Important news!!!

Yes, pictures are coming, but we had important developmental details!   After many many MANY months of frustration, Caroline finally learned to tie her shoes!  She had all the steps down for the longest time, but when it came time to wrap the strand around the first loop, she would grab the wrong part to pull through the hole and it would all collapse.  Tuesday she practiced and practiced on the shorts she wore to gymnastics, until about 4pm she screamed "I DID IT!!!!"  So I told her all about Pop teaching me to tie my shoes and how I struggled with it all through kindergarten and first grade, and that one of my earliest school-related memories was sitting in first grade with my foot up on my chair to practice and just looking in amazement when I realized that I had done it.    On Wednesday we went to the movies and both wore tennis shoes, and Caroline tied all four shoes.  :-D

Can you IMAGINE what the rest of the summer would have been like?

Now that Caroline has finally figured out how to start her bike on her own, a majority of our time is spent in the front street riding her bike back and forth, going up and down the curbs, etc.  Yesterday Caroline and her friend Sarah had been outside riding for hours - everyone was hot and sweaty and patience was low.  Two kids that we didn't even recognize showed up riding their bikes.  The little boy decided to antagonize Caroline and Sarah by riding right next to them, following too closely, etc.   Caroline said something snotty to him (yes, yes, I know, we're working on it....) and he decided to punish her by crashing into the back of her bike.   She panicked and let go, and her bike fell with her leg underneath it.   By the time I got her up from the bike and hauled her and the bike back to the house, I was starting to believe that her left leg was broken somewhere between the knee and ankle.  She screamed every time I touched the spot and could barely bear weight on it.  James and I had one of those married-people-silent-conversations-with-your-eyes about whether to take her to the hospital or not, but after getting her into a cool bath to calm down and relax she was walking just fine and didn't even mention it again.  The visions of the rest of the summer in a leg cast were frightening to say the least, and that was only to ME - I don't think she even thought that far!   So I'll be keeping an eye out for that little fiend....

For being such a girly-girl, Caroline is surprisingly unafraid of crawly things.  Although she did ask repeatedly "Is this a biting caterpillar?"

Caroline filled an entire box herself when we went strawberry picking!

Caroline and her friend Maddie sitting in dinosaur footprints at the Science Center.

Look at the cute little dinosaur babies!

And now it's July...

The problem with the new computer is that it's a complete dog-and-pony show to upload new photos, or that photos James uploads aren't available to me, so it's been complicated to find the time to jump through the necessary hoops to get the photos.  I'd take a PC back any day, but it will be a few years before we get another computer.

But here we are anyway!  Since the end of school we've been to pool parties and birthday parties, strawberry picking, bike riding and rollerskating.   Caroline lost her top left tooth, which was an event of epic proportions for the carrying on and shrieking.  Talk about Drama Queen!  She takes gymnastics on Tuesday mornings and has been perfecting her cartwheels and roundoffs.  Wednesdays we go to the free movies at the mall.  And she still has asked countless times, "I'm bored, when does school start again?"   62 days left...

Singing the class' favorite song "King of the Jungle" at graduation.

Mr. Jones the principal, Caroline, and Mrs.  Shrader at graduation.

Riding Smokey the horse at her pal Caden's birthday party.

Strawberry picking - a rare picture with Mommy

On the bed of nails at the Science Center - when she got up she said "look at my back, is it bleeding?"

Modeling her new bathing suit while playing in the sprinkler.