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!