Annual Lake Trip

Last weekend we had our annual lake trip with my parents, their group of friends and all of their kids, with whom I grew up.  Of course there's a third generation too now that we're all having babies.  It was lots of fun!!

We started the long weekend with a play date at our house with Jules and her baby Evelyn, Steve and his baby Ryan and Laura and her twin baby boys that are still cookin'.  We had a nice visit.

Charlie kept escaping during the obligatory photo shoot

 Oops, there he goes again!

 Steve, Ryan, Evelyn, Jules, me, Jack, Charlie, Laura and baby bump (blocked by Charlie)

Then Thursday the boys and I left for the lake with my parents (Jason stayed back to work and came down Friday evening instead).  We had some pool time the first day, which both boys enjoyed.

Friday my mom, Charlie and I squeezed in a quick trip to the outlet mall while Jack and Grandpa fished.

Then we went out with the whole group on the boat.  Both boys did great - we all got in the water for awhile and then just hung out on the boat.  We stayed out well past nap time, but there were no meltdowns.  That's a success in my book!  Charlie wasn't sure about his first life jacket experience but he didn't complain too much.

Evelyn & Charlie

About to doze off - time to head back to the condo!

Dylan Trost - Jack's new buddy!  He is 5 1/2 but they still played great together (something about being the only two big boys, I guess)

And....he's out!

Saturday was just a pool day with another boat ride and some more fishing.  Jack is getting pretty good at casting and he and Daddy were fishing early Sunday morning and he threw a good cast and immediately caught a fish.  His daddy was very proud.

We capped off the day with our annual dice game (left-right-center).  This year was a smaller group but we still had 20 players.  Jack had a hay day being in charge of putting people's money in the pot when they rolled a four.  He was so excited!

Fun with stickers at dinner Friday night

Jack and I shared a bed.  The pictures are blurry because they were taken with my phone in the dark, but I had to demonstrate what a bed hog this guy is.  Two different nights:

We had a nice weekend and it was great to see my oldest friends in the world who were in town from Chicago, San Francisco and Chippenham, England!

Charlie is 10 Months Old!

I'm over a week late with this post, but Little Man has hit the 10 month mark.

Charlie has fully mastered the crawling and likes to switch it up sometimes by crawling by keeping his left knee up and just using his foot instead.  It's funny because when Parker was here, both she and Charlie were doing the same thing with the same leg.  He seems to be doing more of the normal crawl lately and boy is he fast!  He's always standing, cruising around everything.  He can now gently lower himself to the ground and bend to pick things up and go back to the standing position (as opposed to before when the only way he knew to get down from standing was to plop down).  He also loves to let go and stand on his own - he can stand for about 10 seconds before he sits down.

 The most exciting development this month: Charlie can now walk behind his walker!!  He's pretty good at it; that is, until he hits a wall or other obstacle - he has no idea how to steer yet.  These videos were taken the first night he really attempted it and he's gotten better and better since then:

I took Charlie back for an ear re-check last week and his left ear had healed, but now his right ear in infected.  So he is working through round 2 of the same antibiotic.  I will take him back again next week to get him rechecked, but this pattern feels very familiar,  He may have tubes in his future just like his big brother.  Our pediatrician hasn't mentioned it yet, but the last two times we've been there for ears we have seen a nurse practitioner.  I will be sure to see our regular doctor at this next re-check so we can get to the bottom of this.

Charlie can still fit into 12 month clothes, but he's mostly wearing 18 months now.  He officially has four teeth - three on the bottom and the top middle right one, which is still less than halfway in.  There are 1-2 more on top that are following closely behind.

Mr. Man is still taking two naps and is a great sleeper at night.  I put him down after I nurse him and he's usually still awake.  I just hold him for about 20 seconds and rock and then place him in his crib and leave.  Piece of cake.  He generally wakes up around 6:00 after going to bed around 7:30 or 7:45.

 Charlie has a great new expression where he scrunches up his little nose and smiles.  He reminds me of his daddy when he does it:

Charlie loves to wave and usually will do it when we say bye bye to him.  We still cannot get him to consistently do "so big."  Maybe he realizes it's not a critical skill.  He also loves to "talk" and his favorite sound is dadadada.  He loves to point at us with his fist (demonstrated in one of the videos above), which I totally love.  He also enjoys playing catch with us.  Sometimes the ball lands right back in his lap when he "throws" it, but other times he is able to send it flying.  He still uses both hands, but sometimes I really think he favors his left.  Time will tell.

These photo sessions are not easy anymore!

That's our boy at 10 months!  Always on the move, always happy and always making us laugh.  This is a fun, fun age!!

Charlie's First Haircut

Charlie's hair has been growing very quickly lately, and I've had to trim above his ears probably 3-4 times.  Nevertheless, he was starting to look a bit shaggy.  The back of his head still showed a trace of his bald spot, but as I mentioned a few months ago, on either side there was really long hair...and a lot of it!  SO, we declared him ready for his first real haircut.

Before:

We went to the Hairy Elephant like we did for Jack's first.  Charlie did great.  He became very serious and kept the same expression on his face for 3/4 of his time in the big chair.  

I asked the stylist to leave the top alone (except for a few long stragglers in the front) but clean up the sides and back.  She did just what I wanted and now our little guy is looking quite dapper if I do say so myself.

First Pool Visit

A few weekends ago (I'm playing catch-up here), we had our first visit of the season to the neighborhood pool.  We recruited Grandma Lang to go with us and we had a lot of fun.  Charlie loved splashing in his little float and just had a general look of contentment the whole time we were there.  It took Jack some time to relax in the water - we had to beg him to let go of us so he could realize that he floats when wearing his puddle jumper.  He got braver and braver as our short visit went on.  

 Of course, after I took Charlie out of his float, Jack wanted to get in it.

We went back another night with Daddy and Jack was a touch more relaxed - even jumping off the edge of the pool into my arms!

Hopefully we can have a few more visits to the pool this summer!!