18 Months

Caroline will be 18 months on the 2nd of August. Our precious toddler gets smarter, sweeter and funnier each day.
She loves hummus, guacamole ("mole,") blueberries ("blue buh,") yogurt, nectarines, black beans, spaghetti, and cherry tomatoes. She even ate two good bites of tabouli at Grammy and Poppy's house this week.
She still loves to play her "hide a toy" game. She is very convincing when I ask where it is. She points to where she wants me to look and I say, "Are you sure?" and she will nod emphatically "yes!" When I tell her it's not there, she will then point to a different place in the room for me to look and the game continues!
New Words: She now repeats lots of words, but "Nigh-nigh" for "night-night" (Thanks to her friend Sara!) and "Amen!" are her two words that she uses regularly now! She waves when she first sees me in the morning and right before she closes her eyes to sleep.
When she is feeling particularly "lovey," she will gently place her hand on your cheek and look at you with scrunched up eyes.
She can sing (in tune!) the first four notes of Elmo's World (La, la, la, la) and the first three of Sesame Street (Sunny Days,) and Twinkle, Twinkle (She sings "Up above.") If I try to change from Twinkle, Twinkle to another song before she is ready, she lets me know by protesting loudly until I start singing it again.

Dada took all of these pictures of his sweet Caroline on the square last week. I kiss her a thousand times a day.

Ch, ch, ch, changes...

After a whole year of prayer and contemplation, Thomas and I decided that I would take next year off from teaching. I am really excited about being home full time with Caroline! It is strange, though, how I get a big lump in my throat when I think about the school year starting without me! It is hard for me to put into words how much I love teaching kindergarten with my awesome team. I know these years will be very special with Caroline, and there will always be 5-year-olds going to kindergarten for me to teach when I decide to return!

Caroline and I were able to spend a few days at Grammy and Poppy's house while Thomas was busy in Little Rock. We had so much fun! She loved playing with the dogs, playing in her own blow-up pool and playing on the playground equipment at the elementary school that I went to many years ago! I thought I could play like I did then, but ended up pulling a few muscles. We still had a great time and Caroline wore herself out running as fast as she could to each slide and asking for "more!" She is such a big girl going down the slides all by herself! Grammy and I even enjoyed going down them!
Here's a video that Grammy took of Caroline talking.
She is REALLY into "Where is Thumpkin?" Whenever we start singing it she wiggles her fingers and then puts them behind her back and says, "Away!" She also says "away" whenever she sees a trash can.
(We didn't get her new phrase recorded "I do" )
Ex."Caroline do you want to go down the slide?" "I do!"
I love her so much!


Since I do not know when I will blogging again, I'm going to go ahead and write(type) down another sweet thing she does...
When Thomas (or I) sit on the step on our front porch she sits herself right next to us and holds her hands out for the other one of us to sit down with her in the middle. She then puts one arm around each of us to squeeze and hug us together. In the picture below in my previous week's post, Aunt Becky captured the moment. She was standing in that one with her arms around our necks, squeezing us all together.

Sweeter every day

It is tough in one post to catch up a month of growth in the life of a toddler. Here is a pic from bible study at Becky's principal's beautiful backyard (you can see the river running right behind us!) We painted, broke and re-glued pottery! See why by clicking here.

We had our first bible study service project near a subdivision with several students from Becky, Dori and Leigh's school. We read books and talked about Jesus while eating some Fire Cheetos. I did not get permission to post the pictures of the children, so here is a cute one of Lakyn and Caroline in their bible study t-shirts!

If Leigh had not asked me to stop and get the fire cheetos, we might have been involved in this awful 4-5 car accident! The chicken truck turned over across the highway. Those are real chickens all over the ground.

Caroline loves her friends!

We had our first cookout last week with some wonderful friends. We had some brush to burn, so of course that led to s'mores!! Yummy!

Jack's mom, Dori, getting ready to roast her marshmallow!

We have also had our first red, vine-ripened tomato from our plants! I have counted over 70 that are still green! Caroline helped me pick two cherry tomatoes from the vine. Before I had time to wash them, she had already chomped into one! I am so glad she likes them! She ate both of them within a few seconds! (Notice the seeds on her lips in the bottom picture!)

She says new words and amazes us with what she is learning! She hears us talking about any number and she begins "counting" on her fingers. She also can recognize and name the letter "O!" (Aunt B's name puzzle/stool has helped with this!) Any time she sees letters she tries to sing the ABC song. Her song sounds like the long "A" sound over and over, but it is a letter!!

She says, "mey-mey" for "messy" and "away" for throwing anything away or putting away items. She has three teeth on the bottom now!

This is the first time that Yo Baby Yogurt did not keep her attention. Sleepy baby: