Happy Birthday Caroline!!!

We had an amazing time at Caroline's first birthday party on Saturday!!! Caroline was a trooper and really enjoyed her first taste of cake. The lime green icing was all over the place and made for some great pictures. The weather was 84 degrees and just cloudy enough. We had a bouncy castle for the older kids and a sandbox for the little ones. It was such a fun day!!!
Here are some pics:

Christmas Photo Shoot

My friend Elle and her little boy Hunter (1 month older than Caroline) came over today for a fun Christmas photo shoot :) Here are some favorites:

Pigtails & Personality

With her 1st birthday approaching this week, Caroline's personality is coming through more and more :) Here's her latest "trick"... feeding Casey his dog food by hand :)






Our mullet dilemma is solved! Pigtails!!!!

Caroline's also found out how to climb through our kitchen cabinets:

Thanksgiving!!!

We had a great visit in Little Rock for Thanksgiving! On the way back, we stopped in Dallas for a wedding and to see family! Here are some pics from the trip:
Playing in the leaves with cousins Cameron & Ashlyn! Our first Thankgsiving meal together... Caroline ate as much as we did!!!
Mimi, Anne, Mandy and the girls:
Caroline got to spend a whole day with Aunt Mary & Uncle Kim-- she had a blast with them!!!
Jeff was the guest preacher at Allen Bible Church--we were so glad to be there!!! Here he is with Mike & Buddy:

An incredible week!

We just got back from our week-long trip to North Carolina! It was one of my favorite vacations ever!!! We got to see some of my dear friends and spend the weekend at a beautiful family camp in the mountains. The camp completely exceeded my expectations! Not only did we enjoy fellowship with friends, we were completely refreshed spiritually. Jeff and I didn't know how much we needed this. The staff led us in worship, encouraged our marriages and walks with the Lord, and babysat our kids during the sessions so we could really engage with the message. I am looking forward to going back year after year. Here are some of our pics-- I took over 300 this week! North Carolina is so beautiful!!!
Holly Leider Parker-- one of my friends from my Camp Ozark days!!!!

We visited Betsy Swoboda and her amazing family in Knoxville-- here are the girls: Mandy, Caroline, Bessie Mae, Maggie, Lily, and Betsy

The whole gang-- the Fritsche's and the Swobodas!

An unexpected surprise-- we got to visit Pepaw and Dee during our layover in Chicago!!!!

Biltmore Mansion-- incredible!

Our reunion group: the Clark's, Fritsche's, Corson's, Michaud's, and Svejda's

Happy Halloween!!!

What a Halloween!!! Caroline joined her good friend Hunter for a photo shoot with him in their costumes! Then we went to visit some neighborhood friends, and finally off to the church Fall Festival! What a fun first Halloween we had!!!

Pumpkin Patch!

Happy 30th Bday Daddy!

We had Jeff's birthday party at Ski Shores on September 14th-- it was so much fun!! Caroline went on her first boat ride and seemed to enjoy it! We celebrated Jeff's actual birthday at Taylor & Gayle Clark's lake house-- it was such a nice vacation for us!! Enjoy the pics :)

Caroline loves to dance

9 month check up

So we got to visit our favorite pediatrician in the world, Dr. Hargrave, last week for Caroline's 9 month check-up. Okay, so we're a few weeks late. She weighs in at a whopping 18 lbs and 13 oz, and 27 inches in length. Right at 50 percentile. She had to have a little heel prick and blood test, and one shot. Oh, these are getting harder as she's more aware of what's happening.
After her appointment, we took Casey to our friend Trent's house, then loaded up the car and headed down to our 4th Impact retreat with FEFC. I love going to retreat, but was a little skeptical at how much I would be able to participate with Caroline in tow. She did great! She actually dropped her 3rd nap this weekend, which caused her to take 2 long naps per day. My monitor reached into the main meeting room, so I could put her down for her naps and then go to the sessions-- barely missed a thing. We had a fabulous speaker-- Gideon Tsang-- who I learned so much from. We are hoping to hang out with he and his family soon, as they live in Austin and he pastors a church here.
So we're now back in Austin for a while-- I say this because we've gone on 3 trips in the last 2 weeks.... all fun stuff but it's nice to unpack our bags and the Pack'n Play for a while!!!

We always have a lot of fun with Caroline around, and it's also great to share her with others-- she has a way of brightening any room with her sweet smiles and giggles. She has become INTENT on making friends with everyone she sees, and this plays itself out the most when we are at restaurants. She will stare and smile at anyone around us until they look at her and smile back. It's really funny to watch-- it doesn't matter if it's across the room or at the table beside us. Last night Jeff and I went to Cypress Grill for dinner, and our table was clear across the restaurant from the bar. But Jeff saw Caroline smiling at someone and when he looked to see who it was, it was the bartender. The bartender even came over to our table to visit Caroline. She is definitely an extrovert at this point in her life.... hmmmm.... wonder where that comes from???
During the last week, Caroline has gotten to spend a lot of fun time with Mimi, Aunt Anne, Grammy and Ron, and Aunt Mary & Uncle Kim. Oh how she loves the "special people" in her life-- she recognizes her family and is really bonding with them. Here are a few pics from this week. Enjoy :)

Such a big girl!

We have a little crawler on our hands now. She started a few weeks ago and now is really an expert. She also has a fetish for these Fisher Price blocks (really old school ones) and likes to have one in her hand at all times. Well today one of those blocks was under our kitchen table and she navigated through chair legs and table legs to get to it. Such a good crawler :) (such a proud mom too!)
Another new thing this week-- she's pulled up to standing on her own. I went in to get her up yesterday morning and found her at eye level with me-- standing up in her crib holding the top rail. Good thing we lowered the crib last week!!!
Between crawling and finger foods, pulling up and playing peekaboo, we certainly feel like Caroline is growing and learning so fast. Where is our tiny newborn baby? Time is flying and I just want to slow things down and savor these sweet times with her.

Caroline has a knack for making friends with everybody... she will smile at you, lean her head to the side and give you sweet eyes, reach for you.... just about anything to win you over. So everyone comments on what a happy and sweet baby she is, and she is.... most of the time. But there are some things that really get her diaper in a wad...such as:
1. Riding in her carseat. Sometimes I can distract her with a new toy and she won't mind getting strapped into her seat as much, but usually after about 5 minutes in her seat, she starts screaming her head off. I think she fears that we're driving to Dallas again.. how can I help her understand that we're in the HEB parking lot 3 minutes from our house?!??!
2. Getting her diaper changed.... again, another non-optional frequent activity in her life like the aforementioned carseat. She just doesn't like it and squirms every which way in order to avoid being re-diapered. I'm getting good at putting them on backwards while she's on her tummy.
3. Getting a booger picked out of her nose.... I know, I wouldn't like that either. For this one, she doesn't scream, but rather has some sweet defense moves. It's pretty impressive!
4. Occasionally, she really gets upset when there's a loud noise. Sometimes that loud noise is me on the phone, and I'm learning to tone it down a little ;)

Busy month so far....

Well, it's been a busy month so far! We went to Galveston for vacation, then did 4 weddings in 2 weekends (June 2nd and 9th), and then today we had Caroline's baby dedication at church. Lots of excitement, and it doesn't end there :) We had visits from Mimi, Grammy, Papa, Nannie, Daniel, Matthew, Aunt Anne, Uncle Jeff, Cameron and Ashlyn today for the dedication! On Tuesday, C and I will fly to Little Rock for a couple of days, and then on Friday, my two best girl-friends from college are coming for a visit!!! YAY!!! The next weekend is our 5 year anniversary, and we're going to Dallas for a special wedding and we'll celebrate our anniversary by staying at the Melrose Hotel-- the same hotel we stayed in on our wedding night!

Caroline has started doing a few fun new things this week-- playing patty-cake, babbling up a storm (there are lots of "da-das" but no "ma-mas" yet), and playing "ride a little horsy" by bouncing up and down herself!!! It's been a fun time-- watching her personality come out more and more as she expresses herself!

Here are some recent pics to share: