Birthday pictures

Also from a few weeks ago.... pictures from Tucker's birthday party. All carts get crawled in. It is a must. Or baby doll strollers for that matter.

I don't know what I did differently on the last picture for it to have such a "true" color instead of a blue hue, but one of these days I will learn. Who knows, maybe I could fix it with the limited knowledge I have gained from my class.

For all of you that are wondering, I will be slapping the biggest bows her head will support from now on out. Is it terrible that I tell her she has to leave her bow bows in so she can show Ana?

What have I become?

Random Scmandom

Some really random pictures I could not pass up.

About once a month, I will let Celie have a powdered donut. Well, I say that like it is a habit we have. She has had them 2 times in her life. Clearly, she loves them. Who wouldn't? I mean, it is fried dough with sugar on the outside. Hello? I am not a huge fan of letting her have sugar but I am pretty sure this won't kill her. I am trying to loosen up a little. Not be so edgy about things. Food is a big deal to me, and I really want her to have a balanced diet, but I cannot keep her from sugar and donuts her entire life. Some of my fondest memories included going to Dunkin Donuts to get fresh donut holes before church every Sunday. Then I graduated to a big donut, but they were usually ones that our Sunday School teachers brought in for us. Bakery style. YUMMY!

So I gave Celie a few donuts when my mom and dad were here. She hoarded them. Per normal. The picture of her shoving the goods in her mouth like someone is trying to steal it from her is a typical site. She does this with all food. Green beans, meat, strawberries... You name it, she hoards it. The second picture is of her asking for more (signing it) while her mouth is completely full. She likes to have plenty of food on her plate to give her options. ;)

The last few were taken post tea party. She was just being silly in the first picture and looking to opposite direction on purpose b/c Matthew was trying to get her to look at him. See the smirk? Booger! I am pretty sure she was gearing up to climb on top of the table in the last picture. A big no-no.

The child and her nakedness. Who did I raise here? I mean, I remember having a VERY difficult time in life when my mom told me I had to start wearing a shirt all the time b/c I was a girl and that was what we do. I was in 2nd grade. YIKES! I think I was confused as to why I had to wear a shirt but all the boys did not have to. I had a lot of buddies that were boys. Most of them, actually. We have got to nip this fetish before it goes too far. Girls wear shirts... unless, of course, you live in Florida and it is 90 degrees at night. She is allowed to sleep in no shirt if she wants to. I totally get that.

More

I wanted to go ahead and post more of Celie's 20 month pictures. The one of her in the kayak makes me laugh. She is practicing her best yoga moves. Well, actually, she was doing the milk sign and asking for her Mama, but whatever works. ;)

We have another round of pictures this Friday. Hopefully we will get a few shots that will be usable for our Christmas cards. If you all remember last year, we had a picture taken and I decided on a new way of making our cards: we would just have a file made of it and print them out ourselves. I was in charge of finding the design, and coordinating with the designer to get the file made and Matthew was going to be in charge of getting them printed out once we had the file. Long story short, we have the file (still) and somehow, no cards were ever printed out.

This year we are going to have them printed and designed for us. I can't miss sending them again. We thought about designing and making our own, but we have a lot going on from now until Christmas so I did not want to risk it.

Here's to hoping that Celie will actually look at the camera with a smile (or even a smirk) a few times so we can get something we can work with. :)

Wednesday

Every "winter" and fall we have one sweater that gets worn WAY more than any other item in the closet. Last year, it was a little hot pink cardigan. This year, this white cable knit duck sweater is going to win the prize. We don't really have a need for all of the deliciously beautiful coats that are out there, it just doesn't get cold enough. We basically just have to layer sweaters over short sleeved items to keep her warm in the early morning, and allow her to shed it later and stay cool when it gets warm outside in the afternoon.

I am glad I kept this sweater hanging in the closet. I really adored the entire duck line Gymboree had a few years ago and I purchased anything I could when it went on the super cheap sale. The sweater is a 12-18 month, but still looks a little big. Awesome. I love it.

I am a chronic packer when it comes to Celie's clothes. If something doesn't fit her anymore, I wash it, iron it, and then immediately pack it away. I have almost every single item of clothing she has ever worn saved up in storage containers. They are hogging all the closet space in the gust room, actually. I wanted to save them just in case we ever had another girl. If we don't, I will save the stuff I love and want Celie to keep for her (possible) children some day and try and eBay the other stuff. Sometime. I have a strong feeling it is going to be really hard for me to get rid of these clothes for any reason. However, I know it has to be done. I am not a pack rat. I like to cleanse and get the unnecessary out of my house if possible.

Anyhew- pictures from this morning. I love that belly!

I hate to do this....

But I am about to purge my "blogs I read" board. If you have a blog but never update it, I am taking the link off. Not being rude, just trying to clean up my space. I may think about adding some of the other awesome blogs I don't have listed here when I purge the "old" ones.

I guess what I am trying to say is....

It's not you. It's me.

My big girl

It is hard for me to describe that Celie is big in words. I mean, how many ways can you say she is "big". She is a tall girl. And very strong.

Even though this picture is blurry, you can get an idea of what I mean. The 2 little girls on either side of Celie are only a month younger than her. And one of them is a taller girl as well. I mean, I am not saying she is freakishly huge or anything, I just wanted to give a perspective. She is 30 pounds of solid toddler. This was taken at Tucker's #2 birthday party. Jenn wanted all the kids to line up along the back with Tucker for the cake shot.

Matthew and I have the same conversation every Sunday - he says I should keep her with me (meaning I have to hold her and dance) while we sing the music in the morning. That translates to me holding and dancing with her for about 25 minutes. Not ideal. She gets heavy after a while. I have done it a time or two, and I do love that she gets to see her Daddy "in action" as he leads our church in Worship, but heavy is heavy. And it turns me into a sweaty mess. Our church seems to have an issue with not keeping the Sanctuary cool to begin with, so adding more sweat and movement into the mix is not a pretty sight.

We are also trying to learn "quiet during prayer time" in our house.

I say prayers with Celie every night before bed. As soon as I start, she starts calling out for Ana. I am not sure what the fascination is here. I mean, Ana is a lovely girl. And she is as sweet as she can be - but she is also 9. I think Celie likes to say things over and over if she can say them correctly. "Mrs. Debbie" was one of the nursery workers last Sunday and I was talking to Celie about her, getting her ready for her time there. I asked her to say her name and she was really good at it. Of course, I got overly excited about it and cheered her on. I tend to do this in every situation with her, by the way. Anyhew - DEBBIE was all I heard the rest of the morning.

To tie that long, drawn out story back to my point.... Celie starts (loudly) asking for ANA every single time anyone starts to pray. We started praying for Ana b/c she is our friend. We pray for all our friends and family every night. It is just Ana that seems to get the most air time. ;) Well, Ana and "Aba" (Ava). See a trend here?

In other, completely unrelated news, we got a $1.99 kitchen set for Celie's Christmas gift this weekend! SO EXCITED!!!!!!! It's a Dora kitchen, and anyone that reads this blog knows that I don't really like character stuff.... but for $1.99, I sucked it up. It is the same kitchen she has at Meme and Papa's house. Except we took the huge Dora off the side. She screwed right off, it was awesome! I started feeling REALLY guilty about spending over $100 on a silly kitchen set for our 20 month old daughter when there were kids all over the world that did not even have clean panties or food to eat. The very day I felt so guilty about it, our Goodwill mole (Punkin - she always keeps us up to date on the best Goodwill deals - it's great) told us they had a Dora kitchen at the store. Then she told me she thought they were selling it for $1.99. I was giddy with excitement. I put on a fleece, hat and shoes, hopped in the car and went to town to buy the kitchen that moment. Only, when I asked for it.... no one was able to find it. Well, OF COURSE I jumped to the largest conclusion possible and decided that the people there were just lying to me and had planned on getting it for themselves. I tend to overreact about a lot of stuff that way. I had a bad attitude about it the whole way home. Then I found out the real story - which I will not share here - and immediately had to ask for forgiveness for thinking I was the victim in that case. Long story short, we got the kitchen. And she will have a great time playing with it. And we spent $2 instead of $180.

So, I am only about a month late...

We took these one Friday for Celie's 20 month pictures. It is always a tag team effort b/c one of us has to shoot the pictures while the other one coaxes her along. Or gets her to chase them. Matthew is usually the taker and I try to stay about 10-20 steps ahead of Celie so he can snap shots of her while she is running to be begging me to pick her up. :) There is a specific science to it all.

We did not get many cute pictures in this round b/c of sun, lighting and basic toddler issues. I was dead set on getting some of her in this outfit though. Not so much the shorts, but the shirt is adorable. I am a sucker for the flower and the pleating at the neck.

She loved sitting in the kayak and getting near the water. It was too cold for her to put her feet in. I should clarify, the water was too cold. The outside temperature at the time we took these pictures was right around 100 degrees. In mid October. It was pretty nasty.

I am going to try to get some more pictures of her this weekend with some of the new "tools" I have learned about on my camera. White balance is the major one I will adjust. I think it would help take the "blue/green" cast off some of the pictures we have. I will let you know.

Some Family Shots

These are not the greatest pictures I have ever seen, but I tend to look back on my blog a lot at pictures so I wanted to put them out there – for my benefit in the future.

The first one was Halloween weekend after church. I am pretty used to just keeping a frozen smile on my face and waiting to capture a moment that Celie is actually looking at the camera. It doesn’t happen often at all. Or often enough, I guess I should say.

Our second picture was taken before a friend’s wedding a few weeks ago. Matthew was singing in it and I was there to watch our friend get married. We took the picture b/c it is rare that we are ever both dressed up AND have a free person to take a picture of us. I have got to figure out a good spot/position for the camera to sit so we can use our timer.

The third picture was just one I wanted to throw in for good measure b/c I love it so much. :)

 

Just one more

Sorry, I know this is boring to most of you, but I went back to look at the sunset pictures and realized that I liked this one a lot. The bird is what sold me, as cheesy as it is. The whole picture kind of reminds me of Miss Saigon, to be honest with you. It was the first thing that popped into my head when I previewed the pictures this morning. Anyhew - this is the last one. I promise.

Sunset

I may be posting weekly sunset pictures while I am in class. Which means, 2 more weeks of sunsets! :) It's just too pretty to pass up.

Last Thursday was pretty windy and the best pictures I took were when the sun was much higher. When I went to preview them, I discovered that I did not have my memory card in the camera. That is about the 3rd time it has happened to me. I changed the settings in my camera last Thursday though so I will not be able to take them at all when there is not a card inserted. Easy solution.

I tried to watch my horizon line better this time - thanks, again, for the tip, Char.

Our first big boo boo

You will have to click on the picture to get the feeling. Complete with crying snot. You're welcome.

So yesterday after Church, we were playing around before Celie's nap and she was running back and forth between her room and the back porch. It has been so nice here that we have been keeping the back door open while we are at home during the day. She was having a blast playing and being sweet. She zipped through the kitchen and all of a sudden I saw her fall down. It was a dramatic fall to be honest with you. She hit her knees first and then did a face plant. On the hard floor. She started to whine a little and so, of course, I said "It's OK, you're fine." Then I noticed she was not moving and took a deep breath in without making any sound afterwards. That is never a good sign.

She started wailing. I picked her up and saw that she had blood gushing out of her lip. I was nervous and felt so bad for her. I think she tripped on the rug, but I am not certain. It would be unusual for her to trip on "nothing" b/c she is really agile and balanced. She is just not that child that trips over stuff that is not there.

The whole ordeal was VERY dramatic. And she was in a foul mood for the rest of the day. She took a great nap, but was a little sad when she woke up and realized her lip hurt. She has made sure to point it out to everyone she sees. I guess she is not going to let a little sympathy pass her up. (Smart girl)

I thought I was done - sorry

I wrote about the Lilly loving, but never posted pictures of it in action.

This first picture is Celie with her 4 favorite things: Honey, Lilly, the porch and a key.

Here is my little sweetie on her way to Sissy’s this morning. Looking very sleepy. She hasn’t taken a nap during the day at Jenn’s all week this week. Imagine how fun it is at our house around bedtime. Yeah, not so fun. She is exhausted. Not sure what the deal is there.

More Lilly love. At the beach a few weeks ago. 20 month picture session. I have not posted these yet. I totally forgot about them.

Random Pictures I have been wanting to post

I left out a few pictures of Miss Priss from a few weekends ago and wanted to make sure I got them up. I adore the dress she is in and she looked like such a sweet toddler in it!

The back porch is the new favorite hang out. She LOVES it back there. We worked really hard on getting it all bleached about 3 weeks ago and it paid off! It is the best time of the year to be back there too. Until dusk, at least. That is when the killer mosquitoes search their prey! Our Christmas gift to ourselves is getting it screened in so we will be able to enjoy it year round without having to worry about all the bugs outside. Exciting gift, huh? Actually, it is exciting for us.

So here are some outside pictures. Celie is a huge Lilly lover these days and takes every chance she can get to hug her. She loves having a key to hold.

Side note – the other day she was asking for a “T” and I thought she was asking for actual “tea”…. I got very nervous b/c she doesn’t drink tea. Or shouldn’t drink tea…. I thought she had been taken to the dark side by a grandparent and it made me antsy. Then I realized she was asking for a KEY, and all was right with the world again.

She also loves “honey” her build a bear cat. I chose honey for her when I went to see my mom and dad a month or so ago. I knew that one day she would love it, and today is the day. She goes to bed and wakes up asking about Honey. She has a mommy honey and a baby honey. We are big into cats these days. Which makes me think of something else we did last weekend… sorry, I will get to the pictures soon.

The Pig had about 7 cages of kittens and cats outside on Sunday. We told Celie she could pet the “meows” when we were done shopping and when it was her turn, she really had a blast. I mean, she LOVES cats. I grew up with them and I do like them a lot, but it is not possible for us to have one with Lilly. She loves to eat cat poop from the litter box. Gross, but true. I wish I had her playing with the cats on video though. It was so sweet!

(she was playing with her doll’s bottle… she likes me to “cry” and ask for it. A little Mommy already)

Now some more from last weekend. Sorry this blog is VERY picture heavy.

She was applying her makeup like Mommy with her makeup sponge. :) Funny. She watches me like a hawk every Sunday morning while I get ready for church.

Love more of that fake smile….here she is with Honey.

Faker

Two of the fake smiles I got before I was able to take the one normal picture. She was saying Cee-Cee (it's how she pronounces her name).

Looking for me?

Love this picture. I think it is her little smile that gets me.

I had the day off on Wednesday and ended up going on the grand grocery bonanza with a friend. We had 4 stops to make. We left at 8:00 and got home at 2:30, but it seemed so much quicker. I usually go grocery shopping with Celie only, so this was quite a change. A welcome one. I had a really great time.... until I had to come home and unload the car. That is the only downfall of grocery shopping with no spouse to help you. I am pretty used to it, but the bag full of frozen stuff gets me every time. This is the downfall of living over an hour away from a real grocery store. I mean, the Pig is a real grocery store, but the prices are insane. A quick trip for a few items is usually around $50. A cart full of groceries at Publix is usually cheaper than that. For me, at least. Anyhew - it was a really nice day off, complete with no make up.

Now back to my little sweetie.

I am amazed every day by how much she takes in. It really coaxes me into watching how I do and say things. I want to be the best role model I can for my daughter in everything I do and say. I want her to see that Matthew and I love one another. We always show her and tell her that we love each other, as cheesy as that may sound. I think that is really important. Now, am I going to invite her into the bedroom? Um, no. But you know the kind of showing I am talking about here.

We were playing tea party last night and I poured some (fake) orange juice in my cup and drank it. Then I set it down to see if she would do the same. She did, complete with all the sounds I made to pour and drink my juice. I asked her for more juice, please and she played right along. Then it was my turn to pour for her and she drank her juice, then signed more for me to give her another cup. :) Her mimic of the sound effects is my favorite part.

In other big news...... she wanted to swing in the actual toddler swing for a LONG time on Sunday. Her Papa put her in the one at their house last weekend and she had a BIG time on it. Then Meme took her back on it Saturday afternoon and she loved it again. I had nursery duty last Sunday at church and we took all the kids out to the playground and she went for another round, and then later that night - another 30 minutes straight in it. This is very exciting news in our house. Usually, she will ask for the "swing swing" but never really wants to be in it. She has hated it pretty much up until last weekend. Yay Celie!

Sunset

On my way to class last week, I saw an amazing sunset. When I turned from the parking lot at work and started driving towards the water, the sun was a huge ball that looked like it was sitting ON the road. By the time I made it (about a mile) to the water and had my camera ready, this was all I could capture. I will have to do some research to find out why the vertical pictures have more blue in the sky than the horizontal ones, but I have a feeling it was just b/c the lens captured more blue b/c of the way the lens was turned, so it was brought out more on the screen.

Thoughts? Opinions?

More practice shots.

ADORE the 3rd one. I was shocked I got any that were worth keeping at all. When I take pictures of Celie (or any other child) from now on, I am only using my continuous clicking feature. It allows me to take up to 10 pictures back to back with no shutter lag at all, increasing the probability of actually hitting a moving target.

Another tip we were told was to take the red eye reduction feature OFF your camera. It helps with speed.

I am here...

I have just been pre-occupied.

So, we have a front loader washing machine. I love it. I have used non front loaders since having ours, and I can tell a major difference, especially in the wrinkle department. We got an amazing deal on it about 4 years ago. Soon after we got it, we moved to our new house and have a different power company b/c of location. The company we have sucks, there is no better way to say it. I could sneeze, and the power will go out. It is terrible. And annoying. Apparently, because of the surges we have, our motor board has been fried. Nice, huh? We had a service guy come out 2 weeks ago and order the new board. We still don't have it installed. Since we don't have the new board, I have been lucky enough to be able to use the White's washer and dryer until ours gets fixed. When it gets fixed, it will be on a surge protector that I can turn off every day when I leave for work so the surges that happen won't affect it. Will it be annoying? Sure it will. Doing that means that I am not able to use a really handy "delay" function that lets you delay when you want your wash cycle to start for up to 8 hours. So I could set it and forget it, so to speak. :) To be honest, I have not used that function since we moved (b/c of the power surges we have), so I won't really "miss" it. I guess we could have purchased a new washer that was not a front loader, but I really prefer them, so we will do the new (ghetto) system instead.

All of that to say, we were at the White's on Friday and I was trying to practice some of my new info I learned in class on Thursday night. (I am taking a little class for photography). I got a few cute shots that I would have missed if I had not been using my new trick (continuous clicking). A few of them were still blurry, but the cute factor was there so I am keeping them.

This is one of the shots. She was hiding from me. I have a ton of pictures of her with her mouth open like this. She was born from two very smiley parents, so she has that passed on. Matthew always smiled big, and I was called "Happy Jack" b/c I was such a happy, smiley baby. I love her smiles. She has started doing a fake smile too, you will see those later.

Thursday's Pictures

Matthew's phone is fixed and is able to send me daily pictures of my sweet cheeks again! Here are today's shots with one from Saturday to add into the mix. She was playing with my mom after Ghost on the Coast (and a few smarties). I have been leaving one of the 3rd row seats up for her to play in when I have her in the back.

Not that I drive with her back there, of course. But after I have been into the store and am putting groceries in the freezer bags, I let her roam around the back. She loves it. Now that the seat is up for her, her love has been taken to a whole new level.

Since the time has changed, I am at the house when Celie wakes up and starts talking. Usually, she wakes and will talk for a while, then go back to sleep for about 20 minutes or so, then wake up and talk again. She was really on it this morning. She has been talking up a storm since last weekend. She about talked my ear off last night from the time I got home until she went to sleep. I loved it! Almost as much as I love her sweet duckie sweater!

Pictures with Granddad

I am not sure what it is, but I am going with the "grandparent factor" just so I can give it a name. Papa, Grammy and Granddad all love to let Celie sit on edge of the sink and play in the water. My mom did it long ago at her own house and let Celie play with it (with her hands) in the water and that was fine. Then Papa started letting her play in the sink at their house and she added her feet into the mix. I think 40- 50% of her time spent next door is probably at/in the sink playing with the water. So I should not have been surprised to know that she had sucked someone else into her web. :) I was called from the other side of the house on Saturday to see what Celie was doing in the sink. I knew before I got there though.

Granddad and Grammy were having a big time letting her play in the sink. And she was soaking it all in. After a little while, I could not take it anymore and made them turn off the water.... I mean, what a waste. Not that I don't want my child to have fun and do fun things with her grandparents, but there is just no need in wasting that much water. My favorite comment to get from any grandparent (since I have heard it from all of them) is "well, I would let you do it if you wanted to, but MOMMY said no. I am sorry your MOMMY said no, Celie." Yes, I have got to be the MEANEST mommy around.

(I am not sure why everything is being formatted like this, but it is driving me crazy. Sorry)

I wanted to post these pictures of Celie playing at the park on Saturday. She is a slide queen. No slide is too big or scary for her. And she loves going UP the slide more than anything. Always up for a good challenge.