Nine Months!

My little sweetpea hit her nine month mark a couple of days ago and we celebrated by having some one-on-one time while the others were at school.

She let me play dress-up and we had a blast!

Little Miss is growing up so fast!

The other night as I was rocking her to sleep I realized that she completely fills up my lap and I swear I saw hints of a little girl lying there.

It drives my other kids crazy because the highlight of their day was getting to hold her and she wants nothing to do with that now. She is a busy gal and she wants to explore on her own. One of their favorite things to do with their little sis is to get her crawling and to go under one side of the coffee table and out the other side. She follows them each time and I swear they could do it for an hour if I let them.

This is one of my favorite shots because when ever she is concentrating on something her little tongue creeps out.

What is rockin in Caroline's world...

* no teeth yet *

This is so strange to me since my others had at least two or three teeth at this point. I have started to chop up food really small for her just in case she never gets teeth that way she can learn to gum everything:) Her favs right now are strawberries with bananas mixed in and peas. She is also a great little meat eater. She had her first steak this week and loved it!

* still does the army crawl *

Goes about everywhere around this house but slides across the floor on her belly. She really gets a workout from this because she has to use her arms so much. She gets up on those hands and knees and goes a few inches but then plops down to her belly. This is fine by me, she doesn't realize how much faster she could go if she did it the other way and this momma doesn't have her gates out yet.

* loves to stand *

She is not pulling herself up to a complete stand yet by herself but with a little help from mom once she is in standing position she loves it. She just smiles and you can tell it is a whole new world for her.

* mommy's girl *

We are going through the stranger anxiety phase right now. Even when they are not strangers to her she freaks! She really just wants her mommy pretty much at all times. She loves on her daddy when he gets home but keeps one eye on me to make sure that I am not sneaking off anywhere. My other kids really didn't experience this quite to this extreme. Should I be worried?

* dadda *

For being such a mommy's girl she sure likes to say her Daddy's name a lot! We get a lot of babbles out of her which is amazing in a house as noisy as ours. Maybe she just feels like she needs to be heard. I really don't notice her noise level until we are at church and my other ones are quiet. This is when it seems like she is really talking her head off.

We had so much fun playing dress up but we kind of did miss everyone else and all of the chaos that comes along with them. Some times she will squawk at them if they touch her but I can tell that she likes having them close to her.

Happy Nine Months Sweetpea!

Keep rockin our world!

We love you!

A little bit of this, a little bit of that.

Kindergarten fieldtrip to Kaleidoscope

Little Miss Determined here got it in her head that she was going to get her ears pierced. After days of hearing about it, we made a date. Only problem was that Daddy forgot but had to stay late for a meeting. I tried to talk her into waiting until the next day but she was just not having it. Kyle got home just in time for Margaret, Mimi, and I to hop in the car and show up at Claire's about ten minutes before closing. I am sure the nice lady there really wanted to ring my neck.

My baby girl sat there looking so confident and ready to get the show-on-the-road. She was with us when her big sis got it done and she informed me that she would not be crying like Isabella did. When the sales clerk got the latex gloves out her eyes got a bit bigger and her hands started to shake a bit.

After the first ear that little lip started to turn...

but my brave girl got through it just like I knew that she would:)

Way to go Bitty! I must say you look super "fancy"!

Pioneer day at school to celebrate Kansas Day.

A fun trip with Nana to see Mickey Mouse's Magic Show. My kids loved this! All of the Disney princesses were there and there were actually a lot of tricks that amazed me!

Hello, is anyone out there?????

Yes, we are all still alive at our house.

We made it home safe and sound (despite the flat tire on the way home).

Okay pretty ridiculous that it has taken me like two weeks to recoup but really being the mom is hard work! Never did I realize all of the thought and preparation that my mother went through each year when they took us on trips. Seriously she needs to be Sainted for allowing us to go each year and not complaining about it.

I must say it was worth every ounce of sleep that I lost because I got to have some much needed family time without all of the normal distractions of life.

We took our family to a very special place that is close to my heart, Beaver Creek, CO. Ten years ago after a day of skiing and an ice cold beer my best bud proposed to me here as we watched a fireworks show on the mountain and at that moment we were talking about bringing our kids there someday to ski. Well we were finally able to do it and it was so fun to see my kids in this element.

Getting Miss Margaret ready for ski school was quite the challenge as this girl doesn't like to work up a sweat. Once out on the mountain she cooled off (I think it was like 5 degrees this day) and had a great time. When I picked her up at the end of the day the first thing she let me know is that they let her rest and take as many breaks as she wanted to. You see Miss M likes to have fun but she also likes to just chill. When I asked her instructor if she took lots of "breaks" she just smiled. Right then I knew my answer:)

This little dude was a charmer!

They normally don't let them do ski school until they are three but since he is potty trained they let him have a shot.

When I picked him up from school one of the instructors came up to me and asked if I was Walter's mom. Now this is sometimes a tricky question, not knowing what it was in reference to I wasn't sure how to answer. She then let me know that he was awesome out there and when older kids in his class cried or got sad he went up to them, patted their backs and said, "It's otay, it's gonna be awrite". That's my boy, love this about him!

Walter riding the magic carpet back to the top.

Wasn't sure how Miss Cautiousness was going to handle this whole skiing thing but boy did she blow me away! She loved ski school and made several runs with her daddy. I did find out on the way home that she almost slid through the trees going really fast. Didn't like hearing this, this is what I had nightmares about before our trip! Good thing for helmets and Daddy's!

When we weren't on the mountain we were cuddled by the fireplace playing games,

or just dancing in our underwear:)

Isabella took this shot to prove that "Mommy went on our trip too".

Our condo was ski in/ski out which is what I would highly suggest with kids. Right below us was the village ice skating rink and restaurants and everything was all in walking distance.

This is what happens when Daddy takes the girls skiing and leaves little man with me...

This is what happens when I bribe him with hot apple cider and candy:)

Please excuse this picture, I had to post it because this is like our spot (the whole engagement thing) but it really is a bad shot. Fireworks are hard to capture in a pretty way and Kyle's a little crazy looking.

One moment I didn't get a picture of but wish I would have is when Margaret got up and sang "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" into a microphone in front of about fifty people just to get a free CD of a local guy that has played in Beaver Creek for the last twenty years.

We are home, we are unpacked, laundry is done, we are already dreaming about going back!

Oh, and just in case you are wondering yes that is Justin Bieber added to my play list.

It was not a mistake.

We are having a bit of Bieber Fever here:)