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:
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 2ndkyu 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 JiuJitsu 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.
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!
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.
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!
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. :)
