Self discipline

"No Lauren"

"Stop Lauren"

"Get down Lauren"

These are all phrases Lauren says to herself lately. It kinda gives me some insight to what she hears at daycare all day. The funny thing is, she says these phrases as she commits the crime. So as she climbs on the coffee table she says "get down yaren." Silly girl.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Since we're spending Christmas in Birmingham and won't have any visitors here in Georgia, I decided to upload some pictures of our decorations so you can see how festive we are:

First, I give you the Gordon family Christmas Tree...

The mantle, no stockings hung with care though because we forgot them in Birmingham last year.

The half-painted nativity scene (don't ask)...

Decapitated Santa and other holiday pillows.

The column of Christmas cards...

Advent house and other assorted decor

Finally we have Bebe enjoying the present aspect of Advent...

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Last week Lauren was sick with a stomach virus, which she then shared with me and Patrick. So last weekend we didn't do anything, which meant this weekend we had to be super productive since Christmas is almost here. One of our main tasks was to spend $100 at Sears on Christmas decorations. They gave us a $100 credit for being in the military and the only catches were the money had to be spent by Christmas Eve and the items had to be purchased in the Holiday section. So we ended up with Wrapping paper, lights, ornament hooks and three animated reindeer.

Lauren helped Patrick set them up.

Oooooo, pretty....

Mamma what's that?!

Needless to say, Lil' Jon was not too thrilled with the herd of reindeer that invaded his yard.

Today I also had to put together six small gifts for Lauren's daycare teachers -- three in the a.m. and three in the p.m.

Today ended with Patrick heading out to go camping with his ROTC friends at their annual winter camp out and me starting the Bisquoties. I say "start" because it usually takes me 2 to 3 days to make them (when I'm not chasing a toddler). So tonight I made 265 cookies and that's maybe a third of the dough.

Every time I make these cookies I recall how everyone says Grandma Annie was a good cook, she just didn't like to cook. Well hell, you make and icing 600 cookies and tell me how much YOU like to cook. That being said, it's only once a year so I'll suck it up and quit complaining.

Wow...more than a month...my bad

How can it have been more than a month ago that I updated this thing? How is next week Christmas?? Geez, where to begin...

I'll start by listing all of Lauren's new words. She is talking like crazy now and she's putting sentences together that actually make sense. So here is a list of new laurenisms:

Yellow bus

White bus (these are all over Fort Benning because they transport Soldiers)

Bracelet

Aunt Anne

Pretty

I do it

Mamma do it

Helicopter

Airplane

Blue car

Chicken

Horsey

Pretzels

Peas

Green beans

Meat

More please

Bless you Mamma

Thank you Dadda (seriously, Patrick gets thanked for everything, not poor Mamma)

I Rock

Nose

I Open (when referring to presents)

Sassy Bear

I wet (usually said while changing her diaper)

Michael

Lacey

Hat

Purse

Jacket

Zip it

Black shoes (read more about these below)

Maw Maw

Paw Paw

Bone

Move puppy! (poor Lil' Jon)

Lotion

Chair

Bib on

Ho Ho

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A few months ago I bought Lauren a cheap pair of black Mary Jane shoes to wear with her Christmas dress. This child loves those shoes. Literally the second she hits the door in the afternoon she takes off her tennis shoes, puts them away, puts her socks in her dirty clothes basket and puts on her "black shoes." She wears them with jammies, with jeans, with just a diaper...she doesn't care what she has on as long as she can wear her shoes.

She does branch out occasionally though. She also enjoys her beach shoes

As well as Dadda's shoes

In other Lauren news, she has added steps to her bed time routine. The child that has never cared for being rocked, despite the awesome glider we got before she was born, now demands to be rocked before bed each night.

It's really cute. She says "I rock? I rock?" Sometimes she also asks "I night-night on Mamma?" Night-night on Mamma means, 'can I put my head on your shoulder while we rock?' However, she only wants to rock a few minutes, not until she falls asleep. In fact, she'll usually tell me when she's done by saying "bed."

Speaking of bed, it's approaching bed time and I'm tired. I'll update again tomorrow night and I'll post some pictures of our Christmas decorations.

You better recognize

I got an award at work today from the commanding general of Fort Benning. He is retiring next week and he said he wanted to recognize me before he left. For those who don't know, I'm the speechwriter for him and his staff (about five people total). The award is pretty cool. It's a framed two-star note and a commander's coin. The problem is, the walls of my office are concrete, so I can't hang it just yet. We're moving out of the building in April so it can be renovated. Hopefully our new office space has plaster walls.

Here an up close shot of the 2-star note...

Airborne!

Fort Benning is the home of several schools and courses, one of which is Airborne School. It's the only airborne school in the entire military and all of the different branches come here to become airborne qualified. The 3-week-long course is divided into three different phases. The first week is called ground week, all training is done on the ground. The second week is called tower week, the students jump off of the 34-foot towers and the 250-foot towers. The third and final week is called jump week, during which they must complete five jumps out of an airplane before they earn their jump wings.

Today I got the opportunity to participate in tower week (well part of it). I led a tour group around post and one of the activities was the 34-foot tower. It was way fun, but it was also way high! Here are a few pictures from my experience:

This is the 34-foot tower. You jump out of the door and zip-line down to the bottom.

Here I am in my harness and ready to go...

Arms crossed and about to jump...

Sliding down! My feet are up because you have to go over a hill and the Soldiers yell at you to keep your feet up.

Receiving my jump wings...

And just 'cause she's cute, here is Lauren this morning all bundled up and ready for daycare...

And here she is feeding puppy a bone before we leave. She loves to help and she especially loves when Lil' Jon gives her attention.

Lauren's Second Halloween

Last year on Halloween Lauren crawled for the first time. This year we didn't hit any developmental milestones, but we did get some cute pictures. We started out the season by purchasing a plastic pumpkin at Target and the next day she learned to say "punkin."

Since she seemed rather fascinated with the word I decided it would be fun to take her to a pumpkin patch (to me "fun" means great pictures). So the next time we were in Birmingham we visited Old Baker Farm and found not only a pumpkin patch, but also the 10th annual cotton pickin' festival. Lauren loved all of the animals.




After visiting the animals, we rode a hay ride out to the pumpkin patch, where the pickings were slim because it was late in the day.





Last year around Halloween I set-up a cute fall scene in the backyard and placed my immobile 8-month-old in the middle of it. She did perfect. THIS year, my uncooperative 20-month-old decided she would rather take off her shoes...

...and pick-up every stick or twig in the backyard.

At least one member of my family always poses and loves having his picture taken...

Okay, so this one turned out cute too.

Here is Bebe all dressed and ready for her daycare party, where she was excited to have "cacakes," "sheos" and "setzels." For those who don't speak Lauren she told me about cupcakes, cheetos and pretzels.

As is our Gordon family tradition we had chili for dinner last night because it's easy and fallish. We aren't allowed to have it before Halloween.

Finally, here are a couple shots of Lauren and Lil' Jon watching the trick or treaters. As you can imagine, puppy did NOT like people so close to the house or ringing the door bell. Bebe on the other hand was ecstatic. She waved and smiled to everyone.

Bus!

Lately Lauren has become fascinated with all modes of transportation. When we're in the car she will point out cars, trucks, airplanes and her favorite...bus! Any type of bus will do -- school bus, city bus, even motor homes -- all are buses and all encourage her to say excitedly "Bus! Bus! Bye Bus! Where bus go?" Her daycare is located in the middle of a neighborhood on Fort Benning and the teachers like to take the kiddos on walks. I'm thinking they probably see a fair amount of school buses during the day.

She also has a new transportation wooden "suzzle" that makes sounds (train whistle, car honk, etc.) when the correct puzzle piece is put in the correct spot. She loves it, even though there isn't a bus.

New Car Scent

The Ford Escape is no longer with us because it was involved in a "fender bender" so we had to go car shopping. Fortunately Monday was Columbus Day and as government employees, we had a 4-day weekend to shop -- your tax dollars at work. The Escape was a good car, but we decided to go ahead and upgrade from a small SUV to a mid-size SUV and after much research, we finally decided on the Toyota Highlander. We got the car Monday afternoon and it is so pretty! We got the basic model, but we upgraded to leather seats because we have a child who likes to puke and leather will hopefully be easier to clean.

Here's our new ride. It fits in the garage pretty well, after Patrick did some rearranging.

This is a really cool feature! It's called a conversation mirror. It flips down when a button is pressed allowing you to see everyone in the car. I call it a Bebe mirror.

In other Lauren news she's starting to say more phrases. Here are the newest additions to her vocabulary:

Pumpkin

Glasses

Bite

Eat puppy

Move puppy

Thank you Mamma

Bless you Mamma

Truck

Airplane

Boat

Car

Where Dadda go?

I'm sure there's more, but my brain can't think right now. She has also taken an interest in playing dress up. She gets quite fabulous too. She wears a scarf, bracelets, sun glasses and of course her fisher price rings as high heels. When she has on all her accessories Patrick calls her Elton John. I need to snap a picture of Bebe in her complete get-up, but here she is in the sunglasses. Please ignore the giant shirt and disheveled hair. She had just woken up...

And here she is in her heels...

Finally, just 'cause she's too cute. Here is Bebe ready to go car shopping on Monday. I love, love, love the adjustable waist jeans! Lauren wears her jeans under her belly making it hard for her pants to stay up. Thankfully the adjustable waist pants keep this from happening because you can customize how tight they are. Plus they are way cute because they flair at the bottom. Also notice her new do, the side ponytail...

I heart New York!

Last week we spent five days and four nights in New York. All together we were a group of 14 so doing anything together usually resulted in 14 different opinions, but overall we had a great time. Lauren was awesome on the plane ride both coming and going and she seemed to enjoy everything we did. She had a couple of meltdowns, but they were typically caused by lack of food or sleep or a combo of the two. Here are a few pictures of the trip:

Our hotel was in the fashion district located in mid-town Manhattan. We were within walking distance of Time's Square, Macy's, The Empire State Building, Rockefeller Plaza...all kinds of cool places.



Here's Lauren enjoying our view. It wasn't very picturesque, but she likes to people watch so it suited her just fine.



The main reason we went during this specific time frame was so we could attend the Sen Gennaro Italian Festival in Little Italy. It was pretty cool. Lots of street vendors and awesome food.

The second night we were there Patrick, Dad, Uncle Jon and Jonathan went to a Yankee game. It was the 4th to the last game at Yankee Stadium. Maybe I should have let Patrick take my camera with the extra long zoom lens....

While they were at the game, the rest of us ate at an Italian restaurant near Radio City Music Hall. Then we walked back to the hotel, taking pictures of everything we saw along the way. Poor Lauren was so interested in her surroundings she didn't go to bed until 11 p.m.

The next day we all took a double-decker bus tour of the city.

Empire State Building:

Times Square: Ground Zero:

ELMO!

Canal Street in China Town. Definitely one of the highlights of whole trip! We have some hilarious purse stories.

Later that night it was the girls' turn to go out. We went to see Grease on Broadway. It was awesome!

Lauren fell asleep playing on the bed while we were at Grease so rather than move her, Patrick let her sleep there. She looked so comfortable, but yeah, I moved her when I got home. She didn't wake up, Bebe was exhausted.

The next day we saw some more of the sites and had an *interesting* bus ride -- don't ask. However, I did get this picture of Lauren and Uncle Jeff in front of the Brooklyn Bridge.

We decided to take our already spoiled child to the F.A.O Swartz toy store. Here we are in the cab headed there.

Patrick finds the Lego Chewbacca to be the most interesting piece of art in the city.

Lauren's fascination with taking off her own shoes leads her to help the doll by removing its shoes.

Holly, Patrick, Lauren and I went to Central Park after the toy store and we hiked a good three miles (up hill) in jeans -- thanks Holly. We had fun and after we all took showers, the guys and girls split once more. The guys went to the ESPN Zone to watch the Auburn/LSU game -- what else would you do in New York?? and the girls went to Tavern on the Green for dinner, yum! Mom stayed home with Lauren because Bebe would NOT have been good since our reservations weren't until 8:30 p.m.

Finally here we are headed back home. Lauren was once again excellent on the plane, she passed out almost immediately.