Oh the Places You'll Go!

We spent this past weekend in Spartanburg, SC celebrating Luke's sister Allison's graduation from Wofford College!  Hard to believe that the little sister I met when she was in 8th grade is now a college graduate!  We are so proud of her and had a great time celebrating her achievement.  Here are some pictures of the occasion.

Allison recessing with her class...she's the excited one on the right.  This was her face when she caught sight of her cute little niece saying "Yay, Aunt Allison!"

 

After the baccalaureate ceremony on Saturday

And pictures with the official graduate after the ceremony on Sunday!

 

And because she's just too cute, here are a couple pictures we took of Caroline out on the lawn.  We tried to get some with Anna Kate too, but she was too busy running and getting her dress all dirty!

 

 

Congratulations, Allison!

7 months old!

Sweet baby Caroline, you are seven months old today!  I can't believe how quickly you are growing up right before our eyes. 

~ You are not quite crawling yet, but you sure are rolling and spinning and scooting to get to where you want to be!
~ You have perfected your sitting skills this month!  You love to sit and play with your toys and will do it quite contentedly for long little stretches of time.  We still put a pillow or two around you in case you forget and flop over, but that is happening much less often now!
~ You have a few new favorite toys this month - your mirror (you love giving yourself big slobbery kisses in it!) and your big triangular prism thing with lots of things to bat at and play with.  Any time you fuss, your sister asks, "Do you want your big triangle, baby Caroline?" And then she brings it to you and you quiet right down!
~ Speaking of toys, you have started to get really upset when you drop one and can't reach it, or when Mommy takes something away that you are not supposed to have (e.g. the remote, a cell phone, etc.).  Up until a week or two ago, we could just quickly substitute something else and you would hardly notice.  Not anymore!  You know exactly what you want!
~ You are still our little snuggler who loves to be worn on Mommy or Daddy.  Your favorites now are the sling on Mommy and the Ergo on Daddy or Mommy.  Sometimes that's where you will take your little third nap of the day (late afternoon/dinnertime)!
~ I thought you might be starting to sleep a little bit better last month, but no, you are still in the running for the title of worst sleeper on the planet (haha!).  You usually wake up about every 2 hours.  Only occasionally are you difficult to get back to sleep, normally just a quick little nursing, but no long stretches of sleep yet.  Someday!
~ You definitely went through a growth spurt this month!  At 6 months you weighed 16.5 lbs and now you weigh 18 lbs. even!  In fact, I just got out some 9 month clothes for you last week and now today I had to pull out the 12 month ones!
~ Your first two teeth came in this month!  The two little front bottom ones are now all the way through and visible when you give us your sweet smile!  I think the two on either side of those are getting ready to poke through as well.
~ You have a few new favorite games to play this month.  You love peekaboo and are starting to do it on your own!  You will pull a little blanket or lovey over your face and wait for me to ask, "Where's Caroline?" before you snatch it away and giggle!  You also love to pull at Daddy's glasses and think that's a really funny game too!
~ You think it is absolutely hilarious to watch Anna Kate practice jumping.  She comes right up to you and hops and you just crack up!
~ We did find out this month that you are allergic to all dairy products, eggs, and peanuts.  Which means that as long as you're nursing, Mommy is allergic to them as well!  I am a little bit sad that you will have to deal with this, but I am learning a lot about new ways to cook and bake and various ingredients that can substitute for the things that you can't have.  And don't worry, I already have a recipe ready to go for your first birthday smash cake!  Not that it is coming up any time soon, but it's good to be prepared!

Caroline Hope, what a special little girl you are and what joy you bring to your mommy and daddy and big sister.  It is so fun to watch you start to develop your own little personality and find your place in our family.  I don't think you're going to be the quiet and reserved type...you always like to make your presence known!  We love you so much and are excited to see what your next month will hold!

And here are your pictures!

One month

Two months

Three months

Four months

Five months

Six months

Seven months!

UPDATE:  I forgot to do the comparison pic on Friday, so here is Anna Kate at 7 months!

 

Rainy Days and Sick babies

Well, we've had quite a week around here.  Anna Kate woke up Monday morning with a sudden and unexpected skin infection that we've been battling all week.  And of course, since she was apparently contagious before she even showed any symptoms, Caroline ended up getting it too.  So we have been confined to the house these past few days while we've waited for it to start to clear up.  I mean, seriously, we haven't left the house since Monday except to go to the doctor and the pharmacy!  Oh, and a wonderful 45 minute outing for me to go get my haircut, thanks to Luke who came home to watch the babies!  So how have we been spending our time?  We've had to get a little creative!  Here is Anna Kate playing with her "cloud dough" - flour and baby oil!  It's got a fun texture to it, different from playdough, and LOTS messier!  We actually took these pictures last week (so before her skin broke out), but it's the same thing!

And sweet baby Caroline is perfectly content to play on her playmat with her new favorite toy - this triangular prism with lots of fun things to do!

And one quick funny story about Anna Kate.  So, I know this is hard to believe, but I really did adhere to the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations that babies shouldn't watch any TV until they are 2 years old.  And then her 2nd birthday came and went and I saw no need to introduce it.  So Anna Kate truly had never seen cartoons or movies ever in her little life (she has occasionally watched a football game or Jeopardy with us!).  So anyway, Tuesday she was feeling pretty miserable and I asked her if she wanted to watch a movie (a 30-minute little Max Lucado video about a caterpillar turning into a butterfly).  She LOVED it =) 
Fast forward to today...
She came and picked up my glass of water to take a sip and I asked her not to drink out of my cup because she's still a little sick.  She responded, "No, Mommy, I am not sick anymore, I am feeling better!"  Less than 5 minutes later she asked if she could watch the caterpillar movie again.  I told her that I didn't think we needed to watch another movie since she wasn't sick anymore.  To which she responded, "No, Mommy, I am VERY sick, I am not feeling good!"  She's a quick one!  I can see it now...she'll be the one doing the whole thermometer up to the lightbulb trick to get out of going to school one day...

Twins?

Nope, that's Anna Kate and Caroline 20 months apart!

Picture catch-up!

Because I went a couple weeks without posting a new blog entry (I know, Mom and Dad, I'm sorry!), I do have to share a few pictures that I took over the past several days.  There really is no rhyme or reason to this post, other than that!  So, without further ado, here they are!

Aunt Sarah (and Uncle Dustin and the boys...but mostly Aunt Sarah) picked out this dress for Anna Kate for her birthday.  She calls it her "pretty dress" and loves to twirl and dance in it.  She wore it to church last Sunday and had to get her picture taken!

Caroline is doing so well sitting up that I thought she might be ready to try the shopping cart seat at the grocery store.  She loved it, but she was too busy playing with her rattle to look at the camera.

Anna Kate and Caroline are becoming very sweet with one another.  One morning last week they were both wearing their matching jammies and Anna Kate wanted to snuggle Caroline.  Here they are snuggling together in Caroline's crib!

And last, but not least, we've been spending a lot of time outside in the beautiful sunshine this week.  The girls LOVE our porch swing and would sit out there all afternoon.

I love my girls!

Caroline's crazy week!

This has been quite a week for our sweet Caroline!  To start off, on Monday morning at the park I noticed that she was drooling a lot more than usual, and she also REALLY wanted something to chew on, but her toy had fallen in the sand...so...I gave her my finger and noticed that lo and behold, she had cut her first tooth!  The drooling continued and she cut another one on Wednesday.  So now she has both front bottom teeth.  They are still really little, but if you zoom WAY in on the picture above, you can barely see two little glimmers of white.  So she has been a little fussier this week, and wanting a few extra snuggles, but who can resist that sweet face?!

Caroline's other news this week is that we went to see the allergist.  Our appointment wasn't supposed to be for another two weeks, but I called Tuesday to see if they had any cancellations and they asked if we could be there at 7:45 the next morning...I said, yes!  So we woke the girls up early Wednesday morning and headed into Columbia.  The allergist doctor was so nice and made me feel better when he said that he had a little daughter named Caroline too!  Anyway, baby Caroline did SO well for the allergy testing (7 pricks on the back - 2 controls and 5 tests) and didn't fuss at all.  She just laid on my chest and snuggled.  They tested her for allergies to the top 5 food allergens (wheat, milk, eggs, peanuts, and soy) and she showed up as having allergies to milk, eggs, and peanuts.  But not wheat, so that was good!  All that to say, I am having fun experimenting with lots of new foods and recipes...for me right now, and for Caroline later.  We did find out that 80% of children outgrow the milk and egg allergies, and 20% outgrow the peanut allergy.  Only time will tell for that though!

So that was our sweet baby girl's crazy week!  She actually took the allergy news extremely well and didn't even fuss when I told her she may never get to have ice cream ;)  Actually, I do have a coconut milk ice cream recipe to try out this week...we'll see how it goes!