There is a cat we "know" (not in real life, but in literary life, but if you talk to us about these characters we'll talk as if we know them for real since we have spent many, many hours with them, thank you Lilian Jackson Braun) named Yum Yum who is famous for her love of strings and shiny things. There is a baby we know who is very much like Yum Yum who also very much loves strings and shiny things. The other day I came into the living room to find this:
Did you notice the little red tie on the floor? Obviously the lady who made this quilt for us did not anticipate a baby deconstructing her lovingly placed and oh-so-stringy-delightful ties (and apparently they're fun to eat since we've found them in her diaper).
Another of her favorite strings are on the body - if you've ever gotten your face too close to her little hands you probably know that she'll go for your eyelashes first and if she can't get them because you blink, she'll try to immobilize the whole eyelid with her razor fingernails then commence plucking out for eyelashes (I, for one, am grateful her fine motor control has a long way to go to mature or you could call me Eyelashless Amanda). After she's given up on the eyelashes she'll go for the hair. There must be something that feels so good about wrapping one's little fingers around strands of hair and yanking?
Electrical cords are another favorite of Grace's for general teething. Obviously we haven't done a great job of babyproofing yet since these two poor little cords are battle scarred with many toothless gum gnaw marks.
I think Weezer knew my baby when they (or whoever?) wrote the song with the lyrics "if you want to destroy my sweater, pull this string as I walk away." [Note to self: after mending the clothing that has had strings pulled out of it, be sure to trim every single thread so as not to mend again next week.] Just when you think you've found all threads available for picking...
One thing Yum Yum is famous for is un-tying shoelaces while the unknowing victim is being distracted. Let's just say that if Grace is sweetly playing at your feet and you're wearing tie shoes besure to look down so you don't trip on your way out.
Un-tying Grandpa Ivan's shoelaces
I'll bet that you can guess (you thought I was going to say can't guess...I have more faith in you than that!) why this is a favorite string, I mean thing:
What a funny babyrooski! Watch your strings next time you see her!
Rob weeding the future onion bed. What a trooper. He wasn't feeling well and had already ripped out a brick wall that morning.
Strawberries
Carrots and chives someday. Hopefully.
The little peaks you can sort of see on the left are the onions. The two tiers are the strawberries. 
Did you notice the little red tie on the floor? Obviously the lady who made this quilt for us did not anticipate a baby deconstructing her lovingly placed and oh-so-stringy-delightful ties (and apparently they're fun to eat since we've found them in her diaper).
Electrical cords are another favorite of Grace's for general teething. Obviously we haven't done a great job of babyproofing yet since these two poor little cords are battle scarred with many toothless gum gnaw marks.
Un-tying Grandpa Ivan's shoelaces
What a funny babyrooski! Watch your strings next time you see her!
How cute are these munchkins? Grace and her cousin Will chillin on the table. It was both of their nap times so if they look a little spacey, we'll blame it on that.
Gracie and her Uncle Tommy. Somehow by the end of the luncheon, Grace had collected all the cell phones she could see and was having trouble deciding on which to suck on first. Oh the decisions facing little babies these days!
Rob and his mama, Annette
Birthday Girl! Looking oh so fine in her new jacket.
Katie is turning "almost 20" but if you look closely at the candles, she's rounding up a bit
Hey, it's my blog, so I can gratuitously put many, many cute pictures of my baby on it if I want! :)
Attack of the killer Grace-facer!
The whole Carter kids clan. Aren't we good looking?
There's Henry. Could he get any cuter?!? I think not.
Apparently Grace and Tom are pretty photogenic since here's another one of them. Grace loves her Uncle Tommy and had to sport her true blue because Tom is decked out in the color of You-Know-What (The School That Must Not Be Named).
You can't see very well, but the first (and hopefully worst) sunburn of the season is developing on my arm right there. Oops, sunscreen what? At least I'm a careful mom and lathered my baby up even if I don't pay as much attention to myself.
Grace wanted to wish everyone a
and she wanted to give a baby birthday shout out to her favorite Uncle Brian:
Then she was tired from all the shouting out
The Diaper Diaries hosts Things I Love Thursday every Thursday (obviously) and I just couldn't resist posting a thing I love: Grocery Smarts. I went to a couponing class for Enrichment a couple of weeks ago and a girl came and talked about Grocery Smarts, a website that helps you to save money by planning your grocery shopping trips. Here's a blurb from their handout "How does it work? Using the stores weekly ad, grocerysmarts maintains a list with the SALE price of each item. In addition, it lines up all the existing manufacturer's coupons and tells you what your bottom line is for each item." When you go to their website (www.grocerysmarts.com), you will need to enter a passport (the shareable passport I use is g84chs), then you can choose which store you want and it will give you a list of all of the items in the weekly ad with how much they're on sale. They even rate each item on a 5-star basis of how good of a sale it is for the item. The best thing, it's really helpful, and completely FREE. I also love that as you go through the list for the store you can click on the items that you need and then shrink the list so it only shows the items you need, then you can add notes for other items that you may need and then print it out. I love that right there on your list it tells you how much you should be spending on each item and which coupons you should use. As far as I can see it's only for Utah grocery stores. This site would be useful even if you don't keep your coupons, but even better if you do. I use this website to see what's on sale, then I plan my meals around what's on sale, add the final items I may need that aren't on sale and print it out and go. I love compiling my grocery lists now!
One summer I went to a Christian preschool summer school. The only thing that I remember from it was a song. "Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other is gold." Last night we went to dinner with some of my old girlfriends from college and their husbands, Lori and Joshua Hewlett and Jessica and Brad Petersen. We had tons of fun catching up. I love new friends, but there is something so comfortable and happy about old friends.
