Photo Shoot

We have made some great friends here in TX over the past year. One of which is starting her own photography business...Mandy Lilly Photography. Mandy has a daughter, Elliette, who is only 1 month younger than Charlotte.
Mandy and I decided we could work out a nice "trade" - she takes Charlotte's pictures, and I make Elliette a nap mat for the fall. We had a pretty good time with Charlotte's photo shoot and the pictures turned out great! Thanks Mandy! For some reason mpix won't let me share the link here, I've tired & tried. I'll upload pictures when I get the cd, but for now...find Mandy Lilly Photography on facebook and there's a bunch there.

Here's some photos of the girls on July 4 from Mandy:

ps - yes, we do have baithing suits for our children, it was just easier this way :)

Summa Time Fun

I just wanted to post some pictures of what Charlotte's been up to so far this summer. Enjoy!

New Kitchen Pictures

So we had our first big home improvement project done this week and we're so happy with it. Beautiful new granite counters, travertine tile backsplash, sink, faucet and cooktop. Now it's time to cook!

Before picture with seller's stuff: Another before picture, but with our stuff:
All pretty & new:

Nap Mat...SUCCESS!!

Charlotte's daycare told me a few weeks ago that she needed a nap mat. "NAP MAT?!" I replied in a crazy-mom-voice. I mean for sure, my baby isn't ready to move from her contained pack n play to a free-for-all nap mat with the other toddlers and big kids!? Jennifer (our daycare provider) assured me that 1. she was ready, 2. she was the next kid to go, and 3. that they had already started practicing with another girl's nap mat (she doesn't use it). Jennifer then told me that I had to make her one. I'm not sure if she knew that when you tell me to make something...well...I do.

I love Google. I found the perfect free tutorial, bought all the stuff, and went to town. It turned out really cute & I'm pretty proud of myself. The best part? The first day we take her new nap mat to daycare and she slept........drum roll please............almost 2 1/2 hours!! That's crazy-long for a Charlotte daycare nap - yay new nap mat!
The other best part? She keeps saying "nap" and kind of petting the mat and putting her head down on it, she loves it! She looks at these photos and keeps saying "nap."

Jennifer took a picture of Charlotte snoozing away today:
Here's the mat all rolled up (that's a shoulder strap for easy transport): And here all unrolled, waiting for a little girl to take a nap (it's flannel with a fleece blanket and attached pillow and velcrow all down the side for easy washing):

Here's the tutorial I followed. I still haven't learned how to do a button hole, so I improvised on that part and made a tye (too bad it covers up part of the cute "C" I appliqued on the outside):

http://jennygarland.typepad.com/NapMatTutorial.pdf

ps - obviously I still heart my sewing machine...thanks Mom & Dad! Pillow photos coming soon!

Berry Picking

We tried to do some fun things while Grandma, Grandpa & Aunt Allie were in town the past week. On Saturday we had a super-full day which started off with berry picking at a farm in Arlington. Meghan (our neighbor and friend) came up with the idea to go to this farm to go strawberry picking. We ended up with few strawberries (it's the end of the season for strawberries at this farm), but over 2lbs of blackberries. Charlotte was quite the little berry-picker! She even managed to miss all the thorns. She knew which ones were ripe, would pick them saying "pict pict" then say "baket baket" and put them in someone's basket, then sign and say "more" and just keep going. She was a red-mess about 10 minutes in, but it was all worth it. We got tons of great pictures, check out the slideshow below!

Oh, and Grandma Millay, notice the necklace, she's been wearing those things nonstop - thanks again!

San Antonio Trip

We headed to San Antonio for the weekend. It was a great chance to get away and have fun with grandma and grandpa. We had a lot of fun: saw the sights, learned that indeed the Alamo has no basement (hehe), ate WAY too much tex mex and had a relaxing weekend. Probably the best time of the weekend was when we found this fountain in the middle of the city. It was made for kids to play, that was obvious from the chlorine smell. Charlotte absolutely LOVED it and we had the best time watching her. Here's a video daddy put together playing with his new computer (Sorry, I'm not sure why it's chopped off on the right side):

I'll post some more photos once I get them uploaded.

Yep, She's from Kentucky!

It's in her blood - Charlotte LOVES the horsetrack! We went to Lone Star Track last weekend for dollar days and had a great time. I'm not sure who had more fun: daddy who came out up $60, mommy who enjoyed the sunshine and people-watching, or Charlotte who was absolutely amazed by the horses, and got super excited right along with the crowd for every race. Charlotte seriously couldn't get enough of the horses and I think she already likes people-watching. She was glued to the rail (or fence) to watch the horses both on the track and in the paddock. She just kept pointing and yelling "NAY NAY NAY NAY" it was hilarious!
The photo below totally cracks me up - this is the path the horses take from the paddock to the track. Look at Charlotte's hands, she's signing "more"(the actual sign is fingers touching, but sometimes she does it touching her fingers to her palm). Everytime a horse passed, she's sign this and didn't take her eyes off them - it was so cute! Charlotte fit right in with our crowd (friends from Doug's lab):Can you see Charlotte's little finger pointing at the track? She was into this race, rootin' for daddy's pick!

It's no Keenland, but we had a great time on a beautiful sunny day in Texas.