Growing up is hard to do!

and possibly even harder for Mom to do!!

One week from today Caroline will start school!!  Okay, well its not really school, but it is definitely pre-school and definitely more structure and time than she has ever known!  Caroline will start Mother's Day Out at a church down the street.  She will go Tuesdays and Thursdays every week from 9am-2pm.  They will do arts and crafts, read stories, play, eat lunch and take naps all while they are there!  I was pretty hesitant in signing her up for this, but it seems like just about everyone around here sends their kids somewhere.  Spaces are pretty limited and you have to sign up in February.  So knowing Cooper was on the way, I figured I better do it and would probably need it!  Well, the time is actually here!!  Caroline has changed so much since I signed her up and I really think she is going to do SO well!  She is talking so much, loves playing with other kids, is such a polite little girl with her "please" and "thank you's" and loves talking about going to school!  She received a book for her birthday from a friend called "Llama Llama misses Mama".  It's about a little boy who goes to school and the whole time misses his mama.  Then he starts having fun!  Then Mama COMES BACK!!  The little boy realizes he loves his mama... and SCHOOL TOO!!  She loves reading this and keeps telling me how when she comes to school, I'm going to come back for her.

I got an email from our church last week saying that promotion Sunday was on the 28th and Caroline would now be moved up to the Green A class from the Romper's class.  She had only been in romper's for a little over a month and now it was already time for her to move up to the structured class with story time and crafts and such.  I was a little nervous with all of these new things coming up and just feeling like I was losing my "baby".  Her birthday is so late and she just turned 2 so she is going to be one of the younger kids in her classes. I guess I can't hold on to her forever and have to start thinking of her as a big girl.  Well, we dropped her off and she was a little hesitant at first, but once we went to pick her up, she looked at us, smiled and kept on playing!  She was not ready to leave!!  Of course this made us a little sad, but also made us SO proud!  She sure is a BIG girl!  {And she'll tell you that too!  :)}  She also was able to show us the puppet she made and tell us all about Jonah and the whale.  She was so into the story and told us how Jonah said "NO" to God so he was swallowed by a big fish!  Then he prayed and started to obey God.  I can't tell you how much she enjoyed the class!!  This put me at ease a little more and I know that she is so ready for school and more social interaction.  I just hope that I'm ready too!!

How hot is TOO Hot?!!

We are SO ready for these HOT HOT temperatures to end!  This summer has been miserable and it really has been a challenge to take Caroline and Cooper in and out of the car.  Cooper is so big and stuck in that little infant seat so he just cries to be taken out!   It seems like 106 degrees is now the new normal and every day the 10 day forecast shows nothing but 3 digits.  We are now onto the 64th day of temperatures over 100 for the summer. It's hard to be outside these days but it has been even harder for my flowers!  First we had really bad hail in May and all of the plants were stripped and destroyed.  Then they somewhat recovered from that and were hit with the high temperatures, leaving most to die.  I've had to pull up quite a few and have pretty much just given up.  My poor flowers!!

MID MAY

NOW

Visitors

While everyone came in for Cooper's dedication, Caroline didn't notice at all that they weren't here for her! She loved all of the attention and definitley had a great time playing with everyone. Grami, Pop Pop, Papa John and GG Jean all drove in and stayed Saturday and Sunday at our house. It was such a short visit, but we managed to get quite a few pictures and enjoy every minute together. This was the first time that my grandparents had come and seen our house and a little of our life here in Texas. It was so fun to be able to show them around!

Caroline and Cooper with their Great Grandparents... Papa John and GG Jean! 

 We went out to dinner and celebrated everyone being here along with my grandparents 54th wedding anniversary!  Their 50th was just a month before Josh and I were married.  We have a lot to live up to!

 Some large animal has been digging BIG holes under our fence.  Here Caroline is instructing Josh and Papa John just how to set up the trap!

 These two are quite the pair!  Caroline and Cooper before the dedication.  If you know Caroline, then you know just how special you are when she shares her bunny and rubs her on your face!!  The ultimate sign of flattery!  What a special guy you are Coop!

 Caroline even seemed to think the actual dedication was about her!  She couldn't quite seem to be still while the pastor prayed for all of the children.  All she wanted to do was run and be with her cousin Sam!

 Although the ONLY two days that have not reached 100 this summer happened while everyone was here, we were still able to swim a little Sunday evening.  The water wasn't quite as boiling as it has been and Caroline showed off her skills!

 Cooper was quite content in GG's arms!

its the little things in life

Sometimes you've just got to DANCE!!

 We had a great night last night right before bath time!  Everyone was so happy and awake.  Josh turned on some music and we all just joined in on the fun!  First Caroline "helped" me do the laundry.  I thought she was being so sweet but then her real motive shined through... she wanted the basket!  Everyone got basket rides around the house! 

 Then it was time to DANCE!

Changes...

Last weekend was great!  We had some time as a family and then celebrated Grandmother's birthday after church on Sunday.  Caroline and I made cupcakes and Caroline decorated them by coloring on the fondant with edible markers.  She was SO proud of her creations!!

 Later that day, we decided it was time to take down the crib in Caroline's room.  Since Christmas, we have had both the crib and toddler bed in her room.  For a while she took her naps in the crib and slept through the night in the toddler bed, but lately she has not gotten in the crib at all.  Well, today was the day! 

The crib basically just held all of these guys and now they needed a new home!!

 Down goes the crib!  I have to say that I got a little teary eyed packing up the bedding and untying the bumpers.  We spent so long picking out all of the items for her room and they really were only used for a short time.  On to the next phase!

We also packed up Cooper's swing and both bouncy seats and put them up in the attic, while taking down the highchair, exersaucer and jumperoo for our little man.  He's getting so big!

 Grandmother gave Caroline a cradle that we now have room for her in bedroom and now holds all of her stuffed animals and babies.  I'm a little reluctant about getting a big bed because her room is small and I've been waiting to see if we sold our house or not.  So for now, the toddler bed stays.  It does make the room look SO much bigger and gives Caroline room to play.  Everything in there is just so tiny and there is no height to it.  Kind of silly, but it will work for now.  :)

Summer Fun

 Having over 30 straight days of high temperatures above 100 degrees has made playing while staying cool very challenging!! Every time we pass the park, Caroline points it out and wants to go play so badly! However there is just no way we can do that! The lows every morning are in the high 80's and it just goes up from there. So we have tried to find different ways to entertain us. Here are some things we have been up to so far:

No More Paci!!

You read that right!!  It has now been a week and a half that Caroline has NOT used her pacifier!!  If you remember that when we moved her into her toddler bed, she kept losing the pacifier in the middle of the night and waking us up because she was upset.  So in an effort to get her to sleep better, I got her this little horse stuffed animal that is connected to a pacifier just like hers.  This worked for a while, but not too long ago she actually bit through the tip.  {Think this means she's too old to be using one?  :) }  Anyways, she started putting her finger through the hole of the pacifier to suck.  Well now, we're over the pacifier... but onto sucking her finger!  Not exactly the trade-off I had hoped for.  Now we have a bigger problem!  The doctor told us not to pay any attention to it and hope she loses interest, but so far, I do not see that happening any time soon!  Back to the drawing board...!

On a side note:  On the plane ride home from Colorado, Cooper was really fussy.  He hadn't gotten a nap and we had just pushed him too far!  It was a pretty hilarious scene with Caroline sitting on my lap watching the iPad, Josh laying Cooper down in the middle seat, iPhone stuck in his ear as a noise machine and Josh's finger in his mouth for something to quiet him down.  Because he doesn't ever like the pacifier, we didn't have one for him.  We actually coaxed Caroline into letting him borrow hers' and handed it over to Cooper!  Who would have guessed this would ever happen?!!  Such a sweet girl!  And you could so tell we are 2nd time parents.  Did we sanitize the pacifier?  Did we even clean if off?  Nope just took it from her mouth and stuck it in his.  Anything to make him be quiet!  :)

CeCe: Made with LOVE!!

Grami took Caroline on a special outing while we were visiting.  They went to Build-A-Bear where Caroline picked out and made her very own stuffed animal!

She picked out a gray kitty cat, helped stuff her and picked out a noise box where the kitty says "I LOVE YOU!" every time you squeeze her hand.

She had to give her one big hug to make sure the stuffing was just right!

Once stuffed, it was very important to make sure she was given a bath and her hair was combed perfectly!

Then we picked out her outift and shoes! Caroline decided on a butterfly, fairy outfit with hotpink glittery tennis shoes! And the one thing she cared about most was hot pink ROLLER SKATES! Grami made sure we got all of the items!

 Here is Caroline carrying her finished kitty home in her house!

MEET CeCe!!!

(minus the roller skates)

Caroline is always worried about where CeCe is when she goes down for a nap or for nighttime.  The first night we were home after our trip, she woke up at 4 am just screaming!  I went in there and she was so concerned because CeCe's shoe had fallen off of the bed and she couldn't find it. 

And then the other day when I was putting Caroline down for a nap, I accidentally layed on CeCe's arm and she said "I love you".  Caroline said "LOVE YOU" in response and I answered back "Oh, CeCe loves you?"  She said "no no, GIGI {Grami} loves you!"  Melted my heart!