I'm a Big Kid Now!





We have a winner!  Caroline chooses the puppy dog as her new bedtime buddy.





Time for stuffing! Caroline helps fill her new puppy dog with stuffing by stepping on the pedal 



Caroline chooses a heart to place inside of her puppy



Giving her puppy his 1st bath



Leaving Build-A-Bear Workshop with Shaggy in tow







Home Sweet Home!  Abigail and Caroline's New Room





All smiles and ready for her 1st night in her new Big Girl bed

Snuggling with Shaggy





Double Trouble



Sisters...Roomies...Best Friends

Believe it or not it is "moving day" in the Smithson household...that is at least for one particular little munchkin.  Ready or not, Caroline is "graduating" from her nursery and moving in with her Big Sister Abigail.  So long crib, hello big girl bed!  Whether or not this move is a little too premature has yet to be determined, but with little brother Cooper making his arrival in just a few short months, the move was inevitable.  As much as I hate to take Caroline out of the comfort of her own crib, I would rather have a few months to transition and adjust to the new sleeping routine than wait and make the switch at the last minute when Cooper arrives and routines and sleep become a thing of the past.

It seems like just yesterday we were moving Abigail into her first "Big Girl Bed".  Although Caroline is almost exactly the same age Abigail was when we made the big switch, it's amazing how much younger and smaller she seems to me...it must have something to do with the fact she is our 2nd child.  With Abigail, each stage had a beginning, middle, and an end to it.  With Caroline it seems you either blink and miss that same stage or you just completely skip over it all together.  I guess that explains now why to this day the only place you can find documented birth statistics of me are on a post-it note.  Being the 3rd child, my mom had enough on her plate without needing the added stress of keeping up with a baby book.  I guess I should go ahead and apologize now Coop for the lack of "documentation" (aka Baby Book) you will have to look back on as a keepsake someday.  If it's any consolation, to this day I have yet to actually complete a Baby Book for either of your sisters.   

In celebration of Caroline's Big Day we took her to Build-A-Bear Workshop so she could pick out a new stuffed animal to help keep her company in her Big Girl bed.  It was a close race between a pig and a puppy but in the end it was the puppy that won over her heart.  It was precious to watch Caroline take such great care of her new sleeptime friend throughout the entire Build-A-Bear process.  She wasn't about to take her eyes (or hands) off of her new furry friend for one second.  By the time it was all over, a new friend named Shaggy had been born.

We hadn't done near as much preparation this time around to help make the transition from crib to Big Girl bed easy on our baby girl, so you can imagine the confusion in sweet little Caroline's head when we placed her in her new Big Girl bed and said good night for the first time.  All we could hear as we closed the door and left the room were tears...that is, until Big Sister Abigail stepped in and saved the day.  As Josh and I sat in the living room preparing ourselves for a long night ahead the sound of tears quickly turned into sounds of laughter as Abigail entertained her little sister with a game of Peek-A-Boo from under the covers.  It was one of the sweetest, most tender moments yet that I have witnessed between these two precious sisters.  Never mind the fact that this game of Peek-A-Boo continued on for another 30-45 minutes; never mind the fact that they were now so riled up and hyper that they completely lost sight of how exhausted they actually were; never mind the fact that no matter how late they went to bed they were still going to wake up and come running into our bedroom the next morning well before 7am...all of these things paled in comparison to the fact that these sisters are forming a bond that will strengthen them, unite them, and carry them through the test of time as not only roommates but best friends.