Caroline's Artist Debut

Caroline's preschool had an Art Show on April 23rd and Caroline's artwork was proudly displayed in the halls. I honestly had no idea what to expect....'grand' does not even begin to describe it! If you aren't family, then you might just want to skip over this entry as it might be quite boring for you. LOL! Really, it won't hurt my feelings. :)

Here's a brief summary of the artwork. Each teacher does a 'special' piece of art each month. She holds it back and the parents don't see it until the big reveal. Each of Caroline's artwork is mainly her own work with some assistance from the teacher. It is NOT teacher finished and this is evident because it is NOT perfect. I cannot stand for a teacher to do the child's art for them...what makes that special? Nothing! Caroline is quite artistic and loves doing art. She loves painting and her fine motor skills are quite exceptional! I know...I'm quite lucky and I'm not just bragging! ;)

Caroline posing in front of her "Bug on a Rug" picture
Caroline and Papa posing in front of the zoo display! Papa hates to have his picture made, but oh, well!! LOL!

Caroline's tiny thumb prints made this beautiful artwork!

Bug on a Rug

Owl Puppet and Baby Owls

Did you hear??? Caroline walked on the moon!!!

Frogs on a Log

Not Caroline's artwork, but mine!! I had my class make the cattails for the pond mural! I love how they turned out!

Caroline's Footprint Dragonfly

Handprint Farm Animals

Prancing Penguin

I love the fingerpainted tree and the handprint turkey! Caroline also told me how she glued all the leaves.

Caroline's "Little Cloud" artwork...can you guess what it is?

This is the Crocodile Pond...isn't it great? I loved how Caroline painted and put together her crocodile perfectly! She's so meticulous and knows exactly what she wants to do! Her tadpoles are even 2 by 2!

Caroline's Third Birthday!!

We celebrated Caroline's birthday on Saturday, April 24th at our house. I decided to have a 'fiesta theme' and serve Guatemalan and Mexican food dishes. For her cake, I had a local bakery make a pink Sombrero cake! It wasn't quite my vision, but it was pretty cool and Caroline loved it! My family came into town and we had two of our neighbors and a tennis friend come to the party. Since she's so little, I wanted to keep it small. I had planned on having Caroline's fiesta outside but the weather did NOT cooperate and it poured ALL DAY! I totally underestimated the time it took to make this 'simple meal'! My mom and I cooked: chunky guacamole dip, cheese rotel dip, creamy bean dip, pineapple tequila salsa, homemade salsa, hardshell tacos, softshell tacos, Mexican pizzas, and Jalapeno Poppers. But, Caroline enjoyed the dips and tacos, so it was worth it!

Caroline had a great time with her friends Darren Mitchell and Caroline Camden! She loved all her presents and loved eating tacos and Mexican pizza! I'm so sorry that the pictures are out of order, but I'm too tired to fix them right now. :)

Caroline Turns 3!

On April 21, Caroline turned three years old!!! It's still so hard to believe that my baby girl is getting so big! Her actual birthday fell on a school day, so we baked cupcakes and took them to school to celebrate with her friends. Back in December, Caroline picked out a flower cupcake pan from Williams-Sonoma for her birthday, so we bought it and stored it in the pantry.

These cupcakes were VERY difficult to make! It took me about 4 hours to make 10 of them! CRAZY!! They were the heaviest and the largest cupcakes these kids had ever seen. :) The most difficult thing was trying to get them to school without them falling over! It would have been a perfect opportunity for a Mission Impossible team. We had a few wounded flowers, but all in all, they survived.

For security reasons, I won't post pictures of her friends at school, but let's just say...they were excited! They loved the flower cupcakes and all the icing!

As we are going down memory lane....Caroline just told me, "Mommy! My cupcakes from my birthday! Papa played with me while you made them!!" I think it's so neat to know that she remembered them. All the complaining and hardwork was a small price to pay for my daughter fondly remembering her birthday cupcakes at school. :)

what have we been up to?

I'm sure if you are still reading this blog, you are probably wondering where we have been! I took a longterm substitute teaching job at Caroline's Preschool in the middle of April. I worked five days a week from 8:30-12:30 (but, a teacher's work is never done...so make that 2:00 then work at home!). I enjoyed being back in a classroom, planning activities, and I LOVED seeing Caroline every day in her classroom. Since I was working five days, Caroline stayed in her 'normal' classroom but attended another classroom the other two days. She was in heaven!

I forgot (or blocked out) how much time teaching consumes of my daily life! It's great, but my blogging became nonexistent and even my couponing slowed down quite a bit. Caroline and I are off for the summer and have lots of activities planned. She will be going to swim lessons again, we became members of the Atlanta Zoo, and have several playdates set up. We also plan on doing several 'mini' vacations to see grandparents and the beach.

I promise to post pictures of Caroline's birthday fiesta and some other fun activities. Stay tuned!

Caroline Sneak Peek!

We are still here...

Just a quick note to let you all know we are still alive and doing well! I took a longterm substitute teaching job, so no time for blogs right now! It's been quite the adjustment going back to work. But, life will return back to normal in a few weeks and I promise to resume regular posts/updates. I also have some great pictures to share of Caroline.

Easter Afternoon

Modeling her Bunny Jewelry that Grandmama sent her

Showing off her new Lelli Kelli's shoes!

The Bunny Cupcakes we made for Easter Dinner

Caroline got tired of waiting for Tim to hide her eggs that she took them outside and hid them herself!

Any eggs inside????

Found one!!!

Sorting her eggs

Look at the sweat pouring off her face! It was SO HOT!

Easter Sunday

We had a great Easter! Since we had our traditional Easter dinner on Friday night, we were able to 'take it easy' after church. :) We decided to go out to eat Sunday night instead. Caroline is not wearing her traditional smocked dress, but is wearing the same dress my niece wore ten years ago in our wedding. My mom saved it for my little girl. :) She kept swirling around like a princess! So sweet and cute! We took tons of pictures, so I'm going to divide this post into two parts (after Church in our dress clothes) and then part two (egg hunt at our house).

This is what the Easter Bunny brought Caroline. It didn't fit it in her basket! She got a floor puzzle (she's graduated to the large floor puzzles with 50 pieces!), a Melissa and Doug number puzzle, Strawberry shortcake softball glove, movies, books, bath paint, sidewalk chalk/rake, and candy! She was so excited to see all of her goodies!

The following pictures are some of my favorite photos of Caroline from Sunday. I wish that some of them didn't turn out so dark, but I know NOTHING about photography! ;)