Charlotte's Adventure in the Cobb Creek Woods

Okay, these pictures go back a few weeks.  After Charlotte went to her first cider mill, NanaB and GrandDad took her on an adventure in the woods, where she found four little pumpkins.

 

On her way into the woods . . .

up the hill . . .

and around the bend.

NanaB and GrandDad have been keeping up the adventure path.

GrandDad and his adventure path.

Charlotte finds the last pumpkin!

And off she goes back home.

Later on in the afternoon, she found this little berry.

NanaB and GrandDad.

On Saturday, Charlie made this picture and told NanaB a story while making it.  

Tea parties were a hit all weekend.

See anyone familiar?

Charlotte has a subscription to a bi-monthly magazine called "Turtle" (a gift from NanaB and GrandDad that she adores).  Each issue has a two-page spread called "Turtle's Pet Show" that features photos of readers with their animals.  When we got the most recent issue, we were all hanging out in Peter's room while Charlotte flipped through the magazine.  She suddenly said, "hey -- there's me, Mommy!"  I looked over her shoulder, and sure enough there she was in all her ballerina glory holding Rocky on the day he came to live with us at 5 weeks old.  (Click on the photo to make it larger.)

I couldn't stop giggling.  Even though I had uploaded the photo to the magazine's website a few months ago, I had forgotten about it and never really thought the photo would get in there anyway.  We Skyped with NanaB and GrandDad to show them and they were as tickled as we were.  Charlotte really wasn't exceptionally impressed.  After all, she has grown up with seeing herself plastered on the fridge, the walls, the internet, in photo albums, in those self-published photo books, etc.  This was just another piece of evidence to support her conclusion that the world revolves around Charlotte JoAnn Stringer.

Cellular oddities

Shots of our wacky life as seen through the cruddy lens of my crappy cell phone:

1.  Baby Megan came over to visit (and brought along her mom, Melissa, and big sister, Madison).  My arms were the crib of choice that afternoon.  I took this photo to send to Alicia to make her jealous.

2.  It turned out, however, that Rocky was the one who got jealous.

3.  Charlie Jo LOVES to do "homework", so I dug out an activity book I had bought her ages ago just to scribble in because Dora was in it.  Here, she was working hard coloring each shape a particular color.

4.  We still mostly have temperatures in the 60s and even 70s right now, but a few weeks ago we actually had to wear jackets outside.  One of the kids' favorite games is to race between the two trees in our front yard.  There is no particular purpose other than to touch the tree trunk and shriek "I WIN!"

5.  "I WIN!!!!"

6.  A very special little girl named Evelyn came to visit us last week.  Her mom, Kate, also came along.  Evelyn just couldn't be bothered to wake up so I could hold her, so we're going to have to get together again soon.

7.  Peter loves the dog statue at the vet's office.  When we picked up Connie from being boarded over the weekend, he decided to ride the statue like a horse while yelling "NONNIE FOO FOO!  NONNIE FOO FOO!"  (That is Peter speak for "CONNIE DOG!  CONNIE DOG!")

8.  Our garage door opener inexplicably died a few days ago.  Corey decided to install the new one himself.  I was way too scared to do anything but watch and hold stuff when I needed to.  He's going to finish the job tonight, so cross your fingers.

9.  We needed to buy food for all of the animals, so I packed up the kids and told them we were going to a sort of zoo.  They thought the PetsMart fish section was just as good as a fancy aquarium, and we spend a good 15 minutes mesmerized by the fish.  Peter, of course, was shrieking "HI FISH!  FISH!  FISH FISH FISH!!!"  Why does everything need to be shrieked?  Anyhow, I would really love to beg PetsMart not to have their cheapie goldfish down low with open tops on the tanks.  Peter does not yet possess the self control to refrain from petting the fishies so I had to watch him like a hawk.

A review of Charlotte's costumes through the years

This was Charlotte's fourth Halloween, and I got all nostalgic about the Halloweens past.  It's so much fun dressing her up like a little doll.  This was probably the last year I will have been able to heavily influence her costume choice, so I'm going to savor it.

2008 -- a ladybug.  She was new to crawling and solid foods.  I'm not even sure we took her to any houses.  I think she just helped us hand out some candy.

2009 -- one half of the epic punk rock duo "Toddler Tantrum".  We probably had the most fun planning this costume.

2010 -- Ruby (from the TV show "Max & Ruby").  She understood the whole trick-or-treating process a little better that year, but she still had to be heavily coached.

2011 -- Ladybug Girl!  She babbled on and off for weeks about being a princess and I kind of just ignored her (because every other little girl on the planet chose the same costume).  One time she mentioned how much she loved Ladybug Girl and I asked her if she wanted to dress like her for Halloween.  She said "okay" and I raced out to buy the costume before she could change her mind.

What will she be next year?  Stay tuned!

Halloweening

Ladybug Girl and Rapid Roy the Stock Car Boy took Cannonwood by storm on Halloween night.

No, that's not them.  Those are the pumpkins that we might have carved just a wee bit too early.  They were kind of a moldy mess by Halloween night, but that didn't stop us from lighting them.

There's my Ladybug Girl!  Yeah, the costume got ridden a little hard a few days earlier at the preschool Halloween party, so it was already coming apart a little at the bottom.

Rapid Roy carried Daddy's Wii steering wheel to compliment his costume.  Note the sponsor patches that Corey painted for me to sew on some jammies.

How can you go trick-or-treating without some pumpkins to hold all the candy bounty?

Anxiously waiting for Daddy to get home so we could get the party started!

Once Daddy arrived, they took off running to the first house.

Trick or treat, LiLi!  (Rumor has it Alicia was waiting with special treats that the usual Cannonwood riffraff didn't get.)

One last stop -- let's see if we can sucker Mommy out of even more candy!

They got a surprisingly good stash from just a few houses.  Luckily, they don't like much of it (yet) and had no qualms about handing it all over to us.

Corey got us an adult treat as well -- vodka in a little creepy bottle.  We mixed a couple of drinks and took the edge off the sugar high to end the night.

Happy Halloween 2011!

Indiana tailgating

All sorts of family descended on Indiana University this past weekend to attend the Homecoming football game against Northwestern.  We wanted to help Abbey celebrate her 18th birthday AND cheer on our cousin, Brandon (the punter for Northwestern).  We started the day with a chilly tailgate outside the stadium.  Abbey brought along her friends Megan and Marissa to hang out too.

My sister's coat just so happened to match IU's colors.

Great Aunt Bev and Great Uncle Leo had to support their grandson, Brandon, by wearing his jersey.  We decorated the tailgate carefully with 50% purple and 50% crimson to show our loyalty to both sides.

Mom, Erin, and I tried to warm up in the van.

Melanie (Brandon's mom) was sporting some super cool purple boots that I accidentally cut out of the picture.

Cuddling for warmth!

Peter partied a little too hard and had to take a little break.

I didn't get many photos of Sonia at the tailgate, but that's her in the panda hat.  She and Charlotte set up camp in the back of Erin's car to play during the tailgate.

The stadium is small but cute.  Even the nosebleed seats we got had a pretty good view of the action.

I took Petey and Sonia back to Erin's hotel for naps while Abbey, my mom, Charlotte, Erin, Corey, and my dad cheered on IU (and Brandon) at the game.

Charlotte apparently made up all her own cheers.  They involved strange things like grocery stores.

After the game, we descended upon the Brown County State Park lodge dining room and wreaked havoc.

Cheese!

Our second or third cousin (I'm never sure how to calculate it), Sarah, also attends IU, so she and her parents (cousins of my mom and Brandon's dad) joined us for the tailgate and dinner as well.  I bet my mom got better photos of everyone, so watch for them on Erin's blog.

The next morning, we had some breakfast, said our goodbyes to Abbey, and headed back to the cabin at the state park (where Corey, Charlotte, Peter, and I stayed) to pack up.  Well, Corey and I packed up while the kids had the time of their lives in the leaves.

I'm not sure why, but our cabin was named for someone named "Grandma Pash" who apparently looked something like this:

After we packed up, we hit the state park lodge's indoor water park.  Corey went down the big slide a few times, but the kids mostly just splashed around in the pool.

Then, we turned the Big Red Van south and headed home.  It was an action-packed weekend and we came home exhausted.  Mission accomplished!