Whirlwind Weekend!

So sorry for the delay on pictures from this weekend, but things have been crazy here! Daniel's sister, Claudia, and her family -- Matt, Charlie, and Megan -- all came into town last Friday! Matt had to leave Sunday evening, but Claudia and the kids are staying until next Wednesday! Hooray! We went to visit with them on Saturday, and then had my friend Joanna's wedding Saturday night, Caroline was dedicated on Sunday followed by brunch at Relish, Daniel and I ended up coming down with the stomach bug somewhere in there, and were laid out on the couch for 2 days. I feel SO behind in everything around here, hence the reason for no pictures thus far. I still have to download the ones from my camera, but here's a sneak peek at a few from my mom and Aunt Donna's. Caroline is currently screeching and yelping in her crib instead of sleeping, so I can't promise the rest of the pictures today, but hopefully these will tie you over! Side note -- there are none from the actual dedication. My camera was dead, yes, I get the bad mom of the year award, and my mom didn't know if she could take any. Sorry in advance!

Hamming it up at J.Christopher's

Proof Caroline was dedicated!..This is a picture from inside the church!

With Aunt Donna and Mommy at Brunch -- Love Relish!

Playing games per usual!

Saying good-bye to Aunt Donna -- Thank you so much for coming down to see me!

Loving on my Daddy, but the face says its time to go!

More to come soon!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Our valentine wouldn't get away from the window, so there's a glare, but the smile is cute!

Yay for Photoshop birthday invitations!

Okay so if you've been following along with us, you know that I have started playing around with Photoshop, and have big plans to design everything for our family! I didn't (technically) design Caroline's invite, Andrea did. But, thanks to Jenna, who told me about her, I sent her ideas of what I liked and our color scheme. So in a way, I did help design it. However, also thanks to Jenna, I figured out how to add our family blog to the back of the invite for all to see...via photoshop! So see, I can do something!

Here's the final design:

Front

Back

I don't know how Andrea did this, but I think its wonderful! I tried my hardest to learn the stamp and brush tools, but too many tears were shed for me to try again! I think I'll just stick to the storyboards and text boxes!

And yes, I blacked out/blurried our address, date, and time. I should've done this sooner. You never know who's out there. :)

I LOVE Food!

Here is Caroline sloth-ing it out while eating Mac and Cheese (She gags, literally, just looking at anything other than Fresh Market and Stouffers. High maintenance at 10 mos, awesome!) She just looks uncomfortable, mind you this is after eating Vegetable Beef (yummy!) and Bananas & Strawberries, but yet she pushes through!

Look at my messy face! I know its hard to see because the Vegetable Beef and Mac & Cheese are the same color as her skin, but believe me, it was messy!

Yay for Yogurt Melts! She gets a second wind once she knows that she gets dessert! Can you see the 4 she shoved in her mouth? We have this talk every day, but she just doesn't get why you have to eat 1 at a time, when 5 fit perfectly!

Savoring every bite! She bites them in half and then in half again, as if she'll never have them again!

I hope your meal time is as fun filled as ours!

My How You've Grown

I love the Natalie Merchant song "My How You've Grown," but ever since Caroline came along, I can't listen to it without tearing up. Not so much because of how she's changed, but because of how much I know is yet to come. I just love her so much!

10 Months Old!

Our Princess is 10 Months old today! I'm going to take a cue from my friend Betsy, and say that even though I say this each month, this month is my favorite! Caroline has definitely developed a sassy personality! She is still fascinated with cell phones, except now when you don't let her play with it (my screen is scratched beyond belief), she kicks her feet, throws her arms up into the air, and whines incessantly! Oh the drama! And if you simply hide the cell phone from her, say behind your back, she will crawl ever so politely into your lap, pretend to give you a hug, and then weasle her way around you until the cell phone is in her possession! I mean where does she get this strong will from?? However, should you be talking on the phone and you switch it to speaker, she will giggle and chat with who's ever on the other end, and its just so stinking cute, that you give in, and let her have the phone anyway!

The tubes have seemed to work wonders for Caroline! We go to the ENT on Thursday for a post-op check up, so I'll be interested to see what he says. I signed her up for swim lessons (she's a shrimp), which start in March. I don't think she will need ear plugs, but we'll be asking that too. The last thing we need is for one of these tubes to come out. Since the tubes have been in, her sleeping is back to normal, and her eating is great! She definitely likes her food! She LOVES anything with cheese and green vegetables! I know she doesn't get that from Daniel.

We still think her molars are coming in b/c she's constantly gnawing on things, but those could take months to break the gums from what I have read.

She is still pulling up, but instead of sitting back down to get from here to there, she will walk around the object, couch, or person to get where she wants to go. She did stand for a split second while holding my cell phone (surprise, surprise), but quickly realized and sat down. So now walking yet. I personally think she's quite fine with crawling since she can do it so fast.

She can still only say "Hey" and "Dada," but we're (I) working on Mama! It'll come soon, and then I'm sure not stop. I try to tell myself that everyday when I want her to chat with me!

I wish I had some fun stories like Katie and Ella, but although Caroline loves the bathroom, she thankfully hasn't licked the toilet seat yet! I keep those doors shut!

I have her monthly pictures, but beware....she was a monster! I had to tape the sign to the back wall b/c she wouldn't keep it out of her mouth. Apparently paper tastes good? She is standing up reaching for the paper in one, straddling the arm of the chair to get to the paper in one, falling off the chair in another, and then I do believe we have one successful picture with the sign. The days of cooperating are behind us!

Possibly our one good shot for the month. Do you see the sign behind her?

Trying to get to the sign behind the chair

Still trying to get to the sign, only going about it by straddling the arm of the chair

We're done!

Caroline and Harrison Sittin' in a Tree!

There will be no K-I-S-S-I-N-G though!

Caroline's boyfriend, Harrison Mills, came over yesterday to watch the Superbowl with her! Aren't they so cute! My favorite is the one that looks like Harrison trying to get away and Caroline holding him back! I can hear it now, "You women are always trying to hold us men back!"


Typical boy -- watching the game, rather than listening to her!

My New Creation/Obsession

What do you think? It's called a Storyboard and you make them in Photoshop. They are supposed to be an "easy" and creative way to show a number of pictures at once.

I see them on a lot of the blogs that I read, but couldn't figure out how to make them! Luckily my friend, Jenna, told me but warned how time consuming they can be. Not because they are hard, but because she's a bit OCD like me when it comes to making things look just so. Holy cow was she right! My first storyboard (the one above) took ALL of Caroline's naptime! Granted, it took 2/3 of her nap just to figure out which type I wanted and what pictures I wanted to put in it. Once I had settled on the above template, I then had to learn out to put the pictures in, make sure it was posted in the correct layer, and then "flatten" the layers. What?? I'm pretty savvy when it comes to technology, but gone are the days when it only takes me a few minutes to learn a new program! I think I need to go take EDIT 2000 at UGA again, and pay attention this time! I had big ambitions about this program (design cards, pictures, fun printouts for Caroline), yeah, now I'm just thinking I'll continue to pay people to do it! :)

I will say, if I were to get "good" at this, it would be neat to make one of these storyboards with a lot of her pictures in it and send it to a paper printer to make us a nice, big copy of it on professional paper. We'll see though! For now, I'll just continue to practice! If anyone knows how to make one of these with a bunch of different size pictures in it, please inform!

Finally!!

Okay so I know this probably doesn't matter to most, if not all of you, but I wanted to change the "header" of our blog and was FINALLY able to do so, and I'm sooo happy with it! It has taken me days to figure it out, but with a little help from Amy and a come to Jesus meeting with my HTML codes, I figured it out! Yay for me! I was terrified of deleting or ruining the blog and I probably will never be able to change it, so don't get mad if when Caroline's 6 we still have the same picture up!

So Caroline is doing MUCH better. Her nose is still a crusty, runny mess and I believe that her 1 year molars are beginning to break through, but her sleeping and eating is MUCH better! She had lost a pound with being sick and her appetite was way off, but it seems like its all coming back -- she's once again eating a ton! Her bedtime feeding is still a struggle sometimes, so we have to resort to watching "My Friends Tigger and Pooh" as we medicine spoon feed her formula, but it seems to make her sleep through the night, and after 6 LONG weeks of no sleeping, we'll do anything to make it work! I personally just think she's realized that she can watch her show if she doesn't eat, but that's another battle! I know I keep saying it, but I am just so thrilled that the tubes seem to be doing their job and helping get Caroline back to her "old" self!

Caroline and I are headed to a new playgroup in our neighborhood tomorrow. I haven't found one yet around here, so I'm quite excited to meet some of our neighbors and their youngins. Hopefully it'll be something we can start doing on a regular basis, although we have so enjoyed playing with Jackie and Carter recently! We are also going to sign up for swim lessons and The Music Class. I have heard fantastic things about the music class, and since Caroline likes to shake it, I'm hoping she'll love it as well! They both don't start until March, but everything fills up so quickly around here that we had to sign up already.

We have a big day coming up soon -- Caroline's 10 Month Birthday! I'll be back with pictures!

Have a great day!