Thanksgiving Day was in Tennessee at Gran and Grandad's house. They wore turkey clothes - a turkey shirt for Caroline and a turkey bib for Cecilia. Caroline and Cecilia enjoyed turkey - Cecilia had a tiny bit as her first taste of meat ever. Caroline preferred the ham, I think, and she loved Gran's chocolate pecan pie, of course!
Our church has coffee and doughnuts downstairs after Mass each week. That is where these photos were taken, with my husband's phone (hence the poor quality). After Mass today, Father Paul said hello to us and wished us a happy Thanksgiving. Chris shook his hand. Caroline said she wanted to shake his hand too, but by that time we were already on the stairs and Father had moved across the vestibule. Now, this is Caroline we're talking about... shy Caroline who doesn't even like to say some of the names of members of her extended family (she accidentally said "Andrew" the other day while we were buying him a Christmas present!), and who is terrified of Speedy and Keenan who work with Chris... she hides whenever she sees them, she holds Cecilia's hand in an effort to protect her when they get too close for her comfort.
Caroline's bear became baby Jesus yesterday. She wrapped it close to her in a blue playsilk and said she was Mary with her baby Jesus. She was quite serene as she carried the 'baby' around the house - swaying with him and nursing him. She asked me to make a pouch with the playsilk so the baby wouldn't fall out.
And here she tucks in Ensa with Piglet. This was two days ago. I think Piglet was Ensa's stuffed animal at this particular moment. Piglet used to be Caroline's favorite that she slept with every night... she called him "Me" back then. Now Ensa is the favorite that gets tucked in next to Caroline each night.
I love to watch how nurturing she is... stay sweet, my Caroline!!
Caroline, while throwing leaves in the air and watching them flutter to the ground: "Look at those leaves swiveling and swoveling and swooing!"
I am totally in love with my nine month old baby. She is such a precious gift, my little angel baby. Lately, I have been lamenting the fact that she is growing up. She's not a tiny baby anymore. She is an almost 20 pound, mobile baby who will soon be a toddler.
This is Caroline's holy box. It used to contain car washing supplies, oddly enough. It's a nice, solid box, so we kept it, and it found its purpose as the holy box. I take it out for Caroline during our afternoon prayer time (which I am trying to get better at doing daily). After rest time each day, we say the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. Sometimes Caroline says it too, or just listens as she follows along on her rosary as best a three year old can... but most of the time, she chooses to look through her holy box.
Here is where we always sit to say the Chaplet. It's the window seat in our den, which is a cozy, quiet spot. It is also high out of the reach of Cecilia, so Caroline's stuff is safe from grabbing hands. Cecilia either plays around on the floor or sits in my lap (trying to grab my rosary) while we pray.
First is Catholic Baby's First Bible. Caroline got it for her first Christmas. The only thing that's really Catholic about it is that it has the Our Father (as in, it doesn't say "The Lord's Prayer" for the title) and Hail Mary in it... and the guardian angel prayer - is that said by Protestants as well? I'm not sure. It has some basic Bible stories in it, from Adam and Eve to the Resurrection.
Next, we have a box of Mary paper dolls. Mary can be dressed up to become Our Lady of Lourdes, Mt. Carmel, Guadalupe, and a few others. We got these at Illuminated Ink, which has some great craft stuff that I have my eye on for when my girls are olde! I decided to go ahead and get these and color them myself for Caroline, because she enjoyed the paper dolls thoroughly when she played with some at Heritage Holidays, a local festival in which they had some "old-fashioned children's games" set up.
Here is one of Caroline's rosaries. We also keep a big wooden one in the box too, which has been great for Cecilia lately. This one was given to Caroline by her Uncle Tim - I can't remember where he said he got it. It's pretty, huh?
Here is a Mass book that goes through all the parts of the Mass and explains them to kids. It is still a little mature for Caroline, but sometimes she asks me to read it to her after we pray, and she looks through it some while I say the Chaplet.
We have these two pins, the Precious Hands and Precious Feet, which show exactly how a baby's real hands and feet look at 10 weeks gestation.
Then we have a pouch full of holy cards. Many of these are mine from childhood - attending Catholic schools, teachers were always handing them out to us for various reasons. These are probably the most interesting part of the holy box for Caroline... she can look through them for several minutes straight. She especially likes the one with an unborn baby on it, the ones of Mary and baby Jesus, and the one of St. Michael the Archangel (she is fascinated with the illustration of him stepping on the devil).
These are some particularly neat holy cards, again from Uncle Tim. They are laminated and have medals inside them. I'm pretty sure he got them at Mount Saint Mary's in Baltimore (he can comment and correct me if I'm wrong). Caroline likes these a lot. There are Divine mercy Jesus, Sacred Heart of Jesus, Immaculate Heart of Mary, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and St. Jude.
And there are a few random things in there as well... a pamphlet that has this year's intentions of the Holy Father, and an illustration of Our Lady of Guadalupe from the front of our church bulletin.
And this crucifix hangs above the window seat. It was given to me by my godmother. Caroline sometimes takes it down and examines it while we pray. Chris told me that yesterday she got it randomly and broke the hook off the back - oops. He fixed it, though, and it's back between the windows now.
We took a trip to a state park with Chris's family this weekend. We have been here three times now, so it is becoming an annual fall tradition. There is a lake where we can fish, trails to hike, playgrounds, a lodge, and more... I see it as a weekend to just relax around the cabin! It's nice to have a place where Caroline can get out and enjoy the fresh air with her extended family. And the cool fall weather made sitting around in the cabin - talking and eating and sipping hot chocolate - just perfect! Cecilia and her cousin, who is just a few months older than her, enjoyed playing around on the floor.
There was no shortage of people to read to Caroline! She had plenty of people with whom to interact and talk (her favorite activity!!).
Yes, those are donkeys in the wastewater treatment area. There were also some goats and three emus behind the fence. I am going to send this photo to Neal Boortz for his Redneck Scrapbook with the title "Redneck Zoo." I did ask the lady behind the front desk in the lodge about it... she said the animals are to "keep the grass down." So, they are actually redneck lawnmowers... The woman said that it was hard to maneuver the mowers around the pond. Chris's guess is that somebody fell in while mowing, so they remedied the problem by replacing the mowers with random animals.
Caroline really enjoyed the playgrounds. There was one near our cabin, and this better one outside the lodge. It had this merry go round thing, swings, a broken seesaw, and a climbing structure - old-fashioned jungle gym style.
There was also a good old metal slide - wheeeee!!
Here's Cecilia with her buddy - a dead stuffed wildcat in the lodge. She squealed and kicked her legs at it every time she saw it. There was also a fox and another bobcat-type animal that she enjoyed seeing. I think she thought they were alive - she usually only reserves that squeal for my parents' cats and a baby doll of Caroline's that has pretty realistic eyes!
And here's a view out of the bac of the lodge, taken from the top deck. Such a gorgeous view!! The lodge had been recently renovated, and it was quite nice inside and out. I kept thinking how nice it would be to come back when Chris and I are old and our kids are grown up, and just spend a few days hanging out here in the fall beauty, sitting by the fire in the lodge fireplace...
Caroline wanted to wear a dog costume this year. We found my brother's old dog ears from when he was about four years old (he's 23 now and just got married!), but we couldn't find the rest of the dog costume. So I bought brown pants and a brown shirt, and I made a tail out of felt (she is "wagging" it with her hand in the shot below, and you can see it sticking out). True to her particularity, Caroline would not let me paint a nose on her, even though she let me do it last year, along with whiskers. But I do love that she's young enough to not care what her costume looks like... she didn't mind that the ears, clothes, and tail were all slightly different shades of brown.
Her preschool had a costume parade, and even though it wasn't on her usual day to go to school, we went for the parade part of the day. Here is Caroline with her friend the paleontologist (his brother is the dinosaur a few pictures down!) after they trick-or-treated in the other classrooms as they displayed their costumes to everyone.
Thank goodness their teachers don't believe in overdoing the craziness of a Halloween party... it was just a cupcake each, and all the treats were sent home with them (where I discreetly weeded out the choking hazards and artificially colored stuff, leaving the chocolate and peanut butter treats and the pretzels).
Cecilia and Ryan watched the fun in their own costumes. After the parade and "party," we took the kids to the park where the babies napped on us and the 3 year olds played.
Here is our jack-o-lantern (Dad, I swear I didn't carve it!). Caroline told Chris what shapes she wanted, and he carved it for her. This is the first year I did not carve the pumpkin... I am usually very possessive about it, trying to make detailed carvings the way my dad did for us when we were kids (his even had eyebrows and ears, usually). I'm not sure why I gave it up this year...
I hope everyone had a happy Halloween!
