Thanksgiving 2011

Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday. A whole day dedicated to eating and relaxing - what could be better? I've spent the 2 out of the past 3 Thanksgivings pregnant and I must say that a whole day of eating is perfect :) And after you eat, you get to start putting up Christmas decorations!! This year we had a fantastic Thanksgiving. We traveled to Haleyville to spend time with Adam's family. My sister tagged along with us and we were so excited to get to spend some time with a bit of my family too! We didn't see the rest of my family and Adam's brother didn't make it to Haleyville this year so we did miss seeing several family members.

Caroline got to watch her first Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade this year! Although she's a little too young to sit and watch, she did get into some of the musical numbers and stop to dance. It was precious. She spent the rest of the time the parade was on running around the house. We had the most delicious meal and I know that I ate enough for about 3 adults. Caroline didn't eat everything, but she loved the sweet potatoes, ham, and Mama Lou's rolls. After wearing herself out and then stuffing her face this is what happened:




Looks like a perfect Thanksgiving to me! I didn't get a lot of other pictures since I spent the day relaxing and enjoying family time.

Sadly, I got sick Thursday night/Friday. At first I thought it was normal pregnancy sickness but when it didn't get any better I began to think I may have picked up a bug. That messed up our plans to spend Friday decorating the house. On the bright side - we decorated after the Iron Bowl on Saturday. We were so excited about the great win and had a great time getting our house Christmas-y so it worked out beautifully. Pictures to come soon! I'll also be posting C's 18 month pictures and 16 week belly shots and 17 week info soon. Stay tuned!

Thanksgiving Snack

Today at school, the parents were invited to come and have a Thanksgiving snack with the kids. I am so thankful to be able to go to all these fun things!

Each class made a Thanksgiving craft. Caroline's class made little Mayflowers.


Each class walked in together. C was the line leader for her class.


Once she realized that the snack had M&M's in it - she was ready to eat!


Being the awesome sharer that she is, she decided to feed her friend Cohen the items that were not M&M's. I love his face here - he's so confused why she's feeding him!


We were so excited that our friends Sarah and Sydney were sitting across from us!


The placemat that Caroline "made." It says that she is thankful for Mommy and Daddy, Daisy, Baby Israel, books and Mickey Mouse...sounds about right to me!


I can't wait for Thanksgiving next week. Since she was only 6 months old last year, this will be the first time where she can actually eat some of the Thanksgiving meal. I know she's going to love it!

Friends

Caroline and her sweet friend at Wee Flip yesterday. Caroline is modeling her new "cheese" face.

No Doubt

When Caroline was an infant, almost everybody said that she looked like Adam. One lady said to us, "Well we know who the father is, but who is the mother?" Very funny lady... Her baby pictures really do look just like Adam's baby pictures. As she gets older, we get more comments that she is a mix of us or that she looks just like me. Some things I can see - she gets her hair color from me and her nose from Adam. Other than that, I have no idea who she looks like - she just looks like Caroline!

Personality wise, there is no doubt who this child belongs to. We would often joke that Caroline is just like Adam over small things. Every night I get Adam a big cup of ice and I put a piece of ice in C's mesh food holder. They sit together and eat their ice. She likes to stay up late and sleep late in the mornings - certainly not something she gets from her early to bed, early to rise mommy. But now I can confirm that she is fact just like Adam. Ever since I have known Adam, people have joked that he was going to be president one day. When I would visit his hometown, people would ask if I was ready to be politicians wife. His elementary school teachers told me that even as a young child they knew he would go into politics. Last Sunday I took Caroline to the nursery at church. When I went to pick her up, one of the nursery workers said, "She's quite the little politician." I had to hold back laughter to find out what she meant. Apparently, she made the rounds to all the workers, volunteers, and children - waving and blowing kisses to everyone. As parents would come in she would wave and blow kisses - even trying to SHAKE HANDS with some of them!!! They were joking that she was campaiging for cutest kid in the nursery (she clearly would have won)! Like I said, there is no doubt who this child belongs to...

More new posts below!

Lately

Here are some pictures of what Miss Caroline has been up to lately.

Caroline has been a great help with the laundry. She especially loves when you get to wear hangers as hats!




She's been dancing with daddy.




Finding a new favorite seat in the house. (In preparation for Project Big Girl Room, we moved a chair out of the guest room and into the living room and she's loving the ottoman)



She's been a very good eater lately - notice not 1, but 2 yogurts! :)




It sure is fun with a toddler around!

Another new post below.

Pigtails!!!

How cute is this little girl in pigtails??


Love it.

Project Big Girl Room

I feel like it's going to be very busy around the Israel house for the next several months... We've got to get Caroline's big girl room done and her moved into that so we can start on the nursery! My due date is less than 6 months away. Caroline decided to come almost 3 weeks early. I'm trying to be conservative in my planning so I've got about 5 months to get things done around here. Throw in Thanksgiving and Christmas (and all that shopping) and that cuts down on my time (and money!) to devote to getting bedrooms done. Yikes.

I figured that we should start Project Big Girl Room. To me, this is going to be the harder of the two bedrooms to do. Baby girl rooms are easier. Pick some pink paint, toile or damask fabric, add a chandelier and voila! You have a beautiful nursery. Or you could go the ready made room route - Pottery Barn Kids, Serena and Lily, etc. Not that either of those options aren't fantastic (that's what we did for Caroline and are still so in love with her room) - it's just that they are for babies. You design a room before you ever meet your child. Their personality and preferences aren't taken into consideration because they aren't here to be considered. Toddler rooms are much harder. I want a room that reflects her personality, a room that is hers and not just what I think is pretty. Her room has be sweet and girly (like her) but fun and functional (since it will be a place for her to play and store her things) and the big one...versatile (since it's also the room that out of town guests will stay in). I know I've got to get moving or it will never be done in time!

I have found bedding that I really, really like. I haven't ordered it yet because I'm not sure that I love it. I wanted to do something white and then have the color in the curtains, pillows, and a painted piece of furniture. I looked high and low and finally found some white ruched bedding for a very good price. It's vintage looking and very girly. Before I bought it, I thought I would look a few more places. I found some beautiful bedding at Restoration Hardware and Serena and Lily that I really, really like as well. They are certainly more expensive! Now I'm stuck! Which option do I choose - white bedding with color and pattern in other elements of the room or patterned bedding with white/solid color accents elsewhere in the room?

I found a chandelier that I love. That will also add some girly-ness to the room. I was thinking about going with grey walls. They are "in" for nurserys/kids rooms these days and you can put lots of other colors with it. I could do grey and pink, grey and yellow, etc. Grey is a more versatile color so guests wouldn't feel like they are sleeping in a doll house.

Decisions, decisions... If anyone has any suggestions or ideas, feel free to pass them along. I think we're going to bite the bullet and pick out paint this week and possibly paint the room next weekend!! Hopefully it will turn out well and I won't change my mind 8 thousand times!

Almost 18 months

No matter what I do to try and stop it, Caroline keeps growing up! Each new stage that she enters brings some challenges but also some wonderful things. At almost 18 months old, she is constantly testing the limits, but also constantly making us laugh. I wanted to record some of the things that she does so that we can look back and laugh again one day.

Caroline and Daisy are such good friends and it makes me smile. Caroline loves when we "chase" her around the house and always wants Daisy to do it too. Daisy happens to be one of the laziest dogs I know. We've seen her hunting dog instinct kick in over cats or deer...but over Caroline squealing and running - not so much. Caroline finally decided that she would carry food around trying to get Daisy to follow her. It works for all of 10 seconds until Daisy catches Caroline, grabs the food, and then goes back to nap. Poor Caroline gets so frustrated.

She is such a wonderful sharer, but lately has decided that some things shouldn't be shared. When we are out and she finds something that she likes, she'll put it in the diaper bag. I guess she wants to play with it later but to the rest of the world it looks a lot like stealing. We've come home with some silverware from restaurants on several occassions. She tried to take Raughley's ice cream toy last week. I never know what I will find in my bag!

She loves to take showers. If she hears Adam turn the shower on in the morning, she'll bang on the door to go in. At night I'll start the bath and she'll go over to the shower and try to open the door. When I try to put her in the bath she'll start telling me "no" and pointing to the shower.

She fist pumps when she gets something she wants.

She has a strange obsession with elevators. She gets so excited when we go in and she'll want to get down and dance. When the doors open she wants to run out and then go right back in and dance.

We went to visit a couple of friends last night who just had a precious baby boy. I was curious as to how Caroline would do since she'll have a little sibling of her own soon. She was fantastic! She wanted to hold him. She gave him kisses. She didn't get jealous when Adam and I held him. Hopefully that will be the case come spring time... I just cannot believe how big she seemed. She is becoming such a big girl!

I cannot believe that my baby girl is almost a year and half and going to be a big sister! I wish time would slow down just a little bit!

Loving the Fall Weather!

We are just loving the fall weather! Caroline would rather be outside playing than doing anything else so that's where we are most afternoons. We've had a wonderful time visitng all the fun parks and playgrounds in the city. Yesterday we took advantage of the great weather AND having daddy home so we went for a wagon ride around the neighborhood.




Caroline doesn't go anywhere without shoes. She insisted on putting them on, even to sit in the wagon!

Another new post below!

12 Week Belly Pic and 14 Week Update

I'm a couple weeks behind on posting this...but here's my belly at 12 weeks. I didn't mean to blend in with the wall.



I had an OB appointment last week and here is the sweet baby at 13 weeks!


Everything looked great with the baby! He/She had a heartrate in the 150's - strong and perfect. Baby was also measuring a little ahead - meaning they may move up the due date! I haven't gained much, if any, weight and the doctor wanted me to put on some more pounds. I may not be gaining much, but at least we know the baby is growing just fine.

It looks like I may be heading to physical therapy for my sciatic nerve pain if it continues to bother me a lot. I decided to hold out a little longer and luckily it hasn't been so bad these past couple of days. Fingers crossed that it stays that way! Other than that, the baby and I look good. I have another appointment scheduled for the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Since the clinic will be low staffed due to the holiday, they are going to wait to do the anatomy scan :( That means we won't be finding out the gender before Thanksgiving. I guess we'll have to wait another week or two after that.

The ultrasound technician that I had last week is guessing that the baby is a boy. She said she didn't see anything and that her guess was based on the size since it was measuring ahead. Of course she doesn't realize that Adam is 6'4'' and that I may just have a big baby! I haven't had any strong feelings either way during this pregnancy about the gender. Lately I've been thinking that it's a girl though. I only guess girl because I know of 6 people who have found out the gender of their babies recently and 5 were girls. That's about a good a guess as the technician. Well, one of us will be right!

It's so exciting to be able to experience this again. Adam and I are feeling so blessed right now and cannot wait to meet the newest member of our little family!

Happy Halloween!

Every time a holiday arrives, I say "this is my favorite holiday yet." I'm sure I'll be saying a bunch over the next couple of months! Halloween was no exception. While Caroline didn't really understand the concept of dressing up and trick-or-treating - she did seem to have a great time. We celebrated for days and loved every minute of it!

Last Friday she got to dress up and go trick-or-treating at daddy's office. She was, of course, the cutest kid there. She got to be a pro at putting candy in her bucket. She even went into one person's office, grabbed an entire bag of candy and then pulled it out of the office and tried to put it in her bucket!


We woke up on Saturday and went to a Halloween party at Raughley's house. Out of the 7 kids that we there, there were 3 bees!! And 2 of them were named Caroline!


Caroline and Raughley just hanging out.


The other precious Caroline bumblebee.


Attempt at a group picture (minus the other Caroline).


My Caroline decided she was done as well...

After we came home and napped, we got ready for another Halloween party that night! This party was for grownups, but we brought Caroline along for a bit. We had a wonderful time visiting with our friends. We dressed in scrubs and witch hats (witch doctors). Caroline let us know when it was time to take her home by trying to go to sleep in the middle of the room. Precious.


Yesterday was the Halloween party in Caroline's class. Parents can go if they want and of couse I did!


She proudly showed me the toys she likes to play with.


Her ghost shirt she wore for the occassion.


One of her teachers, Miss Lisa. Caroline wasn't interested in looking at the camera...


She wanted to join her friend in squishing another friend behind the chair. How sweet.


Later that afternoon we met up with Raughley and Rebecca to watch the Halloween parade in Crestline Village. She loved it! She "caught" some beads and a pencil from the floats. After that we met up with daddies for dinner at La Paz - where she had ZERO meltdowns!! We did a little trick-or-treating before C decided she was worn out. By 8:00 the entire Israel family was in bed. We had such a wonderful Halloween and we hope yours was a wonderful as can BEE!!!