Happy Birthday, Cason!!!

Our friend, Cason, turned the big 1 on Saturday. Cason's parents, Christina and Eric, are in our community group at church and are very good friends of ours. They threw Cason a fun party and we had a great time!!!

Ready to party

This girl LOVES her daddy...
...and mommy too!!
Look at all of those presents...Cason got lots of good stuff and many fun hats. Here's the birthday boy with his dad, Eric.
Love this fish hat
Caroline's buddies since birth, Cason and Parker. In the pic, Christina, Cason, Matt, Caroline, Laura, and Parker
Uh, I don't think this is my mom or dad (Caroline and our friend, Lauren)

I love to party!!! That is, of course, until nap time. Caroline's afternoon nap was right in the middle of Cason's party. This didn't go so well once Caroline came to this realization. She cried (hard) until we put her in her carseat. She slept there for about 1 1/2 hours and missed most of the party :-( Cason, I promise not to cry OR sleep at your next birthday party!!

The delicious cupcake cake Christina made. So cute!

I love this pic of Cason looking at the cupcake...like, what in the world is that?!?

Yum!!!

Happy Birthday, Cason!!! You are such a precious, sweet boy and we love you!!! Thanks for inviting us to your fun party.

Cranial Scan

Here are some pictures of the cranial scan we had yesterday (sorry I didn't get to post yesterday, we had a crazy busy day).

First, they put stickers in front of Caroline's ears...doesn't she look baffled?

Second, they tied a scarf around Caroline's head that can only be described as a glorified doo rag.
How funny is this pic? Here's Caroline, gangsta style :-)
They put Caroline in this machine and a laser scanned the outside of her head.
She was such a trooper! Here she is, happy to be done with all of it.
Unfortunately, Caroline's head symmetry has not improved all that much, even with Caroline sleeping on her tummy. So we've decided to get the cranial band. We only have a small window of opportunity to fix Caroline's head shape so we need to do it now. I'm not thrilled about the whole helment thing, but I am thankful that it will help her. We get the helmet a week from Monday or Tuesday. Many posts to come on yet another adventure we're about to embark on with our sweet daughter. Thanks for all of your prayers yesterday!!

Please say a little prayer...

...for Caroline tomorrow. We had to move her cranial scan (it's not like a CT scan or anything...basically it's a laser that scans the outside of her skull and gives us information on how symmetrical Caroline's head is...see "She did it" post below if you're confused as to why we're getting a cranial scan) to tomorrow instead of next week. The person that does the scan will be out of town next week so we could have moved Caroline's appt to this week or the week after next. This week worked better so tomorrow it is. Please say a little prayer that the decision to get the helmet for Caroline, either way, will be very clear to us. It's been very frustrating going back and forth and not knowing what the best thing is for Caroline. Hopefully, we'll have a decision made by tomorrow afternoon. I'll update on the blog when we know.

Weekend Review

Here are some pics I took after church this morning:

Sitting pretty

Purse those lips, girl!

She likes to come after the camera now...makes it hard to get a pic unless...
...her feet are distracting her :-)
We had a pretty enjoyable weekend! My mom (and aunt and grandmother) came over Friday night to babysit Caroline so Matt and I could go on a date. We ate some lovely Tin Star and then went to see the movie, The Dark Knight. It was good! Thanks for babysitting, sweet fam.

Saturday, one of my best friends, Kelly and her fun boyfriend, Jarett came over to visit us all the way from Mansfield/Lewisville. We enjoyed some yummy burgers with chips and queso. Kelly made an AWESOME fruit pizza for dessert. We played Settlers of Catan and I FINALLY won!!! I now love that game :-) It was great to see Kel...she's one of my best friends from Baylor. You will hear a lot about my girlfriends from college on this blog. They are all more than friends...they're like sisters to me and, other than Matt, they know me better than anyone. Caroline is very lucky to have many "aunts" who love her so much. Speaking of all my bestest friends, one of them (Stephanie) is getting married in only three weeks and I can't WAIT!!!!! Yikes, that also reminds me that I have three weeks to lose my baby weight. Maybe if I lay off the burgers, queso, fruit pizza....hmmm, just a thought. I'll work on it, Steph :-) I digress...back to what I was saying, all in all, a very fun weekend.

Jarrett and Kelly

The most beautiful fruit pizza ever...too pretty to eat. Too bad the four of us ate the ENTIRE thing, minus one very small piece, yum!
Me and Kel (my hair is straight in case you don't recognize me :-)

Good Morning

This is how I found Caroline yesterday morning. I had put her down to sleep on her back. She was a little congested, and I thought it would be better if she didn't sleep on her stomach with a stuffy nose (don't ask me why, I guess I thought it would be harder to breathe that way, probably irrational I know). When Matt and I went to bed, she was still on her back so I didn't think she would flip over. Well, this is what we saw when we woke up the next morning...she had rolled over, turned herself around, and her leg was stuck through the crib slats. I think we have a mini Nastia gymnast in our midst :-)

Speaking of crib slats, our pediatrician recommended we take out the crib bumper until Caroline gets a little older (since she's rolling all over her crib). I know it's petty, but I was sad to take it out. Her crib/nursery looks so bare. But safety first of course! Bye bye bumper for now.

She did it!!!

Caroline rolled over (back to tummy) for the first time last Friday!!! Easy as:

1...

2...
3...nothin' to it!!

On Friday, I had just finished giving Caroline her morning bottle and put her down on her playmat so I could go wash it out. When I came back into the room, Caroline was on her tummy. I flipped her back over, grabbed the video camera and was able to record her second roll. I'll post the video as soon as we figure out how to upload it to our computer (apparently, we bought the most complicated video camera ever created). Anyway, since Friday, Caroline has become a lean, mean rolling machine. She won't stay on her back anymore and is even rolling over in her crib and sleeping on her tummy.

I was really relieved to see her roll over. We've been practicing really hard...let me explain why. When Caroline was only 3 weeks old, I noticed that her head always rotated to the right side no matter how we positioned her. Despite our best efforts at TONS of tummy time and always repositioning her in our arms, changing table, crib, etc...she continued rotating to the right side and her head started to get a flat spot in that same area. I was so upset/frustrated by the time Caroline was 8 weeks old because it was only getting worse and we were doing everything we could think of to help. My pediatrician referred us to a cranial center to have her head/neck evaluated. To make a very long story short, it turns out that Caroline had/has a really tight neck muscle (a.k.a. torticollis) and that muscle continually pulls her head to one side. The flat spot on her head caused by the torticollis is called plagiocephaly. By the time Caroline was 3 months old, we had received 5 professional medical opinions (consisting of 2 physical therapists, 2 orthotists, and one nurse practitioner who works at the plagiocephaly clinic at Children's Medical Center). All of them recommended a cranial band (which looks like a helmet but is open at the top) to help correct Caroline's head shape and also physical therapy to help loosen her tight neck muscle.

Obviously, this was really hard on Matt and me. As Caroline's parents, we wanted to be able to help her ourselves without the use of this band! However, we knew it was best to listen to the medical professionals. We have been doing exercises with Caroline for the past 1 1/2 months to help her neck. We also decided to do the cranial band but had to wait until Caroline was 4 months old so that her neck would be strong enough to hold up her head with the band on. Well, when we went to our pediatrician for Caroline's 4 month appt, our doctor thought her torticollis and head shape had significantly improved. He recommended that we wait to get the band for one more month to see how much more Caroline's head shape will improve on its own. This was good news but also frustrating b/c I feel like we keep going back and forth on the decision to get this helmet. We have decided to give it one more month and make a final decision on September 4th when we see the pediatrician for her 5 month appt. We're having Caroline's head rescanned (more about this in a later post) on September 3rd so we'll know just how asymmetrical her head is when we see the pediatrician again.

What does all of this have to do with rolling over ? Well, because of the above mentioned situation, Caroline has not "played" on her back since she was a few weeks old. When she's been awake, we've either kept her on her tummy or sitting up. I feared that she would be really delayed in rolling over for this reason. So we've been "practicing" this for the past couple of weeks. I was so excited to see Caroline do it by herself. One of the best things about it is she is sleeping on her tummy and is off the back of her head. This should really help!! So we'll see what happens on September 3rd. Either way, we will do whatever is best for Caroline, and I'll keep updating on the blog.
(sorry for the long post :-)

Weekend at the Lake

WE LOVE THE LAKE!

This weekend we went to Cedar Creek Lake with our friends, the Fifers (Christman, Sarah, Abby, and Kingsley). Christman and Sarah led a newlywed bible study group Matt and I joined shortly after we were married. We have remained good friends and love spending time with them and their girls. Anyway, Sarah's parents own a beautiful lake house....we had way too much fun!!

Uh...this does NOT look like my backyard!

Me & Kingsley (she's 2 1/2 years old...pretty cute,uh?)
Matt & Abby (she's 5 and will go to Kindergarten this year...such a big girl!)
Matt, Kingsley, me, & Abby
Cuddling with Caroline
Abby had Caroline smiling and laughing the whole time
Abby trying to warm up after a really cold jet ski ride

Okay, so I'm a little bit of a wuss when it comes to anything that goes fast (HATE roller coasters, you get the idea). So I assumed that riding the jet ski with a 2 yr. old was perfect. Well, Kingsley told me "faster!" over and over until I realized that if a 2 yr. old is telling me to go faster, something is wrong. I picked up the pace!!
Tubing with Abby...not a great idea in rough water, I thought my head was going to pop off. Of course, Abby loved it!
Matt was much more fun on the jet skiis!
Sarah and Kingsley tubing
We love the Fifers and had such a good weekend!! If we're half as good of parents as they are, we'll be good-to-go. I'm so glad they're in our lives and can share their wisdom on marriage, parenting, etc... with us in the years to come. Poor Sarah, whenever we get together, I have about 100 questions for her on the above mentioned topics. Anyway, we love you guys!!!

Friday Photo

A Day in the Life of Caroline

I'm stealing this idea from my friend, Emily. Sorry if this is a boring post for many of you. I just don't want to forget what life looks like right now so here is a day in the life of Caroline at 4 months!

Caroline usually wakes up sometime around 7:00 a.m. and will play/talk to herself in her crib for about twenty minutes or so. Then she realizes it's been 10-12 hours since she has last eaten and she's hungry! I feed her around 7:30 a.m.

Rise and shine sweet baby girl...this is the face that greets me every morning. Not bad, uh? It kind of feels like Christmas morning...even though it's early, I'm usually really eager and excited to get Caroline up.

After breakfast, I try to fit in some kind of exercise. We usually go on a walk/jog around the neighborhood, or I take Caroline to my mom's house and go to the gym.

No worries, I pull that shade down on my jogger and keep that little bald, white head out of the brutally hot Texas sun.

After our morning workout session, it's time for morning nap around 8:30-9:00 a.m. Caroline's least favorite part of the day! One of two things happens:

Either...or...
You just never know!!! Sometimes Caroline will cry for 5-10 minutes before soothing herself to sleep. Sometimes she'll find those fingers right away and she falls asleep immediately. Even though we still struggle with naps, Caroline has made some great improvement. She'll either sleep on and off for 1-2 hours. Or she'll sleep for 30-45 minutes and then wake up and play quietly until I go get her. Every now and then she wakes up crying inconsolably and that's when the lovely swing comes into play. However, we try not to use it as much as possible. Anyway, that's our nap saga.

Caroline eats again around 11:30 a.m. and then it's play time. Sometimes we'll run errands, go shopping, take a trip to the pool, meet a friend for lunch, etc... after she eats.

Even though it's time to play, nothing beats my fingers. Although, this ball might taste yummy... If I just open my mouth wide enough...maybe...maybe...
Nope, I give up!!!
Sometime between 12:30 and 1:00 p.m., Caroline is ready for her afternoon nap. We try to read books before we put Caroline down for naps and bed. Usually, she's pretty tired right before going down so she's not super interested. Doesn't she look so excited? :-) Here are a few of her favorite reads:
After afternoon nap, it's time to eat again (see a trend here?!?). Then more time to play. Caroline just recently grew enough to stand up and play in her exersaucer. She loves it. She entertains herself alone for quite some time in this thing so I love it too!
Told you she loves it...one of the only times I've been able to get her to smile at the camera:
Around 4:30 or 5:00 p.m., Caroline is ready for one more nap. I repeat her naptime routine (read a book, turn on her mobile, sound machine, fan, then cross my fingers and hope for the best!) Once she's up from her last nap of the day, it's time for some quality time with Matt, she'll play some more while we eat dinner, then bath/book/bottle/prayers and finally bed by 8:00 p.m. She'll sleep until 7:00 a.m. and then we start all over again. Pretty fun day, uh?!? I wish I got to eat, play, and sleep all day!!