C'mon, Chloe!

Corinne's favorite evening activity is gathering everyone in the house to our bed to read stories and hang out until bath time. She can be quite demanding if you aren't ready to head back when she is. The other evening she decided that the dogs needed to hear the story, too. She had quite a time trying to convince Chloe to do what she wanted her to do. Welcome to our world, Corinne. We've been trying to get Chloe to listen to us for 12 years!

Northern Fairies

We all enjoyed a visit from two Northern fairies this past week, Roman's mom from Michigan (Mimi) and sister from Seattle (AA: Aunt Angela). The week started off Southern with Roman and Angela cracking crabs. We ate in style all week as Roman donned his chef's hat. Crab cakes, pumpkin curry soup, shrimp and grits, salmon and spinach pasta....mmmmmmm. Lucky for us Corinne is a fabulous eater. She ate her share right along with the rest of us!

Her latest move is the upside down hand, "Where's _____?" We interpreted this as "Where's the washcloth?"


Corinne is really into singing lately and wakes up belting out "ABCDEFG...then repeats ABCDEFG" or jumps to "QRS." She's quite the songbird. Mimi and AA were told on many occasions, "Mimi, SING!" Our car resembled the Griswolds as we motored around Charleston singing "Row, row, row your boat." Right on cue, Corinne shouts for the next soul to chime in the round then ends in a rousing applause for us all. Could we have a conductor on our hands?

There was no shortage of sitting on the floor playing this week!

Mimi and AA also decked Corinne out in fun clothes including some fancy skirts and princess shoes. Corinne now ventures into her room and dresses herself in every hat, shoe, and accessory she can find.

Who said ruby slippers can't be worn with pjs? Watch out, Gus!

Angela brought Corinne the latest stuffed favorite to date: Ernie. He was lucky enough to go on our morning walk with us.

Right after Mimi and AA left, Roman and I moved Corinne's bed into the transitional bed for toddlers. She's always been a pretty good sleeper, so we figured we might as well try it. Especially if we want to use her crib for the new baby months down the road. She is learning the freedoms of the new arrangement, however, and piddles and plays before she nods off. Poor Ernie got the raw end of that deal today.

Angela arrived with an early Christmas present: the FLIP camera! I think this was her way of saying, "hint, hint." :-) You can see here that Corinne insisted on learning how to use it also. Corinne is all into electronics.

Cell phones are the favorite electronic as probably so with most children, I'm sure. She has her own (several, actually) but only the real ones will do. Unless of course, it's a clock. Does she know something we don't?

We really appreciate Mel and Angela making the trip down. Traveling isn't easy these days, and I know Corinne had a blast all week! All weekend long she looks at us and says, "AA bye-bye?" Very observant. We miss you guys and thanks for everything!

Trick or Treat!

I've always loved Halloween, and now that Corinne is old enough to enjoy it, too, I love it all the more. Pappy and gj have been down all week, so they've helped out with parties and the annual 'trick or treat.' Corinne, gj, and I made cupcakes for the school party, half of which the adults ended up eating (yum)! Not to mention that we raided Corinne's candy stash after she went to bed. (Shame on us, right?!) She actually had a death grip on the pumpkin, and we ended up sending her to bed holding it. Luckily, she wasn't yet aware that it was actually candy inside. She was more interested in the fact that that pumpkin was 'mine'!

Check out our little butterfly fairy...

.... and Hip Hop Fairy

We even did the carving of Jack. Corinne was quite thrilled with the results.

Did you notice the boots? Gus, beware! Some friends donated these 'lizard' boots to Corinne last week, and they are quite popular around the house. We were able to get her to remove them for a bath, but, alas, she ended up sleeping in them for the night.

Prancing around

Have a great week!

Monkeyin' Around

Corinne has really taken to her monkey in the last few weeks. Oddly enough, Roman and I both had monkeys as children. No bears here. I still have my old monkey, actually. So, I guess it's natural that she has an affinity for them. We really began to notice what a sidekick monkey was when we found him perched in odd spots around the house. I began snapping photos of her growing affection for showing him her life. See for yourself.

"Ready to chase Chloe?"

"Buh-bye, Dada!"

"Don't let Chloe eat the snacks, Monkey."

"Hold on tight."

"Wheeeeeee!"

Luckily, Monkey was prepared outside with his sunscreen.

"Brusha, brusha, brusha....."

Unfortuately, it wasn't Monkey who was playing around and pulled over the marble top end table, tearing Corinne's toenail. She was lucky enough not to break her big toe, but the damage is pretty gross. We've been watching and waiting for it to fall off. I have to say she's pretty tolerant of us soaking, dressing, and cleaning it. We've made such an impression that she tried to sit Monkey on the toliet to dress his toe! Couldn't get that photo, though, as we were racing to save Monkey from the realms of toliet bowl water.

Have a great week!

Crumptons expand

At least one of us will literally be expanding that is. Here he/she is, baby #2! So far, so good at 13 weeks. We have an April 2 due date. We've told Corinne that Mommy has a baby in her belly, but she's clueless. Of course, we'll keep updating as the baby progresses. Isn't it amazing how much they're formed even this early? You can see the hands/arms flailing around the head and the little legs on the other end. Once again, Roman is adamant that we don't find out the sex of the baby. I have to admit the second 'go round that I would like to know. The planner in me wants to have all of the old clothes sorted and organized, etc. But, I guess it can all wait. :-)

Enjoy the weekend!

Well Read?

Ok, my cousin Brooke put this post on her blog (see Celebrate the Everyday!) and I had to rise to the challenge. Evidently, the average adult has only read about 6 titles from the list. I bolded the titles I've read. Mom and Angie will probably bold the whole list! I've read 42. Not a very good number for a librarian. Guess I need to get busy. Happy Reading.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. 1984 - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials- Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (Also seen the movie)
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen (Does starting to read it count?)
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time- Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce 7
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92.The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Where the wild things are

Last weekend we headed off on a road trip for our friends', Joe and Julia, wedding in Asheville. It was so good to see many friends that we just don't get to hang out with much now that little bit is with us and our social life is very slow. :-) We actually got a babysitter and attended the wedding sans Corinne.

Julia's night

Roman, Justin, and Dave contemplating the 'Electric slide'. Haha

Pal'ing around with Elizabeth

We did take Corinne to the North Carolina Arboretum in Asheville during the day. The gardens were gorgeous. I'd been there once years and years ago, but they've made so many improvements and additions that it was a new experience for me. I was mainly looking forward to showing Roman the quilt garden. The link shows what it would look like. We only saw it in its planting stage. Still, other exhibits like the bonsai garden and colorful wildflowers were worth the visit.

I'm not sure what this one was. It reminds me of Mimi's morning glories, but it was as big as the spread of my hand!

Of course, the wildest flower of them all...

Corinne has been learning her colors and is telling us that this 'baba' is red! So far she can recognize the difference between some colors but will only tell you when something is 'lello' or 'red.'
This is just a little note on the side. I dropped Corinne off at daycare Friday morning and as we were entering, a classmate and friend, Katilyn, was entering with her father. The two girls squealed and shrieked to see each other, then ran full speed ahead down to their room. It was the first time I've seen her get so excited about one of her classmates. They had the workers peering out of other rooms to check on the commotion.

Another cute story, induldge me here, from daycare... one of the teachers informed me that Corinne gets quite irritated at the wood chips from the playground that work their way into her shoes. She sat down to take her shoes off and a little boy from her class, Gavin, came over to put his arms around her (he thought she was upset). A few minutes later, the same scenario ensued, yet this time he planted one on her! Her first kiss! The teachers said it was too cute. Roman wanted to know if he needed to have a talk with the little guy.

We're enjoying a cool day about 65 out! It's a welcome change from the muggy, mosquito-hungry heat.

Have a great week.