Thanksgiving 2011

Wow! Life has been really crazy lately! Since I am really wanting to blog about Christmas celebrations that are already occuring, I figured I better squeeze in Thanksgiving first! Thanksgiving this year was a little different than normal. The Monday of the week of Thanksgiving, my maternal grandmother passed away. So, Tuesday and Wednesday were spent in San Angelo for her funeral. She passed very peacefully, but it came about suddenly. In the spring my grandmother moved into an assisted living facility. Then, she sold her house and her car. It's like God was telling her to get everything in order. Thursday, Nov. 17 she was diagnosed with incurable cancer and given 2-4 months to live. On Monday, Nov. 21 she passed away. We all think she was ready to go to her eternal home to be with God and my granddaddy. I love my grandmother very much and will miss her. She was a wonderful Christian woman who always showed that she loved her family. I am so glad she got to meet Charlotte and that Charlotte got to meet her before she passed away. After leaving San Angelo, we went to Austin to spend the rest of the week with my family. We did still have Thanksgiving dinner and got to get together with my Aunt and one of my cousins and her family. There was lots of playing and fun times!

On Friday, we had beautiful weather to hang Christmas lights.

We opened our annual Christmas ornament from Mimi and Papaw.

She wasn't really sure why should couldn't play with the ball.

We also got to celebrate my Mom's birthday.

She got a Kindle Fire. I was jealous!

A Girl and Her Horse

After being scared of her rocking horse for months, now she cannot get enough of it! This little horse is just the right size for Charlotte to love on and ride on. Her favorite animal sound is the horse sound. When you ask her, "What does a horse say?" she answers with a very exuberant "Neigh!" Here she is riding her horse.

A new way to read

18 months

I can't believe I failed to get this done, but I forgot Char's 18-month post! She is growing so quickly and the days just fly by. Days with our little one are filled with joy, laughter, tears, and fits. She can be so excited one minute, to collapse into a fit of sadness or anger the next.

Stats:

weight - 25 lbs. 4 oz.

height - 32.5 inches

Charlotte is all about discovering the world around her. She loves to point at things and say "doh" (we don't know what this means) or "whas tha?" (what's that). She can get so excited about the smallest things like seeing a bird out the window. She will squeal with joy. Charlotte is also testing her limits on just about everything. We have to go "think about it" (time out) several times a day. It is rare occasion to make it through dinner without her having to think about her choices while turned away from the table.
Nonetheless, with all of the "button-pushing" comes moments of pure joy and excitement on her part (and ours) as she grows and learns. Her language skills have really taken off over the last 6 weeks. She babbles on, and on, and on. She will try to repeat a lot of what we say. She has about 20 words in her vocabulary that she uses regularly. Sign language is still a big part of our routine, particularly at dinner time. She signs eat, more, please, and thank you. She has said a lot of these words as well, but usually signs them. Charlotte understands far more than what she can express. It seems that she understands about 90% of what we say to her. However, she acts as though she doesn't understand on those occasions when we are telling her something she doesn't want to do!
This girl can play, play, play all day long. Balls are still one of her favorite things. She just loves to bounce them and chase them. She has also become quite the little mama while she plays with her baby doll and stroller. She loves to push her stroller around or "feed" her baby. We love watching her play in her kitchen or stack her blocks up. She is really great at independent play. With us, she loves to roll the ball, tackle us, do ring around the rosies, or dance. Charlotte is still involved in Kindermusik and has a true love for all kinds of music. Veggies Tales, Praise Baby, and Blue's Clues are her favorite shows to watch. Storytime sitting in our laps on the ground or in her rocking chair is one of her most loved past times. There is never a dull moment around here, and we like it that way!

Halloween, Part 3, the final chapter

We had a great time on Halloween night! We started with a photo session on our front porch. I had so much fun decorating the porch with Fall items this year!

Then we went to a friend's birthday party who was born on Halloween. Sorry we didn't get any pictures of the birthday girl! Charlotte really enjoyed the ball pit.

Then, finally back to our neighborhood for some trick-or-treating. We only went to 6 or 7 houses. It is slow going with an 18-month-old so we didn't venture very far from home.

Finally, Daddy carried our tired little Goldilocks home!

Halloween, Part 2

Tonight we went to the Chamblees' house for our annual small group Halloween costume party! We all want to wear costumes, but nobody every wants to put much effort into their costume, so there are always some wonderfully creative ones! This year I also felt inspired to make some fruit creations as treats.

Here I put fruit on skewers and stuck them into a pumpkin. Then, around that I have apple smiles, an idea I got from my sister.

I was trying to get Charlotte to pose with me, but she just kept begging for more roasted pumpkin seeds.

Charlotte is Goldilocks and she has the three bears on the front of her costume. So Mark and I are bears, but we are the bears' neighbors who saw the break in and informed them to come home! It is impossible to get her to smile for a picture these days.

Jacob - a lumberjack

Logan, Cari, Emmie - ghosts of Christmas future, "pregnant", and past

Michelle and Caroline - the mirror on the wall and Snow White

Rachel and Avery - "Best Stage Mom" and her ballerina

Justin and Alli - E-male (email) and attachments

Sorry I didn't bet pictures of everyone in their costumes. We also had a football player, hunter, and pregnant "Juno".

I love watching Charlotte play at this age. Mostly she either plays by herself or follows the older kids around. She did some of that tonight and really enjoyed eating at the "big kids" table. However, I also walked in on her playing with Beau. She really likes Beau! He is one of the only names that she says regularly. It was great to watch her take the lead and engage him in play. She started by playing his music table for him. Then, she was handing him toys. She also crawled around with him (because he is now a crawler!) and she tickled him.

Handing Beau a toy

Playing with Emmie in the toy box

Crawling under the table and tickling Beau

Halloween, Part 1

Last night we attended the first of three fun Halloween events this year. Our church had a "trunk or treat" in the church parking lot. I was very excited for Halloween this year because last year Charlotte was adorable, but didn't have any idea what was going on. I was a little scared that she wouldn't like trick or treating because she can be very shy in large crowds or when people she doesn't know walk up to her. However, this mama did not have to worry! Considering trick or treating involves getting to carry around a bucket (which she loves to do) and receiving candy, she caught on really quickly!

Here is our adorable Goldilocks with her three bears

"You mean all I have to do is walk up to people and they will hand me candy?"

We paused for a moment to take a family picture. Charlotte is eating a Skittle!

This little miss was not shy at all! She would wedge her way in if there was a large crowd and went back to several cars more than once!

Of course, we had to pause for a popcorn snack break!

We were also very excited to run into a few good friends!

What a great time! Charlotte will be so excited to find out there is more to come!