just two

Just because I haven't lately, I took a couple pictures of Caroline a little while ago. I picked just two pictures to share. The first is just Caroline being silly. She loves to hang upside-down or look at people above her. Taking this picture from directly above got the same "I'm having fun" smile.


If you look closely, you can see that Caroline is standing by herself in this picture. She has been able to stand by herself pretty well for at least a week. However, she will only do it if she doesn't realize she's doing it. If she realizes that she's not at least leaning on something, she will quickly sit down or grab onto something. When I caught this picture, she had been standing for a minute and was just starting to "fall" toward the chair (that's why she looks a little like she's leaning to the front).

new playmates

Nathan and Caroline enjoyed spending time with Nana and Granddaddy and Aunt Erin last week. Somehow, we missed getting any good pictures with Aunt Erin (sorry, Aunt Erin). Here is Caroline walking with Nana. She roped Nana into this activity as often as she possibly could. I'm sure that Nana's back is still recovering.


Every time we visit, Nathan enjoys playing the piano with Nana. This trip was no exception. The funny thing this time is that Nathan picked one song that he liked, and told Nana (after the fact) that he didn't like the others. How funny!


Nathan and Nana made turkey hands. Nana traced Nathan's hand and then Nathan traced Nana's hand.


Nathan wanted to play on Granddaddy's computer, but Granddaddy was already playing. So, Nathan decided to climb up and watch. Granddaddy joked that Nathan was keeping an eye on him to make sure he kept playing his game...so he would finish and Nathan could have the computer.

socks, a thumb, and a computer

I was taking this picture in particular because I wanted to show off Caroline's new socks. I went looking for some socks with non-slip stuff on the bottom. I found these and thought they were much too cute to pass up. Aunt Erin approved. :) We have also started pulling a bit of her hair back with barrettes to keep the long hairs out of her eyes. Any tips from the moms of girls out there would be great! I'm not so good with this girly stuff.


This night, Nathan wanted to lay with me on the couch. Caroline decided to join us and we just just lounged there for a while. Mommy heaven!


Caroline is a thumb-sucker. Ever since she gave up pacifiers, she has loved her thumb. Until recently, she only sucked it when she was sleepy. Now, she has added sucking on it when she's hungry as well. This is a just before bed shot.


Nathan enjoys playing on pbskids.org. He didn't pass up the opportunity to play on Granddaddy's laptop last week.


On a completely unrelated note, Caroline now has four teeth. The third one broke through about two weeks ago and the fourth one about a week ago. I'll see about getting a toothy grin picture soon.

recent things

Today, when we were leaving lunch, there was a sign that read "My Father's Place will be closed on Thanksgiving Day. Thank you." Nathan read the sign. By himself. He read the sign. Ok...he didn't get "Thanksgiving" but read "Thanks"...but that's pretty close. Matt and I were very surprised! I know that he knows a lot of words, but I didn't know he knew all of those. Wow!

It's so much fun to watch Caroline develop. Her personality comes out more and more. One of the funniest things that she has started doing seems to be the beginning of temper tantrums. I think we're in for it. When she's not happy, she'll just plop herself down on her belly. The next step is kicking her feet and pounding her fists! :)

carseats

Caroline has grown too big for her carrier/carseat and we have been thinking about getting Nathan a booster...so...

Here is Nathan in his convertible carseat that he has used since he was a baby.


Matt bought Nathan a booster seat while I was running back and forth to the hospital. Nathan really likes having a seat belt like Mommy and Daddy. *sniff* *sniff* My little boy is growing up. Here he is in his new seat.


Well, I was originally going to put pictures of Caroline on here, but we have a problem with Nathan's old carseat. We either have to fix it or buy Caroline a new seat. So...at least for a few more days, she'll still be in her infant seat.

Fall Festival

Last Saturday, we managed to fit our church's Fall Festival in between errand running, Papa's 75th birthday celebration, and visiting the hospital. Nathan had a good time, so I think it was worth it. Matt and I did a lot of swapping off, though. He got there with the kids before I got there from the hospital. Nathan did some playing on the inflatable stuff outside.


After I got there, Matt was starving, so he and Carline went to get some food while Nathan and I went to play games, do some crafts, etc. He was much more interested in candy!


Later, I fed Caroline while Matt and Nathan went in search of snow cones. After Nathan and I stopped to have some real food, Nathan rode on a Thomas train and continued with the crafts and games. Matt helped him with some and I helped with others.


We might not have all been together much, but we all got to be a part of the experience and had a good time!

fall is here

Fall is finally here. The weather is nice. The leaves are falling. It's just nice to be outside. Today, the kids and I played outside for a little bit. Here are a couple pictures.

recent pictures and such

I know that I haven't been very good at putting updates of the kids lately. In thinking about what they are doing new, there are two things that immediately come to mind. For the last couple weeks, Caroline has been looking around things. I know that this might seem silly, but it's one of those things that you don't realize a baby doesn't do until she does. It's funny to watch her lean this way or that way to look around things. She's also been exploring things inside of others - particularly her toys. Oh...one more on her before I head to Nathan. She does lots of jabbering. For a couple weeks, Matt has been able to carry on conversations with her where he repeats the sounds she makes and then she makes another sound and he repeats and so on. The most popular sound in this game is and airy "hah-dah". On Sunday, Caroline was playing with some things while I was getting dressed. She dropped it and then said "uh-oh". She did it about three times and I would have sworn that she was saying it on purpose. I'm very hesitant to say that it had meaning, though.

Nathan's BIG thing lately has been spelling. He is learning how to spell words left and right. He spends some of his down time in the afternoons spelling out words with his alphabet puzzle letters. For a while, he was using the toy laptop that he got last Christmas and learning words. I am going to attempt to list all the words that he knows how to spell (with Nathan and Matt's help): stop, yo-yo, dog, cat, sheep, pig, cow, jacket, rocket, one, monster, two, Bible, bingo, Jesus, God, eye, and, web, superwhy, now, big, William, Mommy, Daddy, Caroline, Nathan Eli Moseley, ball, queen, next, go, three, baby, you, Nana, yes, no, ladder, frog, key, mouse, house, log, pie, Matt. Ok. That's all we can come up with for now. He also knows that if you add and "s" to the end of a word, it makes it plural. The other day he said to me "S-H-E-E-P was scared of the M-O-N-S-T-E-R." I laughed out loud to hear this sentence come out of my 3 year old.

I thought this was a cute picture of her smiling while chewing on the zebra.


Here is Caroline in her crib. I really want to remember my camera one day when I go to get her up. I want to catch the excited smile that I get when I walk in the room. It's absolutely the best!


This afternoon, we were outside waiting on the mail lady to come. I decided to grab my camera and tried to get a picture of the two of them together. I got one with them both looking and sorta smiling, but I thought this picture was much more "real"...Caroline thinking about eating a leaf and Nathan putting his feet all over her.


This is our neighbor, Mrs. Crenshaw. She and her husband were out in the yard and she came over to chat. She took a seat right down on the grass with us and Caroline crawled right on over.


Nathan was just being his silly self running across the yard.


Tonight, Nathan helped Daddy wash the ice cube trays after Caroline's food was emptied from them. (He also helped me to empty them into bags and put them back in the freezer.)

DOWT - Part 4

After visiting Thomas, we went to do a few more things before leaving and heading out for a late lunch. Nathan had James painted on his hand.


Then, we headed back up the hill where most of the activities were. Nathan wanted to go play on the dinosaur bouncy thing, but it was closed so he headed to the castle instead.


Daddy and Caroline were trying to catch up.


Then, Nathan went to do the little maze. He went straight through the first time. It really wasn't hard. Then, he ran back to the beginning and explored all the wrong ways to go.


In the meantime, Caroline found her own use for the hay bales.


Well, that's the end of our adventure. I hope you enjoyed experiencing it with us in pictures.

DOWT - Part 3

When we got off the train we were going to go see Sir Topham Hatt and Thomas to take pictures. Surprisingly, Nathan was more excited about getting to see Sir Topham Hatt. So...we went there first. When he got his turn. He turned into the silly Nathan that we love! I couldn't resist including several pictures. You might have to look at them large size to get the full enjoyment.




Then, we headed for the line to take pictures with Thomas. While Matt and the kids waited in line, I went to get a picture of the whole train.


Nathan wanted to do his hand like you do to get truckers to blow their whistle. I guess he was hoping that Thomas would "peep peep" for him.


We got our turn up in front of Thomas. I actually didn't get any pictures that I loved from this location. I thought I would include one anyway.


And here is one at a better angle (in my opinion).

DOWT - Part 2

So...here's the main part of the trip...the train ride. On the way to the train, we stopped to get a quick picture of Nathan and Thomas (more to come later).


Here is Nathan and William getting on the train.


After we boarded the train, we had about 15 minutes before we went anywhere. We took the opportunity to get a picture of all of us. Look! We're all looking at the camera at the same time!


I also went down to the end of the coach car to get a picture of the whole environment. You can see Matt and Nathan about halfway down on the right. There were two sets of seats facing each other, so we were all in one little area together.


We tried hard to get a picture of Mommy and the kids, but we just didn't all look at the same time.


Caroline really enjoyed looking out of the train. It's the first time that she's been in anything moving and not been strapped in. She could get right up to the window and check out everything going by.


Nathan was checking everything out, too. We went over a piece of Lake Blackshear (see above) and through some pecan tree orchards. On the way back, there were some people out in a boat that waved at us as we went by.


This man was the "host" of our coach. At the beginning he got everyone to say "push Thomas push...push Thomas push..." While we were riding, they played some Thomas music and short stories. He would come down the aisle clapping. Caroline thought that was very entertaining and would watch him coming and dance to the music. So...we had to get a picture of her friend!

DOWT - Part 1

Matt and I have been waiting for months to take Nathan to a Day Out With Thomas (DOWT) event. We decided to go to the one in Cordele. We didn't tell Nathan about it until a few days before, though, because we knew he would be asking about it every day. We knew that we would get to ride on Thomas's train, but the details about the rest of the event were a bit vague. We didn't exactly know what to expect, but we figured it would still be a fun family outing. So, here is part one of the recap:

Nathan got his ticket when we arrived at Georgia Veterans Memorial Park. We actually didn't need the ticket for anything but the train ride itself, so we took it back until we got to the train.


There was a big tent set up with all kinds of activities. Since we were there a little early, we let Nathan enjoy a few before heading to where the train was located. Here he is stamping some of his favorite engines. (Notice that William also got to enjoy this event.)


They also had coloring sheets and markers. That didn't last long, though, because...


...he quickly spotted the actual trains that he could play with. They had 5 or 6 tables set up with (I think) three different types of Thomas trains. Luckily, there weren't too many kids around to compete with!


Caroline enjoyed hanging out and watching all the people as well as Nathan playing.


I think it's funny that one of the things that he got most excited about was the bubbles. They had machines set up all over the place that would occasionally blow bubbles.