Dress Up With Daddy

This afternoon while Charlotte was at home with Wayne they played dress up.  

I can see from the pictures Wayne took that they had a great time together.  Charlotte really likes to pile on as many costumes as her little body will hold and then bounce on her bed…sometimes until the clothes start falling off!  :)   

While reviewing the super cute pictures he took I came across the last picture…a naked Charlotte, strategically holding a cowboy hat, bouncing on her bed.  Wayne tells me that at one point Charlotte was DONE with pictures.  He decided to take some photos of things in her room to practice with our new camera.  (Those were neat too!)  When he looked back at Charlotte she was NAKED, bouncing on her bed and just LAUGHING her head off.  

Cupcakes

On the way to preschool today, Charlotte asked me if I could bring cupcakes to school for snacktime.  I think she was thinking about her school birthday celebration a few weeks ago.  Charlotte was really disappointed to learn that I did not have any cupcakes to bring; we’d not made any…. But I assured her we could make some when we went home later. 

I was very surprised to pick her up from school and some of the first words out of her mouth were that we needed to go “right” home and make cupcakes…she remembered?!?  Sucker for baking with my toddler that I am…off we went!  As soon as we got home she morphed the project into “Making cupcakes for Daddy” so I suggested we add Reese’s Pieces as a surprise.  Halfway through filling the cups, I asked Charlotte to add THREE pieces of candy to each cup.  Mostly just to challenge her to count THREE out each time.  However, true to her spunky self, she insisted on doing FOUR in each cup…with quite a few in her mouth in between!   She did really well counting FOUR out for each cup, only one of the cups got a HANDFUL of candy!   (She also NEEDED to taste every ingredient before it went into the mixing bowl…YES, that INCLUDES the raw eggs, flower, oil, etc.  I think she learned her lesson about the final batter tasting better than each individual ingredient!)

Charlotte was VERY pleased to present her Daddy with a yummy desert when he came home from work.  BUT not so happy that we had to eat dinner before diving into the cupcakes.  Poor kid!

She surprised Wayne and I both by NOT wanting frosting on her cupcake…silly girl!  Anyway, they were YUMMY!  Thanks for the great idea and good work baking, Charlotte!

Planting Madness

So, um…

This is my front door, it’s seen better days.  This is my three year old, Charlotte. 

This is what happened today when I left her alone for .2357445 seconds to get my gardening gloves and plants from the garage…two feet away. 

She was having so much fun “gardnin’” I could not even be mad.

I just told her we’d do more tomorrow… took her straight to the bath and plan to forget this ever happened until then.  Hopefully I can face it in the morning before anyone comes to my door.   

God forbid the HOA sees this!

Name That Snack Time

Today while Charlotte and I were having an afternoon snack of “O” pretzels, I got a funny idea to spell her name out in pretzels.  She thought it was so silly and was really impatient for me to finish so she could eat them.   

Hey kid, creativity takes TIME!  :)

Aunt Katie Came To Visit

Today, Charlotte and I (Wayne was working) had a special visit from Aunt Katie!  Katie is back in Orlando for a few days, taking Spring Break from grad school in Boston.  Charlotte was ECSTATIC to put it mildly! 

KATIE's  HOME!!!!!!

We had a fantastic visit and dinner (baked potatoes, spinach and chicken cordon bleu) BUT I definitely felt like the third wheel.  Whenever Katie and I would get-to-talking Charlotte would stand in front of Kate bouncing from foot to foot and shoot me mad faces over her shoulder.  This would continue until Charlotte could get Katie’s attention back on her.  Too funny!  I finally left them alone for a while so they could visit without me – ha! 

Sad Goodbye...smiles but tears too!

There is just such a special mind meld kind of relationship between these two and it is so sweet to see.  We miss you already Kate! 

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

 Here is a cute picture of Charlotte and her St. Patrick’s Day outfit.  She was a HAM posing for this picture.

After school I decided to repurpose a Gingerbread Cottage kit from Charlotte’s birthday party for a St. Patrick’s Day Cottage.  Just gathered together some green candies and white icing and were off…

I think it turned out really cute!   

Once again, Charlotte ate as much candy (or more) as she put on the house but that’s half the fun, right?

Making Cookies With Daddy

Tonight, right before dinner, Wayne decided he wanted cookies for dessert.  {Enter pre-made cookie batter we keep on hand for an EMERGENCY!}  He enlisted Charlotte’s help – and BOY does she LOVE to be HELPFUL when it comes to cookies!   

They were so cute together I just had to snap a few photos.  My favorite is the first one because it really illustrates Charlotte’s baking philosophy of “Once the batter is ready to go into the over (or onto the pan, in this case) its ready to eat!”  It’s a constant struggle to get her to understand that you actually have to BAKE cookies/muffins/bread/cake before you can eat them!  God, I love that little girl!