It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas....

One thing we absolutely love about living in Frisco are all of the special family-focused events they have going on through the year - and all free! This is honestly a great city to raise kids. Last weekend we went to Merry Main Street where they turned on all the lights, it was a very fun holiday festival (and free). This weekend we headed to Holiday Lights at Frisco Safety Town.

When we were kids, "safety town" was some wood cut outs in the mall parking lot - you brought your bike and stopped at stop signs etc. This place is fabulous - it's an entire mini town, complete with mini buildings and all working traffic signals. They deck the place out for the kiddos for Christmas. There is something special going on in the little houses/businesses, Santa's there and tons more.
Here's our photos from Holiday Lights at Frisco Safety Town. I think Charlotte's favorite was her balloon, her bear with a bandaid and Santa:
please look closely at the below photo - Charlotte is almost airborne...I snapped this right as she bit the dust, trying to run in those boots:


AND after peering in the window pointing at Santa (above)...................Drumroll please..................Charlotte sat on Santa's lap and actually smiled!! Both Doug and I would have taken a pretty steep bet that she'd throw a total fit. It took a little coaxing - Santa actually told Doug "get your camera ready for this one" when we walked in - which was hilarious to us. When I first handed her over she began to throw a charlotte-fit, but we were miraculously able to immediately calm her down and convince her that it was in her best interest to sit on Santa's lap and smile (she totally knows "santa bing me pesents"). If you look closely, you can tell the 1st photo is totally fake, about to cry smile, but the second is pretty genuine:

We can't wait to celebrate this Christmas with all of our family and friends and we know Charlotte is excited too!

October: Visitors, Pumpkins and a Little Cat

The month of October has sure been a busy one at the Millay house. First the Clarys came to visit, then Grandma & Grandpa Millay. We've had so much fun with our family here and Charlotte has LOVED having all of the attention. After each visitor left, she has talked about them so much, especially right before she falls asleep.

On top of all of the visitors, this month has also been one full of crying from a little girl who is scared of anything that remotely resembles anything associated with the holiday called Halloween. Every grocery visit results in crying and "Ha-ween go home" or "no ugy wich", I can't even begin to describe the trembling and screaming that occurred in that nice red cart when Doug ventured into the Halloween aisle in Target.

The one and only thing she has liked about this holiday is pumpkins. She loves "pu-kins" and has spent a lot of time playing with them. She painted and carved a pumpkin at daycare and went to 2 pumpkin patches. Wait, there is one more thing she liked about Halloween, she loved her cat costume - after I put on her ears and painted her nose & wiskers she told daddy "look at me!" and wanted to continually look at and smile at herself in the mirror - it was adorable. After all of that getting ready, Charlotte only actually trick or treated to 1 house. She knocked on the door, said "tick u teet" and held out her pumpkin, then said "tank tu" after the guy gave her a handful of chocolate. I was sure she'd want more, but as we started for the next house she said "wan go back mart an meg-ans." Although that meant no candy for mom & dad to indulge in, that was fine with me. We had a great time on Halloween night hanging out in Mark & Meghan's driveway. We set our pumpkins out on Mark's truck bed (most things involve a truck here in Texas), grilled out, and gave candy to trick-or-treaters. Charlotte's favorite thing was playing with Mark's duck decoys (she kept kissing them and making them kiss each other). We had a fun Halloween with our little cat and great friends!

Enough to read - Here's some photos of our Cat, her "rooaaring", our pumpkin patch visit, and carving her first pumpkin. Enjoy!

Meghan has some additional photos on her blog: http://gettingourducksinarow.blogspot.com/

Clarys in Texas

We've had a very full house for the past couple of weeks. First, came the Clarys (and that's what this post is about)...

It was so great to spend time with Amy, Josh and the girls. It made me really happy to give the girls a chance to play together and get to know one another. We're so glad that thay were able to come down to Texas and hope they had as good of a time as we did. Here's some of the highlights of the Clarys in Texas.

To say that Charlotte loves "Channer" is quite an understatement. She would yell her name from her crib and would sit for 30 minutes while Chandler read her books. Here's a moment I caught watching Saturday morning cartoons:

So Coach Doug all of the sudden appeared this weekend...he found Soccer Tots - a soccer class for kids as young as 18months! They give you 1 free trial class and we took Arden & Charlotte. Josh & Doug ran after the girls on the field. Arden was a pro, she dribbled and ran and kicked. It took Charlotte a little longer to warm up, but she loved running down the field kicking her ball with daddy and Channer:

It's that time of year again: Texas State Fair aka Fried Food Capital of the World. We took the trek down to Fairpark (2 cars, 3 kids, a bike trailer/stroller, and 4 parents) to partake in the festivities. The place was packed, but we were able to keep most parties happy and eat some fried goodness. Arden & Charlotte even got along very well in the 2-seater. It wasn't until we were leaving I heard Charlotte yelling "No ma'am" to Arden who was poking at her ear. My favorite was the part where the kids went through the farm, working and gathering all the things that come from the farm (fruit, veggies, milk, etc.). At the end, they drove their tractor to deliver their goods and then received a fair dollar for their work and used that dollar to pay for a snack, it was so cute and the perfect learning activity to excuse Chandler from the extra day off school. I think Chandler's favorite was when she played some good 'ol carnival games and won 3 stuffed animals - one of course being a stuffed boot with "State Fair of Texas" and "Big Tex" embroidered on it! By the time we left we were worn out and our wallets were empty, but we had a great time:

please note: Charlotte has perfected the fake smile already...jeezz (see above photo on the tractor)

Millays in Kentucky

It was so nice to be home this past weekend! Although it was nothing close to a relaxing vacation, we'd have it no other way. I cannot express how great it was to be home and spend time with everyone. We did our best to fit it all in and give Charlotte the chance to have fun with her family and mom & dad's friends. Here's just a glimpse of Charlotte Millay in Kentucky this past week:

Walking Gracie with Grandma in the morning:Playing with Anna & Megan:Spending some much-needed time with her fellow Millay's (and Clary's & Geiman's)Having fun with the girls at Jessica's baby shower:
Meeting the adorable Corey King:and much much more, but mom was a slacker and didn't come home with many photos...sorry.

We have a Toddler!

Did you pay attention to the face above? I'm not talking about that sweet little baby Charlotte face, I'm talking about that toddler "no no mamma" face. Do you see it?! When did our baby take that miraculous leap into toddler-hood? I mean the last blog entry I wrote was 3 weeks ago (yes, we all know I'm horrible about updating this thing frequently), but in that 3-week time frame somehow our baby was replaced by a hilarious, talking, sticky, imaginative, "no no" yelling, messy, whiny, lovable, sneaky toddler - right before our eyes (I'm guessing this is only the first time she pulls one off on mom & dad)!

Some recent Charlotte happenings:

• Sunglasses. I've bought 2 pair of sunglasses from Target Dollar Bin. This weekend she'd barely take them off. She realized also that one pair is "bedder" because they fit better and those are her favorites.
• About a week ago she learned possessive. Now everything is "Charlotte's." Sometime's it's "daddy's" or "Mart's" (our neighbor Mark), but mostly Charlotte's. I do think "Charlotte's" is better than "mine," so I'll take it.
• Sudden infatuation with her babies. The first thing she said when she woke up this morning was "baby...baby seepin...Charlotte's baby..." and that's all she played with pre & post-daycare today. She feeds them bottles (complete with noises), cleans them when they're "messy" and kisses them when they go to sleep. She even tries to put her diapers on because they "poop." It's utterly adorable and amazing to watch her beginning pretend play. She even feeds a bunny the tomato & lettuce from her velcrow sandwich toy.
• Another pretent play...we've caught her 'reading.' It's absolutely hilarious. She'll sit with a book, look at and turn the pages and make noises like she's reading. She only does it when she's alone and we love to catch her. She's also started memorizing parts of her favorite books, she'll say some words right when we turn the page.
• Silly Bandz - aren't those things for grade school kids? Well, our 19-month old is pretty much obsessed. She's gotten a few from Zach (or babysitter's son whom she adores) and Grandma Millay sent some too. It's amazing, she puts them on, picks out the "lellow" and "pintk" ones and wears them all day. She's like a 10-year old already, seriously.
• The repetition...she repeats everything. Wait, did I mention e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g.? Yes, it's time to be very careful about what we say and do around here!
• Obviously she still has a pretty solid mullet (does that have 1 t or 2?)...but it actually made it into piggy-tails! That's a big milestone.
• We're working on colors and counting. She will pick out colors if you give her instructions to "bring me the yellow block." But if you ask her what color something is, she almost always answers "buooo" (blue). She's got 2 down, we're working on 1,2,3,4,5, which she will repeat.
• Potty training - well, let's leave that one for next time. We have a seat on the potty and she knows she gets a sticker if she goes, but no big strides. Every few times I sit her on there she'll go and then get super excited, yell "yay" and clap, but it's hit or miss. We'll wait a bit longer to really push potty training.

This is such a fun time and we are having a blast watching our baby grow and learn new things. We have no idea what she'll say or do next, but we know it'll be amazing and hilarious all at the same time!

With all my chatter, y'all deserve some new photos. Here's some Summer Fun ones. Enjoy!

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 :)