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Cool Tricks

Caroline enjoyed playing Grandma's piano this weekend. She caught me a little off guard when she played a few notes and then turned around on the bench and said "My name is Ethan and my cool trick is playing piano." It's a line from Yo Gabba Gabba's Cool Tricks segment. Of course I got a kick out of it so she continued to do it from that point on. I was able to catch it on camera. stop the play list so you can hear her.

Halloween 2009

Trying to get a picture together, but Caroline had other plans...

After trunk or treat, candy was used as bribery to keep her still.

Enjoying some of her candy with Princess Brianna

After another trunk or treat on Saturday, with Cowboy Carl, Alex the Builder, and Aunt Marci

Riding a horse Saturday night. She loved it and was so excited when she got down, she told everybody "The horse farted!"

Flying the helicopter with Daddy

Driving with Daddy (I later did this one with her, but I had to sit in the back)

Riding on the duck with Mommy

It's been a fun Halloween this year for all of us. We started celebrating Wednesday night while Caroline and I were in Smithfield, Caroline wore her Carolina Panthers cheerleader costume to the church's fall bazaar. Friday night she got to dress up again for her school's Halloween carnival. And Saturday we were out for 5 hours doing trunk or treat, trick or treat, and another Halloween carnival. As if that wasn't enough fun for one weekend, we went to the fair Sunday afternoon, which Caroline LOVED! She enjoyed all the different rides, and Miss Independent didn't want us to sit with her on a lot of them.

We closed on our lot Friday afternoon, and started clearing it today. Tomorrow we have to pick out what trees we want to keep in the yard....just the beginning, but I was excited to see how much progress was already made today. A friend across the street took some pictures for us of the before and after, I'll post those later.

September & October

Here are some pictures from the past few weeks:

Riding the trike at Grandma and Peepa's house, wearing Madeline's Hello Kitty helmet

Cheering on the Packers with Daddy

Wearing Daddy's hunting boots up to her waist

Flying a rocket after church with Madeline and Margo

Her first hair cut (look at how long it was!)

Bathtime with Zoe after the haircut

We've done a lot the past few weeks. We moved, sold our house, went to 5 birthday parties in 4 weekends, spent a week at Grandma and Peepa's, and have stayed on the go about every day.

Caroline has been enrolled full time in daycare for a couple of months, and she has settled in and is comfortable being herself there now.....the teacher has written in the comments section of her daily report "Wide Open!" a couple of days recently, and she asked me if Caroline just doesn't seem to listen sometimes......she's definitely 2 :-) I can tell she's learning a lot, she's counting, singing ABC's and knows her colors pretty well now, doesn't forget a thing, doesn't stop talking and loves using her imagination and pretend play.

We're feeling a little cramped in our rental house. It's smaller than our old house, which we sold because we needed more room. I keep reminding myself that it's only temporary..... we're finalizing house plans for the home that we hope to begin building soon.

Caroline had her first haircut this week, it's very cute and was long overdue, but I still wanted to cry when I saw how short it is.

She's also made a little progress potty training this week, little being the key word, but it's a start. There was some confusion a couple of weeks ago when she saw one of her friends who is a boy go potty....for a couple of days, she tried to stand up on her stool to pee pee in the potty, but she seems to have gotten past that now!

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Been busy

I've been super slack about taking and posting pictures obviously, but here's a few random shots taken during the past couple of weeks.

Caroline still loves jumping on her trampoline. She can now jump "high"!
As Travis predicted when we bought her a baby doll set complete with pack n play, she gets in it rather than putting her babies in there.

She enjoyed a visit with cousin Brayden, Aunt Leslie, and Uncle Greg and we gave bathtime with a boy another shot.

Looking serious and wise wearing Grandma's glasses when we spent a week there while I had trust training in Raleigh.

While in Smithfield she and Madeline and Lydia had a "dance recital" one night for cousin Maks. They danced to some old Beatles records wearing Aunt Leslie's old dance costumes (until those came off and she was dancing in just a diaper.)

Her new favorite breakfast is "cereal with milk." What a big girl!

She was sooo excited to go fishing with Daddy in the boat. Here she is posing before the big trip.
And demonstrating her technique.

She loves this ginormous puppy that Travis picked up for her (more clutter for our already cluttered house that we've been trying to declutter in order to sell.)

And this is a picture of the extended Thomas family (my mom's side) at Wiseman's View, beautiful setting where we spread my grandmother's ashes.

We are very excited that we have a contract on our house now, scheduled to close on September 28. We're purchasing a lot to build a house on, so now we have to find a place to rent for a few months until our new house is complete. I can't believe I don't know where we're going to live in a month!

Yesterday was our 8th wedding anniversary. Perfect anniversary gift was finding my wedding album that had been MIA for a couple of years. We didn't get to do anything to celebrate our anniversary because I had a meeting after work last night, but we're trying to find a babysitter this weekend so we can go out to dinner and a movie maybe.

Happy 4th of July!

We've had a great holiday weekend, took the boat to Lee Islands Friday and Saturday and enjoyed Wilmington's fireworks Saturday night. I was a little nervous about taking Caroline to see fireworks since they don't start until after her bedtime and not knowing how she would react to them, but she did good and enjoyed the show.

Maggie came with us to the beach Saturday for the first time this year, and she chased minnows in the water for about 5 straight hours. Caroline enjoyed playing in the water too.

And in the tube with Caitlin.

And in the sand.

And in other news, we became the owners of a minivan this week. My Honda Odyssey was delivered Tuesday. It's very nice, but I'm still getting used to the idea of driving a minivan.
Caroline had NO problem getting used to the DVD player in the back seat, and she learned how to get her headphones on real quick!

Caroline's birthday

Tuesday was Caroline's actual birthday. Travis and I spent the day with her and tried to make it truly "hers." We started the day by making her favorite breakfast - blueberry pancakes, although they weren't quite as good as Grandpa's. We took her to Fit for Fun to play. She helped me make some birthday cup cakes. And we met up with Carl and Alex and "Aunt" Marci at Chuck E Cheese for supper and more play time.

mmm, mmm, strawberry cup cakes!

watching Chuck E's band sing

flying high on one of the rides

riding with Barney

watching her boys play air hockey - this reminds me of me and Carrie at some campground arcade when we were growing up :-)

It's hard to believe how much Caroline's grown and changed over the past 2 years. Don't remember what life was like before June 16, 2007!

our precious angel 6/16/07

Sweet Girl 1 year old 6/16/08
Birthday Princess 2 years old 6/16/09

Birthday party

Yesterday was Caroline's 2nd birthday party at Power of Play, the theme was Yo Gabba Gabba! Everyone had a good time, especially the birthday girl. The biggest challenge of the day was keeping her still long enough to open presents. Her actual birthday is coming up on Tuesday, Travis and I will both be off work to spend her special day with her. Below are a few pictures from the party and you can view more by clicking here.

Where did May go?

Hard to believe it's been a month since the last post, I don't know where the time has gone. Here's just a few pictures to summarize some of what we've done.

We enjoyed going to Fit for Fun with Adrienne and Zoe

My Grandma passed away May 9th, here Caroline is helping us pack to go to the funeral. She loves to buckle things, so she strapped herself in the suitcase.
We celebrated my Mom's birthday in Smithfield and Caroline got some quality time in with her younger cousins, Margo and Brayden, while the older ones were at a movie. I think she's teaching them how to properly ride a rocking horse while drinking a cup of milk here.

Travis' cousin and family from South Dakota came down Memorial Day weekend. Caroline had her first bloody nose after meeting these cousins for the first time - she and Aspen accidentally collided while running on the beach in the dark.

For the past couple of weeks, she's reminded me of a little homeless person, loading up her most precious possessions in her shopping cart and pushing it all around the house. She'll put everything in there - dolls, toys, cups, food, blankets, clothes, etc.

And for the past couple of weeks, I've been party planning. I sent out these invitations for Caroline's 2nd birthday party coming up June 13th. I'll be gone for an entire week right before the party so I'm trying to take care of everything before I leave this Friday.

Definitely shouldn't be another month before I post again, we'll have lots of birthday pics in a couple of weeks!