Take me out to the ballgame!

In honor of the Cardinals opening day, Caroline wore her Cardinal colors -- unfortunately, she would not let me take a good picture of her in them so this is the best I have. She had a fun day playing at the park and since she can walk a little better in the sand now, we did not have to worry about her ripping holes in the Cardinal red. (She has completely destroyed 3 pairs of pants so far but all in good fun!). We have been working on blowing goodbye kisses. She doesn't quite have it yet but she can make the sound if she puts her finger in her mouth and pulls it out -- very cute! She's picking up a few "words" here and there. I think she says dog, mama, dada and shoes -- Trent says he won't believe it until he hears the full word (OK, he may have to wait until she's three for her to say all her words correctly!). She does understand shoes though as you can see in this video, she found mine and is trying to put them on her feet.

The carpets are getting cleaned so...

We had to play upstairs this morning -- luckily it is beautiful outside so we were able to spend most of the day out there. This is just the cutest outfit that my cousins Kari and Kris gave her a year ago when she was born and she finally fits in it. So, I had to take some pictures of course. Also Caroline has mastered going down the stairs. She's been a pro at going up since Thanksgiving but until the last two weeks, her idea of going down started with her head and sort of a diving motion. She now has the backwards thing down pat.... until she gets distracted that is so there is a video of her newest skill at the bottom.

Happy Easter!

Hope that everyone had a wonderful Easter! We had amazing weather out here -- sunny and 75 degrees so it was a beautiful day. Caroline thoroughly enjoyed her 2nd Easter (well, did the first one really count -- she was only 6 weeks old??). Amazingly, she understood the Easter basket and picking up the eggs and putting them in the basket and taking them out and then putting them in... you get the picture. We had a little Easter egg "hunt" for her in our yard. You can see the eggs are very well hidden. After a great church service, we had Aunt Laurie and Uncle Crispin over for brunch, then after nap time, went the beach with some friends. It was gorgeous!! Enjoy the pictures and the videos!

Party at the Park

This past week, we had a party at the local park for St. Patrick's Day / Easter. All the kids were dressed up in either green or their Easter dresses. It was very cute. Caroline was all smiles in her "Alice in Wonderland" look with the blue dress and blue bow. It is very hard to keep a busy little one year old clean and content to be that way for more than five minutes so these pictures were taken from within the first five minutes we were there until we changed her clothes. We are really encouraging the walking as she is now wearing holes in the knees of her pants and jeans!!

The second set of shots is just playing in the family room. Don't ask me how she got her sitting in this small basket. She is very flexible.... and strong -- check out the video at the bottom of her exercising her strength.

She has dance moves!!

In the last couple of days Caroline has found her rhythm. Well as much as a one year old can -- she shifts her hips from side to side and sways. It is very cute. She does it while she is eating or playing, it doesn't matter. There is a new video of it at the bottom. The other video is just of her playing -- she loves her drumsticks and uses them to bang on things, chew on or to mix things up as you will see in the video. She also has learned how to roll her tongue -- very impressive! Enjoy the videos!

I'm a big girl now!

I guess with learning steps, you also learn to climb and Caroline has just started with this one. She has a new chair she got for her birthday and she uses it to climb onto other pieces of furniture. A few other items she has learned to climb on that are going to be big trouble...

1. The kitchen chairs

2. Into the cabinets (I found her under my sink the other day -- well I knew she was there -- she is trying to learn to blow dry her hair!)

3. Into her toy boxes which presents a problem when she can't get out

Her little hands reach higher and higher now meaning the placemats (when I set the table :)!) are placed in the middle of the table until it is time for dinner. Nothing is safe!!

Her vocabulary is expanding... she can now roll her tongue and flick it which makes for great sounds and you can see in the video that she says something that resembles "yes". We are still waiting patiently for that first word. Enjoy the videos at the bottom --- notice I have to use a barrette all the time now or her hair is in her face!

It has been a busy day....

Normally I would never have 3 posts in one day -- I'm usually good with one a week, BUT.... Caroline took her first real steps tonight and so I just had to put it up for all the grandparents to see. She needs a little encouraging but we know it won't be long now!! Enjoy the videos at the bottom. What can we say, our baby is growing up!!

Just hanging out

Caroline had her friend Jordan over this morning and they love to entertain each other. Though they don't really "play" with each other, they definitely play "off" of each other. Caroline sometimes has to realize that she is the younger and smaller one! There is a great video of them at the bottom.

Snow Bunny

This past weekend we drove to Mammoth Mountain to go skiing and have Caroline see the snow for the first time. She was amazing on the five hour drive so we were very excited. We also went up there with another couple with two children. The kids all got along great, Mommy and Daddy both got to ski / snowboard (separately of course -- Caroline is not quite old enough to watch herself yet!). It was beautiful -- awesome snow on the mountain and perfect temperatures. Caroline had her moment in the snow also -- she tried to crawl on it but wasn't too sure about the cold (these CA babies!!) but she did enjoy the sledding. You can see it on the video at the bottom. Enjoy the cold weather photos!