Not Me! Thursday

Think of it as Christmas in July. Blame it on Don's unconventional Daddy ways. You'll only see it here, friends... a Not Me! Thursday!

Lets get something straight. I did not create Not Me! Thursday as an excuse to update you on the vital stats of our sweet baby girl, who went to the Doc for her 9 month check-up on Monday. Who really needs excuses to post these pictures:

Miss Kate weighed in at 18.4 lbs and is 28 inches long! While she grew 2 inches in the past 3 months, she slimmed down a little, only putting on 1.4 lbs. I think her hair also grew a half an inch or so, but they don't measure that, oddly enough. ;) No shots on this trip. She only cried when they squeezed her toe for the CBC, and when the doctor came in the room and she didn't recognize him. By the way, she will definitely get a seasonal flu shot when they have the preservative free doses available. I am not pressuring everyone else in my family (Mom and Dad included) to get the swine-flu vaccine. I do not plan to use the line "its the responsible thing to do" to guilt them into it. I have not considered paying off the rest of my friends and family to get the shots when they're available. :)

We did not purchase another stroller last week before heading off to the beach. Ok, maybe we did.. b/c we needed a jogging/beach stroller. Meet BOB (really, that's the brand). I don't know how we would have done the beach thing without him. We got it used, for almost half price. You didn't know we were such bargain shoppers, did you!?


I did not recently relieve my personal trainer of their duties so that I could instead justify hiring a maid to clean my floors. My floors are never dirty. They are not covered in Dog/Cat fur tumbleweeds at this very moment. I would not rather play with my cute baby than clean floors.

Tomorrow Don and I leave for Montana. Yesterday we found out that Don didn't actually have a plane ticket to Montana, even though I thought I purchased one back in August. It was totally the airline's fault. It was not that we neglected to "redeem" the certificate for Skymiles redemption. So after much stress, we were able to book him a ticket. I will be teaching a class and Don will be mountain biking. And we will be visiting an old friend from grad school who lives and does research in Hamilton, Montana! Can't wait! She's expecting a baby around Kate's birthday!

And finally, in an attempt to save some money and clean out the pantry, I wrote my shopping list around some of the things we already had in there. I found this can of tropical fruit that had a recipe on the back for Hawaiian chicken. Sounds good doesn't it? I bought all of the fixin's to go along with. I did not, however, almost serve my family a meal made from cans of fruit that had "best used by" dates of April 2001!! And certainly the only reason I didn't was not because the pineapple looked more like applesauce than pineapple when I opened the can. Don's response? "Oh yeah, we've had those since we lived in Charleston." Um, could we have maybe thrown those out by now? Daddy rules I tell ya!

Have a great weekend and we'll post some pictures of Glacier country when we return!

Beach Bums!

I should REALLY be going to sleep right now. Its 11:25! Instead, I'm going to post a few fantastic pictures of our week at the Isle of Palms. Oh, it was paradise, and we didn't want to leave. But it turns out that home is pretty great too!


The beach house. That's Kate and Nanna hanging out on the front steps.


Kate chilling in the shade of our LL Bean beach shelter.



Sandcastles with Daddy.



Sticking very close while Daddy builds sand castles.


Loved getting wet and muddy.


Just in case you thought we left Foster at home... No way!! He enjoyed lots of walks and Frisbee, and spent his evenings at the Paw Plaza.


There was a fun swing!


Pulling up on whatever is near-by.



Fun with Daddy.


Don't you love the look on her face? "What is this stuff on my hand? Ick!"


Out for the evening watching Daddy surf.



Yes, I did say surf. Here's proof.

Edit by Don: Jenny was too modest to mention that she gave surfing on the new board a shot and did manage to get up on a nice wave late in the week. Her coach was tough but it paid off. :)


Waving at the waves.


Toothy grin.

G0 Tigers! Ok, maybe not really, but we're working on it!

Edit by Don: Hmmmm... I thought she was cheering me on as I surfed. Technically I'm a Tiger so let's go with that.


Friday it rained, so off to the Aquarium! Looking at fish with Mom.


Jellyfish


I went to the bathroom and came back to this. She didn't actually get to touch the sea creatures, but enjoyed the water.



Here's Diver Dan in the BIG tank playing patty-cake with Kate. She really wasn't sure what to make of it.

All smiles with her new sea turtle Shelly.


Who left their baby out by the water?!!?


Family photo.


Ok, not sure if you've ever seen this one. I just noticed it this time. I like the 3 waves and the little guy running like mad to get outta there. Um.. its an island that can't be more than 300 yards across. Where exactly am I supposed to run to?

Edit by Don: You run to get your surfboard, silly. Look at that set! Wait out the first two and steal a SWEET ride on the third.


Baby's first vacation. Look closely and you'll see her little footprints.


Happy Family!

Whew! Its only 11:47. I think it was worth the extra 22 minutes. Hopefully there will be some resemblance of a Not Me! post tomorrow. Don't hold your breath. This is going to be a nutty week and we leave for Montana on Friday!

Good Dog

Kate is learning to play with Foster. She likes to grab, so we're learning to "pat" the puppy. She likes to show him the ball, but cries when he takes it. Here you will see that they've reached a truce.

A Long Weekend and a Longer Post!

Its been a while since the last post, but its not because I've just been a lazy blogger. Since today is a holiday, there's no official Not Me! But you might find a few here and there. Hold onto your pom pons everyone, this post is going to be long and have lots of photos... I know, I know, that's why you come here - the photos.

So things have been moving right along here in Lexington. Those teeth are taking their sweet time coming in. They're also very camera shy. What is new is Kate "sleeping" through the night! I say "sleeping" because she wakes up once, but doesn't eat. Sometimes she needs a hug to go back to sleep, but it really has helped me start to catch up on some Zzzz's that I've missed over the past 9 months. Last night she slept from 8 pm until 7:15 am and I didn't even have to help her go back to sleeep! I do not hide from my baby in the room next to hers and wait for her to go back to sleep. :) Ok, maybe I do.

Sleeping Beauty hanging out with her giraffe. Foster is stationed at the door to protect her from any other wild animals roaming the house.


Game Day!

Saturday was game day, FINALLY! Although I swore (not literally) up and down that I wasn't buying Kate a cheerleading uniform until she was much older, I gave in and purchased one at Steinmart, of all places. I had a gift card that hadn't been used since Christmas and I thought, what the heck!? I gotta spend it on something. I did text Don and ask him if was a silly purchase. He wrote back and said that we'd spent more money on even more frivolous things. That line of reasoning is not how we are able to justify almost every frivolous purchase we make.

Anyway, I do have to admit that she's awfully cute in it.



We did not take Kate to the game because it was so close to bed time. She's also very much into standing up and grabbing things. I could only imagine her wanting to stand up on me the whole game and trying to grab the sunglasses, hats, clothing, and hair of people sitting around us. So we left her with Nanna. Here we are - Clemson family - before Don and I left for the game.


The game was great fun, although we're a little skeptical that we'll beat Georgia Tech next week based on the way we played. Hopefully Dabo will prove us wrong. No one mentioned that it was going to rain. What were the chances that the only rain in the state was a tiny little patch that sat right on top of Clemson for all of the second half? Peppermint Patty was back, but she only stayed until halftime so she could go out and party . No jewels of widsom from her, but there was a guy behind us that had some serious field vision. "There were 6 chop-blocks on that play!!" Yeah, I can only process 2 chop blocks a play.. 6? Does he have an extra pair of eyes or something? There was a cute little baby that sat next to us. She was 7 months old. I only wondered for a second if we really should have brought our big girl since this baby could make it through the first half. We'll take her to one game this year if there happens to be that perfect combination of weather, time of day, and lousy opponent. Here we are sufficiently wet in the second half.



Play Day!

Sunday afternoon we had lunch outside at the Gourmet shop with Kate and Foster, and then went to the park to swing. Fun times!!

Did I ever mention that lime green striped leggings go with EVERYTHING?!


Sunday was a day full of Ma Ma Ma's for Kate. Those are my favorite days. :) This picture was taken right before she cried because I wouldn't share my sandwich.


Don and Foster enjoying the perfect weather. We ran into another Aussie named Sydney. He looked very much like Foster, but red instead of blue. They were quick friends.


Swinging!

Swinging with Ma Ma. We did not almost get stuck in this swing that was clearly made for elementary school children.


Don impressing the girls with his swinging skills...


Family Feet!


Self portraits are a little harder with the 4 of us. This was take 5. Kate isn't looking, but all of our heads eyes are in the shot.

Monkey Princess

Can I tell you that I am in LOVE with the little girls clothes at Target. Not only because they are inexpensive, but because they are cute! More on Kate's fall wardrobe later, but for now, enjoy these pics of her in her Monkey Princess PJs!

The Monkey Princess - who spends most of her time with her hand in her mouth.. helping those little toothies come in! They're visible now, but only with the naked eye - not on film.


My babies! I tried to get a photo of them side by side, but it just wasn't possible.


Because Kate wanted to touch Foster.


And he's not a big fan of baby pettings. He tolerates it. Unless she pulls hard or, heaven forbid, touches his feet.

Here she is just moving around.. standing up, crawling around, saying her new favorite word: Ba or Va (its hard to tell sometimes).

Worth a Fortune

As some of you may know, I've developed quite the craving for Fried Rice lately. And by craving, I mean that I could eat it for every meal that doesn't involve pancakes. We've always frequented the Chinese restaurants around here - mostly Miyo's and Antai - but the fortune cookie has become kind of anti-climactic lately. It usually says something like this:


Yeah, great. Like Ohio far away? Montana? or somewhere more exotic - Cambodia? Argentina? So then I leave it on the table or shove it in my purse and that's the end of it. What do I really want from a Fortune Cookie anyway? I want something profound! Isn't that the point? I did once get one that said I may "prosper in the field of medical research." Which was as close to anything personal and profound that I ever got out of a cookie. Boy, was it wrong!

But lately our fortunes have gotten more interesting... Maybe you remember this post a while back, where I told you about Don's continued quest to have a simpler life. Well,First, Don gets this fortune about a month ago:

And we had one of those moments where we go: "Whoa.. that's pretty close to home!" So we saved it and were pleased that we finally got a meaningful fortune.

Then the other day, we cracked open another pair of fortune cookies.

Don first:

Which prompts him to raise his eyebrows and smile and ask me if there's anything I need to share with him.

And then me:


And the look on our faces? Worth a Fortune. :)


Our lucky package arrived last year. Maybe those fortunes were just 17 months late!