Charlie at 14 Months

Charlie is 14 months old now! A few things about Charlie....

Charlie loves:
stuffed animals
grapes
peanut butter and jelly
kitchen towels and pot holders

hide and go seek
tickling
macaroni and cheese
empty boxes

knocking over stacked blocks
The Jungle Book
101 Dalmatians
Dinosaur Train & Sesame Street
dogs
exploring things that are off limits

closing doors
dancing to the music in The Jungle Book...video below
waving "bye bye"
reading stories
kissing mom's tummy (he doesn't understand there's a baby inside but it's still sweet)
copying anything he sees mommy and daddy doing

 

He plays hard all day long!

Charlie dislikes:
wearing a bib

getting dressed

the vacuum cleaner

Charlie dancing to "The Bare Necessities"

I've tried everything to get this video upright, but you'll just have to tip your head and ignore my shaky hand as this was taken on my phone :)

Christmas 2010

 We had a wonderful Christmas at home this year.  I would say it was my favorite Christmas of all time!  Here are a some pictures and video from Christmas morning....

Charlie's birthday was 2 months ago and at that time he was not interested in opening gifts.  We were pleasantly surprised when he was so excited to tear wrapping paper and play with new toys.  Seeing him get excited made my whole Christmas. 

 My mom made us a quilt for our family room.  It's my "cherry quilt." I love cherries and the quilt is covered in different cherry fabrics and the stitching is even done in a cherry design.  I wish this picture did it justice because it is stunning.  It is so special to have something your mom made.

After opening presents we sat down to have breakfast.  Tony opened the blinds and guess what we saw?!  Snow!  I could not believe it.

I had to take a picture of our house and it's a good thing I did because the tiny amount of snow you see was gone shortly after.  I still think it was a Christmas miracle!

It was wonderful to be together as a family. 

I hope everyone had a merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas

Christmas Eve 2010

Charlie was back to his normal self on Christmas Eve.  Can you tell? 

 Still a little sick, but much better than before!

Here's how we celebrated Christmas Eve:

Baking goodies

making gingerbread houses

Tony's is the one with the garage :)

I made my family's traditional Christmas Eve dinner: sub sandwiches, veggie trays, chips with french onion dip, smokies with barbeque sauce, etc. 

Tony finally pulled out presents and put them under the tree. We knew it would be a constant battle trying to keep presents wrapped so we've kept them in the spare room.  It felt like Christmas had started once the presents were under the tree!

After dinner we did the "Twas the night before Christmas" activity my in-laws put together for us.  It was so much fun that I want to do a small version of it every year! In the story certain words were left blank (with a number in it's place) for specific people.  When you said the missing word you opened a present with that number on it...if that makes sense.  It was a mini Christmas!  We just loved it.

Charlie holding his bear from Grandma

It was such a fun day!  

Thoughts

1. Charlie is sick and miserable, poor kid. 

 You wouldn't know by that sweet face

2. To help him breathe, our second bathroom has turned into a sauna 
3. I miss Utah snow.  It doesn't feel like Christmas when it's sunny outside (well, sunny but cold)
4. I'm making a bunch of holiday foods. 
5. I have no idea what I'm getting for Christmas this year.  I really just need some socks...
6. Presents stress me out.  Tony is a great gift giver and I stink at it. 
7. Charlie has turned into the pickiest eater.  He's living off carbohydrates and dairy right now.
8. I'm excited to make gingerbread houses.
9. I can't wait to know the gender of this baby!  We'll see how great my instincts are because I have a hunch...
10. I get to talk to my brother Jack on Christmas!  He's serving a mission in Brazil.
11. I miss my family terribly.  It's hard living so far away!
12. I can't wait to have lots of kids that believe in Santa Claus. 
13. Growing up we would leave Santa Claus the most random foods: shrimp cocktail, martinelli's and I think we even had chinese one year, but maybe that's my imagination.  Our reasoning?  Santa got tired of cookies at every house and need "real" food.  Not sure if us kids or my parents thought of this...
14. I love Christmas Eve as much as Christmas Day.  Can't wait!

Organizing Charlie's Room

 Today was a spontaneous organizing day where I realized I keep way too much stuff out. When Charlie was born, we lived in an apartment.  Everything of his that wasn't bed related was in our family room because his bedroom was also the computer room.  When we moved into our house I've kept things the same way.  His toys are pretty much all in our family room.  Finally it dawned on me that he could use his actual ROOM to play with his toys, right?  Isn't that what kids do?  They play in their rooms?  I packed up burp cloths, newborn blankets and baby toys...why are these things still mixed in with the stuff we currently use?  I'm keeping stuff as if he was still 4 months old.

Then the heart wrencher happened: In the back of the closet, all scrunched up, I found a size 1 diaper.  It was so teeny tiny that I started crying. When did my baby get so big?  Now we're going to have another one?!  Oh boy,  I'm more nervous for number 2 than I was for Charlie.  Time goes by so fast!

It will be nice for Charlie to have a space that is his.  He can mess it up and do whatever he wants in it.  Plus, his toys won't be in front of the tv so the temptation to watch too much tv won't be there.  I don't want to have our house be a home where the TV is always screaming at us.

It felt wonderful to get everything set up special for him.  He was so excited to see his toys in new places.   It will be fun to add some new toys at Christmas.

I can't believe how fast time is going by.  I'm already 13 weeks pregnant!  Being pregnant with Charlie, the days crawled by but now they are flying out the window.  I'm looking forward to these next months where it will just be the two of us at home.  Pretty soon our house will be full of kids, schedules and I'll miss these days where it was just Charlie and I chasing each other around the house.  

As of Late

Some friends from our ward invited us to a Nativity FHE.  Everyone had to come dressed in Bethlehem costumes made from things around the house.  I whipped out Charlie's bathrobe, blankets, ribbons, headbands and bed sheets and we were set....

We acted out the nativity and sang Christmas carols.  Charlie was Joseph, Tony a shepherd & me a wise woman :)  It was fun seeing everyone's costumes! 

Charlie in the nativity...

Our family...

Charlie had a wooden spoon as a walking stick

A couple weeks ago, Tony put Christmas lights on our house!

You'd think this picture was taken in the fall if it wasn't for the lights.  I have to keep reminding myself it's really December. It doesn't look like the snowy Decembers I'm used to!  

I still have quite a few things to buy and send off before Christmas.  It is creeping up quickly!

 

Sitting with Santa

 This evening we went to see Santa!  Charlie was clinging onto me as we approached him, but sat completely still on his lap.  Tony and I were surprised!

He had this blank look on his face the entire time.  He wasn't happy or sad, just patiently waiting for it to be over.  I'm not sure if he liked it or not, but Tony and I got a laugh out of it!


While we were out, we went shopping for Charlie's winter gear.  We are ready for snow...if it comes.  Today it was a wonderful 60 degrees outside, but it is starting to drop at night!  I'm hoping we get some snow and not solely ice.

I took this picture not knowing the camera was zoomed in.  I know it's blurry, but look at that smile!  Ah...he just melts me :)

Modeling his new hat

Happy December!

Getting In the Christmas Spirit

I normally say "absolutely no Christmas music or decorations until AFTER Thanksgiving," but this year I was itching to get everything up the whole month of November.  I waited patiently until November 28th (Tony put his foot down to decorating earlier).

The holiday season seems to be the time when everyone starts different family traditions. We had a RS activity on family traditions where everyone shared their traditions and I was furiously writing ideas in my journal.  As our family is just beginning, I've been trying to think of what traditions our family wants to do.  Some traditions will evolve, but there are some that I want to plan.  I love traditions.

I got these (below & above) when I was in Ecuador. 

 

Sunday night we listened to Christmas music, ate a taco dip (a tradition of Tony's family), decorated the tree and set out the nativities I collect.  Charlie loved the Christmas tree and surprisingly, hasn't pulled it on top of himself yet.

After putting Charlie to bed, we turned on the fireplace and cuddled up to watch Home Alone.  Christmas can't start until I've watched Home Alone!

For FHE Tony and I read this article and wrote down our gifts for Christ.  I put our "gifts" in envelops and placed them next to the nativity on our fireplace.  We'll be opening and discussing them on Christmas Eve.  As there's 24 days until then (the amount of time it takes to form a habit, supposedly), I'm working on a habit that will bring me closer to Christ and a family service project for Christmas day.  We're both looking forward to spending time on our gifts.

This year we'll be spending Christmas at home and I'm really excited to be in our new home.  Yesterday I told Tony  it seems like we should be moving soon.  We haven't stayed in one place (home, state) for very long and it's exciting to know that this is the home we'll be in for a while.

Thanksgiving

 Charlie with his great grandma

We had such a great Thanksgiving in Kansas.  We spent the holiday with my aunt's family along with my grandparents.  It was so fun to see everyone!  I'm glad that even though we live half across the country (from the majority of our family) we have at least one family we can drive to see! Thanksgiving is the holiday you have to share with family.  I'm glad we weren't alone trying to make the traditional Thanksgiving meal.  It wouldn't have been the same.

Charlie with my cousin Kylie

My favorite parts of Thanksgiving were:

Driving--which is weird because I normally hate long drives, but this one was so relaxing.  We took the scenic drive, which was actually shorter and were able to see a bunch of small cozy towns.  Charlie slept pretty much the whole time so Tony and I had time to talk.  How often do you get 4 1/2 hours to just sit and talk? It was great.

Stuffing--I've been anticipating my aunt's stuffing all year: homemade with sausage and cranberries. 

Us in the cockpit

Planes--my uncle is a pilot in the Air Force and gave us a tour of his planes.  Tony and I loved it!

Visiting with family--it was fun to see everyone!

 Charlie with my Uncle Cody

Dogs--my aunt has 3 dogs so Charlie was in HEAVEN.  Have I mentioned that 101 Dalmations is his favorite movie?  We watch the first 25 minutes at least once a day.  He barks at the tv the majority of the time.  It's hilarious.  However, I think my aunt's dogs were happy to see us go.  They had to survive Charlie chasing them around the whole time. 

 Charlie playing with great grandpa

Charlie made himself right home.  He was busy exploring, wanting everyone to hold him, etc.  He had a blast!

 My grandparents and aunt

 It was such a great visit.  I'm so thankful for family.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!