Two!

We made it another year and Caroline celebrated her 2nd birthday yesterday!  We had a party on Saturday at Trusty's and had about 30 adults and seven kids (3 months to 2 1/2 years).  I think that everyone had a great time and it was wonderful to not need to clean the house before/after the party.  She received lots of wonderful presents from family including lots of books, a play broom set, a play lawn mower, a Minnie Mouse shirt, a cute owl dress and matching tights, play food for her kitchen, an outfit for her doll and trains and track sets.  It's been hard to get her to eat or sleep since she just wants to play with all her new toys - the large amount of sugar intake through cupcake consumption is also hampering that sleep.  We also went to the doctor and she weighs 24 lbs 4 oz (25th percentile) and is 33.25 inches tall (25th percentile).  Here are a few pictures from her party and opening presents at the house:

 

Enjoying cupcakes - or at least the icing since she really just licked the chocolate icing off the cupcake:

 

So I did bring some activities for the kids, including crayons, coloring sheets, play-doh, stickers, etc., but there were several other unexpected kid activities at the party, including running in circles and falling on the floor and Connect Four (pictured below).  Perhaps the highlight (which I wasn't able to document due to the poor lighting) was the High Five Gauntlet.  There is an area upstairs where there is a narrow lane where people were sitting on each side and the kids ran back and forth through that land giving everyone a high five. They loved it (kids and adults alike).

Opening her presents on her actual birthday:

We had another cupcake and candle at home (since I forgot to take the candle to the party).  Spanky and I sang Happy Birthday and she was so embarrassed - she asked for this Valentine Day card that my Mom sent and hid behind it while we sang.

The allure of the cupcake brought her out, but only after we had stopped singing.

Watch What You Say

At around 21 months, Caroline had a word explosion and hasn't let up since then.  I meant to post then about all her new words so playing a bit of catch-up, but wanted to catalog some of her favorite words and expressions.

Body Parts: Started with nose and eyes (i.e. loved to poke you in the eyes and say "eyes" and also says eyes for eyeglasses and sunglasses) then added knees, mouth, ears and checks (and maybe hair, but it's a little hard to tell if it's hair or head at this point

Clothing: shoes, socks, coat, hat, mittens

Animal Sounds: started with quack-quack, moved on to Moo and have added, Baa for sheep, Bow Wow Wow and Ruff Ruff for doggies, Ooh Ooh Ah Ah for Monkey, Roar for both lion and bear, Neigh for horse, Meow for cats (and squirrels), and a new favorite Doodle doodle do for Roosters

Food: Milk, Snack, Pizza (for both pizza and french fries), Apple for all fruit except nana (banana) and melon (watermelon or cantaloupe), Peanut butter, Cheese, Cracker, Water

B Words that Sound Quite Similar: Book, Boot, Ball, Bath

Expressions: Thank you (and you better say you're welcome or she'll keep saying thank you until you acknowledge her), ta-da (especially when we turn on a light), oh oh, oh no, alright, no mama no, no daddy no, no doggie no (see a pattern?) Up Above (meaning she wants you to sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Stars), Ashe, Ashe (meaning she wants to play Ring Around the Rosie and loves the fall down part), upside down and some new ones - Oh, oh Spaghetti O and sorry (never used correctly) and clean up (one of my favorites)

Toys: Animals, Minnie Mouse (in love), Choo Choo (also in love with Thomas the Train), Baby (both toy and real ones - she gets very concerned when she hears one crying),

Others: doggie, hi, bye-bye, car, truck, puppy, bunny (the last two sounding very similar), jump, the names of all the kids in her preschool and her teachers, snow, hot (actually think she learned that one when we were in Houston in August), five for a high five, spoon, diaper, moon and 'back for Razorback, sit, walk, done, the end

Family: Nana, Meme, Paw-Paw, Pop-Pop, Tia Jo

She still has some unintelligible babbling and most of these words have some creative pronunciations, but she's got a lot to say lately so wanted to write them all down. She'll also usually repeat a word that you've said (usually the last one in the sentence), but I only included words that she says regularly.  And a picture just to add one (before the Polar Vortex hit and we could actually be outside):

Merry Christmas

We had a great Christmas and were able to travel to both Arkansas and Texas.  We were in Arkansas on Christmas day and then Caroline and I went down to Texas through New Year's Eve.  Caroline opened presents on four different occasions and definitely got a good haul (list is below, but it's mainly so I'll remember and can put it in her baby book when I finally get around to updating it):

- Mom and Dad: play kitchen, Mr. Potato Head, play dishes for her kitchen, books

- Neighbors Erika, Tom and Sadie: doggie lunch sack

- Meme and PaPa: Lego train, Giggle baby doll, puzzle, bath toys, ornament and stocking

- Tio Brad: play golf club set

- Uncle Richard and Aunt Anita: Gingerbread Man stuffed doll

- Aunt Lisa and Uncle Bob: hat and mittens

- Cousins Mikey, Annie, Miceala and Samantha: animal sounds book

- Nana and Pop: Little People barn, pond and tractor, Brio magnet train, blocks, doll accessories, three outfits, stocking stuffers including stickers, play-dough, tights and bubbles

- Tia Jo: play food for her kitchen

- Uncle Charlie and Aunt Judy: baby doll

- Aunt Nancy: dress

- Uncle Steve and Aunt Gwen: coloring books and CD/DVD

Now, we just have to find a place to put everything in our tiny house.  Here are lots of pics of opening presents, Christmas Eve and Christmas day, which are mainly for the grandparents (especially since I'm not sure who else even reads this thing).

Opening presents in DC from Mom and Dad - she wanted to play with every toy so it took quite a while to get through them all:

Inspecting the tree in Fort Smith on Christmas Eve - she loved the ornaments that were small little books.  She wore the same outfit as last year - it was a little short and short sleeves rather than long sleeves, but it worked.  We went to Mass, but didn't make it through the whole thing due to someone's poor behavior (and no, it wasn't Spanky):

Opening presents on Christmas morning:

Opening and playing with her presents in Houston:

Happy Halloween and Thanksgiving

As usual, a little late in posting updates so here's a combined Happy Halloween and Thanksgiving!  

For Halloween, we did the obligatory trip to the pumpkin patch and dressed the child in the cute outfit with the hat that they hate.  She did enjoy the pumpkin patch - particularly the slides and ducks at the petting zoo.  We went a little late in the season so there were slim pickings at the patch.  We checked out the inventory, but didn't actually pick a pumpkin - don't think that she noticed.

She had a great time on Halloween handing out candy to kids in our front yard.  We decided to skip the house to house trick or treating - maybe next year.  My phone died on Halloween and I didn't grab the camera so I don't have great pictures of her cute owl costume, which she did wear for part of the night.

We stayed in town for Thanksgiving since it's just too hard to travel over the holiday weekend with a toddler.  Luckily, my sister was able to come down from New York to spend the weekend with us.  We spent the day at the home of some wonderful friends and had about 8 adults and 4 kids fill the house.  Tons of great food and stuffed adults - the kids mainly chowed down on the Jello salad.

The Seasons of Dinner

Last night, it was warm and sunny:

Tonight, it was a little chilly:

September Travels

We had a busy September traveling to Texas to visit family and attend a wedding and then to NYC and New Jersey to watch the Hogs play Rutgers.  Yep, Caroline's first Razorback game was in New Jersey.

My Mom took most of the pictures in Texas where we managed to get in two trips to the pool, a trip to the park, visits with family and friends, trip to the zoo and a trip to the Children's Museum in Houston (which is awesome).  Caroline and I also went the Children's Museum in Dallas and sorry Dallasites, but the one in Houston is far and away better than the one in Dallas (at least for the under 2 crowd).

At the amazing pool in my parent's neighborhood - it basically has a playground in the pool:

Coloring at her own table at Nana and Granddad's house:

"Helping" Nana unload the dishwasher and put away the silverware:

Watering the patio:

At the Children's Museum in Dallas:

At the hotel in Dallas and pouting because I told her not to do something (can't remember what now):

Here are a few from our trip to NYC and the Rutgers game.  I think that Caroline really loved all the hustle and bustle of NYC.  She also loved running around the stadium at the game so I saw about 15 minutes of it - which is probably better since we blew the lead and lost the game.

Playing at Battery Park (and yes, Spanky made her wear a Razorback outfit every day of the trip except for the ride home since we lost):

We were so fortunate that Spanky's friends let us stay in their amazing corporate apartment in the Financial District since they were out of town for the weekend.  We were directly across the street from the Ground Zero Memorial and had amazing views of the city:

At the game - we really only sat in our seats for about 10, maybe 15 minutes:

The rest of the time was spent chasing this one around the stadium: