It's my party and I'll cry if I want to....

Despite what the title of the blog implies, it was an great unbelievably fantastic few hours that we spent celebrating with family and friends!  We were completely overwhelmed with the love that everyone showed to Carolyn yesterday by coming for her birthday party.   Jesse and I felt so blessed to have to worry about whether or not we would have enough space in our house for everyone.  After some careful rearranging of furniture, borrowing of card tables and chairs, and turning Carolyn's room into a playroom for the day (you should have seen it by the end!) we were fairly certain everyone would fit.  It was crowded.  It was cramped.  We bought a lot of food, a big cake, and plenty of alcohol (yes, I know she is a baby, but the adults enjoyed it!).  It turned out great and was the most WONDERFUL afternoon we could have ever imagined!  We didn't get to talk with everyone as much as we wanted, there wasn't a seat for everyone, no matter how many windows we cracked it was still warm in our house, but the love and excitement in the house was so strong.  Carolyn is so blessed.  We are so blessed.  Thank you, thank you to everyone who took the time to come (especially, those of you who drove 2-3 hours) and help us celebrate.  Even the "smash cake" epic fail will be a great memory to laugh over some day (once we can forgive ourselves for how scared she got!).  God is so good and I honestly believe he has put children in our lives to help make sure everyone takes a moment to breathe and come together!  Thank you everyone who paused their crazy lives to help celebrate our greatest blessing, Carolyn Eileen.

Date: January 28th
Location: Home
Menu: Buffalo Dip (obviously), Meatballs, Wings, Cheese and Crackers, Grapes, Veggies, and of course cake and ice cream!

P.S. Although Carolyn did NOT like the cake part (I would have been scared too, with +40 people staring at me), she LOVED getting to play with all of her friends and cousins in her bedroom, I mean playroom!

P.P.S.  We were so sad that her Arizona family couldn't be present but we know they were here in spirit.

Here are some pictures.  I will post more once I get them from other people (somehow I thought I had more pictures!)

She is almost walking!

She took five steps tonight.... Will try to catch pictures tomorrow if there is a repeat performance!

--- Carolyn is almost a year! ---

Carolyn is 11 months old and only has a month left of technically being a "baby".  we can't believe how quickly this whole year has gone by and we are trying to treasure our last few weeks of her first year of life.  Here is what she has been up to!


She is still growing, sleeping, and eating similarly to how she has in the past few months but her learning and developmental skills have really been impressing us.  She is really catching on to cause and effect and is extremely curious about EVERYTHING!  In the past month she has started walking along furniture and is very close to walking on her own.  She is also standing without assistance (for at least a little bit) and has mastered waving and peek-a-boo.  She is obsessed with taking everything out of her toy chest and whatever else she can find to take stuff out of.  We have had to do another round of baby proofing because she seems to get into more and more every day.  Here are some pictures from the last month!

Checking out the dog-dog

 Taking all of the books out of the bookshelf.

She loves checking out fruits and veggies from Green Bean Delivery every other week.

Carolyn somehow managed to take her pants off.  

Laughing at the baby on the TV. 

Playing peek-a-boo

A December to REMEMBER

Note: Picture heavy post! 

This past December was full of lots of activity and blessed memories for the Noneman household. It was so wonderful to get to see the first holiday season through Carolyn's eyes.  She is at such a fun and curious age right now that it made the whole Holiday Season so memorable, even when she pulled over the Christmas tree!  After the Thanksgiving holiday we started the holiday season when we had Carolyn's Holiday Program with her day care.

 Carolyn is in the very back on the left when looking at the stroller.  The babies don't really perform they just go for a walk to be introduced!

Then after a few more weeks of school for Carolyn and a few more weeks of work for Jesse and me, we headed off to Arizona for an early Christmas celebration with Jesse's family.  The 4 hour flight out to Arizona was a little, ok, a VERY LONG flight.  Carolyn only slept about 20 minutes which meant that the rest of the flight was spent trying to entertain a busy 10 month old who just wants to crawl around and touch anything and everything!  (Luckily the flight back she slept almost the whole time thanks to a little friend called, Children's Benadryl!)  It was a great visit with family and Carolyn loved her new stuffed white tiger (Blanca) that Grandpa Tom had waiting for her at the airport.  The morning after we arrived Carolyn was the highlight of many a elderly people at Great Grandma Anne's church.  Carolyn absolutely loved the Christmas performance that Anne directed with all of the lights, music, and people moving around and she made Great Grandma Anne's day when she waved to her while Anne was on the stage being thanked for all of her hard work.  A lot of the time in Arizona was spent just hanging out with family and Carolyn really enjoyed getting to know her cousins and trying to play with them.  She also LOVED the animals at the Phoenix Zoo.  Grandma Judy also bought her a wonderful animal book to remember her Phoenix Zoo visit by.

 Feeding ducks at the park

 It's hard work going to the zoo

 Reading the new zoo book with Grandma Judy

Once we got back to Indiana we had a day and a half at home before heading up to Fort Wayne for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  Once again Carolyn seemed to have so much fun taking in all of the festivities of the season.  We attended Christmas Eve service at Trinity English (where we got married and she was baptized) and they had the perfect set up for a children's service.  Even though Carolyn was a little young to participate in the bell ringing, when she saw other kids shaking something in their hands she shook her toy keys as well! It really was too cute! After church we drove Carolyn past the famous Fort Wayne Santa.  As kids Erica, Nick, and I attended the lighting ceremony every year with our parents and another family at the Summit Club the night before Thanksgiving.   I remember how we would squish our faces up against the glass and look down from what seemed like a million stories up to see the display lit up.  After we left that night we would always drive past and see the light display from the ground.  I can't wait for Carolyn to actually remember the display. After church and Santa we went to my parent's friends annual Christmas party where Carolyn had her first real interaction with climbing stairs.  Christmas morning we woke up and had Carolyn open a few presents so she could get some new toys to play with and then we went about preparing for the get together with the Holt family.  After a great meal and some present opening we all sat down and watched the classic "Christmas Vacation" by a fire.  We opened presents in the evening, much to my brother's chagrin, but it was a really nice way to end the Christmas celebration.

 Christmas Eve

 The famous Fort Wayne Santa

We also took Carolyn to her first Butler Basketball game on the New Years Eve Day.  To say that she enjoyed it would be the understatement of the year.  Between meeting Blue II (the live Butler mascot), the music, cheerleaders, and all of the other activities that go along with a basketball game we literally couldn't get her to pay any attention to us!  They also had the perfect half-time performance for Carolyn- performing dogs!  Jesse and I really think that may be her favorite day of 2011.  As you will see from the pictures she had much better things to do than to cooperate with picture taking!

 Dog half-time performance

She finally succumbed to some sleep until the cheering at the end of the game woke her up

Final score- Go Dawgs!

Jesse is also getting ready to turn the big 3-0 so he had a birthday party on Friday evening at the brewery Thr3e Wise Men.  It was supposed to be a surprise but I forgot to sign out of my Google account after my last blog update so he saw my email and all of the evite responses.  Regardless, it turned out to be a great evening celebrating with friends.

That's the long and short of our crazy December.  Hope that all of you had a wonderful holiday season as well!