New School Year

It has been a little disorienting for me not to be stressing out at school with everyone this week! I am missing (just a little!) the excitement and nerves that go along with a fresh new school year. On the other hand, I am very much enjoying my time with Caroline. It is really fun not having a set schedule for our time together. Last year I always felt I had to rush (literally) everywhere so that I would have more time with her. My blood pressure must be better this year!We have been spending time at the Farmer's Market, Baby Bookworms at the library once or twice a week, playing outside with her house, car (thanks, Lakyn!) and slides, dressing up (thanks, Bailey!) and going to church. I can't believe she will be moving up with her Sunday School class next Sunday! She's getting so big! Here is Canaan and Caroline waiting to pat their bibles! I hope to have more pictures from their last class this weekend.

She has added to the body parts she can name. I point to them and she says, "nose, eye, ear, knee, bel-bow (elbow, obviously!,) hair, beebow (belly button, not so obvious!)" She can recognize toes, mouth etc. if I say them.

She now says, "Ewww!" when something is not to her liking.

The biggest accomplishment right now is I can hold up any two objects of different sizes and without any prompting she will point to the larger one and say "Big!" and she will point to the smaller one and say, "Little!" in a high-pitched voice! I am so proud of her.

Grammy's name has turned into "Me-me" and Grandma Tracy is "Dee-dee."

Slumber Party!

(The picture above has nothing to do with this post, but I had to post it! Thomas took this in our garden last week! I have never seen a caterpillar that big in my whole life!)
Thomas had a three day workshop that took up his days and most of his nights, so Caroline and I tagged along on his trip and was able to spend time with our dear friends Tara, Billy, Bailey (and Boss!) Tara so graciously let us stay at her beautiful home with her day and night for three days! We were able to catch up with each other and let our precious girls get to know each other!I think for the first day and a half Caroline stayed really quiet trying to take in Bailey's bubbling personality! I feel like I keep up with Bailey through her blog, but getting to hear her intelligent, creative thoughts verbalized in person was amazing! She is a very bright little girl!Bailey REALLY wanted Caroline to converse with her! She talked to Caroline like a child her own age, "Caroline, do you want to see my school?"...pause as Caroline watches Bailey..."CAROLINE, do you want to see my school?" I finally had to tell Caroline to say, "Yes!" They were adorable together. They both shared toys with each other remarkably well! Bailey would take Caroline by the hand and show her things in her house. (I also realized how difficult it is to get two little girls to pose for pictures together. The pictures do not match my captions, but they were the only ones I took!)Caroline also got to go to her first real movie! A local theater showed a Veggie Tales movie for free. She loved it! She sat in my lap and commented to me about the movie ("Moon!" "Night-night" "uh-oh!" etc.) We all four shared yummy popcorn. I was overprotective and tore off pieces just to be sure there weren't hidden kernels. It helped to slow me down from eating a whole bucket myself! We also enjoyed playing dress up, feeding ducks at a nearby pond and singing along to songs in the car. (I think Bailey knows every children's song by heart!)
One of the highlights of our trip was getting to meet Tara's amazing friends she has made through her church. They were all super nice and welcoming to Caroline and I. I loved seeing such a large group of women connected to each other through God and their children (and there were a LOT of children!)

Cooking With Caroline

Pick out your cupcake and a frying pan.

Listen to the sizzle as the icing fries.

Place cupcake in refrigerator to cool. Enjoy!

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:

All I want for my 16 month birthday are my 2 front teeth...

Caroline finally cut her front 2 teeth at 15 months and 2 weeks! Now everyone can stop joking about getting her "baby dentures!" She's been eating everything that any other baby eats, but this will make it a lot easier for her to bite off her food. (Pretend you can see them in this picture!)

We went with our good friends Autumn, Greg and Sara to Devil's Den last weekend and went on a hike! Here is a link to the pictures from last year at the same waterfall! Look how big Miss Caroline is getting!

Here is Autumn's blog of their sweet family.

Before bible study at our a house a couple of weeks ago, all of the babies enjoyed the playhouse that Grammy and Poppy brought from a friend in Fort Smith. We tried to get a picture of all of them together, but the individual ones turned out better!

One of my sweet kindergarteners, Jennifer, invited us over for dinner at her house last week. We had traditional Mexican food and it was "deliciouso!" I wish I had taken a picture of all the meat they had grilled for us. It was unbelievable! Talking with Jennifer's mom and dad about how poor they were in El Salvador and what they had accomplished here in Arkansas brought tears to my eyes. We are so blessed to live in America with so many opportunities.

Caroline's New Words:

"More," "away," "goo" for good, and "tee" for teeth, "ss" for "si" in spanish. (Yes, she is bilingual. Now that she has some teeth she can make the "s" and "t" sounds! Woo-Hoo!) " I uv" for I love you.

Tricks:

She will sneak around the house! She bends way over while she walks and puts her finger up to her nose to say, "shh." We decided she must have started this by watching us bend over like that when we are going to find her when she is playing hide and seek with us. She will hide behind the couch or island in the kitchen and we "sneak" up on her to tickle her. Her giggles are like nothing else on Earth.

She has been leaning in to "hug" for a long time. She now gives HUGE bear hugs around our necks. She will run into my lap, wrap her arms around my neck and squeeze. She will then run into Thomas' lap and do the same. She still puts my face in both her little hands and pats. It is so, so sweet. She also loves to kiss people (and things) that she loves. She makes loud kiss noises as she does it. We are having to teach her to kiss only family and close friends. (She tried to give kisses to someone at Taco Bell.)

After last week's bible study everyone kept asking her to say,"roadrunner," because it looks so cute with her lips puckered out and saying, "ro-ro-ro-ro." About 30 minutes later I thought I had rocked her to sleep when she opened her eyes a crack, took out her pacifier and said, "ro-ro-ro," laughed, put her paci back in and went to sleep. It was hilarious! She has such a great sense of humor!

Fun in the yard!

I tried to take mental notes to remember events in her life, since I am unable to blog regularly, but I quickly realized that my memory is not as sharp as it once was! I’m going to try and “journal” on the computer more often, and post several days at once to her blog whenever I can. Make sure to scroll down to see the other days.

Greg, Autumn and Sara came by this morning to cut down a huge, dead tree in our front yard! I am so mad that I did not get video or “before” pictures.

Greg used his chainsaw and Thomas pulled using an extension cord (He will have to start his own blog so you can read an explanation of why they were using it!) All the girls stood at a very safe distance away. When it came down Caroline was a little worried about what happened. It took her several minutes to decide it was okay to get out of my arms and check out the debris. I kept explaining that it was dead and we had to cut it down to make the yard a safe place to play. Here’s an after picture:

Before bringing the tree down, we bought tomato and strawberry plants at the Farmer’s Market! Following the afternoon storm, Thomas and Caroline planted in the garden together. (I purposely put her in this shirt, because I knew she would get dirty and it was the only dark colored long sleeve shirt she has!) Look how serious she is in all of the pictures.

At one point she wanted Thomas’ shovel and he had to use hers!

I posted a pretend “before” picture a few days ago. I did not get a great “after” picture yet, but this will do for now:

Time to wash up! She LOVES playing in the hose. We're still loving her shoes Aunt B got her. The mud washes right through!

I know this is mean, but Caroline can be so dramatic when she gets mad, we had to take pictures. Here is her expression when we put away her shovel (also notice how soaked she is!):

Then she ran over to it and got it back! She is so happy….

Then we tell her that it is time to go inside…without her shovel…

I want to end on a “smiling” picture (because who knows how long it will be before my next entry!)
Thanks to Aly Claire, we have discovered how much Caroline LOVES drinking from straws! It’s so cute watching her drink from these cups. (I don’t know why she’s holding it like that, she doesn’t usually do that.)

When we ask her where are Mommy’s (or anyone’s) eyes are, she tries to point right at them, so instinctively we shut our eyes. So now whenever we ask her where her eyes are, she makes this face:

If only she ate spinach like Popeye, too!