Henrietta

By the way...Caroline is petrified of this rubber chicken named Henrietta! She is also very uncertain about the deer hanging in our office. She has become keenly aware that they are there and won't take her eyes off of them when she enters the office. From far away, she will giggle at times, but hold her up at their level, and you better be holding your ears. I guess they might be scary looking to me if I were her size, too!

Visit with Mimi

Amelia (Ben's mother) is here. To Caroline, she is otherwise known as "Mimi", or should we say so desires Caroline to call her such when she gets old enough to call her name. My mother desires to be "BB", my father, "PaPa", and "Granddaddy Moore" has yet to put in a request so for now is "Grandaddy Moore". Anyway, Mimi came to visit Wednesday and is here through the weekend. We have thoroughly enjoyed her company and Caroline has enjoyed spending the day at home with her. We had a great Mexican lunch where Caroline successfully broke her first dish in a restaurant (it was the waiter's fault...why someone would put a bowl right down in front of a baby is beyond me) and demonstrated her new ability to drink through a straw. She loves diet coke and seems to love the caffeine! Yikes! This picture above is of MiMi and Caroline riding mommy around on the boat. Caroline does so well! Tomorrow is going to be a baby pool day after we run a few morning errands. All is good at the homefront...

Sippy Cup

We are starting to work with Caroline on drinking from a sippy cup, so that hopefully she can be off of a bottle around the 1 year mark. Tonight she did really well, and actually drank some of her milk. She has to lay back to drink it or she ends up playing with it more than anything else, but it's not a bad start. We are home for the weekend. Ben has been studying all day, as he takes his real estate appraiser certification test this week, and Caroline and I spent the day relaxing in the baby pool and doing a little house work. One picture above is of Caroline with her Grandaddy Moore when we spent Thursday night with him. Our a/c was broken and we couldn't stand the 86 degrees in our house. The other one shows off her new sippy cup skills.

Grandaddy Moore

One of my favorite pictures of our cutie!

Caroline loves the grass

Caroline in her baby pool

Little flower girl

Caroline kissing herself in the mirror.

Daddy and Caroline

Caroline peeping over the couch.

Caroline in the bouncer

We are sending up thanks to God tonight for a good outcome from what started out as a trip to the cardiologist for Ben's dad today. He was feeling very lightheaded and short of breath over the past few days, and the symptoms kept getting worse, so he made an appointment for today in Birmingham. It turns out that his heart rate had dropped significantly and he needed a pacemaker to help keep it regulated. He got out of surgery about 5:15 today and all reports are good. He is awake and feeling well and glad to know what has been making him feel bad and that there was a solution to the problem. We are very thankful for the outcome and can't wait to go and visit him when he gets home tomorrow.

On another note, I have posted some fun pictures from the past few days. We had another fun weekend at home and enjoyed relaxing with Caroline in her new baby pool Saturday and going fishing at a little pond in Ada yesterday. Hope everyone else had a great weekend, as well!

Daily Routine

Caroline after the jog!
Caroline before the jog!

I always blog about our weekends, so for a change will blog about what goes on around here during the week. The weeks are pretty routine, with us getting into bed around 10:00 or 10:30. Mommy and Daddy get home from work, daddy usually starts supper, mommy washes bottles and gets Caroline's bag ready for daycare the next day. We then do one of two things...Caroline's supper, followed by bath and then bottle, OR a ride in the jogging stroller while Mommy jogs, followed by Caroline's supper, bath and bottle. As Caroline drinks her bottle, Mommy and Daddy enjoy their supper and the occasional (or quite often) movie. Our weekday shows (now that American Idol and CSI Miami are out of season and Jay Leno's "Headlines" are no longer around) consist of a single show, Deadliest Catch (which reminds me, we just missed tonight's episode, but it replays at 10:00, so that is what I'll be doing when 10:oo rolls around). Caroline's seems to enjoy the whole routine, loves riding in the jogging stroller, and, well, you can see from the pictures the effect it has on her. I really hope she'll love to jog like her Mommy! I'm in no great shape, but do enjoy it. With God's help, I feel like we manage to lead a fairly balanced life with lots of good times! I must give Ben lots of credit for the amount of housework he manages to do, (which is a whole other blog in itself, because he deserves A LOT of thanks) along with managing to do so many other things, because he is quick and efficient, and quite the multitasker. He can clean twice as much in 30 minutes as I can. So...yes, I am lucky to have him as a wonderful father and husband, and enjoy the heck out of the daily routine that we have.

Before you say anything...

I know that I blogged about a recall on Caroline's float, and then after the fact took her to the lake and posted pictures of her in the same float I warned everyone against using; however, before you think I'm crazy, let me say that after further investigation, I discovered that the recall was on floats manufactured within a range of dates that spanned about 3 years. Caroline's happens to fall just outside that range by about 2 months (as noted by a stamp of some sort on the float), so she is sitting in a SAFE float...and is not in danger. Her seat seems very sturdy and we don't let her out of arms reach AND keep her in pretty shallow water. Just to clarify...thanks!

Weekend at Home

We had our first weekend at home in a while this weekend. We are always enjoy being on the go, but sometimes it is nice to just stay close to Montgomery and relax. We did end up at the lake both Saturday for a while and Sunday for a while, but I still consider that staying at home because it is so close. My mom came to keep Caroline Friday because she had a day off from work, so she stayed home from daycare and played with "BB". Saturday, our friends Lisa and Kevin went to the lake with us to swim, and Sunday, we went with Grandaddy Moore. Spence stopped by on his way back to UAB and is here now taking a break because it is raining and he is on his motorcycle. Life as usual here....

Check Your Baby Floats

Just a note that if you a baby, make sure you check your float. There were a number of baby float recalls, including the crab float you see Caroline in, in all of her pictures. If you google baby float recalls, it will give you a list of them. The legs ripped in 31 instances, causing children to go down into the water and posing a drowning risk. Make sure you check your float!

9 Month Stats

Caroline had her 9 month well check-up yesterday and here are her current stats:

Height: 27 3/4 ''

Weight: 18 lb. 5 oz. (weighed without a diaper and clothes on)

Head: 44.4 cm

All measured in the 50th percentile.

Our baby is growing like a weed!

No pics for today, but hopefully tomorrow.

Hope everyone is doing great!

Life is Good

I can honestly say that I am happy with my life. Sure, it has its ups and downs, but I am a child of God, have a husband and family whom I love and who love me back, a healthy, beautiful daughter, a job that I love, and friends that I love and love back, too. We had some of those sweet friends go to the beach with us last weekend. We enjoyed the hot weather by staying in the water the majority of the time. We also met up with some other sweet friends who were down there, for dinner on Saturday night. I love to make memories down at the beach, and appreciate the great conversation and company that Lee and Leslie provided this weekend. We are headed back down for July 4 for a big family weekend on Ben's side of the family, and can't wait to see Caroline dressed up in her July 4th outfit. Happy 4th of July to everyone, as I won't be able to post until after the weekend.

9 Months!

9 months ago...Oct 1, 2008
Caroline with 5 minutes of being born
Our 9 month old, in her bed a while ago, drinking her bottle

When I first found out I was pregnant, I wondered how I would ever make it through the 9 months of being pregnant and waiting to see what our little baby would look like. I think it was the longest 9 months of my life. And when you think about it, she went through phenomenal changes during those times, with her growth going from a tiny cell to a real live 7 lb 10 oz baby. You just can't see that growth, except for by the size of your growing belly, and it is hard to imagine that inside of you is an actual baby. But as for the nine months after her birth, the changes are again phenomenal, but this time, with her mom and dad as onlookers, watching in amazement as she started sleeping through the night, raising her head up off of the ground, smiling, cooing, holding things, picking things up, interacting, sitting up, eating baby food, scooting, crawling, pulling up, and holding her bottle on her own. That is probably her newest accomplishment--she is doing very well with it and I started her with a sippy cup last night--just letting her hold it and get used to it. I just have to thank God for the last nine months and for the blessing he bestowed on Ben and I when he brought her to us. How anyone could not see that there is a God is beyond me. As a mother and father, we simply pray for guidance in raising her and that she will have a happy life full of God's abundant grace.