Hi, I'm Carolyn from Indiand

Jim returned to work today to support my hobbies, and I started my art workshop. I I met the rest of the class at a reception held the night before we started. Here's my name tag:



Here's some of the scenery and my interpretation of it:








And the finished piece:



It was such a fun day. Tomorrow we head to Jekyll Island. I'll keep you posted!

Southern Trees

Jim and I are down in Saint Simons (Jim for a long weekend, Carolyn here longer for an art workshop). While wondering through the downtown I came across some Southern Christmas trees.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFvMjjQGMvU

(Anne, you need to show me how to get the YouTube link to display more than the URL)

I love the way they get snow here in Georgia for Christmas.

Here are a few more trees. I can't wait to bring one back to Indiana!









This is a Georgia Bulldogs tree, but could easily be converted to an Indiana Hoosiers or a Rose Hulman Engineers tree. Wouldn't this tree look great with little Rose elephants all over it!




Lastly....my personal favorite.

Hope this puts you in the Christmas spirit!

Dominating the Park

I wanted to share some pictures I took yesterday at the park where Ethan dominated! He also made some new friends who were there with their dads. One of them had a Purdue t-shirt on which didn't seem picture appropriate. I would have love to have taken a picture of the dads on their cell phone sitting on the bench while grandma climbed all over the playground equipment! I want to bring new meaning to hovering grandma!

Happy Halloween

I mentioned that I was going to a Halloween Party.  Instead of using my Red socks, Anne came to the rescue by receving a costume in the mail.  Corey, Ethan, and Anne are headed to a Halloween Party in a few days.  Anne (always the planner) ordered her costume on line.  She would never make it at 'Halloween City'!  Me....sadly a procastinator- was very happy Anne's costume arrived 2 hours before my party started.  Here's how I looked:

 I hadn't planned on being a 'pregnant' nun, but there was an extra balloon in the car ....so the immaculate conception was created.

Here are my friends (the ones with the extra balloons) arriving as a 'bra'. 

Happy Halloween!

Shopping

Ethan and I went out for a few errands and it was fun to experience shopping through the eyes of a toddler.  We headed to Rural King, one of my favorite stores.  I had no idea they carried such a large selection of huge blow up Halloween decorations that would take up most of your yard.  Ethan immediately noticed them.  He especially liked the Halloween Helicopter (what, you don't own one of these).

All my pictures in this post were taken from my arm's lengths. In order to avoid Ethan touching anything in the stores or standing in the stores, I held him. This led to slightly substandard picture taking.

 This is Ethan looking at the Halloween Helicopter.  I tried to explain the concept of  'covenants' and why he would never have one of these. He completely understood.

 We also came upon a disply of animals.  We never quite figured out what one does with this little metal toys, but we found dogs that looked similar to Louie, Bailey and Riley. 

 After Rural King we headed to Cummins State Street, or CSS if you know the lingo. (not to be confused with COB, GOB, SEC, PGA)  Ethan needed to run the company for a few minutes and grandma had to have her 'vital numbers' checked to help lower the cost of her health insurance.  (I'm really trying for a debit card to Babys R Us so Ethan and I can go shopping at a store where he might be able to walk)

 After we saw granddad at CSS (see above if you have already forgotten your acronyms) we headed to Halloween City.  Grandma was going to a Halloween party and needed something to make an outfit out of.  Ethan and I decided upon a pair of red and white stripped socks.  (these are available for anyone's use of they need them)  That was about all the shopping Ethan Grandma could handle.  From here we headed home.

 Ethan had a nice lunch of peas, wild rice, grilled cheese and fruit.  After he had thrown it on the floor and I explained that we don't throw our food at grandma's house (save that for home where Louie is); Ethan got down and pointed to the food and said, "no-no".  I plan to use this tactic in the future.  I think you should too.  Jim, just think of the possibilities of pointing to an injector that is plugged and saying, "no-no...bad injector"!

As we headed up for a nap, Ethan decided to try his old baby bumper seat.  It's his barco lounger of toddlers.  It was a perfect way to end our day of shopping!

Finding Elmo

One of Ethan's favorite words to say is, "Elmo."  When I couldn't convice him that Curious George or Blue Alphabet Dog were Elmo's cousins, we decided to head to the library to check out some Elmo books.  Here is Ethan ready to go in his car seat which takes grandma about 20 minutes to hook him into.  He can only breath diaphragmatically after his strapping, but it's a short trip.

The library has a Halloween scene set up on arrival.  Ethan loved looking at the pumpkins and ghosts.  I explained that he would never see one of those rats at his house.

The library set up has changed since I last took Anne and Mike.  There are some books for older children in a stack when you walk in.  Ethan quickly knocked out about 6 of these.  We both got the 'look' from the check out person, who looked like she just got out of lock up to come to her job.  I wish I could have shared this visual, but the timing wasn't right.

We made it to the Picture Book section and starting looking for Elmo books.  Ethan quickly came upon two children working on computers.  I explained this is where all the home school come for some lessons.  He looked up at me and said, "How do I sign up for that gig?"

 

He was excited to see games and puzzles at the library. 

Finally, we found some Elmo books and another one of Ethan's favorites- Dr. Suess.

Ethan is old enough to have his own library card, but his parents must be present to get one.  Checkout gal said, "Just drag em in with you next time." 

As I was checking out the books, Ethan found computers with Vegas type games blasting.  All I could hear was, "Up"; so I knew he had a find.  There were four computers set up with two of them occupied (more home school kids--see above)

Ethan and I started playing the game...something about flying to China---but then checkout girl came over and told us we had to sign up to use those computers.  Maybe they don't want 18 month olds banging on their keyboards or maybe it's one of the perks of being those home school kids!



All in a Day

Ethan comes to visit on Wednesdays and it's always a fun filled day.  I attempted to capture some of our activities.  Here's where we started in the office.  Ethan likes to check the computer, push the phone buttons and write (with 2 pens- double fisted) pretty much all at the same time. 

After work, we headed upstairs to play with some legos.  He loved the car legos. 

Ethan loves buttons.  I tried to teach him how to use my camera.  Unfortunately, I showed him the wrong button first, so he kept turning my camera off.  After I undid my teaching and retaught the correct way, he was ready to shoot!

Here's his first photo of grandma. (Notice G-ma is still in jammies.....one of those days!)

Once Ethan got the swing of things, it was capture the world.  Here's a sample of his photos.  I didn't have enough space to show all of them.  I think he may follow his mother in picture taking.

I tried to get a picture of Ethan combing/curling his hair.  I wasn't quick enough.  Ethan's been called a girl one too many times for his mother.  I think those beautiful locks are coming off soon.

After all this fun, it was time for lunch.  Ethan is really into Mac and Cheese.  He starts with a spoon, but quickly realizes it's faster just to shovel it in. 

We also went to the park, and had a little late afternoon party with some of grandma friends.  Those never made it on camera. 

The best picture of the day would have been grandma asleep on the couch for the rest of the evening after Ethan leaves.....getting ready for next Wednesday!