Cooking with Daddy

Margie Grace loves to cook! She can stay busy for a relatively long period of time with a bowl and spoon, mixing and "cooking" as she calls it. After she is done eating a meal, she likes to "cook" what food remains on her plate, meaning she likes to stir it together. (We typically try to remove her plate before this becomes a terrible mess!) And any time Neil and I are in the kitchen, she asks us if she can cook too: "Margie Grace cook!" she says. So lately we've been indulging this interest (under very strict supervision) and often pull a stool up to the counter and have her assist in small "cooking" tasks: helping to mix dry ingredients, adding cheese or nuts to a mixture or helping to put cookie dough on a pan for baking. Here are a few photos of Margie Grace helping her Daddy stir and "cook" some grits. She is a great help in the kitchen!

She's a Super Freak!

Tuesday night Neil, Margie Grace and I were having a leisurely meal out at Moe's Southwest Grill after running a few after-work errands when the most bizarre thing happened. If you have ever eaten at Moe's, you are familiar with the wide-range of music that is played throughout the restaurant while you are dining. It is a large part of the eclectic atmosphere of the place. On Tuesday night we heard everything from Elvis to the Beatles to Sinatra (not that wide a range, I know, but trust me on this). During dinner, Margie Grace was seemingly oblivious to all these tunes as she was pretty involved with her chicken quesadilla. However, suddenly as a new song came over the loud speakers, she was overcome with rhythm and began nodding her head to the beat while sitting at our booth. The song continued and her dancing became more and more involved. "What is she doing?" I asked Neil while trying to contain my giggles. "I don't know," he answered. "But I'm not wasting any money on dance lessons. She's already got it down!" "Got down" is exactly what happened; the tot was keeping time to the music, clapping her hands and nodding her head, as if she was front and center on American Bandstand. After a few seconds, I thought it would subside, but she kept going -- at one point even waving to the people in the booth next to us, perhaps trying to entice them in her own little way to get up and follow her lead. She was a toddler possessed . . . possessed by bad 80s funk rock music. Yes, folks, Margie Grace was getting down to the 80s stylings of Mr. Rick James and his perennial hit, "Super Freak." And it was as if she couldn't help herself! In fact, she really didn't even hit her stride until the saxophone solo started. And the whole time she kept giving us this look like "come on people, get up and dance!"

Now we've seen Margie Grace dance lots of times before. I think what made this time so funny for us was her song choice. We don't give it a second thought when she rocks out to the occassional commercial jingle or Playhouse Disney tune but Rick James?!? This was a first. And to top it off, lots of songs had played while we were sitting there but nothing else could motivate Margie Grace to boogie down like Rick James' signature hit. In fact, after that song finished playing and another song came on, she really didn't seem all that interested in dancing anymore. The scene really was hilarious, if not a little bizarre! (And for those of you who have seen the movie "Little Miss Sunshine," you can imagine how much harder Neil and I started laughing when that infamous last scene came to mind.) We have a little entertainer folks, and she's not bashful.

Check it!

As Margie Grace's vocabulary expands and her curiosity grows, not a day goes by that we don't pick up MG at the sitter's without hearing an anecdote from earlier in the day. "Margie Grace said this . . ." or "Margie Grace did that . . ." Today's anecdote was priceless! Margie Grace was playing with her buddies Ella and Claire (both will be 1 in October, while MG will turn 2) at Mrs. Elaine's when Elaine said she smelled a dirty diaper. She asked the girls, "Which one of you is poopie?" Certainly not expecting an answer, Elaine was surprised when Margie Grace answered with "Margie Grace poopie!" Even more surprising was when Margie Grace turned around and backed up to Elaine and said, "Check it!" and pointed to her diaper. Sure enough, Margie Grace was the guilty party.

Sweet Treat

What's sweeter than a little cutie eating ice cream? I can't think of anything! Last week we took Margie Grace on a post-dinner ice cream run to Chick-fil-A. I don't think I've ever experienced commercially prepared ice cream -- or "ice dream" as those uber-creative marketing geniuses at Chick-fil-A call it -- like that before. Neil said we've had it once at the mall but it obviously didn't make an impression on me like it did last Thursday night. I think I've found a new favorite treat. And this is saying a lot considering I wouldn't ordinarily choose ice cream over, say, chocolate cake or a Snickers bar or anything smoothered in Oreo cookie bits if given a plethora of dessert options. But I can confidently tell you that I would take "ice dream" hands down over anything! And I think Margie Grace loves the stuff too. As you can see from these pictures she was pretty content to eat her portion. Actually, as I'm writing this, Neil just asked if I was in the mood for a treat from Chick-fil-A. I think he was reading my mind!

Vote for the Auburn Band!

Ok, avid readers, the Auburn University Marching Band needs your help! Below is a little blurb I wrote at work about the situation for the Auburn Report, AU's faculty/staff newsletter. So visit this Web site and vote now and vote often and be sure to share this with all your AU friends! We are currently getting slaughtered by LSU and while it is too late to rally for football, we've still got a chance to beat those "wrong kind of tigers" and their "Golden Band from Tigerland" in this contest!

Here's the scoop:

ESPN and Paramount Pictures selected Auburn's marching band as one of the top 8 marching bands in the country. As a result, a production crew was on campus Sept. 12 to film the band as it performed the famous theme song from the Indiana Jones movie series. Taking the field in the shape of a skull, the band played the song over and over again while cameras were repositioned to film at various angles. The taped performance will be put online Sept. 29 and fans will have an opportunity to vote for their favorite college marching band. The promotion coincides with the DVD release of the latest movie in the Indiana Jones franchise: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The other bands selected include Louisiana State University, Clemson University, and the universities of Georgia, Florida, Texas, Oklahoma and Southern California. Each university represented will receive $5,000 for being selected and the winner of the online voting contest will receive $25,000 for a first-place finish.

Now stop reading this and go vote!

War Eagle, Hey!

On the eve of another Auburn football game, I thought I'd post these pictures of Margie Grace from last week's AU vs. LSU pep rally. She had a great time (and had a great view from her Poppy's shoulders!) but seemed to get a little overwhelmed at the size of the crowd and all the incessant cheering. We stood near the band and she really enjoyed watching Uncle John play his drum. She even got to play it herself when the pep rally was over. War Eagle!

Blowing Bubbles

One of Margie Grace's favorite things to do outside is blow bubbles. Until recently she has been pretty content to let me blow them and her chase and pop them. But now that she possesses the independent spirit of a toddler, she wants to do it herself -- or in her words "Margie do it." One night this week we went out on the deck because Margie Grace had asked about bubbles. And of course, she insisted that she do it herself! Here are some pictures from that episode. She ended up with wet pants, an empty bubble container (from lots of spills) and more bubbles on her mouth than anywhere else but she had a great time doing it!