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!

Halloween 2010

As per our family tradition, we painted our pumpkins for FHE the Monday before Halloween.

Dave's is the scary one, mine is the little kitty and Caroline's really did start out cute, but she just couldn't stop! Her's might have ended up being the scariest afterall!

For Halloween, Caroline was a super-hero. We wanted it to be an original, so she picked out the colors, fabric and pattern and I sewed. I could write a loooong editorial about the pain that this costume was for me, but it's done and she liked it so I guess it was worth it! The pictures make it look blue, but it was really purple and the lightening bolts were very sparkly silver.

She called herself "Power Girl" and when asked what her special super power was she would simply say, "All Powers." (C'mon - why should she have to limit herself to just one power, right?!)

The young men and young women of our ward hosted this year's Halloween celebration at the church on a mutual night. It was really fun, well attended, and great weather! Here's Caroline playing the donut-on-a-string game:

She had a blast and this year was a success, despite having the actual holiday on a Sunday.

I feel like I have a lot of stuff to post about! Next: Corn Maze and "Pumpkin Soup"

Camping

I really should be working on one of my many projects/assignments that need to be done this busy, busy week, but I wanted to share about our camping trip! We had a lot of fun and we kept saying, "We should have done this a long time ago!"

Caroline has been asking to go camping for a while now and we've been waiting for good weather since we don't have cool mountains to escape to in the area. So we went to Lake Arkabutla which was just about a 30 minute drive and it was so nice not to have to get car-sick on winding mountain roads to get there!


The lake has some sandy "beaches" that were pretty and fun to play in. The sand is not like playground sand - it is so soft!


Can't go camping without roasting marshmallos! The campsites were really nice - they cater to RVs, so each site had electricity (which we didn't use) and a water spicket (which we used a lot!) They even had a really nice playground to play at!


We had a great view right from our campsite. Sunset was beautiful.

We skipped stones on the lake - I was very impressed with Dave's stone-skipping skills!

It was great to feel so removed from "city-life" and still be so close. I've only ever camped on mountains, so it was different, but really fun to be so near to a pretty lake. It got cool enough for hot chocolate, but we weren't freezing all night.

I forgot how much work camping is (prep, packing, setting up camp, cooking, cleaning up, post-laundry, etc) But this time it was totally worth it and I'm glad we were able to go before I got too "heavy with child" or had a newborn to bring!

What A Day!

Yesterday all three of us headed to the dr. for our Ultrasound! I was really so anxious to find out the gender. I love to plan clothes, names, etc. ahead of time. So we got in there and the sonographer asked Caroline if she was hoping for a brother or a sister and Caroline promptly said she wanted a sister. A few seconds later the sonographer said, "Well, Caroline are you dead-set on a sister?" and Dave and I got a little excited. She said "It's a Boy!" and Caroline smiled and hugged Dave and she hasn't seemed disappointed at all since. She's told everyone we see that it's a boy and she always has a smile on her face when she says it - so that's good! We're all very excited!
Well about 5 minutes after we got home from the doctor, Caroline and I were walking Archie and Caroline was balancing on a wood beam next to a chain-link fence and fell on it. She scraped a few good stripes on her side from her armpit to the bottom of her ribs and put a good hole in one spot too. There was lots of bleeding and tears and I took her right to Urgent Care. The poor kid just kept crying and saying "It hurts so bad." over and over. We gave her Tylenol and she kept saying that the medicine wasn't working. I told her it takes some time for the medicine to find her owie. I was sure she would need a Tetanus shot because the fence was old and rusty, but everyone I asked (and I asked 3 people!) said no. So they cleaned her up good, bandaged her side and gave her a sucker. On our way home she said, "Mommy, the medicine found my owie!" So she's doing fine, but it sure made for one memorable morning!

Then and Now

I think this is just too cute.
This is Caroline and her cousin Brandon at the Tucson Children's Museum when they are about 2-years old (is that right, Brooke? I know it was in the Spring, so maybe Brandon is closer to 2 and Caroline is more like 18 mos?)


And here they are at the same place 2 1/2 years later!