Memorial Day

Memorial Day Weekend

We are forever grateful to those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. 

Our weekend was full of thunderstorms and taking cover in Tornado Warnings. Praying for those who were affected in the devastation and flooding. 

I didn't mind the cuddle time in the bunker!

8 Months

CRC you are 8 months old, have two teeth and are closer to being a 1 year-old than a newborn, tear, but Sweet Caroline you are too happy of a baby to cry and too busy to dwell on anything to long. 

Caroline, our sweet baby girl, you are a daily dose of joy, you learn, amaze us and grow each day.

Age: 8 months

Stats at 7 months: 17 lbs (65 percentile) and 25 inches (25 percentile) so you are probably about 18 lbs now.

Clothes: Still squeezing into some 6 months onsies and pants, mostly 9 month pajamas and a broad range of dresses and bubbles.

Hair: Auburn, we get asked where the red hair come from often, which I hope stays red.

Eyes: Brown

 Favorite Foods: Oatmeal, Avocado, Sweet Potatoes, Banana,  Re-fried beans, Mandarin Oranges and a lot of Plums, Happy Baby and HEB Organic pouches fruit and veggie mixtures.

Favorite Noises: Dadadadada, a little Mum, mum, mum and babbles, clicking your tongue and blowing raspberries.

Favorite Activities: Toe touches in your car seat, bath time, sitting and playing with you toys, banging your paci against the slats on your crib. Your love any textiles that you can scratch especially if they crinkle. You are making a little progress on your crawling but can steam roll your way across any room to get what you want. You love outside and to stroll anywhere. MINIONS, you love the Minions from Despicable Me. You love to grab everything in your reach and put it in your mouth or just clear the counter. You could jump your heart out all day long.

Least Favorite Activities: Putting your arms through arm holes, especially your pj's & when things are taken away. You have just started to fuss about it, we call you fiery red head when that happens. Attitude.

Sleep: Your sleeping is a little unpredictable right now, you can sleep from 7:30pm-5am then wake up to nurse then go back to sleep til 7 or you go to sleep at 7:30pm and wake up at 12:30am then again at 3:30am then are sleeping soundly when it is time to get up.  You do go to bed easily though after your bath, books, prayers and nursing.

My favorite new thing you have started is when I pick you up from daycare you give a big hug and open mouth kiss all over my face which is such a sweet thing after a long day away from you. 

Other firsts: Swinging in your new backyard, you rode in your first 5k and went to your first crawfish boil.

You make us laugh all the time. Your smiles and the way you light up when Daddy enters the room never gets old and Mommy will do any dance moves, tricks or noises for a smile or laugh. 

We love being your parents and are so thankful for our beautiful baby girl! 

Four Months Old

Just popping in to document this stage of Caroline's life. 

It is my favorite so far. She is so hilarious with her cooing, singing, telling stories, kicking her feet and smiles for days. I could listen to her all day and I tell her she tells the best stories and to never stop talking to Momma. I just love love love seeing her develop and starting to interact with her toys reaching and grabbing them, pulling at them and trying to put them in her mouth. 

She weighs 14.3 lbs and is 23.5" tall. She loves smiling at Daddy, staring at her hands, grabbing Mommy's hair, snuggling before bed and she still likes to be swaddled at night although she gets her hands free by morning. Her new move is reversed donkey kicks. She raises both legs up and then kicks them back down on her mattress.

She does not like sitting in the Bumbo, putting on her clothes over her head or headbands.

Hi.

This tummy time isn't so bad

Cheese, I am getting so good at this.

Diapers and Daddy Drinks

We have never had a party in Texas for Neal, when we got married our engagement party was in Kentucky, our wedding was in Kentucky and we had a girls only shower in Texas. So we used the birth of our first baby as a good excuse to have a low key, casual, barbecue so he could invite co-workers, friends and family that may have missed out on previous parties.  I was totally on board to help plan!

Neal's parent live on some acreage in Georgetown and have a barn that was built to look like a general store from the back. It is pretty awesome and a great place for get together! They also have a lot of antiques and signs so the rustic charm created the atmosphere for the party! Neal's Dads Model A "Jethro" is in the background 

The food was kept simple and very Texas: Brisket, sausage, potato salad, beans, pickles, Texas sheet cake and Homemade Vanilla Blue Bell ice cream. The Daddy Drinks were Shine Bock and other beers, Deep Eddy Grapefruit Vodka, Topo Chico, Tea and water.

The guest of honor requested pink camo napkins.

Quite a few friends from our time in D.C. have migrated down to Texas, it was so great to see them. Some of them had not even seen each other in years, we were so happy they made it and were able to reconnect!

The Weems moved back to Texas early 2014, we are thrilled to have them so close (3 hours instead of 24 hours). They graciously co-hosted D&DD.

It was a family party! C.R.C. has little friends waiting for her arrival and ready to play!

We are anxiously awaiting Miss Caroline's arrival. Only 5 weeks left!

Pampers was the clear choice of diapers, beat out Huggies 4 to 1. We are so grateful to have shared this unusually "cool" August summer night with wonderful family and friends, Thank You to All!

The Perfect Shower-July 19th

This post is to brag on my sister who hosted a perfect shower on July 19th!  I would not change one thing about it, she generously gave me free reign on ideas and we made a perfect team since she was planning it from Ohio I served as the liaison for ideas and arrangements while she kept the details straight and the budget. It was a wonderful day at the Four Season's in Austin!

Baby Caroline and I are so fortunate to have Mary Ellen as a Aunt and Sister.  My Mom and M.E. flew to Austin a few days early to help get last minute details wrapped up and most importantly spend some QT together. Most of our prep work was on this idea of a onsie decorating craft.  We had such a good time doing test onsies, it was hilarious. Neal vacated our house every night after dinner to go to the golf range and stay our of dodge of this project.  The level of craftiness in the three of us is vast, but we ended up with three onsie's and burp cloth as examples for the shower.

We used C.R.C's crib bedding as the theme for the invitation, not an original idea, one that was recycled from Barefoot Daydreams. The framed "Love you forever, like you for always" is taken from Love you Forever by Roger Munsch. The story behind the song is very sad, but the words are very true.

“I’ll love you forever,
I’ll like you for always,
as long as I’m living
my baby you’ll be.”

 The Menu was light with delicate sandwiches, fruit cups, AMAZING pineapple salsa, quesadillas, fruit tarts, cream puffs and from what I heard a delicious sangria made with rose wine with pink paper straws of course!

The decoration were kept simple and girly with petite roses, white hydrangeas and babies breath for the center pieces.

Old Friends (who have migrated back to Texas from D.C and college friends), new friends (who have been blessings since moving to Texas) and family joined us for this celebration and showered us with amazing gifts. We are so grateful to bring our baby girl in to a world surrounded with love, encouragement, fun ladies, and generosity.

We were shocked that upon arrival the ladies went straight to the craft and dug in. We tried to have an assortment of stencils and paint, appliques, letters and for the expert crafters fabric and templates.  It was so much better than playing shower games and we ended up with some super cute onsies from C.R.C to wear!

 GrAnna surprised us with a little Clifford gift, I was obsessed with Clifford growing up so Caroline with have the same opportunity to follow Emily Elizabeth and Clifford!

Hostess with the Mostess and GrAnna

Bestie who was in town from DC, love her!

 BFF from college, Erin, who got married at the Four Season's three year before. It was so fun to reminise about her big day and overlook the exact spot they said "I Do" from the room.

Neal's Sister, Aunt, Mom, Wife, GM and Cousin

 This picture makes me laugh because I am clearly the "in-law" the brunette with dark eyes in the middle of the blondes and blue/hazel eyes.

Cutest Onsie Award-I'm Knott Fussy

The generosity, love and support from these ladies is unbelievable.  We are as prepared as we can be for arrival of our little baby!