help a sister out

O.k. ya'll...
I've entered Charlie's Nautical party in a little contest over at The City Cradle.

The winner of the contest will receive a $100 Anthropologie giftcard... which would be beyond lovely.

SO - head on over to The City Cradle and vote for me tomorrow!
I'll be your best friend.

dad-isms

I love my dad.

My dad is the KING of "dad-isms".
You know, Dad jokes, Dad quotes, Dad sayings, Dad trivia.
Dad-isms.

Tonight, while we were hanging out at my parent's house, my dad (with the tell-tale gleam in his eye which preceeds every really great dad-ism) said, "Charlie, I was a little worried that your momma was going to dress you like Little Lord Fauntleroy, but I'm pleased to see that she hasn't."

Eh?
What's that Dad?
"Little Lord Fauntleroy"?

My first reaction to the announcement was that "Little Lord Fauntleroy" had to be another one of my Dad's random names for things: some crazy, made-up name meaning "pansy kid".

The name kind of stuck with me.
It's kind of a silly one.
And fun to say.

After some extensive googling research, I discovered that "Little Lord Fauntleroy" does in fact, exsist.

Are you ready?
According to wikipedia,
Little Lord Fauntleroy is the first children's novel written by English–American playwright and author Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was originally published as a serial in the St. Nicholas Magazine between November 1885 and October 1886, then as a book by Scribner's in 1886.

The Fauntleroy suit, so well-described by Burnett and realized in Reginald Birch's detailed pen-and-ink drawings, created a major fad for formal dress for American middle-class children:

"What the Earl saw was a graceful, childish figure in a black velvet suit, with a lace collar, and with lovelocks waving about the handsome, manly little face, whose eyes met his with a look of innocent good-fellowship." (Little Lord Fauntleroy)


The Fauntleroy suit appeared in Europe as well, but nowhere was it as popular as America. The classic Fauntleroy suit was a velvet cut-away jacket and matching knee pants worn with a fancy blouse with a large lace or ruffled collar. These suits appear right after the publication of Mrs. Burnett's story (1885) and was a major fashion until after the turn of the 20th century. Many boys who did not wear an actual Fauntleroy suit, wore suits with Fauntleroy elements such as a fancy blouse or floppy bow. Only a minority of boys wore ringlet curls with these suits, but the photographic record confirms that many boys did. It was most popular for boys about 3–8 years of age, but some older boys wore them as well. It has been speculated that the popularity of the style encouraged many mothers to breech their boys earlier than before and was a factor in the decline of the fashion of dressing small boys in dresses and other skirted garments.

 
Hmmm...
I'm still trying to decide if I should feel complimented or dissed.
 
I'm going to go with comlimented.
 
I'm not going to lie. I love me some cute kid's clothes. Especially cute, handmade, traditionally southern kid's clothes.
Give me a shortall or smocked dress over a pair of jeans and trendy top any day.
In fact, with the exception of the time that she peed her pants at school and had to wear the school's pants home - Avery has never even worn a pair of jeans.
Neither has Charlie.
I just prefer sweet clothes on sweet little kids.
 
But this - this was never my idea of cute.
 

In fact, that's just plain creepy.

So Dad, for the record - I promise not to dress Charlie like your boy "Little Lord Whatnot".

Sincerely.

winter break time!

Please excuse me while I play a little game called "bloggy catch-up". It's what happens when you have the stomach bug, no computer, and no time. 

The week before Valentine's Day (see, told 'ya - catching up), our family ventured down to Dallas to accompany David for his pastor's conference there. 

I'm glad that we made the trip with him, because otherwise, I would have missed these beautiful KIDS jackets for sale for mere pennies at a Pilot gas station. 

.. every mother dreams of seeing her little ones in matching pleather biker jackets. 

And yes, I took a picture of them while I was in the gas station.

Yes I did.

We were super-worried about traveling all the way down to Dallas with 2 little guys in tow. 

And we should have been.

What normally would have taken 8 hours took us 11+. 

Thankfully, we had the genius idea to purchase a couple of these bad boys at Wal-Mart before the trip:

I'm pretty sure that my 15 month-old watched enough t.v. over the trip to ensure future hyperactivity issues. Awesome.

Nothing like a few hours of Diego to boost brain development.

He made up for it at the hotel by doing a little reading before bed.

While Avery opted to do a little freshening up. Right before bed.

We woke up the next day to this:

In Dallas.

Seriously.

Crazy, huh?

David used the opportunity to teach our 3-year-old how to make dangerously large snowballs.

And then to pose sweetly before chunking them at the hotel door.

Classy.

Later, we met up with my Aunt, Uncle, Grandmother and cousins for a little family time.

Charlie had so much fun playing with my cousin's little boy.
He liked dinner a lot too.

Those are peaches, by the way... nice and sticky...

The next day, while David went to his conference, my Aunt (a shopping goddess/guru/genius) took me to IKEA...

Oh Ikea, why do you only exist in cool towns? Won't you consider coming to the third most miserable city in America? Please? Pretty Please?

I'm going to take a moment here to show why Ikea completely and totally rocks.

Ready?

Here ya go:

And who doesn't love these teeny tiny shopping carts?

Or a giant igloo?

Fun times.

That weekend, my cousin Hunter drove in from her college to hang out with us.

Avery was in looooove with Hunter.

Seriously smitten.

Charlie didn't seem to notice 'cause he was gettin' himself some good Mimi lovin'.

After a few days at the hotel, Charlie started feeling more "at home".

We stayed at a hotel with some really amazing beds. Big, huge beds. 

Big, huge, king-sized beds.

The kind that you can really stretch out in.

Or so I heard...

On our last day in Dallas, I visited with my sweet college friend, Colin and her family.
Look at this cute little pizza she bought for us:

Charlie loved the pizza almost as much as he loved sitting in Colin's tiny chairs. 

It had been a year since Avery and Colin's little boy, Tyler saw each other last, but they lost no time getting to know each other again.

How cute is he?!?

We had a great time on our little Winter break. Everyone should take a week in February to get the heck out of Dodge and take a little vacation. Don't you think?