Clean Up

Caroline is a very particular girl. She likes things to be wherever she decides is the proper place. If you move something she will come yelling "uh-oh" until I come see and then she will fix it. She has been doing this for some time now and it is at times annoying...but mostly just really cute and helpful. The other day I spilled some flour on the floor in the kitchen. She saw it and immediately yelled "uh-oh" and ran to find the broom. She swept it up for me...well, as best a 20 (almost 21) month old can do. Mostly I think she just disbursed it all over the kitchen floor...but at least we couldn't see it anymore.
I sure love her. Here she is cleaning the entry way of our house.

A random picture of her brushing her teeth and wearing Daddy's Yankee hat

Too Funny!

Someone forwarded this to me and I think it's so funny!

One day my mother was out, and my dad was in charge of me. I was maybe 2 1/2 years old. Someone had given me a little 'tea set' as a gift, and it was one of my favorite toys. Daddy was in the living room engrossed in the evening news when I brought him a little cup of 'tea', which was just water. After several cups of tea and lots of praise for such yummy tea, my mom came home. My dad made her wait in the living room to watch me bring him a cup of tea, because it was 'just the cutest thing!' Mom waited, and sure enough, here I
came down the hall with a cup of tea for Daddy; and she watched him drink it
up. Then she said, (as only a mother would know), "'Did it ever occur to you
that the only place she can reach to get water, is the toilet?"

Baby Angelo (A.J.)...36 wks, 3 days

Not too much longer till we meet the little guy. I am really excited...wondering what he will look like?? Maybe this one will get Tom's looks and my personality? Caroline seems to have my looks and more of Tom's personality. The doctor said at 39 weeks I can have a c-section if I want. I am praying he comes naturally before then because I just might be tempted to get him out! I can't sleep much anymore (not that I will be able to sleep with him here either). It takes so much effort to turn over in bed, my back hurts, I can't breathe...BUT it's all worth it and I am really excited that I will have a boy! I have been having Braxton Hicks contractions, but nothing more to report! Just my belly...he has dropped pretty low making me super uncomfortable! I can't wait till he makes his grand entrance! Caroline hanging out with her big mommy :-)

Long Island Children's Mueseum

Last weekend we took Caroline to check out the Long Island Children's Museum. I had heard great things about it and we needed to get out of the house. Only about 1/4 of the exhibits were for her age...so I don't think we will go back for a while. But, we did enjoy ourselves and will go back when she is just a little bit older. I think for now we will stick with the farms and parks to entertain her. There is a little farm/park right down the road from us that is FREE. We took her there yesterday and she loved it. They have just a few animals...chickens, roosters, sheep, goats, rabbits, and a bull. We saw a cute baby lamb that kept saying "baa" right at Caroline and she said it right back. She's adorable. I wish I had had my camera. I only got about 3 pictures at the museum because we spent most of our time chasing after her. She LOVED this fake dog...she kept going up to it and saying "woof woof" and hugging it. Jumping in the birds nest which she decided was a trampoline Playing in the sand exhibit.

Easter Bows!

New Easter/Spring bows at Sarah's Bow-tique. Tell your friends!

Caroline: 20 Months

Caroline is 20 months old now! Wow...pretty soon we won't be going by months anymore. Can't believe my baby will be 2 soon and will be the BIG SISTER! She is so funny. Some of the cute things she does...

• She learned how to say excuse me. When she burps she says "susme"...when she toots she says "susme" and if I am in her way she either says "beep beep" or "susme". I think it is so adorable. I don't know what we fed her the other day...but something that gave her gas. Haha, she started saying "susme" before she even tooted...so funny.


• She likes to talk on the phone. She will just grab it and start babbling off peoples names and some other stuff I don't understand...."hi yaya", "hi poopoo" (that's Papou in Caroline language), "hi bampa", "nana", "ojo" (that's Angelo is Caroline language), "dada" .... it's just too cute watching her tilt her little head and babble to every one.


• She LOVES Jello! She pretty much wakes up every morning asking me for "ojo" (that's what she calls it...and that's how she says Angelo too).


• I don't know what happened to asking for milk and signing it...she just asks me for "wawa" now and her "dink" and sometimes "jew" (juice)...haha...it doesn't matter what I give her when she asks for any of these things...they all seem to mean just any kind of drink.


• She doesn't eat much. I don't know how she stays the same weight because I think she only gets about 4 bites in at meal times. She has a few snacks that she really likes, but as far as a big meal...nope! Her favorite foods are: watermelon, oranges, grapes, popcorn, jello, Cheetos, chips, yogurt, cheerios, "faffles"....that's what she now calls waffles, and pancakes!


• She loves chairs....any chair that is her size she just gets so excited about...especially if it has buckles.


• She is no longer allowed to wear zippy jammies! She takes them off and her diaper and we will find her naked in bed. She seems to do ok with pants and shirt jammies...at least we haven't found her naked yet. I have to make sure the pants cover the diaper completely though or she will undue the diaper. Silly girl. I would really love to potty train her...but I figure we will now wait till after baby comes since everyone tells me kids usually revert when you bring a baby home.


• She STILL won't keep earrings in and loves to wear bows.


• She likes to do things herself and when she can't, she bites whatever it is that she can't do and gets pretty upset.


• She likes to color...especially with markers all over herself, my carpet, and furniture!


• She LOVES her BIG big girl bed.

That's all I can think of for now! Happy 20 months! Maybe...just maybe...at 21 months she will be an official BIG SISTER...but, it might be a little after that. :-)

Watching YouTube videos with daddy...one of her favorite things to do with him. They usually watch kitty cats or puppies.

Bath time!

When she got out of the tub last night she was being pretty goofy. She wrapped this towel around her and was walking around saying "CHEE" (cheese)!

Caroline on her BIG big girl bed...she wouldn't look at me.

Poor Caroline...right after we finished with the stomach bug we both got bad colds. We seem to have exchanged illnesses with the baby I watch. We got her cold and she got our stomach bug. Maybe I should stop telling them to share all the time, haha.

Birthday!

Caroline's cousin Louis had his first birthday on Saturday. We shared in a little celebration at his house on Saturday. Sadly, we all apparently also shared some sort of stomach bug. Sunday night around 11 PM Caroline woke up screaming and covered in puke. Being the nice wife I am I told Tom to go back to bed since he had to work in the morning and I would stay up with her. She threw up several more times while I layed in bed with her. Every time she was about to throw up she would cling to me...poor girl. Caroline and I were able to finally go to sleep around 4 am...well, by 7 am I realized I was going to be sick too...by 9 am, Tom and I were both throwing up too. Gosh, it was an awful day! It's one thing to be sick, but another when we are ALL sick! Luckily we are all better now. I guess quite a few people got sick that came to Louis' party....don't know if it was the food or some sort of virus...but it sucked!
Anyway, here are a few pictures from that day!

All the cousins were playing together by the door. Every time we would try to get a picture at least one of them would walk away....so this is the best I got.

Caroline and her cousin Anthony

I love this picture...she was standing across the room saying "CHEE" waiting for me to take a picture of her. Lol

Tom and Louis...the birthday boy!

I took my picture at the wrong moment...Louis decided to grab the knife! Don't worry, he was completely fine! I love the face Nicholas has though.

Videos

Here are a few videos from the last couple weeks. The first is Caroline playing her recorder/trombone. The second is her talking to Jojo. She was saying "hi Jojo" over and over...but by the time I got out the camera she only said it 2 more times...oh well. The third is her playing with the slinky with daddy. She loves to play with him and is always asking for "more more"...in other words...do it again daddy!

Baby AJ...33 weeks

Today I am 33 weeks pregnant...almost there. I am tired and sore...but can't complain about much else. Everything has been going very well. He should be somewhere around 4.5-5 lbs. I have been meeting all the Dr's in the practice over the past month...still one more to meet. I really like all of them. The Dr that I saw today wasn't the most friendly (could have had something to do with my screaming child)...but she was more informative than the other Dr's have been so far. However, I am not sure if what she told me today was just her opinion, or fact. I will have to ask more questions of the other Dr's over the next few weeks.

Anyway, the Dr today told me that I need to go into labor on my own by 40 weeks (39 is ideal) because they really do not like to give Pitocin to women who have had a c-section in the past. I did not want to have Pitocin anyway, so that's fine with me so long as I actually go into labor on my own. Apparently the strong contractions that Pitocin can cause in a short amount of time can often lead to rupturing of the uterus in VBAC patients. Also, she recommended that if I do not go into labor by 39 weeks that I just opt to do a c-section because the risk of uterine rupture increases with bigger babies. I'm not sure what I will decide yet...I do not particularly want to be cut open again...but i don't particularly want to go through labor either. Any other options? haha. Well, I'm sure whatever happens will be what's best.

Well, that's about it...somewhere around 6-7 weeks from now (wow, that sounds so far away) you will get to see cute baby pictures instead of fat pregnant lady pictures :-)

I took this myself this afternoon...bad hair day...actually it is a "I didn't even try to look good day" :0

Happy St. Patty's Day

I was in a picture taking mood this afternoon...so Happy St. Patricks Day!

"Chee"


Jolina and Caroline are BFF! So cute!

She loves her slide!

Morning at the Beach!

This morning Tom had to go to the city for work, but I had a Dr's appointment...so I got stuck bringing Caroline. Umm...she was not happy about coming with me. She screamed and cried "out, out" to get out of the stroller. I was not about to let her out of the stroller so the Dr and I just had to talk over her. Needless to say, I will never be bringing her again by myself. At least the Dr was pretty nice about it even though I could tell she was slightly annoyed. Anyway, the poor girl just did not want to sit. When we left the Dr she just screamed and screamed because she did not want to sit in the car seat...so since the beach is about 2 min. from our house, and it was a nice day, I decided it was the perfect place to get her energy out. She LOVED it and never wanted to leave!

She loves stairs...so we both got our exercise going up and down a hundred times.

1st Birthday

A couple Saturdays ago Carolines cousin, Giorgia, celebrated her first birthday. Poor girl was so tired she fell asleep for the night about an hour into her party. Every time we get together we try to get a picture with all the cousins...with 6 kids 4 and under this is NOT an easy task...this is the best we got. I wish I had more pictures from the party, but my camera battery died after we took these pics.
There is an extra kid in the picture...he is a cousin of Nick and Denise's kids.

Caroline: 19 Months

I'm a little behind on this...Caroline actually turned 19 months on Feb 28th...it's now St. Patty's Day...oh well, at least I'm doing it, right? I used to update this during nap time...but her nap time is now my nap time too. I'm so tired all the time now. On the days I don't nap I am busy cleaning the house because I didn't do it the day before...so this has been neglected. Caroline and Jolina are being very good right now playing, so I am able to finally get at least a few updates.

Caroline just keeps amazing us. I think it was the day she turned 19 months...or at least somewhere around there...we decided to turn her crib into a toddler bed to see how she would do. She amazed us by going to bed perfectly, and staying in the bed. She actually stays in her bed until we come and get her in the morning. She even asks to go "nigh nigh" when she is tired. Awesome. I wouldn't say there have been any other BIG changes. She just continues to pick up new words every day. She says and does a lot of funny things. If I can actually get myself on here more than I can write them down when I remember....I'll try to remember a few things


*Her word for all drinks is now "wawa"...sometimes she will say "dink" or "juice"...but it's pretty much always "wawa" even if she really wants milk. *She loves to go to nursery at church and see her friends..."sack" (Zack) and Vivian...that was is to hard so she really doesn't have a name for her yet. *She likes to take my phone and camera and point them at us saying "chee" *She loves to play outside. Now that it is a little warmer she is always asking to go out. *She likes to wear bows in her hair...and earrings on her ears. But, she can't seem to keep the earrings in. After she asks for them and I put them in...she will run off and hide so she can take them out, and then she brings them back to me. Silly girl. *She FINALLY likes to give us kisses. And she likes to give five and knuckles...she has to be even so if someone asks for five she will give everyone in the room five....not as generous with the kisses though. *She is a perfectionist...she cannot handle it if something is out of place unless she is the one that put it there. lol. * She LOVES Minnie Mouse and Elmo!

I have pregnancy brain and that's about all I can think of from last month...hopefully when she turns 20 months I will actually update this while I can remember.

We love you Caroline!

Here are a few pictures...

Her "big girl" bed with Jolina




Playing dress up


At IHOP on Valentines Day


Eating Jello


Yes...she is wearing Minnie mouse underwear over her diaper

Other NM Pics

Caroline had some fun playing Twinkle Twinkle with "Bampa"

Grandpa was able to get Caroline to go to sleep at church...truly amazing...she took him up and down the stairs about 15 x's and then zonked out.

Jarians Baby Blessing

Feb. 20th Kim and Tyler had their baby blessed by my Dad...and James Harper and her bishop also were in the circle. It was great that I could be there for that. :-)

Kim, Tyler and Jarian

Jarian

Cathie, Dad, Kim and Jarian, Tyler, me and Caroline

James, Dad, Kim and Jarian, Tyler, and Bishop

Everyone who was there...