Christmas 2011

This year was so much fun, Charlotte and Timothy were both so excited for Christmas and we had a blast with them.  We actually had a decent night's sleep on Christmas Eve and out of the 8 adults and one teenager (still scary to think that about Tyler) that were at my parents' house Christmas morning, it was Timothy and Charlotte and Caroline that were still sleeping and had to be woken up to go open presents!  Timothy was super excited but it took Charlotte a little longer to wake up.  Once she did though, every present was a huge deal and she was so excited.  Caroline played a bit and snuggled a bit, the first Christmas is always sweet but tiring, she only wanted to be held so we were thankful to have plenty of aunts and uncles and Tyler and Grammy around to help out!  We're excited to celebrate New Year's Eve this year with our Young Adults group at church and hoping the new year brings us more opportunities to bless those around us. 

Rolling out cookie dough to make Christmas cookies, such concentration!

Decorating the cookies...I think he went through a whole tube of frosting and a whole thing of sprinkles on just one cookie...Santa needed some help eating all of that sugar!

Leaving cookies by the fireplace for Santa

And leaving reindeer food on the lawn for the reindeer

One last picture before bedtime :)

All of the "kids" posing on the stairs before opening presents, we wait there while Grammy and Grumpy go "check" and make sure Santa came :)

Charlotte playing with her legos ("wegos") in her princess tent

Caroline pushing around her new walker

And Timothy having a bounce on his trampoline, he told me wanted to ask Santa for a trampoline so we had to have a talk about how Santa knew we didn't have a yard big enough for an outdoor trampoline and Timothy said that a little on to jump on inside would be OK...thank goodness :)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!!

Holiday Fun

We've been so busy this month that it's been hard to find time to actually sit down and write out a post about it all.  Some of the fun things we've done are...breakfast with Santa at church.  This is the second year we've done this, last year we had about 30 people and we more than doubled that this year!  The kids love it!  The day after that we went with the family to go ice skating in Tacoma.  Timothy loved it, as usual, and I thought Charlotte would be fussy and scream bloody murder as soon as I tried to put skates on her, but she actually loved it (as long as neither Brandon or I held her hands)!  Since then, we've enjoyed having Timothy home every day on his winter break and baking like crazy!  Brandon and I are going out tonight and then we'll head over to my parents' house tomorrow for Christmas!!  Merry Christmas to all and Happy New Year!!!

Ten Months Old

I don't know about anyone else, but I am super impressed that I'm writing about this before Christmas!  Anyway, Caroline turned 10 months old on Tuesday and I actually took her picture today...I thought I'd capture her straight from her bath, all warm and fuzzy in her jammies :)  So at ten months old...

She has two teeth and I think she might be working on some more.  She drools a lot and she chews on everything!  She can pick up food now and get it into her mouth so she plays with puffs and little pieces of bread a lot.  She loves yogurt more than anything else in the whole wide world!

She learned how to dance and her favorite song is Jingle Bells.  She also like Party Rock Anthem, but I didn't really want to admit that.  Brandon has it on his phone so she likes to hold onto that and dance with it.  She gets really excited.

She still loves to clap and she's figured out how to wave.  Sometimes it sound like she says, "hi".  She mostly says "mama" and "dada" and other baby talk babble.

She's much more steady on her feet now and can pull up on anything.  She tries to be brave and let go but hasn't quite figured out how to stand up on her own yet. 

She's sleeping like a champ, we usually get two 2-3 hour naps during the day and she sleeps around 12 hours at night.  She's only nursing 4-5 times a day now which makes me a little sad since she's the last one, but on the other hand, I'm getting ready to be done with that too!

She's staying with her first official teenage babysitters tomorrow night, so hopefully she'll do well!  Brandon and I are very excited for our date night!

She's still such a sweet happy girl and the only time she really gets loud or upset is when she's in her high chair and we don't feed her fast enough!  I can't believe the next monthly update post will be in 2012 and she'll be a month away from her first birthday...I'm avoiding thinking about that right now!

Nine Month Stats

I wanted to wait and do her whole nine month post after her check up, but I think we can all agree that I'm not the best at remembering to post her monthly updates in a timely fashion so since I had free time and had taken her picture, I posted her update before her check up...so here are her stats from her nine month check up:  28 3/4 inches tall (90th percentile) and 18lbs 14 oz (50th percentile).  So far she's the smallest baby we've had, compared to her brother and sister at the same age.  She's still mostly in 12 month clothes unless it's a one piece thing and then I have to do 18 months for the length but roll the sleeves because they're too long.  She definitely has the tiniest feet compared to her brother and sister.  She's still only in a size 3 shoe and I know by 9 months old, Charlotte was at least in a 4 or larger.  Anyway, obviously we love her just the way she is, it's just fun to compare how they all measure up with each other :)  Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!!

Nine Months Old

How have we already gotten to nine months!  I can't believe it's almost time to start thinking about her first birthday party!  Anyway, here is what she has been up to this past month...

I can crawl really fast now and once I pull up on something I can walk around holding onto the couch or whatever else I can reach...sometimes I try to get brave and let go but I can't quite stand up all by myself yet :)

I finally cut my first tooth and I think the one next to it is coming it too...I've been a little fussy but not too bad!

I still like to eat pretty much anything and I am trying really hard to figure out how to get food into my mouth by myself.  I love to eat bananas, pears, peaches and puffs...and sometimes I like peas. 

I still love to give big sloppy kisses, especially to my mommy and my brother.

I can say "mama" really well now and I say it all the time when I'm hungry or tired or sad.  I also say "dada" and "baba" sometimes.

I'm usually pretty quiet, but whenever I get in my highchair I love to YELL!

I'm sleeping better at night now, almost always all the way through the night now!

I do not like puppies, I found that out this weekend, they are new and scary and they make me cry!  But I do love my cousin Tyler, he makes me laugh!



I'm still a cuddly, laid back, happy baby and everyone loves me :)

The Sillies

So I have to share a couple of special stories before I forget about them...

First...Charlotte...oh this girl.  Thankfully she's coming out of her extreme separation anxiety issues, but a few weeks ago we were riding in the car and I mentioned something about church.  Usually, to get her excited about going to class we sing a little song, "I like to go to class, I like to go to class, with all the other boys and girls, I like to go to class", but since she was being stubborn and not wanting to go Bible class, she changed the words and sang, "I not gonna go to class, I not gonna go to class, I not gonna see Miss Nan or Joyce (her teachers), I not gonna go to class"!  What a little stinker!  Again, thankfully she's mostly gotten over all of that, but I thought her new song was too cute not to share!

Then Timothy, he cracks me up...we were driving around running errands, just me a him (which doesn't happen too often) and I made a wrong turn and had to turn around.  I wasn't upset or anything, just had to turn around and he said, "When I grow up and be's a daddy (we're still working on grammar, work in progress), I'm not going to make wrong turns and go the wrong way"...and he paused for a moment..."but if I do, I won't get angry and yell, cause you know, not in front of the kids".  That boy keeps me laughing!

I hear the funniest things from those two when we're in the car...usually it's them singing at the top of their lungs (to the Glee soundtrack, they know it all), but they definitely make me smile!

Eight Months Old

Well as usual, I'm late posting this...and I was late taking her picture...I thought about it around the 20th and planned out when to take it and then life got in the way and I forgot...so here is what Caroline has been up to lately!

She went from learning to crawl to crawling fast and pulling up on everything in sight. Nothing is safe anymore, we even had to break out the baby gates to block off the hallway leading to the stairs. She is still usually so happy all the time, it's pretty rare that she gets fussy and if she does it's almost always because she's tired or hungry (or both!) so she's easy to calm down. She is very attached to her blankie and her thumb and she's been sleeping great lately, she usually goes down around 8pm and wakes up around 5am and then goes right back down for another few hours, not too bad at all!! She loves to eat, especially yogurt! She still doesn't have any teeth but she chews on everything she can get into her mouth! She loves to give big sloppy kisses, especially to Timothy! She's wearing mostly 12 month clothes and some 18 month stuff that was Charlotte's and shrunk from being washed, she wears a size 3 shoe. She doesn't have much hair, but what she does have sticks up like a mohawk and it is so blonde!! She loves to babble now and we hear a lot of"dadadada" but I only hear "mama" when she's hungry. She gives great high fives. She loves to be in Bible class and will usually go to anyone that wants to hold her. She's such a sweet laid back girl, I hope it lasts!!

Unmotivated

Today is one of those days...Tuesdays and Thursdays are long days for me. Timothy has a class at the YMCA in the morning before school, we eat lunch there and change into school clothes, go to school, the girls and I come home and they take naps while I get done whatever needs to get done (which today consists of not much, that's why I'm on here) and then we pick him up, I give them a snack, and we head back to the YMCA for swim lessons and we usually get home a little before 5pm. It's a long day and it makes me tired...trying to entertain Caroline and Charlotte while he's in class is a lot of effort some days! But anyway, instead of doing dishes, I thought I'd give an actual update on what's been going on in our house lately!

Timothy has been in Kindergarten for about 6 weeks now and so far he loves it. He's already learned so much, it's a little scary but he's enjoying it and I love to hear him so excited! We now have to sound out every word we see and talk about what letter it starts with and what sound it makes and I'm hoping that learning to read is right around the corned because I know he'll love it! Whenever I notice that he and Charlotte have gotten a little too quiet around the house, I can usually find them snuggled up in his bed looking at a book together.

Timothy and Charlotte have become quite the little pals. They play together so well (most of the time) and they just love to be around each other. Charlotte has had a hard time with him going to school this year because he's not here at the house. She constantly asks me where he is and for a while she didn't want to nap if he wasn't here...thankfully she got over that fast! She copies pretty much everything he says and he knows it, so she's learned some not so lady-like phrases, the funniest of which has been "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your poo poo", every time she says it she cracks up laughing, so cute.

She has been going through a not so fun stage though...she has become very clingy and decided that she doesn't want to go to Bible class anymore unless one of us comes with her. She screamed all through her hair cut last week, we can't even mention the word "doctor" or she freaks out, she won't go to anyone other than family...I'm really hoping it's short-lived because it's tiring and I feel bad for her, I know it's not fun for her to be scared. Other than that, she's the same old Charlotte. She still loves to look at books and she loves to be in her room. She's become obsessed with The Lion King and has to watch it whenever she gets a chance. She finally learned how to jump with two feet (I was starting to worry) and she's growing up so much. Yesterday when I woke her up I asked her if she had nice dreams and she told me it was a dream about Simba and then laughed and said., "yeah, it was kinda funny", she keeps me laughing.

Caroline is growing up so much. She laughs a lot more now and she knows to smile for the camera. She went from barely crawling to now crawling (fast) and sitting up by herself and pulling up on everything! All of that in about one week. I learned lately that she likes to put herself to sleep now and it's much easier to lay her down and know she'll go to sleep than it was to walk and bounce and sing and walk and bounce and...you get the idea...she's just growing up, happy and sad all at the same time :)

We have made a lot of changes to our diet in the past 6 weeks also. I started reading up more on foods and researching what is actually in the food I was buying and Brandon and I made a decision to try and cut out as much artificial stuff as possible and eat as natural as possible. It's been a big change for me because it means I have to make a lot more from scratch (cookies, bread, granola bars, marshmellows, pop tarts, velveeta, pizza, etc.), but I love that I know exactly what we're all eating and I really think it's helped the kids out a lot. I had read an article about how artificial foods can create behavior problems in kids (because they're reacting to all the chemicals in the food) and I can tell you, it has made a big difference over here, especially with Timothy. It's a lot of work and all, but it's so worth it!

I think that's about it...I did post a picture so maybe this wasn't too horribly boring...but that's our life right now!

Beautiful Baby Blues

Love these beautiful eyes!!

Look What I Can Do!!

Seven Months Old

Yes, I totally forgot to post a six month old picture and update, but we were leaving for vacation and came back to school starting and an event at church and things just got crazy and before I knew it, it was almost time for the seven month picture. Can you believe this year only has three more months in it? I even pulled out all my pumpkin decorations today (all three of them)!

Anyway, here is what little miss Caroline is doing at seven months old...

I can crawl pretty well now and I have started pulling up onto my knees, mommy and daddy had to lower my crib mattress because I like to pull up on the side of my crib.

I figured out how to sit without balancing on one arm, I'm pretty cool now and I can play with toys much easier now that both hands are free.

I like to eat pretty much anything I can get. I even got to try yogurt this month and I love it!

I'm still not the best sleeper. I always end up in mommy and daddy's bed and wake up a few times during the night. We're working on that (or so mommy says)...

I love to "play" with my brother and sister, they let me crawl all over them. I also like my superstar stage toy, my pink keys, anything that belongs to Timothy or Charlotte...

I love to take baths and I like to splash and kick in the water. On vacation, I loved to be in the pool!

I love to go to Bible class and I have lots of fun, my teachers say I smile and play and I don't cry much!

I'm such a happy girl and mommy and daddy love me so much!

First Day of School

I'm not sure how we got here so fast, but today was Timothy's first day of Kindergarten! He's in the afternoon class at Edgerton Elementary and as of the end of the today he says he likes it! I got information about his day bit by bit tonight...I heard that he played on playground and they had a cool spinning thing, he made two new friends, they read a book about monsters and he colored a picture of a monster (and later he told me what all the monsters in the book were doing) and that was all I got but I figure he's only there for a few hours so that's not too bad! As usual, his teacher told me he had some trouble keeping his hands to himself, but we're used to that so it's a normal battle for us each year. I'm hoping some changes we're making at home will help with that! I turned in our volunteer forms and PTA forms so we are all now official Edgerton Wolves!!

Vacation!

We were blessed this year to be able to go back to Gulf Shores, AL for vacation. It is our most favorite vacation spot and it was so nice to go with our whole family! We had a beautiful house that was more than large enough for 18 people (including 8 kids!), it was right on the beach, had a big pool and it was just awesome. Sunday we played on the beach and in the pool and started the week off right having to call a tow truck to pull the rental car out of the sand (seriously, they only rocked one side of the driveway and someone thought that our rental Ford Expedition could drive through the sand but it didn't quite work out). Monday we played on the beach and in the pool some more and played putt putt. Tuesday we (translation - me) were a little sunburned so we didn't spend as much time on the beach and we drive over to Pensacola to meet Brandon's sister for dinner. Wednesday my brother and his family got there so there were even more kids to play with! My grandparents also drove in that night so while my mom and dad went to meet them for dinner the rest of us cooked out at the house and hung out. Thursday we spent the morning and afternoon with my mom's parents and her sister and her husband. Most of the family went fishing that morning so we grilled out fish that night (I ate pizza) and then Friday we did our traditional Grammy Grumpy Games and took family pictures. Saturday we sadly had to go home but after such a busy week it was nice to be back in our own house! We had such a great time at the beach though and Brandon's already trying to figure out when we can go back! Thanks mom and dad for such a great week!! We all love you both so much!!

Happy Birthday Charlotte

We've had a lot going on in the past few weeks so I'm going to try to get these done in order...I also posted all the pictures from everything on facebook, so I'll probably only put a few on here.

Charlotte turned 3 a few weeks ago, she's growing up so fast, I still think of her as a baby but she reminds me every day that she's growing into a big girl! At her three year check up, she was 39.5 inches tall and 34.5 pounds. She's a big tall girl and it's hard to find clothes to fit her since she's so tall and skinny! She's just getting into a 4T now and she wears size 10 shoes.

At 3 years old, she LOVES to "read" books! She isn't real big on crowds, she doesn't even like to spend too much time with her family and I'll notice that after she's been with us for a while she'll sneak upstairs and I'll find her sitting in her room reading all her favorite books. She's definitely different than Timothy was at the same age. She still doesn't like to cuddle much so I cherish it when she wants a hug or wants to sit in my lap. She is incredibly independant! She is also incredibly girly! She loves all things pink and purple, she loves to wear dresses and jewelry, she loves baby dolls and barbies and princesses, she's so prissy! I absolutely love it, she really is everything I dreamed of when I found out I was having a daughter. She is so much like me sometimes that it scares me! She looks like her daddy, she has his eyes and I love keeping her hair and bangs short. She's a very picky eater and pretty much lives off of chocolate milk, we're going to try and break that habit soon. She is by far our best sleeper and always has been. As long as she has her blankie and her thumb (and lately her Jessie doll), she is good to go. She definitely keeps up on our toes and we love her so very very much!

Stats

Caroline had her check up last week, I know she isn't technically 6 months yet, but they schedule the well child checks with the classes, so we had it done. She came in at 16 pounds, 5 ounces and 26.5 inches which makes her our smallest six month old. She was "crawling" (scooting, really) better than some of the other babies, but not quite sitting up by herself yet. Hopefully I'll get her six month picture up before we leave on vacation. I also forgot to report at her last visit that the doctors heard a heart murmur so we had to go to a pediatric cardio specialist and they spent forever mapping out her heart and doing an ultrasound but it turned out to be fine. The doctor said at her check up this month that, if he didn't know she already had it, he wouldn't have even heard it. She's growing right on track though, doing well. Things are finally slowing down a bit for us, VBS is over so that's been a HUGE relief! We have just under two weeks till we leave for the beach and then when get back, Timothy starts KINDERGARTEN!!! I'll try to get some pictures on later this week from Charlotte's birthday party, still can't believe she's going to be 3!

Yummy in the Tummy

Caroline started rice cereal this past week...in case you can't tell from the pictures, she's a fan :)

Five Months Old

This past month just flew by...we've been so busy planning VBS, Brandon was working some overtime, Timothy started t-ball and things have just been a little crazy and I can't believe it's already almost August. I also can't believe this little girl is five months old!! She had another big month, here's the details :)

She started having trouble sleeping toward the end of the month, she was up 3-4 times a night and only napping for an hour or less a couple of times a day...it was definitely rough on the rest of us...so, even though I wanted to wait till next month, I started her on rice cereal this past week. She loved it, she ate the whole bowl the first time I gave it to her and since then has been taking it in the morning and evening every day. She's definitely been sleeping better too, so that's a HUGE plus!! It makes me sad that she's my last baby to feed baby food, just another sign that they don't stay babies forever! She's really really wanting to crawl. She rolls all over the place to get around and has learned how to push up on her elbows and knees and "scoot" when she wants to. She is becoming more vocal now, she likes to "sing" now. She likes to play with toys a lot more now that she can grab them and hold them, she grabs everything!!

Hopefully I'll get her 6 month stats up before we leave on vacation (woohoo!!!!!), but no promises!

H-P-A-A

Yes, that stands for Harry Potter Addicts Anonymous...my name is Lindsay and I'm a Harry Potter addict. I am counting down the minutes until I can go to the theater for the midnight premier and watch it and more than likely I will cry and I'm going back again tomorrow to watch it again. I've spent the last several weeks re-reading through all seven books and watching al seven movies. If it helps at all, I'm at least not wearing Gryffindor robes :) And I don't even own any...but Timothy has been so excited to read the first book and watch the movie with me that he's been drawing a scar on his head all week. Gotta love that boy...I can't wait until he's old enough to read the books on his own. No matter your view on Harry Potter or whatever, it's hard to deny that JK Rowling is an amazing writer. But...please say a prayer for Brandon, that Caroline will stay asleep tonight while I'm gone because she is such a mommy's girl I'm sure she'll scream bloody murder when I'm not here to hold her, and pray for me tomorrow because I'm sure no amount of coffee will help me make it through the day without crashing at some point!!

Handy Man

Timothy has become quite the little handy man lately. He has always loved to watch Brandon work around the house and help out as much as possible, but he's recently discovered that he can just let himself out into the garage and open up Brandon's tool box and go to work on his own. I noticed it a few weeks ago when I was busy getting the girls down for naps and he came running in to tell me that he had taken the training wheels off of his bike. He regularly spends time up in the playroom with a screwdriver, taking the backs off of all his toys and taking the batteries out and putting them back together again. A couple of days ago he decided to get a pile of nails out of the toolbox and practice hammering them into the garage wall. And yesterday he re-installed the battery on his tractor after watching Brandon take it out the night before to charge. He's such a boy, I love it! And it's nice to have another handy man around the house!

Our Little Night Owl

Charlotte has always been an interesting sleeper. She never liked sleeping in our bed and she doesn't like to be held when she sleeps, she just wants to get in her bed and go to sleep, no one else is needed...we didn't mind at all, it was a nice break after sharing our bed with Timothy for so long. We began to notice, once she started talking, that she would sit in her crib for hours some nights just talking and singing and playing and sometimes she would just be up all night long, singing and playing. We were a little worried when we moved her to a big girl bed that she would just stay up and play in her room all night long (which she does, on occasion)...but we figured she would at least stay in her room. When we moved Timothy to a big bed, we put a child-proof lock on the inside door knob so that he couldn't just walk out whenever he wanted, he never figured out how to open them (he still can't open them) and after a while we just took them off and it hasn't been a problem since. Charlotte, on the other hand, figured out the first night in her new big girl bed room how to pop them off and walked right out. We would find her in the toy room playing, in Timothy's room reading his books while he was sleeping in his bed...she's a sneaky little girl!

The other problem we had been running into, was with Caroline. We had decided that, this time around, we would get a video monitor for her room so Brandon got it for me for Christmas. We hooked it up but found that the only way to put it in her room and actually still see her on the camera was to put the camera in her bed with her. I wasn't a big fan of this, but until recently she couldn't really grab things or roll so it wasn't a big deal. Lately though, she had stopped sleeping her bed and I started wondering if it was because the camera was in there with her (it has a small light on it, but it's not bad).

So last night we decided to switch the girl's monitors. Caroline slept 11 hours, it was the best night ever! Charlotte...was hilarious! We saw her get up out of bed and head to her door to pop off the child proof lock, Brandon pushed the "Talk" button on our end of the monitor and told her to go back to bed and she turned around and ran back to bed so fast!! It was so funny! She only tried a couple of times and then she was out for the night, it was great! I really don't know why it took us so long to figure this all out, but now we have good sleeping girls and a little bed time entertainment, life is good :)

Soccer Season

Timothy played soccer at the YMCA this year and LOVED it! His coach just happened to be a photographer and took some great pictures of the kids at their last practice so I thought I'd share some!