Month 7

The month began with tornadic activity sweeping though our area. Leap day turned out to be a day of calling friends to confirm their safety and collecting supplies for the town of Harrisburg - not more than 45 minutes to our East where the tornadoes hit the worst. It wasn't the way we had planned to spend our day, but it was necessary. Thankfully we were able to celebrate the girls' half birthday on the 1st without any additional storms.

This was a big milestone month ... Katie turned 2 1/2 and Cara reached the 6 month mark. We celebrated with a banana themed day. The girls watched the Dora super-babies episode and Caroline began eating fruit. Everyone tried the banana baby food, but Katie was definitely much happier to eat a regular banana for dessert! The girls are growing by leaps and bounds. Caroline moved up into 12 month clothing - weighing 18 pounds 2.5 ounces and measuring 27.5 inches long in the middle of the month ... just an inch shorter than Katie on this same day 2 years ago! Near the end of the month I measured Katie and discovered that she had grown an inch and a half in the past 6 months - she now wears a size 5 in kids! No wonder she's so hungry all the time.

We've had significant changes in the food department this month. Katie tried and actually ate a complete portion of mashed potatoes and she ate her first sandwich without disassembling it! Caroline tried her 1st fast food this month - mashed potatoes from Kentucky Fried Chicken ... and yes, like almost all other foods she loved it! (We have determined that in fact Caroline does not like carrots.) At this same age Katie was still on a rice cereal and nursing exclusive diet - what a difference birth order makes.

Caroline is mobile! Yes completely mobile and getting into everything. This little girl became an official crawler, days later began pulling up, and has since become a cruiser ... all within this month! Cara pushes her activity table all over the room like a walker too! It's amazing how quickly she can get to things, and how not baby proofed our house really is. Caroline Josephine also began sitting up on her namesake's, my late grandmother Josephine, birthday! ... it was a special day.

Both girls had new developments in the area of sleep. Caroline's crib mattress was moved down to the middle setting - and not a moment too soon ... about a week later I walked into her room after nap time to find her STANDING! Katie got her big girl bed set up. Mommy finally let go of Katie's baby status and decided to try out the toddler bed. Night #1 was a little rough as Katie discovered she could play instead of sleeping most of the night, but night #2 was a completely different story. Katie quickly settled into her new bed and became a fan of taking her toys into her bed to play during the day. The biggest and best outcome of this change is that Katelyn at all of 2 1/2 years will put herself to bed when she gets tired! Shortly after setting up the toddler bed, influenza swept though our family taking us all down one-by-one ... Katie discovered she could take naps and get up when she felt better. She slept for days and days; taking tons of naps and putting herself to bed early at night! What a blessing this change has been.

In spite of the flu taking us out for over a week we managed to do a lot of activities this month.
*We went to feed the ducks at Campus Lake ... it wasn't easy to lure them to the shore; however, the memorable moment of the day was went Katie noticed what we were using as duck food, "a bread" she exclaimed snatching it out of my hand she devoured it!

*Grandma Gigi and Grandpa Dillard came over to celebrate a belated St. Patrick's Day once we were all healthy. We had corned beef and cabbage, potatoes and Irish soda bread. Katie liked the corned beef the best, and we were proud of her for trying the potatoes and eating a big piece of Irish soda bread. She's really getting much better about trying and eating new foods.

*Cara's new buddy Everett came to visit (with his parents) from California. This was Caroline's 1st real playdate. Our little Cara is quite the social baby and absolutely LOVED playing with her new friend! He's about 6 weeks older and doing ALL the same things she is ... They pulled up on everything together, chewed on toys, crawled together (even racing at times), and had the sweetest baby kiss. Our only regret is that Everett and his family don't live closer to us!

*Our playgroup friends from Book Club came over to read "Green Eggs and Ham"- we made shamrock leaf trees, ate green eggs and shamrock sugar cookies for snack. Katie has been working hard to memorize the book since our club meeting and she did a great job on her shamrock tree!

*As a family we managed to attend two community Easter Egg Hunts this month. In Carterville Katie proved herself as an egg hunting machine and Cara learned how to hunt ... they amassed a total of 30 eggs, the maximum allowed. Katie loved dancing in the bubbles being generated by a bubble machine and playing at the park after the hunt. The girls even managed to pick up an egg that had a token for a free bag of McDonald's French fries as the prize inside. In Carbondale they continued to refine their egg hunting skills; we came home with another load of eggs filled with candy. The highlight of this hunt was the bunny. Katie identified the bunny quickly and ran up to her, ran around her, and ran away ... this routine took place about 10 times and would have continued longer if we had allowed it to. She did eventually allow the bunny to hug her although she could barely contain her excitement!

*Katie has begun peddling her tricycle. She can move ever so slowly, but for very short periods of time she can do it by herself! We have watched the Sesame Street episode where Abby learns to ride her tricycle and I think this has helped inspire Katie. Now - I'd like to find a Dora or Elmo/Abby video about potty training for inspiration (smile).

Watching our girls grow is one of my greatest joys in life! I have been blessed with the chance to witness Katie's spiritual growth which warms my heart in a way I never expected. She has begun referring to her Bible as "Jesus book" she LOVES to look at the pages and "read" it. She will sit and listen to us read it to her for long spans of time. On the 18th I went into Katie's room just be with her while she was laying in bed and heard ... "Jesus ... Amen" so I asked her what she was saying and she responded, "Keep her safe ... Jesus ... Amen" - I think she's starting to get it. The words sounded pretty familiar to me! I feel blessed beyond words to have a child whose life God has so clearly touched and continues to work in daily! I love my Katie and I eagerly await the day I can see God working in Caroline too ... not just protecting and keeping her safe like he already does. Hearing my baby pray really makes me happy!