Like Mother, Like Daughter

I think they call it karma. As most of you know, until I was almost 20 I almost never ate green foods aside from Chocolate Mint ice cream. Now I eats lots of vegetables. But what a time my mom must have had trying to feed me. Now my sweet little Caroline is my karma coming back to get me.... she is a very picky eater as evidenced by the video at the bottom. She loves toasted cheese, macaroni and cheese, plain cheese, bread, etc. -- a child after my own heart. And she does like certain other food items including peas, bananas, apples, sweet potatoes to name a few, but only if they are prepared a certain way, ughhhh!! And so meal time is not always the most relaxing time of the day. I can just picture my mom now saying, "Girls, I spent all this time making this dinner...." I have a feeling I will be repeating those same words!

And, just like her mommy, Caroline loves to read, well actually look at books. She can spend a good ten to fifteen minutes (that is a long time in baby life) looking at the animals on the pages, turning the pages, crawling with the book or just pulling new ones out. All of this after her snack and milk. It is very cute!

Lastly, this outside shot is a view from our neighborhood looking at the snow on the surrounding mountains, gorgeous!

A Day in the Life...

These videos and pictures are just a day in the life with Caroline. She has become quite the busybody lately and her favorite activities include:

1. Riding the bike with Daddy of course-- she doesn't even mind the helmet!

2. Pointing at everything -- the birds, the airplanes, the construction workers and everything else that goes on in the neighborhood.

3. The stairs -- she would go up them all day long if I would let her -- hmmm, maybe I should then she would nap longer -- just a thought.

4. Destruction -- she climbs on everything from the trashcans, to Daddy's office equipment, the fireplace, the coffee table, you name it -- she is very busy.

The house has now officially become Caroline's house as she is everywhere -- it is exciting to see the house through her eyes -- who knew we had so many exciting things??

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to everyone!! Hard to believe that a year ago at this time we were on pins and needles waiting for Caroline's arrival and now, here she is, crawling all over the house!! Where has the time gone?? The new year (and Xmas) has brought new toys and lots of new skills. Caroline now crawls on her hands and knees and since she mastered the stairs a couple of months ago, it is her favorite thing to do... looks like we need to get some gates. I have posted a couple of videos below just to show what a day in the life is like. Her new walker toy is more like a slot machine to Caroline as you will see in the video below and her dance moves may need a little work from her Uncle Crispin (for now she just has the shake your bum down pat!).

We also put some butterflies up in her room above her crib along with her name that was painted by Grandma Jan and Aunt Katie. Enjoy the pictures and videos!!

And then...Christmas in St. Louis

From Florida, we flew to St. Louis to see my parents for Christmas also. Hard to believe that was Caroline's 11th flight in her short 10 month life!! St. Louis was a little chillier than Florida, but we all had a great time. We saw Santa Claus on Main Street in St. Charles and enjoyed Christmas with Great Grandma and the rest of my family in St. Louis. We got to meet the newest addition to our family, Tim and Jill's little Olivia who was born right before Christmas.

We had a lot of family bonding time as the stomach flu struck my parent's house leaving us all under the weather for a couple of days. Once we recovered though, we were able to visit and eat some of the yummy food my parents had made. Caroline's big highlight over the Christmas holidays was that she stopped "combat" crawling and made the transition to hands and knees which means she is a very fast crawler -- up the stairs on the furniture, whatever she can find. Needless to say, we are both tired at nap time!

Christmas in Florida

Christmas started early for us this year as we traveled to Trent's parents in Delray Beach, Florida. We had a great time visiting with his parents, his sister, Tracy and their family that were in town and his brother, Tye and his family that live there. Caroline has three cousins (two of which are very close to her age!). She and Paulie wore each other out -- playing, playing, chasing and then playing some more! We took a ride on Gaga and Papa's new boat and relaxed at the beach. It was a great way to kick off the start of the Christmas holidays! Enjoy the photos!

Santa Claus Comes to Town

This past weekend, our friends Kelly and Del had a Christmas party at their house with all the kids and Santa Claus made a surprise visit. I can't say that a bunch of one year olds (give or take a couple of months) were all that excited to see a scary man with a big beard wearing a red suit, but Caroline didn't seem to mind one bit. She loved sitting on his lap (I wonder if she recognized him -- Uncle Crispin?) but she didn't cry, not even a whimper and even liked opening up the present. Enjoy the pictures!!

Nine months, 3 weeks and 2 days, and...

We finally have a tooth!! Hopefully you can see it in this picture as it hasn't broken very far out of the gums. We spent last weekend at the lighting of the tree downtown and Santa Claus made an appearance. Caroline liked the lights but could care less about the man in the red suit... give her sometime. Mommy and Caroline had matching outfits that Daddy insisted we wear out (this does not EVER happen, so don't start thinking that I am one of those moms), but my cousin Tricia gave Caroline this cute sweatsuit and I happened to have one in the same color. You get my drift. Anyway, we are looking forward to all of the fesitivities of the Christmas season. We will keep you posted!