One year Photo Shoot

I took Caroline to a group "one year" photo shoot that was set up by one of the many talented Moody spouse photographers in this area. It was so funny to see a group of the same age kids and how they reacted to each other. She did REALLY well on her individual photos (like the one above) and smiled her cheeks off and didn't move an inch. I was one proud mama. Then came the group photos with a big "smash cake" and all of the babies sat around the cake. She, again, didn't move and just sat still and watched the madness ensue. All of the other babies dug into the cake, flung icing around...one little girl even put a nice icing handprint right in the middle of C's back. But, my baby girl would have NO part of that messy disaster. So, she spent the entire time just staring at the other babies and didn't smile much. It was a lot of fun, though, and I'm glad I took her to it because I love the pictures. She had her one year check up last week and her stats are as follow:

31": 94%
22 lbs: 76%
18.25 head circumference: 83%

So, she's still very proportionate and still on the tall side. She's started walking as long as she can hold at least one of our hands. She waves, says hi, mama, dada, and night night, does "arms up", high fives, and loooooves to clap and dance. She has 6 teeth and loves to brush them with her little toothbrush. She eats EVERYTHING, ALL. THE. TIME. If we're eating, she wants some of whatever it is we have...no matter what it is. I made some pretty spicy Tikka Masala (Indian food) last week and of course she was begging for some, so I let her try it, thinking she wouldn't like it. Wroooong. She ate a quarter of my bowl. So, I'm thankful that she's not picky so far. Her favorites are bananas and broccoli. One quick story before I go start getting ready for the work week (ugh), we were at our friends' house (Cyndi and Adam) last week and their daughter Aly came and cuddled up in my lap. Ooooohweee Caroline got mad. She crawled over and was whining and kept trying to push Aly off of me. I could not stop laughing. I have NEVER seen her act like that before. She'll share toys, food, etc...but NOT her mama, apparently.

She's...*gasp*...one

I know, I know. I haven't blogged in a while, ok a REALLY long time. We'll get to that at a later date. The important part right now if for me to blog about my sweet, baby girl turning one rightaway!! I feel like it was literally last week that I was in the hospital, laying eyes on her for the very first time. People told me for the 10 months leading up to her birth that time would take on a new meaning when I had my first child and I never really listened. Well, I'm here to say...anyone who says that is absolutely correct. Some days, I wake her up hours after she's gone to bed because I miss her and I know she's changing, even in her sleep, and I don't want to miss anything! (this is bad, I realize, but she goes right back to sleep once I've gotten my fill) This has been the most challenging and rewarding year of my life and I just feel so lucky to be Caroline's mother. She's sweet, has the cutest crooked smile and HAS to smile at everyone that pays her any attention, and has such an infectious giggle that will make you do ANYTHING to get her to giggle more (which is usually pretty easy). She has a great disposition and for the most part only cries when she's ready for bed, plays independently, is incredibly smart and observant, and LOVES people. Happy First Birthday, my sweet Caroline Grace, and I hope this next year goes by MUCH more slowly!

Christmas card

Photo Card

View the entire collection of cards.

My 2011 Christmas card from the always user friendly and reasonably priced Shutterfly!

I don't care who you are....that's cute.

Fall Festival

The Forced Smile

Today we went to a small fall festival they had in town to raise money for a speech therapy service.  We made it kinda late, but we enjoyed our stroll and took some "fall" pictures since the weather has cooled off this weekend. (Thank you, Lord!!)  This is my absolute favorite time of year and I am currently obsessing over what costume to put my little cutie in this year.  Side note obsession: Pumpkin.  Any and EVERYTHING pumpkin. 

I'm 8 months old!

Got the after vacation blues...

This picture REALLY makes me miss being on vacation. We're going to buy tickets this weekend for our Christmas trip to Maryland. Can't WAIT! I hope it snows again!

Happy Sunday

Homemade calzones with chicken sausage, cherry tomatoes, spinach, and fresh mozzarella. Now to cook up some of the fresh veggies I got from the Farmer's Market for Caroline's September menu.

Vacation!

Snoozing on the grandparents.

Playing at her end of the table.

Another afternoon siesta.

Braving the rain in Key West.

Ahh, the Bahamas.

Enjoying our babyless excursion.

Our ship.

The Princess.

Last night dinner.

Sorry about the lack of posts, but August has been a busy, busy month for us!  The first week of August we spent on a 5 day cruise to the Bahamas, courtesy of the Ottenbacher parents/grandparents(thanks a million!)  We had SO MUCH FUN!  I had a LOT of anxiety going into this with Caroline being just over 6 months old, i.e., nightmares about her somehow going overboard, being stolen by pirates, etc.  Haha, but really I was very nervous about how she would behave with all of the new changes.  SHE WAS AWESOME!! I felt like such a proud parent.  She was the smallest baby I saw on the ship and everyone just loved on her the entire time, which she enjoyed immensely.  And the best part was that she got to spend so much time with her Aunt Jenny and Ottenbacher grandparents.  Now, Seth and I have the cruise bug and are trying to figure out how we can take a babyless cruise in the not so far away future..hmm..

6 Month Pictures

Poor unhappy baby!

Wagon given to her by Grandma Ottenbacher

Love that face!

Can you see my tooth??

So, we had baby girl's six month pictures done this weekend.  We started on Friday evening, but after a faceplant out of a prop and being to close to bedtime, it resulted in major meltdowns...which explains picture number one up there.  But, Angela was so sweet and came back this morning to try again and my sweetie was in a MUCH better mood this morning.  I'm pretty partial, but I sure do have a pretty baby! We leave for our 5 day cruise to the Bahamas on Monday and we are SO excited!! Will blog about that when we get back!

6 Months?? No way!

Entertaining herself in the waiting room.

The exam room was chilly, so she chewed on her teething ring handless, haha

Such a cutie.

Woke up mommy at 5am on my 6 month birthday!

Caroline's 6 month birthday was July 12th.  Seth was TDY to Dobbins AFB for 2 weeks, so I got to take her to another doctor's appointment alone(yay,not!).  I, again, don't have her stats right in front of me, but it was something like 28" (97% for height) and 18 lbs (91%) for weight.  She is a growing baby girl! The day of her appointment, her first official tooth popped through! She now has one bottom tooth that you can see and another right next to it that you can see, but not feel yet.  She had a rough week when it was coming through and would wake up between 4:30 and 5:30a.m. every day...while Seth was gone...and I was playing single mom.  It was tough, but we made it through! We spent a lot of mornings like the one above, laying in bed watching the news.  And some mornings I strapped her in the jogging stroller for a morning run for me.  So, it worked out in the end.  Some new developments for this 6 month beauty are:
-She rolls back and forth and now uses that as a means to get to things she wants.
-She can sit up unassisted for a good bit of time, but is so interested in checking everything out that she eventually rolls to her side to inspect something of interest.
-She's down to 4 bottles a day and has started using a sippy cup.
-She wears 9 month and even 12 month clothes because she's just so darn long that anything smaller than that just won't button!

That's all I can think of at the moment.  She really is such a joy to have and I just love her little personality.  Her smile lights up the entire room and that precious giggle of hers melts my heart.  Here's to the next 6 months going by MUCH more slowly!

4th of July..err..a couple weeks late!

Daytona Coke 400

My July 4th baby!

 So, for 4th of July weekend, we decided to take a trip to Daytona for the NASCAR Coke 400.  My mom offered to meet us in Brunswick and babysit overnight, even better! So, since Seth had Friday off, I took the day off too so we could enjoy a day off together.  He woke me up at 7:30 with the baby fed, bottles ready, and told me to get up because we were taking her to daycare and he was taking me out to breakfast! This was excellent news! So, we had a nice, relaxing day.  We had a babyless breakfast and went and worked out together at the base gym before packing for our night in Daytona.  But, then we started to miss the munchkin, so we picked her up early.  And then the next day we were off to Daytona! We met my mom for the baby swap and headed to the race and had a good time.  I will say that I definitely prefer Atlanta Motor Speedway to Daytona, but it was an experience nonetheless.  Some guys Seth works with got to roll out that huge flag and got free tickets to be out on the field and ended up meeting drivers.  But, my sweetie turned down that opportunity because I wouldn't have been able to go with him. (AWWWW!)  On the Fourth, we dressed Caroline up and attended a party at our friends' Nicci and Eric's house and had a nice time with friends.  We skipped out on fireworks this year, mostly because they started WAY past her bedtime, but we'll try them next year!

Mommy treat vs. Baby treat

I get the fresh peach martini and she gets the fresh pureed peaches. This makes us both happy :)

Attempted Escape..

DENIED!

When Daddy dresses Caroline..

She sometimes ends up looking like this haha. But we sure love him for trying! :)

Go the F**k to Sleep - read by Samuel L. Jackson

This had me ROLLING!!! (Don't listen to it with kiddos around!)

Peek-a-boo

5 Months!

I'm 5 months today!

My cute church dress

Successful run!

Madison helping Caroline feed herself.

So, we had a fun weekend just the two of us.  Seth's grandmother passed away, sadly, so he had to fly up to Baltimore this weekend.  We really, really miss him, but we stayed nice and busy this weekend, so it wasn't all bad.  Saturday, we picked up a SWEET jogging stroller from Amy (Woo, thanks!) and went to Kohl's to buy some Father's Day presents.  Then, Madison came over while Candy and Shannon went to the Lady Antebellum concert.  They were so sweet together.  Madison was very helpful and helped me with everything for Caroline.  We had a great time.  Then baby and I got up this morning and joined the Weinfurters and Heinigs (people Seth works with) at church.  Caroline stayed in the nursery and apparently was all smiles and sweetness for them.  I love how her entire face lights up and smiles when other people smile at her.  She is just SUCH a smiley baby.  Afterward, we were pretty worn out so we took a nice, long nap together.  Then, since we'd been a little lazy this weekend (I usually try to catch up on Army Wives when Seth is gone..) I decided to try out that cadillac jogging stroller.  Caroline was squirmy and not enjoying the heat at first, but I'd say a quarter way through my first mile, she was knocked out.  I stopped running just to make sure she was still breathing because she fell asleep so quickly! That thing has SUCH a smooth ride and she slept through my entire run.  I was SO happy!  But, let me tell ya...running while pushing 16 pounds is no joke! I got a great workout in!

And I have been TERRIBLE about measuring Caroline next to her little alligator friend, but I remembered to today on her 5 month birthday.  I cannot believe she's 5 months already! She's changed so much over the last few weeks and can now do the following:
-Roll from back to stomach and the daycare says she's rolled back to her back, but I haven't caught her yet.
-Hold her own bottle (yay!)
-She LOVES playing peek-a-boo and it's the quickest way to get a giggle!
-Once she's on her stomach, she gets up on her knees and can get up on her arms, but tries to pull the ground as opposed to moving her arms.  It's pretty funny to watch.
- So far she LOVES butternut squash, carrots, sweet potatoes, peas, and pears.  She does not, however, like bananas so much...weird.
That's all I can think of right now, but I love the funny little personality she is developing.  Her smiles and giggles melt my heart and make my days so much sweeter.  Here's to the next 5 months going by more slowly!

Adelily festival

Caroline had so much fun today at the Adelily Festival with one of her BFFs, Madison. She just loooooves other kids! (Even when it's a billion degrees outside...)

Memorial Day weekend in Florida

Photography  by Siobhan Simeone

Caroline LOVES Vivianna

I'm ready for the beach, Mom!

Workin on my tan..

So we packed up the house, ok only half of the house, and headed down to visit the Simeones this weekend in Navarre.  We got there kinda late Friday night, so we put baby straight to bed and enjoyed some delicious margaritas with Steve and Siobhan.  Needless to say, we were hurting the next day.  So, once we were all recovered we packed up the babies and went to lunch.  After some yummy, greasy burgers, we headed to Destin to walk it off in the wonderful sunshine.  The water was PACKED with boats.  I'll admit, it was the first time I REALLY wished we were vacationing babyless.  But, we decided that healthwise it was better to vacation with baby, haha.  Afterward, we went to an AH-MAZING frozen yogurt place, 32degrees. SO good.  Caroline was such a great baby all weekend.  She LOVED Vivianna and would laugh at her and give her the BIGGEST smiles every time she came around.  I think it's because she has so much interaction with babies that are a few months older than her at the daycare.  She didn't fuss at all and just enjoyed rolling around on the floor with Vivi...yeah, she's a MAJOR roller now.  We all went to bed early on Saturday because we were still tired from the margaritas traveling the night before.  Sunday we all lathered up with sunblock, overpacked, and took the babies to Navarre Beach.  It was beautiful and breezy and Caroline loved it! I took her in the water for a little while, but it was getting close to nap time, so I layed her down and she passed right out.  It looked so peaceful taking a nice, long nap under an umbrella with the beach breeze and waves crashing in the background.  I think all this water/sun tolerance we've been training our little pale child with is working! Which is great because the cruise is only two months away!!  Sunday night, Steve and Siobhan watched Caroline while Seth and I went to the Pensacola Fish House for dinner.  The restaurant was great.  The view was amazing, right on the water, but the shrimp and grits were nowhere near as good as my dad's....but the food was still good.  Monday we had to pack up and head back, which was sad.  But not before my very talented cousin took pictures of Caroline.  I can't wait to print and hang them!  I hope everyone else had a relaxing, enjoyable holiday.