Gassss Peas

Eden has renewed her love with Mr. Potato Head. She's gone months now thinking that he's not worthy of play time, and now has rekindled the flame. Specifically with his glasses, which she calls "gassss."

All morning she's been insistent on wearing them no matter what she's doing. And if they fell off, which inevitably they did because they're meant to be worn by a small plastic potato and not a toddler, she'd say "uh-oh",  pick them up, bring them to me, and say "gassss, peas." (because she's so polite when asking for help! :)  

Rarely does she venture off and play by herself, but masked in Mr. Potato Head glasses, she transforms into a very independent toddler. 

These pics, though strikingly similar, were taken with a good 30 minutes in between...all the while she was still wearing the glasses.

Valentines Day...American Style

Long gone are the days of 2 Dozen Roses. This year for V-day, I got exactly what I asked for:

A round brush. that's right. We're big spenders. Told you we aren't huge into V-day. :)

But we did go out for dinner earlier in the week. We took advantage of our next door neighbors and their amazing 5 kids who love to entertain Eden and let them take care of her for the evening while we indulged in some Japanese! mmmmmm amazing. 

We actually did do a little more this year since it just seems appropriate with a little girl around! She actually wore a very V-day-ish outfit, got a card, and a cool new toy (thanks to Avery's recent blogging entries! :) 

Opening her first Valentine's Day card...

Her cool new toy. Paints! She loved it. Although she was far more interested in painting on her belly than the paper. who wouldn't be?

Video Head

I've been trying to do a better job at taking video of Eden lately and not just pictures. She's done some pretty video worthy things lately too. 

She's starting to talk more...

Let me do some translation for the stuff you might have missed:

"Cow" (which she used to say) has now become "moo." 

And by far my favorite, and the purpose of this video, the tongue thing she does after I asked her to say "water", well, that's how she says water. And that's all the time. Anytime she's thirsty, she says, "lblblblblulelbdlbleblbl" instead of "water."  It's too funny to try to correct her.

"Help" is just "huh."

And "please" is "peas."

She's too cool for school I tell ya.

ok the next one doesn't really need any explaining except to say that we're not depriving our child of sleep, I promise. She was just really worn out during lunch the other day and I happened to have the camera handy. :)

Salem Luke

Baby boy officially has a name!

Salem Luke Chancler

His daddy picked it out mostly but I love it too. Since one of the reasons we liked "Eden" so much was because of it's hebrew meaning, delight...we decided to stick with the hebrew theme! :) Actually, that was just coincidence.

Salem in hebrew means "peace" and is derived from Jerusalem. 

And Luke, well, we just like it. It's strong. masculine. biblical. and one syllable. :) we like one syllable middle names.

So it's sticking and we love having something to actually call him now!

What I do

Sometimes Brandon asks me what Eden and I do at home all day. Not because he thinks we don't do anything productive, but (I think) because he wants to make sure I keep him up to date on what she's doing all day. 

So occasionally I take pictures of the goings on in our house just to make sure he's double informed.

None of these are spectacular photos. But trying to capture a moment and still maintain order with a nearing 16 month old is difficult. That's my excuse. So this was today:

In the bathtub with her toys? Her socks. Not sure why. But after I saw her bare feet earlier in the day, I searched the place high and low to try to find them. Not until bath time did we discover their hiding place. 

And a moment not captured on camera...breakfast. Usually she beats me to the kitchen because I'm slow at pulling my pajamas on while she's racing in there to await her chocolate milk. Well apparently yesterday evening we didn't shut the pantry door hard enough, because when I walk into the kitchen I find Eden munching down on cheesy goldfish crackers for her start of a nutritional breakfast. I'm just thankful it wasn't a fist full of the alternative on the bottom shelf in the pantry: bisquick. 

There's never a dull moment with Eden around. 

Musings from Chris...well sort of

Last weekend we enjoyed a little apartment get-together with many of our neighbors. With it being bitter cold lately, we don't go outside as much as we'd like. Which means that we don't see Chris as much as we'd like.

But he and his brothers came out of hiding for our apt party. And it was truly good to see him because he just brightens my soul.

Our sweet host, J, asked him if he'd like some hot chocolate with the one stipulation that he sit on the kitchen floor and not move from his post until he was finished.

So he sits on the floor, patiently (not so much) awaiting his hot chocolate.

J hands him his hot chocolate...

Now, keep in mind Chris is 5. Apparently at 5 years old a human being has yet to acquire "sipping knowledge" because he took one gander at that cup of steaming goodness with mini white marshmallows on top and began to gulp.

Every drop he took into his mouth immediately began pouring back out of his mouth onto his shirt, pants, and previously mentioned kitchen floor.

J and I both saw the tragedy and moved in to offer help. 

J: "Oh...Chris! I'm so sorry sweetie. Can I get you some water?"

Chris, grasping at his flaming hot shirt and with a sheepish down cast look on his face replies, " um. no thanks. I think I'll just chew on some ice."

I know it's not that hilarious. But the poor kid just had his little heart broken by that hot chocolate and the only thing he wanted was ice. ahhh...I just wanted to hug him. :)

Shortly after we arrived Chris' older brother, Eric, gave us a little dose of laughter for the evening. Eric is your typical eleven year old boy. He leaves wood shavings all over our apartment building lawn from whittling branches and sticks into spears and swords. And then he leaves those lying around for my curious toddler to discover. BUT that's a whole different blog.

We were asked to bring a dessert with us for the evening so Eric took it upon himself to make their dessert. His explanation:

"Well, it's a cake. But we didn't have cake mix. So I had to use a muffin mix. It tasted weird after I mixed it together so I added some vanilla. I think it came out ok."

We're all wide-eyed I'm sure, seeking further explanation of this dessert we knew we had to try out of adult responsibility.

His dad: "It was a blueberry muffin mix. He left out the blueberries."

Eric: "Well, who needs fruit anyway?"

Call me a terrible role model. I didn't try a piece. Though I heard through the millings of several others that it was pretty good "cake." 

I'm so ready for it to get warm outside. We get to see Chris and Eric more when it gets warm outside. :)

SNOW!

We woke up to that on Tuesday morning! And not only did we wake up to that, but we woke up to our neighbors throwing snowballs at each other at 7 am! It was awesome. Keep in mind that many of our neighbors are from Florida and Georgia...so this is a very rare treat for them! Of course, it seemed like a treat for us too since we've missed out on snowfall for the past three years! (just this past week it snowed three times in our Big Chicken city!! we're soooo sad we missed it!!)

Eden still wasn't too sure about all of it. Her pathetic and sorry excuse-for-gloves didn't insulate her hands well enough because she kept looking at her hands saying, "cold!" Plus, she's had a nasty hacking cough for the past week and probably knew she didn't need to be out there for very long. But our neighbor brought out a cool sled and her daring side came out. She enjoyed it!

In all we got about 6 inches of snow. We would have been happy with another foot or so, but we can't complain! NC seriously shuts down when this happens. Before even one snowflake fell, school cancellations were being broadcast on the news the night before. Brandon didn't have to go in to work as well as most of our neighbors. And perfect timing too. We're such suckers for current events type stuff that we enjoyed the time at home together to watch all the inauguration coverage. It was a perfect day to gaze outside at the peaceful snowfall, listen to our daughter* hack up a lung, and sip on hot chocolate. mmmmmm

*she's feeling much better now! after two weeks of inconsistent sleeping, 30 minute naps, nose drips, a nagging cough, and general fussiness, I think she's back to her usual happy self!