Independent Kids

My mom would always say, "I love having independent children."  We were expected to do as much for ourselves as possible.  When we weren't tall enough to put the dishes in the high cupboard when unloading the dishwasher, we got a chair and climbed up and down putting away dishes.  I learned how to cook my own eggs at a young age and had to make my own lunch for school since kindergarten.  I learned a lot from having to be independent.  Consequently I am teaching Charlie the same things.  The only problem is that he isn't strong enough to actually open the fridge doors.  We'll work on that :)

Henry has been learning how to eat baby food mush and drink water from a cup.  He would NOT take a bottle at all, but seems to really love the cup and is doing quite well at holding it and pouring into his mouth.  So proud of the big little guy.

Charlie loves asserting his independence in feeding himself.  Even if he gets it everywhere I am just happy I don't have to feed him.

 Charlie likes things to be in their places.  He puts clothes in the laundry basket, whether dirty or not.  He puts what he deems trash in the trash can.  He pushes chairs under the table, even Henry's.

Here is my super happy little Henry.  He is a chunker and super tall.

Charlie is such a happy kid. 

I am so proud of my little boys.

Henry and Charlie at Play and at Sleep.

Henry happily playing.

 Charlie giving Henry toys to play with.

Charlie offering more toys. 

Charlie showing Henry a book. 

Charlie looking at the book.

Charlie showing Henry his fun toy that makes sound.  He was teaching Henry that it was, "On!" 

Henry wasn't being a good pupil and needed some help paying attention to the lesson at hand.

Speaking of learning, Charlie learned that if he pushes the right button on my camera that the flash will pop up and flash.  I don't think that he got the concept that he was taking pictures though.  I found 37 photos similar to this one on my camera.

 Here is Henry doing one of his awesome v-ups.  He will hold them for about 4-5 seconds.

Mommy and Henry before he got put down for a nap.

 He is such a good sleeper and is always so happy when he wakes up.  At the very end of the video clip Charlie tries to "share" his basketball with Henry by throwing it in the crib with him ... at his head.  Eek!

Current Construction

As you know Charles is putting a sink in the laundry room for me.  Here is the cabinet all stained.  In the picture he is modifying the bottom so that a drawer can go there.  He is the best husband in the world to be willing to do this for me.  He knows that I use the laundry room so much and wants it to be just perfect.  What a sweet hubby.

 We are excavating out our backyard to make it tiered downward so we can have an amazing backyard.  Charles rented a skid steer to do a lot of the first moving of dirt from the back to the side yards where it needs dirt so badly.  

 Here is a picture in progress of some of the dirt moved into where the fruit trees will be going on the north side of the house.  Unfortunately the skid steer's tire got flat and came off of the rim.  We will have to finish renting it next weekend.

 Charlie did a good job of standing where I told him to while I raked the dirt into place.  He slowly got over his fear of the tractor whenever Charles brought a scoop of dirt.

Football in the Spring?

Football is usually associated with the Fall, but Charlie brought the game of football around to the Spring time, specifically, General Conference.

Family!

Funny Things

Kids are the best.  They provide much needed humor to life.

Charlie loves using utensils even if it is not a utensil type food, hence the fork in the cupcake.

The frosting was amazing so I am not sure why he left it.  I guess he wanted to share with me.

Charlie loves to take showers.  He will ask for a shower whenever near a bathroom.  I turn the shower on and he loves just standing with the water running down his face.  He will often sing in the shower, too.  He doesn't usually close his eyes in the shower, but when I told him to smile he wanted to be silly instead and closed his eyes so I couldn't see him.

Medical dictionary?  Good, he will be able to pay us back for his three heart surgeries :)

 Where did Charlie go?

 Pockets!!!!!!!

Charlie was jumping off of his bed when he got the brilliant idea to swing from my ponytail to the ground.  The chiropractor said that it looked like my neck had gotten some pretty bad whiplash.  The dental hygienist I told about it thought it was one of the funniest things she had heard.  It is true.

Charlie is definitely Charles' son.  He loves listening to music.  He will bring me my computer wanting me to turn the music on so he can just sit there and listen to it.  During General Conference he was quite attentive to most of the songs, but rarely the talks.

Henry has learned how to do a v-up.  He loves to lay there, pick up his head and his feet and just hold the position.  What baby does that?

Silly Duke

Duke, Duke, Duke, what are we going to do with you?  We have our fence up and all, but Duke can dig pretty well and it is a huge fence to Duke-proof.  So we got Duke this chain link kennel thing from our neighbors.  Within an hour he dug out so we lined it with cinderblocks hoping that would keep him in.

On Easter Sunday we were gone all day and came back to find this.  He had moved the cinderblocks and dug out.

The hole is not very deep.  I think it is funny that he took his bone with him. 

He then tried digging out into our neighbor's yard.  Not sure why that didn't continue. 

He then tried digging out to the left of the post.  He moved all of the cement chunks that he could but then decided just to go out to the right of the post.  Thankfully we had the foresight to think he still might be able to dig his way out so we left him roped up in his kennel.  After getting under this fence he only had about 4 feet of rope left.  Our neighbors saw him outside and played with him.  He is a very friendly dog with people, but not so much to other animals.