Christmas 2010

What a Christmas we had! My only regret is that I didn't take more pictures!


This is Caroline on her mysterious magical Christmas bike. You see, on Christmas Eve Dave was taking out the trash and there on our driveway was a giant red gift bag with a bow and a tag that said "To Caroline, From Santa" ! We were stunned! We brought it inside and stared at it for a minute, speechless. A bike! Someone annonymously bought her a bike! We don't know who it was, but on the chance that that person reads this, thank you so much. It's an incredible surprise we will never forget.



I love this picture. This is Caroline opening her gift from her Uncle Andrew.


I gave Caroline "big-girl" dress-up clothes (aka Halloween costumes I bought on clearance) Caroline is too big to wear the "one-size-fits" dress-up clothes that come from the toy department, but she still loves to dress up, so this was a good solution.

We had such a great Christmas. Christmas Eve and Christmas morning was just the 3 of us, doing our usual traditions that we love, then that afternoon we headed to a friend's house for a get-together and we had a blast!

Thanks to our friends and family that contributed to our wonderful Christmas. And thanks to our secret "Santa" for adding a little magic to our holiday!

Around the house...

We got a few early Christmas gifts around here. Uncle Ryan gave Caroline - what else? - guns. Dave and Caroline have had some fun shooting Nerf darts at each other around the house.


This one just makes me laugh!



The boys we babysit gave Caroline a super-cute doll for Christmas! She loves it and I see her playing with "Kathryn" all the time.


Here's something you don't see every day: a princess vacuuming!

She volunteered for this labor, I swear!

A morning downtown!

This week, Caroline and I went with some friends and did some things we always talked about doing, but haven't. We went to the fancy Peabody Hotel downtown and saw the running of the ducks!

If you're unfamiliar with the famous Peabody Ducks, they live on the roof of the hotel and every day at the same time, they ride the elevator down to the lobby, run along a red carpet and climb a set of stairs to jump in the big fountain where they waddle all day!


They let kids sit along the red carpet and count-down the floors on the elevator and watch the ducks do their thing - it was pretty funny!

Afterwards we went for a ride on the downtown trolley - which Caroline said was her favorite part. For 50 cents, the old-fashioned trolleycar takes you on a loop around downtown and by the Mississippi River.
We had a great time with our friends. It feels like it's been a long time since we got out and socialized, but now that we're done babysitting for a while I think it's time to stop being hermits!

Santa

Our library had a special pajama-night story time with a visit from Santa this week. We went for FHE and Caroline was SO excited!

Dave and I decided he was a really good Santa - good suit, real beard, nose like a cherry - the whole bit! He said all the right things and knew about all the toys the kids wanted!


Caroline had prepared ahead of time and wrote Santa a letter and decorated it with stickers. She requested a "Boy Barbie" (Ken Doll - thank you Toy Story 3) and new gloves. She honestly, has not mentioned anything else! We keep asking her and all she talks about is a boy barbie. We've had a pretty hard time trying to find a good one (the only one we found was a surfer and doesn't even come with a shirt!) I mentioned to Caroline that "boy barbies" are hard to find and she said, "We don't have to find one! The Elves make them!!!"
Oh, right. I forgot.
I think I was 5 or 6 when I stopped believing in St. Nick, so this could be the last Christmas where Caroline really does! The thought is shocking to me!

Caroline and Gus

I was going through the pictures on our camera and was noticing how many I had of Caroline and our cat, Gus. Caroline has loved Gus ever since we brought him home as a kitten. Luckily, Gus is a pretty tolerant cat.

It's hard to tell, but Gus is wearing a ballet skirt in this picture.

One day I was noticing it was especially quiet and I called for Caroline. She didn't answer so I went looking around the house for her and found her just sitting on the bathroom floor holding Gus. She said she heard me calling, but she didn't want to yell back because it would've scared him!



Lately, Gus has been going up to Caroline's room every night to sleep on her bed with her. It's pretty sweet.

Caroline's Photo Shoot

I wanted to get some 5-year-old portraits done for Caroline. I want to always remember what she looked like at this stage in her life, before she starts school. Luckily, we have a very talented photographer in our ward who is starting her own business and was able to do these for us rather inexpensively.
I love, love, love how they turned out!

Have I mentioned lately how much I love this gal?!! For so long I kept saying "I don't want her to get any bigger/older!" but now I think she just keeps getting better!

Super Birthday Weekend!

Our birthday celebrations lasted several days long!
It started a little early when Caroline got some gifts in the mail from her Nana:

and Grandma! (Have I mentioned this girl LOVES mail?)

Then we made her birthday cake together. This cake wasn't my idea, but I can't remember where I saw it - probably a magazine or a friend or cousin party. But I love it - simple, cute, and Caroline could help!

Caroline put her "birthday dress" from Grandma Scott on and the two of us went out on a mommy-daughter date!

We went and saw "My Son Pinnochio" - a musical that several of our church friends were in. It was SO cute!

The next day was Caroline's "party". She's been talking about going to Chuck E Cheese for months and we told her we'd go for her birthday. So she got to take 2 friends for pizza and games. They had a blast!

Chuck E Cheese went great! We went early enough that it wasn't crowded, we had coupons so it was inexpensive, I didn't have to plan, set-up, or clean-up, and the kids were so good for us!

These kids can EAT!

Then back to our house for cake and presents!

After the party, we spent the afternoon shopping the outlet stores in Tunica, then Dave and I went out for dinner for his birthday that night while Caroline stayed with friends. We went to Neeley's BBQ and it was SO good!

The next day was Dave's Birthday!

We had a lot of good food and just spent the whole day together. Isn't he handsome?

Caroline gave Dave a giant bag of peanut M&Ms!

The next day was Caroline's real birthday (I told you this was a several-day affair!)

We had to babysit, but we still had fun. Caroline wanted to make homemade pineapple pizza for lunch. The kids made their own and they were delicious!

Then after the boys went home, Caroline and I headed over to Baskin Robins for her free birthday cone.

She wanted to go to a restaurant for dinner, so we all went to Chili's. I could tell that all the festivities and sugar and staying up late the last few days were starting to take their toll on our girl. She kept saying she was tired and didn't feel good. While we waited for our food, she laid her head in my lap and then when it came she barely ate. She perked up when they sang to her and gave her ice-cream, but we knew something was wrong when she ate a bite of it and pushed it away!

We brought her home and put her jammies on. I went in on our bed to talk to my mom a little and she came in and laid down on our pillows and fell asleep! I can't remember the last time she voluntarily put herself to bed! She had a fever and wasn't feeling well at all, poor girl! Too much birthday I guess.

Here she is, conked out on our bed after a fun-filled few days. She's snuggling her present from Dave and I - a ladybug pillow pet.

So our girl is 5. I teared-up several times throughout the day, just thinking about the last five years and how I can't imagine life without her. Caroline is funny, cheerful, and snuggly. She loves babies and dress-up, singing and dancing, and most recently watching the Food Network and hosting her own cooking show with her play kitchen and plastic food. She is still a morning person and awakes happy between 6 and 6:30 every morning without fail. She dresses herself, knows her right and left, buckles herself in the car and just learned how to fold laundry. She loves her cousins,aunts,uncles and grandparents more than any toy and talks about them frequently. She loves her primary teacher and friends at church. She is so excited to hold her baby brother. She gives hugs and kisses freely and still wants to hold my hand! She is my precious girl and I love her more than anything and I can't believe she's 5!

Fall Festivities

October was a very busy month for us - but we managed to pack in a lot of fun also!

One day, Caroline and I made SLIME! (cornstarch and water type) It was purple and messy!




Here is Caroline decorating the Halloween cookies we made with our boys.


Every year we always say that we missed the corn maze and that we'll go next year - so we finally did!

...turns out, we didn't miss much. No, we don't recommend the corn maze. The day we went it was about 85 degrees outside and hadn't rained for weeks, so basically we walked around in the sun and dirt for an hour. By the end, we were sweaty, covered in dust from the knees down, tired and very thirsty. But you know what? We got to the car and Caroline said, "That was Awesome!!" So Dave says that since Caroline appreciated the experience and we got some cute pictures, it was worth it. I say we'll skip it next year!

One Halloween tradition we've come to love is having Pumpkin Soup at the library story time. This is how it works (I think this is so cute)

Miss Nettie says we're making pumpkin soup. She opens the pumpkin and the kids help scoop out the guts and put them in a big bowl.

Then they add some water and random spices and mix it all up. It looks awful! Then she says she's going to go put our soup in the microwave and we'll read some books until it's done, then we'll all sample our soup. So when the soup is ready and she asks who wants to try it, of course the kids shake their heads or hide behind their moms (except for Caroline who's done this before!) She spoons up some bright orange "pumpkin soup" in little cups and the brave kids who try it discover it tastes an awful lot like softened orange sherbet!