Fire Station Open House

fun with blocks

Charlie Sez

Charlie's language continues to grow by leaps and bounds everyday. He is starting to say more and more sentences, and starting to use the correct tenses of verbs...he's starting to sounds less like a baby and more like a little boy.

We recently started encouraging Charlie to say "Yes ma'am," "Yes sir," and "Yes please," in our attempt to raise a southern gentleman. Well, I think we managed to totally confuse him about when to use which phrase, so now he answers everything, "Yes please ma'am!" It comes out so desperate, as if he's trying to use every polite word we've ever taught him to get what he wants. It's even funnier when he says it to Dave. :)

The last couple days I've noticed that a lot of times when Nate starts to cry, Charlie will start singing the ABC's. It apparently has become a Pavlovian response, but I can't figure out where it started. I guess maybe he's trying to comfort Nate by singing?

Football time

A couple weeks ago we went to our high school's homecoming parade. The high school (and parade route) are just a few blocks from our house, so we had fun walking there and taking in the festivities. Charlie loved seeing the fire trucks and football players since those are two of his favorite things. He has a lot of different hats that he wears, and his hat of choice that day was his firefighter helmet.






Last Saturday we took the boys to the TCU football game. Dave still does a lot of work for their videoboards, but the last couple seasons he's been able to attend some games as a spectator and not just to work. It was a late night for the boys, but they both had a lot of fun. Even today Charlie asked me "Go Frogs again?" He sat so well and watched a lot of the action. Since it was a night game, I brought the boys home at halftime, and Charlie was a little chatterbox the entire 40-minute drive home (despite the fact it was 10:00 p.m.).

Nate

(Here's a picture of Charlie pulling up in that same shirt at pretty much the exact same age.)

You think he likes the teething biscuits I made for him?

More from First Day of School

Iowa in August

I know what you were thinking. You were wondering if I was ever going to blog again. Well, not only am I blogging after an unintentional one-month hiatus, I'm also going back in time and blogging about our trip to Iowa in August! I figure, since we're going to the State Fair of Texas tomorrow, I better get our pictures from the Iowa State Fair posted before we go.

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We attempted some "geocaching" in Perry with moderate success.

The cousins all had so much fun together!

First day of school

We dropped Charlie off for his first day of "school" this morning. He'll go Wednesdays (9:00-1:00) and Fridays (9:00-12:00). He seemed a little nervous in the car, but when we got to the classroom he marched right over to the toy corner and stared at all the toys, not even acknowledging us. We finally went over to give him a hug and kiss good-bye, and he went right back to the toys. Momma did pretty well, too. I didn't get emotional, but it did feel weird driving away without him.

A couple other udpates

We now have two mobile little boys in the house. Nate started crawling this month. He scooted for about two weeks, and then started officially crawling. He uses many methods to get around: crawling, scooting, army crawling, up on hands and toes with his behind in the air, rolling...you get the picture. This morning he had pulled up to his knees in his crib, so we promptly lowered his mattress today.

He also has five teeth. His first two (bottom front) came in at exactly six months. Now he also has three on the top.

We think he's getting cuter everyday. He and Charlie like to interact a lot and have a lot of fun together, but lately it's usually ended with Charlie hitting Nate or biting one of his fingers. Ugh! He's been through a couple phases like this before, so I know it will go away soon, but not soon enough!

Charlie seems to be learning a million new words everyday. He likes to identify things by saying, "This is a ____." (Fill in the blank with fire truck, pool, car, firefighter, etc.) His favorite toys right now are some firefighter action figures. It's so fun to watch him with them and hear him say their names. We flew to Iowa this month (more on that later) and the firefighters came with him on the plane. He held them up to the window so they could look out at all the clouds. He even asks to pray for one of them every night.

His favorite thing to do is go to the zoo. We have passes to the Fort Worth Zoo, so we go every few weeks. Today he was playing with some of his farm animals, and I think he was pretending that they were going to the zoo. I love watching him start to do some pretend play.

Charlie starts preschool next week. We will visit his classroom and meet his teachers on Friday. He'll go two days a week. I think he'll really enjoy it (I know I will!).

Catching Up

Earlier this month I took the boys to Heritage Farm in Plano with some friends. Charlie loved seeing all the animals and trying the farm chores.

He insisted on wearing his hat backwards. I think he's trying to be like Tony Romo. :)

He got so excited about the chickens and kept saying "Cock-a-doo-doo!!"

Doesn't he look like he's about 5 in this picture?

Aunt Jane and Mom came to visit at the end of July. Not many pictures from their visit because I put them to work painting my bathroom. Thanks Mom and Jane!!!

Have I mentioned how much Charlie loves football? One of his prized possessions was a Cowboys football helmet that was actually a chip and dip set. It finally bit the dust, so we searched out a new one at Dick's and it came with a uniform! On the drive home after we bought it, he kept saying "Foot-ball! Hel-met!" He even napped in the uniform the day we got it. It's about time he has a helmet without a big hole in the top.

2 year photos

I'll slowly get caught up, I promise. :)
Here are Charlie's 2 year old pictures.

Brothers

(Thanks for the picture Doug!)