Merry Christmas!

Christmas with the Italians

Wow, it's been a busy week! Miss Autumn had a sore throat, I finished pretty much all my shopping, and this weekend we went to Birmingham to visit with Mike's extended family. It was, as always, a blast. If nothing else, it's worth the drive for the people watching. Ha!

One of Mike's cousins turned 40 yesterday so, of course, there was cake:


And the ritual defacement decorating of the birthday person's vehicle:


Autumn did a lot of snuggling and watching. I think the crowd freaked her out a little. :)




Here are Brad and Mr. Tyler. Tyler was little less shy than Autumn was.


Tyler and Autumn were pretty cute together. By Sunday night, Autumn was trying to rub his tummy. Which, as many of you know, means he's "in the club." :P


Well, happy Christmas week everyone! I'm sure we'll be posting again soon. Papa D and Mama Lainey are having more fun than the kids are preparing for Christmas so there will be many cute moments to share.

Dancing with Autumn

Well, since the Glamour Monkey post is freaking Mike out a little, I decided to go ahead and post this video so that we have a new top post. :)

We listen to a lot of music. Deezer, Pandora, and Last.fm are a few of our favorite internet radio sites, if anyone is interested. They are cool because we can build playlists and find new music--I've found some of my favorite bands through Pandora. Aaaanyway, it's not unusual to see Miss Autumn suddenly burst into wiggles and bounces and hums. It's kind of funny because she seems to have seriously eclectic taste (I guess kind of like her mama and papa).

For example, I think one of Autumn's favorite songs is Paralyzer by Finger Eleven. She will drop anything and start dancing to that one. Once we were at the mall in Collierville and walked by an outside speaker playing Paralyzer. Autumn stopped, turned around, marched over the speaker, and started wiggling and bopping.

But then, one time, we were watching Tristan und Isolde on PBS. When the lady started singing, Autumn dropped what she was playing with, came over to where I was sitting on the floor, and plopped right down in my lap. She spent the next several minutes just sitting there, staring with her huge baby eyes, and occasionally waving her hands to the music...who needs Baby Einstein, right??

So, anyway, this video isn't so much a dancing video as it is a compilation of the bops, head bangs, wiggles, bounces, finger and toe taps and flails that we see throughout the day. It was really hard to even catch this much because her dances can be either random or short or over by the time I get the camera on. :P But, I hope you enjoy this leetle snippet of some of the best parts of our days.

Glamour Monkey says...

Check out this site--Free Shipping Day is December 18.

Links and Videos

Got a couple of links for you. I know I've already mentioned this but if you aren't using rss feeds to read your blogs, I highly recommend looking into it. A feed reader is awesome because I don't have to keep visiting the blogs I read--I visit a page and anything new I want is right there. Google Reader is probably my favorite right now and it's pretty easy to learn.

Anyway, I bring all that up because I wanted to share a blog with you called The Bargainist. All they do is post deals, coupons, and sales. It's a pretty cool site that shares everything from free Arby's roast beef sandwiches to discounted couture clothing. Thought it might help with Christmas shopping and all. :)

And, since I think that no one reads any entry that doesn't have Autumn in it, have a short video:

November Photo Dump

We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!! Ours was pretty quiet which is a little bit of a change from the usual but change is good, right? :) We're well rested and ready to jump into the shopping/parties/carols/gifts/decorations scene. Well........I'm ready for all that. Mike maybe not so much. Ha! Yay for Christmas! Anyway, here are some photos from last month that we didn't get to post. I have a couple of videos in the works so hopefully I can get those posted soon.

First up "Pictures I Laughed At." No one else might but I at least giggled a little. This one cracked me up because they both look so...chilled. Or something. Bored? Ignoring the mama who doesn't ever seem to shut up or put down the camera? "Maybe if we don't look at her she'll go away?"


Call me a 9 year old, but that piece of spaghetti that looks like it is hanging out of her nose made my day. Can you see it? You might have to enlarge the photo...


Second set is "Helpful Baby is Helpful." We have leaf collection:




And mopping!


Mopping...the carpet. Sure. That's cool.


And now we can close out November!!

Shameless Self Promotion: Aikido

Soo...everyone knows I'm a martial artist, right? I'm training in two arts these days. One is called kali and it's a filipino weapons system. I don't really have any video of that except for this one which is way old. The other art is aikido. The aikido school recently moved to a new location (kali is also housed here) and one of the things I'm doing as the dojo administrator to promote the school is put together a couple of videos that we can send to our friends and family to stir up some interest and potentially bring in some students.

This is the highlight reel of my last aikido test back in February. I tested for 2nd kyu which means I have 1st kyu next and then black belt (2-4 years, depending). This rank was a hard one because I was still dealing with some of the aftermath of Autumn's birth (I wasn't declared completely healed until August, 6 months after this test). But happily, I didn't do that badly!

In case anyone is interested in what aikido is...short explanation: it's a defensive system consisting primarily of joint locks and throws. Slightly longer but not even remotely comprehensive answer: Aikido is designed so that practitioners can use the attacker's energy against him or herself through some type of redirection while protecting ourselves as well as the attacker. The latter is probably one of the major things that sets aikido apart and a reason why so many peace and nonviolence advocates train in aikido. There are times for strikes, and in these throws and locks there are definitely hidden strikes (and stuff like arm breaks) but by and large aikido is an art of peace and protection.






If anyone is interested in aikido, I'm probably the best person to contact. If anyone is interested in kali, I can hook you up with my instructor. Really, if you're at all interested in training, Memphis Judo and Jiu Jitsu is a fantastic first place to visit. I've known the owner David for several years and have trained with many of the instructors there.

18 month checkup

Monday morning we had a super dramatic doctor's visit. Dramatic because Miss Autumn is apparently emotionally scarred by the doctor's office the same way Molly is emotionally scarred by the vet. Sigh. She took one look at the nurse who called her name to come back and immediately tried to make her escape. As long as the nurse or doctor was in the opposite corner from us, she was fine. Like a boxing match or something.

But the good news is that all is well. She's small but I don't think anyone's shocked by that. She hasn't broken 20 pounds but Autumn is about 30 inches. Well, as much as they could tell. Who knows how tall she really is. Like I said, drama. Autumn's doing really well developmentally although her physical skills seem to be progressing a little faster than her verbal. The doctor was pretty pleased with her weird little collection of words as well as her ability to understand and follow directions and that was good to hear. So, yay! Healthy, happy (mostly) baby.

Oh, something funny we talked about: Autumn licks things. A lot. It's a little, um, strange so I kind of mentioned it. The doctor laughed and said it isn't unusual for very affectionate and snuggly children to lick things in order to get acquainted with them. So, yeah. Apparently Autumn orients herself to the world through her tongue, like a snake. We'll have to make sure she stops that before her teens...

Anyway, to celebrate Autumn's year and a half-ness, I strung together some random clips from the last year or so that haven't made it into other videos. I wanted to do a "Dancing with Autumn" one but I don't have enough dance clips yet. Heee. So you can just look forward to that. And it might just be me but that photo of Autumn with her little vacuum cracks me up. Mike doesn't think it's funny--it's like his personal hope that Autumn will grow up and take over his chore of vacuuming, or maybe even raking since she seems to enjoy helping with that, too. BUT SHE WON'T. I've already claimed her for laundry. Haha!

Photo Dump: Moments in the life of the Colleys...

...who are never bored. Some examples:

Who knew a mesh strainer made such a fantastic accessory??


And that it would stay on...


And on...


And on...


And who knew that Papa D was such a hairstylist?


Ah...and here's everything a girl needs in life: a purse, a hello kitty key chain, and two pacifiers.


Oh, wait, and a blackberry.


Chocolate cake is one of the things every girl needs, too, but I don't have any photos of Autumn eating chocolate cake. We should remedy that...

The Tale of the Peanut Butter Jar

Once upon a time in a land called Schnuck's there lived a jar of peanut butter who longed to see the world outside of its shelf.


One day, a funny little girl named Autumn from the nearby village of Lakeland came to visit Schnuck's with her mama on a journey to find delicious foods to fill their empty pantry. Autumn saw the jar of peanut butter and was immediately enthralled.


Autumn's mama not only let her carry the jar of peanut butter inside Schnuck's but Autumn kept the jar with her in the car. The jar was very happy to get to see all kinds of new things whizzing by.


When they got home, Autumn and the jar of peanut butter had many adventures. They walked on a golf cart path, dodging fast carts and silly geese.


They flipped and flopped with Autumn's papa.


They took a ride together on Autumn's mama.


They rested and basked in the sun.


They even played with paper and books and all kinds of toys!


The jar of peanut butter had been a little afraid that it might have to go back to its boring life on the shelf but, no, other than a short break for dinner and a bath, Autumn kept the jar with her until well after dark.


And as they snuggled down ready for bed, the jar smiled and was very, very happy.


The End.

An Autumn Halloween

Today was Halloween and I got to dress up! The first place we went was to aunt Penny's house. Aunt Penny's husband has the same name as my papa but he's really tall. I was a little scared but Aunt Penny's Michael gave me lots of candy boxes to play with and that helped me a lot.


Next I got to go trick or treating by my house. Mrs. King gave me a reese's peanut butter cup and I had fun smushing it. Uncle Donnie and his girlfriend Aunt Elizabeth (I have lots of Aunts, isn't that funny?) came over and brought Oliver! He's so cute. I like to pat his back. He likes me and mama but not many other people. I think he likes us cause we're small, too.


We went to see Mrs. Ari who lives around the corner. I walked almost the whole way all by myself! We saw a kitty on the way! Oliver likes kitties. I do, too! But the kitty didn't like us. Its tail got poofy.


Mrs. Ari's house was fun but her doggie Marley took my candy bag. I wasn't very happy about it although all the grownups laughed.


It's okay though because I got to wap him with my magic wand.


After going to Mrs. Ari's, we went to Ridgeway and got to see lots of people like Nanny and Boppa and Mama Lainey and Papa D. Sometimes big crowds scare me, though, so we didn't stay long. Papa D fed me chocolate and Mama Lainey gave me chips so that means it was a good night. I even let them take a picture!


Here's me, mama, and papa! Mama has been sick this week but she was excited about halloween. I think Papa had a really good time, too!


Papa? Papa? Oh, well.

wow...

Saturday afternoon we got to spend some time with Elizabeth Wiggs and her mom Renee Shackleford. We had a super fun time...it was really cool getting to know Elizabeth and I always love seeing either Mr. or Mrs. Shackelford. I told Mike's mom once that I hope that Mike and I are like the Shacklefords "when we grow up." Elizabeth was soooo patient. We'd had a little bit of a rough day so we were late and frazzled and Miss Autumn was, um, not cooperative. You'd never guess it by looking at the pictures, though!

I swiped two of my favorites from Elizabeth's flickr stream (sorry!) and pretty much the all the rest of my favorites are posted on her blog: elizabethwiggsphotography.blogspot.com.

I love, love, love this one. We've been trying to get this facial expression on camera because it is so hysterical. I call this Autumn's Mike Face or her Grumpy Face. Mike calls it her Intense Look.


This one is so sweet.


Go look at the others! They are awesome!

Thank you so much Elizabeth!! Thank you Mama Lainey and Mrs. Renee for entertaining our little monkey in ways I wish I had on video. :)

Last of the Beach Pics

This past weekend Mike and Autumn went down to Tyler's first birthday party. I'm really sad I missed it but I attended the Gandhi King Conference on Peacemaking on Friday and Saturday. The nonprofit I work for (HEAL) was one of the sponsors. I've been to all the conferences I think since the beginning and this was definitely the best one. Anyway, I'm hoping to get some photos from Tyler's party but in the meantime, here's the last of the beach pics.

You can click on this photo to get to the whole album where there are a few extra pics. These are kind of the highlights. Autumn realllly wasn't impressed by the ocean on Friday. When we went down to the beach on Saturday, she fought her grandfather the whole way! It was sad and funny at the same time. It took her a while to realize no one was going to force her into the water, but she eventually chilled out and had some fun in the sand.

From October 2008

Busy babies at the sea.


This picture seriously cracks me up. I know this is Mike's genetic contribution: the ability to find any shady spot.


I absolutely love how this photo came out.


And, last for the photos that I'm posting, here's the three of us on Sunday before we left. :) We spent our sixth anniversary in the car. lol. We still haven't found a day to go to dinner but we will. ha.

Quick Post

Last Saturday morning, I took a bunch of pictures of Autumn snuggling Lauren's new kitten Bella. Bella was awesome and it was so sweet to see Autumn being gentle. The only thing I was afraid of was that Autumn might come home and try to do the same with Molly but no fear! Autumn didn't try anything crazy so I guess her boundaries with Molly are pretty well set. Ha! Anyway, so many of the photos were good or funny that I just uploaded them all and made a slideshow:-

Weekend at the Beach

Well, I know that everyone has been wondering what the Colleys are up to this weekend, right? Really, though, if anyone is wondering about our weekend it's probably a little more along the lines of, "I wonder what Autumn is up to this weekend?" I know how it is.

Well, wonder no longer:


We're at the beach! Mike's family invited us (Autumn, actually) to come along on fall break. It sounded a bit odd to go in October but the weather and water are really perfect.


This is Autumn's first time at the beach. I knew that she loves sand and hates the pool so I wasn't sure how all this was going to go down.


It went down sad. Ha! I have video of it for my mom and I'll probably post it here. In the photo above she's clinging to Mike like a monkey and whining. Here she is in a less panicky moment:


After we kept her in a water for a bit, Autumn spent the rest of our time at the beach playing with her Mama Lainey and Aunt Lindsay...


...while her cousin Tyler napped in the breeze with Aunt Lauren.


Mike and I threw a ball for a bit while he tried to convince me to actually swim and not wade (I don't much care for water, either) and then we wrapped up beach time with a walk. It was funny, any time the waves would get anywhere near her feet, Autumn would veer away whining. Poor kid!


More to come later!