It ain't easy being cheesy...

What to do on a rainy day? Go to Chuck E Cheese with your BFF of course!!!!!! Mimi suggested a Chuck E Cheese playdate, and we were so excited that Ginny and Mattie could come!!!!

The girls are cruisin' together...visions of them at 16, I'm afraid!

Caroline loves to slide!

and explore!

and she loved to ride all the rides. Apparently she and Barney are pretty tight.
Here she is minding her own business, driving along with her pal, Bob the Builder...

All of a sudden, Chuck E Cheese himself appeared. This was her expression when she saw him (in the giant mouse costume). She was literally frozen like this....ha ha ha...so funny!

we posed for the obligatory pic with Chuck E, but as you can see Caroline is still not thrilled about the idea. I have to give her credit, though. She never screamed or cried. Just stared. Mattie was much more excited about him! She even touched him...such a brave girl! ;)

Uncle Paul couldn't resist the idea of pizza and games, so he joined us for all the fun! Too bad I schooled him in skee ball.

Caroline LOVES her Uncle Paul. He always makes her smile and laugh!!! She just loves to watch him :)

And play fun games with him, too of course. She was totally fascinated by this one!

Ginny's 30th!

We celebrated Ginny's 30th BDay with a fun-filled Luau at her house. It was so much fun to see old friends and make new ones!

We kicked off the weekend with a little ladies lunch!
Caroline and Mattie, reunited!
The SIX of us..
Me and Caroline, Kristin and Baby Libby (due in December!!!!), Ginny and Mattie.
Can you believe all these GIRLS?!?!? Love it!
Then it was off to the party!

Me, Cami, Ginny, Kristin, and Halston ready to Luau!

The Birthday Girl and Her sweet hubby, Matt

Sad, Kristin...Pregnant girls can't drink :(
Enjoying the festivities!
Me and Kristin...such a cute Mommy-to-be!!

Happy 30th, Ginny!!!!!!!!

Another Lake House to play at!

Minnie and Papa have a house up at Lake Kiowa and we FINALLY got to go and visit! Caroline loved all the fun toys that Minnie has up there, but most of she loved following her Papa EVERYWHERE!

The house...It's on the golf course and surrounded by trees....SO peaceful!!!! My step mom, Sherri, is so creative. She is working on all kids of redecorating projects, and the house looks AWESOME!!
Hanging with her buddy, Papa.
Snuggling with Minnie
One of the highlights of our quick trip was eating breakfast on the HUGE porch. My dad makes a very yummy breakfast for sure!!!!
You guys are so silly!
I love the lake!!!

Thanks for a great visit! We can't wait to come back soon!!!!!!

11 months!

Yesterday marked Caroline's 11 month birthday. We are spending the week in Dallas with my mom so we have been having all kinds of fun! I promise to post more on that later.

For now, I'll update you on all the fun things Caroline is doing now at the ripe old age of 11 months...

-She LOVES to sing and dance. If there is any music plying she shakes and sways and throws her hands in the air. She also loves for us to sing to her. She will do some of the motions to Patty Cake, and Itsy Bitsy Spider. And if we ask her is she wants to sing Patty Cake, she starts clapping. Love that!

-Daddy says she has "ninja skills" because she loves to climb on everything. She can climb out of our laps or off of the couch by herself. The other day she climbed on top of our cable box (which is stacked on top of the DVD player on the floor) and just sat there. So strange.

This rocking chair was my dad's when he was a kiddo, and it was in mine and my brothers rooms when we were little. My mom had it recovered to match Caroline's room, and she loves it! She can climb in and out of it and make it rock all by herself!

-Caroline now consistently says, uh-oh ("uh-uh"), daddy ("dah-hee"), moo ("boo"), woof ("mmf"), and sometimes will say up ("uh") and down ("duh"). I have heard "mama" a few times, but she usually calls me daddy, too :) I don't know if it's just the SLP in me or what, but I don't count it as a "word" unless she is saying it very consistently and appropriately. Maybe I am not giving her credit for some of the other "words" she has :)

-She points at everything and says "dat"...Maybe she is asking "What is that?" or Saying "I want that." When she sees a phone, she points to it, then puts her hand to her ear, cocks her head to the side, and says "daddy." Pretty cute. We obviously call (or pretend to call) daddy a lot!

Here she is making calls and doing deals...so important!
-Another really fun thing she loves to do is bang her head on the floor. SWEET! I have read this is completely normal, and everyone I know with kids her age seems to be experiencing the same thing, BUT really...head banging? So dramatic! She typically does it when she is tired and she doesn't get her way. It's kind of disturbing and funny all at the same time. We are doing our best to ignore it :)

I am sure I am forgetting lots of stuff, but we are to visit a farm this morning, so I will have to post more later!!!!

Growing up too fast

Now that Caroline is walking, we bought her first pair of "real" shoes. It was pretty exciting! This afternoon, we headed to the mall (even Daddy came along) and went straight to Stride Rite. They measured her feet and we picked out some cutie patootie white sandals. She was such a big girl! She tried them on and tested them out...success! We bought them and she got to wear them home. Didn't you love that as a kid? Buying new shoes and wearing them out of the store...so fun. Can't believe my baby is walking around in SHOES. So grown up. It's ridiculous.

When we got home, she wouldn't stand still long enough for me to get many good pics, but here's my best attempt at showing off her new kicks...

Check out this action shot...She's so fast, her feet are blurry ;)

These new shoes are awesome!

I'm such a big girl!

We had another milestone event this weekend, too. At C's 9 month check up, the dr. recommended we start brushing her teeth. Of course, I promptly went and bought a cute little baby toothbrush and baby toothpaste. But, sweet Daddy said no. He said I was trying to "grow her up too fast." He just wasn't quite ready to accept that our baby girl was ready to brush her teeth. So we waited...until tonight :)

I think I'm ready, Daddy.

Mommy's helping me.

No worries, I got this.

Jon and I can't get over it. It's like she's turned into a real little person, not just a baby. Sniff, sniff.

Walking, Walking!

Caroline is walking everywhere and getting really fast! I love the way she waddles...like an Oopma Loompa.

This travel sized bottle of lotion is a favorite right now...random! But a girl must be moisturized.

See how much Luci loves being chased? Riiiiiight.

How times have changed...

This weekend we headed to the lake house for a little reunion weekend of Jon's group of buddies from high school. It was such a blast! We had a full house with 12 adults, 5 kids, and 2 dogs. A far cry from what a guys weekend used to look like ;)

I definitely laughed til I was in tears on more than one occasion. That is the sign of a great weekend!

We celebrated Jason and Casey's 30th birthdays

All the boys
Jon and Casey matching...This trend continued throughout the weekend.
Late night swim

As of this weekend, I can officially say that Caroline is walking more than she is crawling. I would say she is walking almost 100% of the time. We counted 51 consecutive steps this morning, and decided that means we are beyond the step-counting phase :) She is FAST! I can hardly keep up with her...Oh my! Guess it's time to go shoe shopping...

Here she is "driving" her high chair around the lake house this weekend.

Too funny!

SO Big!

Mimi came to visit us this week, and we had tons of fun...

We showed her all the exciting things we have learned at JW Tumbles, went to a Portrait Party for our Mommy Group, and of course went shopping! Whew!!!

Most importantly, thanks to Mimi's determination, Caroline has finally mastered "So Big". It's so cute!

How big is Caroline?
SOOOOO Big!!!
Of course this is her new favorite activity. She will randomly raise her arms in the air and look at us, waiting for someone to cheer for her.

A little video...
Sorry in advance for all the high pitch shrieking from both my mom and I.

4th of July Fun!

We headed to the lake house for the 4th again this year. It's so weird to think that last year at this time I was pregnant (and huge) with C and now she's here! Time sure does fly...
It was a fabulous time as usual. The Erickson clan (minus the Kansas City group :( who we greatly missed) was in full effect and our dear friends the Gillenwater's joined us as well. FUN!

Hanging out with Daddy on the beach...
I promise she isn't sunburned...just HOT.

First time on a boat with Mommy...
Gotta love the stay-puff marshmallow life jacket...safety first!

I couldn't pick my favorite 4th of July pic...

Happy
Serious
Silly
On the run
I made 4th of July fruit pizza (Thanks Meghan for the inspiration!)
Since I cook/bake so infrequently, I figured I'd better have evidence to prove that it actually happened :)

And finally, Jon stealing food from children...
He somehow convinced the girls to "share" with him.
My favorite quote from Kendall:
"Jon, do we have to share ALL of our food with you?"

Nice.

Happy Birthday, America!

Summer 'Do!

In honor of the record breaking heat we are having down here in ATX, I decided to chop off my hair. I figured since I wore it up all the time anyway, it might look a little cuter this way ;)

Jon snapped a pic before I headed to Bible Study last night. Caroline was kind enough to pose with me, so I wouldn't feel silly :)

It looked better BEFORE I got rained on yesterday, but that's ok :) It's so light and easy, but it feels so weird when i touch it...like something is missing...probably the 4-5 inches of hair that used to be there!?!?!

I didn't tell Jon I was going to cut it, so he was VERY shocked! Luckily he likes it a lot...whew!