I am!

Octoberish

The past two weeks have been a whirlwind of fun! Last weekend Leila got to decorate her first pumpkin at a party at Buck's (the boy's who lives across the street). Buck is Leila's age, and I can't wait until their old enough to really play together well. Their family grows pumpkins on their farm, so they had more than two dozen pumpkins lined up in their driveway for the kids to pick from. Leila loved getting to play with so many new kids her age. She got to paint her pumpkin and put stickers on it, but she had to be very careful with the paint because she was playing in a pretty dress. We all enjoyed eating pumpkin risotto for the first time and getting to try venison, duck, dove and other game that Buck's daddy cooked.

Leila loves to point at the pumpkins in the neighborhood when we go on our afternoon walk to the park. She also likes to point at and describe some of the other Halloween decorations that she sees, but she hasn't taught us what most of the words that she is using mean. We do know what she was talking about when she went to visit Mommy's show at Biggs Powell Interior Design today--she liked the chairs! She tried to sit in every chair she saw and they were all imported European antiques.

After we went by Bigg's, we got to go downtown and eat delicious fish at The Flying Fish. Mommy remembered reading about the Fish on one of her favorite blogs, but was glad to get the real experience with Leila. There was a whole wall covered with big mouth billy bass trophies! The food could never compare with Wintzell's, but since we're so far from the coast we'll take what we can get. We let Leila have a little taste of mild tobasco sauce on a cracker while we were waiting. She declared it "hot" but seemed interested. Leila thinks it's fun to experiment with flavors.

After lunch we went to the zoo. Everything was decorated for Halloween, but all Leila wanted to do was see the bears and ride the train. We have never seen Leila get so excited about bears before and we were amazed at all of her chatter as she zoomed towards the pandas and squealed around in the polar bear exhibit. We can't wait to see what she'll do the next time she sees Granddaddy's trophy bear!

Trick-or-treating is coming soon . . . Leila is ready!

chandlerpritchett.com

Mommy just launched a new website. Check it out at chandlerpritchett.com

Mac and Cheese Pancakes

This morning, Leila decided it was time for Daddy to get out of bed. After some good snuggles and pointing out Mommy's nose (which is the first thing she likes to do every morning), she said this, "Dad! Up. Juice!"

Then she started handing Daddy things off of the nightstand. "Ears" (hearing aids)
"Glasses, Cheepcheep (Ipod), Hello (phone), Beep Beep (keys)”
“This (random scrap of paper), THERE."

Then she grabbed his hand and dragged him down the hall to the rockrock chair to read some books.

I wonder if she things she's the Mommy and she's got to get us ready to go every morning? I think if she really wants to get Daddy out of bed she needs to learn to cook these:

Macaroni and Cheese Pancakes.

17 Months

Daddy came home Friday afternoon a few hours after GiGi went home to Mobile. Thanks for entertaining Leila so well this week, GiGi! Leila and Mommy spent a few hours in the airport waiting for Daddy - apparently there was some misunderstanding regarding the flight times. This led us all to go home tired and eat some pizza and go to sleep early.

On Saturday Leila went to the Pink Palace Arts and Crafts Festival for the second year in a row. She took a while to warm to the crafts but once she got to ride a train, pet a rabbit, pet a pig, and eat cotton candy while listening to Bob Marley covers she decided she liked the festival after all. Mommy did a good job saving Leila and Daddy from being too tired and cranky - the food and drinks and trains helped tremendously.

Today Leila and Daddy went to the zoo for the afternoon. We rode the train (toot toot, ding ding!) and visited Kofi the month-old giraffe. Supposedly we have a new giraffe due soon and a baby elephant due in a year or so. Elephant gestation lasts 22 months, says super friendly tilt-a-whirl operator at the zoo.

Leila and Daddy have had a great weekend getting reacquainted with one another (and with Nemo and Disney's Robin Hood). Tomorrow everyone's going back to school and work and day care. Except for Frida. She stays home.


Notice that Leila got to play with some baby-sized rocking chairs again this year. She's a huge fan of chairs and has the smile to prove it.

A Visit from GiGi

This week Leila invited one of her favorite people in the United States of America to come visit her in Memphis. Gigi flew in last Friday and went home yesterday. We invited her to come and play while Daddy was in Dallas on a business trip.

In case you don't know, one of GiGi's special talents is giving presents to little girls. Along with a great assortment of books and toys sent by Aunt Jenny, Leila is now the proud owner of a very important pair of shoes. While shopping with GiGi, Leila found shoes that are PINK . . .and SPARKLY . . . AND THEY HAVE BOWS ON THEM!!!! Shoes and bows and pink and sparkly all at the same time--I'm not sure that this can ever be topped! We might as well go ahead and cancel Christmas.

In addition to a little shopping, Leila enjoyed going to storytime with GiGi, watching lots of movies, dancing with scarves which she calls woo-woos because of the noise we make when we're dancing with them, and demonstrating the proper way to put a baby doll down for a nap by spreading all of the couch pillows over the living room floor, plopping all the babies on the pillows, draping a woo-woo over the babies, and then patting the babies on the bottom and saying "THERE." They also picked out a pumpkin and a costume for Halloween! (picture to come)

It was a great week and we're looking forward to seeing GiGi again soon.