Caroline's 2nd Birthday Party

We had Caroline's birthday party last Saturday - I still can't believe she is 2. Caroline is helping daddy grill hamburgers and hot dogs.

Caroline and her best friend Blair (who were born 10 days apart) are enjoying Cal's grilling - but mostly they are enjoying Doritos.

After lunch, we opened presents. My brother got Caroline the coolest book called Waddle that she loves. We had to take it away to open more presents.

As you can see, she loves books. Cal and I ended up opening most of her presents because she was too focused on the books she got.

Grammie and Ger got her a rocking horse, which she rides several times a day.

Cal and I got her a tricycle. She also rides on it several times a day. She doesn't have any trouble pedaling, but we definitely need to work on steering (she is improving though).

We had a Nemo theme for her party. I made cupcakes and a Nemo cake.

Caroline loved the icing off the cupcake!

After everyone left, Caroline enjoyed playing with all her new toys. We got her cutting food, which is wooden pieces of food held together by velcro. It comes with a wooden knife and a cutting board. She sat and played with it for an hour straight after her birthday party. She has hardly touched her old toys since her birthday party.

Halloween & Building Shelves

Caroline dressed up as Snow White again this year. She didn't go trick-or-treating because of nap issues but she loves dressing up in her costume.

We spent two weekends building shelves for our garage. Caroline wanted to help and really enjoyed hammering. Anytime she sees a hammer now she wants to use it.

She was really concentrating here - you can see her tongue sticking out.

Another cute pigtail picture - I couldn't resist.

Ponytails and Pigtails

Caroline has started letting me put her hair in a ponytail some. It completely changes the way she looks.

Here's how she looks when she decides to pull the ponytail holder out of her hair. This hair style reminds me of Donald Trump and Cal of Woody Woodpecker.

Here, she's sporting her chocolate icing mustache. She did eventually eat a little of the cake part.

After a few successful ponytail attempts, I decide to go for pigtails. She looks so adorable!

Gymboree

Here we are at Gymboree. Since we can attend unlimited classes right now, we sometimes go on Saturday so daddy can join in the fun. Caroline loves Gymboree!!! She was so excited daddy came with us that she didn't want to leave.

After Gymboree we went to Grammie and Ger's house. Grammie bought her a special notebook to write in. She always wants to use a pen to write/color. She hardly touches crayons anymore.

Caroline and Ger were making "soup." She loves to help cook. When I'm cooking, she will ask, "Need help momma?" The other day I was carrying her things in from the car, and she asked me if I needed help - she is so sweet.

Caroline won't pose with us for many pictures, so I'm glad we got a good one.

Recently Caroline has started singing the entire alphabet. She usually starts with H for some reason. When she gets to "now I've sung my ABCs," she starts singing the alphabet again - "now I've sung my ABCDEFGH...and Z, now I've sung my ABCDEFGH, etc." It has become the song that never ends.

Touch-A-Truck

We went to Touch-a-Truck on Saturday. Touch-a-Truck is an event with construction equipment and emergency vehicles where kids can explore all the equipment and "drive" most of it. Caroline loved it!! Our little girl LOVES construction equipment. Every time we go somewhere we have to look for equipment - dump trucks, cement mixers, tractors, etc.

They gave the kids hard hats.

Caroline is driving the dump truck.

We're in the back of a FedEx tractor trailer complete with a roller conveyor belt.

She's checking out the ambulance.

Sitting in the Franklin trolley car.

All the kids loved walking/running on this truck. Caroline was being very cautious and wouldn't let go of my hand.

The school bus was one of her favorites. We sometimes get to see a school bus in our neighborhood and the bus driver honks the horn and waves to Caroline, so she was very excited to see the bus up close and sit on the seats.

Caroline is the tiny speck in white standing in front of the back right tire.

I think the favorite piece of equipment of the day was the garbage truck because they were doing demonstrations. I have never seen a garbage truck arm as fast as that one.

After the demonstration, she wanted to sit in the seat and drive the garbage truck. We all had a lot of fun and look forward to the next one - hopefully it will be warmer. Caroline couldn't settle down for her nap 3 hours later because she was so excited - it took her over an hour to finally fall asleep. For those of you with kids, I would definitely recommend this (it's free).

Boring

The title doesn't mean this post is going to be boring (I'm sure it will be the highlight of your weekend) - only that we've been boring the last few weeks. Don't worry though, we've got something scheduled every Saturday for the next 5 -6 weeks so I don't think I'll have any trouble finding material to update the blog. I plan to update it every Monday.

For the past couple of weeks, Caroline has started talking exclusively in sentences. It makes my life so much easier, because she can tell me exactly what she wants/needs or if she doesn't like something, she'll say "I no like that." We will have to work on wants and needs though because she will sometimes tell us "I need some ice cream."

Speaking of sentences, I was rocking Caroline before her nap today, and she started rubbing/playing with my neck. Then, she started pinching my neck like she was trying to get some of it to come off, so I told her not to pinch. This was her reply - "Mommy, have a little piece of your neck."

Cal asked her to smile and this is what we got. I think we're in trouble for pictures next Saturday at the pumpkin patch!

Getting a precious hug from Caroline - she hardly gives them anymore so it's an honor when you do get one.

Daddy and Caroline playing after a hard day's work for daddy. Caroline is always so excited to see daddy come home. This is the smile we need for our pictures.

How do you eat a PB&J?

For the past few months Caroline has not eaten a sandwich if it has a top on it - I guess she wants to see what she is eating. More recently, she has decided she only wants the jelly on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, so she takes her finger and scraps the jelly off the peanut butter and eats it.

Last week, she decided to try a different method - a spoon.

I actually prefer this method too because she gets some peanut butter and it is definitely less messy.