1.31.2011
1.30.2011
Here's a brain dump about baby #2...
1) We decided on a name! Caroline Grace Carlson will be named after two of her great grandmothers. Caroline was my dad's mom who passed away several years before I was born. I have always wanted to name a girl Caroline after her. Grace is Nick's maternal grandmother. She's such a sweet and loving lady who always has a smile on her face. How lucky this baby girl will be to have a piece of both sides of her family in her name.
2) She is going to have Kate's nursery, and Kate will move next door into the room with the antique furniture that was in my room growing up. We ordered another crib to match the dark wood in that room, and it should be here in just a few weeks. We'll take down the double bed and maybe put in a twin bed that goes well with the set. I think it would be nice to have a bed in there still, and the room is big enough to accommodate one (I think). Kate's bedding will go with her, and I've ordered this bedding from Pottery Barn Kids for Caroline...
3) Speaking of Pottery Barn Kids, Caroline already has her own Anywhere Chair like Kate's. When I ordered Kate's at Christmas, I had to call about 6 times to get the order straightened out. I'll spare you all the details, but I ended up with an extra set of the insert pillows and a $50 merchandise card as a "we're sorry" gift that I used to buy the slipcover. SO, I got Caroline's chair for free! Gotta love that.
4) I started organizing all of Kate's clothes she's outgrown. Unfortunately, Caroline will be born at the beginning of summer, while Kate was born in the winter. I hope there will be some overlap with the clothes we have, but all the cute summer things we had for Kate will for sure be too big for Caroline. Also, Kate was quite the spitter-upper, and there are lots of stains on the newborn clothes. They seem to have darkened and multiplied during the time in storage. Yuck. I'll have to see how some bleach and/or Oxi-Clean help. Poor Caroline... the hand-me-downing begins. :)
5) The C-section date is May 31, which is only four days from my due date. She could decide to come sooner, but we will have a May baby! I'll deliver at Baylor Frisco this time, since my doctor now steers patients away from Centennial Medical Center (where I delivered Kate). Our stay there was fine, but if your doctor says she'd rather not work with them, you listen! I look forward to taking a tour of the other hospital. It looks beautiful!
6) We're really excited that our girls will be so close in age. I'm sure that it will be difficult the first couple of years, but I look forward to them playing together and becoming best friends. Some days I get really nervous, though. Like today when we took Kate to the nursery and we were paged 10 minutes after we dropped her off because she was screaming, and they couldn't calm her down. I think, "We have a baby. What were we thinking?" But I know God has given me all the strength I'll ever need as I depend on Jesus to parent through me. Please help me remember this when Caroline comes! I'm sure I'll need the encouragement.
7) Caroline kicks all the time. I look forward to when it's a whole leg or arm moving across my entire belly. What a fun feeling that is. At 22 weeks plus, she's probably about a foot long and weighs about a pound. I go to the doctor again this week. Won't be long, and I'll be going to the doctor every 2 weeks again. Didn't I just do this? (Don't answer that.)
8) We "test drove" a few double strollers. We really like the Baby Jogger brand. We want something that will accommodate a car seat, and these both do. The City Mini is a double wide stroller and folds very easily. The City Select is more versatile. You can use it as a single stroller or a double with a wide variety of seating options. They could face each other or not, depending on how friendly they're feeling! There's lots of storage room below. To fold it, you have to take off one of the seats then fold it. I'm sure I'd get used to it really fast. Thoughts??
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| City Mini Double |
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| City Select |
9) We already bought a new baby monitor, and we'll need an additional camera, too. Our first one was almost shot. I bought this new one to try, and although I love it, the lowest volume setting isn't low enough for me at night. I'm a very light sleeper, and I don't want to wake up every time Kate whimpers as she rolls over in her sleep. I love all the other settings about it, though. Not sure what I'm going to do about it yet. Maybe I'll buy another one to try out. Again, if you have suggestions, let me know. Monitors are so frustrating to buy; none is perfect, and they're so expensive.
10) Being type-A, I have to make my list an even 10! I would like for Caroline to have a nickname. I like Callie; Nick doesn't. The dog next door is Callie, and he says there are a couple other dog Callies he knows, so he says it's a dog's name. He prefers C.C. Um, VETO. I really like Callie, and I can't think of a cuter nickname for Caroline. We're open to suggestions!
1.29.2011
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| Kate LOVED this cart at Whole Foods Market today. We bought several soy and dairy free products for her. Of course, we ended up getting a few other fun things for us, too! Wish we could visit this place more often, but it's just too expensive. We spent over $100 for just 3 paper bags full of groceries. Crazy. It'll take self-control to buy Kate basics only. We enjoyed lunch on their patio outside. It was an amazingly gorgeous day today, and it was so nice to enjoy being together as a family now that Nick's home! |
1.28.2011
1.27.2011
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| Kate and I met my friend Ashley and her girls at the mall today. It was so fun to hang out with them! Kate enjoyed the kids' play area. She was running all over the place and making new friends. She liked exiting the play area, too (while Mommy quickly chased her down). She wanted to go shop! This little girl was pooped by the time we headed home. |
1.26.2011
1.25.2011
Scaredy Squirrel by Melanie Watt
Look what arrived today from Amazon!
Do you know Scaredy Squirrel? This is the brand-new, fifth book in the series, and it doesn't disappoint! Scaredy is a worrywart, so he plans for every possible scenario in potentially risky situations. The books are filled with Scaredy's preparation diagrams, lists, tables, and graphs. It's really more for kids 1st grade and up; the humor will be lost on younger kids. And humorous it is! For instance, item F on Scaredy's to-do list is to "practice breathing (to blow up balloons/blow out candles)." Then among the items in his party planning folder is a line graph showing his breathing practice progress. Of course, things never go according to plan, but they always have a way of working out.
Do you know Scaredy Squirrel? This is the brand-new, fifth book in the series, and it doesn't disappoint! Scaredy is a worrywart, so he plans for every possible scenario in potentially risky situations. The books are filled with Scaredy's preparation diagrams, lists, tables, and graphs. It's really more for kids 1st grade and up; the humor will be lost on younger kids. And humorous it is! For instance, item F on Scaredy's to-do list is to "practice breathing (to blow up balloons/blow out candles)." Then among the items in his party planning folder is a line graph showing his breathing practice progress. Of course, things never go according to plan, but they always have a way of working out.
Melanie Watt writes other books, too. She has another series about Chester, a cat who wants to take over as author and illustrator of Melanie's books. Each of them tries to take the upper hand in the storytelling process, and Melanie always ends up putting Chester in his place.
I can't believe I haven't shared about Melanie Watt's books here before. Check them out - you're sure to love them!
I can't believe I haven't shared about Melanie Watt's books here before. Check them out - you're sure to love them!
1.24.2011
1.23.2011
I'm finally posting pics from Kate's first birthday party. We did a "sweet shoppe" theme with pinks and whites. It was a lot of fun to plan! Thank you to all of our family and friends who came to celebrate a year of Kate.
As you'll see in the pictures, Kate was very chill. It was strange to me to see her so still. You could tell she was just soaking in all the chaos around her! When it came to her cake, she daintily picked at the icing. I ended up having to spoon some of the actual cake into her mouth! She enjoyed it but never dove into it. Then again, it was vegan, so maybe it didn't taste all that great.
This Flickr set has way more pics than I'm sure you want to see, so flip through them quickly! :) Click the play button in the middle, and click the icon in the bottom right corner if you want to make it full screen.
This Flickr set has way more pics than I'm sure you want to see, so flip through them quickly! :) Click the play button in the middle, and click the icon in the bottom right corner if you want to make it full screen.
The invitation:
And check out this adorable plate that Kate's Aunt Mindy painted for her (based on the invitation). We'll pull it out every year for Kate's special day!
Credit for a few of the main vendors I used:
The invitation
{Etsy: Roxter Designs}
The banner
{Etsy: A Little Lollipop Tree}
The treat bag tags
{Etsy: chickabug}
Kate's dress
1.22.2011
1.20.2011
1.19.2011
1.18.2011
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| Blurry, but funny. Kate had her 12 mo. appointment today, and this is her "reading" while waiting for the doctor. Reading/ripping; potAYto/potAHto. Official 1 year stats: weight: 21 lbs 14 oz (50-75 percentile) height: 30.3" (90-95%) head: 17.5" (50%) Allergy panel lab work scheduled for Thursday, results back in another week. Praying that she's outgrown the milk protein allergy! |
1.13.2011
Dear Kate,
Happy birthday, little one! In some ways this day feels like it has come so fast, and in others it feels like it's been forever ago that I spent that long day in the hospital waiting for you to arrive... forever ago that you were that tiny baby. You're such a big girl now! You've been growing like crazy and developing many new skills over the past month. Here are some updates about you, Miss Kate:* You love to dance! Almost anytime you hear music playing, you start wiggling and bouncing to the beat. It makes Mommy laugh! You also understand the word "dance." In your bath last night I was telling Daddy how cute you were when you were dancing, and when you heard me say that, you started to bounce up and down in your bath tub!
* Here's what you're eating: turkey pieces, pasta pieces, Cheerios, puffs, banana chunks, and tortilla. Yea for more textures! We've cut you back to 3 bottles per day, and we try to load you up on solids at mealtimes. We go to the doctor next week, so we'll see what he says about testing you for allergies. We have to keep off anything dairy in the meantime! You're getting better at using a sippy cup, although you really like it better when Mama holds the cup for you. You've never been one to hold your own bottle, either. You're a big girl now, though, and that's gonna have to change!
* You started waving this past month. You love waving to Kirby, especially. The other day I said, "Say 'hi' to Kirby," and you started waving to her. I think you're getting it!
* At the beginning of your 12th month, you started to think copy-cat games were fun! You would shake your head back and forth, then we would, then you would again. You change the game up sometimes (like making a stink-eye face back and forth), but you think it's funny when you can get us to copy you.
* You LOVE your blankie. We usually keep it for crib use only, but sometimes it makes it downstairs with you. When you're tired, you snuggle up with it, and it really puts you to sleep. The other day, you started playing peek-a-boo with it. That was a first - you had never done the peek-a-booing before!
* This has been a tough month for teething. You have at least 2 more teeth coming in up top, possibly more. It's hard to get a good look up there! The top left front tooth is poking through, as well as the tooth to the right of your right top front tooth. (These are teeth numbers 5 and 6.) It looks like more are close to come.
* You're already reading! Well, you love looking at books and being read to anyway. :) You don't sit still for much of anything, even playing with your toys, but you will sit for a few minutes turning all the pages of your board books. Your favorite books are your touch and feel books by Little Scholastic. The one about farm animals and the counting book are your faves. And I may be seeing more to this than there is, but it even seems like you know when you accidentally skip a page in your numbers book. I think you know the order of those pages!
* I'm not sure I've ever mentioned this before, but whenever you really get tickled about something and are laughing hard, you ALWAYS get the hiccups, too. I'm not sure if every baby does this, but I think it's funny. Long after your giggles are gone, the hiccups remain!
* This one makes your Mama sad. You're getting way too independent. You've never been big on snuggling, but you don't like being held at all much now. I take advantage of your early morning sleepiness, and I hold you for your bottle for a few minutes. And either Daddy or I hold you and rock you before bed. Sometimes even then, you immediately squirm and kick out of my grasp, and I have to put you in bed. You don't even really like me to hold you when you've hurt yourself and are crying! I savor the moments when you sit in my lap to read a book or when you're super tired before bedtime, and I watch your eyes roll around as you give into sleep.
* You can kick a ball! I think this is pretty incredible, actually. You line yourself up, and you always kick with your left foot. You follow the ball, and kick it again! Kirby gets into it too, although she ends up picking up the ball with her mouth, abruptly ending the game. You even understand when I say "Kick the ball." Here's a picture and a quick video clip:
* Although you're still not saying any words yet (that I can tell), you understand a lot! The other day you dropped your blankie, and it was in the hall behind you. I said, "Where's your blankie?" and you turned around, found it, picked it up, and came back. Wow! I think you know the word "baby" for your new doll, "kick the ball," "wave" or "hi," and "dance." I know you understand so much more, but these are the ones I'm sure of.
We can't believe that one year ago today, you made your entrance into this world. We thank God for the blessing He gave us in YOU!
We love you, Birthday Girl!
Mama and Daddy
Stats...
Weight: about 22 pounds
Length: 30 inches
Clothes: 12-18 months
Diaper size: 4
Sleep: 6:45pm - 7am
Diaper size: 4
Sleep: 6:45pm - 7am
Naps: 9:30-10:30/11am and 1:30-2:30/3pm
Here is your monthly elephant shot. You actually held still for a couple of them since you had your balloon with you!
And let's take a look at the progression from the year:
1.12.2011
1.11.2011
1.10.2011
1.09.2011
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