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!