"Happy Day!"

I'll say what many parents exclaim, "It went by so fast!" (Sigh).

Corinne says "I'm two!"

As always we delight in her growth and understanding. She's slowly beginning to learn the potty. We're just taking that a day at a time. Her language improves daily, often repeating everything we say. (Which can be dangerous, ahem.) Colors are pretty much mastered and shapes are close behind. Counting to 10 is close behind as are singing the ABCs. We're pretty excited with her progress. She's always eager to start/learn something new.

Of course, there's always the inevitable two tantrum. If she's trying to show us that she has spirit and spunk, we got the picture! Her 'no's' are now accompanied by a crossing of the arms across her chest. I constantly grapple with making her mind and trying to ingeniously make her think that our commands were her idea. It doesn't help when her quick answer to "Do you want to go to time-out?!" is met with "yes!" Aahhhhhh. :-)

We started off Corinne's birthday singing and opening her presents. This resulted in her signing Happy Birthday to herself all day, "Happy dayyyyyyy, happy dayyyyy!"

Decked out in gj's handiwork (hat, scarf and new kitchen apron!). Check out my tricycle!

Oh yeah, I love my trike!

Corinne was a perfect hostess at her party. With 18 children under 4, we lucked out with a 68 degree day and a backyeard bash. I have to say that everything went off without a hitch. With the holidays just past, she really doesn't need extra gifts, so we offered for everyone to donate to the local Pet Helpers organization. (They are the only ones in the area that don't euthanize). The response was wonderful! We plan to take Corinne there this week to offer up the loot.

Here's a recap of yesterday:

Great to see the Burns family! It's been awhile since the days of taking our dogs to the house parties!

Greg, Catherine and Lauren break Arden into the party scene.

Chrissy and Isabella taking a break.

Maxine gives the horse a workout!

Hmmmm, where am I headed?--Charlie

Wells gets the yard tour compliments of Corinne.

Ella, Stella, Ailish and Rebekah show everyone the art of climbing.

Thanks to all friends and family for making her day so special! Love you all!

Holiday Cheer

I have to admit that I'm usually the kind of person who has the Christmas tree down the day after Christmas easily saying good-bye to the hype of the holidays. Except this year. I found that enjoying the holidays with Corinne made me very emotional to let go of the green, the red, the lights, and even Frosty (which we watched a total of several hundred times). Of course, it wouldn't be connected to the pregnancy hormones which can set me emotionally off balance at any moment. :-)

We had such a grand time at Uncle D's for the holiday. They were brave enough to host all of the Rutledge clan for a week, including the dogs! (Personally, I think the dogs got the best end of the deal. If the house got too crazy, you just grabbed a couple of dogs and 'went for a walk.')

Corinne bonded very well with all of her cousins. Gus shared all of his costumes and took her under his wing. Owen observed her from a distance but warmed up enough to share his building blocks and keep a close eye on her for us. Corinne couldn't get enough of 'Baby Tess.' She even named one of her baby dolls after her upon our return. This was a good sign for Mommy. I was afraid she might pull out the jealousy coat, but she was all about loving on Tess, touching her and being generally aware of her whereabouts. But don't let Tess's sweet face fool you, she is quite a ham herself and will soon give those boys a run for their money!

So, I'll post my photos and say 'Bye-bye, Santa, bye-bye Frosty' for this year. (Sigh).

Two peas in a pod.

Getting goodies from gj.

See, Tess, these velcro together. I'll share this one with you.

Could you deny this face anything?

Happy New Year, everyone!

Road Weary

We arrived in North Carolina late Sunday night to a houseful of Rutledges all awake and eager to see us. Corinne finally dozed off in the car the last hour of our trip, only to awaken to two eager 3 year olds ready to romp! What followed was a very late night for all of us as we tried to finally wind three wild children down for bed. Corinne had quite a time trying to go to sleep. On top of being waaayyy overstimulated, she was in a foreign environment, and it was way past her bedtime. Long story short...we all (Roman, Corinne and myself) finally dropped off to sleep around 1:15am, on the floor, on her pallet.

Monday brought even more excitement. Corinne tried as hard as she could to keep up, but alas, during lunch, the lack of sleep overpowered her.

Here's to an early bedtime!

Kiss and tell

I hope we haven't tried to instigate change too soon for Corinne by altering her crib to a toddler bed. For weeks now it seemed we had a seamles transition with her often waving bye-bye to Roman or me, eagerly awaiting the night's slumber. The last few nights, however, have brought upon a screaming little girl who yells, NO! when we try to leave for 'night-night.'

We anticipated possible trouble during nap time, though. And we got some. She's been a little too eager to say 'bye-bye, mama' and have me close the door. I could usually hear her rummaging around and could tell what she was into. This day there were no snores, but a quiet child. Hmmmmmm......

Aside from sleep issues, Corinne continues to delight as her vocabulary expands. It seems her emotions have expanded also after a previous report from her day-care teacher. Roman arrived to pick her up last week only to be told that "Your daughter's been kissing boys."

Roman replied, "Oh, really? Like maybe, Wells?" (Wells is one of Corinne's favorite playmates at school; we also run into him at birthday parties and the beach).

Miss Mary said, "How did you know?!" Roman just chuckled as he looked over her shoulder to see Corinne walking right up to Wells with both hands outstretched, lips puckered. Poor Wells didn't know what'd hit him. Hey, at least she's affectionate, right?

Have a great week.

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!