December

What we did in December:

• Decorated the tree. This was substantially easier than the previous Christmas since she could clearly comprehend when I told her 'No, dear, we don't climb the Christmas tree.' Bill was worried to death about her choking on the little plastic red holly berries, but again, a few simple instructions and she got the message. I thought for sure she would try to open the presents under the tree, but I don't think she has fully grasped the idea that there are toys and fun things underneath the wrapping. So I let her believe it was just a bunch of boring boxes piled under the tree. WIN.

She rearranged a few ornament placements, but otherwise
the tree remained entirely intact!

• Visited Santa. Seeking the most convenient/least crowded option, we paid a visit to Santa at the gym. Yes that is the racquetball court in the left of the photo. Don't judge. I was thrilled to be knocking out 2 errands with one stop. We utilized the ladies changing room and slipped her into a cute outfit for a quick photo op. She didn't know quite what to make of the big guy, but decided he was ok once he handed her a sucker. Much to my dismay though Bill vetoed the idea of Gym Santa on our Christmas cards.

I'm sure Santa enjoyed the change of scenery...
who wouldn't prefer moms in spandex pants over the frenzied mall crowd?

• Celebrated cousin Riley's 3rd birthday. The Little Gym was once again a bit hit and she had a blast with Riley and Carter. She was pretty good about listening to directions and joining in the group activities, but what she enjoyed most was the balance beam. My sister insists that Caroline is a born gymnast, and after seeing how much she enjoyed the party I am considering signing her up for some classes. Lord knows I am always looking for ways to burn off some of her abundant energy. 

• Attempted to get a decent, non-Gym photo for the christmas card. Easier said than done. The Pug still detests Caroline with every bone in his canine body, as depicted in the photo below. Asking him to stand in close proximity to her was absolute torture, lest she be able to reach out and touch him. Caroline was quite cooperative for the photo shoot....Winnie, not so much. It's a sad sad day when your 2-year-old is better at following directions than your obedience-school-trained dog is.

Would it kill you to sit next to her, pug?

Caroline: "Merry Christmas!"
Winnie: "Bah humbug."

•  Decorated christmas cookies with the aunts, uncles, and cousins. Since Bill and his siblings would all be in separate places for Christmas, we decided to do a gift exchange and christmas cookie decorating session the weekend prior. Aunt Kristen made a delicious assortment of sugar cookie and gingerbread goodies which were creatively decorated by the kids (under extremely close adult supervision, of course. Anyone who lets a 2 toddler loose with a squeeze tube of icing is asking for disaster...)

Decorated or not, the cookies found a nice home
in mom's belly.

• Celebrated Christmas in Louisiana, one last time. With Caroline getting older and the logistics of transporting gifts and arranging Santa to visit out-of-state getting harder, I knew this would probably be the last time we made the long haul home for the holidays. So we did the frantic Baton Rouge/New Orleans/ Mandeville dash on Christmas day one last time. And yet somehow all I have to show for Christmas day is this one pic of Caroline opening one of her favorite presents, a sleeping bag from Nana. I have no idea where the rest of our Christmas pics are....perhaps still on the camera card of our good camera, which is currently sitting in a box somewhere in the basement.

The sole photo survivor of Christmas 2013. 

• Attempted to convince Winnie we were not, in fact, planning on leaving him in Louisiana. He does this every year....he never believes me....

• Visited the Global Wildlife Center, which was a big hit with Caroline. She loved being so close to all the animals and being able to feed them. While it's touted as a 'safari adventure', somehow I doubt the animals in Africa come stampeding over to the trucks in hot pursuit of readily-available food. No worries, though, we'll gladly take the faux safari tour if it means you can feed animals without worrying about losing a limb (or being the meal..)

November

The aftermath of the Halloween cold. Found her passed
out asleep on the floor in my bathroom one morning.

Exxon Family Fun Day at the Houston Aquarium

The fish were a huge win in her book, but the
merry-go-round was a close second.

She of course ran through every fish exhibit screaming 'Nemo?! Nemo?!'
We searched fervently until we found him.

Her favorite activity at the gym: hiding in the lockers.

Preparing for the arctic blast about to hit Houston.
She has enough headgear to last the rest of her life. No child
of mine will ever be cold.

En route to Louisiana for Thanksgiving! A few dozen
viewings of Nemo and we arrived without any trouble.

Daddy took her to visit Mike since she is still obsessed
with all things LSU.

Our Thanksgiving chef was a little heavy-handed on the spices.

Good food, toasty fire, scouring the black Friday ads.
Perfect Thanksgiving!

Kohls at 10 pm Thanksgiving night. Yes we're crazy
but we got some great boots!!

In keeping with the religious aspect of the holiday season, Mama gave Caroline a manger set.
Caroline appropriately placed her Mike the Tiger inside the stable.

In keeping with the Santa aspect of the holiday seasaon, Nana gave her the Elf on the Shelf and explained
how the Elf (who's name I have now forgotten....) watches
and reports back to Santa every night. This should work at keeping her in line
for the next few years....

Christmas tree shopping with Uncle 'Tina!

Halloween- tricks and treats

We made a quick weekend trip up to the Dallas Arboretum to check out their magnificent pumpkin village. Quite the impressive spectacle. Thousands and thousands of different types of pumpkins arranged in artistic displays. I had also wanted to check out the arboretum's brand-spankin-new $65 million children's adventure garden, but it was not to be. Caroline was coming down with a cold, and had not slept AT ALL the night before (staying in a hotel with a toddler in an unfamiliar crib was not my best idea....) so she was understandably cranky and we had to skip the children's garden. Maybe next year.

Halloween itself was much more successful. She loved her ladybug costume, and was quite adept at showing herself off in the pursuit of gaining candy. She happily ran from house to house collecting her treats. Being the mean mommy that I am, I only let her eat one or two pieces and then hid her bucket o goods in the closet, in a secret location unknown to Daddy. And then I slowly decimated her stash of candy piece by piece over the next month. 

Since I was consuming alarming amounts of candy it was imperative that I burn off all the extra calories with a vigorous workout routine. So I kicked it up a  notch at the gym and really started to get into yoga. Within a few months I was picking up some fairly advanced poses, which was a lot of fun.

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!