A glimpse into the future...

...when CJ and Zozo are sharing a cell at the nearby women's correctional facility?





Or make their living as cage dancers? Or are finally recognized as escaped monkeys from the zoo and put back where they belong?

Peter finally gets some love

Okay, I FINALLY scanned in the ultrasound photos I got of Peter a few weeks ago. I have been so lazy with him compared to the prenatal attention I showed his older sister. Sorry kid. Anyway, this first one is of Little PJ's profile (a shot I never got with Charlie Jo). Does he have my nose yet? Let's hope not...



This second one is just of his legs all stretched out straight (his feet are on the left and his little bum is on the far right -- the rest of the body was off screen). The ultrasound tech and I thought it was cute.

24 weeks

I am now 24 weeks pregnant and PJ is kicking up a storm! He's supposed to be about a foot long and weigh just over a pound. I'm feeling pretty good but am still tired. Thank goodness Charlie Jo has started taking longer naps in the afternoon -- usually an hour and a half, and sometimes as long as two hours! I might as well enjoy napping while she naps now. How often will it be that both baby PJ and Charlie Jo are asleep at the same time?

Charlie Jo has a baby brother doll that we have named "Peter", but sometimes we're not so sure she's getting the point. Yesterday, I caught her "talking" on the phone (as she loves to pretend to do), only she was using the baby brother doll as the phone. Oh my...

Cutie pie

Auntie Ernie sent Charlie Jo Jo this super cute dress. I caught her in the middle of some sort of ornery mission, which explains the sheepishly guilty look on her face.

Sandy Sunday

How better to spend a lazy Sunday than playing in the sand at the park? CJ and Zozo tore than place up!

A night at the winery (whinery?)

The past weekend's weather was so cool and dry that we couldn't help but take the opportunity to actually spend some time outside. We introduced Joslyne, Demetri and Zoey to Arrington Vineyards, where a jazz trio was playing Saturday evening.

How many lucky kids get to play in front of that great scenery?



We ate on the fringes, so all we could hear was the thump thump thump of the electric bass. Afterward, we made our way up the hill to get a little closer.



Charlie Jo was a dance machine.



Go CJ, go CJ!



The girls were way too interested in the fountain on the patio. Once CJ started splashing all the people sitting around it, fountain time was over. That's when CJ decided if she couldn't have any Arrington wine, she was going to produce some whine of her own.



The building with the tasting rooms looked beautiful. Maybe someday when I'm FINALLY not pregnant or nursing, I can actually drink some of the wine again!!

The tradition continues

Last time Joslyne and I got Zozo and Charlotte together to expose them to high culture (aka a viewing of "Bring It On: All or Nothing"), the girls ended up in goofy outfits. This time, we had a lunch date to introduce Z & CJ to the "Project Runway" season premiere.

Since we fed them spaghetti-ohs in front of the TV, we had to move the rug and strip the girls down to diapers to avoid any marinara-related incidents.




Joslyne and I enjoyed a super-healthy Steak 'n' Shake lunch.



After they ate, both girls needed diaper changes. CJ found her monkey socks in her room and wanted to model them for Zozo. So that Zozo wouldn't feel left out, I grabbed a pair of my socks with kitties on them for her to wear. Zozo was NOT such a fan of the kitty socks, but while I was taking a photo of her before she ripped them off, CJ ran in front of the camera and started posing in her monkey socks. Witness the resulting fashion tragedies:

NanaB, pigtails, and monkey socks

Here are some photos of CJ and NanaB (right before Corey took her to the airport on Sunday), the pigtails I put in CJ's hair before Toddler Time at the library, and the monkey socks NanaB left for CJ to play with after it became clear that CJ had developed a serious affinity for them. One of her pigtails is looking wonky in the last few photos because at some point CJ decided she wanted to pull it out. Luckily, I was able to distract her with lunch before major damage was done to my masterpiece. The last photo is of the aftermath of the pigtails. She looks like Bozo the Clown.

Chillin' out with NanaB

Corey's mom came to visit for the weekend and Charlie Jo rose to the occasion by showing off all her best tricks and talking up a storm.

A friend of NanaB's sent this adorable hat and mittens because the brand was "Charlotte and Friends". CJ spent all weekend putting them on (actually, demanding we put them on her) and taking them off. Over and over and over and over. She didn't quite understand where the thumbs went though.



CJ showed NanaB her mad ice cream cone eating skills. She only dropped it once!



We went to the Nashville Library to check out the children's room and found this sweet little puppet stage. NanaB had to contend with a nosy 4-year-old boy who kept trying to steal her puppet, but she managed to put on a little show for CJ.



NanaB and CJ read some books.



And then CJ discovered the stacks. She could have sat there pulling books off the shelves and "reading" them for hours.



Finally, we were able to pull her away so we could meet Corey for lunch at a cool restaurant called "Past Perfect".



CJ's favorite activity of the weekend was playing with the new water toy NanaB brought her. It's sort of a big inflatable ball to which you hook up a hose. It squirts water out of a few places and amuses CJ to no end. She loved to fill up little bowls and then dump the water on herself or try to feed it to Connie the dog. At one point, she discovered she could open her mouth and drink straight from the streams of water.



The lawn got a good watering (in a concentrated area!) and CJ was soaked from head to toe. We couldn't believe how long the water ball held her interest. On two separate days we were out playing with it for over an hour.



Thanks for coming NanaB! Come back again soon and bring Granddad too!!

Charlotte and Elmo

Charlie Jo's interest in Elmo (from Sesame Street) has been building slowly, but it has recently become a full-blown love affair. I really don't show her a lot of TV (really, Sesame Street is the only kids' show she has watched in its entirety), but Sesame Street has been helping keep her occupied while I shower. She has an Elmo doll and demands that I draw Elmo on her magnetic doodle thingy (I did it a few times, and now she brings it to me demanding "Lalo! Lalo!").

I have seen her feed many of her stuffed animals with the fake baby bottle she has, but today I caught her feeding her Elmo doll (with his lovely gaping mouth) goldfish crackers. It was disgustingly adorable. The only other time we have seen her feed solid food to anyone was when she tried to shove grapes down her cousin Quinn's throat when he was about three months old. She's going to be such a sweet (and dangerous) older sister...

Another Night in the Cannonwood

Interesting night tonight.

First, Niki, Charlie, little Peter-in-the-Belly, and I went to dinner tonight. I put Charlie into her car seat in the Mazda and fired it up, and Niki moved the Mustang out of the way so I could pull the Mazda out of the garage. Niki parked the Mustang, jumped in the little blue station wagon and we headed out for a leisurely dinner. When we pulled back into the garage after dinner and got out of the Mazda, we could hear a motor running and couldn't figure out what it was . . . until I realized that it was the Mustang.

Niki had moved the Mustang (while talking to her sister on the cell phone), gotten out of it, jumped into the Mazda, and LEFT IT IDLING IN THE DRIVEWAY. I can understand leaving the keys in it; I can understand forgetting the parking brake; I can understand leaving the lights on; but leaving it running?!



If we were still living in LA, that baby would have been GONE!

After we settled down and shut the car off, we settled in for drinks in the yard with the Ballentines. We discussed our new neighbor (Brian's mother - Brian and his family swapped houses with his mother). Someone suggested we roll her house to welcome her to the neighborhood. So, we did. Five different families got into the act.

Welcome to the neighborhood!

Kick kick kick

Just felt Peter kick for the first time. Not his first time, of course - Niki's been feeling him kick for a while. This was my first time!

Awesome!

What NOT to nickname your girlfriend

I found out something rather disturbing last night. You see, years and years ago, Corey nicknamed me "Bandit". This was long before we were married. I thought it was cute. I was in his cell phone address book as "Bandit". He really hasn't called me "Bandit" in a long time, but the memory still lingers.

So then, last night, Corey was telling me this story about his girlfriend from high school and part of college (they dated a long time, and apparently she was a very lovely person). He went into this unnecessarily long description of how his girlfriend used to tell her decrepit old dog to go find her cat and hilarity would ensue. Turns out, the elderly dog was named -- yes, you guessed it -- BANDIT.

Um, Corey? You can call me nearly any term of endearment you want, but please please please don't name me after an ex-girlfriend's DOG. The fabulous thing is, he didn't see anything wrong with it.

Okay, I'm done now. Corey, however, will be making it up to me for quite a while.

And even MORE California fun!

The day before we left California, we visited Charlie Jo's Great Aunt Sibyl at the ranch where Sibyl boards her horse, Jazzy. CJ was a natural! Or something like that.

More California fun

I haven't posted all the photos from our California trip yet (I know! You're so excited, aren't you?!?!?), so I'm finally finishing that job. A few days before we left, we headed up the coast to San Luis Obispo to see my Uncle Jerry, Aunt Kim, and cousins Abbey and Cady Lane.

CJ wanted nothing more than to hang out in the hammock swing all day long!



But we convinced her to go swimming at the neighborhood pool, which just so happens to have a horse pen right over the fence. CJ seemed to like this guy, and she even tried to pick his nose!



We tried to put CJ and Cady Lane on that float, but CJ wasn't exactly cooperating.



Dip me in the water again, Abbey!



Cady Lane and CJ took a bath together. Kim & Jerry's bathroom may never be the same.



For some reason, Cady Lane and CJ thought it was hysterical to tickle each other's hands. They're both just a couple of goofballs.



Abbey made us a yummy spaghetti dinner with homemade sauce, then we headed home armed with all sorts of great Elmo DVDs and books handed down from Cady Lane! Thanks everyone!