Snuggle - verb. snug-gle, To lie or press closely, as for comfort or from affection; nestle; cuddle.

Just a couple random cuddle-monkey pictures to share with you. Not too much happening around here, Charlotte is getting warmer but still very rainy. My garden is doing really well because of all the rain and thankfully the mulberry tree was trimmed back so it's getting more sun and less ridiculous berries are rotting on my plants. Wedding plans are coming along, it's going to happen soon and it's crazy. We recently joined the Y, I have yet to go but I will and I'm looking forward to it, I honestly am just so lazy, it will be nice to get moving and have some accountability there, even if it's just guilt over the money we spend going. Anyway, enjoy this beautiful child.
Being sweet to Mama, I'm not sure if this is before bed or after it.
Doing a little dance.
Goodness!
My sweet potato. See that tiny smudge on his cheek? He fell on the coffee table and has a poor little bruise, he's such a boy.

Belly Dance - noun. An Oriental solo dance, performed by a woman with midriff exposed, emphasizing movements of the pelvis and abdominal muscles.

A neighbor/friend had a block party this weekend to celebrate his 20th anniversary of being an American. He's originally from Lebanon so his party was slightly themed, with awesome ethnic food, a drum circle and even some belly dancers. Xander loved the belly dancing, he was mesmerized. It was a great time and a great way to spend our Sunday night. He lives right around the corner from us so we just walked home, and right on time too because it started to rain pretty hard.
Loves his watermelon, just like Papa.
A small circle in the street, listening to the band that was playing on his patio.
He had never seen anything like this.
She gave him a great show, he couldn't take his eyes off of her.
Me and my booski.

Grow - verb. To increase by natural development, as any living organism or part by assimilation of nutriment; increase in size or substance.

Yay, the garden update is here! Just for Crystal who specifically asked. I've been randomly taking pictures of the garden as it's been moving along. We start at the beginning and go to today, the last picture I took this afternoon. It's been such a fun experience. I've had gardens in the past, my family had them when I was young and my grandpa and grandma had huge ones when I was really young. This is my first vegetable garden on my own and so far so good.
This is Darrell, the friendly neighborhood tiller. I sent an email out asking if I could borrow one and he offered to do it for me, isn't Charlotte great? I think it is, especially NoDa. I've learned my lesson about choosing my location for gardens though. First off, I forgot that trees grow leaves, so even if my yard is super sunny in the spring doesn't mean it will be that way in the summer. Also, the tree that I've planted my garden near is some sort of berry tree that drops LAYERS of dark berries all over my garden on a daily basis...so, I guess I'll be more detailed next time.
After I treated the soil with some organic material and plant food...a blank slate.
Insert my little transplants. The onions didn't do as well as I liked, only a couple are sprouting little green chives so I'm hoping more will kick in.
Xander is an amazing little helper. He likes to take that little rake and pound it in the ground. I'm glad that he can see them grow. Today we were looking at the 'flower' that was blooming on my squash plant...Yay, things are moving along! Look how small the tomato plants were...where has the time gone?
Things getting bigger and a couple more transplants added to the mix. And some landscaping added in the background.
This was a heart breaker...A nest fell from the tree above the garden. I guess it was too heavy and the bottom just fell right out of it. Unfortunately all the eggs broke in the fall. Just too sad. The good news is my squash it landed in is just fine.
All the rain has really done good things for the plants. See what I mean about the shade from the leaves...Yeah, I should have thought about that. I think for now the plants are getting enough sun, but not as much as they could have if the garden were placed in the center of the yard.
There's a little shining angel in the corner of this picture. He's using a stick to beat one of the squash plants in the corner there. This was my garden as of today, it's moving along so nicely. I love walking out and looking at it. The tomatoes even have some tiny green balls forming, it's so cute. I just think it's amazing that we can just put things in the ground and they grow and turn into things we pay a lot of money for...incredible.

Birthday - noun. birth-day, A day marking or commemorating the origin, founding, or beginning of something.

I wrote this post backwards, which is kind of different from my usual posts, and by that I mean that the first pictures are from tonight and then the lower pictures are from last weekend, chronologically speaking, backwards...Today is Caleb's birthday!! It was a low key day, I think that's what he wanted. We had a couple friends meet us for dinner at Pho Hoa, one of our favorite places to eat around town, X loves his noodle bowls! Caleb got what he considers one of the best presents ever, a prosthetic leg, complete with a wolf wrap...only Rob would give Caleb that gift and only Caleb would love it. Last weekend we did our usual Sunday which starts at Dolce Vita and ends at Solstice for some bean bag throwing, Xander's favorite patio game. Lots of pictures to see...
Yeah, he's ridiculously cute.
You do what you can to get a laugh...
Caleb's new addition to his office.
Rob gets hold of the camera.
Kelly's hot look and our awesome dinner! Thanks for joining us Rob & Amanda, Crystal (Muffin) and Kelly, a great birthday dinner.
Our newest find! We've been looking for a chest for Xander's toys for a while but nothing we see has been good enough. We happend to be cruisin' the 'hood and saw that someone had set this on the curb, well we couldn't stop ourselves, Caleb cleaned it up and painted a coat of poly on it and it's exactly what we wanted.
Kelly and Sunil entertaining Xander, who's about to lose a flippy-floppy...look at his right foot, the next picture in the sequence shows him running with just one shoe, he could care less when he's playing.
Chris, Sunil and Kelly...yep, Sunil's a nerd - Never Drink and Derive...ha.
This is a very serious conversation...it looks like we're about to fight it out.
Xander, hanging out in the croud...he's such a little socialite. Lately when the school busses drive by our house he waves and yells really loud, 'Bye!'...dang, he's just awesome.

Compete - verb. comp-ete, To strive to outdo another for acknowledgment, a prize, supremacy, profit, etc.; engage in a contest.

Yay! Super Saturday has come and gone. Our skeeball skeason is over and ended this last Saturday with one final party! Super Saturday is the final four and championship of the teams (we didn't make it past playoffs), the wild card tournament (more on that later), the high roller tournament and the hundo roll. I just managed to wiggle my way into the wild card tourney and got pretty lucky because there were a couple people that didn't show so I got to slide ahead on the brackets. X man had a rough start because he wanted to play with all the big kids, he had a break-down then finally broke-down and fell asleep on Papa. All in all a fantastic way to end the skeason and get us excited for summer play. I grabbed a couple pictures off of Facebook and a couple that Caleb snapped during the day.
Xander pimpin' his new shades, he's just so cool! He's also in need of a nap.
A family shot at Super Saturday.
Little man just couldn't handle the excitement and fell asleep in the middle of it all, poor nugget.
Chatting up with the guys at the end of the Wild Card Tourney...THAT I WON!!!
Rolling steady...I was so nervous, over silly skeeball, it's really too fun.
Mama and nugget hanging out.
Skee Love and Special Sauce, one final team shot before our break. Summer league is random draft teams, so we won't get to play together, which is sad but will be fun to meet new people. No worries, Skee Love will be back for the fall skeason.
YAY!!! There it is...in all it's glory. I got to take it home, but I don't know what to do with it.

Fill - verb. To satisfy fully the hunger of; satiate: The roast beef filled the diners.

This is X's newest trick in his climbing portfolio. He has been caught being a bridge between the couch and coffee table and climbing up his crib using the sit and spin. He's our little monkey and we love him. I needed to post something and I thought this would be a nice little entry way into your weekend. Hope you have a good one!

Cruise - verb. To travel about without a particular purpose or destination.

Another good weekend. We woke early on Saturday to stop by a couple local yard sales and little Xander made bank, a new wagon a couple blow up toys and a lot of balls to play with. After that we headed to the antique fair and found a good couple of buys. What great timing we had as well, not 10 minutes after we got home the bottom fell out of the sky and it stormed and rained for about an hour. We stayed in on Saturday night, which is always nice. On Sunday after church we took X-Man and his new ride to our usual Sunday post, Dolce Vita, and met up with a couple friends. All in all another fantastic weekend in Charlotte! Cleaned the balls the laziest way we could...the washing machine. Xander just watched them spinning around, yelling, 'Balls! Balls!'
Caleb's antique show find.
So cute together!
Xander's new kickin' ride.
Hanging with friends at Dolce Vita.
Sunday conversation.
Xander's bad tattoo, don't mess with him.
On our way home, tired!!!