the haps here lately

We've been busy busy busy and I know I've been neglecting the blog. The best way for me to remember what all we've been up to is to flip through the photos on my phone. God bless the Iphone. It's so easy to whip out my phone and capture the little moments that make up our day-to-day existence. So here's a glimpse of life around here lately.

Thank you to Nana, Susu, Mama and Aunty Em for the assorted Tiger shirts Caroline received! They were desperately needed! She still wakes up and asks to wear her tiger shirt every.single.morning, so these will be well-loved.

Speaking of our little friend, her conversation skills deserve an entire post all its own. She talks non-stop these days, in her crazy little baby babble. Her tone and inflection and conversational pauses indicate that she truly believes she is conveying important information. It's a hoot. I tried to capture a video of her babbling, but every time she sees my phone she wants to take it, so I had to kind of hide it while taking this video...thus it's pretty dark. But the audio is good.

She's a big fan of catchphrases, frequently exclaiming 'happy happy happy!' (for the Duck Dynasty fans) and 'oh no!' and 'oh man!' This video was taken by her babysitter. They were reviewing what sounds each animal makes, which Caroline knows very well, but she thought it would be funny to give a different answer instead. Goofball.

She's learning and speaking new words every day. Sometimes she likes to stop whatever she's doing and just randomly name everything she can identify. She'll be eating dinner in her highchair, and just go on a tangent naming everything in sight. "Mama, Dada, Winnie, highchair, cup, bowl, fork, food, milk....." and on and on. She's getting pretty good with her colors and can correctly name about half of them. And we're on a really good roll with potty training. If she's at home 9 times out of 10 she will tell me when she needs to poop and will go poopoo on the potty. So we're not changing poopy diapers much anymore! However she has not applied this information to other settings outside the house, so now we're working on getting her to use the potty in other places (at the gym daycare, at school, etc.) And she's slowly starting to realize she should teetee on the potty as well, so that's next on the potty training agenda. I bet if I were super diligent and took one weekend to do a potty training bootcamp she would pick it up right away. It would be awesome if she were completely potty trained by the time she turned 2!

In other news work is going well. Love my job, love my colleagues, LOVE the hours. It's the perfect balance of time at work and time at home. 3 days at work, then 4 days at home with her. I feel like I have just the right mixture...enough time at work to use my brain, my degree, my license and feel productive, and enough time at home to not feel like I'm missing her growing up. I've only encountered one problem- my work wardrobe was sorely lacking! I had not bought any work clothes in over 2 years! Since I lost the baby weight and then some all my pants were too big, and since my hormones shifted after pregnancy I am no longer obnoxiously cold-natured and thus all my long sleeve work sweaters were too hot. So I treated myself to a little work wardrobe shopping spree. It was the first time in I don't know how long that I actually bought stuff for myself!

But I also indulged Caroline in some new duds. I found a local group on Facebook that matches people selling monogrammed kids clothing with the people that want to buy. I found a woman selling a ton of clothes monogrammed with Caroline's initials, cRe! SCORE!

And also some new artwork for her room. My talented friend Betsy created this artwork, which I had printed on canvas and will hang above her crib this weekend. All this time that wall has been blank, waiting on the perfect art to go in that spot. I love that it matches her room perfectly and that it came from a friend!

With the weather being a tad cooler these days we spend pretty much every afternoon at the park. She loves chasing birds and squirrels, digging in the playground mulch, running across the field and of course going down the slide. And like her mommy she likes to practice her yoga moves at every opportunity. She finds the park to be the perfect spot to practice her headstands.

I'm eagerly anticipating Halloween in a few weeks! Trips to the pumpkin patch, fall festivals, and of course trick or treating! Here's a little sneak peek of what's in store this year....

So that's what we've been up to in a nutshell. Hope everyone has a great weekend!