16 & 17 Months!

Momma did it again; I didn't update your 16 month milestones.  Mainly those included you perfecting your alter ego "Caroled."  I apologize now for giving you this nickname, but it is really your sister who started it.  You were doing what you normally do and kinda aggravating her a few months ago she said "Stop caroled!"  It was too funny, daddy and I laughed and laughed.  You love to pick on your sister so much!  But now everytime you are acting up or being "difficult" we refer to you as Caroled or say that you are in the caroled mode.  Sister has also started calling you Carolinie.  I happen to like that, especially since I wanted to nickname you "linie" way before sister came up with that.  I don't know if I remembered to blog this or not but you love to sign "poop."  Now you also like pulling at your diaper and pointing to your butt when you poop.  We are pretty sure you are potty training material, heck daddy has been trying to potty train you for the past 6 months.  You weren't probably 3 months old when he first said "shouldn't see be using the potty by now?"  Apparently he forgot a lot of stuff between now and sisters development.  You will never know how thankful mommy is to have you, sister and daddy.  I love to see your face every single day.  I will probably see it every single day until college because mommy and daddy are not good about letting our girls stay anywhere but with them.  There are so many things you do so well, pick on big sister is probably the funniest one or your little dance you do when you are in trouble.  I also like when you KNOW you are doing something wrong like pulling all the wipes out of the container and when momma sees the mess in the floor and the 10 wipes in your hand and start toward you, you give momma the shake move, throw down your wipes and then run off.  It is so funny, really you may be funnier than your class clown of a sister.  Never a shortage of laughs or happy screaming in our house.  You say a lot of words, mostly to repeat them but I think the ones you say the most consistantly are probably "granny" and "bad."  You say momma, daddy, hot, cat, eat, this (oh you say THIS all the time), even the dreaded mine, you say NO way too much, dog, reese, josh, things like that pretty often.  Probably more words than momma even realizes.  You currently are only interested in being silly.  Still don't like tv (not that thats a problem) and you still love to eat.  I love you my silly big girl.  I guess I can't stop writing this until I mentioned your newest nickman from your dadda.  He has taken to calling you "goose"  No real reason that I know of.  Well, he may have told me something but as usual I wasn't listening to him.  I'm afraid its going to stil because you actually answer to it which may be even funnier than the name itself.  Momma and daddy have an inside joke about geese so when you are older ask him if he really means to call you a goose or a duck.  I love you beautiful girl!

MOMMA!

14 & 15 Months!

Oh Caroline, momma is so sorry.  She didn't post a blog for your 14th month milestones.  I really thought I had done so, I'm sorry.  There isn't much to say I guess other than that you are one of the two greatest girls I have ever known.  You are such a lively little thing; so smart and so funny.  You may actual be funnier than big sister (I may have already posted about before, if so sorry :)  I am so happy that you have you and your sister have each other to grow up with.  You are already best friends.  Momma had to put you into a daycare a couple days ago; You and sister were put into different rooms.  I had been so worried about how you would react and you made me so proud.  The only person with tears in their eyes was momma.  You have so many little playmates now. I am so excited for you to learn and grow with your friends. You are trying to get a few more teeth, four to be exact which will bring your grand total of teeth up to 7!  I think daddy is finally growing on you.  You are starting to want to be a daddy's girl like sister.  It's okay though, you have a really good daddy who loves you a lot.  I can't tell yet if you are going to be more like momma or daddy when you are older.  Right now you are following the path of sister and are going to be just like daddy, but there is time for a serious side to come out.  We have been working on some new words with you.  You have gotten pretty good at repeating something if we say it.  Right now you can say about 10 words - momma, deydey, granny, get, cat, doggie, bye, hi, hey, no, yeah.  Right now we are working on up and down with you.  you have the finger points down, just gotta get the words out. I love going to home to you and sister every day. You are the most awesome kids in the world.  We love you!!!

LOVE,
MOMMA!

Our Move

We have been out of Lexington now for almost three months.  During these three months I have had a very wide range of emotions about where we are in our lives.  The main emotion I have felt is happiness but I have not felt very much contentment.  I miss so many things about Lexington, things that I knew I would miss but not to the extent that I am missnig them.  I took so many things for granted before and I hope that I never do that again.  I knew that I was lucky and that I was blessed to have all the things that we have in life.  I just realize HOW blessed I was until we moved.  I have always been spoiled, I will always be spoiled and I will admit it.  I guess I should also admit that we are ALL spoiled, all four of us.  I didn't realize how lucky I was that we could walk out our front door and go on a run, walk, bike ride whatever we wanted to do. I miss that, now we have to drive to run and I will admit that it has stopped us from doing so a few times.  We aren't brave enough to run on the country roads yet.  Lexington has wonderful places to be with nature even in the city.  There was so much of Legacy Trail we didn't get to explore, so many visits we will miss to the Arboretum and the Children's Garden.  Even with all those things missed, our decision to move probably was really for the best.  We have saved so much more money in these three months than we did the last six months of last year.  I won't lie, paying nearly $1,000.00 a month for childcare wasn't easy on us.  Our childcare providers were wonderful though and I wouldn't trade that for anything.  My children loved them just as much as they loved my children.  We are lucky that we had a  place to go when Jason was offered a job, that we had friends who could move into our house and keep it in shape while we get it ready to sell.  Friends who seem to appreciate our house more than I ever did and it makes me feel so guilty.  Annabelle sometimes cries to "go home," and it really and truly breaks my heart and makes me feel selfish for wanting to change all of our lives and move back.  I just thought it would be better to have family around and to work in the same town.  Those things have turned out to be great but its not home yet I guess.  One of my main reasons for wanting to leave Lexington is because we didn't really know anyone there, we both worked out of town and didn't really have any roots.  I guess those would have came when the girls started more activities.  But with that said, when we got here we realized we don't really know anyone here either.  We have been gone for a few years and people we used to know we don't anymore, so I guess we will waiting until our girls start activities to grow roots here too :)  Other than when Annabelle asks to "go home" she seems to be pretty happy here, she loves being able to play with her cousins.  She loves those boys so much and constantly wants to go to their house and follow them around.  It will just take a little time to get used to things, to get us more settled but we should be fine.


Wow, what a ramble...

13 Months!

To my sweet girl :)
I didn't think it possible to have a child that was sweeter than Annabelle, but I was wrong.  You are such a darling :)  You are as sweet if not sweeter than sister, you may even be funnier than sister also!  I can not imagine having two comedians for children plus throwing in your daddy I end up with three!!! I know one thing, we have a lot of fun times and laughter at our house :)  Over Father's Day weekend this year we went to the Columbus Zoo.  It was your first trip and sister's third.  Momma has mixed feelings about the zoo, I feel guilty paying money to see animals in cages but this zoo was so awesome.  When I left I didn't feel as guilty.  You loved the Gibbons, you would laugh and laugh at them.  People would stop and just watch you and start laughing at you and tell us you were so cute.  We have gotten that a lot since December 2008 :) Daddy whistled to a gorilla and she whistled back!  She was the first gorilla born in captivity - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colo_(gorilla).  Sister even had a monkey come to the window and hit it and run off like she was wanting to play.  I have always said she was a monkey, I guess he could tell that!  We have been living with granny for almost 2 months now.  You are loving it, granny is probably your favorite person in the world.  I don't know how well you are going to handle moving away from her when we buy a new house.  That will be awhile yet so we will see.  Your language is starting to pick up, you are doing just like your sister did. You will say a word as you are signing it.  Your favorite new sign is "all done"  You just started signing it out of the blue one day.  It is so precious!!!!!  You call daddy "dey dey"  and it is almost too cute for words.  You are such a great little girl.  Momma really couldn't have picked better children if she had designed them herself.  I look forward everyday to seeing what you will learn that day.  You are already able to use mommy and daddys phones as well as the iPad.  Such a clever clever girl :)  We all love you so much!

MOMMA!!

Caroline is 1!

You have turned the big ONE! I am so happy to be priviledged to watch you grow and develop every single day!  You are WALKING! and have been for about 2 weeks.  You are always on the go and hardly ever crawl!  It is so hard to believe that you have been here for a year already!  Your daddy and I are the most fortunate people on the planet to have you and your sister as our children.  You make our lives so bright with your wonderful personality and sweet disposition.  Your birthday marks 1 year that we have had a very sucessful bf relationship.  You have recieved nothing but momma's milk since you were born. I am very proud to say that I didn't have to supplement you even once and you were a big eater!  We are giving you more and more solids to eat and you are loving them.  You want to try EVERYTHING that we are eating and we let you as much as we can.  You seem to do a pretty good job even though you only have TWO teeth! Last night we had speghetti to celebrate your birthday.  I don't know which you enjoyed the most, the food or the mess you made :)  You are such a funny girl, just like your big sister.  The bond you share with your sister is so great to watch. You love one another so much, and my greatest hope is that you two will be best friends for life.  Annabelle is so proud to be your big sister, she takes such great care of you.  I am so proud to be your momma!  You are such a beautiful girl who looks just like her momma!  This past year you have experienced so many things, I hope that we are fortunate to continue to have these experiences for you and for your sister.   Momma is still wearing you, but these days it is mostly in the Boba instead of the Moby.  Momma is going to work on the side hole so that you can continue to ride in the Moby.  We have had such great times together with it.  We are proud that your signing abilities are increasing, you can sign, more, eat, all done and we are working on some others.  You occassionally say momma, dadda but we expect your language will explode in the upcoming months.  We are looking forward to celebrating your 1st birthday on Saturday with all your family and friends who love you so much.  We also look forward to celebrating many more birthdays.  We love you so much baby butt!


Love,
MOMMA!

11 Months!

Happy 11 months to my sweet girl Caroline!

Momma knows she is a week overdue with this but we have had a lot of changes in the past few weeks.  We are moving, daddy started a new job and we just have had lots of stuff going on.  We are getting ready to move in with granny for what is hopefully a short time.  Momma is sad that you will not get to grow up in Lexington because there are so many great things to do there but I am happy at the same time that you will grow up in the country and be around your family. 
I noticed my last blog talked about you taking your first steps, well my excitement was short lived as you have not continued to improve on your walking abilities.  You just take a couple steps here and there, nothing consistent.  I really thought you would be walking by 10 months at the latest.  You have very good coordination and are able to stand for long periods of time.  My favorite thing is when you stand up and dance without holding on to anything.  Seriously, if you can do that, you can walk silly girl!  You and sister continue to bond daily and love one another so much.  Each morning momma gets you up first and when I get you ready I tell you to get up sister.  I wish I could truly capture the total look of HAPPINESS you get when I tell you that.  I really think you enjoy waking her up about as much as you enjoy food!  Speaking of food, you are still a mommas milk girl and hopefully will be for months to come.  You are totally on sippy cups now, no bottles for you at nana's.  Speaking of nana, we have to leave her behind when we move, that is another sad thing because you are so close to her.  You reach for her every morning when I take you in.  Sometimes we wonder if it is because she takes you to see the doggies :)  Another thing that makes you happy, animals, especially dogs.  I wish we could get you a puppy for your birthday but maybe when we get our own house.  You currently are able to say momma (sometimes), hi, bye (waving with two hands is so cute!), dah and even daddy and more.  We love you so much little silly girl! 

Love
MOMMA!

First Steps!

Caroline took a step last night.  We are pretty excited, she stepped from the bathtub to me.  She is able to stand on her own, especially when dancing because she gets too into it and forget to hold on.  Saturday she signed more to me while standing on her own.  It is so cute.  I had forgotten how exciting these things are! 

9 months!

Happy 9 Months to my beautiful girl!
Momma promises that soon, within the next two weeks, I will transition you to the convertible car seat.  Momma is slower about it this time around because I have two to carry out the door in the mornings now :)  I know its not all about momma, so I need to go ahead and do it.  I think you will be very comfortable in the Marathon.  IF I can get sister to let you have it :)  I can't believe you are almost a year old, it blows my mind at how fast you have grown.  It also breaks my heart a little bit.  You are such a trouble maker (already!), I have to say No! Caroline! so many times each day.  You know exactly what I am saying too, and when I sign "no" to you, you also understand that.  You will stop for a few seconds, start smiling then resume trouble making.  You are very good at signing "more."  We are still working on some others, but I know you will get them.  The best part is you try to speak "more" each time you sign it.  You are also saying "momoma" more frequently with a dah thrown in every once in awhile.  Your first word was "hi!" and you say "hi" and "hey" all the time as you raise your hand.  I really think you will have similar speech abilities as your sister.  I can only imagine the conversations the two of you will have.  It fills my heart with happiness to see how much you love your sister and how much she loves you.  We love you so much you little chunky buns :) After being able to crawl for three months you have finally decided to do it "correctly," on your knees.  You have even developed a hybrid crawl/walk type thing you do when you know you are in trouble and are trying to get away from us.  You laugh the whole time you do that.  you are just too sweet.  I am so happy to be apart of our family.  You, sister, daddy and me have the absolute best times together. We love you :)

LOVE

MOMMA!

Old Blogs

I know you are not supposed to compare your children or any children for that matter.  You still do of course no matter how hard you try not too.  I have been reading my old blogs from when Annabelle was an infant to see when she started to do things like talk, sign, stand on her own, etc.  Annabelle was about 10 months before she signed, Caroline has done it at 8.  Just once but still I was impressed (ha).  I thought Annabelle was talking by 8 months but looks like I was wrong.  She was closer to 10 so that gives Caroline another couple months to start speaking.  She babbles a lot of mostly she just laughs and screams (good screams not bad ones).  It is so weird to remember Annabelle didn't come out of the womb talking like I remember.  She has been talking forever and not just baby talk, big words and phrases and sentences.  Jason always told me we would not talk "baby talk" to our children and we haven't.  Annabelle was so stubborn she was 3 days past 1 year old before she walked.  I know she could have done it sooner.  Caroline is on her way to walking in the next couple of months but we will see.  She could start walking or she could not start until she is over a year old too.  No matter what they do you still love your children with all your heart because they are perfect.

<.3

I'm not a very good writer, but I hope I am able to get my point across without making myself sound like a very harsh person.  I consider myself to be nice, to be funny and to have a good personality but there are some things that I could be better at.  Those things I see in my children, that they are better than me already even at their young ages.  My husband is very different from me, he is very loving, very funny and has a good personality (well maybe we aren't that different) but it is "different."  His heart is very different, although I am loving he is loveable.  I'm not a cold person but when I think of myself and my husband these lyrics from The Avett Brothers song Shame always come into my mind "My heart was always fairly cold. Posing to be as warm as yours.  My way of getting in your world."  I have sympathy for people, I have empathy for people but there is just something about my heart and my husband's heart that is different.  I wasn't a lovey dovey child growing up, I didn't like hugs, kisses, public displays of affection, stuff like that.  What "normal" people probably enjoy.  I didn't say "I love you" often or at all actually.  I was just "weird!"  My Annabelle has the biggest heart at the age of 3.  I told her a couple weeks ago that I was so glad that she has her "daddy's heart."  She said, "But momma, I have your heart too."  I just smiled at her because she does have my heart too but mainly and probably most importantly she has the warm heart of her daddy. My lack of affection toward people was probably a little more than hurtful to my family and I am so glad that Annabelle is different from me. 

8 Months!

To my precious Caroline on your 8th month of life!

Today, on your 8th month birthday you signed "MORE" to momma!  Of course momma was excited and didn't give you more fast enough.  I am hoping you still got the connection.  You signed it so perfectly, like you had known how to do it your whole life!  Momma was cheering and clapping and so you got all excited and threw your hands in the hair with your eyes smiling as big as they could.  My girls have the most beautiful eyes, it's true.  I hear it from everyone so it's not just momma's opinion.  You are cruising EVERYWHERE.  We have to watch you constantly because you want to stand up on anything and everything that you can find no matter how tall it is.  I will be very surprised if you don't start walking within the next month.  You are brave and confident in your abilities so I think that will help.  I am so happy to have you and your sister.  You love her so much, you want to be able to do all the things she is doing.  I hope that this love you two share will continue into adulthood.  So many people it seems have no relationship with their siblings when it gets older and it is sad.  I think that the relationship me and daddy share will only positively influence your relationship with Annabelle but also with other people.  I am so happy to be a part of your life and to be the mother to both of you.  You are such a smiler, just like your sister.  How we got to be so blessed with two of the happiest children I have ever seen I will never know.  We love you so much!

Love
MOMMA!