Photo Shoot Giveaway

Remember Caroline's 5-year-old photo shoot?

Well the photographer that did them is hosting a giveaway!
It's pretty ironic because Dave and I were just talking about booking her for when baby Miles is born. Whether we win the giveaway or not, we definately plan on having her do a newborn photo shoot for us.
Check out her blog to see her pictures and find out how to enter her giveway! http://savannahwilliamsonphotography.blogspot.com/

1st Field Trip

This week was Caroline's first field trip to the Children's Museum. She's been SO excited for this, especially since it was scheduled for a week ago but got cancelled because of snow!

We brought Caroline's classmate and friend from church, Lucy, with us.


Playing in the "Mississippi River".


Caroline was especially looking forward to the Miniature Kroger.


They definately spent the most time climbing the "skyscraper".

Caroline LOVES the disco-dance room. Lucy was content to stand by and giggle at her silly friend!

It was interesting to have both Lucy and Caroline and see how they gravitated toward different displays. Lucy loved all the vehicles - especially the minivan. She also wanted to climb and was very good at it. But Caroline loved all of the rooms that involved a stage, dress-up, or dancing. Memphis doesn't have the best or biggest Children's Museum I've been to (I don't think we'll ever find one that tops Houston) but it's still fun to go somewhere where you can just let kids take the lead without hovering or saying, "don't touch that!" "get down!" "keep up!" They were two happy girls all morning!

January

Caroline and I decided to go to the Pink Palace this month during one of their free afternoons. She's always enjoyed it, but sadly they were between traveling exhibits, so we went through it pretty quickly.
(gotta love the cowgirl boots)

This month Caroline started Preschool! We wanted Caroline to do some sort of preschool this semester before she starts kindergarten in the fall. A friend of ours mentioned one that had the type of schedule we were looking for so we checked it out and really liked what we saw. BUT they were full! So we asked to be put on a waiting list and the day before school started we were told we got the last spot! Yay!

It's just 3 mornings a week and Caroline LOVES it. She has to bring a backpack and has homework and field trips! We're very excited about this next stage in life for her.

We also got our first snow storm this month. I think it was 4 or 5". It was fun to play in for about 45 minutes, then I gave it the stink-eye for the next week while it sllloooowly melted.

(I didn't realize Archie was relieving himself in the background when I took this picture. But now I think it's kind of funny!)

Caroline and Dave playing snowball-baseball.

Yes it was fun for a while, but it sure made us miss AZ winters!

Wiiiii!!!!!

So you may have heard that Dave was coveting, I mean wanting, a new PlayStation 3. He's been saving (literally, cash in a jar on his dresser) for a few months. For Christmas, he asked for money for his PS3 fund.

Well, during the week of Christmas, Dave's brother went out of town and Dave kindly volunteered to "babysit" his PS3 (you know, so it wouldn't get lonely in that empty house all week) So Caroline and Dave played with it all week . The PS3 is definately geared towards adults and older kids. They didn't like the "move" games (like Wii) very much. But they loved the racing games and used it a lot that week.

So New Years came around and Dave called Caroline and I downstairs and he had a big surprise for us!



He bought a Wii with his PS3 money?! I was shocked and a little confused. We hadn't even talked about this! Although, I was touched that he used his money to buy something a little more family-friendly instead of what he personally really wanted. So I guess we're now a Wii-Family? Caroline LOVES it. and I love that she and Dave have something they love to do together. I'm still not a video-game person. I just don't get it really. But if I'm going to play a video game, I definately prefer the Wii or music games like Guitar Hero.
These pictures are Caroline and Dave playing with their new toy on New Year's Eve - they make me laugh!

PS-

To other Wii owners - what is your family's favorite game (other than Sport and Resort)? And do you get Netflix with yours? Can you connect the Wii to the internet to download games or demos?

Stylin!

We went to a friend's house on Christmas day and had a great time chatting, eating, playing games, eating, watching movies, and eating. One of Caroline's favorite parts though was a gift their teenage daughter gave her: new clothes! And I just had to show them off:

Not just any clothes, cool clothes. These are what she calls her "rockstar clothes"! She tried them on at their house and Dave said something about her looking like a teenager and she beamed!

Yes, she wore at least one piece of her new clothes every day during the following week. When we went to story time, the librarians gushed over how fancy she looked and she ate it up. We had a minor meltdown one day when I told her that her new clothes were dirty and she couldn't pull them out of the hamper to wear them again!

I love it - now I can save clothes buying for presents! (although I might need a cool teenager to accompany me and tell me what to buy!)

Baby Update

Now that the holidays are over, I feel like I've shifted my focus: it's baby time! I've started "nesting" (and shopping!) I realized recently that I don't think I've posted a pregnant picture yet. So here's a little baby update:

*Due date is still March 16th, with C-Section to come appx. a week before. I've been trying and trying to get my dr's office to set my C-Section date already, but they're giving me the run-around. Grr.
*We've decided to name him Miles Scott Martin. If you like it, great! If not, I don't want to know!
*I'm about 30 weeks along and feeling good! Headaches have stopped (hallelujah) backaches have begun :( But Dave got me a maternity back-support for Christmas and I got myself a back massager for Christmas, so it's under control! I crave cheese - especially in melted form: grilled cheese sandwiches, quesadillas, pizza, etc.
*Several wonderful people have asked what he needs. My short answer is "everything!". We didn't keep much from Caroline's baby days except for clothes which are just not gonna work for our little guy. (We didn't get rid of baby stuff out of snobbery or anything, most of it was handed down a few times already and not in safe condition or it was borrowed) SO, he needs boy stuff - clothes, blankets, etc. And other small things that you just don't keep forever like burp clothes and pacifiers. I've also started a "wish list" on Amazon.com of other (bigger) things as I think of them. It's so fun! He already has a carseat, stroller and a swing. Yay! I love baby stuff!
*My mom is planning on coming down when he's born which I'm almost just as excited about as the baby! Caroline is very excited for her visit too and talks about it often. This will be the first visitor on my side of the family to come see us down South!

I'm starting to get excited/anxious (as if you couldn't tell by my excessive use of exclamtion points in this post!)