Sunday brunch at the Opryland Hotel

For Christmas, Barb & Larry gave us a gift certificate to use for brunch at the Opryland Hotel. Due to Corey's work schedule, this was really the first chance we had to use it. We invited the Marshalls to come along, but we have been threatened with legal action if we post or in any other way publicize the group photos we took. Let's just say that no one looked good in those photos -- not even Charlotte. My recommendation is to take the group photo BEFORE stuffing your faces.

After lunch, we stopped along the way back to the car for a few photo ops. That hotel is ridiculous! The brunch was terrific though. Who knew there was such a thing as a breakfast eggroll?!?!

Zoned out

We went to the Jump!Zone with our playgroup this morning and Charlotte had an absolute blast. She loved watching all the other little kids jumping on the inflatables, and she also adored crawling all over the place. I was able to put her on one of the inflatables that was meant for toddlers, and she bopped all around grinning like a fool.

Lemmetellya how you play this game here! Hey! Is anyone listening?!?!



Help! The Loch Ness Monster is swimming through here!



Eh - I think I'll just cuddle up to this crocodile here.



Hmmmmm... I do believe this is a high-tech time-travel machine, is it not?



Wowza! This carpet makes my head spin!



Shazam! Abracadabra! Alacazam! Boogedy boogedy!

TP hijinks

My biggest fear at story time

(Click on the strip to make it bigger.) Somehow I had missed this when this appeared in the paper (thanks for finding it for me, Joslyne!). I think Uncle Jerry peeked into my subconscious and saw exactly what my biggest fear is each and every time I take Charlotte to story time, music class, a restaurant, et cetera. As Charlotte gets older my fear lessens, but it never really goes away!

The circling sharks

Even though Duke is deathly afraid of the camera, I couldn't resist taking a shot of mealtime with Connie and Duke in their traditional positions. I didn't get the camera set up quite fast enough, so Duke was already on the way out. Those two have learned exactly where to be when Charlotte is eating, and I am consistently amazed at the wide variety of food they will eat. Who knew they liked Cheerios? Who knew they liked pears? The one thing they will never eat though is carrots. Weird.




Whew! It's exhausting feeding those sharks.

I only have eyes for you

Some nighttime fun while waiting for Daddy to get home...

A new use for junk mail

Charlotte just amused herself for darn near 15 minutes by crawling around on the floor with a torn envelope that had a nice, crinkly cellophane window in it. Seriously. I'm really liking this new stage.

A new way to keep Charlie busy

Just give her napkins! Thank goodness she doesn't automatically just eat them anymore.



But just look at the result:

Straightjacket

NanaB knitted Charlie Jo a super cute hat to keep her little head warm. Charlie Jo's head that is. Unfortunately, Charlie is in love with the idea of tearing off anything I place on her head. It's probably my fault for not putting more hats on her on a regular basis from birth to get her used to them. We may need a straightjacket in order to keep Charlie's hat on...

Charlotte just doesn't appreciate good furniture

We got some cool new furniture to replace some pieces that were, well, falling apart. Charlotte didn't seem too thrilled though.

Siblings

We all look a little tired in this photo, but it's the first sibling photo we have taken in years. The last time we were all together was Christmas of 2006, so this was a rare opportunity for us. I still can't believe we're all less than two years apart in age (what were you thinking, Mom & Dad?!?!), but that sounds more dramatic than it really is when you consider that Erin and I are twins. Still, to have three kids in diapers all under the age of two? I know it's nothing compared to "Jon & Kate + 8", but STILL!



It's weird to think we're all married and responsible adults. Well, semi-responsible anyway. We each still have our moments (like when Erin learns about sock monkey pjs).

Four little monkeys jumping on the bed

Several years ago, my sister Erin bought some pjs with sock monkeys on them from Target. They thrilled her to no end, so she bought my mom some. Then she bought some for me. Next, we all got sock monkey slippers to match the pjs.

This year, when I was cruising through the baby clothing section at Target (I do this almost daily, it seems), I saw baby sock monkey pjs and called Erin at work immediately. I have no idea what her cubicle-mates thought was going on when she started squealing, but I'm sure it wasn't the first time they had heard it. Of course Erin bought some sock monkey pjs for Charlie Jo for this Christmas, so we decided we needed photographic proof of our devotion to the sock monkey.

Yes, I know we are odd.