To Grandmother's House We Went

Over the river and through the farm land to Grandmother's house we went . . . Both Caroline and I were good travelers. We went Wednesday night and kept to three pit stops for the whole trip there, so that was good! We had a nice Thanksgiving and were glad to have Uncle Glenn and Aunt Ellen, as well as Aunt Sharon join us for the day. Aunt Jen, Uncle Buddy and Hannah arrived on Thursday as well (to stay for the weekend). It is very interesting with three of us kids/babies around! There were pack 'n plays and burp cloths and toys everywhere. Grandma made an excellent dinner, but my routine was a little off and I pretty only wanted to eat the rolls and butter. Caroline slept through the whole dinner, but enjoyed the family time on Thanksgiving. She is the easiest of the bunch right now, content to look around, watch football and blow raspberries (a new skill for her this week). She is thinking about rolling over and Uncle Glenn (an engineer) tried to talk her through the process and give her a little coaching.
The nights were interesting for Mom and Dad as they tried to identify the crier and figure out who needed to be fed. Unfortunately in the last week I have started calling out in the night and wanting company around 4 a.m. Meanwhile, Caroline has been sleeping from 11 until 5:30! Mom has a new least favorite sound: the click of my door opening in the middle of the night.

The weather was great all weekend- high fifties and low sixties so I got to play outside on the golf course a lot and we all went over to Notre Dame for a walk around campus (since I wanted to Go Irish, as I said).
Our big event on Saturday was the surprise dinner party for Grandma's big birthday, which was a surprise to me as well. Apparently Mom and Dad don't think I can keep a secret . . . We had the dinner at the restaurant where Mom and Dad had their rehearsal dinner and had a great time. Grandma was totally surprised and Caroline and I helped Daddy make her late so the rest of the family could get there ahead of us. We had everything scripted out-- what order the cars would be in in the driveway, who would ride in which car and the "forgotten" bottle that Jamie had to turn around and go back for. I was very well-behaved at dinner and was happy to see everyone. I had a great time looking at the old pictures of Grandma and was content to eat salad with ranch dressing, bread and butter and of course, cake.

More photos from Canada

Jamma just sent us a few more photos from Dad and Caroline's trip to Canada. Here is Caroline with Robbie and Charlotte and also playing with Bates.

Jet-setting Baby

Daddy and Caroline have returned to the United States now and we are very happy to have them home. It was Caroline's first airplane trip and of course her first time to Canada. If you have been following my Grampy Bear's blog (there's a link in a previous post) then you know that the surgery to remove the brain tumor went very well, and we are awaiting next steps. We missed Dad and Caroline, but we were so glad they could be there to cheer Grampy on. Caroline also got to meet a lot of the other Canadian family (including Aunt Suzie and Cousin Bates pictured below). We really want to thank Jamma for going to Halifax to help Dad out and my Great Uncle and Aunt, Robbie and Charlotte, for hosting them at their house.

So Dad and Caroline got home late Wednesday night and we spent the rest of the week getting reacclimated to each other. I have started sporadically waking up in the middle of the night, which Mom and Dad are frowning upon. And Caroline continues to belt out a 3:40 a.m. wake-up call each morning. Now that she is getting bigger we are working on shifting her routine a bit to see if we can push that back.

Yesterday was a big football day around here and we had to endure the hype of the Ohio State-Michigan game. My preschool asked all the kids to dress in OSU or Michigan colors on Friday. We boycotted that activity and came in Notre Dame clothes. We're excited that the Irish still have a shot at the National Championship, but we'll have to see what happens next week . . .
Today being Sunday, I woke up and put on some nice clothes and did what every good girl should do. I went to a hockey game. I don't know if we mentioned it before, but Daddy is coaching a high school hockey team this year. They had a game today and Daddy took me with him. I got to ride on the bus with him, which was exciting. He even got me a little pack of Timbits for the ride. Then we got on the bus, I curled up with him and promptly fell asleep for the rest of the trip there.

I had a great time and was very well behaved during the game. I sat with some friends while Daddy coached and all reports were that I was an angel. We were gone for a good chunk of the day and Mom enjoyed some quality time with Caroline. She is getting so big and is now busy playing-- grabbing things and shaking them and smiling all of the time. She makes the cutest little sounds and she says something that sounds a lot like hello.


Once we returned from hockey I had a late nap, which as usual resulted in the arrival of Miss Cranky Pants in time for dinner. Mom had made lasagna and I said "I don't like lasagna." But once Mom offered to give me just the meat, cheese, noodles and sauce on my plate, I did agree to eat some-- as long as it wasn't lasagna!

Also, Happy Birthday to Grandma Boppy in Indiana! We're looking forward to celebrating the big one with you next week.

First Day of Preschool

Today was my first full day of preschool and it went very well. When I arrive at school I "sign in" by finding my name in the book and then I try to write it. I can't write quite yet, but my drawing has come a long way recently. Yesterday I drew a hammer and a penguin and Mom thought both looked like those things. Maybe I have Grammy Pammy's artistic skills!

In the preschool class we get to play outside as soon as we arrive, which is fun. Today when I got there, some kids were coming inside to get the tricycles and one of the little boys said "Come on, Katie. Grab a bike!" so I must be doing a good job of making friends. I made this beautiful necklace in small group time and I can't wait to show it to Daddy. It was a good first day and when I got home, Mom and I had one of my favorite dinners including Jell-O with whipped cream. We even had a toast to my first day of preschool (although at first I misunderstood and thought I was going to get the bread kind of toast).

Here's another funny little thing. Mom left the kitchen to get something and when she came back I had my head in my Halloween pumpkin. The sight reminder her of the recent news item about a deer getting his face caught in a similar pumpkin! What do you think?

Hectic Week

This was a very hectic week for us. On Monday, Caroline went to the plastic surgeon to have her umbilical granuloma (excess scar tissue on her belly button) taken care of. He basically just tied it off and did a little more with the silver nitrate.

On Tuesday we went to the Wiggles show and Mom, Dad and I had fun seeing them in person. You can see I was somewheat mesmerized (photo left) when they appeared and I enjoyed it, but I did not dance as much as Mom and Dad would have thought. The Wiggles were very interactive and came in the stands a lot, so I saw them pretty close up-- even Purple Wiggle who is my favorite. After the show I fell asleep on the way home (a rarity these days!)
On Wednesday Mom went to Toronto for an overnight work trip and thankfully Grandma and Poppy were able to come stay with us for two nights to help Daddy out. Mom got home Thursday night and then Friday morning Daddy and Caroline left for Canada to be there for Grampy Bear's surgery on Monday. Here is a photo of Caroline all ready for her big trip. From the reports we've heard she was a great traveler, but Daddy had his hands full with all the necessary gear that goes with her. They are all in Halifax, Nova Scotia right now, which is where the surgery will take place. Caroline got to meet a lot of the family and Jamma was able to go over from PEI to help Daddy with Caroline. In addition to the family stuff, Dad had a chance to see some of his good friends who drove over from PEI to hang out.

I have adjusted pretty well with Dad and Caroline being gone, but Friday evening I started lining up formula on the counter "so that they were ready for Caroline to come home." I also told Mom that Daddy took "our sunshine" to Canada. I just recently started calling her Sunshine (that is when I am not calling her Cookie Monster!)
Mom and I had a fun weekend which included some of our usual favorite activities (YMCA, library, grocery store) and we even went out to breakfast together on Sunday-- why not? I mean we were up at 6:23 a.m. Mom thinks it takes a lot of energy to keep up with me, but after having two around, she said it makes having just me look easier!

Tomorrow is my first day of preschool. I have been transitioning for the last two weeks with increasingly longer visits, but I don't seem to be getting it that I won't just be visiting anymore come Monday. We'll report in on that soon.

Updates on My Grampy Bear

Hi everyone. My Grampy Bear will have surgery on Monday to remove the brain tumor. Mom will be posting updates on this new blog with updates on the surgery and his recovery:

http://barryl.blogspot.com/

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers.

Welcome to my New Cousin!

Let me start with the good news from this week. We welcomed cousin Hannah (pictured left) to the family! On Saturday we hopped in the minivan and drove to Indianapolis to meet her. All was going well until we hit a slow down due to road construction, which had a negative impact on both Caroline and me. With all of the stop and go she woke up and got hungry at about the same time that I turned green. So Mom sat in the back of the minivan and used one arm to feed Caroline and the other to hold my barf bag. Good times . . .

When we arrived in Indy, I felt better for a while and amused everyone by dancing around with my underwear on my head, once again making Uncle Glenn proud.

I was excited to meet the baby and I have been saying "I have a baby and Aunt Jen has a baby." Hannah is beautiful with dark hair and a very loud cry. Her hair has these funny highlights, so we determined that she takes after Mom. Caroline was interested to see her, too (see photo below).

Later, I didn't feel so well again and threw up once more and then I had a nap on the floor. At one point one of us kids was napping in just about every room except the kitchen. Uncle Buddy also discovered that the basement had flooded and he and Poppy spent the afternoon replacing the sump pump and getting the water out of the basement.

We were just there for the afternoon and then headed back home. We hit the same construction problem again going back and had the same result-- crying from Caroline and puking from me. Which reminds me, Aunt Jen, do you want your tupperware container back?

As I mentioned earlier, Hannah was our good news this week. We also got some really bad news. Grampy Bear in Canada found out he has brain cancer. He is having surgery to remove a fist-sized tumor next week, so please send your love and prayers in that direction. We have both just recently gotten our computer web cams up and working again, so we have all been enjoying nightly chats with Grampy and Grammy Pammy on what I have come to call "Grampy TV" (well actually I call it "TB"). These chats pretty much consist of us waving, asking "Can you hear us?" and blowing kisses, but it is nice to see them when they are so far away. We're starting a blog for Grampy so that people can check on his progress and we will provide that information in a future post.

In other news, Mom went back to work last Wednesday and we are getting adjusted. Caroline is doing well at school (daycare), but is very tired in the evenings so we don't see much of her. Hopefully once she gets acclimated, she will have more awake time in the evening. Also the time change has had the negative effect of altering her night feed from 5:30 a.m. to 4:30 a.m. and we can't get it switched back!