A Not So Date Night

This is what sat across from me on my "date night" at a fancy restaurant tonight:

And to my left:
I planned a last minute date night tonight so Mike and I could use a gift card that was about to expire. I didn't have a babysitter for Caroline...so we, unwisely, decided to include her in our date. It is one thing to have your squealing baby squirm and grab silverware and throw toys on the floor at Moe's. It is a different thing entirely at a very nice restaurant.

Our (extremely patient) waiter kept our food warm while Mike took Caroline out to try and walk her to sleep. So I spent most of the evening waiting at the table, playing with my camera and snacking on Gerber sweet potato puffs. I'm sure I looked very sophisticated to the other diners.

When Mike and a very wide awake Caroline finally returned to the table, the squealing seemed to have subsided, and we made the best of it. Once she was quiet and we weren't worried about totally annoying the people around us, it was actually a lot of fun to watch Caroline try to eat her first finger food (the sweet potato puffs) and speculate about what other people were saying about us. But, needless to say, next time we'll just let the gift card expire!

Our "family date night".

Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

...and wait, we did. We didn't take our summer vacation until the end of September, but it was totally worth the wait. The weather was perfect, rental house prices were inexpensive, and we pretty much had the city to ourselves while we were there. Until Caroline is in school, we will definitely be early fall vacationers. Here are a few more shots from the trip.

Our home away from home:

The wind, water, and hat-wearing didn't do much for Caroline's hair: Caroline was too little to ride any rides during our trip to the fun park... but her daddy made up for it on the beach the next day:



Macie,who has a bit of a baby obsession, almost got away with the two babies...

Bryce, we've gotta get out of this thing!

On the way home, we made a detour through Macon for a surprise birthday party for Mike's good friend, Mark:

Former roommates Mike, Mark, and Jason with Caroline, Emma Kate, and Caleb.

"See ya, folks!"

To read other accounts of our trip, check out the blogs of our housemates, here, here, and here.

Life's a Beach

Well, this week at least. We are on our first official family vacation, and we are having a great time! We rented a house with several other families and have enjoyed having plenty of friends around to keep things exciting.

We've done so many fun things...Caroline (finally) learned to write her name.

She has been trying really hard to master flying, but so far can only spread her arms and lunge for the birds...Macie loves "the baby", but when she tried to give Caroline a kiss, she was not expecting Caroline to slip her the tongue!

Later they put they put their heads together to try and come up with something to do...

and Caroline decided she'd hang out with her daddy on the beach. (I think I see the similarity everyone else does)...

It turns out that she doesn't really care for her water boat in the water, but it makes a great seat for playing in the shade.

And just playing in the sand is fun too...But all that playing wears a girl out!

Thanks for checking in on me and my beach trip! We'll tell you more about it later!
Love, Caroline

Sweet Potatoes with Sweet Cousins

Caroline and I met some of our Elliott cousins for dinner at Longhorn Tuesday night because we were running an errand at the mall in their neck of the woods, and they were headed to the mall to add some things to Jill's registry. (I can't believe "baby" Jill will be married in just a few months!)

Caroline was napping soundly when we arrived...

so she was a little grumpy when I woke her up getting her out of the car, making dinner less than peaceful. She finally settled down when Jill fed her part of my sweet potato, though. Ellie (smiling for the camera below) was a big helper. She is so good with "Ca-kwine"!

Sucking her fingers to swallow. If you hold her hand after giving her a bite so she can't use them, she has no idea what to do. She just holds her mouth open and screams.

I Might Be the Only One Laughing...

There may not be anything overtly funny about this video, but this footage of Caroline playing yesterday really cracks me up. Maybe it's because she looks funny sucking on the preemie pacifier she found that she wanted no part of as a newborn, maybe it's because her hair is so poofy and sticking out over her ears, maybe it's because (if you listen very carefully) you can hear that she is pooping up a storm, maybe it's because she is focusing so much on pooping that she is grunting and looks like she is directing an orchestra at one point, maybe it's because she falls over at the end but was so preoccupied by the pacifier and pooping that she never seemed to notice and went right along doing what she was doing...but this just makes me laugh!

(Turn the volume all the way up for the full experience!)

A Chip Off the Old Block

Block

Chip

Everyone always comments on how much Caroline looks like Mike. When I woke her up this particular morning, her hair was standing straight up like his does. I was actually taking the picture of that, but before I could snap, she grabbed the remote and kicked back, making herself really look like him!

Back from our Blogging Break

We've been offline for a while because Caroline was feeling overwhelmed with all the blog publicity and felt like she needed a few weeks out of the public eye. Ok, not so much. The truth is Caroline's mama went back to work for a couple of weeks, was without a camera for a little while, was without a computer for a week, and then just didn't get back into the blogging groove...but we're back! Here's a recap of what we've been doing.

• We said goodbye to our dear friends, Jeff and Courtney, before they moved to Mississippi.

We miss these two so much! Caroline and silly Miss Angel show us how sad they are that Miss Courtney and Mr. Jeff are leaving during their going away party.

• Caroline became a very proficient sitter. She's realigned her efforts now to focus on crawling...she's not doing it, but she sure tries. Much to her dispair, she usually goes backwards when she's trying to crawl forward toward a toy. This leads to a lot of frustrated screeching and sqealing (her other new skills).
  
  

• I got to spend the first two weeks of the school year with Mrs. Sewell's 5th grade class. What an honor that I got to be with the 14 smartest, funniest, kindest 5th graders in the world! Caroline visited us in class several times and LOVED the students. They loved her right back. It was a lot of fun watching them together.
• Caroline and I also got to go visit with Mrs. Sewell herself while she is home letting her body get well.

Caroline and I got to deliver some things we made for her at school.

Doesn't Mrs. Sewell look beautiful in her new wig? She looks nicer to lounge around the house after chemo than I do for church on Sunday!

• Caroline has expanded her diet to include a lot of new things. She eats rice cereal, oatmeal, avocado, applesauce, pears, blueberries, peas, carrots, green beans, spinach, sweet potatos, bananas, squash, and corn. It's all pureed, of course, and she still has no idea that she can swallow without sucking her fingers. So...after every bite, she pops the fingers in, sucks for a few seconds, and pulls them out to wait for another bite. Eating is a full body experience.(You'll have to turn your head for the first couple...I couldn't get them to load correctly!)


• Speaking of new foods, Mama had a little poop panic. I won't post the pictures (there are pictures), but I'll just tell you that banana fibers look a lot like tiny worms to a new mom.


• Mike has a new "greener" work schedule. We don't get to see him until a little later every evening, but he gets to stay home an extra day every two weeks! We're so happy to be able to include dad in some of our daytime adventures.
  

  Going for a walk at the park.

I'm flying!!

• We celebrated Madeline's 3rd birthday. Sorry, Caroline, but your mom's cakes will never be as beautiful as Madeline's mom's! Eating dinner by the river.

Caroline's first time in a real swing!

Thanks for inviting us to your safari party, Madeline!

• We went to the Yellow Daisy Festival at Stone Mountain with our cousins. Julie and I loaded all three kids in the back of her Armada and headed toward the big rock.You can see how it went for yourself. At one point, Ellie joined in the fun too, but I didn't get that on video. (Make sure to scroll down and silence Neil if you haven't already. The audio is much more important than the video.)
  

Thanks for catching up with us. We'll be posting Trice happenings regularly again now!