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!

Meow, Monkeh, Meow

Autumn's main form of communication these days is to meow with various inflections. ::sigh:: This isn't the cleanest video ever because I did it quickly and with a sliced open thumb (it was a bad morning T_T) but hopefully you will smile when you watch.

Ps, in the clips of us at the desk we are looking at the website stuffonmycat.com. And be sure to watch past the credits!