The Little Gymnast

I've started taking Eden to "gymnastics" once a week. I say, "gymnastics" because it is in the gymnastics building, but for her age group it's really just organized chaos. She loves it! And I totally love it because everything is trampolines, or padded inflatable toys, or cushioned giant mats...so basically nothing for her to hurt herself on! It's great!

There's a giant trampoline, which she hasn't quite mastered:

Big inflatable toys:

And I giant swing! Which I personally think is the coolest, but she's always a bit hesitant. Holding the elephants helps though. :)

I know this picture is way blurry, but maybe it gives you an idea of how big this "swing" is (which is really just a harness suspended from the ceiling). Her little friends are grabbing her toes at the bottom of the pic. :)

We've also started attending the Library's reading times for kids. They sing, play games, and read a book to the kiddos for about 15 minutes. Then they bring out a tub of toys for the kids to play with and reading time is over. She prefers the reading time and gets upset when it's over. Looks like we've got a bookworm on our hands. :)

sorry...no pictures of the library. Though it's fun, it doesn't make for stellar photographs. 

Why Argentina is the Coolest Country EVER...

This is my weasel attempt at getting at least one red clustr dot on our clustr map over there on the right ------>>>>>

I mean, then we'll have every continent covered (assuming Antarctica is a lost cause).

c'mon on S. America!! We need some amigos from down south to come our way!

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.