Cool!

Carolyn has been "into" sunglasses for awhile now- she calls them "eyes" and frequently requests to wear them. Today she came up to me with the glasses, held them out and said "Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!" Her word for "cold" is "hoe," so it wasn't a far stretch to realize that what she meant by "Hoo" was "Cool." She wanted to look cool! This is because whenever she puts the glasses on, I always tell her that she looks so cool- and she remembers! I got a laugh out of this moment in my day and I thought you might, too. :) She certainly does look Cool!

At the Mall

While I went back to view and order my pictures with the sharks at JC Penney (with my "No Thank You" ready to go enough times until they finally believed that I really was only going to buy the cheap pictures), Carolyn played at the mall bacteria breeding ground with Rachel, Caimon, and Aidan.
Apparently, Aidan was feeling very affectionate. I was sorry I wasn't there to watch them walking around holding hands and hugging! :)
Here we all are- ready for lunch- about a half hour too late for our comfort. :) The kids made their views about the delay heard until the food got there. :)

Christmas Pictures!

On Friday, I took Carolyn to JC Penney to have Christmas pictures taken. Surprisingly (since this age group is understandably the hardest one to photograph well!), this turned out to be our best "professional" photo shoot to date! We actually managed to get Carolyn to smile at the camera- a skillful combination of the photographer knowing when to snap the picture, a friendly stuffed polar bear courtesy of Papa Craig, and as many Nilla Wafers as she asked for. :) I'm not above bribing for good pictures. These were my favorites- it was actually a harder decision than I'd expected to choose which ones to buy. If you want to see them all, go here (and input my name and this session cod: LTPP0136105640JCP). If you're thinking of ordering any, email me before you pay what they charge on line- I bought some extras for family and friends.

Play Time!

It's been a fun week for us; Carolyn really brings such delight into our home and we really never get tired of watching her. :) I hope you enjoy this little video we took the other night to give you an idea what play time is like for her now that she is 17 months old!

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family- hope you did, too! Here are some of our pictures. :) I'll have to make the text short since we're having laptop connection problems and the room with the computer that connects to the internet is the place where we stashed all our junk when we tried to childproof the house. :) I just heard the Princess stirring, so I'll have to make this snappy. :)The thing that really struck me the most this year was remembering how much DIFFERENT she looked last year!! It doesn't seem like that long ago we were celebrating Thanksgiving 06 and this was my favorite picture! Wow has she ever changed!
Thanksgiving Day we had dinner with Brad's parents, and our friends Todd and Mollee (Mollee's mommy had to work so they came to spend the day with us. :))
The title for this picture: Sharing Stinks! Mollee is 4 weeks older than Carolyn and there were a few scuffles for toys... but toddlers forget quickly and all was made up in a hug and rousing chorus of "If You're Happy and You Know It."
The Day After Thanksgiving (after I was crazy enough to get up for some of the Black Friday sales) we headed to Grammy and Papa's for some more fun. Carolyn enjoyed an eager reception for her snacks, smiles, and various antics. :)
Hands-down favorite (except maybe the food) was the Piano. She was actually quite gentle with the keys- maybe she'll get some of the musical gene that seemed to skip my part of the generation. :)
When playing the piano gets old, there's always piano bench surfing.
We had to chuckle at the way Carolyn eats Cheerios. My parents have the multigrain ones, and she picks out only the darkest ones, then attempts to share away all the other colors! Makes me wonder which colors she'll eat first from a bag of M&Ms- everyone knows that this says something significant about a person's personality! :)
We attempted to get a family picture for our Christmas letter... but although she looked lovely in the dress, we couldn't seem to coordinate everyone looking at the camera at the same time.
Boy do I love this silly little girl!

If you're happy and you know it...

We've been singing the song a lot lately! Carolyn's favorite part of the song is where she gets to stomp her feet.

She stomp, stomp, stomps, and turns herself around in an enthusiastic circle. I was laughing so hard yesterday at her "dancing!"

Weather Changes

Some of you won't want (or have time) to read my story of Squalor below... but I thought everyone would enjoy seeing this cute picture of Carolyn decked out in her cold-weather best. We went to the park last Wednesday to enjoy one of the last fall days of the year- the temperature was cool, but bearable, especially to one dressed as cutely as she is! Thanks Lisa for this precious little vest! :)