Blueberry pickin'

Yesterday Jeff, Caroline and I went to pick blueberries at an organic blueberry farm in Clinton (about an hour north of Baton Rouge).  We made the trip with a woman I work with and her son and we all had a great time!  When we got there the owners said that there weren't many blueberries left because the peak of the season is in June, but for our small group, it was fine.  Caroline was great about picking out the bushes with lots of berries on the low branches and Jeff took care of the high branches.  It was a beautiful sunny day and we picked berries for about an hour, it got to be a little hot for all of us, so we went to check out the sheep and goats and chickens that were out on the farm as well.  With not a lot of effort, we ended up with right about 3 lbs of blueberries!  

We woke up this morning and decided to make some homemade blueberry muffins with our loot.  I rarely make muffins from scratch, but these turned out great, and I'm sure it had a lot to do with the fresh blueberries.  Here are some pictures from our adventure and from our morning baking (and of course Caroline was my assistant pastry chef).  

All's Quiet on the Political Front

A couple of months ago I decided to stop blogging about and linking to political commentary. There are a few reasons for that decision: 1) There are plenty of people out there blogging and writing articles about politics and there are even some who do it well, 2) I'm not going to change anyone's mind with my ramblings, 3) my friends and family (and a few people I only know via the web) have political views that fall all over the spectrum and they really come here to see Caroline, right?, 4) I think the current political climate is too intense and I'm not interested in adding fuel to that fire, and finally 5) God is in control (I don't mean that I think God will pick the next President, just to clarify - if you are really interested in what I mean by that, email me). I still read quite a bit of political commentary and news in general, but I've just excused myself from the table of discussion on here.

All that being said, HERE'S A POLITICAL POST FOR YOU!!! Do you like how I had a long intro of how I'm not going to blog about politics and yet, here I go? I think this is fairly innocuous though, as this story is something of an observation, and an observation that I've made (to myself) over the past few months. You can click here to read it. I am really just linking here for the observation, the main point of the post, there are a few jabs in there that I might or might not agree with, but I'll stop because I'm not blogging about politics anymore.

Our little helper

Caroline has always been interested in whatever it is that Jeff and I are doing, be it cooking, cleaning, working in the yard, watering plants, whatever.  Lately, she has taken it to a new level.  She insists on helping us do everything.  Jeff helps pick up all of the sound equipment after church on Sundays and the past two Sundays she has made herself part of the pick-up team.  She had a slight melt-down (complete with crying) when I tried to get her to sit with me while Jeff picked up a few final things this past week.  It wasn't worth it of course, so off she went to help bring the electrical equipment to storage.  

She's also been helping me wash dishes for the past few weeks as well.  When she hears the water in the kitchen running, she comes running too!  She pulls up her "booster" (a step-stool that puts at just the right height to our counters) and happily "washes" her cups and plates next to me.  Caroline's other love is cooking and baking.  We made cupcakes recently and she has lost all fear of the KitchenAid mixer!  She loves it and enjoyed learning to crack an egg into it while the mixer worked away at the ingredients.  I"ve got a couple of pictures of our cupcake endeavor, but for some reason blogger isn't letting me upload them right now.  I'll update soon!  

Monsters, fish, and memories

Here are a couple of random stories to update you on the happenings in our home in the past week or so:

Jeff went out and bought Caroline her first pet last Friday: a Betta fish. We thought the fish would be a good introduction to owning an animal; not much work, but you do have to feed them and no vet bills. So, we let Caroline pick out a name for her new pet. She looked and looked at her and decided on "Lauren". Then, the next time we asked her what the fish's name was she said, "Sammy". The next time it was "Sandy". The next day it was "Dolphin" and a few minutes after that it was "Dogfish". I'm still not sure what the call the fish.

Caroline loves to look at pictures. Every so often she'll ask Jeff or me to take her to the computer to go through recent pictures we've taken. Last weekend, Jeff pulled out the hard drive from our old computer and was looking at pictures from a couple of years ago. Caroline and I joined him to look at Caroline's baby pictures. The memories came flooding back for Jeff and me; we kept saying, "Oh, remember how she slept like that!", "I loved that outfit"(that was me, not Jeff), "Look at her first smile!" Caroline loved those pictures, with two exceptions: One, the pictures of the day she was born (she didn't like the naked pictures or crying pictures); and Two, the pictures from her 20 week ultrasound. When Jeff opened the folder from her ultrasound, I said, "Caroline, look those are some pictures of when you were in Mama's tummy." She looked horrified and said, "Oh no! Caroline was a little monster!" We fell on the floor we were laughing so hard

More from the beach!

I looked back at my post about our vacation and realized that you wouldn't be able to tell from the pictures that there were other people there with us!  Here are a few additional pictures from the trip and a video of Caroline having fun in the water.  

Caroline & Drew playing in the sand

Alicia, Amelia, and Caroline

And here are a couple of videos of Caroline's dance moves in the sand and surf (We're not sure what she's singing either):  

 

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