Our Weekend

Us this weekend (minus the horse trailer)

Caroline has this Schleich SUV that is so much fun to play with. It is sturdy, rolls smoothly, has room for passengers, and--the best part--everything is detachable. You can take off the top, both doors, all four tires, and the spare. And the windshield folds down.

I think this is also what makes real Jeeps so fun--you can take them apart. Ever since Jeff got his Jeep a year ago, he has been itching to take the doors off. This past Friday, he finally did. Caroline was ecstatic. She says she never wants the doors to go back on. I asked her why she likes them off so much and she said because she can see everything and doesn't even have to look out the window. I can understand her enthusiasm--with no doors on, her backseat view is as good as any other--no craning her neck or stretching as far out of her carseat as she possibly can to see something we point out in passing.

Caroline sitting pretty in the back seat.
She made made this dress go off the shoulder. Oh dear.

I will admit I thought it was pretty cool too. We drove around at dusk and the evening air was perfect. It was a great sensory experience--you could see, hear, smell, and feel more. The best part was when we would drive near the lake or a grove of trees lining a creek and feel the air get noticeably cooler, almost chilly, for a moment.

It may seem like an unusual pastime (especially with gas prices as high as they are), but we really enjoy just driving around. We like to look at houses and land, sometimes revisiting places we have considered buying (we're renting right now) and sometimes just dreaming (land . . . sigh) or surveying the Texas countryside (wheat and corn fields, creeks, trees, farm ponds, sunsets, wind).

This weekend we saw acres of land and some houses on the lake. For around 1 million, you could get 22 acres, a 4-bedroom log cabin, a barn, and a pool. After seeing this particular lot with fields and trees and wide open spaces, I really wished we had a million. I can get absolutely dreamy picturing our family life in a place like that.

Just as dreamy was the house on the lake--not the house itself so much, but the expanse of yard leading down to the lake and the small island about 30 yards out. If you lived there, that would be your island to row out to and build a fort on and explore . . . probably along with several other neighbor kids who have also staked their claims, but still. It makes me giddy just thinking about having a place like that as a child (or an adult, for that matter). I took a picture that doesn't quite do it justice, but you get the idea.

This was one of our best weekends as a family since moving here. I want to remember the little things that were special this weekend and incorporate those things into our weekend routines or traditions. We are rarely so purposeful as to follow a prescribed routine, but I think it would do us good. Here is what I want to remember:

• Be together: We often run errands separately--one person goes and the other stays home with Caroline. This weekend we went almost everywhere together (Blockbuster, the donut shop, the pizza place . . .)

• Ride in the Jeep (with the doors off, if possible)

• Don't be in a hurry: We really had no plans, other than playing Settlers with Dan and Lisa (which was another fun thing)

• Give each other some space with no guilt: For Jeff that meant a long nap on Sunday after church and for me extra time alone at the gym and at Target :)

• Work on a project together: Jeff didn't necessarily do this with me, but he also didn't give me any grief* about working on this project (right in the middle of the living room floor)--sorting through papers and setting up a new filing system, which I got online (and am loving). While I was at the gym, he and Caroline even went to Best Buy to get an external hard-drive so we can back up our computer files. It feels great to be getting organized! We talked about having one goal for each weekend and working together on that. *Why might Jeff give me grief about this? Well, because it is an organizing project and I usually dive into such projects with abandon, to the neglect of other, more immediate needs like laundry or dishes or meals. And, as mentioned, I always make a huge mess in the middle of the floor.
  

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So this isn't the typical Caroline post, but this is what's on my mind. I hope everyone is enjoying the summer! It is hard to believe it is almost August!

Caroline playing around on the Jeep as if it's a jungle gym.

Just Ducky

Just some more shots of Caroline's favorite fashion victim.


Ducky and Pink both look a little worn out in this one--like they don't know what hit them. I'm afraid they could be very close to a Buzz Lightyear drinking-darjeeling-with-Mrs.-Nesbitt type of breakdown.


Hey, Nikki, do you recognize any of the outfits or accessories? They're from the dress-up bear you gave her. :)

Dress-Up Everyday

Caroline is totally into dress-up these days. Yesterday when we were getting ready to go to the Arboretum, I got her ready before I hopped into the shower, thinking that this way I wouldn't have to hurry her later. But when I came out of my room she was wearing different pants, her crown, and princess shoes. She wanted to be beautiful. If I hadn't been a bit frustrated, I would have taken her picture.

Here are a few of her most recent get-ups. As you'll see, it doesn't have to
involve princess dresses. It seems the more layers, the better.

And sometimes all you need is a crown to go with your pjs.

As usual, Ducky is not left out of the action. I'm going to just start following this duck around--it gets dressed up more than any other toy.

Plus, it photographs really well, don't you think?

The Secret Lives of Caroline's Toys

The badge to the left of all of these posts is a link to a site called Flickr, a photo storage and sharing site. I am very new to Flickr, but I like it a lot and have created an account and played around with it some. I think I will start a collection of Caroline's toy pictures--they just crack me up, the dressed-up duck in an earlier post being one example.

Perhaps not everyone will find things like this as amusing as I do, but to me they are just so very . . . Caroline. She leaves little traces of herself wherever she goes. When she was first beginning to walk and we were up at my parents' house in NC, one of my sisters was giving her Cheerios (I think it was) to snack on and Caroline, true to form, was not sitting still for a minute as she ate. The family later found out---as my dad was vacuuming around the fireplace--that she had been hiding Cheerios away behind one of the decorations at the foot of the mantle. It was kind of an eat-one-and-save-one-for-later arrangement.

You don't always think that much is going on in a wee one's little pea brain until you discover a clue--like hidden Cheerios--and realize that they have a real purpose in their busyness. We thought Caroline was just pittering around while snacking. In reality, she must have been hoping to make that snack last longer, or possibly even to come back to the stash on her next visit.

That tidbit leads me, in a roundabout way, to the toy pictures I've decided to start taking. I guess, in a similar way, the traces she leaves behind after play are clues as well--into what's going on in her imaginary world. I wish I had been taking pictures from the very beginning, but oh well. Yesterday I snapped these.

This is her purple bear riding her little kitty like it's a horse.

Here, dog, horse and giraffe are watching the train go by.

To her it probably makes perfect sense for a zebra to drive a schoolbus.

This one is my favorite. The little bunny has a perch, the donkey is
looking out the window and the cow is . . . taking a nap?

These are her princess figures in my old Fisher Price Little People house.
It fascinates me that she often turns dolls and figurines away from her
and towards windows, Jasmine and Mulan being the exceptions here.
Did Mulan fall? Was she pushed? I may never know but I like wondering.).

That will be all for now, but I'm sure that if I went and looked there would be plenty more play clues lying about. I love peeking into her happy world. xoxoxo

For Real This Time . . .

I started this in February with high hopes but haven't done a thing with it. Tonight I have decided to change the name. Haven't put a lot of thought into it, really, but it won't be hard to top the first name. I actually had Jeff's on the first one, but he has informed me that he really isn't interested in being included in this. It was a dumb name anyway.

So--I read this article ("Open Books") in the July Issue of Real Simple about the different ways people keep journals and I really liked what one of the mothers featured does. She has a journal for all of her kids' funny sayings. I've actually been writing down Caroline's sayings for about as long as she's been talking, but they are not all in one place--sribbled on a loose sheet of paper, in my planner, on the fridge calendar . . . I think it's a great idea to have them all in a book--or on a blog. Or both, probably. Jeff/Caroline gave me a really cool journal for Mother's Day, so maybe I'll start by writing them there and then transfer them over.

I'll leave you with a recent picture. I put a full-length mirror in Caroline's new room, knowing it would amuse her for long periods of time. The other day she was all about changing her clothes and brushing her hair. This is her posing. :) I'll include the one of her duck too. She likes dressing up animals and dolls as well. I like the outfits she comes up with.

Family and friends that we just left--and those of you we haven't seen in a while--we love and miss you guys!!