A Taste of Two

A couple of weeks ago I babysat for a super sweet 13 month old for a few hours. Adam went to law school with her parents and when they asked for babysitter advice (they were coming into town for the weekend) I volunteered. It was so fun having two little ones home with me. The two girls are at such different stages so it was really neat for me to see what C will be doing in 7 months!! Lily was walking, saying some words, and eating big people food. I did get a crash course in babyproofing...something that we have not done yet. Lily seemed to really be intrigued by outlets. It was good though, because now I know what furniture I need to anchor to the wall in addition to putting those outlet covers on and locking all the cabinets with chemicals.

Super stylish with her baby Uggs - so cute!!!


Caroline was so interested in the big girl. She watched her the whole time!


She did do a lot of funny things that made C smile.


And she even helped Caroline find her mouth. How sweet!!


It was a very fun afternoon. While I know that I could handle more kids one day, I know that for right now one is about all I can handle on a full time basis. This was a great trial run! Thanks for coming over Lily!!

Thanksgiving

We had the most wonderful Thanksgiving this year! Adam, Caroline, and I went to Charlotte, NC to spend time with my family. My brother and his wife live there and graciously allowed us to take over their home. We left Birmingham around lunch time on Wednesday (the busiest travel day of the year). Not such a smart move. We hit traffic several times. That's bad enough on a normal day, but it's even worse with a hungry baby. We finally made it, much later than planned, and were able to enjoy the rest of our trip.

The best part of the trip was that Caroline got to meet her great grandfather and spend some good time with him.



I have more pictures to post from our trip, but I have to go through them first. It was a perfect first Thanksgiving for Caroline. We missed Adam's family but we're so excited about sharing Caroline's first Christmas with them!!

In honor of Thanksgiving I want to say that I am so thankful for the wonderful family that I grew up in and also for the family that I was lucky enough to marry in to. I am beyond thankful for the friends I have (the family that I made here in town). You all make life a lot more beautiful!

Most importantly, I am thankful for my husband and my daughter and for the fact that I get to witness moments like this every day. I am so in love with them.

Six Months Old!!!

Six Months Old - November 23, 2010


Half a year has gone by since this little girl came into our lives. It's hard to believe it's been that long. Half of her "infancy" is gone. What an amazing six months it has been!!! Caroline is 26 3/4 inches long (90th percentile), weighs 15 lb 6 oz (50th percentile) and has a head circumference of 16.5 inches (40th percentile). The pediatrician said that she is growing great and has hit (and even surpassed some) all of the developmental milestones at this point. She is sitting up so well. She still gets a little off balance at times, but she's sitting up for long periods of time unassisted. She can scoot around on her tummy, but she can only go backwards. She wants to crawl so bad but can't figure out what to do with her legs. Her gums seem to bother her a lot, but still no teeth!! She LOVES music and bounces to the beat!! She like to look in the mirror and is also facinated by lamps. She likes when we sing or read to her and she gives the best hugs in the world. She's been eating so well and soon we'll move her to three meals a day. Her sleeping pattern is still crazy, but we are working on that. She loves to be the center of attention and will let you know when she's not getting enough...I'm thinking she takes after Adam on that :)

Happy six months Caroline!! I am so thankful to have you in my life. I love watching you grow and learn new things. You certainly are the best gift I have ever received. I love you so much!!!

Shutterfly Christmas!!!

I love Shutterfly! I really do! I love them even more after I heard about this great deal for bloggers - blog about the Christmas cards and get 50 free 5X7 Christmas cards!! Woohoo!! I know we'll have a lot (Baby's first Christmas) so 50 free cards would be great! Plus, it's super simple...which is a necessity with an infant.

There are so many Christmas cards to choose from. (Follow this link to see for yourself - http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-photo-cards) I can just imagine a beautiful little card with sweet Caroline's picture (and big sister Daisy). I have never used Shutterfly for Christmas cards, but I have made photo books. The quality is fantastic and the prices are great. They also do gift tags (http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-gift-tags) and party invitations (http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/party-cards-stationery) which I plan on checking out this holiday season as well. The customer service is great so there's nothing to loose!! Check out Shutterfly this holiday!! Merry Christmas!!

More pics from the baptism

My family was in fact there...but they left early to get the food ready and then I didn't take a lot of pictures at the house because we were all having too much fun spending time together!!!

Baptism

Yesterday Caroline was baptized at Trinity United Methodist Church during the 11:00 service. Both of our families and some very dear friends were there. Caroline was an absolute doll!! She looked like an angel and behaved like one as well. I had been stressing for weeks about this day and I can honestly say that everything went off without a hitch - it was perfect!! I had prepared a lot of the food and everything was delicious. The house looked wonderful. Caroline was perfect. I couldn't have asked for a better day. We were lucky to get to share the day with some friends of ours. Ashley and Darren were also baptising their son, who is only a week or so younger than Caroline.

Both familes


Caroline getting baptized


Carrying the babies around the sanctuary



We had our families over to our house for brunch after the service. I only got a picture of one table and none of the food or flowers - but trust me when I say that everything was picture perfect!!


Caroline modeling her gown. We did not have a family gown so we bought one that all our our children can wear. It's beautiful. It's a simple cotton gown with ribbon trim and an embroidered cross at the top. It's exactly what I pictured when we started looking for gowns.


She got some wonderful gifts but she was most excited about the ribbon!!

Sitting up!!!

Caroline is sitting up by herself!!! She will only do it for a couple of minutes before she tips over, but she's getting better and better each day! I cannot believe how fast she is growing. I feel like she is learning something new each day!



These pictures are from Mama & Me this morning. She had such a wonderful time watching all the other kids and I enjoyed seeing all the other Mama's! Little C was so tired from seeing all her friends that she came home and took a nice long nap. I love Mama & Me...

Our life just got a lot messier...

But in a good way!! Caroline is such a champ at eating! So far she's tried rice cereal, oatmeal, peas, bananas, sweet potatoes, and pears. She's LOVED everything so far except the pears and we'll try those again soon. Aside from the rice cereal and oatmeal I have made all of the baby food. Adam and I don't eat food from boxes and jars so we figured why should she? I know there are a lot of really great quality baby foods out there and there will be a time where we'll use some (if we're out and it's time for C to eat - it's not really possible to bring frozen baby food to the park for example) but I decided that if I am able to make it then I will. I like knowing what is going into her pure little body. I have actually really enjoyed doing it. I'm not home all day everyday, but on Mondays I usually am. Yesterday I made peas, sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, and pears for a whole week. Anyway, Caroline is at the stage where EVERYTHING must go into her mouth. Good for eating...bad for trying to stay clean. We'll put some food into her mouth and then she'll reach in and touch the food (eww, I know) and then rub it on her face. We totally have more to clean up each day, but we love it!!

Caroline modeling her peas


She's already such a giver...sharing her dinner with Daisy


This morning she decided to spit some food at me. It was cute at first


But then she spit even more


Mama wasn't too happy with pears in her just washed hair


But with a face like that, it's hard to be upset!


Oh well...what a cutie!!

Baby bug already?

No, I'm not having another baby - not anytime in the very near future anyway. All the sudden it seems like so many people that I went to high school with, college with, used to work with, etc. are pregnant. It makes me miss being pregnant! It makes me miss Caroline as a tiny little newborn (although the stage she's in now is my favorite). Having an infant is challenging enough - I really can't imagine also being tired and sick as well. I know that now isn't the time to add to the Israel clan but I just can't help missing the pregnant and newborn stage...do I really have the baby bug ALREADY???



Seriously...who wouldn't want this little thing to love????

Little Sponge

Caroline is a little sponge learning new things every day. We've been working on waving lately. She's got the motion down but she doesn't know when to do it yet. When we say hello or goodbye and wave at her she just looks at us like we're crazy but when we're just sitting down she'll wave at the wall. It's so cute. She's been grabbing whatever we are drinking (thus we've mostly been using plastic around here lately). Last night we let her grab onto Adam's glass of water to see what she would do. He held onto it too of course. Little smarty pants held it up to her mouth just like we do. Every time I took a sip of water she would also move the cup to her mouth. What a smarty!! She must take after her mama! :)



I love how cute her smooshed lip looks!!! (That white space isn't a tooth - it's just her gums pressed up against the glass. She's been teething for a while and hopefully she'll have a tooth pop up soon!)

Happy Halloween!!

We had such a wonderful halloween this year! We got be with our friends on Friday and Adam's family for the rest of the weekend. Caroline was in a great mood all weekend and looked adorable in her costume!


The girls at the party


Caroline was so excited to be a kangaroo!


And Daisy was so excited to be a banana :)


Both of our sweet girls


I took C "trick or treating" at our house. Please forgive how I look. It was early Sunday morning and I was still in my pj's.


Mary Scott spend the night with us last night. She was Mario. Isn't she so cute?


I got to draw the mustache and eye brows.


Since we were drawing mustaches...we thought Caroline should have one too.


Mustache cousins


Once she fell asleep we took it off. We had such a fun weekend!! Happy 1st Halloween Caroline!!!

What schedule?

Just when we were all settled into a great schedule, Caroline decided naps were for the birds. She hasn't napped very well this past week. Sometimes she'll go down for 10 minutes and sometimes not at all. Some days she gets so mad that I make her lay down and some days she's happy to be in her crib alone. The other day I kept hearing her squeal and this scratching noise. I went into her room and she was talking to the little birds on her sheets and trying to grab them.



You would think that after not napping all day long she would be exhausted and ready for bed. Not this wild woman - she stayed up until 11:30 one night!! She wasn't cranky or anything, in fact, she was smiling and laughing the whole time. Hopefully we'll all be able to get some more sleep soon!