You don’t say?!

Charlotte is quite a chatty kathy {well, I guess we could say chatty Charlie}. My mom tells me that I smiled, laughed, babbled and eventually talked ‘early’ and it seems that Charlotte will be just like her mama. Of course, as a speech therapist, it makes me extra proud and somewhat relieved when she accomplishes certain communication milestones. I’ve been trying to capture her ‘talking’ for at least a month now and she finally performed for the camera.

Here is Charlotte {at almost 3 months} sharing her thoughts about our busy day yesterday.

Silly Charlotte.

Silly Charlotte, don’t you know better than to play in the toilet?!

And who let you in the bounce house?!

oh well. Just don’t cut in line!

Today was our church’s Pumpkin Bash {rescheduled from last weekend when the tropical hurricane storm thing stopped by for a visit}. Charlotte had a blast  {obviously} and pretty much ran the show {while snuggled warmly in her favorite wrap, the K’tan carrier…. maybe I’ll give a review of that another day because we LOVE it}.

Thank you God for a sunny day and awesome church friends.

Buzz Buzz

Happy Halloween!

(A little late, I know, but it has been a crazy week so far. Hmmmm, I feel like I say that every week!)

I had grand plans of making a ‘spring chicken’ costume for Charlotte (a la this Martha Stewart example) but as is typical around this time of year I ran out of time (and patience). I found this bumblebee costume at the thrift store and was ecstatic… until I saw the size: 12-18 months. womp. womp. Charlotte is almost 3 months but is just now fitting in to her 0-3 month clothing so some alterations were definitely required, but I couldn’t pass up the costume for only $4.99 (plus as an employee of the children’s hospital that runs the thrift store I get an additional discount). I am so proud of myself – this is, to date, the most difficult sewing project I have ever engaged in, but it was SO worth it! In the end I took each side seam in by about 1 inch, the hem up by about 3 inches (and was able to salvage and re-use the elastic to form a stretchy ‘bubble hem type thing’ – official terminology up in here), and I actually detached the hood and RE-ATTACHED it to make it smaller. I know right?! I may put her back in it so I can snap a pic of the back side because there is the cutest little stinger you’ve ever seen. for serious. Here is Charlotte visiting Papa at his work (everyone was excited to meet his new granddaughter).

Chris borrowed my dad’s bee veil (we are SO legit) and was Charlotte’s bee keeper. melt. I had big plans to wear a ‘queen bee’ costume but ran out of time in the end (I painted yellow stripes on a black shirt, ironed the word “queen” on it, and made a tiara to adorn my head). My yellow scarf and bumblebee rain boots stepped up for the win! Maybe next year I’ll get to sport the whole get-up.

Trunk-or-Treat at our church was so much fun. I love that our church meets in the middle of a neighborhood right now – so many trick-or-treaters… so many new people to meet… so many opportunities to step out of my comfort zone (after all, God did not call us to be comfortable). It was a busy day and we barely made it. So ‘buzzy’ (see what I did there?), in fact, that I barely snapped any photos of our bee! So glad one of my dad’s coworkers snapped the one above!

Never can have too many photos. never. I’m just sayin’.

Our week in pictures.

First off, here’s a photo I forgot to add to last week’s photo recap:

Charlotte’s 2 month appointment. She weighs 10 lbs 1 oz now and regularly sleeps 5 or 6 hours each night. She also got 3 shots during this visit and the tears and cries nearly ripped my heart out – but we survived and I’m sure she’s forgotten all about it. I just kept telling myself “All babies go through this… You did and you don’t even remember it”!

As far as this week goes, we have been quite busy!

Charlotte spent quite a bit of time working on her head control and baby push ups.

and she’s been concentrating so hard to try and figure out how to work her arms and hands to get those toys that are so far away.

We had a lunch date with Chris, my friend Tiffany, and her son Hunter, then went to pick up our race packets for the Wicked 10k


The convention center had some spooky decorations in preparation for the race.

“Charlotte, don’t you know better than to visit a haunted house alone”?

Just kidding, I’m pretty sure Charlotte inherited my scaredy-cat genes so she probably won’t be visiting haunted houses anytime soon. I’ve never been a fan of scary things, so I will probably try to protect her from them as well; but this scary backdrop at the race pick-up location + her gummy smile was just too good of a photo op to pass up.

Tiffany and I finished our first 10k the next day! Our time was 1:26:19. I am so proud of us.

We had intended to push Charlotte and Hunter in strollers, but decided to leave them at home with their daddies just in case Sandy decided to dump rain on us early. Tiffany made our awesome tutus which were fairly practical for running in (and SO glittery – I’m pretty sure we left a fabulous trail of glitter throughout the race course). Some of the other costumes were not so practical, but very entertaining. I wish I had had my camera there to capture some of the creativity: hamster in a cage, telephone booth (life size!), redneck treadmill (beer can hanging from a baseball cap), Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Yoshi in their karts plus a baby in a stroller as the giant bullet, about 12 ‘chickens running with their heads cut off’ (that one took me a bit to figure out…but awesome), Rick from The Walking Dead, Granny in a wheelchair, Captain Planet and all his comrades,  and on and on. It was so much fun and having all the costumes to look at really helped the miles pass.

Later that evening was a co-worker friend’s wedding. I was very relieved that I fit into my ‘wedding’ dresses (I only have two, and another one of my coworker friends got married last weekend so I was very glad that they both fit)! It was such a mad rush to get Charlotte over to my parent’s house after the race then come back and change and make it to the ceremony that I even forgot to put on my wedding rings – oops!

Hurricane Sandy threatened rain all day on Saturday but it didn’t actually start raining until after the race, so that was a blessing.

Sunday morning at church Charlotte and I snuggled up and worked the computer/powerpoint while Chris and the worship band practiced. I’m fairly certain I heard running water and leaky drips in the walls and in the ceiling (something that has definitely happened before in this building) – but we were just happy to be there and the worship was awesome. Charlotte loves the drums and of course loves to hear her daddy play his guitar.

Sunday evenings we typically have small group but instead of continuing on in studying Matthew we decided to enjoy a meal together and some games. It’s always a good time with our group, and with each laugh my abdominals reminded me of my triumphant 10k finish the day before – ouch!

Charlotte loves Kallie and gave us so many giggles that night. Also, during Whits and Wagers my lack of knowledge about all things trivia became abundantly clear.

Today we hunkered down inside while Sandy pounded the east coast. Our neighborhood doesn’t flood so we weren’t ‘stuck’, but still decided to stay in and have a snuggle day. Thank you God for protecting our friends and family during this storm that had the power to do so much more damage.