Jewel needs to watch her back

Here comes Caroline!




Caroline and Jeff had a jam session last night. Caroline picked the classic tune "Peanut Butter and Jelly" for their duet. It was great. And just in case all of you forgot (or never knew), Caroline is truly her father's daughter as her first words were "guitar" and "outside".
After the guitar sessions, we sat down as a family to watch Jeff's favorite Christmas movie, "A Charlie Brown Christmas." Good times.

Tort poems always give me a laugh!

This is pretty clever. (via Instapundit )

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend. We went to Slidell on Wednesday night and stayed with Jeff's parents and Caroline of course woke up bright and early on Thursday as she tends to do when we stay away from home! We took her to a great park that they have in Slidell and played there for probably an hour or so before the cold, wet, windy morning got to be too much for Mama. I wish they had a playground like this in Baton Rouge. Here are a few pics from the outing:















Then we spent Thanksgiving Day at Jeff's brother Bobby's house. Bobby's wife Christina is an amazing cook, so we had some wonderful food and a good time hanging out with family. Bobby's boys have a pet pig named "Babe" and Caroline was fascinated with her. The boys were so sweet with Caroline, not only did they teach her how to feed Babe, they watched movies with her and played 2 year old games despite the fact that they are 12, 9, and 7. It was a good day. Here's a picture of Caroline and the boys with the pig:



On Thursday night we headed back home to BR and on Friday watched an utterly disappointing and disheartening football game. I hated to see LSU lose, but honestly, they didn't play well, and I guess in the big scheme of things, my life is no different than it was on Thursday! Finally, on Saturday Jeff and I celebrated our 7th anniversary and went out to eat at Roberto's River Road (the link was bad before, now it's fixed) and it was fabulous. If you live in BR and have never been out there, you have to go; and if you don't live in BR, the next time you visit, remind me to take you there.

Sorry for the long post, but we have so much to be thankful for, I just wanted to share!

I am pathetic

Hi, I'm Ashley and I watched the entire season of the Bachelor. Yes, Allison, that show I used to give you a hard time about watching when we were in law school, that's the one. This season ended with Brad picking no one (poor girls). Here's a You Tube tribute to him; someone has a lot of time and technical savvy.



Oh, and I know the show is horrible.

Really, really

I suppose you could populate any blog with a 2 year old's cute phrases and expressions, so I'll do my best to not let that be the only thing I include on here, but for today, I thought I'd share Caroline's most recent language acquisition. When Caroline agrees with something you say lately, she replies, "yeah, I do, really, really." Very funny. At first I thought she was saying, "pretty, pretty", because that is how she describes just about every piece of clothing or pair of shoes you show her, but then I realized she was saying "really, really." She has been adding, "I do" to "yes" (or less desirably, "yeah") for emphasis when she likes something or wants something for a while. "Really, really" is a very recent addition to her lexicon.
Here's a little script of a conversation between Ashley and Caroline to illustrate her recent language change:
(Two weeks ago)
Ashley: "Caroline, do you want red beans and rice for dinner?"
Caroline: "Yeah, I do."

(Yesterday)
Ashley: "Caroline, do you want red beans and rice for dinner?"
Caroline: "Yeah, I do. Really, really."

What can I say? We love her! Really, really.

Chuck and Huck

If nothing else, you have to give Mike Huckabee credit for his sense of humor.

The Me Culture

So, the "it's all about me" culture (do what I want, when I want, don't tell me it's wrong) isn't turning out so well? Check out an interesting review of an HBO show and how it reflects on our culture here. I haven't seen the show (so I'm not endorsing it), but the review is on target for what I've seen happening in the real world.

LSU v. Ole Miss

funny. (thanks Laura)

In my opinion . . .

This is ridiculous.

Too soon

This is where Joshua would be in his growth progress if we had not lost him too soon. I think I'll keep the calculator up as a reminder of where he would have been if he'd stayed with us. In reality though, he is fully complete in Heaven.

I never would have guessed . . .

Your Inner European is Swedish!

Relaxed and peaceful. You like to kick back and enjoy life.

Who's Your Inner European?

Okay, so I go back to make sure this is right and I can't remember which answers I changed, and here's what I get:

Your Inner European is French!

Smart and sophisticated. You have the best of everything - at least, *you* think so.

Who's Your Inner European?

Yikes!

A funny (slightly off-color) bed time story

When we put Caroline to bed at night, we let her "read" a couple of books to us and then either Jeff or I read two books to her. The other night she was "reading" a book to us called "Sweet Dream Stories"; a compilation of short stories featuring animal characters. As she was flipping through, she got to a story about "Rumpus" a bear who is very curious and as a result gets into everything. Page 82 looks like this:

When Caroline saw this page, she looked up at Jeff and me with a puzzled look on her face and said, "He poo poo?" (See top picture). I was laughing so hard and trying to mask it, so I couldn't talk. Jeff said, "No, Caroline, he is not going poo poo." So she replied, "Oh, he tee tee?" More laughter out of both Jeff and me this time. She said both of these things as if there would be no shame in it if that was what was going on in that picture. I guess that gives you a perspective on the mind of a two year old whose bodily functions have never been a private concern.

Two Caroline-isms

1. Caroline has picked up the phrase "leave me alone" somewhere recently, but in Caroline-speak it is translated "leave my alone." I'm not sure where she heard it, but when she is frustrated or doesn't want to go somewhere, the latest response is: "no, leave my alone." Kind of funny, but of course we can't laugh. I just tell her, "Caroline, that is not nice to tell mama to leave you alone." I'm sure this is just one of many undesirable saying that we'll have to deal with, but for some reason she seems especially attached to this one. Every once in a while she'll say "stupid" (and honestly she hasn't said that in a few weeks), and all we have to tell her is that that is not a nice word and she can say "silly" instead and she stops saying it. This one is different, so I think we have many days of "leave my alone" ahead of us.

2. She also has many very sweet things that she likes to say - I don't want to dwell on the toddler defiance too much! She is so good about wanting everyone to participate in whatever activity is going on. If I tell her that we are going for a walk or going for a ride in the car, she always says, "Papa coming too?" Or if we offer her a treat or ask if she wants to go get yogurt, she says, "You want treat too?" As she says it, she cocks her head to the side and smiles really big. No matter what she asks you want to say "yes!" just because of the sweet way she asks.

A Study in Irony

Very interesting comparison of two hot topics receiving strikingly disparate treatment in the media . . .
http://theanchoressonline.com/2007/11/01/iraq-war-global-warming-a-study-in-irony/trackback/

Trick or Treat!

We took Caroline trick-or-treating last night at my Dad's. She had a great time. It was so funny how surprised she seemed at each house we went to that they were giving her "more candy!" She would run away from every house saying, "I got more candy!" as if in disbelief at what was going on. Jeff and I had fun watching her excitement. Here are a few pictures:







Last week we took her trick-or-treating on Sorority Row at LSU. All of the sororities hand out candy the Wednesday before Halloween. She had a great time there too. She loves the girls at the Kappa house and they always endear themselves to her with sweets, and last Wednesday was no exception. Here are pics from that night: