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:

New School

Caroline has been at an in-home daycare since she was 10 weeks old. We really enjoyed having her at the in-home with Gail and Cissy.  They provided a wonderful, warm and loving environment for her and it was especially wonderful when she was so little.  We would have kept her at the daycare, but after 1.5 years on the wait list, we finally got into our preferred daycare in our neighborhood.  You don't get a second chance so we took the spot. We have been on 6 other wait lists for over 2 years and we still have not gotten in to any of them...

It has been a bit of a difficult transition for Caroline - new place, new people, new routine.  We get a report each day on how she did.  At first, we got happy, active and sad, but since that first week, we've gotten reports of only happy and active (although I may have given her a cranky report a time or two).  The daycare is definitely more structured - eat at certain times, nap at certain times, out for walks every day, art projects - we were hoping the structure might help with the napping (since she sometimes didn't take one at all at the old daycare).  So far, it's been better, but she has had no nap or 15-20 minute nap days, but usually her daily report notes about an hour - a huge improvement!  I tried to take some pictures of her last day with Gail and Cissy and her first day at the new daycare, but I didn't have a very cooperative subject either day.

Here's one that was probably taken her first few weeks that she went to daycare with Gail and Cissy (such a sweet, happy baby):

And here I am trying to take a picture of the toddler version (she's yelling "no" at me in both pictures):

This one's better (although you'll have to ignore the Target bag):

These two are from a previous evening during her last week at the old daycare - think that we were going on day #3 of no nap - she fell asleep in her dinner and I was able to change her and put her into bed without her waking up.  

Here she is on the first day of her new daycare.  We were running late as usual so she's finishing some toast and she really just wanted to point out her new shoes - the girl does love her some shoes: