Charlie's Surgery

Just a quick update on what's going on at our house. Charlie is having surgery next week on Thursday. Its a very minor procedure called a frenulectomy of the tongue. Basically Charlie is tongue tied (yes, it's a real diagnosis) and they will be clipping underneath his tongue. The whole procedure takes less than 15 minutes but he has to go under anesthesia.... which, of course, makes me a little nervous. The good news is that this will hopefully help Charlie with both eating and his speech!

Ella's Easter Bunny

Today we went to visit Ella's Easter Bunny. That's right... he's Ella's. Every time someone brings him up, Ella corrects whoever is speaking, "not THE Easter bunny, MY Easter bunny". Needless to say Ella was very excited to pay him a visit. She wanted to remind him that he needed to find her at Gigi's house this year.

It was a great visit... no lines, neither kid had a meltdown AND we got a cute picture. I call that a success! As we were leaving Ella waved goodbye and yelled to her bunny, "Don't forget to get Easter! Bye!"

Ella Ella Bo Bella

There is so much to tell about Ella, I hardly know where to start. Our toddler is almost gone and a little girl is in her place. Ella has imaginary friends, she likes to play dress up and she is always using her imagination... sometimes coming up with some pretty strange stuff. Ella loves to sing and dance and swim and play with her stuffed animals. Her favorite colors are pink and purple and her favorite thing to have for breakfast is Cinnamon Life Cereal.

Ella loves it when you give her a special job or task and she can be quite bossy! She likes to tell us what we are doing instead of asking us and she can be a bit of a tattle-tale! She is funny and silly and very smart. Ella's vocabulary is excellent and its hard to remember she is only 3 years old because she carries herself like she is much older.

Ella has finally given up her afternoon nap...which I was DREADING but have come to find that its not that bad. She will still go in her room during Charlie's afternoon nap for some "quiet time" if Mom needs a break and every ONCE IN A WHILE she actually falls asleep for a bit.

I cannot even begin to tell you how wonderful Ella is with Charlie. Just this morning we were shocked to find Ella in his room. She heard him crying and went in to cheer him up! She entertained him with her singing and dancing and Mom & Dad got an extra 20mins of sleep! What a wonderful big sister!!

Charlie = 9 months!

Our little guy is 9 months! He has been so active lately that its hard to keep up. Charlie is waving, giving high fives and kisses and even starting to learn to drink from a sippy cup.

Lucky Charlie STILL has the beautiful blue eyes he was born with. We are crossing our fingers that they don't change... I hear they can still change until he is 1 year.

Charlie is moving ALL OVER THE place. He went from starting to crawl one day to RACING across the floor the next. He has been crawling for less than a month and he is already pulling up to stand and trying to climb stairs. Talk about a rude awakening. We can't leave him for a second and Ella is having to learn to be better at sharing since the 1st think he always goes for are her toys!

At this weeks docs appt Charlie measured in at:

Weight- 21lbs 6oz (70%)

Height- 29in (80%)

Head- 18.75in (95%)

We are having such a blast watching Charlie grow before our eyes.

Spring Break Trip

We headed back to FL for spring break this year. It's the trip that almost didn't happen. After our germ-infested Christmas trip, we thought about canceling this one and staying home in Denver but we are SO glad that we didn't. As usual, we didn't take nearly enough pictures because we were too busy having fun.

Ella & Charlie both enjoyed the pool and the beach and it was so much fun swimming with Ella since she is so independent in the water. This was actually Charlie's 1st official trip to the beach since we didn't get to take him in December. We had a wonderful time with both sets of Grandparents and Great Grandpa Peterson... and Mark and I especially appreciate the babysitting that they all did so we could have a few "adult nights" on our vacation.

The weather was amazing and the company was perfect. We wish we could have stayed longer. Here are some pics from our trip:

I'm SOOO Big

Charlie is SOOO big that he finally had to be moved from the infant car seat to the convertible car seat. I like he likes being a little more upright in the car- the real fun comes when he turns 1 and we can face him forward!

And I'm loving the fact the Ella & Charlie are starting to play together. It usually ends in tears... Charlie crying because Ella was too rough with him or Ella crying because she got in trouble for being to rough... and sometimes even both kids in tears, but I know it will get better and better as they get older.

Charlie crawling

Here is the video as promised.

CHARLIE CRAWLING!

Charlie = 8 months!

Happy 8 months Charlie!!

I feel like I say it every month, but this month has really flown by! Probably because Mark and I were in Mexico for 8 days of the month while Gigi was here watching the kids! :)

While we didn't have a well-baby checkup this month, we did have a sick visit. Charlie somehow got the strep, poor guy! Anyway- at the docs visit Charlie's weight was hovering so close to 22lbs that we decided to move him from the infant carseat to the big guy carseat (picture to come!).

With the exception of while he was sick, Charlie is still a great eater. He downs 4 bottles a day plus 3 "meals" a day of pureed baby food. So far the only real foods he has had are avocado and banana. Just the stuff that is easy for me to mash up for him.

But our biggest news is that CHARLIE STARTED CRAWLING! Tonight, just before we were going to head upstairs for bed, Charlie really wanted a toy that Ella was playing with. As soon as she put it down, he made a beeline for it! Ella and I were laughing so hard because it was so dang cute! He's done it a few more times since but none as fast or as determined as that 1st time this evening. I was able to catch the 3rd time on video.

SO CLOSE... Charlie is almost crawling

Just had to quickly post this video. Charlie is 8 month old (as of this past Saturday) and he is so so close to crawling. I thought for sure he'd have it down by now... but not yet!

Here is a quick video of his attempt today. Ella and I were giving him a little extra motivation.

Charlie = 7 months!

Another month has flown by again! Charlie is growing up before our eyes. This past month we've had some growing pains... it seems like Charlie and Ella (and Mark and me too!) have been passing crud back and forth so that as soon as someone feels better, someone else is sick! I feel like we have had someone sick in the house since Thanksgiving! We also switched Charlie to a new sleeping schedule and now he sleeps from about 8:30pm-7:30am (instead of 11pm-7am) so that took a while for him to get used to... meaning Mom was up with him almost every hour for a few nights- argh!

Charlie is getting WAY more mobile. We place him on the floor, leave the room for less than a minute and he has somehow rolled and scooted his way to the opposite side of the room! No crawling YET but Charlie spends a lot of time on his hands and knees rocking back and forth.

Charlie is continuing to try lots and lots of new foods and loves to eat. You can see by his size that he is not going hungry! Our big guy plows through an 8oz bottle and at least 2 jars of baby food at each meal. Whoa! But the biggest milestone for Mom is that he is starting to hold the bottle... he still needs some help, but hopefully he will continue to be more and more independent!

Charlie is also interacting with all of us a ton! He wants more and more engagement from us, which is fun, but it also means that he is no longer content to just sit and play with a few toys. He wants constant attention, gets upset when we leave the room, and is easily distracted when eating. It makes for a lot more work for mom and dad! He is really interested in the dogs these days and is always happy to watch them play around in the family room. Every once in a while our dog Henry will even let Charlie "pet" him and give him a few kisses.

Charlie's favorite playmate is still his big sister Ella. We have so much fun watching the two of them interact. In fact, today I watched Charlie attend a tea party that Ella was hosting.

Ella loves to tickle Charlie and make him laugh. She refers to him as "little buddy" or "handsome boy" and she just loves him to death. You can tell that Charlie already looks up to his big sister. It won't be long until he is trying to do everything that she is doing.