Happy Birthday to Charlie!

 I have been such a lame blogger lately, but I had to post about Charlie's birthday, despite that I'm exhausted from all of the celebrating today. AND I was a terrible picture taker today (it was a little crazy around here). So I'm going to post some pictures from our trip to Texas last week when we celebrated Charlie's birthday early with the family that was there with us.

But before that, I want to mention a few things about Charlie right now - 

-When we give him kisses, he is a pill and says the kiss went straight to his bottom (and points to his bum). ?????? Our thing with Eli is that we always say kisses go straight to his heart. Charlie likes to be obstinate sometimes and say ridiculous things because he knows we don't like it!! But I secretly think it's kind of funny. He has an interesting sense of humor.

-Along the silly lines, he likes to put different consonants on words, just to be funny. "Hi Rama" instead of Mama or whatever he comes up with.

-If we try to talk for his favorite stuffed puppy (named Puppy), he now says consistently, "Only I make sounds for puppy," and he means it. Charlie loves to pretend and makes up stories about his raisins or any other small object. 

-Speaking of small objects, Charlie swallowed a decorative rock two weeks ago. We couldn't believe he put the rock in his mouth, because he's totally past that phase. Or so we thought!! He pooped the rock out two days later. Awesome.

-He's super snuggly at meals and likes to travel around the table, taking turns sitting in each of our laps. He gets a little frustrating as he barely touches his food (especially at dinnertime), but I don't think the habit will last forever. He goes in for his well visit at the pediatrician next week - I'm curious to see how tiny he is, especially with weight. 

-When we tuck the boys in at bedtime, if Ben or I tries to snuggle next to him in his bed, he gets VERY un-snuggly and pushes us out. It makes us smile and we're happy he's a good solo sleeper.

-Today when he opened up a present of his very own set of army guys, he did a fist pump, saying, "YES! That's what I REALLY wanted!" It was darling. 

Okay. Back to celebrating in Texas.

My sweet sister-in-laws Elizabeth and JoAnn were so nice and made this cute cupcakes so we could sing to Charlie. He was SO excited about them and during dinner kept walking by the counter with the cupcakes and asking, "Is that one for me? Is that one mine?" He was very excited about this huge amount of frosting on his cupcake :)

Elizabeth helping Charlie - 

Sneaking a taste :)

 Lit birthday candles are NOT Charlie's favorite thing. He got a little nervous having the fire on his cupcake that day, then later at preschool for his little celebration, and then today when we sang to him at home. Funny boy.

This was at Caleb and Elizabeth's house in Houston. We also spent a few days in Austin at Matt and JoAnn's house. It was mainly a trip of hanging out with family with the little cousins running around, jumping on trampolines or entertaining us with their cute antics. My boys had a blast seeing some of their cousins again (this was 10 of the 24 cousins on Ben's side), but four brothers were together this weekend, so it was half of the kids in Ben's family that got together.

Here we are all together before Matt and JoAnn drove their family back to Austin on Monday evening. Eli has this special bond with the oldest cousin Amanda (she's 13 years old) and she was SUCH a good sport - he totally peed his pants before sitting on her lap for the picture (we didn't realize until afterward) and she really didn't care. Seriously sweet girl. And SO frustrating that Eli still has accidents every day, despite being on medicine for overactive bladder, doing occupational therapy... but I digress.

I'll post more trip pics soon. There are some funny ones! Happy Birthday to my darling Charlie-boy, Chart, Chartie, Charles Benjamin... To end this extremely long post - I interviewed Charlie on his favorite things today. Here are his answers:

1. What is your favorite color? light blue
2. What is your favorite toy? cars
3. What is your favorite fruit? strawberries (sad because he's allergic! just like me :(
4. What is your favorite tv show? Umi Zoomi
5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? sandwich with peanut butter and honey and jam
6. What is your favorite outfit? - toy story shirt
7. What is your favorite game? Grover on the iPad (Monster at the End of This Book)
8. What is your favorite snack? teddy bear crackers
9. What is your favorite animal? penguins that swim in the water
10. What is your favorite song? ABCs
11. What is your favorite book? Toy Story
12. Who is your best friend? Reed (a friend from Eli's sports class that they both play with- kind of random answer) and Eli
13. What is your favorite cereal? Honey Nut Cheerios
14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? play soccer
15. What is your favorite drink? green drink (spinach smoothie)
16. What is your favorite holiday? Halloween
17. What do you like to sleep with at night? blankie and puppy and baby frog
18. What is your favorite thing to do with Mommy? just play
19. What is your favorite thing to do with Daddy? make a birthday party
19. What is your favorite dinner food? crackers and chips and chicken noodle soup
20. What do you want to be when you grow up? a big boy.

Charlie's Baby Blessing

Charlie had his baby blessing at church on Sunday. Ben gave him a wonderful blessing, to have a healthy mind, strong conscience, and to have a heart full of compassion and charity. He was also blessed with courage in these turbulent times. Charlie was perfect during the blessing and was awake, but didn't cry.

Here he is in his onesie before getting dressed (I love his chubby rolls)

Charlie loves getting his diaper changed - he coos and smiles and is very interactive

Charlie was blessed in the same outfit that Eli was blessed in - we were hoping for nice spring weather, but we woke up to snow on Sunday. So Charlie wasn't really dressed for the weather, but that's okay :)
Here we are with both Ben's parents and my family after church. Eli having fun with Ben's dad:
My dad talking to Charlie
My mom and Charlie (She's lost 17 pounds now! My dad has lost a lot as well but I don't know his official total as of this week. Good job to both of you!!)
Eli being crazy on the couch with Ben before we attempted to take a family picture

Eli was not in the mood to sit still :)

Oh well, we tried, right? :)

We had a yummy dinner with green salad, fruit salad, lemon garlic chicken, brown rice, and broccoli.

Here's Charlie in Ben's arms during dinner being mellow

My Gram turned 84 last week, so we celebrated her birthday on Sunday as well. Eli wanted to blow out a candle too, so we stuck one in a muffin:

My mom made a chocolate cake out of her low glycemic diet cookbook, so it was a very healthy version. Gram insisted on 85 candles on the cake :) (she always has one to grow on)

She blew them all out in just a few puffs. Thankfully the smoke alarm didn't go off!

Ben's mom with Charlie

Our family room isn't well insulated, so Ben is always wrapped up in a blanket

Gram tried on Ben's snuggie, which kept her warm :) She loves to tie bows and ribbons around her head when she opens presents.

And finally, a picture of me and Ben with Charlie. He was crying and tired by this point, but I still think it's cute!

Field Museum

Ben's parents flew in from California yesterday! They are here for Charlie's baby blessing at church this Sunday. Today we all went to the Field Museum (a huge natural history museum) with my friend Heather and her 1-year-old daughter Tabitha. (Ben was working so he didn't come along, unfortunately)

There is a fun hands-on learning lab for little kids on the bottom floor of the museum. Eli had fun playing with these wooden frogs (we have one at home too):

Here he is walking with Cheryl - he has been really sweet with Grandma and Grandpa from the start of their trip - he recognized them from the picture we have of them in our living room - it was cute.

Here are the boys and grandparents in front of the massive elephants on the main floor of the museum. Eli was happier than he looks :) This is Charlie in his first outfit... later he spit up/threw up all over me and soaked us both. Unfortunately, I only thought to bring a change of clothes for him! So I walked around wet and smelling like spit-up for the rest of our time at the museum.
Here are Eli and Cheryl looking at Sue, the largest, most complete t-rex in the world:
Eli and Larry (I don't know why I couldn't get pictures of Eli smiling!! It was pretty warm in the museum - hence the flushed cheeks :)
Tabitha and Eli at the end of our trip, both looking a little tired and dazed:
Here we are in front of the big gorilla.

Tonight Eli had fun sitting on his grandma's lap while she played some songs on the piano.

It was a fun day!

Weekend in Michigan with Ben's Parents

Ben's parents arrived last Thursday, and we took off on Friday morning to spend the weekend in Michigan. Ben and his dad spent Friday and Saturday in search of salmon...

This is not salmon that they caught - I took these pictures at a fish cleaning station near Brethren, MI. Poor Ben and Larry only caught one fish over the weekend (but they were avoiding the crazy crowded spots near this one). I showed them these pictures later, and they weren't impressed. These fish are old and ugly.

Meanwhile, I took Eli and Cheryl around to some beautiful towns along Lake Michigan. Our favorites were South Haven and Manistee. The weather was crisp and the sky was bright and blue, except for Saturday morning when we had a little rain.

We saw lots of beautiful lighthouses!
We would join up in the evenings and spent Saturday evening on the beach near Ludington, MI.
Eli LOVED playing in the sand. It's been a few weeks since he's played on a beach!
He kept wanting to jump into the cold water. We didn't let him go in.

Eli had fun riding on Grandpa's shoulders on our hike through the woods and sand dunes.







Eli loved it when Ben took off running down the hill.
Here are some of my favorite pictures of the scenery throughout the weekend:





We had a great trip, despite Eli being HORRIBLE at night in our hotel room. He ended up in bed with us both nights and I got very little sleep. It's amazing how much 1-year-olds toss and turn (every time I tried to shift or move a little, he would reach out and grab my arm or face... he was NOT letting me out of his reach!!).

I'm happy to be home, with Eli sleeping peacefully in his own room - and I'm about to climb into my king-size bed with plenty of space and pillows to get comfortable. We have never had Eli in bed with us, and I don't think we we want to repeat that anytime soon!