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.

Park Outing in December

Ben had the day after Christmas off from work, so we took advantage of the unusually warm December day and headed to the park to play and ride bikes. (All month has been pretty nice - 40-degree temps in Chicago at this time of year are a treat!!) Look at those blue skies!

First, here's Ben showing off on the playground... :)

Then Eli copying him -  

 Climbing Charlie:

 It was high noon when we were at the park, so the sun was pretty intense and overhead, but I liked the effect on the photos. 

Charlie had a nice juice mustache from indulging in cranberry juice at breakfast. We don't usually give our kids juice, but I'm okay with it on holidays/vacation/when we're not at our house.

Love these boys! They are so fun.

(I will post Christmas pictures soon!)

Hanukkah with Becca and David

We had a fun evening last week sharing a Hanukkah dinner with our neighbors who were about to move (Becca, David, and their girls Ella and Hanna) and some other friends. We enjoyed latkes, chicken, applesauce and salad and got to hear them sing in Hebrew as they lit the Menorah. My kids thought the candles were cool :)

The Grinch and stories from my crazy life

Just when I think life is going to slow down a little and I will get caught up, things happen and it gets crazy! Today I woke up, raced to get showered and the boys ready for the day, then ran over to take a friend to the airport, raced back, put Charlie down for a nap while my crazy house cleaners were here  and took Eli out to help me with a photo shoot of a darling 3-year-old girl (note to self - he's still not that helpful for things like this, especially when it's cold outside). It was absolutely freezing with the wind and so we lasted about 30 minutes outside and then came inside to do some studio style shots. 

Have I mentioned that I now own a studio setup?? I need to change my natural light photographer tagline... :) It's just too dark and cold here in Chicago in the winter time, and now we have the boys sleeping in the same room, which leaves a bedroom available to house my studio! If we have another child someday, I'll move the studio stuff down to the basement. I'll have to post some fun shots taken with the new setup sometime soon. 

After the photo shoot, my Gram came over for an hour and then I had to race and pick up a babysitter so I could hurry back, finish getting ready and drive downtown to Ben's holiday party, also known as the ping pong tournament :) They play a lot of ping pong at that company! It's a good stress reliever, particularly this year with the market still being so nuts. On my way into the city, I got stuck in horrible rush-hour traffic and once I was finally down in the Loop, and had a very hard time finding parking. I finally made it to a garage that only charged $8 after 3 p.m. (miracle! so cheap.) and got up to the party. 

Phew. If you've made it this far, you're either tired for/with me or just ready for something visual. 

I present to you - The Grinch at our ward Christmas party. So awesome. Eli was totally impressed!

 Charlie too, somewhat. 

 There were about 200 people at the holiday party. This picture doesn't give you the full scope of the audience, but it really was a great turnout.

Jeff Mulcock dressed up as the Grinch and acted out the story. It was hilarious. 

 Cindy Lou Hou (is that her name?? I'm forgetting now). Isn't her hair fabulous?? Dixie cup was the magic tool (inside the sticking up hair). 

 They had the kids come up and sing. I thought it was cute that they were the Whos from Who-Mette (since our church is in Wilmette). 

I love the holidays! But next year, I'm simplifying things. I can't keep up with this crazy pace!