Seven months

Month six flew by in CJ's life, and month seven arrived with a bang! We flew up to WNY to visit family -- it was CJ's seven month birthday, her mom's 21st birthday (I'm sure that's right), and mother's day too. Time to celebrate!

It was a little colder at home than this Georgia girl was used to, but she posed prettily in Nonna's beautiful blooming backyard for her official monthly portrait. The one below was taken a few days prior in our backyard. CJ loves mugging for the camera!

The highlight of the trip home was seeing family. It was wonderful how everyone really busted it out to see the little girl. We had a fish fry with the Holtz's on Friday night, after a very fun visit with GG that afternoon. CJ ate her weight in bananas, avocado, and sweet potatoes and then tried out the fish. Antie B had a hard time keeping up with the sippy cups demands.

I like how GG Holtz and CJ are checking each other out in this picture!

On Saturday we had a pizza party with the Bunts side of the family. Again, the family showed up in force and we had a great time eating pizza. There was even a giant birthday cake, which I scared CJ off of for ever. Ooops -- hope I didn't scar her.

Here's Caroline with her g-poppa, being coy as everyone else makes kissy faces to her.

And CJ and her g-aunts, smiling up a storm.

I'm sure I will say this at every age, but I'm fascinated with all that CJ can do right now. The weekend that we were home she learned to give baby kisses -- big, sloppy, slimy, open-mouthed kisses that are just wonderful. She asks to get up by raising her arms. She loves to eat and try new things, and we have yet to encounter anything that she doesn't like. Her favorites are sweet potatoes, avocados, and pears. She'll even eat lentils and garbanzo beans, and she's learning to enjoy the tartness of plain yogurt. She's working hard at moving -- rolling, scootching, and lunging. She is getting her knees underneath her so I don't think crawling is too far off!

She's definately taken a turn away from her newborn days and is much less demanding (most of the time). She goes to bed without a fuss most nights and naps. She wakes up cheerful, and is only up once per night for an extra top off. She drinks quickly and efficiently so that she can go back to playing and exploring. She babbles like crazy and loves to play baby games like peek a boo. She loves watching kids play at the playground and will laugh like crazy and look over to others to ensure that they, too, are seeing this wonderful thing.

Nonna and Big Pop were down to Atlanta for a long weekend while we took a long-awaited weekend away. I hear from all reports that CJ did great with her grandparents, and I know WE had a wonderful time too.

Caroline is a very lucky girl to have such a wonderful loving family that do so much for her!

DC!

Caroline had her "welcome" party in DC in early April at the house of our dear friends Erica, Rob and Zack. None of my DC friend had met CJ yet -- in fact, I hadn't seen any of them since I was 5 months pregnant! It had been way too long. So CJ and I put on our party dresses and got ready for the big party. We stayed with ER&Z, and I like to think we were good houseguests. I know they were excellent hosts -- the bed was comfy, there were lots of toys, and CJ and Zack hit it off over a squealing, dancing, jiggly pig that Zack was nice enough to share and they BOTH really liked. And boy, did I enjoy sharing a glass of wine and chatting with old friends.

Brunch was on Saturday morning, post-nap, and the food was delicious. CJ got to meet Paul, Scott, Will, Jason, and Gregory and scored some pretty fun loot in the process, including a slightly-terrifying-yet-somehow-still-fascinating blow-up lion.

That night, our boys rolled into town and we headed out to a baseball game -- Caroline's first! I'll tell you what -- I forgot how bad traffic can be in DC, and we almost gave up somewhere around Springfield Virginia. But we perserved, and Caroline was introduced to her mom's favorite farm team -- the Potomac Cannons ... I mean Nationals. Good news -- in the 6 years since I've been to a game at the Pfitz, the stadium still rocks and the baseball still stinks!

Then, we took advantage of some beautiful springtime weather to go exploring. This is Caroline working her "Lawrence of Arabia" look at Monticello. She wasn't particularly cooperative during the tour, and seemed to prefer sitting on the grass in the big lawn to being strapped in the pack and listening to the tour guide. We'll be working on that with her -- gotta learn to love the tour guide!

Above all, Caroline seemed to enjoy living the good life in the hotel. She ate her cereal in the desk chair, got a bed all to herself to sleep in (with a fortress of pillows lining the edges so that no unsuspecting rolls resulted in a fall) and goofed with us all.

We hadn't travelled with CJ since she was a wee baby, back around Christmas, so I was curious (ok, a bit apprehensive!) to see how her nascent, strong personality now meshed with the demands of travel. I'm happy to report that she did GREAT -- she tolerated changes to her eating and sleeping schedule quite well, and seemed to enjoy the hustle-bustle and new scenery. We are looking forward to a lot of adventures this summer, so I'm one relieved and pleased Mama that my girl is showing all signs of being a good traveller! Trust me, we'll all keep working together to develop her skills!