our little bucket head, cupcakes, jaydiohead & i've been hearing, but I haven’t been listening

Here is Lottie Sue this afternoon. Whatever floats your boat, I say.

bucket head

These photos are of Lottie Sue on Sunday afternoon, she's really into cooking right now. She often copies Matt when he's in the kitchen making dinner. She'll get her kitchen on if Daddy is creating a meal, too cute.

the most delicious meal you'll never eat

And this is a photo I took of Lottie Sue giving me a big hug. Love her.

lottie sue is a lover, not a fighter

Here are a few Lottie Sue-isms for you:

• She has three babies that she plays with all day, she wants to take all three of them with her if we go anywhere.
  
• On Sunday night she kept telling me "I your little girl" over and over again - it made me cry it was so sweet. Side note: my pregnancy hormones make me cry at just about anything. Like I bawled at the end of The Amazing Race (???), and I really didn't care who won. I was just so happy for them I couldn't contain myself. I also cried the other day when Matt barely mentioned Lottie Sue getting married one day. Waterworks. It's funny.
  
• She loves to eat blackberries and raspberries, I think she might turn into a berry.
• She loves her pajama set that has the Disney princesses on them. She will tell the shirt "HIIIII" and then count the princesses over and over again.
  
• Lottie Sue had a bona fide #1 in the potty last week (see photo below - and yes, we took a photo) with a #2 yesterday.
  
• Lottie Sue loves to hug people, she is a very sweet little girl.
• Lottie Sue does not have a shy bone in her body. She is very social.
  
• She loves to wear Mommy's doos (shoes).
• Lottie LOVES to dance around, her favorite song is the theme song to The Family Guy. She goes nutz every time.
• She loves to fake sneeze, she thinks it's hilarious.
  

Last week Carrie hosted another Cupcake Extravaganza (and has a post up as well), a splendid time. She made dinner for us girls (this was one of the dishes and it has my name all over it - I even made it last night and I never cook: Giada's Pasta Ponza recipe) in addition to prepping everything for the fun. I stole some photos from Carrie and Kenley's crackbook pages.

here i am with patterson, kenley and amanda
with our creative juices flowing

carrie taking a picture of me about to take a picture

nomnomnomnomnomnom

megan about to chomp down

wonder woman herself with part of the cob

see? do they look real or WHAT?

Next we made monkey cupcakes. These guys were super cute.

gimme a kissee

i named him "burt"

the whole family of monkeys

Next up was a batch of lion cupcakes, these were my favorite and were so much fun to create. I really enjoyed doing the detail work on these babies.

roarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr (my lion is at 4 o'clock)

Here is a shot of the cupcakes together, all I can say is AWESOME. I LOVE decorating cupcakes!

voila

megan, amanda and p-dub post decorating

megan and amanda now with kenley

OK, here is a TMI shot for you. It is Lottie Sue's first real #1 in the potty. It is weird to think about how excited Matt and I got over this. Matt was in there with her and he starts yelling for me, I run in there and it's confirmed then I run after the camera. To take a photo of urine. Help me.

lottie sue is getting to be a big girl (wah)

Some news you can use:

• There are two albums out that are available for download and are free to you. One is from Coldplay (oh Chris Martin, you can do no wrong) and the other is from Jaydiohead - yes, that is JayZ and Radiohead. And yes, it is awesome. Enjoy.
• Here is a list of everything Tracey Jordan said this season on 30 Rock. I love that show and he especially cracks me up. Two of my favorites: “Pete, how am I going to live? I only have three hundred million dollars" and "I've been hearing, but I haven’t been listening."
  
• The trailer for the Sherlock Holmes move is up. I'm a big fan of Robert Downey, Jr. and love just about anything he's in. Check it out here.
• I am going to watch the Fox show "Glee" this evening. I've heard great things about it.
• Please please please set your DVRs for "So You Think You Can Dance" - it premieres this Thursday night. It. Is. Awesome. Even if you think it's not your thing, you will love it. This is one of the pieces from two years ago, it's titled "Hummingbird and Flower" or something like that. I think it is gorgeous.
  

PS - I just stole these photos from Jamie's crackbook page. They took the girls golfing last week and had a few photos. They were too cute not to share.

john with a very happy evy and campbell

campbell, jamie and evy - campbell and evy cracked me up on this one

Alrighty, check you later...

joshua takes first prize, boating up norris lake & team hardee's

joshua takes first prize

Well, my girl Katee didn't win shoobeedoobeedooDANCE, but I'm at peace with Joshua winning (he was my #2). The Jonas Brothers performed on the show as well. Full disclosure: I like the Jonas Brothers and have their new song on my workout playlist. Sydney uses our computer to update her ipod so we have LOTS of "teenager" songs. One day Matt and I were in the car and we listened to one Sydney's playlists, it was funny. We are OLD.

This morning Lottie Sue pulled out every magazine from the bookshelf and has a pile of magazine inserts. She loves them and pretends to read them I think. She'll gibber on and point to words and images on them. It's pretty cute, but on to the post.

The weather this past weekend was just about perfect. Truly perfect. We spent our time laking it up and I have a few photos. We also video taped a lot and I have it on my list to get into those this week. I have so many, now it's overwhelming. Anywho, a few photos of this past weekend...

lottie sue crawling around on the boat (she will not sit still)

grandaddy, bb and lottie sue look at something in unison

lottie sue obstructs bb

tommy jets by on the sea doo

we're getting gas here, lottie sue is examining something but i have no idea what

a photo of an old railway bridge on norris lake

lottie sue serves as hood ornament

lottie sue and her dad, their usual happy selves

Last night we played Yahtzee and watched the Olympics with Tommy (he kicked our behinds). The women's gymnastic team looked a little rough but what struck me more was their outfits. As soon as I saw it the Hardee's logo popped into my head. What do you think?

order up

Lottie Sue starts her second set of swim lessons this Friday. They have really made a difference. She was never scared of water but she handles herself differently now in the water. She will kick when she's under water and she will also kick herself into the water from the side of pool. She's learning to hold her breath and when she goes underwater she closes her eyes real tight. It's adorable.

I've had a few people ask me about our camera. The good one is a Nikon D40, but the thing that makes the real difference is the flash we bought for it. Look here, Matt did an experiment with Sydney and it's crazy what a difference it makes.

sans flash

with external flash

OK, here are some stories for your Monday morning reading:

• This is what I get for reading The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, now I read a ton of stories like this: The four barriers to the genetically modified-food revolution, and who no one is talking about them.
• For you popcorn aficionados (Megan, this means you) out there, here is a guide for buying popcorn poppers. I'm going to get this one.
• John Edwards, shame shame we know your name (sorry Cera!).
  
• I joined Facebook last week, it's blowing my mind. I'm in touch with about 50 people I haven't seen in 15 years! I'm especially enjoying the "you look the same!" comments. Keep em coming...
  

OK, I'm out for today. Here's to a good week!

PS - You'll notice on the right side of the page here that I put up photos to timeline the growth of Lottie Sue. You have to scroll down a bit to see them but it's so neat to see how she's grown in just over a year.

PPS - Cera, please join facebook.

melinda is insane, kathy and whitney rock & bollywood

Lottie Sue and I (Matt had a conference in Miami) went to the beach with the Venable family last week and I am trying to ease back into daily life again. I have a ton of photos to upload but it's going to take me a while, in the meantime I have other stuff to post for your entertainment.

My cousin Melinda has lost her mind. She completed TWO triathlons this summer and has probably signed up for 10 more. She's a machine, and here is proof...

biking and running her way to victory
while everyone else eats her dust

In other family news, my aunt Kathy and cousin Whitney have been on tv and in the newspaper lately. This story, Female Construction Company Owners Receive Award, ran last month on channel 8 news. I am unable to embed the video on our blog but let me tell you that it was a neat piece. They were also featured in a local newspaper, here they are...

keep on trucking

Lottie Sue started her swimming lessons this morning at Adventure Swim and she did very well. Allow me to brag: she was doing so well with the dunking that the instructor singled her out and asked everyone to watch her a few times. I think I ended up dunking her about 15 times and she was over it by the end of that section. She did very well on the boards and then moved on the swimming with a dumbbell under her arms. She wasn't sure about it at first but she didn't cry at all. She just stuck it out and I could see that she was getting used to it - still not her favorite though. They do a kicking activity and she loved it so much, she was squealing nonstop. Adorable.

I hope everyone is watching So You Think You Can Dance. If you are rolling your eyes wellletmetellyou - it's awesome and stop rolling your eyes. A mixture of contestants are chosen for the show, ranging from unknown street dancers to winners of national championships. All contestants have to work their way through a rigorous audition process, and, over the course of the show, are assigned different dance styles and partners each week to test their versatility. It's on tomorrow night with the results show on Thursday nights. We are down to 4 couples, people!

Update: I just read that Jessica is injured and Comfort is back in, I'm sorry but I haven't been impressed that Comfort can dance new styles but overall I'm bored.

My favorite dancer is Will but my favorite couple is Katee and Joshua. Last week K&J performed a Bollywood number and it was my favorite, here you are if you are so inclined...

Plus, my girl crush Mia Michaels is a choreographer and judge on the show. I can't get enough! Carrie (luvs Cat D.) and I like to text each other during the show, it's way fun. I think that they have a lot of great dancers left, there are only one or two that I don't care for.

Please note that Project Runway starts tomorrow night on Bravo - I love it! I will be posting about it for sure. Here is a clip from the show...

OK, I'm done for now. I'll leave you with another hilarious photo from icanhascheezburger, it cracked me up.

the shame

Our beach post should publish in a day or so. Until then...