Friendly Girl

Last night we watched our neighbor Charles Henry so his parents could have a little bit of a night out. As you can see, Caroline was pretty excited to have a friend around. I thought when I was taking this picture that she was going to try to take the book from him. That's not what she was up to. She patted the book and then tried to reach for Charles Henry's hand to pat. She then went for the board books under the coffee table and found her own to play with. The best part of the evening was when Charles Henry first came over. I set him down in front of Caroline and she just started giggling with delight. It was too cute.

It was a good weekend all the way around for date nights. On Friday Caroline's day care stayed open until 10pm. For a fee less than we would pay a babysitter, we were able to leave her and go out to dinner ourselves. It was great. I took her over to the Natural History museum and showed her the mamal exhibit (she was more interested in the people walking around than the big lion though). I fed her dinner, and then Jack came and played with her. She went down shortly after we left and we got to have a really lovely dinner.

We spent the rest of the weekend getting projects around the house done. In a house that is cozy like ours you would think you could get all the projects finished. Ah well, it makes for good family time over the weekend.

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New Toy

Caroline has a great new toy from Nana and Grandpapa. It flips up so that as she starts pulling up she can use it to try to start walking. For now, she likes banging on it and playing with all of the things that spin. She's a little confused by the fact that it moves (she doesn't yet understand that wheels make things roll).

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Lest we forget

We have to share the most exciting thing that Caroline has done recently--CRAWL. She took her first few little "steps" while she was at my parents house. She's still working out the details, but she's getting there.

She does a better job in the basement where there is all carpeting, but she's getting there on the hardwood floors. (Her little knees get red from bouncing around on them!).

Also, Caroline has one tooth that has cut her gums and another that is just about through. She's changing by leaps and bounds every day! (She won't sit still long enough for me to get a picture of the little tooth yet, maybe soon).

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More Updating

Caroline and I spent last weekend with my parents in Zionsville (also known as Nana and Grandpapa). Somehow we managed to make it out of the weekend without a picture of Nana and Caroline!!! But, I can assure you that Nana and Caroline together makes a pretty adorable picture.

My mom had her knee replaced about a month ago, so we went home to hang out with her and cheer her up. Caroline was particularly sympathetic since she knows what it is like not to be able to move as fast as you would like!

As with many grandparents homes, my parents have a few toys that are much better than the ones that Caroline gets to play with at home. This plane was a big hit. Caroline was a big fan of making the front spin all by herself.

Nana had a particularly good time making sure that Caroline got all of the food that she needed too!

While we were there my Dad and I walked down to the main street in Zionsville to let Caroline see a longstanding tradition--the Fall Festival. I hadn't been in years, so it was fun to see.

You can see the beginning of the parade in this picture. For some reason I was thinking that the sirens might scare Caroline.As you can see, she was completely unimpressed. It was only once I saw this that I realized that this kid lives in the DC area. She's in day care 3 blocks from the White House. She hears sirens ALL the time. So, not only was she not scared, she thought the flashing lights were pretty fun.
The only Fall Festival tradition that Caroline didn't really get to enjoy is the candy that is given out. Here's a picture of Olivia walking in the parade. I got a bit of candy from her, but sadly I couldn't share with Caroline.
While we were home we also went up and visited our neighbor, Mrs. Paris. She has always been a wonderful neighbor. I used to spend hours at her house when I was a child.
When I was there, I used to look at the many antiques in her house. Caroline apparently thought that she should carry on the exploring tradition by checking out under the couch.

All in all it was a great trip. Caroline was good on the plane. We missed Jack, but were really glad to have some time to see my parents!

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Wow are we behind

We are really sorry that we are behind in our blog posts. We've been pretty busy. We've got a few pictures that we can share. Hopefully that makes up for our lax posting.

Over labor day we went camping with our friends Amanda, David and their daughter Ruthie. Ruthie is four days older than Caroline. So, Amanda and I got to walk through our pregnancies together.

You can see above a picture of Caroline and Jack in front of our tent at the camp site. Caroline has a much smaller tent of her own that fits inside of her tent. So, she slept in with us all cozy in her own space.
You can just barely see it up at the top of this picture, but David's parents have an RV which they graciously let us all use that weekend. Amanda, David and Ruthie slept in there and we all enjoyed running water while we camped.
Caroline has been in pools and, of course, the bath. But, this was her first introduction to sand and that mud that can only be found at the bottom of lakes. She thought that it was pretty fun. She ended up getting so wet that we had to take off her onsie (luckily it was a pretty warm day).

Ruthie thought the whole adventure was pretty fun too. We had a nice walk around the campground on Saturday, played in the lake and generally relaxed. On Sunday of Labor Day weekend we took a five mile hike/picnic. The girls did pretty well, falling asleep in their respective carriers on the way home. All in all we thought it was a successful first camping trip with babies. They ate a little dirt and got a little dirty as kids are supposed to. The adults relaxed, played bocce golf, hiked and generally enjoyed the outdoors. Everyone was happy!

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Just Because This Makes Me Happy

I thought I would share this. It just makes me happy.

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Gulu Uganda

We had visitors from an organization called BOSCO-Uganda today. David (in the picture here) and a man named Kevin came to have brunch with us and tell us what they are doing in Uganda.

They work for an organization (linked above) that is operating in Gulu, Uganda. The organization is trying to bring information technology to rural communities in northern Uganda. It is an area that has been incredibly war torn over the past twenty years. BOSCO, as we learned today, is trying to provided internet access and Voice Over IP Telephone access in many of what used be called "Internally Displaced Persons (IDP)" camps. These camps are now places where thousands of people live afraid, as David explained, to returned to their home villages in large part because there is nothing there. So, this organization is working to bring information and VOIP to these people (so that they can get information in such how to deal with basic medical emergencies) and bring their stories, news, and information about basic needs or emergencies out. It was a fascinating afternoon.

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Ah Independence

Caroline is quite pleased with herself and her ability to really, really hold her own bottle now (completely full, without dropping it our leaking all over herself). She's so pleased that she won't really sit in my lap to eat anymore. This is now her favorite way to drink.

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Sitting Up to Eat

The time has come - Caroline is ready for a little highchair. Since our place isn't very big, we opted against the full size highchair. Instead, we went with the smaller strap on kind (and got a great deal on one, I might add). As you can see, Caroline thinks this is great fun. The white tray pops off and goes in the dishwasher. It has the added benefit of making lots of noise when a small person bangs on it.

The highchair has another added benefit. Caroline can no longer put her feet in her mouth when she is supposed to be eating. They are cute little feet, but heavens is it hard to get green beans out from between those toes! So, it is nice to have only the upper portion of her dirty after a meal.

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Six Months

Caroline is six months old today! Wow how time flies. Six months ago at this time we were worried about learning how to swaddle and feed her. Now we are still trying to learn how to feed her, but now it is bananas, rice cereal and peas. She definitely doesn't need a swaddle and her main goal in life is to learn how to crawl. We head to the doctor on Wednesday for her six month check up so we'll get her stats then. But, she seems to be growing up well!

In other news we made an unexpected trip to the emergency room yesterday. I was carrying in groceries and somehow the glass bottle of sparkling lemonade made it out of a double bagged situation and onto the steps. Apparently the bottle exploded and some of the glass came up and cut my leg in two places. Sixteen stitches later (done by someone who went to college with Scott and Deb) I'm fine. But, it was more excitement than we were bargaining for on a Saturday afternoon. But, through the process we realized we live in a great community. Our neighbors took care of Caroline for us (hooray for Scott and Kirstin) and put away the groceries. A woman we go to church with was the nurse on staff at the hospital. All in all, it could have been much worse. Of course, this means that my run of no un-baby related hospital visits is over. Sigh. Ah well, good practice for parenting.

We also had fun visitors today. My Aunt Ruthie and cousins Claire and Noah came over after going to the Steelers/Redskins game last night. It was a great time to get to catch up with them. Jack made us great chocolate chip pancakes (yum) and we all got to visit! It was so nice of them to come see us!!

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