Charlie-ness

Charlie loves riding this little horse.  He can't rock it by himself because he just doesn't weigh enough so I will help him out.  He loves being on it.

 Charlie likes to terrorize my night stand whenever he gets the chance.

 Charlie helps me sort the mail.

 He does quite a good job sorting through all the ads for me.

 Charlie has finally learned how to sit up from laying (lying? Nathan, which one is it?) down.  This is the first way he learned to do it.  He pushes himself up with his arms and then does the splits to get his legs forward.  Are all baby boys as flexible as he?  He sure can bend!

 Here is just a cute photo of Charlie and his eyes that haven't changed a lick since being born.

Bottle!?!?

Charlie is officially on a bottle.  Gah!  I lost my milk and that is all there is to it.  Poor little kid was getting dehydrated and so he finally learned to take a bottle.  It took a lot of help from Charles to get it to work.  Formula is so darn expensive!  Thankfully my friend told me that Western Family sells some because when I went it took me 10 minutes of standing in front of the formula shelves before I found it; it was hidden.  It is quite a bit cheaper than the other brands which is nice.  I don't know how people bottle feed all their kids for the entire time.  Bottle feeding has still been unbelievably harder than breastfeeding.  There is so much to think about and remember.  Not to mention that we actually have to burp Charlie forever now, and still he will throw some up.  This morning he barfed half of the bottle all over the carpet and then 10 minutes later he barfed the other half all over Charles.  We haven't had to deal with throwing up for so long, I feel like I have a brand new baby again.  Well, here is a picture of Charlie bottle feeding; poor little kid gets awful smelling milk now.

Farm Boy Charlie

Charlie and I went to our friend's farm to see all of their animals.

Isn't Charlie a natural for riding a dog?

 Charlie never cared to pet the horse, just wanted to stare at it.

Here are the three Musketeers and their Moms.

 Charlie watching the goats.  One of the goats flicked hay right into Charlie's face.  No crying, just a little startled.

 Charlie had a great time seeing all of the animals!

A Day in the Life of Charlie

Charlie helps me do a little painting.

Charlie checks out the mattings that I got in some frames at DI .

While trying to crawl to me in the kitchen he usually stops off at Charles' stereo to see what he can play with.

 

Charlie checking out the sturdiness of our kitchen chairs.

Charlie helping me out with cooking.

Charlie does a good job at getting his bib dirty. You can tell the elephant has been eating avocados (look carefully).

Eating bread as if it was an orange slice 

Charlie helping Charles play Rummikub.

Charlie Laughing

Charlie had been playing with some crayons but getting bored of them so I decided to start dropping them.  For some reason that was absolutely cracking up!  He thought for some reason that it was funny.  At first I didn't think it would last long but after he kept laughing and laughing I reached down by our bed and gave the camera to Charles.  Its not a great quality movie because of the bad back lighting but it sure is funny.  It is a about a minute long, so you don't have to watch the whole thing if you don't want to.  You will get the gist of it after a few seconds.

Digging a Sprinkler System

Charles' parents, Tom and Jan, came out to our home for Friday and Saturday  to help with the sprinkler system.

FRIDAY:

Charles has been digging our trenches for our sprinkler system with a pick for a while, but on Friday our neighbor came over and told us about a guy that will dig the trenches for you with his Gehl for a pretty good price.  Charles figured that he might at least call up the guy to see how much he would charge.  Long story short, Charles ended up driving it and dug the rest of our ditches for $100.  He said that it was worth the money just to drive the machine!

 Tom helped guide him through everything since you have to drive the machine backwards.

Jan and I helped with trenches by digging a trench underneath our sidewalk.  We each went from a side to meet in the middle.  Here I am with my arm completely under the sidewalk digging at the dirt.

 Charlie gave moral support for a little bit but then decided that he wanted to eat and be inside.

SATURDAY:

Charles' grandparents and Uncle Karl came to our house to partake in all of the fun.  Karl was a great help!  Charles, Tom, Karl, and Grandpa helped dig trenches where the Gehl couldn't.  They worked so hard, even with the crazy high speed winds we were having.  They got a lot of good work done!

I finished the trench underneath the sidewalk with the help of a PVC sprayer attached to the hose.  I got pretty muddy and filthy in the process.  My hair was absolutely caked in mud since I ended up laying down in the water to reach my hand down the hole to help with the process.  It always feels so good to get completely filthy!  During General Conference I had to sit on a towel on the couch so that I didn't dirty it all up.

After finishing my first hole I went on the dig another.  The wind had picked up a ton and this became my new outfit.

 Our garage was open all day and with the terrible wind it kicked tons of dust and dirt onto our cars.  I have never seen such filthy cars that were in the garage.

For the second session of General Conference we were so pooped that Charles and I practically slept through the entire thing.  Good thing we can watch it later.

A Visit from the Austins

My sister Colleen came to visit us which was very fun.  Charlie LOVED all of the attention and entertainment.  Her three girls had lots of fun doing: 

makeup,

playing with my Playmobile toys from when I was a little girl,

doing chalk in the basement,

and riding bikes in the basement.  Here is my chalk drawing that I did down in our basement.

 Charlie loved playing with the Austin's Mardi Gras beads and having a cape.

Box Springs Redone

We got a queen mattress and box springs from our friends that needed a little TLC so I set out to help it.  The mattress was in pretty good condition, but you could kind of feel the springs.  We are hoping to buy a foam thingy for it.  But the box springs were in major need of help.  The fabric-plasitcy cover looked as though it had water damage so I took it off to see how it was underneath.  The inside looked great!  I decided that I would recover the box springs strictly from scrap fabric that I owned so that it would be completely FREE!

Before:

After: 

I used old t-shirts that we had for the underneath. 

Charlie is Nine Month

Charlie is growing up so fast!  He is learning new things every day.  Being a mom is the best job I have had.  The best part is that the pay is great!  I get cute smiles, laughs, hugs, and just watching him grow and learn is my payment.  What pure, blissful joy that Charlie brings into my life!

Charlie had his nine month check up.  He weighed in at 15 1/2 lbs.  The doctor said that he still wasn't even on the growth chart for weight yet but it is good progress from where he was!  How exciting!  With the help of my mom who is a dietitian we have figured out some awesome foods with good healthy calories.  Charlie eats like a king; I am often jealous of his food.  Yummy Greek yogurt and avocados are the ones that I am always tempted to pick in while he eats.  I am so glad that Charlie's weight is getting better!

This is Charlie's new face that he likes to do a lot and thinks it's great fun when you do it back at him.  I don't even know what you would call it, kind of a scrunched face, with funny puckered lips.