Memorial Day

We spent Memorial Day at Lake Martin with the entire Chandler family.  One of our favorite things about living in Birmingham is being 1 1/2 hours from the lake.  I think as soon as we turn off Hwy 280 onto the back roads, our minds turn to mush (good mush).  I can completely turn my brain off for the entire time that we are at the lake - 1 day or an entire week.

My family can really make me laugh - lots of people with a really good sense of humor.  I feel like I was laughing the entire weekend.  The food was so good. My brother cooks the best Boston Butt I have ever had.  And... Luke and I learned how to do a low-country boil.  Great ready friends, we are going to attempt one ourselves before the summer is over and you are all invited!

The best part of the day to me is from 4-6.  Charlotte Anne has just woken up from a huge nap, we get a little snack to hold us until dinner and we head out on a long boat ride.  CA can't decide if dancing in the boat or watching the water is more fun.  Either way, I have no complaint because she is usually beaming the entire time.   Thank goodness she didn't freak out with the life jacket.  I think all of our "practice" wearing it paid off!!

Beach Time

We took Charlotte Anne to the beach for the 1st time - it was actually L and my first time to the FL/AL beach for vacation in 10 years.  We are so thankful for L's parents generous gift - a really great week in Orange Beach!

Top 10 things about the beach (from CA's POV):

10. I looked super cute in my new swimsuit.  My mom's smocking addiction has reached new levels and she even had my swimsuit smocked.

9. I love steamed shrimp.  I can eat more than my mom.

8. The sand and ocean are my new best friends.  I really couldn't care less if anyone else was around when the sand and ocean are near.

7. Sun block isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to me.  It takes a few minutes and my daddy never gets it in my eyes.

6. The beach makes me sleepy, but my mommy loves when I take 3 hour naps.
5. Olivia (the pig) is the best show EVER.  I watched it for a total of 10 hours - 5 hours to the beach and 5 hours back home.
4. A shovel and bucket can make any day better.
3. I am pretty sure I will be swimming by the end of the summer.
2. I have a great family - I LOVE playing with all of my cousins, eating my dan-momma's yummy food, and looking at the boats with d-daddy!
1. I can't wait to go back!!

Mother's Day

For Mother's Day, Charlotte Anne promised to give me at least 1 smiling picture. Thank goodness she followed through! Luke took some great pictures at the botanic gardens of our sweet 15 (almost) month old!

Charlotte Anne is starting to say her favorite words and she can answer a few questions. Her favorites are...

1. What does a kitty cat say: Meow... but for some reason she always sticks out her tongue. Someone in our family must do that, but nobody will own up to it.

2. What does a gorilla say: she says "ooo ooo aah aah" and taps her chest

3. What does a doggy say: "woof woof"... too easy as she hears it 1000 times a day

4. What does a chicken say: She makes a little chucking noise (this is mommy's favorite)

5. What does the horse say: "Nay" Always the same, always louder than the rest

She loves music, but only likes to twirl in circles to "dance". We do itsy bitsy spider, baa baa black sheep, Jesus loves the little children and the frog song at least once an hour. Luke is very partial to the frog song (even though he thinks I made it up).

Bunny is 100% Charlotte Anne's favorite thing/person. I am starting to think it is genetic because I had a very abnormal and somewhat unhealthy attachment to Monk Monk (the bear). Bunny can calm CA faster than anything. Sometimes I see her talking to him and trying to brush his hair or feed him cheerios.

Today is Charlotte Anne's 15 month check-up. So, we are excited to see her progress and crossing our fingers that she is no longer in the 120th percentile on height.

Speedo

Charlotte Anne refuses to take off her life jacket. She screams every time I take it off... so... I just let her wear it around. I thought kids were suppose to hate these things?? I am sure the second we get to the lake she is not going to want anything to do with it. However, for now, it is our clothing accessory must.

SOD




5478 Brantford - our 1st home. It looked so different by the time we moved... it is really funny to look back at these pictures from 2007!



                                                       For those of you who know this house... how strange to see it without the ivy??!!??

Look at those cute puppies.. .just a few months old!!

Luke and I are in the process of renovating our 2nd home. The funny thing is that we said we would NEVER do this again after the first house. However, we didn't listen to ourselves, and now we are back at it. In the new house there are a lot of things we can't do ourselves... we like to blame the baby, but we really just are over painting, hanging sheet rock and crown molding. One thing we simply can't seem to farm out is laying sod. There is something really fun about it and it is pretty easy!In Memphis we transformed our front yard from a mess of cactus and strange shrubs to a great grassy area. You can see from the pictures above that Luke's 25 yr old self was really having fun on the bobcat. We laugh about it now because we laid our entire front yard with sod and we didn't have an irrigation system... meaning, we had to move the stationary sprinkler around all day (yes, we took turns coming home from work to move the sprinkler). We promised each other that the next house would have the bet sprinkler system we could afford!!

Now, 5 years later, we are still sodding... this time on a little bigger scale, but it is still fun. Our neighbors - for sure - think we are nuts. We can't do the entire yard ourselves, so we are having fun with the bits and pieces we can do!! We have successfully put down 4 pallets of sod and we have about 2 1/2 more to go!

Look at all of those sprinklers... finally!!

Mommy's Makeup

Oh no. We have officially entered a new stage.... hello toddler.

Charlotte Anne is a really easy-to-please little girl.  She will look at her books and play with her stuffed animals for hours. I thought we really had this under control.... that was until she found my makeup.  Within about 3 seconds, she was hooked and all of my expensive brushes were in her mouth.

I wanted to grab them all away, but I saw just how happy she was "brushing" Don Juan and Osa's "hair" with them and painting in the tub with them. So... I'll get over it and I won't be putting any blush on for the next 2-3 years.

Just Add Water

In our little girl's eyes... water makes EVERYTHING better! I am almost positive that, if we let her - she would play outside in the water all day long. She really doesn't discriminate either - sprinklers, water play toys, the hose, a cup of water... she loves it all. I got so tired of changing her clothes 2-4 times a day that we got her an iPlay water/sun top. It is way to big, but she doesn't care and she kept it on with the sunglasses for hours! We did have to sacrifice a few non-water toys (sorry Mr. Bear) to play with until we collect some more water friendly things.

This makes me excited to get to the pool, lake, beach this summer!! I hope that all of this prep will make her love swimming!! And - if not - we will just stick to playing with the hose!

Don't worry... only a tiny little bit was coming out! :)