Our Super Stars

From Beth: We finally got Caroline's 1.5 year-old photos taken, just a wee bit late from Feb. 9, but as one of my co-workers pointed out, she's a second child so it's remarkable that she even has a 1.5 year-old portrait! My second priority while we were there was to get a photo of the girls together in their Easter dresses, but Caroline just was not interested in holding still. She walked out of the frame a number of times and when Katie tried to help hold her still she ended up laying on top of Caroline on the floor and it looked more like an action shot of wrestling, than the sweet little Easter photo that I had in mind! The sales-oriented associate who showed us our image options valiently tried to sell these poses, but they were not among our selections. We did end up with a lovely shot of Katie though who offered up a beautiful smile with no coaxing (unlike when we went to have her 4-year photos done in January).

The highlight of Katie's weekend was her friend (our neighbor) Miranda's birthday party. She's been looking forward to it for ages and she was a big fan of the Hannah Montana theme and loved playing on the stage that they had built for the party. Most of the kids were shy about singing, but Katie was happy to belt it out when the music was playing and when it wasn't. I think that microphone might be on Katie's next Christmas list (I think I hear my sister making a note of this potentially annoying gift as I type here). When we returned home Katie was very generous with her stuffed goodie bag and shared some of her sunglasses with Caroline, who also liked to feel like a superstar!

Jamie and I had a night out at a hockey game on Saturday night for the Hockey Hall of Fame induction as Jamie was asked to attend as a past inductee. I haven't been to a game for a few years, but we saw all the same people there sitting in all the same places. It was fun and we plan to return with the girls next weekend.

Sunday was pretty quiet for us, but we had a lot of play time and got to enjoy Caroline's funny antics. During church we were offering Caroline several different toys and she sat back in her stroller appraising each one and then kept shaking her head saying "no" to each one. After the fourth time Jamie and I were laughing out loud. She has some funny expressions, like when she's looking for Katie she says "K.T. are you?" and when she wants to be unbuckled from her booster seat at the table she says "uppy down" which makes sense because she wants us to lift her out an put her down. Her vocabulary continues to grow and includes some favorites like "belbow" (which is elbow or sometimes it is Elmo) and of course RoRo which is what she calls our dog Lily.

"Does God play basketball here?"

It was a week of events at our house. First, St. Patrick's Day, which has always been a favorite of mine. The girls wore their green to school and Katie enjoyed having all of the kids make things for Notre Dame (shamrocks!). I had a work trip this week, so Jamie was on his own from Monday night on and they all had a good time, as they always do when "the boss" is away, which means McDonald's and hot dogs for dinner, showers instead of baths and many other silly things I am sure.

I arrived home Thursday night in time to have a late birthday dinner with Katie and Jamie (Caroline was asleep). They had decorated the kitchen with streamers and themed everything around red and yellow (flowers, cake, etc). And, Jamie was so ambitious, he even had steam cleaned the carpets while I was away! I got a new camera for my birthday and have been enjoying it, although a technical glitch delayed uploading photos for the blog- hence the late posting.

And then the really big event of the week was Easter of course. The Easter Bunny comes to our house after church, so the girls woke up to find one jelly bean-filled Easter egg on their chairs, so they knew he had stopped by. I "bundled" the girls into their sundresses despite the 30 degree temperature and we went to church. We enjoyed Katie's company since usually she is at Sunday school while we attend a kid-friendly mass in the school gym. She was busy moving about and spotting kids from her Sunday school class and preschool (how very Barb Junior of her!) At one point she was looking around the room and noticed the raised basketball nets and she whispered in my ear "Does God play basketball here?"
When we got home their Easter baskets were out and the girls had an egg hunt. Caroline was content to put on her new rain boots and pick up a few eggs, while Katie was aggressive about the hunt. We allowed them a few minutes of free for all on the candy. I tried to show Caroline how to eat a chocolate egg, but we ended up with a lot of chocolate drool (see the photo where she's trying to pull off her boots and note her cheek bulging with chocolate!) She was better at the marshmallow bunnies, but really could have done with just her boots and the plastic eggs. Katie is my candy girl and she negotiates, sneaks and even steals it from Caroline's basket. I keep finding four peanut butter eggs in Katie's basket and none in Caroline's when there were two in each!

We enjoyed Easter dinner at our friends' house and the girls had a terrific time together in all of their girly-girl princessy finest. We got home around 9 p.m. and both girls fell asleep immediately- a true Easter miracle!

Ready for Spring

By Beth: Thankfully all of the snow is gone, but we are still anxious to see some spring-like weather. The girls got new raincoats this weekend. Caroline loved her new dog! She kept trying to look up and see the dog's tongue-- I just missed a great photo where she was crossed eyed. She walked around for a while saying "Bow Wowow" over and over until the refrain changed ot "Out! Out!" when she got hot.

Katie had her last indoor soccer game yesterday and was thrilled to receive a medal. Jamie reports that she had some good kicks when she played defense and had a couple of good saves in net.

Today we dyed our Easter eggs. Caroline really wanted to break the eggs or splash around in the dye, so her involvement was short lived! Our artistic Katie really enjoyed doing it and was good at figuring out how to mix the colors.

After rest period this afternoon we all went out for a bike ride and a trip to the park. Caroline had a blast climbing the stairs and going down the slides and giggled with delight in the tunnel. We ran into some neighbors and Katie burned off a lot of energy.


Note: I need to issue a disclaimer on Katie's outfit . Speaking of being ready for spring, she is ready to wear sundresses and she insisted on wearing this colorful one out today. I told her her legs and arms had to be covered, so she cooked up this little ensemble, complete with mismatched socks.

Snowed In

From Beth: With the blizzard hitting us, our weekend plans turned completely around. We were supposed to head to South Bend for a wedding and unfortunately a foot and a half of snow changed that. We were so sad to miss the wedding and seeing my high school friends and Katie was very disappointed that she didn't get to have her sleepover at my Aunt Sharon's.

My office closed early on Friday so the weekend started early and we had lots of play time at home and Caroline had plenty of time to be up to her tricks like climbing up on the table to get to the Easter decorations. Usually we try to stop her, but her low-riding jeans made it too funny for us to intervene. After dinner Jamie and Katie headed out to shovel the driveway for the first of three times.

On Saturday almost everything was closed and many of the area counties were on Level 3 snow emergencies, so no one was supposed to be on the roads. We had a LeBrun day, which is something we learned from Jamie's Aunt Suzie. It means you stay in your pajamas all day and avoid showering if at all possible. Katie and I baked muffins for breakfast and we did lots of coloring and playing. Jamie, Katie and Lily had another long outing in the snow and all came in chilly and red-faced. By the end of the day we were a bit stir crazy, but it had finally stopped snowing. Sunday school was cancelled, so we had another unscheduled day on Sunday, except Jamie and Katie did venture out to the grocery. Jamie had the year-end banquet for the high school hockey team that he coached and Katie went along as his date, while Caroline and I had some fun time at home.

The highlight of Caroline's week has been the arrival of Girl Scout cookies into her life. She is in love with Thin Mints and her whole face lights up when the box comes out. Jamie says she's ready to sign up for the nearest troop. While she loves the cookies, she's not very picky about how she eats them. She loves dunking things, so this week we've seen her dunk them in the remains of her corn chowder, pizza sauce and beef stew. She finally got to the doctor for her 18-month check-up on Tuesday (about a month late) and she is doing well. She is now 27 pounds and 33 1/8" (80th and 90th percentiles, respectively). Now we just have to get her in for her "18-month portraits" and we'll be all caught up!

Settling Back In

Written by Beth: We were happy to have a fairly quiet weekend after all of the traveling. Katie got back to soccer and enjoyed her game. Caroline was happy to have some of her favorite things around like her beloved dog boots. Even though they don't really fit, she loves them. She also is very into animals right now and we can get about five minutes of quiet play with the Fisher Price farm. Her barnyard noises are so cute and very high pitched, which cracks us up.

We enjoyed dinner at our friends' house last night and we all had a great time. The girls were very busy with their friends Caitlyn and Nora. The funniest part of the night was when the grown-ups were having dessert, someone said should we be worried that Nora (age 2) is so quiet? Upon investigation, we discovered that Katie was supervising a bath for their girls. One of whom was splashing in the toilet water. Meanwhile, while we were laughing about that, Caroline decided to play the role of Goldilocks and quietly worked her way around the kids table eating everyone's blueberry cheesecake (photo below!)

And we've made a big change at our own table. Caroline has graduated from her high chair to a booster sea and Katie has moved into a regular seat. We're looking forward to having the high chair out of the kitchen! And Lily is enjoying having easier access to Caroline.

There was no Sunday school today, so instead of church Katie and I went to a kids movie at the the theater and then we all did some errands, including a run to Sam's Club. The girls loved all of the samples, until Caroline had a "reversal" (which as Jamie tells us, is the term for throwing up in the world of competitive eating, such as the hot dog eating contests shown on ESPN). She was eating a piece of bacon and apparently had a hard time chewing it, but tried to swallow it anyway, which made her gag. When this happened, I was about to throw out one of the little sample cups and Jamie said just go, she's fine. However, C's face told me otherwise and I produced the cup just in time to catch the spit-up. Jamie says if there had still been strawberry cake in the cup I might have let Caroline throw up on herself to save the cake! He might be right . . . Thankfully, we don't have any pictures of that part of our weekend. Have a good week!

Florida Getaway

Posted by Beth: After returning from the blizzardy weather of Canada and a long and darining week, we were all ready for some relaxing family time down in Florida. We left last Monday to visit my parents for a week, as they enjoy their two months in Ft. Myers.

We discovered that Caroline is not at an ideal age for a three-hour flight (or any length flight for that matter), but we survived the wiggly maniac activity and were thrilled to finally arrive and see palm trees and Grandma and Poppy. After Katie's brief, random vomiting incident at bedtime, we got some sleep and woke up ready for vacation. Jamie and Poppy got in some golf and the girls had some pool time.

We enjoyed a day trip to Sanibel Island. Both girls liked picking up shells with Grandma, although Caroline wasn't very particular about her selections. She seemed to prefer rocks and pieces of wood, as much as anything else. Caroline was also ready to plunge right into the water, even though it wasn't very warm.

The next day we enjoyed a little beach that was close to Grandma and Poppy's house in Cape Coral. The sand was great, the water was nice and there was a playground. Caroline liked to chase the sea gulls and Katie loved to join in on that, too. It was also a great place to make a sandcastle, and Katie and Poppy got right to work on digging a big hole.

After naps (for all of us) we swam in Grandma and Poppy's pool, which Katie just couldn't get enough of. She did a good job of following the rules, so this year we could relax a little with her around the pool . . . Caroline was another story, however. If she wasn't napping or with us in the pool, we had to be on full alert since the house doors were always wide open to the lanai.

On Friday, Jamie celebrated his 35th birthday with a round of golf with Poppy and then some swimming. Katie and I made him a cake. Perhaps we were a little overzealous with the decorating, but we had fun making it!

Saturday we went to the Shell Factory/zoo place, since we enjoyed it so much last year. We saw the gators and enjoyed the new dinosaur exhibit (don't ask how giant plastic dinosaurs fit in with the shell factory/zoo-- let's just say the place is ecclectic!) Caroline is into animals now, so she enjoyed the petting zoo portion and entertained us with her adorable high-pitched quacks. We did the bumper boats again and I was lucky to have a better boat, while Jamie and Katie had less fire power on their squirter.

At the afternoon swim Caroline sided with Poppy that the hot tub was a much better place to be, while Katie loved twirling in her intertube and making up all kinds of games. By the time we left she was really very comfortable in the water and doing more swimming.

On our last day of vacation we returned to the little beach to chase more seagulls, build another sand castle and get a last taste of our toes in the sand. I enjoyed a last nap in the hammock and we had some more pool time which included Poppy's many tricks with the water gun and making waves int he pool .That night we dined at an interesting establishment that Jamie found called Bubba's. Katie was most excited about being able to throw peanuts on the floor. In fact, she didn't even want to break the shells and eat the nuts, she just wanted to throw them on the floor! And since this is her way of life, Caroline was thrilled to have everyone throwing food off the table and she enjoyed having Poppy feed her peanuts. There was tons of food and both girls ate a lot and really enjoyed it (as we all did). It was a great way to end our vacation.

Monday we endured another long flight back through Detroit. Caroline was content for the first five minutes (due to cinnamon sticks from Cinnabon) and after that we were back to the "angry spaghetti noodle" where she didn't want to be held or contained in any way. Both Jamie and I were head butted and battered during the process. We basically tried to keep her happy in five-minute increments and for one blissful seven-minute stretch both girls shared a seat coloring together and were quite content. We arrived home with our enormous pile of luggage (including golf clubs and two hockey bags full of car seats, booster seats, etc.) and looked out at the gray sky and bits of snow and shared Katie's sentiments when she burst into tears and said "I want to stay in Florida!"