Look ma, no hands!

Yesterday was the first day that Caroline was able to sit up straight and balance for a few minutes without using her hands. It was a pretty exciting development, and Aunt Alli got to witness it first hand! It was a rainy, low-key day...mostly playing and napping indoors, with a visit to "Taste of India" at ODU for late afternoon entertainment and dinner. Aunt Alli babysat so that we could go to the movies, a rare treat. Thanks, Alli...you're the best! Today was another rain filled day...Aunt Alli made her way back home, and it was back to the old routine for us. We're looking forward to starting our trip north on Wednesday, although we'll be sad to be saying goodbye to Daddy for so long. :-(

A Day at "Gardens Busch"

It's been a fun few days. Mike came home on Friday afternoon after being out at sea all week, and Aunt Alli arrived from Boston on Friday night. So, it went from being pretty quiet around here to being full of activity, and we're enjoying every minute of it. Since it was a beautiful day yesterday, we decided to spend the day at Busch Gardens, or "Gardens Busch" as Nora kept referring to it. We started out the day by traumatizing Nora on the Log Flume. It looked pretty innocuous from the ground, but after getting on the ride with her and going through the first two drops, we realized that we were doomed. Nora cried her eyes out after the last drop, but soon regained her composure and kept repeating, "I'm okay...I'm okay." She got a little scared again when Daddy took her on a small ferris wheel later in the day, but then she observed that the ferris wheel "goes slow, not fast," and kept repeating that phrase throughout the ride to reassure herself. Have we done irreparable damage? But we redeemed ourselves by taking her on the carousel (her favorite ride) and treating her (and ourselves) to ice cream before leaving. Caroline also enjoyed the carousel ride quite a bit (the only ride she got to go on). We didn't go on any grown-up rides...there were just too many people, and we were just too tired from being the parents and aunt of two little ones! Today should be a more low-key day, but I'm sure there will be one or two blog-worthy moments, so stay tuned.

Moonstruck

Nora drew a wonderful picture today on her magnetic doodle pad all by herself. I took a picture of it, since it will not last more than 24 hours, I'm sure. According to Nora, it's a picture of Mommy (the big bald, faceless head), Nora (the medium-sized faceless head with some hair, to the right of Mommy's), Caroline (the tiny head covered with hair on the far right), with the moon shining down on them from the upper left hand corner. Nora loves the moon. She looks for it a lot when we are driving in the car, and spotted it the other afternoon, as we were taking Grandma and Grandpa to the airport. She has a good eye; it took all of us a couple of minutes to find it! We had a good day today. Caroline's 6 month check up was a success; at 18 1/2 lbs and 27 1/2 inches, she is on the outer curve of the growth chart, and she seems to be right on track developmentally. She was full of smiles for Dr. Collier, but not for the medical corpsman who gave her the 3 shots she needed. She's been pretty out of sorts all afternoon and took a long nap. And, to boot, I think her front teeth are coming in too. Poor thing. Nora was great today; she had a playdate in the morning, had a good nap, ran around in the playground this afternoon, and wolfed down two pieces of pizza. She is now bugging me to show her clips of Cinderella's Castle on YouTube, so I must be going. At your service, your highness!

Fudge Cake!!!

Today was a day of ups and downs, but it ended on an upbeat, as Nora finally got her first piece of the delicious Entenmann's Chocolate Fudge Cake (Mommy's all time favorite) that Grandma and Grandpa bought the night before they left ("FUDGE CAKE!," followed by happy dance - Grandpa knows what I mean!). It was picture day at school today, so of course Nora had to burst into tears as I tried to fix her hair before we left, accusing me of pulling on her knots (ring any bells, Omi and Pop?). So, I delivered a red-faced, tear-stained Nora to school. But I heard that the pictures went well, and she even kept her eyes open for the photographer. Both girls skipped naps today, so it was a long afternoon, with bursts of energy followed by bursts of tears. But then our friend Bernadette came over for dinner, along with her dog Willy, which brightened the end of our day. Tomorrow will be a full day - Caroline has her 6 month check up in the morning and Nora will have a playdate with her friend Taylor while Mommy and Caroline are at the appointment. Tomorrow is also supposed to be beautiful, so we'll probably hit the playground in the afternoon. Oh, last but not least, I hung Great Grandma's cross-stitch in the girls' bathroom tonight...it looks great. Thanks, Great Grandma!

Fun with Grandma and Grandpa

Today was the last day of our visit with Grandma and Grandpa. Nora and Caroline had a great time. We went to story hour at the zoo, where we met up with our friends Judy and Taylor. Nora pet a real, live chicken, identified the barn owl all by herself (much to our surprise and amazement), ran around underneath the prairie dog habitat like a crazy person, and said hello to the 3 giraffes, her favorites. Caroline was not at all impressed, it seems; she napped almost the whole time. After the zoo, Grandma and Grandpa treated us to a delicious lunch at IHOP, where Caroline sucked on a piece of Mommy's bread, a french fry, and both ends of a dill pickle. Quite the gourmet, no? After naptime, we took Grandma and Grandpa to the airport and said our sad goodbyes. We had such a wonderful time with them...Caroline will miss her giggling sessions with Grandpa, and Nora will miss having extra cast members for her Cinderella scenes (actually, Mommy will miss them too, because now she's back to having to play the evil stepmother, stepsisters, and fairy godmother by herself...and you can guess who always gets to be Cinderella!). But Grandma and Grandpa left us with lots of new toys to play with, and we will think of them everytime we're outside blowing bubbles, playing mini-golf, or splashing in the kiddie pool. It's just too bad Daddy had to miss out on all the fun today. We miss you...we know you're working and studying hard - hang in there!