New School and other September Fun

September brought a new preschool for Caroline. So far, she loves it.  I think that they must sing all day long since she knows about twelve new songs.  I've had to google the lyrics for a few of them.  The school is farther from our house, but only about 10 blocks and on the way to school.  

We also visited our friends, RD and Kati, who live outside Charlotte at the end of September.  She did great on the drive and loved playing with their kids, Hunter and Riley.  It was a fun visit.

She also got her first haircut.  The mullet was just getting a little out of control.

Other highlights (and mostly I just note these here so I don't forget since I haven't quite gotten around to that baby book).  She still loves puzzles, but she's starting to get into make believe play.  She pretends to cook pizza and go to the local restaurant, La Lomita, which really shows how much I don't cook.  She's up-ed the counting skills to 19 - twenty trips her up for some reason. She definitely knows the letter C (which is always C for Caroline) and she's pretty consistent with recognizing about 10 - 15 other letters.  Her language skills are growing by leaps and bounds every day.  She cracks us up with some of her phrases - things are yummy in her tummy, if she doesn't want to do it then it's "next time," everything happened yesterday, all sleep is naps and "it happens sometimes" (i.e. potty accidents, falls on the sidewalks, etc). 

Most notably, she is wearing underwear!  It was very rough going at the beginning, but we're starting to see notable progress.  She's also started the Why? stage - oh so fun. She wants to do everything by herself, which does not always help get us out of the house in the morning.

Last day of the old school:

First Day of the New School.  My sister was still in town so she of course wanted a picture with Tia Jo.

Pictures from her first haircut:

Fun with the Davis family:

Spring Break

We went to Florida last weekend and went from this:

To this:

And now, we are back to this (yep, snow day #645 of the year and on St. Patty's Day):

While in Florida, we also went to two Nats Spring Training games, Spanky played golf three times and we saw extended family (below is the youngest generation on my Mom's side of the family):

Caroline with her cousin, Callie, who is about four months older than her (they got along pretty well until they both wanted to play with the same toy):

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:

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: