Wednesday, September 28, 2005

All that AND a bag of chips



So after the big 2nd Birthday celebration for Chloe, we had quite a few left overs around. Did Chloe want cheese? No. Cake? ok, sometimes. Cookies? Carrots? Hamburger? No....but bring on the bag o' chips!!










More then once the little minx would run away with this HUGE bag of potato chips. We all laughed as she ran around the house with this bag. She'd plop down and proceed to munch away.


Having Mawmaw and Granddaddy here sure made us appreciate our screened in porch. We've had this house for what, 3 years? And never really just sat out there in the evenings. Granted, this IS Florida and most of the time it's just too darn hot to sit out there.




But while they were here, almost every evening we'd sit on the porch for a little while just enjoying the company, chatting and watch the sun set.







Fox gets some extra snuggle time with Mawmaw and Grandaddy!


Even now almost a week after Mawmaw and Grandaddy have left, Chloe tugs on our hands and asks to go to the porch and sit on the couch. She also loves to go out on the porch and ride her Barbie bike!







Here's a couple extra photo's of Chloe and Fox. I did a mini photoshoot with Fox the other day. I blurred most of the pictures darn it.

These two are Chloe at Webster, FL. We went to the Flea Market that they have there every Monday. She'd never had a plum before and is munching away on one.

Oh yeah...that big huge ugly spider??

...she's gone!!! Barry moved not only her, but her mate in a nearby bush onto a stick and placed them away from the house and out of harms way.


No wonder he has such good karma.

Chloe still asks for 'spider friend?'occasionally.

Monday, September 26, 2005

Chloe's VERY big day



Yep, our little girl turned two!! Neither Barry or I can belive it! I swear it seems like we were just meeting her and holding her in the hospital for the first time yesterday. The other day I looked in her scrapbook and saw the little cap the nurses had put on her tiny head and saw the pictures of just how small she was and see now how much she has grown. What a special, wonderful girl. Each day we experience a new sense of wonder just by looking at her or playing with her that neither of us expected.








Of course Chloe's fairy godparents Tommy and Nana came. They truely made Chloe a beautiful birthday princess by giving her a Cinderella gown, crown AND shoes. Tommy and Na came early to help get Chloe dressed.









I think she was overwhelmed by her lovely dress when she saw it. She was truly breath-takingly beautiful. Rene even painted her finger and toe nails with special Cinderella paint.












Even now a couple days after her big todo, Chloe wants to wear her Cinderella dress...try telling her 'no' when you just know she wants to go outside and clamber around in the dirt or play with the birds. The other day she was walking around in her "glass slippers". I had to laugh. The shoes have a bit of a heel on them, and here she was waubbling around the living room in these tiny blue shoes!! She does have Mommy's shoe fetish.

We decided the theme for Chloe's big day would be Dora the Explorer. Chloe is all about Dora. Well, I should say up until LAST week when Nickelodeon pulls a whammy on us and gives Dora's cousin, Diego, his own show. Now Chloe can't get enough of Diego. It's now all about Diego and baby Jaguar. Darn mass market appeal. Anyway, Chloe loved the decorations we had. She saw the tablecloth, plates and napkins and her face lit up.

Ha! Diego who!




The cake was going to have Dora and Boots (her little monkey side kick) action figures on it, but I thought it was so cute and girlie that I just left it. Warning...dunno what they put in it, but them high falutin' scientist baker types at our fancy bakery know how to mix their frosting. That pink frosting will stain anything from teeth to carpet and laugh at your futile attempts as you, a mere mortal, just try to wash it out. No problems to report with any of the other colors, just that ever staining pink.









Savoring the flavors. Love the crumbs.









For her special day we invited over friends and family.



MawMaw and Grandaddy came from Mississippi, as did Auntie Tina. Chloe loves her Auntie Tina.








MawMaw and Grandaddy gave Chloe a Barbie tricycle! Boy does she love it. Her feet don't quite reach the pedals, but at the rate she grows she'll be zooming along next week. Tina gave Chloe an adorable yellow shirt and jeans shorts.






Chloe did great opening presents. She loved ripping open the packages...who doesn't!?!













We got her a Diego action figure, some neat wood building blocks, a Dora poster, some play jewelery (where is all that now?)a cute cell phone with a purple carry case, and some other various and sundry.











































GO Diego GO!!!















Jewelry. What every girl needs.


























Grammy Holm gave her this really cool Noah's ark play set with all these super neat animals. Chloe loves to play with the alligator pair. She keeps singing 'crocodile lake' a song from...what else...Dora. But that play set was sure a big hit.












Michael and Chris gave her a cute Dora doll and DVD of Dora. I can't say enough about this Dora DVD. We use to have such a HUGE problem getting out little girl to bed. Most of the time, it was a miracle if she was in bed by 11. Most of the time is was WAAAAYYYY later then that. Now she can't wait to watch Dora and Diego and we usually have her in the bed about 9...with her falling asleep shortly there after. Woohooo Michael and Chris!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!



We ordered pizza from our good friends at Papa Johns. Chloe loves her pizza...so does mom. We also had chips and dips, assorted cheese, and other vaious and sundry.












Chloe loved to sneak potato chips when she thought we weren't looking.













Oh, and then she found the huge frosted cookies that we had. Just try turning your back for a second when she discovered those and I think they would have been gone in no time!










The day was really special in so many ways. One thing I particularly enjoyed was watching Chloe play with other kids. Since she really hasn't spent a lot of time around other kids we weren't really sure what to expect. But we are very pleasantly surprised to see that she was really excited to play with other people.


She's mostly around adults, but she had no problems with interacting with kids...albeit older then she is. She walked up to the only boy who came (Alex) who has short cropped hair. She put her hands on his face and just stared at him. I thought for a moment she was going to kiss him. But she just stared at him. Then she rubbed his hair and giggled.


There were about 4 other kids that came to the party. 2 were girls who were 4 or 5 years older then she was. I couldn't find Chloe one time and heard voices coming from her bedroom. I walked in to find her and Haley and Kathy playing with my Barbies.

Mind you I collect Barbies (well, use to--since we've had Chloe, I kinda have put all that behind me) they use to mean quite a bit to me and I dare say, we have a nice little sum of money invested in some of these. Well, Chloe is sitting on the floor with her two new friends playing with all the Barbies they could reach. And I couldn't get mad at her or them. They looked like they were having so much fun. I certainly wasn't ready to see Chloe play-acting with Barbies already! Kinda freaked me out a bit. But then she does that to me and Barry on a daily basis.






We did get a cute group photo of all the kids.











Chloe LOVED the chocolate cake. Thankfully we put her in some clothes that could withstand the onslaught of the wicked pink frosting and chocolate cake crumbs. I think the chocolate goes with the hair style quite well.

























Fox got some extra cuddle time from Rene'. Tommy and Rene' bought this darling outfit for him. He sure does look smart!!






















As things were winding down, Chloe got a little tired. She took her new Dora doll, who suddently "got tired", and laid down with her on the floor and covered Dora with a blanket. We had to have a picture of that.







Wednesday, September 07, 2005

The laid back boy

Lately we've been giving Fox lots of tummy time to work on his neck muscles.

He's doing great at attempting to hold his head up. He's still pretty wobble-ly, but he goes for quite a while of holding his head up.




But most of the time he's a snuggle bug and loves to just kick back.

Sleeping beauty

She looks sooo angelic and peaceful.


Why, oh why can't I get some naptime, too? Oh yeah--her 6 week old baby brother. I keep forgetting. Lack of sleep.

Spider update

Yeah...that yellow and black HUGE spider hanging out by my window?...still there. Chloe still takes delight in pointing out her spider friend to me at least 20 times a day.

Thanks kid.

Day 13 of the stupid thing. Go away!

Monkey strong

We've found Chloe likes to work on new wrestling moves with Daddy. Yes, much to my chagrin and bemusement, Chloe has picked up on Barry's passion for wrestling (yeah, sure--he calls it's the "modern form of greek theatre"-- my eye!).

She knows the Tombstone, pile driver and has a special affinity for the Bubba bomb.


She came up with her own move. Barry for fun lifted her up to the rafter that seperates our dinning room/bird room from our kitchen. It's pretty darn high up and I certainly couldn't lift her up there.


So Chloe hangs from this beam and starts calling this move "monkey strong, monkey strong" and proceeds to hang from this rafter for a few minutes--meanwhile poor Daddy's arms are turning to rubber from the strain of holding her up.


So now in addition to wanting her Daddy to give her a Bubba Bomb a bazillion times a day, he also has to add Monkey Stron to the repetoir.
Our Amazon Warrior Princess rocks on!

Daddy got punk'd

So the other day Barry is hard at work at his computer. Chloe is in the other room playing with her toys and watching Dora. Our parrot Hellboy is calmly resting on his stand munching on a peanut or two, minding his own business.

Suddenly, Chloe dashes into the office, graps Daddy's hand urgently saying "Hellboy fly, on the floor, help, help, pull, pull, c'mon Daddy, c'mon Daddy" and tries to get Barry to follow her into the living room to get Hellboy and restore order to her world.

So Barry follows Chloe into the living room and there sits Hellboy calmly on his stand. Barry looks down and tells Chloe "Hellboy's right here on his stand", but Chloe already knows that and is looking up at Barry with a huge grin on her face.

Chloe, before the age of two, has crafted, planned, and executed with aplomb her first practical joke.

Barry says its the proudest moment of his life.