Memorial Day Weekend!

We've had a weekend full of family fun!  I can't remember what we did Friday night but the rest of the weekend is documented in pictures! 

Saturday morning we had breakfast in bed...

and Caroline helped us celebrate our 6th anniversary!  Eeks we are getting old!

We then headed off to the zoo.  Thankfully, the sun hid behind the clouds for most of the morning and we enjoyed a quiet stroll around the zoo.

We came home for naptime and then headed over to Lindsay and Brad's for a dip in the pool.  Caroline is LOVING Kelsey these days.  Every time we get in the car, "Kelsey? Kelsey?" and the past couple of days, "Water? Water?" has been added to the list.  I think we may be spending a lot of time at the pool!

Sunday morning we went to church.  Lindsay and Brad watched Caroline Sunday evening so that Mark and I could have a date night.  We had some good conversation about where we are and where we should be going.  Mark and I approach life very differently at times - I'm a planner and Mark is work your hardest and lets see what happens person.  It can make for interesting conversations about where we think God is leading our family!

Monday morning we did a bit of housework and then took Caroline to Monkey Joe's.  She is a teeny bit too young but I think she stil enjoyed her time there.  Mark climbed through many of the jump houses with her which made her happy (and Mark too)!

Monday afternoon it was back to Lindsay and Brad's for a Memorial Day celebration with friends from Sunday School.  One of our friends asked, "So what do we do to celebrate Memorial Day?"  Of course, there were lots of silly answers - eat burgers and wear red, white and blue were high on the list.  The question certainly made me think though.   

Apparently, someone or some people who shall remain nameless borrowed my camera and enjoyed taking a few pictures.  Eli's silly face was the most tame of them all.  :-)  We had a great time with our friends!

I was very thankful for our weekend together as a family.  It included lots of time like this...



I couldn't ask for much more!

Big Girl Bed

Mark completed Caroline's "big girl bed" about a week ago.  I love it!  It's been really fun to have a picture of what I want in my head or from a magazine and ask Mark to build it.  He always makes it happen and it's a joy to have something that he made in our home!  As part of the preparation for the baby, we decided to switch every room upstairs (except ours).  What were we thinking?!  We put the bed in Caroline's new room a week ago and kept telling her that it was her new big girl bed.  By the time we go the walls painted, she seemed to understand that was going to be her new space.  She took her afternoon nap in her new bed/room on Friday and the switch has gone really well so far.  I know at some point she will be brave enough to hop out of bed and play in her room but thankfully not yet! 

There is still some work to do in the new room (curtains and pictures on the walls) but at least the furniture is all in place and the painting is done!  I hope to have it all finished in the next few weeks!

Swimming!

Yesterday afternoon I took Caroline over to Lindsay and Kelsey's to go swimming.  It was so funny to watch her!  She was excited and scared at the same time.  She had a huge smile on her face but then she would squeal like she was upset.  Lindsay invited us back to go again this morning and she loved it.  I'm glad that we got to go two days in a row so that she could get used to the water and start feeling more comfortable in it.  I really hope she loves the water as much as I do.  I don't care that she ever becomes a competitive swimmer but I definitely want her to know how to swim!

They look like such big girls floating in the water! 

The only problem with swimming right now is that the water is still freezing!  We got them out to warm them up and Kelsey was not happy.  Caroline just looks pooped!

Totally Rad 80's party

Dustin and Adrienne throw the most fun parties!  Tonight we celebrated Adrienne's big 30 with an 80's themed birthday party.  I had so much fun getting us all dressed and enjoyed checking out everyone else's stylish duds!!  Here are a few pictures...

Our sweet girl styling her hot pink tye-dyed footless tights, jean skirt/jacket, bracelets and keds!

You can't see from the picture but both Mark and I had great bottom portions too.  :-)  He had some knee high socks on and I had purple footless tights. 

The Shetty's lookin good....love the bling! 

The Goodman's pulled off a sophisticated 80's look! 

Caroline and her new friend Lane! 

The birthday girl and Beth both look awesome!

Vacation Day 3

We've had  a great couple of days in Charleston.  I will admit that after our first day here I wasn't really that impressed.  We did a lot of driving around, visited a couple of places that people recommended and it just wasn't what I thought it would be.  However, yesterday we took a carriage tour and it was everything that I had hoped it would be.  The churches, homes and gardens were beautiful.  I loved hearing all of the history.  Today we went back and walked around a bit more looking at the old houses.  I told Mark that it's hard for me to believe that real people live in those houses.  I think of the people in the homes as some kind of characters in a Disney movie! 

We ate lunch at Hyman's yesterday and then came back to the hotel and hung out for the rest of the evening, spending some time at the pool and in the hot tub.  We watched a movie and went to bed early.  Today we spent a couple of hours at the beach, came back and showered and then had a late lunch at 82 Queen.  The atmosphere at the restaurant was the best that we had visited so far!  The food was good too.  Mark especially enjoyed the mac and cheese until he found it that it had both sour cream and cream cheese in it.  :-)  

I have to say that I've thoroughly enjoyed spending some quiet time with Mark away from the normal routines of our life.  However, I was telling Mark I think that at this point in my life I don't need as much down time to recharge from being a parent.  I definitely need time away and enjoy time free from the responsibility of parenting but I think 2/3 days is plenty.  :-)  I keep wishing that Caroline was here to play on the beach with us and swim with us in the pool.   Mark and I will be in conversation or looking at something and then pull out a Caroline saying.  We're both in love with her and can't wait to see her soon!!

Vacation Day 1

I'm sure there will not be a daily update but here is Day 1 from our trip to Charleston.

We left Caroline this morning in the care of Gigi and Grandude.  We've talked with Mom twice and she said Caroline is happy as can be.  I'm so thankful (both for Mom and Vern and my sweet girl)!!

We arrived in Charleston around lunch time and headed to the hotel where they gave us a map of Charleston and told us some places to visit.  We went to the Shem Creek area and ate lunch at Vickery's.  We both had fish sandwiches, which were pretty good.  We then headed down to the harbor area and visited the Ft. Sumter visitor center and checked out some of the huge ships, barges and boats.  The temperature today was perfect.  However, it really wasn't that "pretty" out because the sun was hidden by the clouds all day. After walking around a bit, we headed back to the hotel to rest for awhile before dinner.

Dinner turned into a bit of a fiasco when the first two restaurants we tried to visit were closed.  We ended up driving a little bit out of the way to Folly Beach and it was great.  The area was pretty touristy but it was fun.  We had a good dinner and then went on a short walk on the beach.  We saw the biggest and brightest rainbow I have ever seen in my entire life!  It's hard to tell from the picture but the colors were amazing and you could see from one end of the rainbow all the way to the other end!  It was a sweet end to a little bit of a rough night. 

I'm looking forward to a few more days with Mark!

Water Day

I'm going to say that this was our best play date yet!  We had a few munchkins over this afternoon for "water day."  We filled up two baby pools, turned on the sprinkler, blew bubbles, played with side walk chalk and had a great time!  The kids all played soooo well together today.  I think they really enjoyed being outside and playing in the water.  We set up the tent so the adults could have some shade and it was perfect! 

Sorry for the overload of pictures!!

Mother's Day Pictures

We got a couple of cute pictures showing our Mother's Day this year.

Caroline and I got dressed up and went to her day care on Friday morning for a Mothers Day Tea.  We had a good time together!

Sunday afternoon we took Caroline on her first "hike" at Kennesaw Mountain. We only walked up about 1/3 of the way before we headed back down but she did a good job and walked most of the time.

I love this picture of her!!

Work

I love the southern "sawl!"

Shirtless

We've had a lot of fun lately which has required a naked Caroline top half.  This past week we made salt dough. She was wearing clothes until I decided that we should color the dough and took her little shirt off

We also had little snack of chocolate covered strawberries the other day.  She loved them!

We've also done a few things where shirts were required.  We went to the zoo twice this past week.  Both times Caroline looked like this...

She can be such an intense little one, checking out everything around her.  Kesley went with us one day and she is the complete opposite of Caroline.  She ran around the petting zoo wanting to touch everything!

The zoo has a "new" baby panda bear.  It's so cute! 

The funny thing is that everything is a "baby" to Caroline these days.  She points to my belly and says baby which is awesome, until she points to an 80 year old man and says the same thing.  One of the funniest things is that she babbles a lot.  She will be just talking away and I won't understand a word she is saying and then all of a sudden there is "baby" thrown in there! 

One morning this week I watched Kelsey for a couple of hours.  After breakfast we were hanging out in the kitchen and she got into the "baby" friendly cabinet. 

The picture above makes me smile though because it reminds me of this picture below from almost a year ago.  This time she stacked the lids with the containers while last time it was just a mess!

This age is just so much fun.  They are learning so much everyday and I love to see their little brains work.  This is my conversation with Caroline when I went to get her after her nap this afternoon...

Me:  Hi sweetie

Caroline:  Daddy?

Me:  He's not here right now.

Caroline:  Work?

Me:  Yes, he's at work.

Caroline:  Saw?

Me:  Yes, he's working on the saw.

She has really just learned the words "work" and "saw" in the past couple of weeks and to hear her put it all together without any hints from me was so sweet.  She loves her daddy!  I love that we are a step ahead of the game since she knows her daddy loves saws.  One of Mark's favorite hobbies (building furniture with saws) happens to coincide with his real job (selling saw blades).  I look forward to having some pictures on the blog soon of Caroline's new "big girl bed" built by Mark!