Happy Halloween!!!

Happy Halloween everyone! Here is Caroline in her full bumble-bee glory! I will post more pics later!

Playing Outside the um...Box?

Long gone are the days when Caroline would spent long periods of time playing in her activity center. Now, if I try to put her in it, she screams. But, just when I was thinking that it might be time for the activity center to head up to the attic, Caroline started standing outside of it and playing. Of course, I do miss the days when I could put her in it and not have to worry about where she would end up in the next 5 seconds, but I am glad that she has found another way to entertain herself.

Caroline is getting so much more stable on her feet. When she is ready, she can sit down without hurting herself. And as much as I hate to think about it, I am afraid she will be walking before I know it. Instead of sitting in the swiveling seat inside the activity center, she just walks herself around the perimeter to get to all of the toys.

SO proud of herself!

Time to sit down

And back up

She definitely has the hang of getting herself up

This pic was kind of an accident. If I am sitting/standing anywhere near Caroline while she is standing up, she will turn and reach out to me. I usually take her hand and let her walk to me. There have been a few occassions where she completely let go of whatever she was holding onto and managed to stand totally on her own for a few seconds before I grabbed her hand. Well, in this case, I had the camera in my hand and she caught me off guard as I was trying to take another pic. She has no fear!

Well, at least the activity center is still keeping her entertained, even if it isn't keeping her contained any more ;)

Halloween Sneak Peek

I'm sure there is one thing that has been keeping you all up at night. No, I'm not talking about the state of the economy or whether we will be going to go to war with Iran. I'm talking about the important stuff like what Caroline will be dressing up as for her first Halloween. Well, rest easy my friends because I have the answer.

Here is a hint:


Any guesses????? A bumble bee!!!! Caroline's BFF Addie is going to be a lady bug and together they will be insect buddies. Val and I are making their costumes and I must say, they are going to be super cute (duh). I made Caroline's little antennae head band a couple days ago. I was kind of worried that she wouldn't tolerate wearing it, but she didn't mind at all! In fact, she didn't even seem to notice it. I may or may not have let her play in it for a good 15 minutes (I'm easily entertained, ok?).

I'm almost finished with her costume. I'm working on the wings right now. If I can keep wings on her, than I am going to apply for a job with Chris March and make outrageous costumes for Broadway. Ok, I need to slow down a bit and get back to reality. Stay tuned for the finished product! Toodles for now!

Steven's Barricade

This past Saturday, we had some friends over for gumbo and game night. Steven was busy cooking and I was trying to get the house straightened up before every one got there. Since we both had things to do and Caroline just wanted to play in the floor, Steven came up with this to keep her from straying too far:

My dear sweet husband. He means well, but little does he know his idea of "baby-proofing" doesn't stand a chance with Caroline.

Don't worry, I didn't leave her here. But I had to get a pic ;)

Caroline 7 months

Well, once again, time keeps flying. Caroline Grace is 7 months old! I can't believe that in just 5 months, she will be one. Crazy.

Things just keep getting more interesting around here. Caroline has taken off and is into EVERYTHING. She is no longer really content to be in the "baby-mobility-inhibitor" AKA activity center. She just wants to be down in the floor crawling around and checking things out.

As I mentioned a couple posts ago, she started pulling herself up a couple weeks ago. As if that isn't impressive enough, she is now starting to "cruise" once she gets up. Her favorite thing to pull up on is my chair in the living room. She will start at one corner and walk herself over to the other corner. It isn't a long distance, but the point is she is able to move once she gets up. She has also figured out how to get herself down most of the time too. For the most part, she can sit herself back down in a fairly controlled motion. But, I still have to come rescue her some times.

My crazy girl is also trying to climb anything that stands still. When she stands up on my chair, she tries and tries to climb up into it. When I carry her on my hip, she will plant her feet on my hip bone, stand up, and start grabbing anything (usually my hair) she can to get up. I'm not sure where she is trying to go other than the top of my head. I am used to it, but when other people hold her, they are a little taken aback when she tries to climb them. That's my girl!

Caroline finally has two teeth! I feel like this teething process has been going on forever and the bottom two finally popped through within about 2 days of each other. You can just now barely see them when she smiles. It is going to be so weird to see her huge smile with two little teeth.

My girl is quite the little piglet. She is doing great with real food. I introduced fruit about a month ago, and she has LOVED it. I think she would eat her weight in peaches and pears if I let her. I've also been giving her these little baby "rice cakes" to chew on. They have been helping her get the hang of feeding herself and chewing. We're working on the sippy cup, but so far, all she wants to do is chew on the spout.

Such a little ham

It was so hard to get these pictures. She would not sit still or leave the weird blue bird alone!

Getting so big!

This next picture absolutely melts me:

In the words of Rachel Zoe, "I die".

This was about the only way I could get a pic of her face

And of course, she just had to stand up and see what was going on outside her crib. Those eyes kill me!

Blowing raspberries on the rail

I don't even know how those skinny little legs can hold her up, but they do!

So as you can see, I kind of had a mini photo shoot... I couldn't help it! She was hamming it up!

I kept trying to get her to smile big enough to see her teeth, but of course, she was on to me and didn't want to give it up too easily

*Sigh*

If you look VERY closely in this pic, you can see those two little toofers poking through on the bottom.

Those eyes. She has already totally perfected that "please-let-me-have-chocolate-cake-for-breakfast" look. I don't stand a chance and Steven might as well be a goner.

I can't believe another month has already come and gone. Each seems to go faster than the last, and I am loving each month more and more. It is so amazing to see her grow and change so much and to see the little person she is becoming. Even though it has been 7 months, I still find myself in disbelief that I am responsible for such an awesome little person.

A Weekend at Grandma Daisy's

Grab some popcorn folks, this is a long one (I apologize for all of the extremely long posts of late. We've been busy!)

Last weekend, Caroline and I loaded up and headed to Turpin to see Grandma Daisy and Jimbo. We left on Friday and got there early Friday evening. I didn't take the dogs this time because Steven was going to be at home. That did make the 300 mile drive easier, but even still Caroline grew pretty restless about 3 hours in. I am now eating my words for almost bragging about how great she was in the car and how she would just sleep the whole way to where ever we were going. Those days are long gone! But, in poor Caroline's defense, I figured out after we got to my parents' house that she had started cutting another tooth. She started getting the first one (bottom middle) on Tuesday of last week and it finally poked through on Wednesday. But the other one decided to start its journey to the surface on Friday, while we were traveling. Poor baby :(

On Friday night, a big cold front was coming through and there was a possibility of some pretty nasty weather. Jimbo put the horses in the barn that night in case it hailed. The next morning, the horses had to be let out, so Caroline and I tagged along with Grandma Daisy. I was dying to see what she thought of the horses.

(Please note: It was about 7:45 a.m. Make-up and hair had not been done, so please excuse my appearance.)

She thought they were hysterical! I think she thought they were just really big Freds.
Feeding Stryker

Sitting on top of Simon! (Steven was really upset after seeing this picture. He was so bummed that he quote "missed her first horse ride". I quickly informed him that the horse was tied up and did not move, but he did not think that mattered. To him, this was riding a horse. Crazy Cajun.)

"Giddy up!"

"Hey, Simon! What are you doing???"

That afternoon, we went into town, had lunch, and shopped around a little bit. We went back to the house and relaxed and enjoyed the nice cool, cloudy fall day.

Caroline and Grandma Daisy played ball:

Trying to get the hang of rolling the ball

She would get so excited when the ball came to her. She just kept slapping it and it would eventually roll away. So funny!

Having a ball! He he I know I'm so clever.

My mom got my old high chair out and cleaned it up for Miss Caroline. I like to think of it as "vintage" rather than an "antique", thank you very much.

Ready to eat!

Caroline wasn't quite sure what to think of the cats. And Pookie wasn't quite sure what to think of Caroline.

On Sunday, we had lots of visitors stop by to see Caroline.

Caroline and Uncle Frank

Cousins, Chris and Tanner

Caroline loves my younger cousin, Torri

Later that afternoon, we went out back to do some "shopping" (I always seem to find something or a few somethings at my mom's house that she no longer needs and I take it home with me. Miss Daisy has some great stuff!).

Caroline did this while we "shopped"

On this particular day, we were shopping in my mom's holiday decor shed. That's right, she has an entire shed JUST for decorations. I scored some more fall decorations and some Christmas decorations.

The horses were watching us as we were going through the shed, so Caroline and I walked over to say hello. She absolutely LOVED the horses. To her, they were the most hilarious things (next to Fred of course).

Feeding Simon

She would get so tickled whenever he would eat from my hand

Feeding Stryker

Petting Stryker

She would touch them, and then turn around and bury her head in my shoulder and giggle. It was too cute!

Since my mom's house/yard is the perfect backdrop for pictures, I did a mini photo shoot with Caroline on Sunday afternoon.

This was on the front porch. I wish I could have gotten a couple better ones with the wheel barrow and the pumpkins, but some one kept trying to crawl away and I just knew she was going to face plant on the concrete.

We moved down to the grass to prevent any accidents. It was nearly impossible to get her to sit still enough to take a remotely decent picture. (P.S. Whose flower beds look like that in October??? Oh that's right, Miss Daisy's. Duh.)

And of course, Caroline had to take this opportunity to practice her new favorite trick, pulling herself up and standing. (Side note: Grandma Daisy bought Caroline her first pair of jeans while we were there. Aren't they adorable???)

Naturally, Caroline started posing in the wrong direction, so I got the bad side of the pumpkin and my car in the background. What are ya gonna do?

Car in the background again, but a little less noticeable.

I love that cute little face :)

My little lady bug

She was having a lot of fun in this tub.

My mom actually took this picture, so I can't really take credit for it

Checking out the soft green grass... Something we don't have much of here in Wichita Falls

We stayed through Monday since it was Columbus Day and my mom had the day off. As I was packing up the car to leave, Uncle Frank stopped by on the tractor.

He picked a flower for Caroline to smell, but she tried eating it instead. That's my girl!

And when I say tractor, I mean this operation. Uncle Frank and Caroline are up near the front. You can barely see them next to this monstrocity.

Uncle Frank and Caroline with the tractor

We had such a good visit with Grandma Daisy and Bump. Caroline can't wait to go back!