heart

From the first time I ever heard Caroline's heart beating (it was in late February of 2005), I thought that sound had to be one of the most beautiful sounds in the world. Since losing Joshua, my opinion on the beauty of the sound of a beating heart is that much stronger. Today at my 17 week appt with Dr. Moore, I heard those wonderful heart beat sounds (for the fourth time, but it never gets old)! Baby #3 has a heart rate of 157.

Summer Vacation

We spent the past week at the beach and it was a wonderful vacation for all of us.  As I said in my last post, we met family and friends down there and had a week of playing in the sand and waves, riding in a boat, taking walks, finding seashells, flying the kite, looking for crabs, avoiding jellyfish, and lots of laughter and smiles mixed in with each of those.  We spent almost all of our time on the beach, in fact I never even went to the pool - Caroline was so happy in the sand and surf that she only asked to go to the pool once or twice.  I'll share a little bit about the trip and let the pictures tell the rest of the story.  

Caroline got more and more accustomed to the waves each day and by the end of the week she was fearless even in some fairly big waves.  By Thursday, she didn't want anyone to hold her in the water, she just wanted help jumping over the big waves.  We built lots of sand castles, sand birthday cakes, mermaids, and I'm sure plenty of other creations I missed or can't remember.  We all had fun sitting at the water's edge, letting the waves splash up on us.  Caroline spent what seemed like hours sitting in her chair next to Jo Jo just enjoying the sun and water.   

It was great to be with everyone.  Drew and Amelia spent lots of time playing with Caroline, complying with all of her requests to be taken into the water with them.  We all had fun playing with precious little Cooper and Caroline misses his company already.  We took turns cooking breakfast, lunch, and dinner each day and consequently we ate really well and I honestly miss the great food and laughs over those meals.  

We made some wonderful memories and we're all already looking forward to next year on the beach!  

Caroline and Jeff enjoying the sand

Our fearless girl jumping the waves

Loving the waves!  

Caroline flying her kite solo!  

Caroline and Cooper chillin' at the water's edge

Caroline and Jo Jo's sand castle creation

On one of our beach walks at night

Jeff, Jo Jo, and Caroline out in the boat

Jeff, Ashley, and Caroline in the boat

Our boardwalk

Back online!

Sorry for the long silence! We were at the beach for the past week and we had a great time. We met Mom, my aunt Gail, my brother Drew and his wife Amelia, my good friend from law school Allison, her husband Jeremy, and their precious son Cooper down there. The weather was great and Caroline had a week full of fun. I'll post more about that along with pictures soon.

We returned Saturday afternoon and Sunday we had tickets for Jeff, Caroline, and me to go see the musical Annie at the Manship Theatre (Playmakers here in Baton Rouge put it on). It was Caroline's first play/musical and she loved it. It lasted almost two hours and she was mesmerized through the whole thing; she sat still the entire time (which is an accomplishment for a busy girl about to turn 3). The actors did a fantastic job; the kids who performed where truly wonderful and Jeff and I enjoyed it as much as she did. She was beaming with a beautiful smile for most of the performance and of course had to sing along to the songs she knows. Afterward, the icing on the cake for Caroline was meeting the cast members. She got to meet Annie, Daddy Warbucks, and Miss Hannigan; they are the closest things to celebrities in my girl's life, so you can imagine her excitement. She was most excited about Annie and was a little apprehensive around Miss Hannigan; Caroline obviously doesn't get it that the play wasn't real and Miss Hannigan and I were telling Caroline that she's actually a nice lady in real life. Caroline wasn't so sure, but she got to meet her anyway.  As you can see below, her smile shows how much she loved meeting Annie and she loved it that Annie and she had on the "same dress".  It was precious to watch.  

Father's Day

Yesterday we spent a fairly quiet Sunday together for Father's Day. Caroline and I got up and made Jeff cinnamon rolls and coffee and the three of us ate breakfast together. After that, Jeff and Caroline took a walk and went to play at the park for a while while I got ready for church. Lately, Jeff has had to go to church ahead of us to help get things set up, but Sunday we were able to spend the morning together and go to church together, so that was a treat for all of us! We all got to take a nap after church and then waited on the rain that never came. It was thundering and lightening at our house pretty badly, so we decided to skip the trip to the pool, but it never actually rained.

We had a good, relaxing day, just the three of us!

Jeff is truly a wonderful Papa to Caroline; she loves playing with him so much. They have special outings that they do, just the two of them and I can tell Caroline enjoys those moments as much as Jeff does. They go visit the animals at the LSU Ag Center, take bike rides together, take walks together, go play at the park early on Sundays, and of course, sometimes mow the grass together. Jeff has fun with Caroline and lets her get dirty and play rough, but he also sits down to his fair share of tea parties and dance performances. He is wonderful example of a godly father and I know Caroline will come to appreciate that as much as I do. Caroline adores her Papa and I love him for (among other things) loving her so much.

I think it takes a special man to be a good father to a little girl, and Jeff is a wonderful father to our girl.

Here are some pics of my two favorite people together:

Ready for the beach!

We are going to the beach in little over a week and we could not be more ready for vacation! Caroline has been excited about going for over a month now, packing her bag and getting everything together on a daily basis for the big trip. I was looking through old pictures and came across a few from the past two summer trips to Florida and I thought I'd share. Caroline has certainly grown!

These are from the summer of 2006 (she couldn't even walk yet!):



































And these are from July 2007:

Firsts

Caroline had a couple of firsts in the past few days that I thought I'd share. On Saturday morning, Jeff cooked french toast and I was sitting at the table eating breakfast with Caroline while Jeff finished up in the kitchen. Caroline started to stab her place mat with her fork, so I said, "Caroline, don't do that please." She stopped, looked up at me and said, "Why?" Oh, here we go! We hadn't ventured into "why" world yet, and I know that is the first time of probably millions that I will be asked that question.

Caroline had been acting pretty silly all morning yesterday, she seemed like she was laughing a lot (mostly at herself) and just generally acting like a silly little girl. Then last night, she was acting silly again as she got ready for her bath and she picked up one of her bath toys and said, "Mama, dis fish is going to bonk you." (she didn't actually hit me with it, she just held it back as if she might) I said, "Caroline don't hit me with the fish, please." She said, "Oh, I'm jus jokin." Another first, my almost three year old is "jokin'"!

Oh, and this is funny, not a first, but still funny. This morning Caroline woke up early and as Jeff was getting ready for work, she and I were coloring in her room. I took the opportunity to talk with her about colors; at this point, the only colors she gets right consistently are PINK (of course) and red. So, I held up a yellow marker and asked her what color it was. She replied, "Um, bolue." I said, "No, that is yellow." She said, "Oh, yellow" then she held up another marker and asked, "What color is dis Mama?" I said, "That's green." She replied, "Yay! Good job, Mama!"

Weekend

We had a good weekend.  Caroline was a big helper this weekend.  First, she and I made cinnamon rolls for the first time on Saturday (our first time together, that is) and of course she loved that.  Then, she helped me clean the house, she loves to sweep and dust and generally clean whatever is at eye level for her.  We made a trip to Babies R Us for some gifts an then later Saturday evening, Jeff, Caroline, and I went to an art opening.  It was a stained glass show at the Shaw Center downtown.  Our plans were not to bring her along (think: an almost 3 year old in an art gallery full of very beautiful and expensive and breakable glass!), but we couldn't get a babysitter and considering the circumstances, she did pretty well.  Finally, Saturday night we let her stay up late and we all watched the movie Cars.  It was cute and she really enjoyed it.  

Sunday we went to church and then she and I took a good nap.  Sunday afternoon we did some yard work  and again our little helper had to join in the fun!  Here are a few pictures.