We are Family

I am hosting a family get together on Sunday, and it is looking like it is going to work out pretty good. I was worried that we weren't going to have enough room but I think we should be OK. I have to clean out the garage tomorrow, which I am not looking forward to. Thank God Monya is going to watch Charlotte for a couple of hours so I will actually be able to get something done. I really don't know what we would do without Dave and Monya. They are sent straight from heaven. Faith is coming on Saturday and we are going to the Farmers Market in Madison and then we are going to bake cookies. I am really looking forward to talking with everyone and getting information about our family. I really hope everyone bring pictures and anything else they may have. It should be a good time.

Snake in the Grass

OK today was pretty crazy. Jim has been hauling sweet corn and my brother Charlie wanted Jim to bring him a bunch home. So Jim brought it home and I was suppose to take it to my dad's house so Charlie could pick it up. Well I went over to my dad's before I went to the store. I opened my trunk to get the corn out and it is gone. Jim had taken it out and left it in our garage. So I am really running late now. I get back home and I start loading the corn in the car and all of a sudden the dogs start barking. I am thinking it is a frog or a gopher. I yell at them to stop acting like idiots, but they keep on. So I walk over expecting to pick up a frog or whatever and move it so the they knock it off. To my surprise and horror there is a rather large snake that is standing up straight rattling and it a freaking hood like a cobra. I am freaking out at this point. What the hell would a cobra be doing in Wisconsin?? Was I crazy?? I go and look again and sure enough this thing has a hood. I am panicking because it is heading for the house. I try calling Dave and Monya but they aren't home. Then I called Steve our other neighbor and tell him " Steve I think I have a freaking Cobra snake in my front yard". Well of course he think I am exaggerating. I am sure he thought it was a garden snake and I was overreacting. I stressed to him that I know what a garden snake looks like and this isn't it. I tell him it has a hood and it is rattling. I am thinking maybe it was a pet and someone got sick of taking care of it. So Steve sends one of him buddies over to get it in a bucket. In the mean time I have put a laundry basket over it with rocks on the top. Brett finally gets here as the damn snake is trying to get out of the basket. He almost made it too. To make a long story short it was a Bull Snake. I guess we have them around here. I have never in my life seen a snake with a hood around here. It technically isn't a hood they just puff up and rattle like a rattle snake. Even Brett said it looked like it had a hood. Well he got it in a bucket and took it to Steve's. He is going to take it to one of the wetlands and let it go. It was about 2 1/2 feet long. Once it was in the bucket it looked smaller but it was still a big snake for around here. Snakes are the one thing I can't stand. I can handle bugs and mice but snakes are a deal breaker. So that was my drama for the day. I didn't get a picture of the actual snake but here is a picture of what it looked like.

Charlotte Crawling Part 2... Back to the leap frog table!!!

This is a really long video so you may get bored but I tried to get these videos to work every way possible so I have a "few" videos of her crawling so I thought I would share. My advice would be to let it download then go back and watch it. that way it won't stop and start and drive you crazy! ENJOY!

Charlotte Crawling..... Thank God for YouTube

Uploading Killed the Video Star

I have given up for now trying to get my video to upload. It is driving me crazy. I am going to contact the support for the converter I am using and see if I can get it figured out. By the time I get it figured out her crawling will be old news, she will proably be walking. OK enough about that. I finally got Charlotte's pictures in the mail yesterday so everyone will be getting copies soon.

What have we been up to you ask?? Well life has been busy and pretty mundane. We haven't really been doing to much. Jim has been hauling sweet corn and thank god it is his last week. He will be back home on Monday. I am really missing him being home. Last night I let the dogs out and I swear there was someone out there. I get so freaked out being home by myself, but I swear. I was sitting on the back steps and I heard the leaves russle. I thought it was the cat because he had snuck out when I got home, but then it was two distinct foot step walking along the pine tree line next to the corn field. Well needless to stay I didn't stick around to find out who or what it was. I went in the house grab a kitchen knife and sat on the couch in terror. I am not one of those dumb ass horror movie girls who hear a thud in the darkness and then walks towards it asking "Who's there." Not me instead I slept with all the windows doors and anything else that would lock locked. I had almost all the lights in the house on and I left them on all night. Screw the environment!! I know a bit of an over reaction, but your not here by yourself hearing people walking around in backyard. Tonight I am better but will probably still leave the lights on. Jim is going to kill me when he get the light bill and it has doubled from last month, again I don't care he is not here by himself. OK I am done now. I will move on to happier things. I have been getting into researching our family history. I went to Poynette on Thursday and finally got to see the book my grandmothers sister put together on the history of my mom's side of the family. This book is amazing. 941 pages of everything you could possibly want to know about your family. I am trying to get a copy of the entire book so I will be able to share it with my brothers and sisters. I really think it is important for everyone to have a copy and add to it. I have really enjoyed doing this and I plan on taking it a lot further. I am going to do some of Jim's side but I think it is going to be difficult because Jim's mom has no contact with anyone in her family. She separated herself from everyone in her family for one reason or another so I am not sure anyone on that side will even speak to me. I also want to talk with my dad about his side of the family. I asked him about it and found out my Aunt Charlotte A.K.A. "Big Charlotte" Has a book about our family history that goes back to Scotland. So I am going to call her this weekend and see if I could copy it and see what pictures she has. I am guessing she has a lot of information, so it will be fun to see what she has. I want to do this especially since my dad is getting older and will not be around much longer. It needs to be done. I am going to put together a scrapbook and a hope chest for Charlotte and any other kids Jim and I have. I want to be able to put together a picture of the family my children are apart of. It is fascinating to me. Other then that things are going well. I am posting some new pictures of Charlotte taking a bath. We have found that it is so much easier for Charlotte to just take a bath with either Jim or I instead of trying to do it separately. Our bath tub has a ceramic ledge that goes all the way around and it makes it impossible to put Charlotte in the tub and still be able to reach her. The tub is too deep and the ledge makes it to far away. So she just goes in with one of us and we kill two birds with one stone. She likes it because Jim likes playing with the toys as much as she does. When Jack and Cherie were here Jack would say that when Jim wanted me to come and get Charlotte it was because he wanted to play with the toys by himself. It is probably true, but that what makes him a great dad. He loves to play with Charlotte as much as Charlotte likes playing with him. So enjoy the pictures and I really hope to get the video up soon. I am going to try posting it on youtube and then transfer it here so keep checking.

Gone Baby Gone

Charlotte is on the move. Go, Go, Go!!!! She is crawling all over the place. It has made life interesting. She wants to open everything and nothing below two feet is safe. She is pulling herself up too. She has a leapfrog learning table and she pulls herself up to standing while holding onto that. We walk over to Dave and Monya's at night and sit on the porch and talk, they have a cute little dog (Gracie) and Charlotte loves crawling after her. It is so funny. Gracie will play along with her game. They go back and forth across the porch. And Gracie runs up to her licks her face and turns around and waits for her at the other end.(Yeah I know dogs mouths are full of germs Blah Blah Blah). It is really cute. Then they share a Popsicle, not literally, but Monya feeds it to Charlotte and she drops most of it on the porch and Gracie cleans it up. Everything and anything she can get her hands on goes straight to her mouth. Speaking of mouth, she can now say Dada and Mama. Jim hasn't heard her say it yet because he is hauling sweet corn this week. He is going to be so happy to hear her say it. I think he was really hoping she would say Dada first, but I had an unfair advantage because I have been drilling Mama into her head since the day she was born. Today when I put her down for a nap, I went to check on her and she was sitting up in her crib and she was on the verve of standing. I am defiantly going to have to lower her crib again, I lower it once but I don't think it is low enough now. She is just growing so fast. I really can't believe that in roughly four months she will be a year old. Where has the time gone. I don't even remember what it was like to not have her. Things here have been so crazy lately. It seems there are not enough hours in a day. I have been going all week. Monday I was sick and Tuesday Jim came finally came. Wednesday we had Laurie and Herbie here for Dinner. That was nice. When Charlotte was first born we would have dinner with them every Wednesday, lately life has gotten in the way. Charlotte is scared of Herbie. I think it is his beard. It is funny and sad at the same time. He want so badly to hold and play with her but she doesn't want any part of even looking at him. She only seems to be afraid of two people. Herbie and Jim's mom. She will grow out of it soon. We don't see them as much as we use to so I think that may have a something to do with it. They are so good to Charlotte and to Jim and I. It was nice to have them over. Laurie bought Charlotte this really cute camouflage jumper. Jim thought it was great. I have a camo onsie that has ruffles on the butt. We are going to have her pictures take in it with Jim's camo bucket hat an one of his duck calls. He wants a picture like that for his wallet. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday I was at the store, and today I had to clean my dad's house, drop a highchair off in Poynette, Go Portage to get some pictures from my brother Pete. I have started doing a family tree scrapbook for Charlotte. All of the family has come together to share pictures, memories, and information. It is so great to look at pictures of my mom when she was little and of my grandma when she was younger. I am going to Poynette on Wednesday to start copying a family history book. I am really starting to get into finding out all I can about my family. I will post some pictures of the book and my mom tomorrow after I get them scanned onto my computer

What's in a Name...............

Well Charlotte has went crazy in the learning department this week. On Tuesday she decided it was time to utter her first word. It was of course Mama. I have been drilling it into her head for months. There were two things I wanted when I found out I was pregnant. First I wanted the baby to look like me (Check) Second I wanted it's first word to be Mama(Check). Now she can grow up to do whatever it is she wants to do. I really wanted to prove the "expert" wrong. Most people say that babies usually say Dada first because it is easier for them to say. Well take that experts!! I was so happy when she finally did it. Then she kept saying it and I got it on tape because I knew no one would believe me. The other thing she start is to crawl. She has been so close this past month that I knew it wouldn't be long. She started out crawling backwards so she could get into a sitting position from being on her belly. Then on Tuesday she was sitting outside and she had scooted herself to far away from one of her toy and she got into the crawling position and just started crawling forward. It was so amazing to watch her gain her Independence. She was so happy that she could actually move herself to where she wanted to go. It was pretty cool. Then Jim taught her to do "give me Five" She usually gives him 15 or 20 but she understands the concept. It is pretty cute. I am really hoping I can get the video of her saying mama to upload. I have a Sony Mini DVD camcorder but I can't get the video to upload to this site or you tube. It is driving me crazy. What good is this damn camcorder if I can't share my videos on the computer. I have been trying everything under the sun to get it to work. So I am hoping to get it posted.