My little princess is 3!!!

Caroline turned 3 years old on Monday. Over the weekend we had her birthday party with some friends from her class at school. We had Cinderella come to the party and the girls LOVED it. They all arrived dressed up as their favorite princess. Anna chose Pocohantas (is she a princess???) and Caroline chose Cinderella, of course. The kids had a great time. We enjoyed having all of Caroline's grandparents at the party, including Gary's mom from South Dakota.

Suddenly, out of the clear blue, on Friday Caroline decided to be potty trained. SHe has been pretty frustrating lately choosing not to potty train but she has been completely aware of what she is doing in her pull-ups. Friday was the magic and we are THRILLED. She has even worn "big-girl" panties to school with no accidents so far.

Caroline had her 3-year check up yesterday. She was not too thrilled about being there at first because Anna kept telling her she had to get a shot. She brightened up for Dr. Larkin and told him about her party, meeting Cinderella and most importantly that she was wearing panties. She told him she had been wearing them "for a long time". So funny. She weighs 30 pounds and is 38 inches tall. This puts her square in the 50th percentile. This is an improvement over the 25th percentile which is where she was when she had her heart problems. Overall, a great check up. And, I earned mommy of the year for asking for the flu mist rather than an injection.

Caroline is a great little girl. Funny every day, sassy every day and I love her so much!!!

fun castle cake for her princess party

caroline's new princess bike was a hit!!

caroline with cinderella at her party!!

caroline in her big girl panties playing with her castle from uncle james & his family

The Big Show

Caroline had her "Big Show" at Little Gym on Saturday. I have no idea why the director scheduled the big show for Memorial Day weekend, however, it made it nice because there were only about half as many kids this week. Caroline LOVES Little Gym as she runs wild and plays on all the equipment. She did a great job displaying all the things she learned in class this time and we look forward to taking the summer off and returning in the fall.

anna "walking" up the wall

caroline hanging from the high bar

she's proud of her medal


caroline with Mr. Caleb, her teacher

The panties experiment

So, Caroline has been literally begging me for "big-girl" panties. She even stopped me on the way out of the door last Thursday morning and we had the following conversation:

CEZ: Mommy, while you are at work today, can you buy me some big girl panties?

Me: Caroline, I'm not sure I can do that during the day today.

CEZ: I want Sleeping Booty and Cindewella.

Me: We can go and look for them this weekend.

CEZ: They need to be pink.

Me: We'll see, Caroline.

CEZ: Can I wear them tonight?

You can tell I was really getting through to her.....I ended up buying her a 3 pack of Sleeping Beauty panties and Dora the Explorer panties on Monday at Target. She was thrilled when I showed them to her. We let her wear them on Monday night between arriving at home after school and bedtime. Here is how the evening went:

5:45: Caroline first puts on her Sleeping Beauty panties. She runs outside to show Gary in the garage and refuses to put back on her skirt from school.

5:55: Successful trip to the potty.

6:05: Successful trip to the potty. (We set a timer on the microwave for every 10 minutes).

6:15, 6:25, 6:35: Sucessful trips to the potty, including in the middle of dinner!!

6:45: Sits on the potty but no action.

6:55, Timer goes off, but I am busy pinning Anna's number badges on her shirt and figure I have a minute or two to spare....not so much. Caroline brings in a second pair of panties to switch to since she had an accident.

6:58: Gary figures out that she has had another accident and we are now on pair #3 for the evening.

7:10, 7:20, 7:30, & 7:40: All successful trips to the potty.

7:45 Dressed for bed with a pullup.

All in all, not too bad. I really thought it was going to be awful. She is getting used to going to the potty on her own and thinks it is kind of like a game. She can't stand when we interrupt her to use the potty but as 6:55 proved above, we have to stick to the schedule until we feel we can stretch it out more. We will keep trying!! Oh, I long for the days of no diapers!!!!

Big girl bed

We have been wanting to move Caroline to a big girl bed for some time now but she has not been interested until this weekend. On Saturday afternoon during her nap, Gary heard lots of commotion through the baby monitor. He decided to wait and see if she settled down. Before he could wait any longer, Caroline walked in the kitchen and said "Hi Daddy". To accomplish this feat, she had to climb out of her crib, open her bedroom door and walk downstairs. I believe she is ready for a big girl bed. Today we shopped for a mattress at Costco having already bought her bed on a super special at the Pottery Barn outlet last year. All was assembled by mid-afternoon and she was excited....until bedtime arrived. She did not want us to read books in her bed but rather in Anna's. Finally she told me that the bed was too big and she wanted to sleep in my bed instead. I asked her if I could lie down with her for a while and sing a few songs. She obliged and within 2 songs, she was snoring. Hopefully she will stay in her bed all night with Mermaid Dora there to proctect her. Only time will tell!!

Caroline in her big girl bed

the sweet sisters

all ready for bed with dora

Career Day

Caroline's class has been exploring all kinds of careers during the month of February and have enjoyed visits from various parents describing what they do for their career. Wonder why Gary, the software developer/project manager and Lisa, the CPA, were not asked to present?? That would have been riveting!! The month-long study culminates today with the children dressing up as what they want to be when they grow up. On Monday I posed the question to Caroline thinking she would say Dora or a mommy, however, I was pleasantly surprised to hear her say "I want to be what Gammy is". Gammy is Gary's mom and she is a pediatrician. I quickly thought about that idea and found a pair of children's sized scrubs for her to wear to school today. She also has a stethoscope that Gammy gave to Anna when Caroline was little and had a heart condition. Caroline also received for Christmas a doctor's kit from her cousins Blake and Drew. All of this was taken to school today. She was so proud of herself and told me that she thought she looked like Gammy. On her way out the door I said "Bye Doctor Caroline" to which she responded, "Bye Doctor Mommy". She was too cute!!

Caroline ready to "do checkups" as she called it this morning.

The excited girl.

Giving Thanks, part 1

Caroline's class had their Thanksgiving Feast on Friday. The two year olds in the early childhood program at Harding wore Pilgrim hats and the three year olds were indians. Caroline wore her hat most of the meal which was so cute. The Early Childhood program has a long tradition of serving formal Thanksgiving dinner to the parents. It is very nicely prepared and very enjoyable.

Crazy Caroline

Caroline had quite a day at school on Tuesday. She went through 3 shirts due to yummy snacks of yogurt and applesauce so she came home in a classic white t-shirt. Then, she decided she did not like her hair up any longer so basically she looked like a ragamuffin when I picked her up from school!! The picture below shows Caroline proud of putting her three "dolls" in time-out. Why, you ask are they in time out? Caroline ALWAYS replies, "Because they hit their friends!" She is hilarious. We never make it through a day without a good laugh from her.