Fun With Friends

Caroline has been having some fun with a couple of buddies lately.

Caroline & her new friend, Saylor...out for a lovely walk

One of Caroline's bestest buddies, Parker, came over the other night while his parents went out for a date night. It's fun to watch these two starting to "play" more together. Their favorite thing to do was sit across from each other and play with the toys.

I promise they were having fun. They were all smiles and laughs until I broke out the camera. Then they both just looked at me like I was an idiot :-)

This is how they sat the entire play time. It was really cute. After some fun with the toys...it was off to bed. What a fun night!!

See any resemblance...

BETWEEN......AND

Yep, that's right, thanks to the wonderful advice and wisdom from my friends, Sarah and Stephanie (who have daughters a few years older than Caroline and were able to give me the 411 on the proper hair rubberband to use for the perfect Pebbles ponytail :-), I was able to get Caroline's hair into a ponytail today. Albeit, a very thin ponytail that makes her look slightly bald on top, but one nonetheless.

See, I've had quite a dilemma lately with "styling" Caroline's hair. She has too much hair for the headband bows but not enough hair to keep a bow in by itself. So the ponytail seems to be the only option for bows these days. We'll see how it works out...somehow I have a feeling that Daddy isn't going to be a fan :-)

Easter Preview

I ordered Caroline's Easter dress about a month ago and realized the other day that I had never tried it on her to make sure the dress fit (yes, I realize Easter is like 5 years away but, uh...well, I guess I'm kind of anal like that). Anyway, I put it on Caroline the other day and luckily it's a little big and should fit by Easter. She looked so cute, I couldn't help but snap some pictures.

For the record, let me just say that I luv me some smocking. Last Spring/Summer, Caroline was just a newborn and mainly wore sleepers and swaddle blankets. Now that she's bigger and it's getting warmer...smocked dresses, here we come :-) Although, she can't really crawl well in them so I don't know what to do about that.

"Seriously, Mom...I can't MOVE in this thing!!"

Mozart in the Making

Caroline loves playing the piano at my mom's house. Here is a video of her first composition for your viewing pleasure. I apologize for all of the talking on the video...if there was a way to delete it out, trust me, I would :-) Enjoy!

Caroline's First Valentine's Day

Caroline had a great first Valentine's Day and enjoyed getting to spend it with her Grammie and Grandpa a.k.a. Matt's parents who came all the way from Virginia for a fun visit.

Grandpa, Caroline and Mimi

Valentine's Day was always a fun holiday my family celebrated every year when I was kid (well it actually has continued into grown-up years too). My grandparents' last name is Valentine. When my mom was growing up, my grandparents always threw a family party for my mom and her two sisters so they could celebrate on the same holiday as their last name. They just thought it was fun. So my mom and dad carried on the tradition with my brother and me. And it looks like Matt and I are carrying it on with Caroline. So Valentine's morning, we had a family party at our house with Matt's parents, my mom, and my brother. Our V-day breakfast party was complete with cheesy decorations, balloons, presents, and heart-shaped pancakes.


Caroline checking out her little heart pancake
Matt, his dad, and my mom

Opening her present...what could it be??

A baby doll that laughs hysterically (it's the most annoying toy I've ever heard but it makes Caroline laugh...so we all suffer in the name of Caroline's happiness :-)

After breakfast, Matt and I started packing up and getting ready to leave. Here are some pics of Caroline playing with Grammie and Grandpa while we were away:

"Can I help?!?"

Pushing the walker wagon with Grammie...Caroline is in heaven!

What a fun first Valentine's Day!!!

Surprise #2

After surprise #1 last week, I had no idea that Matt had something special up his sleeve for Valentine's Day. On Valentine's morning, he gave me a card that said to have my bags packed by 3 p.m. Matt planned a surprise night away, just the two of us, to celebrate V-day. His parents were in town (more on that in a post to come) so we had some in-house babysitters to watch Caroline. V-day afternoon, we headed off to a fun hotel in town for some wonderful R&R. As soon as we pulled up to the hotel, this guy pulled in right behind us:

That's Emmitt Smith for all of you non-Cowboys fans out there in blogland. I was pretty excited to see this guy but Matt stopped me from asking to have my picture taken with him. I guess it would have been embarrassing to stop him for a pic while he's trying to check into a hotel with his wife. I tend to get a little carried away when I see famous people :-) I'm glad Matt stopped me! But I digress...when we got to our hotel we had some time to kill before dinner so we ordered the movie, Slumdog Millionaire, to our room. It's SO good...if you have not seen this, I highly recommend it! I can't remember the last time we watched a movie in the middle of the day without any interruptions. After the movie, we got ready and enjoyed a delicious dinner. So yummy! The dessert was a chocolate lover's dream...fondue!! It was so pretty, I took a picture.
Some pics of Matt and me before and after dinner.

The hotel took this pic so I scanned it in...not the best quality...sorry
We got to sleep in the next morning and enjoy a long, leisurely brunch before heading home. It was nice and relaxing to get away for one night to have some one-on-one time with my sweet hubby. Even though it's SO hard to leave Caroline and be away from her for date nights or occasions like this one, Matt and I are always glad we did it in the end. For us, it helps keep our marriage priority which has been harder to do since having our little girl (at least for me anyway). Matt, thanks for such a great surprise...I love you so much and it was the perfect Valentine's gift for this momma :-)
P.S.--Stay tuned for Caroline's FIRST Valentine's Day!!

Happy Valentine's Day

Love,

Caroline

Valentines Come Early

(Pictured above: Eric, Matt, Ben and Jason)

Matt and I had a Valentine's celebration come early on Sunday night. We have been in a community group (through our church) with 3 other awesome couples for over two years. The Matthews, Smiths and Solomons are very good friends of ours and we are so thankful to have them in our lives! Sunday night, the four guys got together and decided to surprise all of us girls with a fancy shmancy dinner and dessert. The guys told us that they were playing golf all day on Sunday. In reality, they were grocery shopping, cooking, getting all dressed up in nice suits, and setting a lovely table to surprise us with. Needless to say, when we (the wives) walked in, we were SO surprised. It was such a treat...the guys wouldn't let us lift a finger. It's definitely fun to be spoiled every now and then :-)

The pretty table

The guys doin' their thang in the kitchen...a rarity :-)

Happy 10 Month Birthday

Caroline is 10 months old and one day today. Watching Caroline grow and learn new things is a lot of fun. Here is what the little miss has been up to these days: as evidenced by the pic above, she's JUST now starting to get a little hair and I can ALMOST get a bow to stay in it without a headband (her hair isn't quite long enough for a Pebbles ponytail yet but it's getting there...oh that will be a happy day :-), when I ask Caroline if she is "all done" or wants "more" she'll sign the word, she now gives volitional kisses to me and Matt without us having to ask (by far my most favorite thing she's ever done...so sweet), she has started picking out her own books for us to read to her, Caroline still loves to push her walking toy and is now pulling up on everything and can stand by herself for a few seconds before losing her balance, she got her first 2 teeth, and she is eating lots of new table foods. Caroline's schedule is the same as last month and she is napping/sleeping at night well. She is so happy and we've really enjoyed seeing more of her personality come out this month. We're definitely looking forward to month 11 and all of the new things Caroline will learn in the coming weeks!!

Dishwasher Safe

Caroline loves to pull up on the dishwasher door while I'm cooking, cleaning, etc... in the kitchen. I've always let her do it because she isn't big enough yet to break anything. She would just use the edge of the door to stand up...totally harmless. Well, the other day, she climbed right up on that door and just sat there clapping for herself. I quickly removed her (after a couple of pics of course :-) before she did any damage. I guess the dishwasher climbing is no longer safe for Caroline OR our dishwasher.

"Hmmmm, how do you think I get down from here?!?"

P.S.--Click on the top picture to make it bigger if you want to see Caroline's very FIRST two teeth that have come in together (on the top). They broke through a couple of weeks ago...finally!!

Congratulations, Kelly and Jarrett

One of my best friends from college, Kelly, recently got engaged to her wonderful boyfriend, Jarrett. Saturday night, we had them over to celebrate with dinner, a riveting game of Settlers of Catan, and some yummy cookie cake.

Jarrett and Kelly

While Kelly and Jarrett were over, I had to sneak into Caroline's room to get my camera. This is what I found:

I've mentioned before that Caroline LOVES her baby dolls. Here she is, fast asleep, holding one baby in one hand and the other doll is smushed up by her head. I thought it was cute so I had to take a picture (plus, Caroline is sporting her Valentine's Day pjs). Anyway, congrats Kelly and Jarrett. We can't WAIT until the big day this summer. Love u guys!!