I've declared us home bound for the day because I'm still afraid to drive in it).