Uh uh oh uh uh oh!

This would be Caroline's favorite thing to say these days! 

In celebration of Caroline being 15 months old today, here's what she's been up to.

As our resident safety officer, when she finds an offense (the cupboards aren't safety locked, the bathroom door was left open, etc.) she runs to find us and tell us "uh uh oh!uh uh oh!"  She will even tell on herself.  One her most frequent offenses is to turn the dial on the washing machine which makes it beep and light up.  This really worries her.  She really hustles to find us and has such a worried expression on her face.

She has also become Rudy's boss.  (He's our big, fat orange cat.)  If he's up on a window sill or on a table she scolds him and tells him "down!"  Today was a very busy day for her because we had several windows open and that's when he likes to sit in the window sills.

Jeremy and I were just talking about how much Caroline has picked up on lately.  She is so responsive and it's really amazing at the connections she makes and the things she comes up with.

Her vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds.  Here's a sample of some of the words she says:
mama
dada
papa
NaeNae (our cat)
Rudy (the other cat)
ball
balloon
duck
dog
uh oh (a favorite of hers!)
no
cheese
nana (banana - her favorite fruit)
bye
mumu (her version of grandma)
down
butterfly (or "buh" when she points to the butterflies on her wall)

She understands way more words than these.  It's so much fun to talk to her and know that she is understanding what we're saying.  One of her latest things she does that I absolutely love is she puts her toys away in the toy box.  Every evening we ask her to put her toys away and she goes and picks each one up and puts it in the storage bench.  She'll do this on her own sometimes during the day also. 

Her favorite animals sounds are the lion's roar and the sheep's baa, but especially the lion.

She's also a great helper with the laundry.  She loves to help put clothes into the washing machine and pushes the start button.  When the wash is done, she helps move everything from the washer into the dryer.

I'll have some pictures to share soon.

Nature Walk

Today's adventure was a nature walk at the Chattahoochee Nature Center.  It was a discovery walk for infants and toddlers.  The focus today was on sensory experiences so we did a lot of looking and touching. 
We learned about a plant called Jewel Weed that apparently is good for poison ivy and bug bites. It gets its name because when the leaves get wet it beads up like little diamonds.  It has a pretty little orange flower and the seed pod is very cool.  When you squeeze it gently it explodes.  Very fun for the kiddos!

We stopped along the way and looked at and felt the bark, moss and lichens growing on trees.  We also felt the leaves that were still wet and cool from the morning dew.

There were a few lookout areas.  Here there were lots of plants in the water, especially lily pads.  Caroline liked looking at them.  (The Chattahoochee itself is a very ugly, muddy river.)

When we were done with the nature walk, Caroline and I took our own little walk along the butterfly trail.  Lots of flowers, bees and butterflies of course!

Later we met Daddy for lunch.  We had a great morning!

PDK Park

This morning at playgroup I found out about a park that's at Peachtree Dekalb Airport.  Since today was such a gorgeous day, we took advantage of the cooler weather.  The playground was only several hundred feet from the planes.  Sometimes it was a little loud, but that just added to the excitement.  As always we spent some time on the swings.

Notice the planes in the background.

Swing time was over

Had to do a little climbing practice

Next time we'll have to bring Daddy along!

Another new trick

Yesterday as I was in the kitchen cooking, I heard a strange noise. I looked through the dining room into the playroom and this is what I saw: (snapped with my cellphone so yeah, it's blurry)

I helped her down, but that just led to her continuing to climb up on the chair over and over.  I couldn't keep her off the chair.

She looks so proud of herself!

Time to get down

Somehow she managed to get herself up and down with something in her hand.   

Names?

So, once again we're having trouble thinking about names for the new baby.  Any suggestions?  Leave a comment with any ideas you have.

Easy Saturday

We rarely go out to eat for breakfast or brunch so yesterday we thought it was time for a change.  We headed out to try out a little cafe in Dunwoody Village.  When we got there, we found it to be pretty much empty.  The big crowd was across the parking lot at The Hickory House which is a barbecue place.  We figured all those people must be on to something, so even though it was before 11 am, we decided to see for ourselves what this crowd was all about.  Turns out The Hickory House opens every morning at 7 am for breakfast.  Jeremy decided that since we're at a BBQ joint he needed to try their meat out.  So he ordered the barbecue omelet even though he said it didn't sound good.  Turns out, it was really tasty.  And Caroline loved it too.  She also loved the biscuits, my sugar cured ham and grits.  She ate about half of my grits.  I almost ordered another bowl just for her!

After brunch we went to a new park to run off some energy.  This park had a great playground that was perfect for Caroline because it had an astroturf ground cover that was super soft.  Caroline loved running up and down the play structure and checking it all out.

I love this!

Apparently all the yummy food and fresh air tuckered Caroline out.  She fell asleep on the way home and slept for 3 hours!!!!!!

22 down, 18 to go!

Here's the 22 week belly picture.  My how it's growing!

She's been an active little girl.  I feel her moving around all the time. 

So, we're having another girl!

I'm a little late on this update, but last Monday we found out that Caroline will have a little sister.  We are very excited and I'm just starting to sort through all of Caroline's old clothes and get them organized by size.  Our littlest girl already has a great start to her wardrobe. 

I am getting so excited to meet her now.  I can't help but wonder if she is going to be a spitting image of Caroline or if Jeremy will get a little of glory with a little girl who looks more like him.  Can't wait to find out!

Check out this perfect little foot

PCB!

Panama City Beach
This weekend we took a little trip down to Florida to visit Caroline's cousin Ada.  The girls had a blast hanging out together (once again I forgot to get pictures of the two of them).  I'm so glad these girls get to see each other so much. 

On Saturday we drove down to St. Andrews State Park in Panama City.  There was an awesome family beach that was perfect for us.  The beach was protected by a jetty and the water was shallow and the beach was of course the sugar white sand that the panhandle is known for.  Caroline was a little leery at first of standing in the sand, but soon was playing like a champ.  She even stood up on Ada's boogie board.  I guess she was wishing she was back in OC and wants to start her surfing lessons.   :)

Trip to the northern mountain region of Georgia

Yesterday we took a day trip up north. North Georgia that is.  The weather was perfect.  The morning was nice and cool, the humidity was very low and the sky was clear.  It honestly felt like a normal day in California.  I was loving it!!!!

The main reason for the trip was to go to the first annual Crush Fest at Yonah Mountain Vineyards.  This is a relatively new vineyard and the festival was on their grounds.

While Jeremy did a little tasting of their wines, Caroline and I explored a bit. 

We're standing on top of "the cave."  Check out that sky!

Standing in line for a tour of the cave

So we took a tour of the cave.  It's basically a man-made cave that they dug out to do some of their winemaking and to store the barrels of wine.  It was nice and cool in there.  Not a great picture, but you can get an idea of the barrels all stacked up.

A field waiting for vines

Afterwards we took a short drive to Helen to check out this quaint, Bavarian style town and have a little dinner.  It is situated right on the Chatahoochee River and very cute.  We ate dinner at a restaurant that overlooked the river and we enjoyed watching all the people tubing down this very slow, shallow and muddy river.

After dinner we took a short stroll through town on the way back to the car.  There were lots of sights to see and smell (funnel cakes!) and there happened to be a horsedrawn carriage that was stopped near us and Caroline was excited to pet the horse.

It was a long day, but Caroline did remarkably well.  She acted like such a young lady the entire day, but was exhausted by the time we made it home.  She slept in until almost 9:00 this morning! 

19 weeks (could this be over half way there?)

Today I hit 19 weeks.  If wecompare this pregnancy to the last pregnancy, I am over halfway there since I delivered Caroline at 37 weeks and 2 days.  Only time shall tell though.  I feel pretty certain that this baby will appear sometime in January, whether early or late I don't know yet.

Here's my picture with a gorgeous background which I will tell more about later.