38 weeks, Christmas, and 39 weeks

I haven't blogged lately because we did a lot of traveling for Christmas. We went down to Pearsall on the 22nd, drove back home the night of the 24th, did Christmas at our house then my parent's house on Christmas morning, then drove to Houston that afternoon. We got back home Sunday evening then decided we needed to turn the study into a playroom. Our house looks like a toy store!

Let's see, what's new with Caroline? She started saying dada and mama last week. Dada was her offficial first word..boo. Ever since we got back from driving all over the place, she has had major separation anxiety! She only wants to be around me! Any time I leave the room she cries "mama mama." She doesn't even want to play with toys unless I'm on the floor playing with her. If I'm standing, she tries to climb up my leg. I hope she doesn't have a hard time when she goes back to daycare on the 4th. I'll post more of what she's been up to in her 9 month post on (or around) Thursday!!

Here are some pictures..

37 weeks!!

Caroline has now been "on the outside" as long as she was "on the inside." I can't believe it. Time has definitely gone by much faster with her on the outside!

Parenting moves to a whole new level when your baby becomes mobile. Caroline never really rolled or scooted across the room..she would pretty much just stay where we put her and play with toys. Now that she's crawling, we have to chase her everywhere. She doesn't want to play with toys anymore, she wants to play with computer cords, the blinds on the back door, the dog's water bowl, electrical outlets, etc. It's time to baby proof!

It really is fun watching her crawl. She's definitely enjoying her newly found independence. Now she wants to try to pull up on everything. She hasn't quite mastered it yet..she can pull up to her knees but she hasn't figured out how to get onto her feet. I have a feeling that's coming very soon though.

Our next parenting goal is to get her sleeping in her crib again. She started from day 1 in the pack-n-play in our room and started sttn (sleeping through the night) at 8 weeks. At around 5.5 months we moved her to her crib and she did well in there for about a month, then she started waking up every few hours. We got lazy and started just bringing her to our bed when she would wake up because in our bed she was sttn. After a few weeks of that, we started just putting her in our bed from the start. She sleeps great in our bed..but we don't! We woke up yesterday and she was sideways with her head digging into my ribs and her feet digging into Mario's ribs. We've decided that we really need to make the move back to the crib sooner rather than later. Last night we put her to bed in her crib and she lasted until about 3:30, when we got lazy again and brought her to our bed. I'll let you know how it goes tonight.

I almost forgot..she's now "dancing." She rocks back and forth when she hears a song she likes..it's too cute!

Now for the pictures..

Professional Pictures..

The rest of our professional pictures came in today. I love them! Libby did a great job!

Honestly though, this is motivation to get my butt in gear and get this baby weight (and pre-baby weight) off!! I'm going to wait until after the holidays because I really don't want to set myself up for failure by starting now but I wanted to put this out there to help hold myself accountable. I was very successful at losing weight for my wedding and I did it the healthy way (eating right and exercising) so I know it can be done again. I feel like the more people I tell, the harder it is to get off track.

Anyway, like I said, I love the pictures! I would love to book another session with Libby when I'm 60 lbs smaller.

Here are some of my favorites..I didn't post them all because I want our Christmas card pictures to be a suprise.

36 Weeks..

As of today we have an official crawler. She's been working on it for two weeks now and she finally has the going forward thing down. She's getting frustrated because we keep moving things farther and farther away to watch her crawl.

I haven't uploaded pictures from this week yet so I'll leave you with some of our professional pictures taken by Libbyann Photography.

Oops..

I forgot to post pictures of my favorite holiday decor..the mantle. This is the time of year that I love having a fireplace!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year..

I love this time of year! The scents, the music, the decor, the excitement, the chill in the air (sometimes..we do live in Texas). I am so excited about Caroline's first Christmas and having her be part of all of our family traditions.

Mario and I are going to take almost two weeks off of work at Christmas and we'll be driving down to Pearsall, then back to Kyle, then to Houston. Hopefully Caroline does well in the car.

Here are some pictures of our Christmas decor and some picutres I took of Caroline with Christmas lights. I've seen other people take these before so I decided to try it. It's hard to figure out how to get a good shot. I need to learn how to use my camera better. Right now I just use the auto mode.

8 months!!

I can't believe that Caroline is already 8 months old. I wish that she could stay this age for a while..it's just so fun. She is a little sponge already. Here's a list of what she's up to these days:

-She loves to clap..she does it all the time! She goes to bed clapping and wakes up clapping. It is adorable!
-She's still sleeping in our bed. We're going on a month and a half now. It's nice because she sleeps all night but I really want to move her to her crib soon..maybe over Christmas break because we won't have to get up in the morning.
-She will eat pretty much anything. She loves feeding herself and she loves puffs! When we eat she stares at the food and makes a grunting noise when she wants some. She sits at the table with us during meals and she feeds herself snacks.

-Her two bottom teeth are all the way through (as you've seen in pictures) and I felt her gums on Monday and she had 3 top teeth that had just broken through!! She's an awesome teether (knock on wood).

-She is so close to crawling. She gets on her hands and knees and rocks back and forth. She wants to crawl so bad.

-She scoots backwards and she's getting pretty fast at it.

-She is such a happy baby! Sometimes she'll just look at us and start laughing. She thinks everything is hilarious. She definitely lights up our lives.

-She has mastered the fake cry to get what she wants..she's a smart one. I think she's watched our reactions enough that she knows when to cry or laugh to get what she wants.

-We are looking forward to our first Christmas season with her! I love everything Christmas and I'm so excited to share everything with her.

Here are some pictures from our 8 month photo shoot yesterday.

34 Weeks and Thanksgiving..

Caroline is actually 8 months old today! I'm planning on doing her photo shoot this evening and I'll post her 8 month blog post either tonight or tomorrow.

We had a great Thanksgiving at home. My family came over along with my grandparents. Caroline was the center of attention the whole time, which she loves. She got to taste some mashed potatoes and a little turkey. We haven't really found anything that she doesn't like to eat.

Here are some pictures from the past week. I am so frustrated with blogger..I can't figure out how to type in between the pictures so I'll have to narrate them here..we fed her spaghetti for the first time last week. It stuck all over her and she loved playing with it. We took her to the mall to take pictures with Santa because we wanted to beat the rush..and we did. We waited maybe 10 minutes.

Videos

In her doorway jumper


Playing with a basket of toys




Helping to carve a pumpkin

31-33 Weeks

Miss Caroline is now 33 weeks old! She is so close to crawling..she can go from a sitting position to up on all fours and she rocks back and forth. She's also starting to hold her bottle now but only when she's laying down. There have been lots of "mmm"s and "ma"s lately..I'm waiting for the full "mama" because it seems like that's going to be her first word. She just figured out how to move in her walker and she loves it.

We're headed to the pediatrician's office an about an hour because I think she has another ear infection. We are all finally over our colds (knock on wood) and I hope we're not exposed to a bunch of stuff while we're at the pedi's office.

Now for the pictures.