Caroline is four and a half!

Those half years are really important!  I want to take a few minutes to remember exactly how she is right now!

 

Caroline requested just one picture with her girl Rapunzel!

 

*Caroline is the most talkative, confident, unique, creative, funny, rambunctious, intelligent, energetic child I have ever known.  It is an honor to be her mom!!

*The things that come out of her mouth are ridiculous.  I try to post at least one thing a day on Facebook to help me always remember.

*She lives to help other people.  She lives to have a job, to help, and to mean something to someone.  Right now her chores are to feed the dogs, pick up Cam’s toys at night, and get the mail.  We also have a box in her room that she fills up every night with the clothes, shoes, and socks she is going to wear the next morning.  She then knows her job is to go potty when she wakes up and then get herself dressed.  This works really well (most mornings)!

*We went to Disney World this summer and she got to meet almost all of the princesses.  She still loves Elsa, but her very favorite will always be Rapunzel.  She just LOVES her long, blond hair. 

*Right now she is completely obsessed with She-Ra.  We started watching them on Hulu and she watches at least one a day.

*She is also into Shopkins big time right now and she still has her Itty Bitty collection and her Magic Clip princesses.

*She has had a Nabi for a while now and she gets 30 minutes of YouTube Kids every day.  While on there she watches videos of people opening toys – Shopkins, blind bags, Magic Clips, etc.  She would watch those videos for 24 hours in a row if we let her!

*She LOVES being a big sister.  Sometimes she does too much and we have to reign her in, but she loves to make Cam laugh, she wants to help as much as she can with him, and she is genuinely excited and proud when he does something new.

*Even though she loves Cam, she does get quite annoyed with him often – already.  She makes it very known that she is tired of his crying and fussing (even though it may have been her crying and fussing 5 minutes before).

*She is a bossy little thing.  She likes to ask why and make sure she fully understands something before she completes the task at hand.  We are trying to get her to do better with doing what she is asked because an adult asked her to do it.  She doesn’t have to be ok with it or fully understand.

*She without a doubt meets and exceeds the 350+ average number of questions per day.  She is so smart and really does just want to understand what is going on around her.

*This is her last year of preschool and, bless her heart, she is counting down the days until kindergarten.  I hope it lives up to her expectations!

*She learned how to swim this summer.  She was a little hesitant at the beginning of the summer, but we got a pool for the backyard that was big enough for her to completely go under water.  We worked on blowing air out of her nose while she was under water and she practiced that in our little pool.  Then Jason’s parents got a pool and within the first day she was jumping into the water and swimming to us.  She can swim under water anywhere she wants to go and she can kick with her head above water to get places, also!  We have a little fish!

*She is starting dance this week.  We felt like she hadn’t done anything organized yet so it was time to do something.  Her dance teacher is the mom of one of my students and I am very curious to see how she does and if she likes it!  She already knows how to do first position (thank you, Peppa Pig) and we have been working on the fact that she needs to do what she is told and not say, ‘I know how to do that’ just because she has seen it on Peppa Pig!

*She is so tall and lean.  She is in size 6 clothes because of the length.  I hope we can get her into something that she likes to do so that she can keep being tall and lean.  I would love for her to be as healthy as she possibly can be.

*She would complain about her back and legs hurting after running.  We started to question if she had tethered cord like Cam and just didn’t have a dimple on her back.  After asking the doctor about it she referred us to a physical therapist who did a complete evaluation on her and said that she was perfect for her age.  She has full range of motion and runs and walks just fine.  Glad we can get that idea out of our head!

*We try to say our prayers every night before bed and it is the sweetest thing.  She usually prays for things around her room, but she makes sure to also pray for anyone sick or hurting.

*She can be a little bit selfish (what first child isn’t), but we are working really hard to help her learn and gain empathy so that she thinks about other people.

*She still gets furious when she sees trash on the ground.  We have picked up trash several times to help make her feel better!

 

Our girl is most definitely one of the biggest lights of our life.  We love her for her and we love that she isn’t afraid to be who she is.  I pray with all of my heart that she holds on to that in this big, mean world.  It is such an honor and a privilege to be her parents and we are so glad we get a front row seat to her growing and learning every day.  We love you, Whack Job Sandwich!

Cam is 1!

Our sweet baby is now a sweet one-year old!!  He most certainly keeps us on our toes, but he is so sweet when he wants to be and is so funny!  We had his party on August 15th and Grammie and Grandpa and Mimi and Papa came to Winston for it and Will and Leslie and their crew and Greg and Michelle came over!  It was so much fun and easy – hotdogs, cupcakes, presents.  It was such a fun day!

The birthday boy!

All the big ‘cousants’ chowing down!

Both little cousants hanging out in their high chairs!

Grammie and Grandpa with the birthday boy!

Mimi and Papa with the birthday boy!

Cam loved him a cupcake!

The big cousins couldn’t wait for Cam to open their gift!

Opening Penelope’s present!

Jack was so excited for Cam to get his blue truck!  Jack can’t wait for Cam and Drew to grow up!

 

Here are some things that I want to remember about our sweet boy right now:

*At his one year appointment he was 30 in long (51st percentile), 21 lbs 14 oz (32nd percentile), and his head was 17.75 in (13th percentile).  He is using every single calorie he inhales, so I was a little surprised that he wasn’t heavier.  Like Caroline he seems to be long and lean.  Dr. Kooy projected him to be 5’8” or 5’9” when he is fully grown.

*He is pretty close to walking full time.  He can stand up unassisted and he can walk a pretty good ways, but if he falls down a couple of times on the way to something he usually just crawls until he gets there.  There is nothing cuter than him seeing me and standing up to walk with the biggest smile on his face as he falls the last little bit into my arms.  It is precious!  Caroline is so proud of him, too.  She gets to excited that he can walk to her because he wants to.

*He gets in to EVERYTHING, but it is fascinating to watch what he can figure out – even at this age.  He can put things in things or on things or take things apart that blow my mind.  You can see him trying to figure things out and those wheels are just turning.  I think he is going to be an engineer!

*He LOVES his socks and shoes.  Once the kids went back to school we had to put shoes on him so that he could go outside and run around with the big kids.  Any time he sees socks or shoes (they don’t even have to be his) he holds his feet up and wants you to put them on him.

*He is a pterodactyl!  He has one of the highest pitch screeches I have ever heard.  He gets really frustrated now since he knows what is going on, but doesn’t have the words to tell us what he wants.  He screams when he is tired, when he wants something, and when he gets mad.

*The boy will let you know when he is mad!  He is quite aggressive and has some bad habits (hitting, pinching) that we are trying to break.  It is so hard because you can’t rationalize with him and he doesn’t understand!

*He sleeps like a champ.  Every night he is down around 7:30 and he gets up between 6:30 and 7.  At school he sleeps an afternoon nap (most days – we are thankful for an hour!), but at home he still sleeps a morning and an afternoon nap.  Both of them are around a couple of hours!

*He eats a lot, but only likes what he likes.  He loves cooked carrots, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, grapes, blueberries, strawberries, bananas, peas, pears, bread, and Pirate Booty.  We have tried to get him to eat other stuff and he will let you know quickly that he is not a fan.  He is definitely not a fan of any type of pasta, cake (surprisingly enough), and plenty of other things.

*We switched him to whole milk at about 11.5 months.  He switched no problem (except we hung on to that before bed formula for a few more weeks to make sure he would sleep well).  Now he drinks milk out of his sippy cup for breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner, and right before bed.  He sucks it down and loves it!

*One of my favorite things (and something I want to hold onto forever) is when it is time for him to go to bed and I let him rock while he is drinking his last bit of milk.  Once he is done with that he will reach out and turn over and he lays on my shoulder.  If I let him he would fall asleep right there.  I usually let him lay there for a little bit and then I go put him down so he can fall asleep in his own bed.  I love every breath and sound and soak it up – especially after the craziness of each day.  It is my few minutes to sit quietly and just be thankful.

*Caroline has gotten into watching She-Ra on Hulu and I don’t care where Cam is or what he is doing, when she holds her sword up he will find the TV and lift his arm high up in the air.  He loves it!

*He has his days of being moody, but when that boy is happy there is nothing like those big teeth showing when he smiles.  He belly laughs when you tickle him or when Jason holds him up and blows on his belly.  There is nothing like it!

*He LOVES the dogs.  He’ll say ‘boof’ if you ask what a dog says because Max barks all the time!  We have taught him to pat pat the dogs (he was a little bit rough in the beginning) and now when we say pat pat he lays his head down on them and tries to give them a kiss.  They are so good with him and let him crawl all over them and when he does get a little rough they haven’t even looked at him wrong.  They are such sweet boys and I am glad Cam will get to grow up with dogs in the house!

*Harley is a big dog and it just so happens that his head is right at the same level as Cam’s high chair.  Both Cam and Harley have figured this out and we often catch Cam with his hand out to the side with a huge smile on his face while Harley is lapping up whatever he can!

*When he sits in the stroller or his high chair he always crosses his feet!  So cute!

*He is still a bit of a Mama’s boy.  He may be playing with Jason or Caroline, but if I walk in the room he comes over to me as quickly as he can.  I’m gonna be honest – I don’t hate it!  :)

*He talks all the time.  It may not be coherent, but I’m excited for the day that it is.  He talks uses his pointer finger to tell his exactly what he wants or needs. When we go on walks he talks constantly and is telling me some kind of good story!

*If you hand him a wipe he can wipe his face and loves to wipe his tray.

*We had pictures of Caroline and Cam done one day and with all the smiling the boy does, he was not in the mood this day.  I love these pictures, though, because they caught some of his other faces.

The one smile he would give him.

This is his ‘no matter what you do I will not smile’ face!

Help me, Mama.

  Over it.

 

We love you so much, sweet boy.  You have added so much joy to our family and you have filled our hearts with so much love.  We can’t wait to watch you grow and see how many good things you do and how much trouble you get into! :)