moment of cute

Last night and this morning we had some pretty cool thunderstorms. Mike and I enjoy a good storm and, really, Autumn is surprisingly laid back about them. Sometimes she and Mike stand in the window together and look at the lighting and wind.

Last night, there was a particularly loud rumble and we heard Autumn make some noise. Storms don't usually wake her and she usually doesn't get out of bed even if she does wake up in the night because there's a rail that's a pain to get over for her (she can, she just...doesn't). So we were a little amused to hear her patpatpat-ing down the hall.


Mike ended up retrieving her and bringing her to our room. I don't know why this tickled me so much but she had her baby doll with her. It was just so darn cute! Little Autumn, startled out of sleep, scared of the thunder, grabs her baby doll and goes hunting for mama and papa. All together now, "awwwwww." hahahaha.


:) She went back to sleep patting my arm.

The Beach, Part 2

Day two at the beach was filled with what I'm guessing is pretty normal "family at the beach" fare:

Monkeys who prefer sand to water.


And then neatly stack their toys (without being told) before announcing, "Papa. Wawee."


Frolicking with cousins and grandfathers.


Photo attempts foiled by waves.




And wind.




And, of course, uncles sidelined by strep.


(for anyone concerned, Brad is well and none of us have gotten strep, yay!)

The Beach, Part 1b

Ok, Papa D, your wish is my command...here are some more pictures!

Well, last year Autumn wasn't very impressed (minute 3:12 on the video) with the beach. I was hoping it would be different this year but it didn't start out in a terribly promising manner. I took her out to the sand and water and she was. not. happy. Here she is weeping in the sand. Of course, I took a picture.


Mike was in the mood for the pool anyway so we gave that a try and soon enough she was having all kinds of fun in the water. "Swimming" with papa...


Jumping off the ledge...well. Kind of jumping. She doesn't quite have the whole forward propulsion thing down quite yet so it was more like bending her knees and, um, twitching.


Later that day we did get her out on the beach and somewhat enjoying herself. And yes. She did have a costume change after lunch and a nap.


Papas and their babies. Note that Tyler, who goes to the beach pretty frequently, is totally having adventures while Miss Autumn decides if she's ever going to be okay again. :)


In case you couldn't tell, I didn't buy this bathing suit. :P Can you guess who did? Everyone got a kick out of Autumn in her foofy little suit. There were many pictures taken.


Seriously, this is like an ad for happiness. Don't you think so?


One of Autumn's current obsessions is the airplane. Anything flying in the sky is greeted with, "there plane! there plane!" So you can imagine her delight over this:


Something about Autumn's position here makes me giggle.


After some playing on the beach and more playing in the pool, Autumn took a break in the hot tub before heading upstairs to get ready for dinner.


Where she made faces.


ok, this is getting long so I'll wrap it up with...Mike and Autumn Making Funny Faces! Autumn just tickles me and Mike's side-eye here totally cracks me up. The both look like they are up to something.

So where have we been?

At the beach!!



More photos to come! I was planning to blog the trip but I forgot my USB cable which put a serious cramp in the uploading plans. :P

So much eating...

I just noticed that, for some weird reason, I have a ton of photos of Autumn eating this month. Here she is with a petit four at La Baguette.


Eating some kind of chocolate cake at some restaurant. Bahama Breeze maybe? We always get the chocolate island there. It's one of the only desserts Mike gets enthusiastic about. Me? I get excited about pretty much any dessert. :P


Okay, seriously. Is she 2? Why does she look so grown up sometimes? This is Autumn's very first toasted marshmallow.


At first, Autumn kinda of had a panic attacked over the marshmallow getting cooked. She was all big eyed and wondering why in the world someone would put a PERFECTLY DELICIOUS marshmallow into fire. She got over it, though.


This one isn't of her eating but it was so cute I had to post it. Papa D putting his cold water glass on her face.


Actually, I have two more good ones that aren't eating but have food in them. Autumn's kind of big on "helping" right now. She wants to carry things, put away groceries, that kind of thing. We ran into the store not too long ago. I only needed a couple of things so I let her walk with me rather than ride in the cart. She realllly wanted to carry things so she carried the bread for me.


Speaking of a cart...Mike taught Autumn a new trick.


:) I was afraid that it might be something she'd want to do all the time but it's been some time and she hasn't asked once. Phew.

At the sprinkler park!

Collierville has two really cool sprinkler parks, did you know that? I've been meaning to get out to one since last summer and now that we've finally made it, I'm guessing we're going to go a lot! We've already gone twice in two weeks. Last week I joined some ladies I get together with a couple of times a month and my friend Angela also joined us. Her daughter Marie is sooo cute and I love listening to her talk. Here they are chowing down on some apples that Angela brought along to appease Autumn's weird apple fixation...when I talked to Angela that morning, she could hear Autumn yelling, "appal! APPAL!" in the background.


Autumn likes babies, too. Although she's just as likely to steal the pacifier than give it back. And can someone explain to me why Autumn calls a pacifier a "sassy?" No one I know calls it that although I have heard that's a word for it.


Is she dancing? Peeking around? Thinking about making a break for it? Probably the latter.


Here we are this morning! Autumn is a bright blue and hot pink kinda gal.


Today, Tamara got to come along! I meant to get a picture of the three of us but I forgot...but here she is in the background of one that Christy sent to me! Christy is the one who plans and coordinates our get-togethers.


It's kind of cool to see Autumn with Christy's kids. Autumn seems to like and recognize Allie and Lydia whenever we see them and she's really comfortable with Christy. I'm not sure how many of you guys who read this but don't to see us much realize it but Autumn is a lot more like Mike than one might guess from her very seemingly outgoing pictures! This is great...Lydia's all "I'm gonna huuuug youuu!" and Autumn's all, "no way!" Kinda like me and Mike.


Back to the park itself...the park is full of neat sprinklers...a flower that showers water, buckets that fill and dump, elephant heads that shoot water through their trunks. I think Autumn's favorites were the ones that came out of the ground.


And I know this is random, but the ground is super nice. It doesn't get too hot and it's really friendly for little feet and knees and hands. This is Miss Noelle. I met her and her mom Leigh Ann for the first time today.


Me, Miss Autumn, and a wet camera lens. Some kid aimed a water gun at us while we were on the sidelines. I wasn't real happy because it got my camera wet and made little missy cry. :) I gave him the Patented Evil Eye and he turned the gun away. By the way, if you're in search of a pretty, modest swimsuit, I highly recommend a store called Modbe where I got my suit.


This is a tired little monkey. :) Water+Friends+A peanut butter sammich=A Very Good Day.

Happy Papa Day

To a papa who doesn't call spending time with his baby monkey "babysitting." :) We love you!

A few clips of Mike and Autumn that I don't think have been in any other videos we've posted. btw, the last clip is of Mike trying to get Autumn to say his favorite word in her repetoire.