Halloween!

Well, this year Halloween was pretty low key for us. We are still in temporary lodging on base, so we're still living out of suitcases (get the keys to the house on Wednesday!). At first, we were just planning on skipping it all together, but I just felt like Carolina would be missing out, even though she would have no idea..... So I threw together a 'costume' using her dance clothes I'd bought since she'll be starting dance class soon. She was super excited to wear them, and even more excited when she learned that everyone she said 'trick or treat' to gave her candy. Instead of going out trick or treating since it was cold and her outfit definitely wasn't designed for cold weather, we went to a community center event on base. They had booths set up, and each one was handing out candy and games. Here's some quick pics!

Big Cheese!



She braved one pic outside inbetween the apt. and car. It's been really warm for Anchorage, about 35 degrees on Halloween, but still cold for a leotard and tights.



Back view. I was pretty proud of my bun, it stayed in all day, and even through nap later!



Mini table bowling. I think this was her second time trying for the 'pins'--empty water bottles--, and she managed to hit 2!



Getting a flower painted on her hand. She refused to let them touch her face.



Surprisingly, she was shy about talking to all the 'regular' people at the booths, but she had no problem talking to the clown. He asked her what she wanted and she promptly replied 'bumble bee!'. Here, she's holding the bee's body while he makes the wings.



Not that you can tell from the pic, but she really loved the bee, and still plays with it all day.



They had a DJ set up playing music, and Carolina just HAD to dance, even though while getting candy she kept rubbing her eyes she was so tired. She crashed for a couple hours when we got home, we had to wake her up for dinner, haha.

Our House!

Well, we finally found somewhere to upload photos, but the computers are more than a little slow. So, I'm just uploading the 'before' pictures of the house. Once we close on the house, settle in and get internet, I'll take the time to upload all the pics and stories from our scenic trip from San Antonio to Anchorage. Before we move in we plan on ripping up all the gray carpet and putting in hardwood everywhere, with berber carpet in the two bedrooms upstairs, and painting at least the living/kitchen area and ceilings. Eventually, but probably not till after the baby comes, we want to take out the horrible vinyl in the bathrooms and tile them.











Directly behind us is a bog, or greenbelt, so there will never be anything built there! (But lots of wildlife, the realtor tells us)




All the furniture you see is left by the previous owners; We plan on either donating it or selling it on craigslist.










Bedroom One upstairs (kiddo room)


Bedroom Two (kiddo room) They share a bathroom off the hallway.


Master bedroom downstairs. We don't mind the color...but the master bath is another story, it will be repainted!




See. Bright blue paint. What you can't see is the blue and green SWIRLS they painted on the light fixture and baseboard heat and doors.....You walk around the corner to the left to a closet and toilet.


Little storage nook off our bedroom. I think we'll make it a little mini playroom for Lina for those early Saturday mornings....

America's Favorite Pastime

Well, we weren't able to make it out to any MLB games this year, but of course Carolina is already learning all about the game. About a week ago we started singing "Take me out to the Ball Game" and she caught on fairly quickly. The girl loves to sing! Here's a clip of the first time she's sang the whole thing almost all by herself. The picture isn't very good, but you get the idea....

Getting Better....

Whew. One trimester down...2 to go. So far the all day sickness seems to be waning. I still have some rough days, but there are at least days where I feel almost normal. Using the computer, just like talking on the phone, tended to make me even more nauseous, so I've avoided it for 6 weeks or so. Rendon couldn't believe it when I told him those 2 things, of all things, make me sick. haha. Because of the weakness, and nausea, and because I don't want to upload, I haven't gotten the camera out in a while. The first month in Carolina's life that isn't well photo-documented...... :-( But the pregnancy, despite the sickness, is progressing well. I finally scheduled the dating ultrasound; It actually worked out that I waited a while, instead of a lil peanut, we actually got to see a baby! At 13 weeks, it was still too soon to tell the gender, but we could tell we have another thumb sucker. Joy. As the ultrasound tech moved to a side view, the newest Corbin reached their tiny fist up and found it's mouth.

It looks like our move to Alaska will be delayed about a month. We haven't got the official word, but when Rendon went to turn in the final paperwork the Airforce changed their mind, and decided they DID need more paperwork on Carolina's asthma. It will take about 2 weeks for it to be processed, so it looks like we'll be leaving towards the end of Aug., rather than next week.

Because of all the out processing and training of his replacement, Rendon hasn't been able to take leave. But we lucked out and he had a 4 day 'weekend' last week (mon-thurs) so his sisters flew down, and we took a impromptu trip to the Texas coast. North Padre Island was our beach of choice this time. It's only about 2 1/2 hours away. It's located about 20 miles from Corpus Christi, and the reviews on it reminded me of Ocean Isle in North Carolina. Though further south, about 5 hours, you can go to South Padre Island, and get the crystal water of Mexico and a mini-Schlitterbahn, we opted for the closer grey waters of the gulf coast since we only had a few days. Our hotel was right on the beach, and had 2 pools (back up plan, since last time Carolina was at a beach she was not a fan....). This time though, Carolina LOVED it. She woke up each morning asking to build sand castles and play in the 'lotion'. At night, to get her to go to bed without a fight, we would have to tell her that the ocean was gone, and she would have to go to sleep for it to come back. It all started because the first night she looked out our window once it got dark and exclaimed "OH NO! THE LOTION IS ALL GONE!". She was very brave in the water, walking right out into the waves. I forgot the video camera, but took some little clips on Rendon's phone. I only took my camera out one afternoon, I was still not feeling too great, and nervous about having my camera so close to the sand and water.





She's been really into shadows lately, she about busted it a couple times trying to run in the sand while watching her shadow.


Swinging with Aunt Mariah, aka Ma-rymin or Moo rah rah, and Aunt Candice


Shades and cheese


Trying to outrun the waves. Every toddlers favorite game I think.


Staying hydrated. Luckily, though we've had a record amount of days over 100 in San Antonio, it was in the low 90's on the coast with a great breeze the whole time.


Perfecting the art of sand sculpting.


Press down hard!


Ta-daa!


High Five!


Candice and Mariah's choice pose for a sibling photo (plus one toddler)




She's mastered the smile on command!


Telling Rendon "I wanna go deep!".


Here's some 30 sec. video clips taken on Rendon's phone. Apologize for my loudness in some of them, I guess the phone's microphone points at the person taking the video rather than the person IN the video.....

In this one she was playing with a little squish fish and got knocked over by a wave. Before I could even help her up she got herself up and kept on going.



Playing with Rendon. I love the end comment.


Squealing with joy every time a wave hits her.


This was right after a wave really got her good, but I love how she comforts the fish. lol


Adding to our castle. Right before she realized she could knock the whole thing down. She went around the whole thing, knocking down each tower with her shovel saying "Oh no, I break the castle!"


Making her own dribble castle after destroying ours. It's really hard to make out because of the wind but she's singing 'build a castle, build a castle'.


Here she just went out in the ocean all by herself, not scared at all, to jump the waves.


We're trying to fit in as much summer fun, swimming and SeaWorld, as we can, because there won't be much of that for the next 3 or 4 years in Alaska. We're sad about not being 10 minutes from SeaWorld anymore, because Carolina loves it SO! She has become an expert at feeding the dolphins, holding the fish right out to the dolphins mouth. We're heading that way as soon as I finish this blog. Since Rendon has been taking her sans me recently, we don't have any pics. I'll try to get some today.

Tidbits

There's been a few things recently that I've thought 'I need to blog this' (is that sad.....), and then I get to the part of uploading the pics, editing them, getting them on flickr and I get lost in flickr world. Looking at one amazing photo leads to checking out that person's stream, which leads to their faves, and then I'm out of time. So today, I am playing catch up!

Let's see, we went to Mickey on Ice a few weeks ago with Haley, Taylor, and Tanner. I thought for sure Carolina would put on her own show of excitement. But nope, she had the same reaction as she does to SeaWorld. But she didn't stop talking about it all the way home from the show, and still talks about it, so I'm pretty sure it was a big hit. Yesterday, we were actually going to SeaWorld, and I asked her 'Lina, where are we going today'. She got all excited and says 'Mickey eat Ice!? Go see Mickey eat Ice?! on noooo, I need clothes!' (she wasn't dressed yet).

Family Pic during intermission



Finally eating popcorn durring intermission. One of those guys was going around at the beginning of the show saying 'POPCORN POPCORN' at anyone age 2-12. Once she heard that, any break in action Carolina was asking for it.


Right after the popcorn guy walked by before the show. The beginning of the sentence was 'Popcorn for...."




I had the camera all ready at the beginning for her amazement, but she did this instead. haha. I think she says 'Mickey' and 'Donald' a couple times though.



We've gone to SeaWorld twice since they opened back up. She still loves Shamu and the foam pit. Ever since she rode the teacups in December she will randomly say that she wants to ride them again. So we made a beeline for them as soon as we got to SeaWorld, since we had been talking it up that first morning. Got there, and they WERE GONE! Carolina was so upset! She got over it pretty quickly though when we went to the foam pit instead. The second time she wanted to play on the 'big kids' area, and desperately wanted to go down the slide. Rendon figured he would take her up there and she would be scared, but she went down! Again and again! She also climbed the rope/net hill thing (I don't know what it's 'official' name is) all the way to the top. We were extremely impressed by that.

The First Trip

Feeding the ducks




"There it is!"




I don't think it's been on purpose, but Rendon has worn the same hat every time we've gone to SeaWorld, now immediately when we step into the foam pit she takes it off his head and runs around saying "Daddy! Get me Get me!"




Watching the Shamu show. The first time she's shown a lot of excitement about shamu actually during the show.






Feeding the dolphins. She wasn't quite able to reach them, and kept just tossing the fish in; I think because that's how she was feeding the fish a couple hours earlier, so she didn't understand to feed the dolphins differently.


Rendon helping her so she didn't drop the fish on the ledge where it's hard for the dolphins to get.


Second Trip!

Clapping at the Viva Show. She learned it at Mickey on Ice and now does it anytime there's music! It's super cute! ( Check out the hair, it was sooooo humid, and poor thing seems to have my hair, course San Antonio would probably do this to anyone's hair...)




They didn't have the water park open since it was Thurs. but they had the water going in the kiddie park , and Carolina throughly enjoyed watching all the OTHER kids run in the water. She avoided it, only going through when Rendon would carry her. At one point she even went through a tunnel, but there was water at the other end, so she turned around and crawled out the way she came in--so the 3 kids (bout 4-7 yrs old) behind her had to crawl out too. Great kids though, they didn't get upset about it.

We went with Rendon's coworker and her 2 little boys. The oldest is a rowdy 4 yr old--He was karate chopping the waterfalls and Carolina found it hilarious!






Walking through the tunnels on the big kid area


This slide was HUGE! Probably 20 ft or so high!


Climbing the net. It was the way to the slide without going all the way around to the stairs. Rendon was doing it, so Carolina followed suit. He only had to help her over the ledge at the very top.






She climbed this whooooole way!


Getting creative with the slide!


They did an AMAZING show at the Shamu Stadium. It's usually close to the same thing every time. But I don't know if it was because there were so few people, but instead of the scripted show, they pretty much just had the whales do tricks, with a few scripted areas. It was by far the best show we've seen yet! At the end, where they usually have one or two whales come out and splash everyone, they brought out FIVE. They still did the regular splashing with 2, but instead of ending there they sorta did an encore. The splash was HUGE (if you've been to a Shamu show you can imagine) I wish you could see all five whales upside down on the other side of the glass, but they churn the water up so much!

The side opposite of us.


And our side. We were smart. We sat right above the splash zone. Or we would be one of those people at the bottom of someone elses photo, haha. The lady with the drink cracks me up. I have about 5 of these, and she's dramatic in every one!


We call Carolina our 'genius baby'. We're possibly a little biased, but she's a smart one! She memorizes books in a few days, and 'reads' them to herself throughout the day. Here's a few videos. My personal favorite one that she reads is 'Pajama Time' by Sandra Boynton, but I've yet to sneak a video of it. The first one here is 'Going on a Bear Hunt'. It's from the library and she had it down within the first week. I'm including shots of the pages so you can better understand her. It can be kinda hard if you don't already know what she's saying. The second one is 'Brown Bear, Brown Bear', it's pretty clear.

The words are kinda small, so hopefully you can get the idea.....






(Pardon the panties, sometimes she refuses to put pants on, and since we're potty training it's usually right after she pees, so I don't want to make it negative for her so we just let her keep them off. What's bad is the neighbor came by a little after this video and Carolina ran out the door like this.....)


She loves to sing her ABC's and can get through it herself with help. I sing "A B C Deeee" and she says "efgeeeeeeee". And so on. This day she was singing it to a long forgotton toy she found when we moved and has re-discovered. Typical Carolina, she stopped singing when I tried to video her, but the end is priceless!



On Tuesday Haley and I went to the Japanese Tea Garden to do some pics of the kiddos. We got lots of shots of their backs. Which is about normal for 2 yr olds. They are cute, but I really was hoping for some spring shots that included her face. We lucked out and Wednesday was cloudy too (the best time for pics), so I talked Rendon into stopping by to try again. I still had her outfit in her bag so we did wardrobe change in the car and did the Tea Gardens take 2. She did really well, I think having Rendon there really helped. He did everything and anything to get a smile.

One of Tanner and Carolina from Tuesday. Check out Haley's Blog for more (and better, haha) pis of the 2 of them.







Saying 'awwwwww'


O, I love this pic SO! And I could just kick myself for chopping the top off her head. Just the way she was standing there with her hair blowing and the flower, I just put the camera up really quick before she moved. But for whatever reason, I just find it sweet!


Spotlighted in a moment when the sun came through the clouds


Nearing the end of her rope....


OH! Daddy has CANDY! (itty bitty mints, haha)


Only ONE! I only get ONE!!! (see it in her hand?)



Well, I think that's enough for now!