Big Steps

Charlotte started pulling up on furniture at the end of January -- at 8 months.  Most of the babies that I knew weren't pulling up at this stage so I expected her to pull up for a while, move to cruising, and be walking fairly early.  I apparently walked at 10 months and Jason walked around 11 months so we were expecting somewhere around that timeframe.  However, Charlotte wasn't really interested in starting to walk.  She continued to pull up on things and would cruise but there was next to no interest in taking steps by herself.  That was great with me (it's much easier to chase a crawler than a walker!) just different from what I expected.  I guess I should have learned by now that that last sentence basically describes motherhood as a whole -- it's great, but different from what I was expecting!

Charlotte started standing unassisted pretty well in early May.  At that point she started taking steps from Jason to me and vice versa but wouldn't branch out on her own -- we had to stand her up and entice her to walk back and forth.  The Thursday after her birthday (May 27th) Charlotte first took off from the ottoman to me unprompted.  I consider those to be her first steps since they were the first ones she took because she made up her mind to take them!  Cut to now, almost a month later, and Charlotte is just not starting to take off on her own.  Last Thursday she left the kitchen cabinets to just walk around the kitchen until she fell down and this has continued with her going farther and farther each time. 

While I'm excited to enter this next stage it's also bittersweet because once she starts walking she won't need to be held as much anymore and will really be a "big girl" instead of a little baby.  Also, just to be honest here, it's going to take a much closer eye from me to make sure she's not getting in to trouble! :)  So last night when I was talking on the phone to my Mom and telling Charlotte "good girl!" while she walked around the kitchen clapping for herself while she walked Mom asked me to take some video.  Hey, there's an idea Jennifer, let's record these precious first steps! So I dutifully got out the video camera and got some video of C walking.  This will probably only interest the grandparents (it is about 5 minutes long) but for anyone else, enjoy watching some of Charlotte's first steps!


Charlotte June 28, 2010 from Talesofa Peanut on Vimeo.

Cooking through The Pioneer Woman's Cookbook

Ever since May started and I got into major party planning mode cooking has taken a back seat to staying sane.  I've focused on cooking tried and true, easy recipes that I could basically make with my eyes closed.  Now that June has rolled around I'm not any less busy but my mind isn't going 100 different places at once and I'm able to get back to my goals for this year -- namely cooking through The Pioneer Woman's cookbook.  I'm sure my slacker-ness has probably lost the few people that were doing this for me but since I love to share recipes with others I'm going to keep blogging about it occasionally.  If you find yourself cooking recipes from Ree's cookbook please chime in with your opinions in the comments!  With that, here are the few recipes that I've made recently!

Peach Crisp with Maple Cream Sauce

I don't like to over embellish things and say that they're "the best I've ever tasted" so this time Jason did it for me by saying, "This is the best non-chocolate dessert I've ever had!"  It really was that good.  Other than the time it took to peel the peaches (and go get more because it turned out I actually didn't have enough) it was a pretty easy recipe that was soooo good.  I would HIGHLY recommend this to you if you want to impress someone or if you just want to enjoy dessert.  One of the best parts for me was that it does have peaches in it so I could kind of try to tell myself that it was healthy because I was eating fruit!  Delusional? Maybe.  So worth it? Absolutely!

Olive Cheese Bread

I made this for the first gathering of our Living Proof Ministries Bible Study that some friends and I got together.  Even before Bible Study Charlotte enjoyed some of the topping for lunch so in additon to being adult friendly it's kid friendly too!  This was really yummy and really easy to put together -- just chop some things up, mix them up and spread it on bread! My only complaint of sorts is that Ree's serving sizes are just waaaaaay too big!  I guess she calculates servings for ranch hands but about half of one recipe fed 7 women last night!

Our most repeated activity

During the day Charlotte and I stick to a routine.  We shake things up by sometimes going to the pool or going to run errands but for the most part, in this hot hot summer weather, we try and stay inside and keep ourselves occupied.  However, there is one thing that occurs at our house every day as long as we have 15-20 minutes to play.  She crawls over to the table next to the couch, pulls up, and then....

She tries to pull this picture frame off!

Being the kind of Mommy who doesn't want to see heavy frames with sharp corners and glass fall onto my child's head I always pull it down for her and put it on the floor.  The next thing that happens?  She bounces up and down, points to Jason, and says "DaDa! DaDa!" over and over again!  It is precious! She misses her Daddy while he's at work!  The funniest thing is that as long as he's not home, if you ask her where Mama or Charlotte is she will only point to Jason and say DaDa.  But once Jason gets home she can correctly point out all three of us.  It's like she knows he's the only one not at home and she's going to keep reminding me of that until he gets home but once he gets home she's fine telling me who everyone is.  I am so glad that Charlotte is blessed with a Daddy who loves to play with her so much that she misses him every, single day when he is gone!  That's a great Daddy!

Recipe Wednesday - Charlotte's Corn

I've been working hard to deplete my canned food stores in my pantry since a family of 10 could probably live a year on the cans that I have in there! I'm the worst about planning a week of meals, buying what I need, and then not completing the whole week of meals and having items left over and just making a whole new list of meals for the next week.  So, when I checked we had like 8 cans of corn in the pantry so I went looking for a corn recipe.  I love the Cotton Country Baked Corn with Sour Cream (it's my favorite corn dish of all time!) but it takes a little while and I was looking to try something different.  While I was on my search I found a recipe that I knew I had to try... Charlotte's Corn! It is a local Delta Zeta alumnae chapter cookbook and so I modified the original recipe by using canned corn instead of frozen but kept the amount the same.  No pictures (I'm a slacker, sorry!) but it was pretty good.

Charlotte's Corn
3 boxes of frozen corn
1 stick butter, melted
1/2 pint Whipping Cream
1 tablespoon flour

Mix whipping cream and flour with melted butter.  Add corn.  Pour into casserole dish and bake at 350 for 35 minutes.  Stir once half way through baking.

Variations that were given included substituting creamed corn for some of the corn so I did use a can of creamed corn in mine.

Charlotte's Camera

One of Charlotte's new favorite toys is Mommy's small camera.  It was laying on the couch one day because I had been loading pictures onto the computer and Charlotte grabbed it.  She has so much fun holding it and even more fun when I turn it on and she can see things on the screen!  Here are some of her first pictures after we taught her how to press down the button (all SOOC of course, she's not quite smart enough to master Photoshop yet but we'll get there soon -- I haven't given up hope,  haha!)!

And then here is the princess herself loving her camera!

Perhaps we should invest in a camera for her -- one that is plastic and it doesn't matter if she drops it on the hardwood floors! :)

Thirteen Months

Thirteen has always been my lucky number.  If you've known me long enough you've probably heard how I was born on the 13th and was the 13th child/grandchild from one set of great-grandparents and was born at 11:13 and I could go on and on.... I would have to say that this 13th month of Charlotte's has been one of my favorites!  She is growing in leaps and bounds in so many directions these days that sometimes it's hard to keep up.  I'm not sure how long I will continue to do these monthly posts but I wanted to document (for my memory) exactly what C was up to at 13 months. 

Charlotte you are talking all the time now!  You have gotten to the point where you know that sometimes you can say something and we can understand you.  This is great when you say a word clearly or have said something enough times that we understand what you're saying.  When it's not good is when you say something new and get frustrated because you know what you mean and we have no idea.  You have learned some new words this month.  They include: Nay Nay (what a horse says), Nay Nay (for no), buh (book), bay-ba (baby), PaPa (once or twice), shhhhhh (when we shush you when we're out), bru (brush). 

This month has been big in your interaction with us.  We have been signing a few signs to you for months now and this month, all of a sudden, they clicked and you started signing them back! You now sign for milk when you want it and you sign for more pretty indescrimately to tell us either that you want more food or you just want to eat in general.  You also sign for all done!  We had a funny signing experience last Saturday when Daddy got you up from your afternoon nap and forgot to get your milk out of the fridge until you crawled over to the fridge, pulled up on it, and started signing milk as you reached up trying to get the door of the fridge open! We were so impressed!  We have been trying to teach other signs also like 'thank you', 'please', 'eat', and 'potty'.  On Saturday night at dinner you went potty and then looked at me and signed potty!  You haven't done it again and so I'm not sure if it was an accident or not but we were all sooo impressed!

You are doing some more tricks this month too like throwing your arms in the air for 'Touchdown' or when we ask you 'How big is Charlotte?'  You can also find your fingers, hands, toes, and feet when we ask you about them.  But interestingly enough you think that anything on your face (nose, mouth, eyes, ears...) are on the top of your head! When we ask you where any of those things are you immediately point to the top of your head.  We're not sure where that comes from, but I guess you'll figure it out soon enough.  You can point most of those things out on our faces but you don't get their exact placement on your face. 

Feeding you is still a typical challenge.  We've learned to only put small portions of things on your plate because otherwise you'll get tired of that particular food and then brush all the food off your tray to get it out of your way.  We haven't really tried much with a spoon but last Saturday night Memma gave you one to play with and later we noticed you holding it correctly in your right hand, picking up pieces of bread from the table, putting them on the spoon and then putting the spoon in your mouth to eat them! We were so impressed!  The next morning you proceeded to feed yourself a lot of your grits with your spoon.  Of course, you got really dirty doing it but that's all part of the learning process, right?!?!

This month you've also discovered Elmo.  After you loved on Caroline's Elmo doll at her birthday party I started letting you watch Sesame Street after breakfast.  Whenever you hear the 'Elmo's World' song you immediately come back into the den if you were somewhere else or you drop what you're doing to point to the tv and dance.  It's so cute! You love pointing Elmo out in your Sesame Street books too!

Speaking of dancing, you are a good one! Pretty much any time you hear music you shake your little body side to side.  You have started pressing the button on your Wonderpets Flyboat continuously until the music plays so that you can dance.  Once the music stops you go back to pressing the button until it cycles back to the music.  We hope that you got your cousin Mary, cousin Lauren, and cousin Abby's dance talent as opposed to your Mommy and Daddy's! :)

You still aren't really walking a lot, but I think you're close to taking off.  You walk back and forth between me and Daddy really well and you love doing it -- you giggle at yourself and clap at yourself when you do it and immediately want to turn around and walk back -- but you haven't really been interested in taking off on your own until the last few days.  Last weekend I noticed you get to the end of the couch and then take a few steps off by yourself not really to anything in particular but then you stopped almost like you thought about it too much and realized what you were doing and sat down and crawled away.  You also took a few steps away from the cabinets in the kitchen but then fell and hit your head.  I'm afraid that my scare you away from trying for a little while longer.  It makes it much easier for me to not have you walking yet because you can't get away from me quite as fast so it's fine with  me!  My guess is that within the next month you'll realize that you can do it and that it's fun and that will be just the beginning.

This month we've also gone to the pool...a lot...and you LOVE it. As soon as we walk in you start bouncing up and down in my arms and pointing to the pool with a big grin on your face.  That makes me so happy because I have such fond memories of swimming growing up and I want you to have the same.  Daddy and I love taking you out and watching you.  We're going to get you in a few swim lessons over the next few weeks just to get you more comfortable with the water so that when you're a little older you can become a swimming fish quickly!

Charlotte, your Daddy and I love you so very much.  We love watching you learn and try new things every day.  Your smiles and laughter make us so happy!  I hope that you'll always know how much we love you and how much we are cherishing this time with you when you're little.  You'll be grown entirely too quickly for my liking and so I am trying to savor this time when you're just ours.  We love you baby girl!

love, Mommy

Feeding Yourself

Charlotte,

We haven't ever really tried to teach you to feed yourself with a spoon.  Honestly, I rarely want to deal with the mess I know will ensue.  But last night at dinner you were holding a spoon to play with and then started putting pieces of bread on the spoon and then feeding them to yourself.  So this morning I let you have at it with your grits.  You were a pro!  It was messy, yes, but you did so good!  I am so proud of you learning new things!

love, Mommy

A special message from Charlotte

Dear Daddy,

I love you so much!  I am so glad that you're my Daddy.  As soon as I hear you open the door when you get home from work I drop whatever I'm doing and crawl to you as quick as I can.  I miss you when you go to work during the day but I am know that you are just taking care of me and Mommy.  When you're gone I get Mommy to pull down the picture of the three of us and I point to you saying "DaDa" all day.  I won't point out anyone else in the picture until you get home!

I love it when you get to wake me up in the morning's or from my nap.  I love seeing you when I wake up!  I also love playing with you.  You are really good at making towers for me to knock down which is one of my favorite things to do!  I am so glad that you spend so much time with me and love playing with me too.  I am a very lucky girl!

Daddy, you are the best Daddy a little girl could ask for!  I love you so, so much!  Happy Father's Day!

love, Charlotte

Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy Birthday Mom!

Mom,

Today we celebrate the day that you were born and I have never been more thankful that you were my Mom until this past year.  I could not have made it through my first year of motherhood without you to go to for advice and encouragement.  All my life you have been there for me.  You were there cheering me on at field day in elementary school, pulling congratulations balloons out of the cabinet when I made cheerleader, taking care of me after the wreck, moving me in to Tutwiler, and helping me celebrate my wedding.  I am so very, very blessed to have you as my Mom.  You have truly shown me what it means to be an excellent mother.  Thank you for your wonderful example, your advice, your encouragement, and most of all your unconditional love.  I don't deserve to have a Mom as great as you are but that's why you're one of God's greatest gifts. 

I love you!
love Jenn

Happy Birthday Memma!

For those other than C's family this might be kind of long and boring, but I think it's cute! :)


Happy Birthday Memma! from Talesofa Peanut on Vimeo.

Summer Busy-ness

For some reason summer has been extra busy for us.  I would expect things to get crazy if Charlotte had been in school and now was home with me all day but she's always been here and things are going ninety-to-nothing! So crazy that I haven't had any blogging time at all and if it weren't for my iPhone I would be sitting under a mountain of unread blog posts so large that I would never be able to dig myself out!  So, despite it's monotony I'm about to run through a quick list of what's been occupying our days around here.

Lots and lots of pool time!

We went to the pool with Caroline and Kelly last Thursday and the girls had so much fun! It was the first time I had gotten Charlotte really in the big pool and she LOVED IT! She would kick her legs and giggle every time I told her to kick.  The girl is going to be a fish.  We had so much fun and can't wait to go again!

I love this picture of C in her crab.  She loves it and every time she sees in the garage drying off she says something like "cra!" and points to it and giggles.  She's so cute these days!

C had a lot of fun with her Daddy pushing her around the pool last Friday night when we went after he got off from work.  We had the pool almost to ourselves and it was lovely to be out swimming and eating!

And here we are on Saturday when we met Daddy after he played golf.  And yes, I realize that Charlotte has a lot of swim suits.  She has yet to re-wear one.  I, perhaps, went a little overboard but they're just so cute!!

Here's Charlotte in her duck dress (those are ducks smocked on her dress) after we met Mom, Carrie, Sam, and Abby for lunch for Mom's birthday.  I love this picture even though she looks so serious and so OLD in it!  My little baby is gone and this little toddler has taken over!

Charlotte has become quite the ham.  She is cracking herself up here!

Don't you love her outfit?!?! I got it from Mint Julep Monograms which is The Other Mama's business.  It's an adorable shorts and top set and aboslutely love the birdie on it!  If you don't read The Other Mama or you haven't checked out her new business you really, really should!

In blog form it doesn't look  like we've done so much but I'm exhausted.  I've also been helping gather silent auction items for an event that's going to be in town in August and while I love being involved it's been a little more involved than I was anticipating.  I had great results though and I can't wait to see what everyone else got donated also! If you are in the area and want to know more about the event please email me and let me know!

Things are also a little topsy-turvy around here which is throwing things out of whack.  Suffice it to say that Jason's work situation might be really up in the air thanks to our President playing Chicago politics to get back at the states that didn't vote for him.  It's added a little more stress than I would like to our lives but I'm very grateful that this is an obstacle that we can manage.  And I'm looking to God and encouragement from some of my bloggy friends, Heather and Angie, to try and manage my stress, worry, and fear.  If you think about it please pray for the families in Alabama who are going to have their worlds shaken up in a few weeks in relation to lay offs.  It's never fun to have to face things like this and I'm so glad that I have this outlet to vent a little too!

On a more fun note, I got a call last week from a friend who needed a 12 month model for a sewing magazine that was having a photo shoot nearby.  So this morning I got to take Charlotte and she got to wear two beautiful, handmade outfits and get her picture taken.  I'm hoping that the pictures turned out because it would be so much fun to see her in print! If they did work they won't be in the magazine until the January issue but it would still be fun!

One last picture from Charlotte's one year old portraits....

Photo by Erin Cobb 

Recipe Wednesday - Chicken Bacon Ranch Pizza

I saw a version of this on Tasty Kitchen and I made it a little simpler based on what I had on hand and what Jason and I both like.  Turns out that this is a fantastic and really easy pizza.  If you're pressed for time and are wanting something a little different try this, it's great!

Chicken Bacon Ranch Pizza

1 Pizza Crust (we use the Pillsbury Refrigerated Dough)
Olive Oil
Ranch Dressing
Pre-cooked chicken pieces/slices
Bacon (we use the ready made kind)
Mozzarella Cheese

- Spread dough out onto pan
- Spread olive oil on top of pizza dough
- Spread ranch dressing on top of dough until you have a thin layer
- Place chicken evenly on top of pizza
- Cover pizza with cheese
- Crumble/cut bacon on top of cheese

Bake at 400 degrees (or 425 based on your type of pan) for 10-12 minutes until edges are golden brown.

Show Us Your Life - China Patterns

I loved registering for china with Jason when we got married.  Trying to foresee the future and decide on what we would want and need was fun.  We decided on an array of china and I loved that!

Our formal china is Vera Wang's Grosgrain pattern.  It's just beautiful and, I believe, timeless.  I have really enjoyed using it over the past few years.  It displays very nicely on a set table.

Our everyday china is a combination of Vietri patterns.  My favorite was the La Fenice pattern but Jason felt (and I agreed) that the dinner AND the salad plates in La Fenice might be a little much.  So we decided to go with the basic red Rosso Vecchio plates and mugs and accent them with the La Fenice salad plates and bowls.  We have serving pieces in both patterns.  I am still super happy with this selection although we have been talking about picking up an inexpensive set of dishes from Target or somewhere to use every day because every day use does take a toll on Vietri dinnerware.  Vietri dinnerware also chips easily if you aren't super careful and so a few of our pieces have chips already.  But I love the presentation on the dishes and am so glad that we picked them!

 

Rosso Vecchio

La Fenice

We also chose a holiday pattern that coordinated with the Rosso Vecchio plates.  That way the only holiday china that would be required would be salad plates, accents, and mugs.  I love our Christmas china and we love using it.  Unfortunately, it has since been discontinued so if we see any pieces online we also snatch them up.  We will probably get a formal Christmas pattern at some point but right now we don't have one.  I love that there are both red and green pieces and so they are so festive when we display them!

 

I can't wait to see everyone else's china.  Hop back to Kelly's Korner to continue surfing the blog hop.

Recipe Wednesday - Summer Squash Casserole

Until last week I had never made a vegetable casserole.  But with Grow Alabama providing us with veggies like squash and cucumbers pretty much weekly I had to come up with something new to use the veggies in.  So I went to my trusty Arab Mother's Club cookbook that Jason's grandmother gave us when we got married and found a Summer Squash Casserole that turned out to be divine.  Even Charlotte loved it which I guess means that she's like her mother in that if you put mayo and cheese on it she'll eat just about anything!  So this will now be my go-to recipe for Squash when we're tired of onion squash.  I  hope you enjoy it also!

Summer Squash Casserole

Yields: 6 servings

2 lbs summer squash, sliced

1 medium onion, sliced

1/4 cup Mayonnaise

1 cup grated Cheddar Cheese

Salt and Pepper to taste

3/4 cup herb-seasoned stuffing mix

Boil squash and onion in water until tender, about 10 minutes.  Drain and mix with mayonnaise, cheese, salt, and pepper.  Turn into buttered 1 1/2 quart casserole and sprinkle with stuffing mix.  Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven, uncovered, for 30 minutes.

It's Summertime!

Now that Charlotte's birthday is over and it's almost the middle of June (gasp! where has this year gone?!?!) I finally feel like it's summer.  It helps that it's about a thousand degrees outside with an almost constant 100% humidity but that's the price I pay to live in the South I guess. 

We have had a fun past few days.  On Thursday I met Kelly at the late movie(!) which really made me feel 1) old because I am usually getting ready for bed at 8:30 instead of going to the movies and 2) like I was in high school again going to the movies at dusk in the summer.  We had fun catching up.  With two little ones even when we get together we rarely have time to chat because we're chasing after girls and getting things ready to feed boys.  Hopefully we'll start instituting more "girls nights" soon!

Then on Friday we met Caroline (along with Kelly and Tripp) for dinner and Charlotte got to try her first Lo Mein dish.  She has loved the Thai chicken that I get from a local place but had never had Lo Mein.  She gobbled it down with no problems and then pronounced that she was "all done" by throwing her arms up and doing the "all done" sign!

On Saturday we met our friends Thomas, Reese, and Jana at the pool to wait for the Daddy's to finish golfing.  As opposed to last week when Charlotte wouldn't get in the pool other than to kick her feet while she was sitting on my lap.  This week she stood in the baby pool for almost 45 minutes walking around and splashing.  I can't wait to see her next week in the big pool with Daddy!  After Jason got done golfing we  had some lunch.

Her "smell the flowers" face cracks me up! And C, I apologize for not realizing your bathing suit was a little too big until we got to the pool.  Thankfully Memma suggested using a ribbon to keep the straps up and soon after this picture was taken we remedied the situation.

Sunday was a catch up day and Charlotte spent a lot of her time sitting in Daddy's lap watching her new Elmo dvd and playing with Daddy's Sonic straw.  The joys of being one!  And after dinner we took a walk to the park!

Designed by Leslie Giveaway Winner

I was so excited to host the giveaway for Designed by Leslie.  Sorry that I'm a day late drawing for it...Memorial Day has really thrown me for a loop and I forgot what day it was! So, without further ado the winner is...

Nicole-Lynn at Seaside Smitten!

Nicole-Lynn, I'll email you with the details. 

If you didn't win make sure you check out Designed by Leslie for your blog needs!

Recipe Wednesday - Brown Sugar Pork Chops

I will be the first to tell you that this recipe is not your typical southern fare.  However, Jason had a brown sugar tenderloin on our first trip to The Masters and he talked about how interesting it was so I thought I'd try to come up with a recipe that was similar.  They turned out really good but you need to be prepared for a sweet main dish.  I will serve mashed potatoes with them next time instead of onion potatoes and green beans because you kind of need a thick, blander starch to counteract all of the sugar.  Mac and Cheese would probably go great with it also.  I did really like them though and will probably try the recipe on chicken sometime soon.  If you do it before I do I would love to hear how it is on chicken!  I hope you enjoy them! I did make this up so it's very unprecise and open to your own interpretation.
Brown Sugar Pork Chops

Pork Chops
Olive Oil
Salt
Pepper
Brown Sugar
Maple Syrup (our's was light maply syrup -- any kind of breakfast syrup should be fine)
1. Trim fat from pork and tenderize with mallet or fork
2. Drizzle olive oil on one side, turn over and do the same
3. Lightly salt and pepper one side, turn over and do the same
4. Heap 1 - 2 teaspoons brown sugar on each side of pork rubbing into meat, turn over and do the same
5. Drizzle mape syrup over pork chops until the tops are barely covered
6. Refrigerate for 30 minutes to a couple hours to let the pork absorb the juices
7. Bake at 350 for 30 - 45 minutes depending on the thickness of your pork chops

Memorial Day Weekend

We enjoyed a fun, action packed weekend this past weekend.

We got to see some family at cousin Lauren's graduation dinner.....

Knocking down Mary and Lauren's towers of blocks

Hanging out with Aunt Carrie

We tried out the pool for the first time....

C played peek-a-boo with Memma's sunglasses

She picked out her tutu swimsuit as her first of the season.  I was glad since it was the one I wanted her to wear also!

Not real sure about the baby pool but she tried it!  It was COLD!

That look is directed towards Memma and Papa G and she's saying, "Get me outta here!"

After Daddy let her go a little farther in the water than she wanted (chest deep instead of just legs) she chose to sit next to me on the side for a while.  Thank goodness Caroline gave her a duck pool toy for her birthday because she clung to it like her life depended on it!

And then we enjoyed a cookout at Memma and Papa G's to celebrate Memorial Day.  I apologize in advance for not having my child in red, white, and blue.  I will be investing in some patriotic clothes before the 4th of July.

Can you see her two top teeth?  You might have to enlarge the picture (double click) to see them, but they're there and getting bigger every day!