Birthday Week

Oh WOW, this is all Cara kept saying when she walked out to the garage to find her very own car

Yeah, so happy

This driving thing is a bit harder than it looks

Cara's birthday week started on Sunday when we gave her this Jeep. She kept saying, oh wow over and over. It was so cute. We let her try them out in the store but having it in her own garage all charged and ready to go was another story. We bought it on Saturday, Daddy put it together while we were gone, and then it charged all night so it was good to go for our first drive.

The gas pedal will take some getting used to, as will driving it and steering at the same time, but we foresee hours of fun in this jeep. Everyday when we are getting in the car to go somewhere Cara says "Cara drive?" and we say no, but now Cara can drive!!

Happy Birthday Week to Princess Cara!!

New Guitar

Aren't I cute Mommy?

See my new guitar

it is as tall as me

The other day Scott and Cara were out and about and stopped by the home of one of his former students to visit. In the course of their visit Cara found this guitar and was so excited! One thing led to another and he gave her this guitar, which is a Taylor, which I guess is a pretty big name in the world of guitars. So now she has her very own guitar and can sit and play with Daddy while he plays his guitar!

Chicago Fun part 2

Cara woke up bright and early on day 2 in Chicago. We headed down for an early breakfast at the hotel, then for a swim. After we all swam and got showers and dressed for the day Cara was ready for a nap already! So she and I took a nice long nap. Then after our nap it was time to check out and go meet our friends at the Rainforest Cafe for lunch. Of course Zaina and Cara had to sit together.

Here is Zaina posing with the frog, Cara was too scared to see him

After lunch we headed down Michigan Ave to Millenium Park. Here we are at the Bean! Cara is reaching out for herself.

Mommy and Cara in front of the bean

Walking the grounds of the park on the way to the water fountain

Just like when we were there almost one year ago, Cara finds the splash part so fun

Here she is watching the kids on the side of the wall get hammered with a huge spray of water, she wasn't too sure what to think about that

So, she lays down on the water instead

And here, she is laying down watching the water run back into the ground, she found that fascinating

Now we are on the walk back to the hotel to get our car and head back home

We wish we had more time to spend in Chicago because we didn't get everything done. We had planned to go to the aquarium but we didn't have time. But we had lots of fun anyway. It was fun to spend time at Millenium Park. And of course no trip to Chicago is complete without shopping on the Magnificent Mile, and we accomplished that on Saturday. Cara was her usual go-with-the-flow self, she makes it so easy to bring her wherever we want to go.

When walking down Michigan I was reminded of that same walk about one year ago with Cyndi, Danilo, and Grandma A when we visited Chicago. I am sure they are thinking the same thing when they see these pictures!!

Chicago Fun Part 1

Cara is cheering for shopping at American Girl

Cara and Mommy outside the store, we got Cara a small doll for her birthday

After an afternoon of shopping, we got dressed up and headed to the Navy Pier to board the Odyssey boat for a dinner reception to celebrate the recent wedding of our friends Dendra and Larry

It is hard to see in this picture but Cara and I both have black polka dots on our shoes, several people even noticed our cute "matching" shoes

Dendra's daughter Zaina and Cara hugging, Cara LOVES her and they spent most of the night side by side

Mommy and Cara on the observation deck of the boat, the skyline of the city is behind us but you can't see it very well

Dancing the night away with the bride and Zaina

Holding on tight to Daddy while we watch the fireworks shoot off from the Navy Pier

We hit the streets of Chicago with a purpose that afternoon for some shopping. I had forgotten to pack frilly socks for Cara to wear with her dress shoes to the reception that evening. So we hit every department store and kids store that we could find. Out very first stop was Nordstrom's and we found a pair of socks that would work, but not exactly what I had in mind, but since they were on sale for $2.40 I bought them as a back up. Then after countless stores that did not have any socks, and one trendy children's boutique that had a pair of frilly socks for $24.o0, we decided the first pair we bought would be sufficient.

We decided we better head back to the hotel to get ready for the evening's festivites. Cara fell asleep in her stroller and proceeded to sleep for over an hour more when we got back to the hotel. Worked out great for us because we knew we had a long night ahead of us. The dinner cruise was from 8-11pm Chicago time. Cara did great on the boat. She was so polite and well behaved. She loved spending the evening with Zaina. She also loved riding in a limo to and from the hotel because she was not in a car seat, so she thought that was pretty cool. We enjoyed a yummy dinner, Scott had salmon while I enjoyed a pork chop. For dessert they had a fabulous chocolate fountain with all the yummy dippables that you can imagine. We enjoyed the evening air on the observation deck viewing the skyline of Chicago and then watching the fireworks.

It was well after midnight Chicago time when we finally all collapsed in bed, but you sure couldnt' tell by Cara. She did great! Too bad for us that she got up just 7 hours later!! More of Day 2 fun tomorrow!

Mickey Mouse Ears

We got her these Mickey ears in Florida, and she refused to wear them. But everyone needs their first pair of Mickey ears! So we were thrilled when she wanted to wear them the other day. So cute!

Happy Anniversary!

On Saturday we celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary! What a great 11 years together with my best friend! We enjoyed a nice leisurely dinner at the Melting Pot, a fondue restaurant, and even splurged on getting a bottle of wine. Cara spent the evening with Grandma and Grandpa. We were supposed to go to a movie after dinner, but dinner took too long and we missed it, and the next show would have been much to late to go get Cara.

And of course, I didn't think I could get away with a blog post without pictures of Cara, so here are some self portraits! She loves using the camera and taking a picture of herself!!

The Princess in her Nightgown

Here I am.......

Twirling around....

Look at my curls today, this humidity is making them crazy

A few months ago Grandma F bought this Princess nightgown set for Cara but she wasn't really into princesses yet or wearing nightgowns. So after her bath I got it out and asked if she wanted to be a Princess, and the above pictures were the result. I asked daddy to hurry upstairs with a camera to catch the twirling girl. So we will see how she does sleeping in it, but so far so good tonight :)

More Swimming Fun

Enjoy a fun day of swimming at Aunt Amy's and Uncle Joe's house

Look, Mommy let go and Cara was kicking and swimming all by herself, ok also with a floatie swimsuit, floaties on her arms, and a kick board :)

She said she was all done swimming, so we took all her floaties off and then she wanted to get back in

When she gets out of the pool she loves to bend over and look at the water dripping off her bottom, she giggles and thinks it is so funny

Thanks Uncle Joe, Aunt Amy, Vince and Charlotte for having us over last weekend for swimming and a cookout! The food was great and the swimming was lots of fun! Grandma and Grandpa joined us for the fun, but unfortunately no swimming for Grandpa because of his knee surgery last week.

4th of July 2008, part 2

What a memorable and traumatic afternoon we had on the 4th of July! See Daddy's thumb....want to know what happened? Well, our nice lazy morning was going along great. Daddy fixed us a yummy pancake breakfast and we were all hanging out in our pajamas just having a good morning. We got a message from Grandma & Grandpa in Italy wanting to chat on skype if we were available. So we were having a nice chat with them and Aunt Cyndi. Cara was being very cute chatting with them, giving them eskimo kisses on the computer monitor and being her normal adorable self. Then out of nowhere somehow she had picked up a pair of scissors on the desk and Daddy tried to get them away from her. He put his thumb in between the blades so if she tried to close them she would not cut herself, but unfortunately it cut Daddy. A huge V shape on the soft pad of his thumb. So a very quick goodbye to Italy, a hurried car ride (us still in our loungewear mind you, Cara in her princess pajamas with no shoes), and we were finally at the ER. We called Grandma F to meet us there to take Cara back to her house. Two shots of local anesthetic, one tetanus shot, and 4 giant sutures later and we were off to enjoy the holiday!!

So after a long afternoon for Daddy and Cara we headed out for an outdoor picnic at Trader's Point creamery. The atmosphere was fantastic, despite raining most of the day, it had cleared up and the scenery was beautiful. The food is all from local growers and farmers. Cara loved the pulled pork sandwich.

Cara eating away, but really I took this picture so you could see her dress. Isn't it cute, the perfect colors for the occasion :)

We headed up to the dairy barn to try some yummy homemade ice cream. It tasted just like what we can make here at home, and we could have made at least 2 batches for what we paid for 2 ice cream cones. But Cara does love her ice cream!!

So we headed downtown to watch the fireworks. We got a great spot on the lawn of the Indiana War memorial. We had almost 2 hours to wait until the show, so Cara spent some time on the phone! Here she is "talking to" Aunt Cyndi in Italy (that is who she wanted to call :) She also "talked to" Elmo, Grandpa F, and Oscar!

Now she is hugging the camera, not really sure why but I thought it was cute enough to get a picture with the little camera

Snuggles with Mommy while we wait

Cara took this picture herself using the remote control button on the camera, she was so proud of herself that she took about 5 more just like this one

Finally, the fireworks show!! The first couple minutes of fireworks Cara was holding on to me the other way with her face planted in my neck. But she was so curious she kept turning her head to see them. Finally she decided it was okay and she turned around and we both just sat back and relaxed and watched the pretty boom-booms :)

A small sampling of what we saw! It was a terrific fireworks display and we had a great view. It was so fun to celebrate the Independence of our country and be thankful for all that we have!