Wednesday, December 12, 2012

McWane Member Party

Last night we took the girls to the McWane Center Memeber Party.  It was so cute!  They had Christmas lights on the ceiling, some goodies to eat, and lots of fun crafts/activites.  I took both girls on the train and they LOVED it...too bad I forgot to pass off the camera to Adam so we have no pictures of that :(  Here are some pictures of C enjoying her evening.

Double ice fishing.

Snow!!!



Future Besties

One of Ann Parker's future besties came to visit today!  We have missed Lucy so much (and her parents too!!).  Look at these two little dolls.

Tis the Season!

We have had so much fun counting down the days until Christmas!

We certainly have kept ourselves busy...

 We made cookies with our friends

 And we enjoyed eating them!
 We have practiced sitting up
 We made ornaments.
 We have painted.
 We have given up on sitting up..
We have had fantastic evenings with fantastic friends.

We are just loving this holiday season!

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Leo has arrived!

Our Elf on the Shelf arrived last week.  Caroline named him Leo.

We read Caroline the story and she was very excited to have an Elf!  This is the first time she saw her new little friend.


So far Leo is a nice little Elf.  He flys to the North Pole each night to tell Santa about us and then we find him in a new spot each morning!!  We sure are glad to have Leo here with us!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

It's finally Christmas time!!  We are so excited at the Israel house!  We have two big trees (and I may or may not have plans for a third...) and small trees in each bedroom.  Christmas shopping is well under way and holiday music is often playing around here.  Christmas cards have arrived and are getting ready to be mailed.  Next week we are having a marathon of baking.  It's the most wonderful time of the year!!







6 Month Photo Shoot

A few weeks ago we had our NINTH session with Simple Color Photography!!  I feel like Brandon and Stacey are part of our family.  If you are in need of fantastic pictures, I would suggest giving them a call.  Check out some of adorable pics from AP's 6 month session.

Caroline wore the same little outfit in her 6 month portraits. 





Two and a Half

It's hard to believe that Caroline is 2 1/2.  Even though I have since had another baby, she still seems like a baby in my mind.  Time needs to slow down.

Caroline has turned into such a big girl lately.  She is not potty trained yet, but we are working on it.  My goal is to have her completely potty trained by the end of the year.  She speaks in complete sentences most of the time and most of what she says is too funny.  Here are some funny/cute things she says:

  • Put you my down (put me down)
  • Happy birthday to me.  Happy birthday Jesus.  (She seems to be confused about the whole Christmas idea)
  • I can't find it anywhere.  Where could it be?  (She says this when you ask her where something is)
  • On Thanksgiving night, we went to a movie and C was staying with my mom.  I went to say bye before I left.  She started getting a little upset that we were leaving so we told her that she was going to have so much fun with Grammy and she would get to eat pie and ice cream.  She said: "Pie?  Ice cream?  See you later!!"  It was so funny!!
  • You're welcome baby.  (She says this everytime she walks by AP)
  • I'm gonna need help.
  • Ladies and gents.  (then she'll sing a song - usually Twinkle Twinkle Little Star) Thank you much!
  • I'm gonna catch me! (When she wants you to chase her)
She is such a little ham!!  She loves to be the center of attention and loves making people laugh.  She is certainly not lacking in the personality department. She loves playing with her friends and gets along with most kids.  At school, she mostly plays with three little boys.  She talks about them all the time.  She is also obsessed with her friend Sydney.  And I seriously mean obsessed.  She'll wake up asking where S is or ask to go to her house all day long.

She loves Mickey, Little Einsteins, Octonauts, Doc McStuffins, and Backyardigans.  I try to limit how much she watches to 2 shows a day since she gets in a trance!!  She loves to play outside, paint, play musical instruments, playdoh, puzzles, dress up, tea parties, and blocks.  She loves running and playing tag.  She is so full of energy that we have a hard time keeping up with her.  She watched her first full length movie this month and LOVED it.  We let her stay up and watch Brave with us.  We popped popcorn and snuggled up on the couch.  She stayed interested the whole time.

Caroline has a short temper, like her momma.  She gets frustrated very easily and will often throw or kick whatever has made her mad.  She can throw a pretty nice tantrum.  She is very independent and this leads to lots of tantrums.  She wants to open all doors, push all buttons, etc. and if you try to do them (like pushing the elevator button in a very crowded building) she will kick and scream and cause everyone in the very crowded building to watch the tantrum.  Luckily, she has only done that a few times.  I am certainly eating my own words now...I remember seeing kids throwing tantrums and thought to myself, "My kids will never act like that."  Ha!! 

Behavior wise, C really is a good girl.  She says please, thank you, and your welcome all the time.  Our biggest problem is that she doesn't always want to listen.  When we say stop or no, she will often keep doing what we don't want her to do.  We are finding that time out isn't really working so I am reading about other methods of discipline.  She's not a bad kid by any stretch, but she sure can act like it sometimes!!

She is still not a great sleeper, but she is getting better.  We try to put her down at 8:30.  Sometimes she is in bed by 7:45 and sometimes she is still up at 10:30.  Most days she doesn't take a nap.  That makes for very long days, but she goes to bed easier so I'm okay with that.

Caroline is such a good eater!!  Her favorite things are chips and queso, steak, strawberries, broccoli and pancakes.  She loves any and all desserts...like me. 

We are so in love with this little girl.  She keeps us laughing all day long.  Even on the most trying days, I still love every second that I get to spend with her.  What a wonderful blessing she is!! 

Photos taken by Simple Color Photography.



Seven Months Old!!!

Seven Months Old - November 20, 2012



Holy Moly - My baby is seven months old.  I know I am super late in posting this...but we've been busy, busy, busy around here!  Between Thanksgiving, decorating for Christmas, and having my mom come visit we have hardly had a free minute.  Better late than never, right??

Ann Parker is the sweetest little seven month old.  She spends a lot of her day smiling and laughing.  Caroline can still get the biggest smiles but Mommy and Daddy are a close second place.  She has been sitting up unassisted for short periods of time lately.  She surprised us at her 6 month photo shoot with this new skill.  Speaking of 6 months...I never posted her stats from her 6 month well baby visit so here goes: She weighed 13 lb. 2 oz. (5th percentile), was 25 1/2 inches long (25-50%), and her head circumference was 16 (50%).  She still eats 5 -5 oz. bottles a day and 2-3 meals each day.  She has tried peas, carrots, sweet potato, potato, cannellini beans, apples, pears, bananas, prunes, and yogurt.  Her favorties so far are apples and carrots.  She's been pretty good about eating most things and I am excited to give her more new things soon! 

She is a great sleeper, I just wish she didn't love sleeping on her tummy.  It just makes me so nervous!  She goes to bed about 7:30 and sleeps until 7:00.  She has been taking two short naps during the day.  She loves playing in her exersaucer and door way jumper.  We are about to put up the swing and bouncers since she won't stay in those for long anymore.  She has seen a few (thousand) episodes of Mickey since C is obsessed and she seems to like it too.  She loves all paper so I'm thinking the wrapping paper is going to be her favorite part of Christmas.  She loves when Adam sings to her and when I tickle her.  Caroline really just has to be in her line of sight and she gets a big smile.  She also loves Daisy and pulling her ears.  Not sure Daisy loves that...

Happy 7 months precious girl!  We are so proud of all you have learned so far and so excited to see what is next.  Your smile makes my day!  We love you to the moon and back!













Tuesday, November 27, 2012

So Thankful

The Israel family had a wonderful thanksgiving this year!  We spent a couple of days with my family eating, relaxing, and laughing before heading home to decorate for Christmas.  We have so much to be thankful for - too much to list so I will leave you with a picture of what I am most thankful for. 



Thanksgiving Snack

The Friday before Thanksgiving, Caroline's PDO program had their "Thanksgiving Snack."  They invite the parents to come and see all the kiddos in their shirts eating a fun snack.  It is such a cute event!







Picking out the M&M's...no surprise there.