Welcome to our homepage! You can come here to read the latest news about Keith and Maribel Kruepke. (Oh, yeah...and Jordan too!) The links along the top and bottom also point you to other information available on this site. We would like to recommend a browse through our photo gallery.

The photo to the left was taken in our backyard in January 2006. (Yes, I am sure it was January, even though there is no snow.)

Well, it has been a while since I posted any updates about Caroline, so you can imagine how much she has changed. It has been so fun to watch! Let's see...

Obviously, Caroline is laughing and grabbing things (the milestones I wrote about in May) all the time now. She grabs for everything, and small children are prone to do. And of course, it all goes into her mouth.

Caroline was baptized on June 14, and that was a great time. Several members of Maribel's family were in town, and we had a good party to celebrate. She was very well-behaved for her baptism, although she screamed earlier when another child was being baptized. That baptism blocked the exit, so I just had to hold her in the church while Maribel prepared a bottle.

Caroline started day care three days a week on June 22. That took some adjusting for us, especially me leaving to leave work earlier than I always used to. Now it is basically part of our routine, and she is doing great there.

On July 13, Caroline's six-month birthday, she got her first tooth. At least then we knew why she was drooling so much, especially at her cousin Cameron's baptism the day before. She got that tooth pretty early, and then she really surprised us when she got her second tooth on July 19. She still just has those two (bottom ones).

Right before her baptism, Caroline started rolling over. At the time, she could only roll from lying on her back to lying on her stomach, and that did not make her happy. Fortunately, she was not very good at it and did not do it often. She continued to get better and eventually learned how to roll back the other way. The big highlight was at Opera in the Park on July 25. We were there on a blanket waiting for the performance to start. Suddenly Caroline started rolling all over the blanket. It was very entertaining, and it was fun that we were all lying on the blanket together. She has been rolling a lot ever since. And she is getting better and better at directing herself to where she wants to go.

When rolling around, Caroline frequenly tries to get to things in front of her, which does not normally work. A few days ago, She started getting up on her hands and knees, which looks really funny, especially when you realize she cannot quite figure out how to crawl even though she is in the right position. When trying to move around, she has sometimes gone backward. Then yesterday I noticed a little forward progress when she was on her stomach. Not quite crawling but getting closer. Today we were told that she crawled a short distance at day care! We are excited that she is approaching that milestone, but we are dreading it. Maribel is traveling to Florida with Caroline in a few weeks, and she is kind of hoping the crawling would start after that trip. We'll see...

Several weeks ago, Caroline changed from liking baths to crying through them. That has made the baths difficult on us too. She stays in a good mood during a bath on rare occasions, so those are nice treats. Hopefully this will be a short phase.

Giving Caroline baths when she is crying is a pleasure compared to trying to feed her cereal. We have tried the traditional rice cereal and oatmeal, and both get about the same reception. She may have gotten her teeth early, but she is taking to food really late. That has been a real pain.

Well, I think that about sums it up. I really need to do a better job of posting updates, so I would not need to make them so long.

- Keith

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