Holy Crap.

I'm Blogging.

I completely abandoned you, poor blog. I actually have a job that keeps me busy, I love spending time with Josh and Caroline on the weekend, and, quite frankly Mr. Blog (I'm making it male, for some reason), I forgot to update you.

Goodness, so what has been going on in the past three months? Yikes, I'm that far behind? Oh, geez. Thankfully, I'm an over-poster on Facebook, and that will help me outline the past three months of our lives into one oversized, overrambled, overdue blog entry!

October meant pumpkin picking! Caroline had fun, except for when it came time to pose for pictures (of course). I am obsessed with all things pumpkins (pumpkin bread, pumpkin lattes, pumpkin beers... yummy). We ended up only getting a couple small pumpkins, chosen by Caroline because it's more about the experience than buying the overpriced pumpkin, anyway ;)

In early October, I made an unexpected trip to Virginia to attend my grandmother's funeral. She was my last remaining grandparent and we will all miss her so much. I am so glad I was able to make the trip to Virginia to share memories of her with my families and, of course, toast Manhattans in her honor. It was such a bittersweet trip home and, despite the circumstances, it was nice being able to spend time with my family and see cousins I hadn't seen in years. Miss you, Nanny!

October meant HALLOWEEN! Our little one went as Superman AKA Supergirl AKA Supertoddler. It was the cutest costume and she was really comfy in it. She had so much fun in her tutu and cape. She had a blast at her school's Halloween carnival: she tried to play games she didn't understand, handed back candy and said "nooo" with a look of disgust, and practiced her photobombing skills. Due to a case of the "terrible twos," we didn't make it out trick or treating, but it was still a fun Halloween. It ended with Josh and I turning the porch lights out at 8pm and hiding from a huge group of trick or treaters that went through the neighborhood at 8:30pm because we're old and uncool like that :)

In November, I turned 29! Eeek, the last year of my 20s! My boss gave me the day off work, which was super nice. I met Josh for lunch complete with a birthday beer, got a beautiful new fossil watch, had a nice lunch at Bonefish (this year, Caroline decided to behave until I was almost done eating, so I didn't spend my entire birthday lunch eating and boozing on my own - improvement over last year!) - it was an awesome birthday :)

Later in November, Caroline turned 2! Tons of details below on our little two year old (because I know that's what you guys really care about). Her birthday fell during our week at the beach, so she got to spend her birthday with her mommy, daddy, memaw, papaw, auntie, and my Aunt Linda. She had a cute nautical cake (which she didn't want a single bite of), blew out her birthday candles like a pro, unwrapped her gifts slowly and inspected each one, and was a true birthday princess. I cannot believe our little girl is already 2.

We enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving week in the Outer Banks (Rodanthe, NC to be exact) with my family. We loved every minute of it, even the moments of crazy toddler antics. It was so nice to spend a relaxing week with my family. For Thanksgiving, we went to an amazing buffet! I didn't touch the turkey - my plate was filled with shrimp, scallops, and oysters!! Caroline was fuss-tastic, so yes, we were those parents with an iPad in a restaurant to keep her happy. It was a holiday and that's the first time we have ever done it and heck, it allowed us to enjoy our holiday meal so #hatersgonnahate. It was such a nice week, we keep talking about how we wish we could have stayed longer :)

So, let's get to the topic everyone cares about: CAROLINE!

Caroline is 2 years old and still a perfect, little giant. She is 34 pounds and 38.5 inches tall. Basically, huge and the size of a 3 year old. She is healthy (well, except for today, since she's home sick) and beautiful. She is getting more hair, enough for pigtails!

She has become quite the fashionista! She has recently began refusing to wear anything that isn't a dress. She is obsessed with her "Elsa Dresses" (any dress that is blue is an Elsa dress to her) and will sometimes dig through her hamper to find one. Yes, I have sent her to school in sun dresses and tights if we're out of weather appropriate dresses for her to wear. She loves picking out her own clothes and her shoes. She also loves deciding whether mommy is allowed to do her hair in pigtails for the day.

She loves singing. Her favorite is singing Skidamarink-a-dink-a-dink with me, especially the "I love youuuu" part. If she's in a good mood, she'll try to sing Twinkle Twinkle, the Itsy Bitsy Mermaid, or her ABC's.

She definitely has her favorite animated characters (she's not interested in anything on TV that isn't a cartoon these days. She loves Elmo and "Mee Mow" (Mickey Mouse). Disney movies are her favorites, especially anything involving Disney Princesses. "Mermay" (The Little Mermaid) is her favorite movie; I would add how she says Ariel's name, but it has so many vowels grouped together I wouldn't even know where to begin. Second is Frozen with "Anna, Elka, Owaf, and Daddy" (yes, she thinks daddy is a character in Frozen for some reason). She also loves "Ella" (Cinderella), "Rapuhpuh" (Rapunzel), and "Ah-Ora" (Aurora).

She is the perfect mixture of girly girl and tom boy. She loves her dresses, shoes, jewelry, purses, and princesses. But, at the same time, we were told that she loves dirt more than any other child at her school and I often have to scrub it out of her hair at night. She is rough and tough but as sweet as can be.

She is getting very good at speaking and communicating and is learning new words daily. Just this morning she finally said "milk" perfectly (her prior word being "no" for milk). She can say please and thank you, tells us she loves us and gives us kisses, and loves pointing out animals and telling us what sounds they make. She talks constantly, even when it's just gibberish, but the gibberish is becoming more coherent daily, which is awesome! It helps us communicate with her and know what she wants :)

"Mommy" and "Daddy" are her favorite words, and apparently she repeats them all day at school! She tries to say her own name now when she sees pictures of herself, "Leleleline" is her name according to her. She can say "Ellie" and "Tollie" perfectly, but Parker and Wrangler are still both "Che Che."

Speaking of the pets, she still adores Ellie the most. She talks about her on the way home from school and gets so excited to see her when she gets home. She loves the cats and tries to pick them up and gives them a lot of hugs. She's smart and is cautious around Wrangler because he's a grumpy old man, but she loves sneaking him kisses and hugs when he's in a good mood. She loves helping me feed the dogs, loves telling them to sit down and go outside, and has even learned how to close Ellie in her crate.

That's all for now on our precious babycakes. Right now she's grabbing my hand and making watch "Mermay" with her, so off I go! I will try to be better about updating my blog because I do love documenting our lives. So long, for now!

OBX!!

Vacation blogs are the best blogs! I am so glad we got to take a full week's vacation and join Josh's parents in the Outer Banks for a week (with a wonderful cameo by my family). I'm not going to go day-by-day on what we did because vacation days seem to blur together, so I'll go topic-by-topic. It's my blog and I can do what I waaaaant.

SAND

Sand: Caroline's new favorite thing. She wasn't big on the water but she loved the sand. She had daily baths at the beach because she formed a new layer of "skin" every day: a sand layer. Our house was literally on the beach, no roads at all, so stepping out of the door meant stepping into sand. Caroline would be on the deck and point to play in the sand, Caroline would wake up and point for me to open the blinds so she could see the sand outside of her window, Caroline LOVED THE SAND. She did not love when it got in her ears, mouth, and eyes… but everywhere else seemed fine with her, sigh.

Introducing herself to the sand on our first day.

By the second day, she was deeply in love.

She clearly believed mommy needed to love the sand, as well, and covered me in it.

Swimming in the sand instead of the ocean...

This photo does no justice to the amount of sand on this girl's body.

FOOD

I failed at taking food pictures during vacation (sorry, food friend) because I was always so excited to eat, I forgot to take pictures! Breakfast every day was wonderful. We had a wonderful lunch one day at Sunset Grille, where I had fish tacos (OMG SO GOOD) and Sunset Ale. Josh and I had a great anniversary lunch at The Blue Point, where we split an appetizer of breaded peppers, I had shrimp and grits with an IPA, and we split a delicious chocolate brownie with coffee ice-cream and espresso sauce for dessert. Steve was a master on the grill while we were there: steaks, pizzas, pork loin, cedar salmon, grilled shrimp, and BBQ ribs. IT WAS ALL AMAZING.

SHOPPING

My first and most important purchase was an OBX sweatshirt. I failed to pack a sweatshirt because I forgot just how cold it can get with the ocean breeze. Best. Purchase. Ever. Kept me warm and toasty! We also got ourselves an OBX throw blanket with sea shells on it and an OBX sticker (with a backup sticker) for the Jeep! Caroline was wild during shopping trips, so we didn't take many of them. They consisted of me looking around while Josh chased her through the stores. Wild thing!

THE JEEP

Our Jeep did amazing on the beach, driving on the sand. It's 3.5 miles of sand driving to get to the house, so it got a lot of use! We didn't even come close to ever getting stuck, and Josh even helped tow people who had gotten stuck. He felt so fancy (you already knowww).

THE HORSES

We had a lot of wild horse spottings throughout the week. They live in this portion of the Outer Banks and aren't scared at all of the humans. One night they were right by our front steps and didn't even seem to notice us all on the porch watching them. One day we were driving down the beach and spotted some walking through the surf and they seemed oblivious to the cars around them. It's amazing!

THOSE TERRIBLE TWOS

Caroline still has a ways to go before she hits two, but those terrible twos made a few appearances during vacation. One day at breakfast I brought her milk instead of juice (OH THE HORROR) and she was not pleased. She threw her drink and her food and went into timeout… the most dramatically pathetic crying ever ensued and then she was fine. She was horrible at dinner and breakfast with my family, which both took place at the end of vacation at which point she was exhausted and grumpy. She did so well for most of vacation, though, and was an entertaining delight.

Seriously, how can anyone stay mad at this face for any longer than 5 minutes? LOVE HER.

CAROLINE THE ENTERTAINER

Caroline discovered near the end of vacation that the hose on the porch made a fantastic microphone and boy oh boy did she put on some performances. We think she watches the kids sing on the Disney Channel, mostly from a show called Austin and Ally, and was imitating them. It was absolutely PRICELESS. She was entertaining in general, running laps around the deck and just being her adorable, crazy little self.

CAROLINE THE HELPER

Caroline always loves helping… from throwing her trash away to helping mommy use the potty. On vacation, she also got to help "build" (DESTROY) sand castles, fly kites, and even fly a plane! She was so so so proud of herself for helping and it was priceless.

FAMILY

I saved the best part for last: spending time with our families! We had a great week with Josh's parents and I know Caroline loved spending time with them. We wish her uncles could have made it on the trip, but she gets to see them on webcam every now in then so she can keep tabs on them! My parents and sister joined us the last few days and I know Caroline enjoyed that, as well. She's used to talking to Memaw and Pepaw every weekend on the computer so it was neat to see them in person! I wish we could move closer to our families (especially after that epic, epic drive… we did the whole 14 hour trip in one shot on Sunday, ugh). Who wants to donate like a million dollars to our moving fund? #okthanksbye

Oh, PS!

Our 4 year wedding anniversary fell during vacation and we had a date, an actual don't-have-to-ask-for-a-highchair DATE! It was great to be able to spend the day with my husband, drink beer and wine with him, relax in the hot tub with him, and talk random nonsense with him because that's what we do. It's crazy how much we've done together in these four years: united in Florida, adopted a puppy, bought a house, lived through a perfect pregnancy, become parents to a perfectly perfect baby, traveled to Spain together, bought a Jeep together, traveled the East Coast over and over and over again together… It has been an amazing four years! (Even crazier to think we have known each other for 11 years now… we. are. really. OLD.)

A 20 Month Old Caroline.

I haven't blogged in a while, oops! I don't really have much to talk about, so lets just chat about what sweet Caroline has been up to. Here are some of my favorite recent moments and tidbits about the star of my blog.

My new favorite word to hear her say is "bobby" (kind of mixed with boppy), which is her word for coffee. She points to our coffee (and sometimes even beer) and says, "bobbyyyy." She also likes singing her ABC's ("bee bee beeeee"). She likes walking to the refrigerator and requesting juice ("bbbbbb" - that's a hard sound to explain), especially apple juice ("app-lllllle"). Her favorite color is to say is yellow ("lellowww"), so everything is yellow to her. She knows tons of other words: cat, dog, no (that's her favorite), hi, bye, TV, pizza ("eezaaa"), ball, , goodnight, please, thank you, cheese, daddy, mama, hello, and many more.

She likes being in charge of the pets. She loves helping me feed them; she holds their food bowls while I put food in them and then puts them in the proper spots. She likes letting the dogs inside. Yesterday, after playing outside, we came inside to see Parker on the coffee table. Caroline walked over, hit him in the butt, and said "no no" while shaking her finger at him. It was amazing. She also tells the dogs to "sit down" when they beg too much at dinner. She still loves Ellie most of all and is constantly hugging and kissing her.

She has become slightly opinionated on what clothes I put her her sometimes, but is extremely opinionated on what shoes I put on her. If she wants a certain pair, she'll bring them to me. If she doesn't like a pair I chose for her, she will let me know. She also decides what days I put her hair into ponytails. She knows where I keep her rubber bands and will go point at the drawer when she wants a ponytail.

She knows so many parts of her body and loves pointing to them. She knows her head, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hair, elbows, hands, belly, and feet. She loves to dance. Yesterday, I was dancing like a ballerina and she was imitating me and it was the cutest thing ever. My favorite dances of hers are her "nakie baby time" dance (she raises the roof and runs to the bathroom" and her "head, shoulders, knees, and toes" dance (she gets fixated on the toe part). She loves imitating our motions, our words, and our faces. 

She understands SO MUCH. She can't talk much yet, but boy does she understand what we're saying. When we ask questions, she always respond with yes ("da" accompanied with a nod) or no. When we ask her if she's ready to feed the dogs she runs to the door, if we ask her to throw away her trash she instantly opens the trash can, if we ask her if she's ready for a bath she does her dance and runs to the bathroom, if I tell her I need to go potty she runs to the bathroom and opens the toilet lid for me.

Speaking of going potty, we have not started potty training her quite yet but we're beginning to teach her. Like I said above, she loves helping me potty. She runs to the bathroom and opens the toilet lid. She then grabs me some toilet paper and hands it to me. Sometimes she tries to, uh, use the toilet paper on me if you catch my drift but I tell her that mommy knows how to do that… she's so adorable.

She loves giving kisses, which often involve teeth these days when she is really excited to kiss you. She gives amazing hugs and squeezes sooooo tightly. She says I love you ("I luh ya") back to us. She hugs our legs and kisses them while we cook. She is just the sweetest little girl ever.

Yes, the terrible twos (they come earlier than two, trust me) often rear their ugly head, but timeout has really helped. If she acts up, we threaten to put her in time out and she usually stops immediately. If she continues acting up, we put her in timeout (we place her against an empty wall and she stays there until she calms down). It's a great way to teach her wrong from right without yelling or spanking and works great for us. We usually give her a hug and kiss after timeout and tell her we love her because, let's face it, we're softies who love our munchkin.

Oh, and she loves making animal sounds. Her favorites are dogs, cats, monkeys, lions, and horses. Often, I'll pick her up from daycare and she'll start neighing, which I know means she wants to practice her animal sounds.

She loves sleeping curled up in her quilts, with her mermaid in one arm and her giraffe in the other arm. She rarely wakes up at night and when she does she usually ends up snoozing up in our bed (spoiled rotten bed-hog, she is). She takes one good nap each day (around 2 hours in the afternoon). She will put herself to bed (with our help, she can't climb into her crib surprisingly) if we ask if she's ready for bed. 

She likes wearing her belt as a necklace, likes using a my-little-pony as a telephone, and loves throwing leaves all over herself and laughing hysterically about it. She likes tucking in her toys (not only stuffed animals, sometimes brushes or trucks) and saying "night night," still won't say "bye bye" to someone until we have left a room, and likes blowing kisses and waving at cars driving by our house. She hates when the house is neat, loves "helping" fold laundry, and thinks parties under the kitchen table with Ellie are the greatest thing ever. I love writing these random quirks about her because years from now I can go back to this blog and remember when my girl was a crazy toddler.

Disclaimer: I wrote this blog super quickly in whatever order things opted into my head - it's not proofread at all, so don't hate on me if stuff sounds crazy! 

What Does a Caroline Say?

Posts two days in a row? CRAZY. This video is actually from earlier in the week, but I'm posting it now for fun.

Caroline and I like to play a game where I ask her what different animals say. Her favorites are monkeys, dogs, and cats. She loves making the animal noises. I also ask her what a mommy says, what a daddy says, and what a Caroline says. The answers are always the same as to what we all say (completely made up by her). Just watch the video. My favorite is by far what a Caroline says.

Photobooth Happiness!

So, does anyone remember my Unamused Caroline post from February? Well, we tried out photobooth on my Mac again, this time with better results! Check out this goofball, who was laughing like crazy the whole time!

Have I mentioned how much I freaking love this child? Seriously.

We even took a video, bwhahahaha! She tries to escape our roller coaster cart in the video… this is her climbing on the coffee table in real life. Oh, Caroline. Enjoy.