Picnic Lunch With Mommy

Today Charlotte and I took a quick visit to Kraft Azalea Gardens for a picnic lunch. We had a lot of fun looking at all the animals, especially the fish and water birds. At one point we found an old water fountain where leaves and acorns have collected. Charlotte and I spent at least twenty minutes pulling out different things and talking about them. She really liked getting her hands wet, feeling the leaves and trying to smell each item – yuck! :) Unfortunately, it was a cool day and I didn’t take into account how windy and therefore much colder it would be at the park. We really could have spent hours there, so much wildlife and plants to see, but had to make our visit shorter since we didn’t have jackets.

Happy 2nd Birthday Maya

This morning Wayne, Charlotte and I helped Maya and her parents celebrate Maya’s 2^nd Birthday! They held the Yo Gabba, Gabba themed party at Amaya Papaya so Charlotte was thrilled: Maya, Yo Gabba Gabba and Amapy Papaya – three of her favorite things! She had a great time playing in the sand box, going down the slide, jumping on the trampoline and dancing around to the music. What a fun morning! Charlotte was so wound up from the party it took us FOREVER to get her down for a nap, just shows what a great time she had! Happy Birthday Little Miss Maya, thanks for including us!

Just wanted to thank Lauren Eddy for the adorable dress Charlotte wore today – what nice gift. Thanks “Aunt” Lauren!

Charlotte's First Photos

Tonight Charlotte decided SHE wanted to be the one taking pictures. So, with sweaty palms I handed over my new-ish camera and showed her the right button to push. She really liked making the flash go off but that was only overshadowed by turning the camera around really fast to see the results in the picture view. Not too shabby…

M&M: January Mom's Night Out

Tonight we held our monthly Mom’s Night Out at Paxia Alta Cocina Mexicana in College Park. These are all ladies I met during the Mom and Me classes I started taking when Charlotte was just six weeks old. Now our kids are turning two! This was easily the best Moms Night Out E:V:E:R! What a fantastic time we had – all twelve of us – closing the place down! Lucky to have such amazing friends - I laughed SO hard and drank too much! Can’t wait to do it again!

Dinner With Justin & Holly

Tonight Justin and Holly come over for a yummy country dinner. We had roasted chicken, green beans, cornbread, grits and rolls. Not to mention fresh turtle cookies for afters! What a yummy dinner! Justin and Holly also joined us for Charlotte’s story time. They really are good sports to help us entertain Charlotte. She really liked looking at Holly's camera and seeing the pictures of herself. In the last picture Charlotte is giving Wayne a goodnight hug - too sweet!

Lately Charlotte has wanted to take her own turn “reading” a book before bed. Mostly we just let her go through a book she is familiar with and tell us what she sees or remembers about the story. This is a video of her “reading” a book called Owl Babies. It is a sweet story about three baby owls who are waiting for their mother to come home to their nest. Listen to hear Charlotte talk about “Percy” (one of the owl babies), “Gone” as in the mother owl is gone and then see her giving them a kiss goodnight. You will also see quite a few flashes from our friends taking pictures – please note Charlotte is SO used to flash photography she takes it in stride!


Anyway, we have so much fun with Justin & Holly and enjoy trading our TV show insight with their movie/music knowledge. Every dinner we try to find a funny television series to top the one we introduced them to the dinner before. This week it was Community – if you have never seen it, check it out!

Florida On Ice?

The weather has been really cold recently in Florida. We’d hoped that this cold front would bring us some snow for our trouble but all we have gotten so far is ICE. Here are some pictures of our back yard – yes, the one yard we put so much into over the summer. :( Boo, looks like we have a lot of work ahead of us!

Monkey Joe's With Daddy

This morning Wayne took Charlotte to Monkey Joe’s so he could see for himself how much she liked “Jum-Pin” in their bounce houses. They had a great time together and today Charlotte apparently liked the games just as much as she liked the jump houses. He was able to take a video of her going down the slide and I wanted to make sure to share it with everyone.

Wayne said she threw a fit today (too) when he told her it was time to go. Even if she did have to leave earlier (after an hour and a half) than she wanted, she is a lucky girl because Wayne bought her a pass so she can visit more often. Charlotte has such a nice Daddy!

M&M: Monkey Joe’s Play Date

This morning Charlotte and I went to Monkey Joe’s with our Mommy & Me group (Kristin, Ava, Monica, Amelia, Julie, Haley, Maite & Christiana). Although this was our first time there, Charlotte had such a BLAST running, tumbling, bouncing, hopping, etc. She is defiantly in the HIGH ENERGY stage but even with that I could not believe how she could keep going and going. She climbed up quite a few high slides all by herself and came down them without even the slightest hesitation. She was moving SO fast most of the pictures are a blur!

We did have one fall though when she tried to bounce her bottom off of a picnic table seat and unfortunately fell right on her face. Three of her teeth cut into her bottom lip and there was quite a lot of blood. I was a wreck, she was crying really hard and Ducky was covered in blood. Charlotte was very upset for about ten minutes, whiny for another five and then…OVER IT. I chased her the rest of the play date with a napkin and some ice; just in case she started bleeding again but it did not slow her down one bit. What a relief! Actually when it came time to leave (after almost two hours) I had to bribe her with a “Pop-Pop” (aka lollypop) and her Ducky. Truly even that didn’t work that well and she was still kicking and screaming on our way out the door. :)