Pictures o plenty

Here are just a few pictures of Caroline from this past week.

Monday Mark and I were able to babysit for our little friend Brittan. 

Our silly girl eating an apple and a piece of pizza.  We're so healthy.  :-)

A sweet friend from church gave Caroline this humongous bunny that had a hat on it's head.  Last night she put the hat on her head and pranced around the house!

She is so much fun!

Beautiful!

The weather has been absolutely gorgeous here the last few days!  We have taken full advantage of it and spent a good bit of time outside.  Thursday night we played outside for a long time and then had dinner on the back deck.  Friday night we went out to dinner and again sat outside.  Caroline has really been into coloring lately so she sat in Daddy's lap while the food was being prepared and colored.

She is very serious about her art work! 

Saturday we spent some time at the park celebrating our little friend Hunter's first birthday.  Caroline enjoyed running around, playing on the play ground and giving her daddy a little love.  

Saturday night we watched Kelsey so that Brad and Lindsay could go on a date.  We did a little reading...

and then decided we need to get out and enjoy some yogurt with our friends. 

I think the girls both enjoyed it!

Although Caroline looks like she's in a yogurt daze!

We have really enjoyed the last few days of beautiful weather.  I'm just not ready for the mosquitos and flies that are about to arrive with this warmer weather!

Play Dates

We've had some fun play dates lately and I thought I would share the pictures.

Kelsey, Lindsay, Caroline and I all went to DAC Kids a couple of weeks ago.  Getting both car seats in the same car is never fun but it makes the trip so much better! 

DAC Kids is an indoor "pirate ship" play place.  This included lots of sand and Caroline was not a fan!  She stayed seated in my lap while we played on the sand.  Thankfully, there were lots of jumpy things around the perimeter of the sand and she really enjoyed those. 

 

A few days later we met Noelle and William at the mall. I had grand plans on finding some prego clothes and of putting Caroline on the mall train and carousel. The train idea didn't work out so well. She cried the moment I sat her in the car so she never made the trip. I still had high hopes for the carousel though. She saw the carousel while we were eating lunch and kept doing her sign for horse. 

However, the carousel ride turned out much as the train. There were some definite "No, no, no!" so I once again relented and we sat on the bench for the carousel ride.

Thankfully, she seemed pretty happy about that!

 

I just love watching these two play.  William is such a sweet little guy and it's fun to see him interact with her.

Funny...

Immediately after writing my last blog post I was looking at the articles on CNN and ran across this article.  The article basically says that parents exaggerate the joys of parenthood to make themselves feel better.  Apparently having children is "not only financially foolish but (that kids) literally make parents delusional." 

"Here's how cognitive-dissonance theory works when applied to parenting: having kids is an economic and emotional drain. It should make those who have kids feel worse. Instead, parents glorify their lives. They believe that the financial and emotional benefits of having children are significantly higher than they really are."

Whatever the reason for my joy, whether exaggerated or real, I will take it.  :-)

Living the Life

I've been thinking the past couple of days (since I've been feeling better) that I'm really "living the life."  :-)  I thought that I should write about it so that when times are a little more challenging that I can remember all of my blessings.

I have been afforded a good bit of "free time" lately...which mostly means I get to be with Caroline.  My only real responsibility (I know it's a big one) these days is to care for her.  We spend our days going to reading time at the library, going to the zoo with friends, playing at little kid gyms, singing together, reading books, swinging and just exploring our little world together.  I never really get bored...maybe a bit lonely...needing some adult conversation...but never bored.

She is tons of fun and makes me smile and laugh everyday.  We get to travel to Augusta to visit with Grinny and Grandude (and see the fish in the picture below), play with Kelsey and Aunt Lindsay and lots of other friends. 

"Living the life", I also have the opportunity to do things that are important to me. Mark is a sweet husband and father and allows me time to be with my friends, get my nails done or just have a bit of time to myself. I went to the gym twice this week! Yipee! I also work just a few hours a week. It's hard to complain! I really am thankful for all of my blessings. My cup runneth over!

Disclaimer:  I will admit that while I'm living the life, the pile of laundry on my bedroom floor is growing and the dust bunnies throughout my house may start hopping they are so big.

Baby News

We went to the doctor today for our ultrasound to check on the baby.  Mark and I were both really excited to see pictures of "duece".  Thankfully, it seems as if we have a healthy little one that God is knitting away on!  We did end up deciding not to find out the sex of the baby.  I will admit that I have been totally fine with this decision but when the ultrasound lady told us she was getting ready to check on our little ones parts there was a slight temptation to sneak a peak!  We both resisted and now that the opportunity has passed I still feel good about our decision.  :-) 

While we were at the doctor checking on the babe in the womb, our other babe was hanging out with Aunt Lindsay and Kelsey.  Aunt Lindsay texted us a few minutes after we dropped Caroline off and said the girls were so funny.  They were "feeding" each other and saying yummm.  Then they were playing "chase" around the house!  I'm so glad that they are little friends and are learning to play together! 

We were at the doctor for a looong time so I checked the phone a bit later to text Lindsay and tell her we were still waiting and there was another text from her...."Caroline had a bad accident."  ummm...ok.  I really wasn't worried because I know she would take excellent care of her and would have called had it been that bad but poor Lindsay felt terrible!!  Caroline tripped over her own feet and stumbled head first into the stone fire place!  She now has her first official boo-boo.  Of course, I knew it would happen sometime and I actually thought it would happen much sooner.  Poor baby!  She is a trooper though and didn't seem to be phased by the incident after a couple minutes of crying.  :-)

The Zoo

We got a yearly pass to the zoo!  Yipee!  I've been wanting to buy some annual passes to different places (aquarium, children's museum, etc) but this is our first one!  I'm really excited about it.  Mark, Caroline and I all visited the zoo a few weekends ago when the weather turned warm for the first time this year.  We had a great day - although it's a little hard to manage a 19 month old.  She went from stroller to walking to being on Daddy's shoulders...repeat process.  I was definitely thankful for the extra daddy hands!

It was so cute to see her piering through the fences to see all the animals.  I had not been to the zoo in so long and had forgotten how far away they actually keep the animals.  Sometimes I would point and point and then we would move on, still not entirely sure if she saw the monkey in the tree 200 feet away!

The "safari" animals were my favorite because we got the best view of them when they all paraded by us at one point (giraffes, ostrich and zebra).  Oh my!

We're looking forward to many more fun days at the zoo.  We got a pass where we could bring visitors.  If you want to come along, we would love some company!