A Day in our Life

So I very, very often get the comment: "You must have the best pictures of your kid." I always have a little twinge of guilt when people say this, because in THEORY I have a great skill set for getting nice pictures of my kid all the time.... buuuuuttttt.... more often than not I'm there like every other mom snapping a pic with my camera phone.
There's many reasons/excuses for this just a few I feel compelled to use now... 1) My camera can not break in an accident, therefore it is diligently stored away from rambunctious toddlers... I work with my camera and I have bookings coming up, and yes, I have a back up camera for my weddings etc... but the whole point of a backup camera is to have a WORKING backup camera AT the event should something happen to the first. So I need both, in working order, at my weddings. SO, it's stored away, and out of site, out of mind!! When it's packed away it just doesn't come out like it should. 2) Just like every other mother of a small child, there seems to never be enough hands to wrangle kids and carry their 'gear' haha... if I don't have backup (dad), the last thing I think about is getting another fragile, fairly large and pretty heavy piece of equipment out to go somewhere.

So pretty much like every parent anywhere, my camera seems to come out in obvious situations, special occasions, pre-planned family portraits, etc. Otherwise, it's the good ole camera phone for us! haha. Every now and again I get a pang of guilt and dress charlie up and take him outside to shoot a few. He's usually non-compliant and running around like a crazy, just like every toddler ever (photo moms should get model children, don't you think? ones with endless patience and natural camera ease... nay not so) and so it doesn't always end well.

So these 'Day in the Life' shoots I have seen all over, and I decided one day that I needed to do it. Just 'everyday art'... not stuffing charlie into over the top outfits and heading off to fun locations with perfect hair and a freshly wiped nose. Just us, doing random, natural (read boring), daily activities that really will be so fun to remember when Charlie is all grown and we don't have a morning cereal routine. So I did a bit of it one day and here is the finished project... and I need to remember to do this again...

(natural means no photoshop for momma... arg, I look so old!)

My Bitty Baby is 2!?!

I have Christmas Pics. But Let's start here. I just wrote my little 'birthday tribute' to Charlie that I hope to keep up at least once a year as my kids grow, so I thought I'd post it, and I also figure, may as well post the party pics too..... so, GO!

• Talk about a recent growth spurt! All his pants just turned into floods overnight!
• Such a sweet boy, if you say 'soft' or 'gentle' with a baby or animal he very gently pats their head. If he knows he's done something naughty he runs right up to smooth it over with a hug and a kiss (a little manipulative I think!).
• He LOVES to draw and color and could sit for 30 minutes straight doodling on paper. He also wants mom and dad to draw with him, and he always wants them to draw, Muno, Foofa, Brobee, Toodee and Plex.
• He still loves Yo Gabba Gabba, especially all his toys, he always wants all his toys with him at the same time. He got little bath squirts for Christmas that are the heads of the 'Gabba Gang', and it's not good enough to have just one or two, he has to haul around all five Characters and always knows if someone is missing and freaks out!
• Charlie talks so much and so much of it you can understand. If you say, 'say ---' he can repeat back to you most simple words.
• He always goes to sleep with his blanket and a couple stuffed animals, mostly his Brobee and Muno beanies. He is an amazing sleeper, he doesn't even try to get out of his crib actually, he just lays on his back and plays with his 'babies' till he's tired and falls asleep. Both nap and nighttime are so easy for mom and dad. Recently he's tried to sneak a few more toys into his crib for naptime by throwing them up over the bars on his way into the room when he knows we're going in to go to sleep, and it cracks us up.
• He very recently got into cartoons and movies. First it was Toy Story (which he still loves), then he really got into Tangled (he loved to sing along with the ruffians at the bar, 'dreeeammm, dreeeaaaammm'). His big favorite for the last month was Rio. He would ask for Rio almost first thing in the morning and he knew the songs and would sing out 'Riiiiiii-oh' during the movie, and then lots of times just for fun in the grocery store or restaurants. Recently he's included Kung Fu Panda which he got for Christmas into his favorites - he asks for 'Po'.
• Charlie loves to laugh, when other people are laughing (in real life or on TV) he just likes to join in with this real loud, joyful, but totally fake laugh.
• Everything is 'woah' when he gets it. New toys, food, etc. It makes mommy feel good when she puts his food in front of him, because he seems so impressed.
• Lately Charlie got into fettuccine alfredo, but he's hit and miss with all food. A pretty constant 'like' though is fruit. In the last two-three days he's probably eaten 200 blueberries.

We had an 'Art' themed birthday party for Charlie as he's so into it right now. We had the kids paint canvases, and even had a multimedia art project across our walls (I let that happen because I have a bunch of dings in that wall that have to be painted anyway, haha.

Even our treats and snacks were art. Fruit and veggies and dips and cheese and crackers in every color of the rainbow. I didn't take a picture of the cupcakes, but I had these little crayola crayon picks, and I decorated it to look like a scribble from the crayon. Got the idea on Pinterest and it was really cute, but I'm not really the greatest at like piping and decorating.

Charlie absolutely loved all the birthday presents he received. He screamed and yelled and said 'Wow!!!' Then he would dance around and laugh and run back to the present.

We did jelly bean art as a party favor. The kids could take a little jar and fill it with the rainbow of colored jelly beans how they wanted.

Many thanks to everyone who came. It was so fun for us parents to watch Charlie (and really at this age, let's face it, that's what it's mostly about!). At the end, like any year, we were thoroughly tired and just wanted to sit and put our feet up, and we did!

Yo Gabba Gaaaabbbbbbaaaaaa!

First off, yes, these pics are awful. I didn't think they'd let me take in my nice camera, as to be fair it does have very nice HD video, maybe I'd just record the whole thing and distribute, haha. Other than that all we have is cameras who do AWFUL in low light. But after I kinda felt bad, because other people had SLRs in there, so maybe I could've got away with it.

So the story is we ended up winning some tickets to a live stage show event of one of Charlie's fav shows, 'Yo Gabba Gabba' from a radio station through the magic of facebook. I felt a little bad because I found out about the contest through another facebook friend who would also have loved to go. We did end up winning. (I was begging, borrowing and stealing for votes.) This is just a show that actually interests Charlie. He's not big time into TV yet, but this is his speed. 5 of the about 30 words he knows how to say right now are, Muno, Fuffa, Brobee, Toodee, and Plex. So yeah, he's a fan. I really wanted him to see it, but there really wasn't money in the budget for it - some of the cheaper seats are $30 per ticket, and yes, a not quite two year old has to have a ticket. So we decided weren't going to go if we didn't win, but we did. I was like jumping up and down when we won.

Charlie, who has an attention span of 2 minutes for anything besides coloring (even watching the show on netflix, he has to run around and play while he watches), sat completely and totally still for the entire hour and a half of this show. It was unreal.


The bad part - they sold all this merch, of course. And Charlie saw some beanie babies with the other kids, and he was instantly obsessed. He just kept staring and screaming 'muno', 'brobee'.... Sooooo... like the sucker parents we are, we got a few. They were stupid expensive, but it was totally worth it. Check out this video of how much he loved these things... that makes the price worth it! (We were just glad we hadn't had to buy tickets AND the dolls.)

In the not quite 24 hours we've had these things, Charlie has probably put them down twice. And that wasn't for a long time. While walking to the car after I tried to take them so he wouldn't drop and lose them, but there was absolutely NO question of that.

Thanks friends and anyone who voted to get us these tickets. We had so much fun!

A Post that is Mostly About Halloween...oh and HI, I'm back!

This is me diving back in to blogging after 6+ months, ha. I've decided that it's a good plan not to try to catch up all at once, and I may never really catch up, but I may pepper stuff back in as I have the time and energy. I'd like to jot down a few things before I forget, but we'll see! I really got inspired to try and keep up some tidbits here, as I went back and tried to put together a scrap/photobook of our 2010. This blog helped me so much! You never know if anyone cares or is reading your blog, so sometimes I was just like, 'eh, whatever no one cares.' But after how nice this blog was to help put together a picture book of our year, I truly realized, the person I'm blogging for is mostly me!

The lead up to Halloween I wanted to do all this stuff, but I've actually been pretty busy with a lot of weddings with the photography thing. Which is great, but we didn't get a lot I wanted to in. But we did go over to the pumpkin walk which is like tradition. Charlie is a bit young yet for this, but he did like a few things. The amount of open grass to run in, the kids all around, running away from mom and dad. He didn't get the 'scenes' except one: Tangled. He was absolutely memorized by the Tangled scene.


And we had a melt down and had to leave over the little, I don't know what they're called you put your head through a hole and you're in a scene or whatever, that was of Toy Story. He absolutely was taken with it, but he didn't want any kids to put their faces in! It really upset him, he just wanted to stand at the front and stare at it and touch it. So we had to leave, cuz he kept trying to keep other little kids out of it, which isn't great.


SO here's the thing about Halloween for us... I'm ambivalent about dressing up and all that, I like a good party, but that's it... John won't dress up at all really. He likes eating candy, if that counts for being involved in Halloween. Charlie being little and not knowing if he cares about it or not, basically gets involved to the level we care to, so the last two years we've just kinda had a fun time coming up with random ideas to dress him up as. Year one, he was 10 mths old and had funny patchy hair. We thought he looked like he had a 'comb-over'. That hair started these ideas of an old man costume, which sorta refined into him being 'Benjamin Buttons'... Thus a baby-old man. Haha. This year we knew what Charlie was going to be for a very long time because we've been calling him "Charticus" for ages. I don't know how the nickname started honestly. But probably 6 months ago one of us threw out the idea that he should be like a Spartan warrior/one of the 300 for Halloween - named Charticus of course.

So we printed off some pictures from the internet of like Gerard Butler in "300" and then just pieced together how we'd make a costume. The nice thing was, we NEVER thought he'd be able to actually go outside in his costume. In October it's usually just way too cold to wear most costumes without a coat, let along basically underwear and a cape. But randomly Halloween turned out to be 60+ degrees. Still a little chilly for extended wear of this particular costume, but he ran outside and we took some pictures, and we spent 5-10 minutes at the neighborhood trunk-or-treat. Then we just went to my moms to 'trick or treat' and hung out till bedtime at her house. We were real party animals this year!

This is John and Charlie eating their Halloween hot dogs at the trunk or treat. And John trying to coax Charlie to look at mom and smile.

All in all it was fun, albeit laid back!

Big Time Stuff...

"I own a Mitsubishi Gallant, BIG TIME STUFF!!!"

If you don't understand the previous quote then you don't watch enough SNL. Haha. One of Will Ferrell's finest. The man is essentially trying to validate or get respect for himself by bragging of his silly belongings, and always screams stuff like that at the top of his lungs over dinner. "BIG TIME STUFF!!!"

Feels a little bit like what I'm doing. Haha. But as this blog has just become somewhat of a life chronicle, I'd be remiss if I didn't record this. It's huge for us, although probably not so much for others. We set out to look for houses with a realtor a few months ago. Our price range is small and our expectations as always too high, ha. But we saw some things we liked okay, but there was this or that fix we'd need to make, and any house we were looking at was realistically going to take some remodel for us to enjoy our time in it much. We really knew that going in, and were all gun ho to learn how to do things like install wood flooring and moldings. We really hadn't even slightly considered building. One, we didn't think it was in our price range, and two, we didn't think we had time. As chance would have it though we came across this builder and he told us the market being what it was he could build us a house that would get our "needs" (not wants, big difference) met and equal what we were looking at and he'd sign a guarantee as to the price. So this new decision on the table really sent us through a loop for awhile - but we decided to take the chance.

So yeah, we're building a house. It's just a small starter home, but it will be fun to have it how we 'think' we want it for at least the next some odd years. It's really a lot of decisions, this is what I'm finding out so far! Some that I just think, 'what's the difference?!' Plus we're putting in some sweat equity of our own and we're looking forward to it, and not, because we know it's gunna be lots of work. Everyone keeps asking us, "Can your marriage survive building a house?!" And we always say, "We'll see!" :) Hehe. But it is stressful, no doubt on that. It's mostly stressful trying to get the most out of your dollar and decide what you should push for, and what isn't that important, and what you really want, and what you can let go, and is there something you should have done that you didn't, always worrying you're making a decision you'll regret or wish you could change.....

In other words, we are growing a lot from this experience. It's going to be quite the life lesson!

February 20th!

February 20th!

February 28th!

March 1st!

March 7th!

Leland's Third!

Three balloons equals it's been three years today since Leland was born!

We miss you Leland and we love you! Hope you're calling in some favors for us up there! :)

12 Months

Another one of the many, many hazzards of having your birthday in the middle of the holidays is not getting your proper birthday tribute on time. Shame shame! I know Charlie, nor my faithful faithful readers are all that concerned. But, like I've said before, I don't journal, so....

One year! One year and it feels like one week and 10 years all at the same time. I think pretty much every parent looks back over their pictures at this point and wonders, 'how did this tiny baby get from looking like this...'

'To looking so big, like this..."Fortunately, my mom asked me to take this series of pictures for her, since she's on a mission far away so she could see his growth, and so now I can see how it all happened. (I took an 8 month picture, but alas, can't find it anywhere, it must have been deleted inadvertently. I'm so sad, cuz now that it's all done, I think it's kinda cool. I sorta wish I'd spent more time on the pics, and shot them all exactly the same and stuff. But you can't imagine when you're staring at your kid all day that you'll ever have a hard time remembering them how they are!)

Seriously? 12 Months!

• Waves hi! He learned this about 10 months or so and absolutely LOVED it. As soon as he figured it out and figured out how much of a reaction he could get from total strangers he was just obsessed with waving. He had the one handed version and the two handed version, and it was such a crack up. He would wave at EVERYONE when we were at the store or anywhere. He was always so pleased with himself when they waved back.
• Started saying 'Hi'. It was a "Hi" wave combo for awhile. Lately he has dropped the wave a lot, but he says "Hi" a lot to people. When he sees grandma on Skype, "Hi". When he sees you in the morning, "Hi". He doesn't understand "Bye" however, he just wants to do "Hi" again, especially if people are waving.

• Learned at thanksgiving that he looooooves pizza. Ate almost a whole slice himself. Also loves Chili, fruit, cottage cheese, and anything sweet!
  
• Sometimes we call him our German baby, because Charlie has this fluent babble that has all these really harsh consonants in it, that sounds like he's going off in German. "Ideekanaofkpt!"
• Sleeps through the night again, phew! Charlie had been a pretty darn good sleeper, all things considered right from the very beginning. However, at about 9 mths he went through a phase where he woke up, ALL THE TIME... By about 11 months he was waking up 6+ times a night at points. Finally we worked out something to help him sleep (or maybe the phase just passed, haha, who knows?). Now he's back to 11-12 hour nights, and typically doesn't wake up. Niiice.
• Got his 6th tooth just a week or so before his first birthday!

• Became my picky little eater, BOO! Hoping this one's a phase.
  
• Learned to walk! After about 11 months we were interested to see if he would walk, so we'd put him between us and try to get him to take steps, he'd take about one. Only as long as it took to get to his hands and knees to crawl away from us and whatever nonsense we were up to. So we figured he was really uninterested. But about two weeks before his first birthday he took a few steps, about a week later he was very wabbley walking, and by his first birthday he was doing pretty well and was walking almost all the time!

• Charlie is king of the courtesy laugh. If other people are laughing he'll join in as if he's in on the joke. Including if people are laughing on TV, or if mom and dad are laughing AT the TV.
• Growls like a monster.
• Loves to play "monster chase", he crawls as fast as he can, but just falls on his face laughing after a few feet.
• When you ask Charlie where his nose is, he will grab YOUR finger and use it to point to his nose. Something's not totally computing there. Haha.
• Loves to sing songs. Well he likes you to sing to him. It will keep him calm in the car or during a diaper change if you'll sing him some of his favorite songs.
• Has the funniest dance moves. Looks like a little traditional indian war dance.
• Loves to rock on his rocker. Crazy style.
• Likes to empty cupboards and really wants to play with the plunger.
  

WE LOVE YOU CHARLIE! BEST YEAR EVER, HANDS DOWN!!!