Swinging at the Park

I was going through my pictures and realized I completely forgot to post these pictures from a few weeks ago! After church, Nathan was begging us to go to the park. He had been such a good boy all weekend so we said "Sure!" The only problem was that we didn't realize how cold it had gotten! But of course, Nathan didn't care a bit. He still wanted to go. So we bundled everyone up and headed to the park. This was Charlotte's first time to actually swing at the park with her brother. She loved it! And she started to cry every time I tried to take her out :)




There's a smile!


Here is Nathan doing his crazy "monster" smile...


And here he is smiling more "sweetly" because I told him I wouldn't swing him if he didn't smile right :)

Charlotte is 7 Months Old

Charlotte is 7 months old! Her biggest achievements from last month are sitting up on her own, rolling back and forth, TRYING to crawl, and getting two bottom teeth. You'll see in her pictures that she has her bottom lip sucked in...she started doing this after her little teeth came in...I think she's still getting used to them!

For a while now she has been waking up several times during the night, but in the last week, she has been sleeping until 5 or 6 in the morning. Her teeth just broke through a week ago so I'm hoping (make that PRAYING) that sore gums was the reason she wasn't sleeping all night. Hopefully this is not a coincidence! Plus I'm trying to stuff her at night with baby food. She's loving that part!

When I put this outfit on her, I asked Wayne what he thought about it. He gave me a look like a went a bit overboard with dressing her up and said, "She looks like a Christmas present." Great! That was what I was going for! We'll take that as a compliment :)

Nathan loves to try to teach her to crawl, but he cheats a little bit. He'll put a toy in front of her when she's on her tummy. She'll reach and reach for it, but before she really gets a chance to try to get it, he'll give it to her and say, "Look! She got it! Everyone clap for her!"

Christmas Pictures

Last weekend, we took Nathan and Charlotte to visit Santa. Nathan was beyond excited to see Santa and tell him what he wanted for Christmas. Several months ago, Nathan saw a Toy Story choo choo train at the toy store and wanted it. Since it's Toy Story, it was pretty expensive. Plus it goes with a whole different set of tracks that we don't have, and we really didn't want to get him started on that since he already has a Thomas train table and tracks. But he has never forgotten it. So when we started talking about Christmas and what Santa might bring him, he repeatedly said he wanted Santa to bring him the Woody choo choo train. Well, the weekend after Thanksgiving, Wayne and I went to the toy store to get all of our Christmas shopping out of the way, and we got Nathan some really great things. One of which was a new big boy bike that we are going to say is from Santa. So before we went to visit Santa, we kept asking Nathan what he was going to ask Santa for, and of course, he said the Woody choo choo train (not gonna happen). Then we started suggesting other things. "What about a new bike? You could ride it around the neighborhood with Jake! Jake has a really cool bike!" After a while, we finally got him to get excited about the idea of getting a bike. And we know he'll love it because he always wants to ride the ones at Wal-Mart and Target. We made him want it even more by telling him that it might be too big for Santa to get in his sleigh. So FINALLY, a bike is all he wants. Thank goodness!


We waited in line for a good hour, but when it was finally Nathan's turn, he was so happy and so giggly! Santa was wonderful because he really took the time to talk to Nathan and let Nathan tell him what he wanted, and I was so happy when he said he wanted a bike! The best part was when Santa asked his name. Nathan told him his name and then Santa said, "Nathan! I remember you! You have really grown since last year." Nathan looked over at me with huge eyes and said, "Mommy, he remembers me!" Good job Santa! When I put Charlotte on his lap, all she could do was look up at him and his beard :)

And here are Nathan and Charlotte's Christmas portraits from the week before:

Happy Thanksgiving 2010

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. My parents, my grandmother, Wayne's mom, and my sister, Jennifer all came over to our house for Thanksgiving lunch. I would have been a little stressed about trying to do a big Thanksgiving lunch with two kids, but we divided everything up, and the only thing I was responsible for was the turkey and mashed potatoes (plus getting the house cleaned, getting the kids cleaned and dressed, getting myself cleaned and dressed, and taking pictures... ha!) Mom brought over the dressing, cranberry salad, and the pies (pecan and pumpkin). Helen brought over a corn casserole, broccoli salad, and rolls. So we definitely had a feast!

Before everyone came over, I wanted to get a few good pictures of Nathan and Charlotte...Nathan wasn't too interested in posing, until I started taking pictures of just Charlotte or just me and Charlotte...






There's my happy boy and his dragon!



Daddy and Nathan


Daddy and Superman (Superman and Spiderman are Nathan's new favorite people!)


Daddy and Charlotte


Now he's cooperating...I didn't bribe him with fruit snacks either :)


Nathan was SOOOOOOO excited for Aunt Jen to come over. The night before, he kept asking when she was going to be here. It was a great way to get him to go to sleep because I told him as soon as he woke up, she'd be here...well that kind of backfired on me because he woke up at 6:45 asking for her!




And here is our beautiful turkey! One of the two things we were responsible for...and we bought it! We decided to try a fried turkey this year (Wayne and I had one several years ago, and it was delicious!) We ordered it from Dickey's BBQ. It looked great, but Wayne and I were a little disappointed in it because it was so spicy! Wayne and I both like spicy food, but even we thought it was too much...at least we tried it, but we're going with a traditional turkey next year.





Grandma with Charlotte


Nathan had to get in the picture too...but instead of posing, he just let Charlotte touch his face. He LOVES to talk to Charlotte, make her smile and laugh, and she loves touching his face. Sometimes Nathan will put his chin up to Charlotte's mouth and let her suck on it :)


Papa and Nathan



Aunt Jen brought Nathan some of Robert's toys that he's outgrown. He LOVES this computer keyboard...I just about died when I heard him say he was checking his email!


I love this picture of Nathan and Grandmother!


All of the girls...four generations!


Not only did we celebrate Thanksgiving, but we also celebrated Mom's birthday which was the day before...Nathan helped me pick out this Christmas village bundt pan from Williams Sonoma...it is so cute because you can make individual cakes in the shape of little houses!



And Papa surprised her with Google TV...it's like having the Internet on your TV! Plus she gets to choose any trip she wants to go on. Wayne and I suggested Hawaii for the whole family :)


After opening presents, it was time for pumpkin and pecan pie, and Wayne introduced Nathan to whipped cream...


But when Nathan got too much in his mouth, Daddy smeared it all over his face...we laughed hysterically, but Nathan didn't think it was too funny :(


Papa and Charlotte

Aunt Jen spent the night with us that night, and I am so happy she did! She completely organized Nathan and Charlotte's closets! I had been meaning to go through all of Charlotte's clothes to get rid of the things she's grown out of and to get down the clothes that are bigger, but the idea of doing it by myself is so overwhelming! But thanks to Jen, both closets are filled with only the clothes that fit, and we found a bunch of outfits for Charlotte that I didn't even know I had!

The next morning, Jen dressed Charlotte up for us to take pictures of her...she's wearing a dress that her little girl, Alexandra (my niece) actually wore when she was a baby 14 years ago! But it still looks brand new!






On Friday night, we went over to Mom and Dad's house for steaks, baked potatoes, and salad. Nathan's favorite part about being over there is playing in the backyard with Cookie, their dog. He even got Papa and Daddy to race with him and Cookie.





My three favorite guys!



And my favorite baby girl!


Not only did we have a great weekend with our family, Wayne and I were also able to get all of our Christmas decorations out and put up PLUS we got all of our Christmas shopping down. We even got all of the presents wrapped! What a huge relief!