Aunt Monica

Aunt Monica called last night and said she just wanted to spend some quality time with the kids. We sat upstairs while Charles entertained us by running around as fast as he could and plummeting to the ground every 5 seconds and laughing. John, Monica and I placed ourselves in close proximity of all walls and bed posts since he was quite confident that one of us was protecting him. Oh that child-like trust! Then we walked down by the lake and fed the ducks. These ducks like bread a whole lot more than the Pendleton King ducks did. They were quacking and flocking towards us from all sides. Charles thought this was great as he tried to leap in the water with the "Duuu! Duuu!" After he realized that we were not going to let him swim with the ducks in the murky water, he joined in on the throwing of the bread:Charlie-Style. He would wind up, chuck the bread, and then look around. The pieces kept flying over his head and landing behind him. We walked back in time to put the kids to bed. Then Aunt Monica hung out with John and I playing guitar and piano and chatting too late into the night. Man, I had totally forgotten about being just out of high school and staying up until midnight. I love going to be at 10 o'clock, but loved spending time with Monica more. Thanks for hanging out Monica! We love you!

John mowed the monster yard(well the whole front and the back up to our outdoor pavilion. We played soccer with the kids on our newly mowed lawn. Then it started to rain so we ate dinner outside in our patio area and listened to the rain. The kids rode their bikes and cars under the roof. Then we relaxed in the hammock.

We love our Charlie Bear!

Charles you are such a sweet boy. You are so handsome. We've enjoyed you so much these past two years. You make us smile and laugh. It's wonderful to see how much you are learning and to hear you say your first words like mommy, daddy, roar, bye bye, down, and "UH-OH!"
We love you Charlie bear!

Roar

Charlie likes reading this animal book and then growls when it gets to the bear, panther, and of course lion.

Today apparently he either found INSURANCE COMPANIES or the GEICO lizard intimidating. You decide!

Food Brings Us Together

A family at our church just had a little boy so I told her I would organize a couple meals. I sent out an email to the moms at our parish and that same day there were two weeks of meals for the family. It's not an official ministry at church, it's just everyone wanting to help someone else in a special way and what is nicer than a cooked meal delivered to your home.

In our household, food brings us together too as you will see in the pictures below.

Checkin on Me

Night Time ended with this tonight

Me: "Annie I will come check on you in 10 minutes."
Annnie: "You can't check on me because if you said, "Hi Annie," you would wake me up."
Me: "I will just look in on you then."

The Blanket Bandit

It's 9:00, they're fast asleep. Not a sound, not a peep. Then a thump, and maybe a bump. Daddy and Mommy entered the room and it was just as they'd assumed.



If you notice the cracked lid. That is where her arm was strategically placed for optimal cookie retrieval. We think that she really thought we couldn't see her with that awesome blanket disguise.

This was our night last night. Quite Entertaining! We were actually up hanging out with my friend Angela and were all trying to remain serious and not laugh at the situation but it was really cute. Apparently Annie and Emma's experience with the Backyardigan's Great Dolphin Race had an impact on her.

The next day, Snow White passed out cold on the couch at 4:30p.m. Oh we woke up our little princess so as to not have a reoccurrence tonight (hopefully).

Charlie's Morning with the Girls

It was long overdue for Aunt Gina and I to get together and chat as moms. We're affirmed each other in the fact that we really are not crazy. It was fun to catch up before Emma starts up with her exciting school year and they leave for vacation. They played with Annie;s "new toys", Chased monsters and dinosaus and then each other, and danced and sang to Backyardigans. Before we knew it, it was time for lunch and then they had to go so our little ones could rest. As the morning went on there were less and less confrontations so all in all a successful playdate.

Charlie Bear on the Potty

This week Charlie has been going poopoos on the potty. John thought one night that we should just sit him down since we have so many signs with him grunting hard and fussing. Plus we both have noticed part of the problem with him pooping is that he stands and squeezes his butt cheeks together. Kinda the opposite of what he is supposed to do. So he pooped on the potty and we gave him a lollipop and now he loves pooping on the potty for those lollipops.

Sorry Charlie! You will probably hate this post some day.

Dinner Guests

When John was at 6:00 Mass he saw Jonathan, Sharon, and Sarah so he invited them for dinner. We had not hung out with them since probably last year around this time. I was a little humbled since our house is no where near looking nice enough to entertain but they did not mind. Charles followed Sarah around everywhere. I think he was fascinated with someone littler than him crawling around everywhere. It was fun. Our first guests for dinner and hopefully many many more. We got our dining room and outdoor patio furniture last night thanks to the Mongan family. Since they did not want to move it to Florida we were able to purchase it from them. So yeah a big table with comfy chairs in our, I can hardly believe it, own dinig room.

Growing Up

You know your little girl is growing up when she starts calling her "tocos" tacos. Usually I try to help Annie say words the right way but there were a few that were just too cute to change:tocos (tacos), backing yard (back yard), and liberway (library). She's so big now as she uses words like charming in the right context and talks all about how her new house is in Augusta.

Annie's Special Present

With the move, Annie has been emotional and confused. She would say things like I want my old house and what happened to all my toys. She's more adjusted now and loving her new house with all of her "new" toys. I guess that's what you call them when they'been packed away for 4 months while we staged our old house and pursued the new one. Grandma and Papa got Annie a special gift that mommy and daddy told them might help her adjust. We put books like Cinderella and Snow White on the mp3 player so Annie could listen to them while she sleeps. Eventually, once we're a little more settled and don't have so many boxes in our dining room, we will read stories and record them so she can hear our voices reading the stories. My good friend Angela said her mom did this on cassette tapes when she was little and she can still hear her mom's inflections from her favorite books.

Cousin Christina's Wedding

Annie was the dancing queen. She danced/jumped for 4 hours straight. Oh wait no there was a cake break somewhere in there. We all know how much Annie loves cake.




Charlie loves his Godmama