I go out walkin'...

after midnight.

Out in the moon light.

Just like we use to do.

I'm always walkin' after midnight searchin' for you.

And on that note I don't even know what else to say. Other than she's missing her Walmart bag in that 2nd pic which she's started to carry around with a book in it. Oh and don't all "Ladies of the Night" stand around with their finger in their nose?

Would madame desire a spot of tea?

Or perhaps a spot of milk?

This cat is the cutest thing ever! It sucks a bottle, purrs, paws, and meows, just like a real cat, minus the litter box! We spent Christmas eve at GiGi and PaPa's house. Where we stuffed our face with yummy party food and we all had to sit around and be served cups of tea that was "hot" so we had to "blow." Needless to say Little Bit is a big fan of her new table and chairs. However, it's still at GiGi's house because I have to make room for it at mine! The tree needs to come down ASAP (hint hint, Steven). I'm loving all of this pretend play. What's especially great about it is that she's happy as a clam playing in her kitchen and with her tea set by herself! Until she needs a taste tester that is!

And I need to take a few pics of the awesome canvas that my mom had made for me! I'm so happy with how it turned out! It's a pic of Sophie and Steven on the beach this summer, taken by yours truly. I'm dying to get it on the wall!

Midnight Snack

The Carr house helped to fatten up ole St. Nick up last night. Right now we are in the midst of unwinding from a busy day of cooking up a storm in the new kitchen and visiting family. I'll post lots of more pics this week. I hope everyone had a wonderful Holiday!

Round 1

And so it begins. And talk about fun! Steven's parents came down yesterday to celebrate Christmas with us. So this morning Sophie had some goodies waiting for her. She ripped into her presents like a champ but every single piece of paper had to go into the trash before she would move on to another piece. My little neat freak. Anywho, she's now the proud owner of a doll house:

a shopping cart, a Wiggles CD (compliments of Aunt Laura & Uncle Brian) that says "Sophia" in all of the songs (and if you are an avid Wiggles fan this is super cool), some clothes and PJs, and an adorable bear (thanks Aunt Jeff!). But there was one gift in particular that was a grand slam.

Wondering what could put that look on her face?

Yep, her very own REAL digital camera. She absolutely LOOOOVES it and went around all morning snapping pictures and saying cheese. So a great big thank-you to Aunt Amy and Uncle Sean. And maybe now she'll keep her paws off of our cameras!

We also had two little Christmas miracles today. Miss Sophie B peed on the potty 2 times today! W00-who! Maybe playing with the miniature potty in her doll house made something click!

Stinker

This is the look that says "I'm on the naughty list." But I have a feeling that Santa is gonna stop anyway. She's just too cute to pass up.

And this next pic is beyond blurry (I snapped it out of a moving car as I passed this house) and beyond offensive but I have a sense of humor that is beyond twisted. Coming to a community college near you in a few years....Rich Rodriguez.

I personally like how these folks put a spotlight on it. I guess what else are you suppose to do with a life size cut out an egotistical jack ass.

C is for Cookies

And chaos but really who's counting. Actually it went better than I expected but I'm thinking that next year will be a better age for baking cookies. And an even better idea is for the cooking baking to go down in GiGi's kitchen.

This cookie making season Sophie's peanut butter allergy really hit home. Almost 99% of the traditional cookies that we make every year has some type of nut in it or peanut butter itself. Like my favorite chocolate covered peanut butter balls, yum-o. Or the old standard peanut butter cookies with the Hershey's kiss in the middle. Looks like we are going to have to come up with some new recipes and start some new traditions.

Watch'em bake!

Yum, cookie dough. Salmonella contamination is just one of the risks in life that sometimes is worth taking.

21 Months And Counting

Dear Sophia,

It's your mama again so that means that you've grown another month older. Will you stop already! In three months we will be celebrating your 2nd birthday and I'm just not sure that we are ready for you to be a full blown toddler. But I guess they say time marches on.

We are currently at defcon Xmas. Your daddy and I are super excited for you to wake up on Christmas morning to see what Santa has left but you are clueless as to what's gonna go down. You love the tree and the lights and "ho ho" is cool to look at from afar but NOT close up. I guess we should appreciate your ignorant bliss because one day you'll be wanting a $500 Play Station 10 and all your daddy will get for Xmas is a tie and I'll end up with a pair of pjs.

"Cinkle, cinkle, wittle star" is the most beautiful song that my ears have ever had the pleasure of hearing. I say it every month but your love of music and singing continues to grow. And talk about melting our hearts, every night your daddy sings "What a Wonderful World" to you, well you've started to sing parts of it to us. It's right then and there that I want to freeze time and keep you exactly the way you are forever and ever. But then I remember how I had to put you in "time out" five times earlier that evening and I'm soon ready to push play and move on.

And speaking of time out, this month you've started to get the whole concept. Granted you sometimes think it's a big game. But for the most part, time out breaks your heart and hearing you say "sorry mama" is a whole other level of cuteness. I have to admit that one time I put you in time out for a pretty minor offense just so I could hear you say "sorry mama."

You are starting to string lots of words together. The other night you told GiGi to "leave now." I'm sure she's already forgiven you though. And this morning when I handed you your juice you said, "tank you, you delcome." Oh and I think it's safe to say that we've found something that you like almost as much as the Wiggles. Good ole Fraggle Rock, which you've dubbed "Frag Rock." I can honestly say that never in my wildest dreams would I have pictured myself at 30 watching 1984 episodes of Fraggle Rock over and over again. But I guess that's just another one of the million and one fringe benefits that comes along with getting to be your mommy.

Love Mama

And here we are getting your hair cut today. I didn't want to do it but you had to have some bangs cut. I'll ask you now to forgive me for making you look like Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber.

Petty Crime

Apparently we are starting down the road of juvenile delinquency early. Forget the troubled teen years! Our daughter dove into crime at the ripe old age of one! On Saturday my dad took the whole Carr gang shopping. We ventured into the Disney store and while my dad is standing in line to pay for a fantastic Cinderella sippy cup, Little Bit decided to take a five finger discount on a .99 cent Finding Nemo Magic Bath Mitt. Yep…plopped it right into our Old Navy shopping bag and out the door we went. Right as we were leaving the mall Steven happened to peek inside the bag and I hear him say “uh did we buy this?” I probably should have taken it back but I honestly didn't feel like trekking back to the Disney store. Besides, does this look like the mug shot of thief?

There's No Business Like Show Business

Well the show is over. After days and days of practicing jingle bells, and yelling "Hey" at the appropriate spots and laughing all the way with "ha ha ha's," Little Bit didn't say a WORD on stage! Little stinker! I so KNEW that she would pull that one! She sat on her teacher's lap like the Queen of Sheba and looked around at everyone and smiled. Of course at the end she decided to prance around the stage. All of the kids were adorable, especially the 3 year old room singing "we are the world." Here's just two from tonight, almost all of them turned out a little blurry :(.

A Little Bit of Xmas

I can't BELIEVE that Christmas is right around the corner! We have all of our inside decorations up. But I can't say the same for outside. We had great intentions of putting lights outside but it has been so cold and rainy lately that going outside to string up lights just doesn't sound like fun.

Sophia is in love with the tree, literally. She's given a number of ornaments kisses. Strange I know but I guess they were in need of some lovin. The mall Santa, however, got ZERO love from Little Bit. You would have thought he was Satan rather than jolly ole Santa. Needless to say we were unable to get a picture taken with him. We couldn't even get a crying, "please save me" picture snapped. Little Bit stiffened up her little body and there was no bending it. The girl has an iron will. Every so often we'd ask her if she was ready to go back and see Santa and without a second thought she'd tell us "no." Maybe next year.

Waiting for daddy to come home to show him the tree.

Hanging the "Sophia'" ornament.

Hello In There

How do you like this cheap form of entertainment. Steven's parents have a vacuum system in their house that makes the perfect kid intercom. Somehow Steven is always the sucker that has to play at the other end of it. I swear for the first 2 years of their lives I think my nephews thought that their uncle lived in the wall.

Not much has been going on at the casa d'Carr. On Tuesday Little Bit will be making her performance debut in the day care Xmas show. Her class with be rocking it out to Jingle Bells. We've been practicing and Sophie has the "HEY" down pat and a crazy dance that she made up all on her own. We just hope that she doesn't freeze up once the bright lights hit her on stage.

Femoral Anteversion

I know that most of my posts aren't titled with medical terms but on Friday after visiting with an orthopedist we learned that Sophia has something called Femoral Anteversion. And trust me, it sounds a lot worse than it actually is. Basically, her thigh bones are rotating inwards causing her knees and feet to turn in. In a nutshell, she's pigeon toed. For months now we've noticed that her feet turn in causing her to trip a lot more than other kids her age. Not only have we noticed her feet but her daycare teachers and other family members had noticed too. When I was a baby I had to wear a brace that screwed into my shoes for awhile so I was dreading the appointment. I just "knew" that Little Bit would be forced into being Forest Gump and have "magic shoes." Not that I cared what she looked liked but because she was going to fight us to the death over having to wear it. Luckily, we learned that Femoral Anterversion corrects itself. So no surgery and no crazy contraptions, yet. We go back in 6 months to make sure that it isn't getting worse. Not that braces would slow this chick down. Check her out riding the "cho-cho" at the mall. To put it in Little Bit's new favorite word, it was "AWESOME."

The Girls

These are my younger cousins Rhianna (holding Sophie) and Kristen. Rhianna is 5 years younger than me and Kristen is 10 years younger so I consider them my connection to the "cool and happening world." Kristen is in her freshman year, I'd loooove to be in her shoes right now. And Rhianna recently graduated and is just starting in the "real word" living it up as a single gal in Pittsburgh. Sometimes I wouldn't mind being in any of her 20 pairs of stiletto heels either (although they might kill my feet). I have a feeling that the when Little Bit gets a little older we'll be hitting the malls with these two.

And here's a funny one for you. Sophia has flat out refused to say her name and she can say "ANYTHING." Trust me, she even busted out an "oh crap" the other day. So yesterday she finally started saying a version of her name. She's dubbed herself "Tia."

And She Lies!!!

Caught your attention with that heading huh? Well it's true. This may look like a sweet and innocent face. But behind that facade is a real stinker! Yesterday morning after I had left for work Sophia woke up before Steven had time to iron his shirt. So he put her in our bed to watch cartoons. He said he knew there was gonna be trouble when he went back in because she hadn't made a peep. So he walks in and there sits Little Bit on our bed with a tub o diaper rash ointment with the lid off (apparently I had left it on our night stand). She looks right at her daddy and says "uh-o." Yeah busted. But it didn't end there. She looks at the dog laying beside her, points at him and says "Oscar, no no no." Can you believe it! Tried to blame it on the DOG! God help me we are gonna have our hands full with this one.

O Brother

There's no doubt about it. The girl would make a fabulous big sister. But unless there's an "immaculate conception" and an angel wakes me up one night to tell me that I'm the chosen one, then it ain't gonna happen and I'm pretty sure that story has already been told. So Little Bit will just have to love on her cousins. Here she is holding her 4 month old cousin Tyler. Granted Tyler is almost as big as she is but she thinks she should be allowed to carry him across the room. She looks at us like we're nuts when we give her a firm NO on that little number. She's also a pro drool mopper and can spot it from a mile away. She bee lines it for his burp cloth and mouth ands says "he a mess" while giving him a wipe down.

Bathing Beauties

Little girls amaze me. I swear they come programed with a specific set of genes that allows them to be motherly from early on. Last Friday Steven's sister was giving Zachary a bath and I happened to walk in and find the little mama herself taking over bath duty.

Doesn't this just crack you up? I can't believe that Zachary actually sat there and let this wild woman wash his hair. But he loves his "Popie," as he calls her.

Tryptophan

It's true. Eating too much turkey, as seen in this photo of Little Bit asking for "more"....


leads to this....

I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving! We spent the entire holiday with Steven's family. Which meant there was non-stop eating, yay! Sophie loved getting to spend time with her cousins. And I'm not kidding when I say that I thought that we might have to sneak Zachary home in her suitcase. They've been best buds over the last few days. I have a feeling that we are gonna have one unhappy toddler on our hands tomorrow morning. I guess it's never too early to learn that Mondays are HORRIBLE. I'll post more later. Right now I have a packed suitcase calling my name.

Did I ever tell you about the time...

that I almost burned the house down? Yeah, that would have happened TONIGHT! You know, maybe I should start blogging about some of the idiotic things that I have done in my past. Such as falling into a huge fountain in the middle of a packed mall during Xmas all because I was trying to play with the coins in the bottom. Or the time that I cussed out a local news anchor, Mr. Cartoon, who hosted a children's cartoon show. I could go on and on especially when you consider the fact that those to things occurred at age of 3 and 4. But we'll jump to age 29.

I come home from work and Sophie and I jump into cooking a baked chicken dinner. I turn on the oven and we start to work. We finish but it's still 30 minutes before Steven would get home and the chicken only takes 20 minutes to bake so we head downstairs and wait. The next thing I know, the dog is barking like crazy and the house is FILLED with this putrid, horrible smell and smoke is EVERYWHERE! The fire alarm is going crazy. I run upstairs and IMMEDIATELY know what's going on. I open the oven door and smoke comes rolling out, reminded me of a 1967 VW bus full of hippies! I throw open the back door and the dog looks at me and I swear if he could talk he would have said "save yourself fools, I'm out!"

The reason: my husband had placed a 9x13 cake with a P-L-A-S-T-I-C lid in the oven! And I cranked that baby up to 450 degrees!! We had to leave the house for dinner, open all of the windows, doors and garage door to try to get the horrible smell out. Someone could have walked in our house and completely robbed us blind, lucky for us we don't have anything worth stealing nor are we attached to anything.

The worse part: dear husband told me that the pan was in the oven this morning and to NOT preheat the oven without taking it out first. So I have no one to blame but myself. God I hate that.

A Little About A Gigi

Did you know that having a GiGi when you are 1 is ultra cool? They let certain little girls play in their jewelry drawer. Let them sit on the bar and help cook. And basically anything fun goes down at GiGi's house. A swimming pool full of Jello probably isn't too far out of the question. And GiGis are really good at surprises. Like surprising Sophie with a beautiful red coat that her mommy has had her eye on!

Thanks mom/GiGi, your're the best! Yesterday Steven and I took Sophia down to the Capitol grounds to try to get a few pics for our Xmas card. She wasn't 100% into having her picture taken (when is she) and I couldn't get her cute little mug in focus. Oh AND I'm sure we looked crazy dragging a rocking horse out of the car.

Saturday Morning

This is the look of having to spend your Saturday morning with your parents at Wallyworld. Fun times! I'm sure she'd be much happier jamming to the Wiggles and playing with her babies but alas we have to have food. I'm amazed at how packed the stores are starting to get with Xmas shoppers and we haven't even had Thanksgiving yet! On this particular trip to hell we picked up a Thomas the Train cho-cho that makes sounds and a Thomas movie to put under the tree. So what if it's a boy thing, Little Bit looooves her some cho-cho trains.

Reaching the boiling point

"I'll get out myself!"

The big 2-0

My dearest Little Bit,

Well you're no longer a "teenager" and what a month it has been. First off, I need to explain something to you. When I was pregnant with you, I was literally giganto. Yes…part of this was because I choose to eat banana splits for dinner every night, but I digress. I’m 5’1 and I blew up to the size of a house. My feet were so swollen that I had “kankles” for godsake! I never thought that my feet would return to normal. And I tell you this to tell you this: after all I went through it is not very nice of you to shove me out of your room and scream for your daddy when I’m trying to put you to bed. Not cool Little Bit, not cool at all. Sure it’s just a phase, but it makes me pretty sad. Granted I love it that you and your daddy are two peas in a pod, but it makes me a little jealous. I guess I’ll just have to deal with it. And when you get older and want to talk to me about boys, I’ll be sure to direct you right to the source!

This month you to hate, loathe, and despise bugs, spiders, or any other member of the insect world. Can’t say that I blame you on that one. It’s so cute to hear you say, “EWWWWWW, EWWWWW.” Apparently, your day care teachers had to put all of the plastic spiders and bugs away because they totally flip you out. Who wants to play with plastic bugs anyway? Those kids apparently have issues and will be better off without them.

We celebrated Halloween this past month. You’ve only been on this earth a total of 609 days but without a doubt trick-or-treat night has been the best day of your life thus far. You were such a cute little pirate. We were especially proud when you walked right up to a 7 year old boy dressed as a pirate and screamed “ARRRR” right in his face. Way to play the part! Next year we’ll have to practice before we go out to hit up the neighbors for candy. You are not suppose to walk up to the bowl and take as much as you want. And you aren’t “suppose” to go to the same house twice. Luckily, we have nice and understanding neighbors.

We (especially me) also love that you still love to sing your little heart out. Of course we sometimes have NO CLUE what you are singing and we often have to ask your teachers to translate for us. I had no idea that you were randomly breaking it down to the “chicken dance’ and “cluck cluck clucking” until yesterday when I heard it playing in your room when I picked you up. Now it all makes sense.

By 21 months I hope you figure out that brushing your teeth is a very good thing, not something that people scream and cry over every night. Unless of course you want your teeth to look like chicklets. You love to play with play-dough, although I usually have to take it away b/c you try to feed it to the dog and/or take a few bites yourself. And you like to “color color’ but it is apparently more fun to dump all 96 crayons into the floor. And why you said it double double, we’ll never know. You also say “car car.” Hmmm, strange but we love the craziness and laugh about it daily. You can alway put a smile on our faces. So happy 20 months Sophie B. I love this picture of you holding your legs like you did when you were tiny. It reminds me that you will always be my baby.

Love Mama

While dad's away...

the kitchen is c-l-o-s-e-d. This means that Sophie and I grub down on lots of healthy food. For example, last night it was pizza and bread sticks. Actually we have this so often that the girl chants "pizza, pizza" when she sees a pizza box. And tonight we had some gourmet McDonald's. Little Bit was tearing into that bag like a starvin' Marvin. Yummy, nothing says saturated fat like a Big Mac and fries. Ok...so I did lighten it up a little when I opted for the apple dippers in the happy meal rather than the fries. Wait, on second thought the caramel dipping sauce probably negated the healthiness of the apples huh?

Oh well, what are ya gonna do? Eat the fries, that's what.

Mr. Ego

Yep that's right, it's Sigmund Freud. Can you believe that they actually made him into an action figure! Some psych company was handing him out at the Workers' Comp expo. Of course after delving deeper into the world of actions figures I discovered that there's a lot of interesting miniatures out there.

For instance, for you art lovers there's the Van Gogh action figure. Complete with a missing ear.

There's Oscar Wilde who wrote a little book call the Picture of Dorian Gray, one of my faves.
And in case you want to try parting the Kanawha river, here's a Moses to give you some inspiration. He comes with a tablet of 10 commandments in case you need a refresher.
As you can see I've got a whole big nothing to blog about. But in a few days Little Bit turns the big 2-0. Twenty months that is.

It's Time to Play...

name that Action Figure!!! Would anyone like to take a stab at the identity of this true to life miniature??? I came across him at the Expo I attended in Chicago so he was a freebie...but by far the funniest thing I've come across in a long time. I have a weird sense of humor, what can I say. I blurred his hands but I can't figure out what he's holding anyway. Ok....guess.

Not a Fan

Either I have a tom boy on my hands or the whole "princesses are the best thing since sliced bread" phase just hasn't entered our house yet. Andrea has a full scale tutu operation underway at her house because Emma is currently a huge princess fan. So for fun I thought that I would pull out the one I made for pics last year. Lets just say that if Little Bit could verbalize a little better, she would have said "get this damn thing off of me, NOW!" Maybe it was itchy. Or maybe it was too puffy. Or maybe she just didn't see the point. What ever the reason, the tutu will not be going back on for awhile.

Please excuse the dog's butt in this one. That mutt is always in the way.

I'm BAAAACK

But without pictures. Chicago was really cool. Our hotel was right on Michigan Avenue so we could walk virtually everywhere. It was so fun to go into Neiman Marcus and look at $1500 shoes. And it was beyond crazy to actually see people buying those shoes! NUTS! And Wicked was totally awesome. If it ever comes to a town near you, GO SEE IT.

Of course Sophie and Steven did fine without me. Tomorrow Steven goes out of town for a week so just us girls will be hanging out all week. I haven't picked up my camera in over a week...but I plan on getting back with the program soon.

Leaf Jumping

Lots of pics coming up because these are just too cute. It's November 4th. Who would have thought that the weather would be nice enough to play outside on November 4th? But that's exactly what we did today. Steven took care of some much needed yard work today so that created the perfect opportunity for Little Bit to jump in the leaves. Steven had to take extra caution raking up Sophie a pile to play in, otherwise she'd end up playing in a pile of you-know-what, thanks to Oscar the Boxer. I think these photos speak for themselves. The girl had a blast.

I love this one! Getting ready to jump on in!

So I'll see you guys when I get back from Chi-town on Thursday. We are staying right on the "Magnificent Mile" so I hope to do lots of shopping. Of course I'm living on borrowed time on my lap top. Today it told me that my c drive was full so I had to erase a ton of stuff.