questions of ownership

This weekend we set up the bassinet in our room where the baby will sleep. Our cats - who usually will not come within 5 feet of one another - have decided this is their new hangout. We may have a problem!

Random Unblogged Pictures

I wanted to blog, but didn't have much to say so I decided to just go through my camera and post the few pictures I hadn't posted already!

Caroline had a Valentine's party at her preschool that she was SO excited for (like, had a hard time sleeping the night before excited!) We made this little mailbox to hold all her valentines.
I had no idea it would be coming back FULL of candy!!! Seriously, it was like Halloween all over again!

Caroline and Gus (whom we often refer to now as Fat-Gus)

Caroline does some pretty great crafts at preschool, but I think this has been my favorite so far. They talked about their teeth and made this with beans!

I thought the cavity-filled black-eye-pea teeth were too funny!

We've had so much snow here this winter. They had to cancel preschool a few times, but hopefully it's past us now - I'm more than ready for spring.

Caroline "reading" a book to her friend Hayden.

Her awesome fashion sense. We've been lucky and gotten a lot of hand-me-downs lately (including this "fur" coat) that have encouraged Caroline to explore all kinds of interesting outfit combinations. She usually changes her clothes about 3 times a day (not including in and out of pajamas). I only put my foot down for school and church, so if you see us running errands and Caroline is wearing (yesterday's example) an embellished green t-shirt, brown skirt with pink and orange flowers and purple shoes, please know that I did not dress her that way!

Celebrations!

We had a very fun week last week with lots of celebrations. Seriously, it's been a while since we were this social.
- The young women in our ward threw myself and another leader a surprise baby shower at mutual! It was so fun and I really was surprised. I'll have to borrow pictures from someone for that one.
-We had dinner with some people from Dave's work.
-We had friends over for food and fun during the superbowl. We might have to "entertain" more often - it was a great time, good food, and my family is apparently more willing to help clean house if they know people are coming over!
-And my friend, Cara, threw me a wonderful baby shower! We've SO been looking forward to this. When I say "we" I mean Caroline and I. She kept calling it "OUR baby shower!"

I wish I had gotten pictures of the decorations, which were a cute ABC theme, and the food. The food was amazing. Honestly, best baby shower food ever!

Caroline helped open presents. She was going a little fast, so I had to get down to her level!

Our friends were so generous and Miles is already a loved and lucky boy!

Thanks to everyone who showered us with love last week - it was wonderful and much appreciated!

Projects

I've heard the question, "so what do you do with yourself, now that you're not babysitting and Caroline goes to preschool?"
I've always been a little sensitive about this, I feel like I constantly have to justify to myself and others how I spend my time since I only have one child. But honestly, having Caroline in preschool a few mornings each week hasn't really changed how I spend my time at all. We didn't put her in preschool so that I could have more time, but so that her time was better spent. For example, I drop off Caroline, go grocery shopping, come home and put things away, do some laundry, clean a bathroom, etc. and go pick her up. Those are all things I would've done with her home anyway, but instead of her sitting in front of the TV or playing Barbies by herself while I get stuff done, she is playing with other kids, learning, doing crafts, and gaining social experience.
BUT the last month or so without having extra kids, I have found more time to do some projects around the house I've been wanting to do, and it feels great to cross some things off my list!

1. Going through all of Caroline's old clothes.
We had boxes and boxes in storage of all of Caroline's old clothes. I told Dave that if our baby is a boy we would go through all of the girl clothes and condense it down to 2 boxes of favorites. (The clothes are 5 years old already as it is and IF we have another baby and IF it's a girl, it probably won't be for a few more years and let's face it, onesies don't last forever)
So THIS:

Got paired down to THIS:

Hooray for more storage space!


2. We didn't have a dresser or a changing table for our little guy, but we did have this ugly thing:


Which we turned into THIS:

Voila'! Problem solved.


3. I had ugly throw pillows. That's a problem.


So I made covers for them that look like THIS:

They bring a little more color in the room. And I like that they are slipcovers, so i can take them off and wash them!

4. We wanted our 3rd bedroom to go from storage room to Guest/Baby's room. (I don't have a before picture. It would've been embarassing anyway) So we cleaned it out, bought a little guest bed, and I made curtains and a crib skirt. It's still not finished; I need to get bedding for the guest bed and put something up on the walls.

I'm enjoying this time of "nesting" :) 5 Weeks to go!

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!