"ME!"

Hi there!
nothing much too exciting going on. ha! okay so we're getting ready to fly to Oklahoma City to see my parents for a few days during Thanksgiving week. We've been trying to take care some things around here as well. I've been working alot on putting a DVD together of photos and videos we've taken of Autumn since we've been home as a kind of "look back" at her first year with us. I've finally completed that and made a copy to take with us to give to my parents. I plan on posting one of the "chapters" on here...but probably not until Dec. 11th which will be our 1year Gotcha Day anniversary. :)
Autumn in the meantime has figured out that we are going to go up in the sky in a plane to go see Grandma and Papa Davis. Since about a week and a half ago, every time she sees an airplane whether for real (we live by the airport so that's often...haha) or on TV, she starts saying "plane! me! mama! daddy! up!" followed by "Grandma! plane! Papa! me! up! plane!" and/or various versions of that. She says this very excitedly so it's not that she probably couldn't string a sentense out of these words but as I'm starting to say: Spicy Is as Spicy Does.
She has been extremely Spicy lately...and wearing mama out in the process. Autumn knows which buttons to press to get mama going and I end up having to take Spicy Girl aside to quietly and calmly explain to her that it's probably not in her best interest to frustrate mama so much. Usually there is some fussing and several attempts at pushing my point across follwed by some "sowwy mama"s and hugs between Spicy Girl and mama. This doesn't work all the time, but mostly. Autumn to her benefit however is finally comprehending how things work when she makes mama and daddy happy and when she doesn't. A friend of mine (with a 3yr old and 1 1/2yr old triplets) told me that once Autumn figures the "happy/unhappy mama and daddy" thing out it's a powerful parenting tool to use when situations warrant as she discovered with her oldest. Sure enough...when Autumn starts being Spicy and mama says "do you want mama to be upset (or unhappy) with you?" things tend to settle down. I just hope that something works out when Autumn gets older. I definitely wouldn't want to be in the middle of a Spicy Girl vs. Redhead showdown! hehehehe! (nervous laugh)

One last thing I wanted to share before I head off to sleep (it's been a long week)...
Autumn has realised several things lately...whether on her own or by our teaching/showing/telling her. One thing she has really taken to is watching the DVD I put together of our China trip to get her. She recognises herself and has asked what things are in alot of the photos she sees then in each subsequent viewing she points these things out to us by name. We've been just generically telling her that we went to China and occasionally have mentioned "bringing you home with us" to her. She loves watching the DVD alot and in her naturally curious toddler mindset has been asking what "that" is as she points to photos as well as in-home things such as paintings, scrolls, decorations, and everything really. Just the other night while reading to her in her bedroom to get her to relax and go 'night-night'...she points up to a scroll I had bought for her room that depicts a girl and boy outside with two deer by a tree. There are Chinese characters on it which if I remember correctly talks about friends. She points to the girl, the boy, then the deer and I tell her what they are. Then she points to the writing and says "ooohhh....that?" I tell her they're Chinese characters...writing...that I don't remember exactly what it says but it's Chinese. She turns to me and then points to herself and with a smile blurts out a very loud "Chinese!.....MEEEEEEE!!!".