More of the Busy Bee

We have riding:


Coloring:


Eating:


and feeding her baby doll!

A Real Update!

I was bad about updating last month but hopefully this month will be a little better. :) We've been up to a lot of stuff, though. We're doing some schedule and work and sitter adjustments--Mike has started taking Fitness Kickboxing at the school where my aikido and kali classes are. How cool is that? At least one day a week we're there at the same time which is super fun. I've added an extra few hours of work a week which is kind of exciting plus we're working on a proposal to teach aikido in a local private school. And Autumn's been especially busy with all her Mother's Day Out-ing and marker eating. ha! Actually, she's been doing some fun stuff.

Earlier in January, Penny and I went out for her birthday. We ended up at the mall that day and she really wanted to take Autumn on the carousel. I am really glad we went because it was a ton of fun and Autumn totally didn't want to get off.


We've also been playing Rock Band pretty much every weekend. Autumn loves to dance but, even more than that, she loves to sing. It can be inconvenient when we're playing but it's pretty cute when we can hand over the mic.


Lately Autumn's really enjoyed dress-up. She likes to put on her coat(s) and certain shirt(s) and accessorizes with, oh, sunglasses, hair clips, hats, purses, bags and, occasionally, all of the above.


I'm not sure why but this picture makes me giggle. Mmmm...bag lady chic.


"Dahlignks...I am, how you say, fahhhhbulous. You Amereeecans cannot understand zee fahshion."


Ah. And we have Molly here. She's been experimenting with new places to sleep. We have a laundry sorter and Mike's pretty picky about it always sitting in a certain place with the colors in a certain order because he's color blind (sometimes the bright/light pile looks like the whites to him). One night he came out of our room fussing about me moving the cart around and mixing up the colors. I was, like, look, you're crazy because I haven't touched it. He said, "I just want to know who put the gray cat in with the whites." Hahahaha!


Oh, and this is fun. My mom came over to cut everyone's hair and Autumn wanted in on it. All she need was a bang trim but after that was done, she realllly wanted to stay. She put on the cape and climbed back into the chair. Funny kid. My mom just combed Autumn's hair some. I like this pic because it really shows how her eyes change sometimes like Mike's--or a little like my dad's did.


I think this is the last one and it's just Autumn discovering the fun of oven mitts. :) It's pretty cool to see her interested in cooking. My mom says I was always in the kitchen playing with bowls and oven mitts and wanting to do everything with her and Autumn seems to be a lot like I was in that regard. So, who knows! Maybe we'll have another little chef in the family someday!

News update at 5!

In todays headlines, small bad girl Autumn Rose Colley ate a green marker. We unfortunately do not have pictures of the grisly aftermath of this marker eating incident since her mother panicked and went to immediately wash the child's mouth out. Asked for her thoughts on why she would do something so astoundingly boneheaded as devouring a writing implement, all Autumn had to say about the matter was: "Uh-oh."

Now for a word from our sponsors:

A Big Day!

Today was a Very Big Day in the life of Miss Autumn. She went to her first day of Mother's Day Out! The morning went really smoothly. I had packed almost all of her things (diaper bag, lunch and napmat--awwww!) Sunday night so all we really had to do was eat breakfast, get dressed, and play a little.


We got all bundled up and headed out. Autumn wanted to bring her little doll along which was pretty cute. She's been carrying it around a lot lately. Here they are, with Autumn looking totally grown up. And for some reason...she looks like she's going fishing. I think it's the hat and the way it is positioned on her head.


Drop off went spectacularly. Everyone was super nice and she went in with no trouble. When I picked her up, (five and a half hours later!) I got a great report from the teachers. Autumn transitioned really well and didn't cause too much drama. I tried to get a picture of her playing with the kids and hanging on to her doll but she saw me and then wouldn't let me go. In a "small world" moment, I saw the mother of a couple of boys I used to teach aikido to. Her youngest daughter is in Autumn's room at MDO. Lena, whose little one is 3 months older than Autumn, took a picture of the two of us.


And so ended Autumn's First Day!

First snow of the year!

For some reason my camera didn't pick up the FIVE MILLION SNOWFLAKES but it really has been snowing since about 7 this morning--our backyard is totally covered! Autumn and I put our coats and hats on over our pajamas and went out to play a little just in case it stopped quickly. The snow is still going as of right now but Miss Autumn wanted to come in after only a few minutes of being outside. She was mad because her swing was full of snow. :)




Funny enough, an hour later, she's still wearing her coat. She finally took off her hat and scarf about ten minutes ago but for some weird reason, she really wants to keep her coat on.

It's just the filipina blood, really.

We've had a lot of visitors in my kali and aikido classes lately; some have been friends of mine which is exciting since I've been inviting a couple of them for years. I think it's probably partly new year's resolution stuff--you know, get in shape, learn to punch. lol. Anyway, all these new people coming in has reminded me that a good chunk of the beginning days is spent learning to sit on the ground, especially in aikido. Part of the theory about why most new students have such a hard time sitting in seiza, a squat, or even cross-legged is that we're at desks all day and we pretty much always sit in a chair so we lose some of the flexibility in our Achilles tendons and thighs unless we really work on that kind of thing. I have another theory. Floor sitting is actually genetic:


I call this her Island Baby pose. For some reason I giggle whenever I see her sitting this way.

All right, all right.

I'm finally getting the last of the Christmas photos up. It's been a crazy week! I'm in the middle of switching my work schedule and my training schedule (woohoo! I got promoted to level 2 in kali) BUT these should be the end of Christmas stuff except for a little video compilation I'm hoping to post in the next couple of days. :P It only took, like, 3 weeks.

Ok, so if anyone asked me what I remember most about Christmas, this is definitely one of the things:


Tyler has this weird thing about staring at me. He's done it since he was a little baby. Christmas Day, he seriously took a break from opening his toys just to come over and stare at me. lol. Speaking of toys, here's Autumn with her doll...matching again. (ps, like her choke hold?)


We did something a little different for Christmas with my family. We went to Bubble Tea for dinner! And then back to my house for presents. My mom did awesome for Autumn's gifts. She made her a scarf and hat set.


And got her this little laptop. Autumn totally cracked us up because she totally knew what to do. She immediately sat down and started typing and clicking her little mouse.


A couple days later, she wanted her desk next to mine. So we complied and this is what we got!