Charlie is Growing Up and Charles & Annette Do Things Too

Charlie has hit that stage where he does NOT want something on his head. Hoods really confuse him because he just doesn't understand why it isn't coming off like a hat or blanket.

If distracted he may forget about it though. He looks like a little gangster here.

A house is being built in the lot to the left of ours and Charlie is loving the great entertainment out the kitchen window.

Speaking of construction, Charles has started planning our sprinkler system for our lot. I am sure glad that he is doing it. He drew up a scaled plan (that is not the word I am looking for) of our property so that he can plan everything awesomely. Our half acre looks pretty darn big when drawn out in comparison to the size of our house. It's not too shabby for being in a subdivision. He still has yet to draw in the sprinkler system and all of our plans for our yard area. We of course have grandiose plans for it all.

To make sprinklers fun and cute I have added a photo of Charlie giving moral support to Daddy while he digs trenches. It is pretty nice that it is warm enough to have Charlie outside where he can watch Charles work and be pretty well entertained for a while so I can get a few things done inside.

I figured that Charlie was finally old enough to have a basket for his toys. Just trying to get all the toys out can occupy him for sometime.

I thought that Charlie looked so darn adorable and grown up in this little outfit!

Charlie is sporting his first pair of shoes here. The best part is that we got them for free!

These are some of the best books. It is a plastic type of paper that he can't rip, super durable, and it is super flexible and fun to play with. The books like this that we have were written by Eloise Wilkin. I got these books for my first birthday from my Grandma Hatch. Besides the coloring that I must have added they are in perfect condition and they were published in 1960!

Charlie is resting his head on me after a long, hard day of taking photos.

It is so fun to watch his personality come alive as he gets older. The other day he was sitting on the ground jabbering to himself and then he just started laughing at something funny he must have said. It was so funny! I just started laughing too which made him laugh even harder.

Here is another cute laughing incident. In the evening time right before bedtime Charlie LOVES being tickled. I was next to him but not really paying him much attention. He looked at me and started laughing. Not a, "Ha, ha, that was funny," laugh but a, "Ha, ha, that tickles," type of laugh. I looked at him and he gave me this look of, "I am ready to be tickled for the evening!" It was so cute. It is nice that he gives a pretty easy way to know when he is ready for bed. The trick is not to tickle him so much that he starts crying.

I have always known that Charlie has a pretty high pain tolerance, but he still surprises me. While I was at the new City Creek Mall in Salt Lake (it is AMAZING by the way!) with Charles' sisters and parents, Charles babysat Charlie at home. Charlie was playing with his toys while Charles was working on figuring out our sprinkler system in the kitchen. When Charles went to get Charlie to put him in a nap he saw that there was blood everywhere. All over Charlie's clothes and toys. Charles speculated that maybe he grabbed the vent cover and sliced his finger on the underside of the slats which are pretty sharp. When I got home Charles said, "Uh, when you get Charlie out of his nap don't be alarmed by all the blood all over him." My eyes got as big as dinner plates. How Charlie managed to cut himself and not even care is beyond me. He has nerves of steel. I can just see it now, when he is older he will come inside and I will see dry blood through his jeans on his knees. I'll inquire about it and his response will be, "Hun, blood? ... Oh that blood. Yeah I biffed it on my bike a few hours ago. It's not bad though." I'll take a closer look at his knees and see huge gashes in his skin. Live and learn, right?

Here I am at City Creek in H&M modeling their cute, but yet too short of a dress.

Here we are waiting for the rest of our group and food. Going clockwise we have me, Allison, Angela, and Ashley. I never get the right name to the right person when speaking, it seems, so hopefully I did a better job while typing.

And to end on a note about Charlie: Charlie's mealtimes are pretty fabulous, of course you have those obligatory not-so-great meals, but for the most part he is doing great. Eating all of his food. Not being as picky anymore. Drinking his water from a cup pretty proficiently; he would probably do better if I was better at tilting the cup at the correct angle and OH-SO-SLOWLY adjusting it. Charlie always makes meal time fun. The other day he started turning away from me and then tilting his head back to eat his bite of food. He thought it was so tricky. He would get his bite and then turn his head the correct way and look at me with a big grin full of food. This picture isn't fabulous (he kept turning to look at the camera) but it gives you the idea.

Life in Grantsville

Charlie and I went on a walk around our neighborhood the other day since it was in the high 60s and wasn't windy.  Charlie sure loves being outside.  (Charlie's eyes look a little creepy in this picture, sort of "Devil Child"-esque.)

Charlie enjoyed playing with the rocks in the dirt.  I have fond memories in my childhood of playing outside in the dirt.  We figured that we would start Charlie out pretty young playing in the dirt.  I think it is good for kids to play in the dirt.  They can play however they want and it won't hurt anything.  The dirt washes off easily from hands and face and Charlie's clothes don't stay clean much longer than a day anyway with or without dirt.  Might as well get them good and dirty.

Charlie loves to have a bowel movement during or immediately after a diaper change.  So one time I sat him over the toilet and let him poop right in it.  He did it!   Potty training, here Charlie comes!  Or maybe we will wait just a tad longer, maybe he should be able to walk first :)

Charlie is a pretty resourceful little munchkin.  Here he is using the bumpers as a pillow.  By the end of his nap all his bumper are pretty much all squashed down.  I love the little foot sticking out of his crib.  I do love that his crib isn't one of the huge ones, it will force him to learn how not to move so much while sleeping, I am sure that skill will be useful when we kick him out of his crib to a mattress on the floor and then to a real bed once he has proven himself worthy.

 Charles has been working on our basement.  Here is Charlie watching and learning how to use all of the fun power tools.  He had been playing with the paper he is sitting on in the picture.  When I came by with the camera there he was sitting on it.  I am glad that he is resourceful and knows how to add an extra layer to keep the cold floor from his cute hiney.

Here is a picture of Charles working on putting back some piping in our basement.  He had just previously worked on framing a part of a wall.

We all went to the Republican Caucus here in Grantsville.  It was fun knowing some familiar faces in our precinct.  For the heck of it, Charles ran for a County Delegate position.  He didn't win any of the three slots, but for winging his speech, and running against five other people who had come quite prepared with lots of good background, I thought that Charles did quite well.  He thought that he would only get two votes, his and mine but he got 17!  Not too bad when the most votes that anyone got was 30.  He said that next time we have a caucus he wants to actually have thought about it beforehand and have something real ready to say.

As for me, I recently finished curtains and drapes (long curtains) for our living room/dining room area 97.77% of the way.  I am about 75% of the way done with London Shades for our bathroom. Once they are 100% done I will add photos; in the meantime, you will just have to wait or come visit us.  I am thoroughly loving making curtains for our home.  I am not using any kind of instructions for them because I just can't find any that I like perfectly.  I have looked at a lot of ways to make curtains and just combine all of the ideas with a twist (usually big) of my own.  I am pretty excited.

Charlie is Such a Good Helper

Here Charlie is playing with toys for Mommy since she is busy cooking. 

Charlie is helping to clean up the toys (when going from sitting to crawling position he often will get one of his feet caught under him).

Charlie is helping Daddy shave.

Now Daddy is helping Charlie shave.

 Charlie is helping Mommy puddle the curtains.

 Charlie is helping Mommy eat the avocado ...

 ... and kiwi

 

 Charlie computer-sitting for Mommy while she gets ready for the day.

Charlie is such a good helper and always helps Mommy and Daddy get so many things done.

Charlie's Cuteness and Great Achievements

Today we were able to get a good video of Charlie doing a hilarious belly laugh.  It is so funny!

Another cute thing that Charlie does is shake his head at you.  If you do it back, he will shake his head again.  That is how Charlie has "conversations" with people.  He loves it and thinks that it is great fun.

Charlie has always HATED bottles and anything of the sort.  Well, Charlie was a bit sick and was taking an antibiotic which was really yummy and so he learned to take it from a syringe.  So the other day I thought I would be tricky and give him water in a syringe and he took it.  Yea!  I felt so tricky.  Tonight I was giving him some water from the syringe to wash down his food.  I kept refilling it from a cup and after a while I thought, "I wonder if now that he likes water and has seen it come from the cup into the syringe if he would take it from the cup?"  He has always flatly refused a cup before, even earlier today, but I tried it to let him drink from a cup and he loved it!  I am so impressed with him.  Little moments like this when I can see him learning and putting two and two together make me so happy and make parenting all worth it!  This is a prior picture of him pushing back when Charles was trying to help him drink from a cup.  It was NOT bath water in the cup!

Since we are talking about Charlie's accomplishments, let's move on over to the topic of crawling.  No, Charlie is not crawling yet (I am TOTALLY fine with this since I don't have to worry about him being mobile yet, mostly since we have stairs) but he will be soon.  It is so fun to watch him struggle for something.  He REALLY wants it but is just barely too far away.  He will eventually get there though after a while.  One thing that he has learned is scooting while sitting.  When on a hard, smooth surface he puts his hands down in front of him and will push himself backwards.  He hasn't gotten the hang of going forward, but he can pivot well.  Also, as of today, he tried to pull himself up to stand.  He almost did it but then we decided we shouldn't let him try any more since we figured he would probably let go and clunk his head and we didn't want a screaming baby in the middle of church.  Maybe later.

Charlie has become a bit better at eating now that we know what foods he likes.  All puree baby foods are out.  No more of that.  He wants REAL food.  Cheese chunks, cheerios, pasta, mashed potatoes, graham crackers, oranges, and stuff like that.  The doctor told us to try to fatten him up since he is SUPER small (about 3rd percentile) and keeps dropping percentiles.  So we get to add butter to everything.  I thought about dipping his cheerios in butter when feeding them to him :)

Well I think that is all the most recent cuteness of Charlie.

“Mirror Mirror in my Hand, Who Is the Fairest of Them All?”

While I get ready in the morning Charlie enjoys sitting on the counter and playing with anything within his reach.  He finds the handheld mirror fascinating.

We were going through my purse and reorganizing all of Charlie's stuff and Charlie thought that it was great fun that I let him play with my camera that I keep in there.  It is my old camera with a broken screen but still works.  I decided to take a few pictures of him with it since he was just loving it. Here he is just looking as adorable as ever.

Charlie isn't giving a great smile in this picture, but that is what is great about this picture.  Not only are his eyes tripping me out but you can see his cute bottom two teeth.  It has been pretty hard to get a picture of them since when he smiles you can't see his bottom teeth just like both Charles and I.

The Faces of Eating

Here are some pictures of Charlie eating from the last month or so.

Spaghetti

Glop

Blueberries 

Graham Cracker 

Cheese

Mashed Potatoes

Pizza

(this was the first time that he wanted my food and about cried when I took it away to get a bite)

Not Wanting to Eat

Up Too Late

I don't care to stay up this late but when Charlie is crying in the next room it is a little hard to sleep.

Charlie has been refusing to eat and sleep lately and has decided to do a lot of crying as pictured below.  I am pretty sure it is because he is hungry but will only eat a few bites of food and wants to nurse for the rest of his meal.  But "man shall not live by [milk] alone" (Matthew 4:4).  Now to quote from a less religious source, Ratatouille.  Anton Ego (the food critic) says, "I don't LIKE food.  I LOVE it.  If I don't love it, I don't SWALLOW."  I think that this fits Charlie's new found pickiness.

This is a TMI comment that you can skip: once babies eat solids their poop, lets say, "matures."  When this happened for Charlie, the thought crossed my mind, "I wonder if it could revert back if he was on more of a milk diet again?"  Bad question.  But I now know the answer.  Yes.  Unfortunately since he got used to pushing with mature poops he did the same with the milk poops which created quite a mess.

Here is Charlie in a happier mood than now.  We finally bought Charlie clothes.  This is one of them.   We got it at DI for $2 (I think).  There were a lot of really cute things.  Oh how I love the prices at thrift stores.  The only thing that I couldn't find was socks.  I had to go to Walmart for those and they were expensive!  A dollar a pair.  Maybe I haven't bought socks for a while but seriously there isn't THAT much fabric to warrant an entire dollar.   Oh well.

Charlie can't pull himself up like this yet, but does enjoy looking out the windows.  I am sure he will love being outside once it gets warmer and we have a little bit more of a yard for him to plan in.  I am sure that since he is a boy that he won't mind having tons of fun dirt to play in and to eat.

We had a visit from Grandpa & Grandma Thomas and Karl.  It was fun to have them out to our home.  I LOVE this shot of Charlie with his great grandma.

(Our walls really aren't this dark yellow, it just looks funny in the photo.)