Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Disney pictures and other stuff

Playing around at the hotel

Having lots of fun!

Dinner at Cinderella's - one of the few princesses we ever saw on this trip.

Our annual tradition - wearing pink for a picture at the Pin Store statues. This is the first year she has bypassed Mickey's nose!

A picture to make my mother happy - one night we met EJ and Marjorie and snuggly
new baby Laura for dinner in Orlando.

Those aren't all the pictures of course, but being as we have more than 300, just a few highlights. :) It was tough to return to normal life after vacation - what do you mean I have to cook dinner AGAIN?

Shortly after our return from vacation I had our first teacher conferences at the new school. Both her kindergarten teacher and the first grade teacher (where Caroline goes for reading and math) both said how well she was doing, how easily she makes the transition between the two different classrooms each day, she participates well and often, to the point where the teachers hope she understands that they can't call on her all the time because they have to get the other kids involved too. When I told the kindergarten teacher about how happy we were with the school and more importantly how happy Caroline was at the school, and described some of the problems we had with Montessori she said "wow, it sounds like the Bataan Death March with brightly colored toys!" hahahahaha

So now we are in the big busy (for our family) month of December, just about. Caroline will be having her sixth birthday party at the local paint-your-own pottery place with ten or twelve of her friends. Our Christmas tree is already up and decorated, so now we just have to wrap presents, make some cookies and wait for Santa to arrive!

Thursday, November 01, 2007

Halloween Done Right!

A jack o'lantern quesadilla for Halloween dinner!

All dressed up and ready to go!

Our neighborhood gang ready to go - Lauren the Carebear, Alyssa as Cinderella, Caroline, Sarah and Ellie all as Snow White, and Erin as Ariel. We have no clue why Snow White was such a popular choice this year, it's not like they just re-released the movie or something!

A local house that goes all out in decorating - I told the owner that I didn't know if she remembered us from last year, but that this was the first year that Caroline had ever set foot over the threshold of the garage to see the decorations. Before she would stop at the driveway, cry, and refuse to budge further! (and yes, the little girl who lived at this house and was helping to give out candy was dressed as Snow White too!)

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Can I go as a harried mom for Halloween?

The costume is pretty easy, apparently. It's been consistent madness around here, which is why it's been more than a month since our last update. Caroline went on her first-ever field trip with school, to a local nature center and a pumpkin patch. I think she was more excited about riding on the school bus actually; as we rounded the corner of the driveway to see the huge yellow bus sitting by the side of the building, Caroline let out a squeal usually reserved for meeting a major deity. On top of that I helped orchestrate the kindergarten "Harvest Party" with two other moms - administering a room full of excited kindergarteners on a sugar buzz is like trying to shove an angry octopus into a mesh bag! So of course that means we're also responsible for the Thanksgiving party about a month away....

But, we're also accomplishing lots of other things. We're about to go on our fourth family trip to Disney so have been busy packing and preparing. Caroline's birthday party is scheduled for December 8th at the paint-your-own pottery studio in town. I just bought her beautiful Christmas dress, and scheduled her yearly pictures for after we come back from vacation, so be sure to keep an eye out for the "beautifulest dress ever!" in your Christmas cards this year.

We still have to offload the Harvest Party pictures, so for now you'll have to be content with some pictures from a recent park visit.

Caroline's first experience with marshmellow fluff; it's like kindergartener CRACK! In this 8 oz. mug, she literally had three heaping spoons of Fluff.

At a new park about two blocks from our house.

Hanging WAAAAAAAAAAAY back on the swing.

Let's try out the rock wall too!

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

The REALLY missing tooth....

Caroline lost her first tooth a while ago, and continued to wiggle the remaining lower front tooth that was also loose. That one came out during lunch at school yesterday - which means she likely SWALLOWED it with her raviolis or chocolate chip cookies. When I picked her up from school she was completely inconsolable. Floods of tears. "But how will the Tooth Fairy know that it really happened?" After a quick call to the pediatrician to confirm that there would be no harm done by the tooth taking the wrong path (Dr. L suggested I could prove my parenting mettle by searching for it - no thanks!), we decided to write a note to the Tooth Fairy to explain what happened.

Caroline's note said: "Dear Tooth Fairy - My loose tooth came out yesterday but it's gone because I ate it by mistake. Sorry! Love Caroline"

Tooth Fairy wrote her back in fairy-pink sparkly scrapbooking pen - "Dear Caroline - no problem. Accidents happen! But I'll be back for the next one. Love, T.F."

I just love that our communicative Tooth Fairy is so understanding....

Sunday, September 09, 2007

The Big Milestones Continue...

Caroline had her first visit to the beach at the end of August. After an orientation event at her school, I told her that we were going for an adventure. We were literally crossing the bridge into Ocean City when she said "Wait a minute, are we going to the beach?" And as we pulled up in front of the hotel she said "That guy looks like Pop" - because it was!

Her feet in the Atlantic Ocean for the first time (yes, she got a haircut - she couldn't stand it anymore and told Ms. Venus to cut it to her chin!)

After getting a swimsuit on, she was wave-jumping with Aunt Cathy.

Out on the beach, we had to measure how deep someone's sand hole was.

Riding the rides at Trimper's one evening; an awesome picture because it looks like an Evel Kenievel move!

Saturday, August 18, 2007

All the exciting news

Modeling her school uniforms (although this blouse is only supposed to go under the jumpers, there is a knit shirt with embroidered school logo to go with skirts/pants)

Her blood donation shirt from Pop - it's an adult XL size, so the sleeves come to her wrists and the hem comes almost to her ankles!

The missing tooth! Came out Wednesday night after hanging on for about three weeks.

No training wheels! We haven't practiced in a while, but one day she said she wanted to try again, and as soon as I let go she took off pedaling. She also knows how to brake slowly to a stop and to turn, now we just have to practice getting started on her own.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

A Major Milestone Reached.....

Caroline's first tooth is finally out! The bottom center left tooth been progressively looser and looser for a solid three weeks (that first Sunday C said in a panic "Mom, COME HERE - something is really wrong with my tooth!") Today it was just barely hanging on, and she could push it almost horizontal with her tongue. I gave her both taffy and bubble gum this afternoon trying to help her out, to no avail. But while she was getting ready for bed with James, she came screaming downstairs with the tooth in her hand. Stay tuned for some gap-toothed pictures soon!

Monday, August 06, 2007

Caroline-Speak

I have lots of pictures and stories to share, but being as it's almost bedtime I will drop off two short tidbits of entertaining things Caroline has said lately -

Coversation #1 - you have to understand that Caroline has the same lunch nearly every day; peanut butter and jelly sandwich, fruit, and some type of chip/pretzel/etc. She's long been a fan of cheeseballs, but decided to try something new, so this took place at the grocery store.

Caroline: Mom, I want those things like cheeseballs, but long.
Mom: Okay, you mean Cheetos?
C: No, the long puffy ones. Gram has them at her house.
M: Oh, cheese curls. But did you know when I was little Gram and I used to call them something else?
C: Yeah, Gram told me it - they're cheese noodles!

hahahahahahaha (okay, maybe this is only funny to me and my mom....)


Conversation #2 - tonight Caroline was playing a game on the computer, and part of it involved answering some "general knowledge" type trivia questions. She was working on the geography portion.

Computer Question: What is more than 200 miles long and over 6000 feet deep in some places?
Caroline clicks away - "The Grand Crayon? What the heck is that?"

hahahahahahaha James and I nearly hurt ourselves laughing!

Friday, July 20, 2007

More summer activities....

I won't even bother to apologize for the length of time since my last post because, well, most of you faithful readers have had little kids before, and if it not you've at least read enough about Caroline and the things she does to know that Mommy doesn't have a bunch of time sitting around the computer to leap through the hoops Blogger requires to make a new post. You'll see lots more of us once school starts

Caroline's favorite activity is her weekly gymnastics class, which might be the best $80 we've spent. EVER. She is also taking dance class at the same place for a summer session, which is six weeks. She is particularly thrilled that Miss Laurie was willing to run a tap class for JUST Caroline so "it's just me and Miss Laurie and nobody else!"

Earlier this week we went to the Reese carnival. Unlike some areas, the counties here don't hold individual fairs, but the various town volunteer fire departments host carnivals throughout the summer, and then there is the State Fair at the end of August. But our evening consisted of lots of rides, a big fat funnel cake with powdered sugar, trying our darndest to win a fish, getting beaten and bruised on the Scrambler that is Caroline's new favorite ride, and more rides until we were ridiculously late getting home. Caroline slept until 9:30am the next day!

We've also been involved in getting ready for Caroline's debut at "big girl school". She is very excited to go and regularly checks her calendar to see how many weeks are left until school starts. It's nice that she has this enthusiasm now, because I know in a few years it will be checking the calendar to stretch out whatever remaining time is left. hahahaha She picked out her first "real" backpack, we've visited the school a few times to drop of various forms and checks, and all we really have left to do is buy school supplies and her uniforms. Being as this will be her first year of all-day school, I am giddy at the idea of all the free time I will have!

Strawberry picking at Baugher's - while Caroline loved the idea, she HATED digging around in the bushes and would only pick the berries in plain sight right along the edges.

Garage monkey - helping Daddy sweep out and neaten the garage

My new favorite picture. Does anyone else see the 17-year old heading out for a date here?

One day we were feeling creative and made "burgers" out of Peppermint Patties, Nilla Wafers and colored icing. Caroline thought I was Martha Stewart arrived on Bancroft Street when I explained this idea to her!

Her first day of gymnastics class. She said "I don't know what they're going to teach us Mom, but I just want to learn to do a handstand."

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Long Time, No Update....

and that's because the madness that is summer vacation has been sucking up all the blog-time. We've been swimming, we've been playing with friends, we've had birthday parties out the wazoo.

But at least I can finally arrive with some pictures from Caroline's ballet/tap recital from early June! (although I have to apologize for the quality - with how dark the auditorium was and the stage was so brightly lit, the pictures are pretty dim) The recital hit at just the right time, I think all the girls were suffering some burn out from dance classes for so long and then that last week was all rehearsals and pictures and more rehearsals and costume fittings, etc.

She had a little attack of nerves when we first arrived, but calmed down when her friend Paige arrived and held her hand and got her to come watch a movie. Caroline went on to dance like a champ and said that she loves dance class and wants to do it forever!


Caroline in the center - everyone struggling to remember what to do!

Caroline on the left; skippedy-skippedy-skip!


Right in the center of the final pose

Tap dance "Chattanooga Choo-Choo" - all the parents were so annoyed at these black boxes. They didn't look like a train at all, and with the black background curtain made it nearly impossible to see them.

The final curtain call

Friday, May 25, 2007

Eat your heart out, Donald Trump...

because Caroline has better media coverage! At the ripe old age of 5 1/2, she's already been on television and now she's been in the newspaper. A few weeks ago we visited the Towson Town Festival, a local street-fair type of thing with lots of crafts and plants for sale, free samples, etc. They had a nice area set up for kids with pony rides, moon bounce, obstacle course - and a woman from the Towson newspaper took Caroline's picture on the giant slide and asked for her name and age. Since we have connections "on the inside" (Cathy works for the Sunpaper, who owns that Towson newspaper), we got a bunch of copies of "Caroline May, 5, of Taneytown, enjoying the inflatable slide"

Another highlight of the day was "crazy hair" - they had a booth with a hairdresser who would do your up into a quick style, and then spray it whatever color you wanted. Caroline got hers done, and literally HUNDREDS of people commented on how cool it looked. Thankfully they were honest when they said the color would come out with shampoo, but the 2.7 cans of hairspray they used for the style made it rather knotty to comb out.

First they started out with an undercoat of white, so that her own haircolor didn't show through.



Here she is, Rocker Girl!

Showing all the colors - pink, green, orange, purple on the bun on top, all covered with glitter

Friday, May 11, 2007

The biggest number

Caroline came home from school yesterday and said "Mommy, I learned the biggest number you could possibly count to!"

Mommy: "Okay, what is it?"
C: "If you counted forever, it would be infidiby!"

To infidiby and beyond! heeheeheehee

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

An unbelievable thing....

Caroline and Daddy dyed Easter eggs (Mommy got to sleep in!)

MMmmmm, the breakfast of champions


Playing t-ball in the back yard.

Hi everybody!

(beepbeebeebeepbeebeebee) Mr. and Mrs. America, and all the ships at sea - we have an URGENT news flash! Caroline made the incredibly grown-up decision this week that it was time to put Hammie away. After nearly five years, Hammie's fabric has grown so thin that my sewing him only created more holes than it repaired. He was losing more and more of the plastic balls that made up his beanbag body, and we were finding them in her bed, on the carpet, down the stairs, etc. She said that she was okay if we put him away to save him to show her babies when she's a grown up. So I found a clear plastic box (one of the ones you use to display collectible things), and she made a label that says "Hammie the Pig July 4, 2002-May 7, 2007 Caroline, age 5" Now Hammie in his box resides on her bookshelf next to her bed where she says that he can still see her while she sleeps, and she thinks he looks happy in there. Admittedly this is not an entirely huge thing, considering that we have another identical Hammie that she says she is ready to use, but being as we've been trying to get her to accept the new Hammie for YEARS and she wouldn't, we thought this was an important step.

Monday, April 23, 2007

She's famous!

Caroline was on the 5pm news tonight! We were at the city park near her school this afternoon taking advantage of the nice weather, and a truck from Channel 2 pulled up. The camera guy said he wanted to get some shots of kids enjoying the nice weather, and got shots of Caroline and another little boy on the bouncy seesaw. It showed up on the 5pm news as the lead-in to the weather segment! We had to watch it about nine times between 5pm and her bedtime at 7:30. Every time she watched she said, "I was on the news - I'm FAMOUS!"

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Revelations from a 5-year old

A recent conversation:

Mommy: I think I'm going to cut some of our daffodils to put on the table.
Caroline: Good idea. Put them in a vase. (pronunciation: "vaaaahs")
M: A what? I haven't heard you say that before.
C: A vaaaahs. You know, it's glass, with water in it!
M: Okay, gotcha....

Guess I'll have to explain to her that that pronunciation only applies if said vase cost more than $50!


A stunning event happened today, that I thought may never occur - Caroline actually did and undid some buttons! She's never been much for the fine-motor skill things, and the pediatrician said that was okay because her brain is moving so much faster on the reading and verbal stuff so she'd get it eventually. But it was really impressive to see it actually happen!

The most important thoughts of the day:

GET WELL SOON, GRAM!

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Spring is here!

Spring has arrived in Taneytown, which leads to lots of time playing outside and not much time for updating our humble little blog. My earlier prediction proved out correctly today - two days before the end of the month, we received notice that Caroline is accepted to our first choice school for kindergarten, and they would like to do additional testing because they think she is ready for first grade reading and math! I honestly believe that educationally she would have been quite ready for kindergarten this year, but did not pursue it because I think she would have been emotionally unprepared. On top of which, I recently spoke to a friend who tried to have her child skipped through kindergarten last year, and the test required involves telling time based on a picture of the location of the sun! Heck, I'm 34 years old and could barely manage it (other than high noon - I'm quite sure I could figure that out!), why would they expect that of a kindergartener?!?!


What - you DON'T wear shamrock sunglasses with your nightgown?

Modeling her curlers one night.


Parent Photo Day at school, where we can go in and take pics of the kids in action. This picture shows why we get reports about not concentrating on her work! (while it looks like they were having fun, Caroline said that Madeline was telling her about her dog that died and how she might just get a hamster instead. hahahaha)

Spencer, our future son-in-law. When we have lunch with Spencer and his mother, he tells Caroline to get under the table so he can give her a kiss, and he bought her a light-up rose from a performance of Beauty and the Beast with his own money! Ah, young love....

Monday, March 12, 2007

Another busy month blows by...

Where has the time gone? We went from talking about Caroline's new earrings to it being almost time for her to be able to change them. It's been a month occupied by random snow, plowed-in cars (five days! I was going to lose my MIND!), little kid birthday parties, Disney on Ice, a visit to the circus and Kindergarten applications. The latter certainly required a huge amount of stress; up until this point any decisions we made that went bad could be rectified pretty easily. But the idea of deciding schooling personally freaked me out, just in the idea that if it went badly it could color her views of school forever and make my otherwise brilliant kid hate something she should excell at. Paranoid much? Hahaha But she did very well at the "kindergarten testing" at one school, and the testing at our first-choice school happens later this week, so hopefully we could have the whole planning issue all wrapped up by the end of the month.

As the end of the school year approaches, I think we've decided that she won't be doing summer camp this year like she has the past two summers. The YMCA recently changed their camp structure so that the one Caroline would attend (based on age) would be an all day program, thus considerably more expensive. And with the idea of her starting full-day school in the fall, a "last hurrah" summer of fun and relaxation and spending lots of time at the pool sounded like the perfect thing. Remind me of that decision when I'm ready to run away from home in mid-July or something....


Caroline in her Valentine's Day outfit

Since we were snowed in, we decided to make cookies.


Snow in early March - the tree is finally starting to outpace Caroline, growth-wise!

I didn't realize the porch light was out until I viewed this picture on the computer....

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

She DID IT!

As you can see below, Caroline managed to psych herself up and went ahead with getting her ears pierced! I was so proud of how brave she was - I was holding her hands in case of flinching, and I told her to keep her eyes right on me while they were doing it. I had told her that by the time she heard the noise of the piercing guns, that would mean it was already over. So they marked her ears, she looked right in my eyes and after it was done all she had to say was "wow, that was a pinch!" She spent the remainder of the weekend happier than a clam and every other sentence out of her mouth was about her earrings. So now we're eagerly marking off days on the calendar until mid-March, when she can remove the piercing studs and have more variety. If I had known it was going to be this easy I would have whisked her there the first time she mentioned wanting it done!



So pleased with herself she was barely tolerable!

Look at my cute pink sparkly earrings!

Caroline wanted to take a picture of her satin pajamas, and this is what we ended up with!

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Oh, the pressure....

Peer pressure, that is. Caroline has been talking for a while now about getting her ears pierced, but couldn't quite psych herself up to do it. Until last night, that is, when she realized at dance class that her friend Sarah had gotten her ears pierced! So of course if Sarah's going to do something Caroline has to do it too (wait, maybe that's a bad thing in 10 years or so....), and now she wants to get her ears pierced this weekend. So stay tuned to this space for further updates or pictures of the completed deed!
From the recent snow - barely enough to make a footprint, but all the kids were outside playing!

Caroline and Sarah being pulled on a sled, attached to Sarah's Barbie Jeep driven by one of the other neighborhood kids! (ah, the memories of the dangerous stuff that nearly killed us when we were kids...)


Testing out some fingerpaints that a neighbor gave her.


Laughing at my reaction when she said "Daddy would have a fit about this being messy, wouldn't he?" I said yes, that's why we do it when he's at work! hahahaha