Our Little Gymnast

Charlotte is still loving her Tuesday morning's at gym.  She loves crawling all over the mats and hanging from the bars.  This week she even walked all the way across the beam! 

Watching her teacher to see what's going to come out of the magic closet next! This week we played with the parachute! 

Either during explore time or when she was supposed to be doing something else and was exploring on her own instead! :)  I'm pretty sure she was looking at the orange tape on the blue mat trying to figure out why those colors were together since her Mommy never lets her draw with the orange and blue crayons at the same time! As soon as I took the picture she started trying to pull the orange tape off.  Ha! 

Charlotte LOVES ball time! As you can see in this picture sometimes our play with the balls is a little unique but she always has fun!

'Affe

C loves animals and she's getting pretty good at either saying the name of the animal or what sound it makes (bird is about the only animal that she says it's name and it's sound).  She has recently found the giraffe and she loves him but she calls him and 'affe.  It's adorable.  Mom and Dad brought Charlotte back this outfit from Napa and it was finally cool enough on Monday to wear it.  I love it and Charlotte loves that it has a giraffe on it AND has fringe with balls on the bottom of the pants!

Recipe Wednesday - Sweet Potato Fries

Grow Alabama has started delivering sweet potatos again and not being a big fan of sweet potatoes I've been at a loss at what to do with them.  So this week I set out to make something other than sweet potato casserole and so I searched Tasty Kitchen and came up with this recipe for Sweet Potato Fries.  I made them last night and they were even tasty for me!  Charlotte thought they were too spicy though so tomorrow when I make some more since we have sweet potatoes coming out of our ears I will omit the seasoning on a few for her.  But this was a really easy recipe that didn't require a lot of work and the fries came out really great.  And one of the best parts was that they were baked so they were a relatively good way to eat veggies. 

Sweet Potato Fries
Serves 2

2 whole sweet potatoes
3 T Olive Oil
1 t Salt
1 t Pepper
1/2 t Smoked Paprika (couldn't find this at the grocery store so just used paprika, use less than 1/2 teaspoon!)
2 T Brown Sugar

- Preheat oven to 425
- Peel potatoes (if desired).  Cut into wedges until you get the size fry that you want.
- Put potatoes in a bowl.  Combine with other ingredients and mix thoroughly with your hands so that every wedge is covered.
- Set a wire rack on a baking sheet and spray with non-stick spray.  Lay wedges on the wire rack.  Bake for 25  minutes.  Rotate pan and put back in for 20 minutes.  (Time is approximate, cook them to whatever your desired doneness level is.)

The Anatomy of Finger Painting

I got everything set out on the table and C got interested.  She walked over and wanted up into her chair.

She watches with interest as I paint my hand blue and put it on the paper.

 But when I hold the paint brush and move to paint her hand she gets unsure.

 So instead of the paintbrush she lets me take her hand toward the paint.

 But that turned ugly quickly!

 She started frantically signing "All Done!!"

 We try again with the white paint.....

 Maybe a little better...

 But then we're back to "ALL DONE!!"

 "Seriously people! I'm ALL DONE!"

 "Get this stuff off of my fingers!"

 "Now it's on my forehead and in my hair!!"

 "This is the worst Sunday afternoon activity ever!"



So our first try at finger painting wasn't a success.  Which is odd since she has no problem making a huge mess with her food when she eats.  She feeds herself without utensils all foods including oatmeal, grits, rice, salad dressing, squishy fruits, bananas...you name it and she eats it with her hands!  We'll try again soon.  I hope she gets the hang of it soon because I had some Christmas crafts planned that require her to get messy!

It's a forest out here!

 I was just walking from the den into the kitchen to get something -- I have no idea now what I was going to do! -- and I saw out the window two deer! I yelled for Jason and he picked Charlotte up and we went to the windows in the breakfast room and saw two really large bucks out in the lots next to our house!  These pictures aren't great because I don't have a zoom lens (and didn't have time to change to it even if I had had one) and they're pretty fuzzy since I had to crop so much in order to see them in the pictures but you can see how big they are.  We think we counted 8 points on the larger buck but couldn't get a clear picture on the smaller one -- it might just be a two point.  The first two pictures show the larger bucks antlers pretty well, the last two are more to give you a size comparison. 

After they walked off through the trees Charlotte got down and started walking to the back door and then back to the windows where we were watching them saying "DEER! DEER!"  She eventually started saying "DEER! BYE!" when she realized that we weren't letting her see them any more.  And then she got excited all over again when she saw the pictures on the computer. 

I'm shocked that they came out into the open like that at 6:45 PM!  I'm also now afraid that it was these two bucks that ate the plants out of our planters on the front porch a few weeks ago!  We've seen a lot of deer recently but none this big!  We'll see if we see them again!

Blue

On Friday night we went to a fundraiser at Mom and Dad's.  We took Charlotte since we were only staying for a few minutes and since it was at Mom and Dad's.  Before we went we had a mini photo shoot because I thought she looked so beautiful in her blue dress!  And, coincidentally, I wore a blue dress too so we had to get some Mommy/Daughter shots!

 

Textless Thursday

August - September 2010 from Talesofa Peanut on Vimeo.

Instead of a post today I'm uploading a video of Charlotte. 

A few notes about the video:

1. It's long (9 min!) so be forewarned before you start it!

2. We don't have a real lion in our backyard but there is a lionhead on a wall fountain....you'll understand when you get there.

3. Sorry I talk so high-pitched in the video.  If I sound like that in real life and you know me and are still my friend, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

4. Gramme and Papa, if you're watching stick through it until the end because Scout makes an appearance.

A jumble of thoughts

So this morning I was at my first physical therapy appointment ("What??!" you're saying, "PT? Why?" Apparently I have scoliosis, who knew!) and I was talking to my uncle (so nice to have an uncle in PT) and he asked what I was going to do the rest of the day other than take care of Charlotte.  He jokingly said, "Write a blog post" and I said, "Yes, I don't have one for today so I need to do that."  He and another therapist were kind of taken aback that I try and post daily.  And yes, if you  haven't noticed, recently I've been trying to post daily.  Not actually type it and post it daily but have something new for you to read each day.  Obviously, I'm not too fastidious about it since I don't have a Recipe Wednesday post today but still, I try.  But I feel like most of my posts lately have been recaps of what we're doing.  And while the point of this blog is for my memory years down the road since I can barely remember what my name is some days, I also love the blogging community and like to post about things that interest everyone else.

So on that note (before I get to a recap of what we've been up to lately) I'd like to throw it out there that if there's something that you'd like for me to write about or a question you want to ask me just post it in the comments and I'll try and get to it.  I'm more open on this blog than I probably am in real life and I'd love to answer questions so if there's something you'd like to know or something that you've seen me do that you want to know more about just let me know and I'll try and fulfill some of those requests!

And now on to our lives.....

(And seriously, how many run on notes within sentences can I use today?!?!)

Today C is 16 months old.  I can't believe that we're almost to 18 months!  We are starting to see a more determined side to her that is at times adorable and hair-pullingly frustrating.  For instance, last night we went to Family Night which is made for kids but our child decided she didn't really want any of her favorite foods and wanted to be held.  And then once she got put down on the ground there was no way that she was going to be picked up again -- she just wanted to run around!  She is definitely stubborn -- I don't know WHERE she could have gotten that from! :)

But Charlotte is so sweet these days.  I keep telling everyone that this is my favorite age because she can communicate with us but isn't really independent yet.  She gives out "I love you's" very generously and has started giving kisses again.  She also loves rocking her baby/animal/whatever is in her arms and loves sitting in your lap to be read to.  She is answering questions now and asking for things which makes life so much easier and enjoyable.  And she is soaking everything up like a sponge! 

It's a chore to get her down the stairs these days since we have to go back for almost every animal in her room in individual trips.  This is what we came down with on Monday:

And when did I get a teenager?!?! Yesterday, Charlotte learned how to unlock my iPhone so if any of you get a call from my cell with no one there just start talking to C because she's staring at the phone trying to figure out how you're talking to her if she can't see you!  And these pictures crack me up!  She loves her monitor and the other day we noticed her typing on it with her thumbs as if she was texting!  She's growing up way too fast!

And if you're read for any length of time at all you've probably learned that we are diehard Alabama fans.  In the below picture C is wearing her pre-game pj's that she wears every night before a game.  We're not superstitious, just big fans! We are also big Erin Andrews fans even though she went to that school with the gator.  Regardless, on Saturday morning when we tuned in to watch Miss Erin's show at 8 am this is how we found Charlotte -- and no this wasn't staged!

Fall is in full swing for us and we are super busy.  I feel like I'm rarely at home any more and looking at my planner our days are about to get a lot fuller.  And I'm so excited because one of my best friends since preschool is finding out whether she's having a little boy or a little girl in February in about 15 minutes and I can't wait to hear!!  I'm dying to get to buying for this little one!  I'm also about to work on some new outfits for C with some new Amy Butler fabric I bought yesterday.  I'll be sure to post pictures if I ever find time to finish one of them!

I hear my little monkey saying "Up! Up!" from her crib so apparently nap time is over.  Back to work! :)

Playgroup

We had playgroup last Friday at Nathan's house.  It was fun to get out from under the mountains of laundry and dishes and socialize for a little while and Charlotte had a good time playing with her friends!  We're up next to host for Halloween and I can't wait!

What did Charlotte do while Mommy was gone?

One of the nicest things about going away with Mom was that I knew Charlotte was in the absolute best hands possible while were gone.  We are so blessed to have such wonderful parents who love Charlotte and are so close by that they can  help out when needed.  So Charlotte had a great week spending time with KayKay and GrandDavid on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday and spending time with Papa G on Wednesday.  Thank y'all so much for taking such great care of Charlotte!

On Monday KayKay and GrandDavid came over and played with C!  Her teeth hurt her most of the week and she loved her teething rings all week!

On Tuesday KayKay and GrandDavid were back and brought new toys for C! She loves her new cars!

On Wednesday Papa G was in charge and he successfully took her to school and then they played at their house and Charlotte enjoyed checking the tubs for rubber ducks!

And on Thursday KayKay and GrandDavid came back again to take care of Charlotte! They successfully taught Charlotte the color blue (she can identify some things correctly now!) and taught her that the fan goes "Round! Round!".