Unamused Caroline.

So, Caroline and I randomly decided to play with the Photo Booth on my laptop. Clearly, she was not interested (I made the mistake of doing this around her bedtime. Since I don't have anything interesting to actually blog about, please enjoy these hilarious pictures. They're hilarious to me because she was SOOO unamused. Maybe I'll try this one day when she's happy and awake as a follow-up :)

(she only looks amused here because daddy was standing on the other side of my computer)

That sneaky daddy made her smile again.

How this one didn't make her smile is a mystery.

I joined in on the sleepy sadness.

Family portrait (sorry for Josh's upper-nudity)

I hope everyone had a nice weekend! Despite the sadness conveyed in these photos, Caroline actually had a wonderful, happy, fun-filled weekend. In a nutshell: we ate bacon, we took a day trip to Thomasville Georgia, we filed our taxes (our return will pay off the Altima which means no more car payments for us), we chased bubbles, we colored/ate crayons, we cuddled and snuggled, we taught Caroline where her nose is and she loves pointing at it, we discovered Caroline appreciates the magic of grilled cheese and tomato soup, and we had a perfectly wonderful family weekend. Have a wonderful week, everyone!

Oh dear.

Worst blogger ever Kaitlin has abandoned her blog. In my defense, I have been busy since my last day of work celebration post.

The Wednesday and most-of-the-day Thursday following that post were filled with me cleaning the disaster that was our home office! I'm working from home, so I need a productive area to work in. Our office was far from that; it was more of a storage area slash Josh gaming area. I successfully turned it into an office area slash Josh gaming area (hey, when you only have three bedrooms, some rooms need to be hybrids).

Then that Thursday, I flew to DC to spend the weekend with my favorite Rose gals, and see lots of my friends for a super fun event! Us gals had SO MUCH FUN tourist-ing in DC. We went to the National Archives where we chose Allison's tagline for her future Match.com (even though my brain fart mind has forgotten it) (edit: I have been informed by my sister it was "no idiots, criminals, or paupers.") and checked out the hotties that signed the Declaration of Independence. We then had a nice lunch in the art park (I know it has a more formal name, but I want to call it the art park), where we watched people figure skate. Our favorite was the gliding woman who had dramatic hand motions for each movement she made. She's my new hero, that gliding woman. We then made our way over to the National Gallery of Art where I found my new boyfriend (he was nakie… and stone), said "awww" every time we spotted a dog in a painting, and were basically the coolest tourists ever. It's important to note, we ate some fantastic food while in DC - thai food downstairs from my sister's apartment (sushi nom nom nom), tapas a La Tasca in Chinatown (fried zucchini, steak, scallops nom nom nom) complete with a three-round Happy Hour, and an amazing dinner at Clyde's in Chinatown (oysters nom nom nom). It was a wonderful trip and it was so good to spend quality time with my mom and my sister. My husband was awesome enough to watch Caroline in Florida so she didn't have to make the trip to DC. We're lucky girls having a guy willing to do something like that :)

So, I got back Sunday afternoon and started my new job the next morning. I've been trying to be very good about focusing on doing my work and not letting my mind stray (which happens often working from home… so much around the house I could be working on), which is why I haven't blogged. I have a slow morning since I got a lot done yesterday afternoon, so I have a chance to sneak in a quick blog while I drink my coffee. I really like my new job! The people I work with are more "my kind of people" than the ones at my old job. We actually meet up quite often to work together. So far, I've had two coffee meet ups and two breakfast meet ups (free coffee and breakfasts are a job perk, according to my boss.. heck yes!). It's a good way to catch up on work and have social time while chatting with my coworkers. I have probably chatted more with my new boss these last two weeks than I ever did with my old boss the entire three years I worked at my law firm; it's refreshing. Working from home is nice - the animals truly appreciate it. On gorgeous days, I have always wished I could move my desk outside to work. Yesterday, a sunny, 77 degree day, I actually sat on the porch with my laptop for a bit while working on a spreadsheet. YES!

So, in this entry I have been depriving you of the one thing I know everyone really cares about - Caroline!!! I know she's why everyone reads ;) She's doing SO WELL. She is a pro at waving, loves carrying her duck purse around the house and blowing kisses, can now climb on and off of the couch on her own, and is still the tallest toddler at her daycare. She is SO interactive and actually plays games with us now. She likes getting the mail with me. She follows me down the driveway (although never catches up since I walk so much quicker than her), watches me get the mail, and as soon as I close the mailbox she giggles, turns around, and starts walking back up the driveway because she knows our mission is complete. She's still a bath time enthusiast; she likes throwing every bottle in the tub into the water and then placing them back on the ledge. Every time she gets one on the ledge we clap for her, so she claps too and smiles… best game ever. She is SUCH SUCH SUCH a happy little girl. She loves to read (she points at things on the page and goes "dadadadada" (she's obsessed with the "d" sound lately) mimicking how I read to her). She can now put her building blocks together to create things. She's great at her shape sorter. She made friends in the Chickfila play area (she is so social). And her artwork from daycare keeps getting better by the week. I love my toddler SO MUCH.

Here are some Caroline pictures to make your day brighter <3

TODAY IS THE DAY.

Today is the day I leave my happiness-draining job and move on to something that will hopefully be better for me. I have awaited this day for SO LONG and am really proud of myself for finally moving on, finding another job, and turning in my resignation. I have never left a job for any reason other than relocation, and it feels really good to leave a job because I want, no, need to. The image above is from the legendary movie, Office Space (if you didn't already know that, stop what you're doing right now, go out and buy the movie, and watch it.... now), and is how I wish I could celebrate when 5 o'clock rolls around today. However, I will settle for driving home and pouring myself a generous glass of red wine instead.

Let Them Eat Cake.

Sorry for the lack of updating! I'm considering retiring the Monday updates because they just seem repetitive and, honestly, our weekends are pretty darn uneventful. One of my New Years goals is to get back into my photography and not use my cellphone to take pictures all of the time. There's so much joy for me in taking quality photos with my fancy-pants camera. So far, I've gotten some great photos with my camera. I'll take this opportunity to share some of my favorites taken so far this year. 

Here is Caroline in her adorable flannel shirt from her Auntie Allison. Bald baby problem #4,659: whenever baby is not wearing pink, baby is assumed to be a boy. I paired this shirt with purple pants and pink shoes and Caroline still managed to be called handsome and got a "hey there little fella" from an old man. Oh, well; I think she looks pretty.

Caroline and I had a photoshoot during her favorite time: bath time! These were pretty much the only two images that weren't blurry because she is WILD in the bath. She splishes and splashes all over the place! We call her our little mermaid.

These are some images I took this afternoon. Josh was eating strawberry cake (yuck, disgusting, gross) and gave Caroline some bites. She actually really enjoyed it. We're beginning to think she may have inherited her daddy's sweet tooth.

Let's take a closer look at all of the beautiful blonde hair my little lady is growing. We just need her to grow some in the front, though. She's currently business in the front and party in the back mullet baby!

A [very delayed] Christmas Recap!

Hello, everyone! Sorry for such a delay in blogging about our Virginia trip.

We had such, such, such a wonderful time, despite Caroline being sick almost the entire week. We blame a random, disgusting, germ-filled Hardy's we unfortunately stopped at on our drive to Virginia. Poor little girl's temperature kept hitting 105, then we'd get it back down to a normal temperature, and then  shoot back up. She felt fine Christmas morning, and entertained everyone while opening gifts, and then after breakfast she crashed, the fever came back, and she spent the majority of the day in bed, wearing a t-shirt and a diaper, sleeping next to her daddy. We ended up at Patient's First on the afternoon of Christmas before going to my grandmother's house. Such a great way for our poor girl to spend her first "real" Christmas (last year she was clueless as to everything around her). Thankfully, she's all better now, although she got everyone else sick. Germs are evil, evillllllll.

 

So, I got the negative out of the way; we can now discuss the positive! It was so, so, so good to spend a week at home with family. Due to our sick little one, we didn't do much exciting, but that was actually pretty refreshing! We spent a lot of time just sitting around the house as a family, and that's what the holidays are all about! I enjoyed eating my mother's wonderful cooking, discovering the beauty of a Dos Equis Amber with lime, and the whole family sitting in the living room and actually staying awake during the newest Star Trek movie (my reason to make sure I could stare at Kirk, Spock, and Bones... me likey).

We got to see some of our favorite people while in Virginia! Of course, my Dad, Mom, and Sister, as well as my Grandmother, Aunt Linda and Tom, and Cousin Peter. We also got to have lunch with my Mom's longtime friend, Beth, and her family, which was very nice. We went to see Christmas lights at The Jefferson, which has special significance to me and Josh (it's where we spent the night after our wedding). Unfortunately, right after Caroline saw those lights, she fell asleep in the car seat, and her fever started shooting up, so no other Christmas lights were seen. However, she did adore my parents' Christmas palm tree, made friends with the Christmas lights in the front yard, and LOVED playing with the trains with my dad (by the end of the trip she had figured out how to work the trains on her own, smarty pants), and to a thirteen-month-old, that's probably all the Christmas lights she needed :)

Thanks to my family for a wonderful time! I cannot wait to see my mom and sister later this month while we party together in DC, bwhahahaha! Allison had better have her fridge stocked with Dos Equis and limes, bwhahahaha! (too many bwhahahaha's in one paragraph? no such thing). I get to see a lot of my friends, too, some who I haven't seen in years. It will be FUN!

I'm going to tack on a little bit of the New Year's holiday onto my Christmas post, since my Christmas post is so belated. My biggest New Year's resolution last year was to quit my job. I missed it by two days because yesterday I GAVE MY RESIGNATION. Unfortunately, it's not to stay home with Caroline; that would be amazing, but impossible. I have accepted a new position that I start at the end of the month, and it's a very welcome change. This is the first time I have quit a job for a reason other than relocation. It's the first time I have been happy about quitting a job. I don't enjoy what I do now, and spend 40 hours a week at a job that drains me. They asked me my reason for leaving, and I told them I simply need a change (one person was very supportive, and the other didn't seem to care that I was leaving, but those are the respective reactions I knew were coming). I'm excited for a change that will hopefully make me happier!

That's all the blah-blah-blah'ing for me today! I hope everyone's new year is off to a wonderful start. I can't wait to see a lot of my readers soon :)

Ending this post with my favorite Caroline face EVER EVER EVER.