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 :)