EVERYTHING is a push toy now

Charlotte is in LOVE with walking behind her dune buggy push toy. She loves it so much in fact that she turns anything into a push toy now. She especially loves the stools that go with our new table. Go, Charlie, go!





Notice the intense look of concentration. If she was Charlie Brown, she would have the tip of her tongue sticking out the side of her mouth.

New trick and a new obsession

Yesterday at brunch, Alicia and Dan taught Charlie Jo to blow kisses! Well, sort of. About half the time, she holds her hand up to her cheek instead of her mouth. It's still pretty cute. My goal today is to get it on film, but CJ has had a bit of a short fuse the past few days. We think it's because of teething, but who knows?

Her newest obsession is freeze-dried bananas. She used to feed herself regular bananas, but after she had an ear infection a couple of weeks ago her eating habits have become very finicky. The only things she will consistently eat are yogurt and Lil' Crunchies (Gerber snacks that look sort of like Cheetos). I have been mixing veggies into her yogurt, which makes anyone who sees or smells it want to barf. The past couple of days, however, she has developed a new taste for freeze-dried bananas, which I am more than happy to indulge! What a little goofball she is.

Charlotte v. Niki

I have talked to several people lately about who Charlie Jo looks more like - me as a baby or Corey as a baby. While she does have some Stringer features, I think she looks an awful lot like me and Erin. I say "me and Erin" because to be honest, I can't tell us apart in any old photos taken prior to age three or so. Not even my mom can. My dad claims he and my brother always can, but I think they're probably just making it up half the time. I guess that's the problem with identical twins, huh? Here's some old photos of me and Erin:

Love the Sesame Street jammies!



Whoever this is likes dinner time as much as Charlie Jo does.



Nice legs! Notice the cloth diapers. I CAN'T EVEN IMAGINE! How did you do it, Mom?



Where better to play than in the headboard of my grandparents' waterbed?



Thanks to a handy-dandy label on the back of this photo, I can confidently say that this is Erin.



And the back of this photo bore the label "Niki". Nice hair!



But please, oh please let the Stringer genes kick in before Charlie Jo reaches THIS awkward stage:

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...