Charlie turns 9 months!

 On May 15, Charlie turned 9-months-old!  I LOVE having a 9-month-old!  This stage is so much fun!  He continues to be a happy camper as long as he can be on the move!  His crawling is FAST!  He is also walking between objects and standing without support for a few seconds at a time.  He is letting us walk him around while holding his hands now too (he hasn't wanted us to do that in the recent past).  

At his well child check, the doctor pronounced Charlie short and squat! :)  No really, he is a healthy and happy boy!

Weight: 21 lbs 11 oz, 69%ile

height: 27.5 inches, 21%ile

head: 45.7 cm, 62%ile

Side note:  Charlie has his first ear infection as of Saturday.  I brought him to the ER Saturday afternoon because of a high temp.  He had no other symptoms that I was aware of but sure enough he has an ear infection.  He continued to have a high fever and began vomiting over the past couple of days (of course during a holiday weekend with clinic closed on Monday!!).  So I brought him back in this morning and he has hand, foot and mouth disease as well (his mouth has sores but hands and feet are free of a rash).  At least we know why he has such a high temp, is drooling like crazy, and isn't eating well.  Hopefully in another day or so he will be back to his normal, happy self (however, we have to stay away from others for 10 days!!! that's a long time without any play dates!).

 Hamming it up for the camera!

 Standing without support!

 C-man finally likes books! :)  Reading books before naps and bed is part of our routine now.  If it's not bedtime, however, he doesn't have the time to sit and listen to a story- he's got to be on the move!

 I think the cutest thing I've ever seen is Charlie doing "so big"! (Well, except for Henry doing it when he was a baby!) He is so dang proud of himself! :)

Not to be outdone, big brother can also perform "so big" on que!

Art Projects

Henry has been really in to doing art projects lately.  This usually consists of him gluing anything and everything onto a piece of paper! :)

Train Trip!

 Henry was invited to go along with my Aunt Mary's preschool class on a train trip!  It was all he could talk about for DAYS leading up to our trip.  Along with Henry, cousin Nolan, cousin Brynn, second cousin Logan, and second cousin Ella also went along (Mary is Logan and Ella's "Oma")!

 Mom with her very excited boy!

 The kids patiently (well, sort of patiently!) waited for the train to arrive!

 Henry looking out the train window once we were on.  His favorite part of the train ride was walking between two train cars!

 The train brought us from Red Wing to Winona.  We took a bus from Winona to Kellogg and had a picnic lunch before going into Lark Toys.

 Once in the toy store, the kids got to go on a carousel ride and enjoy an ice cream cone!

 I believe this was Henry's first official cone . . . can you tell?!?!

 He chose some sort of blue ice cream . . . perfect!

 Proudly posing in front of the "cool-wol" bus with his school bus he picked out at the toy store.

Clutching his new school bus, Henry fell asleep on our way back to Red Wing.  He has SO MUCH FUN!  Thanks, Aunt Mary, for such a fun day!

Make Way for Ducklings!

 We got a special invite to Auntie Jennie's school to look at the ducklings the kindergartners are raising.  It was so fun!  I wish I had the video camera going as the three kids let out the most delightful squeals the entire time we were there!

 Henry and the poor duck (he wasn't so sure about holding it and at first would let it go and then squeezed a little too tight!)

 Charlie even got in on the action!

Afterwards, the kids played at the little kindergarten park.  After watching Brynn go down the fireman's pole, Henry had to try!  Followed by Cara!  Our kids are growing up too fast!

New Sleeping Arrangements

Henry has taken a liking to sleeping on the floor . . . whatever it takes to get you to sleep, Henry, I'm a-okay with! :)

Scrub a dub dub

Charlie is officially taking baths in the big tub (it's about time!).  He is quite the squirmy worm and I panic the entire time but he eventually ends up squeaky clean!

Get out the water!

 It was warm enough yesterday to play in some water!  I got out the water table for the boys to splash in.  They sure had fun!

 Love these pics of the boys . . . there is something about outdoor photos! :)

 Henry watered our plants (that will go in our garden soon- it is being built as I write this!!) . . .

 . . . and Charlie ate the dirt! :)

Mother's Day Weekend

 I had the most excellent Mother's Day weekend!  My parents came up on Friday evening so Tom and I could go out with some good friends on Friday evening (something we do about every 2-3 years!!). We then had my parents, Tom's mom and sister, my sister and her family, and my big bro and his family over for a Mother's Day brunch on Saturday.  It was such a fun time!  We had a delicious meal and then played outside for quite some time.  

Charlie loved laying under the parachute!

 Henry was a big help at moving the parachute up and down.

After everyone left, all the boys when down for a nap.  Henry and Charlie slept for 3 hours!!!  It was delightful!  I attempted to go and get a pedicure but after waiting for an hour and a half (they said it would be a 10-15 minute wait), my frustration got the best of me and I left.  So my toes aren't quite dressed for summer just yet!

 We had our first bon fire of the season on Saturday night!

I woke up really early Sunday morning all alone in bed, which didn't surprise me because Tom will often get up early on the weekends to get some work in before everyone gets up.  So I rolled over and went back to sleep. At about 6:15, Tom came bounding in our room and asks how I slept.  And surprisingly, I slept awesome! He then tells me he slept on the couch so I could get a good night's sleep "because I know how much I bug you when we sleep together."  I know this sounds terrible but it's true!  Tom is a snorer, sweater, and bed and cover hog- not traits of a nice bed companion! Or perhaps I have a hard time sleeping with someone because half of our marriage has consisted of him sleeping someplace else (his year deployment and all his work travel).  But at any rate, I did have a great night sleep and it was very thoughtful of him to sleep on the couch! :)

 After Charlie's morning nap, we headed down to Northfield (one of my favorite towns!) to have a picnic lunch, play at a park, and go for a hike.  It was so fun!

 We left town at about 2:00 thinking the boys would both sleep.  Nope.  This is what was happening in the backseat!

I had a wonderful Mother's Day weekend (up until 5:00 on Sunday when Tom found out he had to leave at 6 for the airport . . . but that's a long story!).  

I am very grateful for my two sweet boys and my wonderful husband.  Being a mom is truly the most rewarding and hard job I've ever had!  I feel so fortunate to spend my days (and nights- ha!) with my two little buddies!

Cuties!

 With Tom gone most evenings and Uncle D as busy as ever, we spend lots of time with some of our favorite peeps!  Henry, Brynn, Charlie, Cara are quite the good buds (most of the time, Henry's over zealousness does put a damper on the fun once in a while!). 

 Cara even got to feed Charlie the other night!

He got a bit more messy than usual! :)  

He looks a little punky in this pic- we had him at the doctor the next day and they treated him for pink eye (never had the goop so I'm guessing it was some sort of eye infection that luckily cleared up after a day on the drops!).

Elevator

 Henry wanted to make an elevator out of a big box so I got out the paints (we painted, so I have to post it!!).  He had so much fun that it lasted a whole 5 minutes!  Gotta love the attention span of a toddler!  

A few days later, Cousin Cara found a brush that got left outside and painted Grandpa Dale's car.  Oops!  Good thing they were washable paints!!

Outside fun!

 Henry got very creative the other day and used a paper towel roll and the mini airport as a baseball tee!  He's so inventive! :)  He is getting very good at hitting the ball- even when we pitch it to him!  He just might have a little of his uncle's blood in him after all! :)

Charlie went on his first wagon ride and loved it . . . especially the bumps!

Summer hats

 Charlie has been hit or miss with keeping his hats on during the summer . . .

  . . . Henry refuses to wear a baseball hat, but is more than happy to wear his winter stocking cap!

Hotel Motel

(Love this picture of my boys!)

Two weekends ago, we decided to give staying in a hotel a whirl!  Tom has plenty of points to allow us to stay for free so we drove all the way to Edina to stay at their Westin!  We had a great time (up until bedtime!!)!  After checking in, we grabbed a quick dinner at an actual restaurant (something we never do for obvious reasons!), and then hit the hotel pool.  Henry had a blast . . . Charlie, not so much.  The pool was too cold for the little one so I brought Charlie back up to our room and we went swimming in the big bathtub with some nice warm water.

 Henry and Tom did the same once they finished up swimming in the pool.  Henry got such a kit out of the water coming from the ceiling (so did Tom!).

 After we got Charlie to sleep, we popped some popcorn (we brought our air popper!) and snuggled in for a movie!  Henry thought he was pretty special in that big bed with mom and dad!  But that is where the fun ended . . . after the movie, a very tired Henry got his second wind.  He was jumping on the bed until about midnight (I was reminded why we don't stay overnight places unless absolutely necessary!).  Tom was oblivious to all Henry's shenanigans as he was sleeping soundly right next to the jumping bean.  How does he do that?!?!  Needless to stay, we were up and out of the hotel by 8:30 the next morning!  Despite the sleep, or lack-there-of, we had a very fun family night! :)

Charlie-man was all smiles after his great night of sleep in the bathroom! :)