New Trick

Caroline loves to play ball!  She gets so excited when you sit her down, and roll a ball to her.  She squeals and squeaks and gets so excited.  It's so cute.  Enjoy the pictures.

Random Thoughts

• I love watching Caroline just roll around and play in the living room.  She will make little squeaky noises, pull books off the shelf, and is adorable.  She is so much fun.
• Is it lame that I secretly love and find it relaxing to go to the grocery store by myself on Saturday night at 9:00?  
• I ironed my shower curtain last night.  It hangs a lot more nicely and it made me feel in touch with my grandma.  That's something she would have done.
• Eli and I were talking about what we would do if we had unlimited money.  We decided we would buy a house, a minivan for the second car, and I would take yoga classes.  Other than that our life wouldn't change that much.  He'd still go to school everyday, I'd stay home with the baby and make us dinner every night.  I like that we wouldn't let having money change us too much.  At least, we think it wouldn't.
• I'm really excited for Thanksgiving.  It will be nice to go home and be with my family.  Eli's never been able to spend much time in Missouri with us, so I'm especially looking forward to that. 
• I am grateful to be so blessed.  Even though we have our struggles and hard times, our life is beautiful and we are happy.
• Caroline is very close to crawling.  I predict by Thanksgiving she will have it down. 

A Day in the Life of Caroline

Caroline leads a very busy active life.  Here is a photo tour of a day in the life of an eight month old baby (Can you believe she is 8 months old already?  I can't!).First thing when she wakes up after she nurses she has a green smoothie.  This baby loves green smoothies!  I love that she loves them too.

See how happy they make her!

After that it's getting dressed, fixing hair, and playing for a while and then a nap.  After nap it's nursing, and then....

LUNCH!

Today for lunch she had bananas and cereal and a new food.  She had some of my homemade refried beans and she loved them! 

And her other favorite snack is the puff-things. 

After lunch we usually do an activity.  Today we went to a closeby mall we haven't been to yet and walked around.  Then it's another nap, then nursing, then playtime, then dinner time!

While I'm making dinner she likes to snack in the walker.  Todays snack was little crumbs of bread.  She ate almost a whole slice!

Then for dinner she had sweet potatoes, bread, and some of the potato leek soup that I made for me and Eli.  The soup was rather bland for the two of us, but Caroline loved it, so I froze it in ice cube trays for her to eat later. 

After dinner it's bath time and bed time.  Caroline is feeling better now, she was so happy today, especially when Eli came home.  She is back to normal, and feeling good.  She is so much fun to be around. 

After she went to bed I got a chance to pick up.  I bought some kale Saturday night and it was already all wilted this morning.  I didn't want to throw it out, so I tried recutting the ends and sticking it in some water.  It worked and it perked right up!  I think it looks kind of pretty! A cheaper alternative to flowers!

And I was able to make our meal plans for the whole month.  I hope we'll be able to stick with it.  Last month we did really well sticking to our plans, the only nights we didn't was when Eli was studying late and I didn't feel like cooking a big meal for just me.  Anyway it's a good life here with Caroline! 

Baby Ninja Warrior

Caroline was a ninja for Halloween.  I was so excited for the best Halloween ever!  I seriously hadn't been this excited for Halloween in a long time.  She was the cutest and fiercest ninja ever!  We  took her to the trunk or treat at church a week before Halloween.  It was fun.  Sadly, by Halloween Caroline had an upper respiratory infection.  This was the first time she's been sick.  It was hard on both us, probably worse for me.  The doctor did say we could take her trick or treating though!  We already had plans with our friends and he said it was okay to go, she wouldn't get worse.  She was in pretty good spirits, she likes playing with Lilly, Emily and Kyles little girl.  Caroline didn't care much for Trick or treating.  In fact, she fell asleep in our arms almost instantly.  Luckily, people still gave out a lot of candy to a sleeping ninja.  Because ninjas never really sleep.  then she still slept when we got back she slept in their crib so all of us parents could watch a scary/ridiculous movie, Drag Me to Hell.  What is Halloween without a scary movie?  It was fun, like a real double date, because the kids went to bed.  It was so much fun!  Thanks Emily and Kyle!

We couldn't resist putting on her ninja hood before Halloween, without the rest of the custom she just looks like a peasant.

At the Trunk or Treat with her daddy

Look at her brandishing that dagger!

On Actual Halloween night.  She didn't all of the sudden grow huge muscles, that's just her sweater underneath.

She was tired.

Eli wore one of Emily's wig.  I think he looks like a oompa loompa/willy wonka.

 Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin Patch

I apologize for the onslaught of pictures.  It's hard to choose just a few pictures, and I have not figured out how to do the collage thing yet.  So, keep scrolling.  Caroline's so darn cute it's hard to narrow down the selections.  Anyway, the day after we got back Eli and I took Caroline to a pumpkin patch in Indiana.  Many of you might know that the worlds best pumpkin patch is in Omaha.  I have not been there for several years, and it makes me sad.  It is the standard by which all pumpkin patches will forever be measured by me.  Although this pumpkin patch, Hubers Farm, was not as good as the Omaha one, it was still fantastic!  We had so much fun.  It was a beautiful fall day!  We went in the afternoon so Caroline slept in and had a morning nap.  She also slept all the way out there so she was in good spirits.  We ate at home, but couldn't resist each getting a homemade donut (so good!) and sharing a hot cider.  We also brought back a bag of apples from their orchard, Sunday is apple dumpling day!  Enjoy the pictures.  It was a perfect day! The fall out here is so beautiful.  You can't believe all the colors and the beautiful weather.  I love Kentucky!

Before we left.

Happy to be back with Daddy

There is a market type area where you can buy all kinds of wares

There was also a live band playing "Thriller" and other tunes.  Caroline really liked the music.

I love this one where they are looking at each other!

I have to admit we got stopped several times by people to tell us how cute she is.  We have to agree.

They had a small lake/large pond with ducks and swans.  Caroline was really interested in them.

Her first horsey ride!

In front of a tree with pretty red leaves.

That's right, a cool bus.

In the patch.  We didn't actually buy pumpkins there, they were expensive, I can get them cheaper at the grocery store.  But we did ride the wagon out to the pumpkin patch and walked around. 

Perfect size for the baby!