In case you aren't following the Compassion Bloggers who are in the Philippines right now, you should be. And if you have any questions about Compassion check out this post from Shaun Groves that spells it all out.
We have been sponsoring a little girl, Ingabire, in Rwanda since Charlotte was born (we chose her because she and Charlotte have the same birthday) and are looking forward to adding a little boy who shares a birthday with James in the fall. Compassion is a great organization that is doing magnificent work for the kingdom of God around the Earth and they always need more support because there are always more children who need to be sponsored.
Check out the bloggers and their stories and check out some of the children waiting to be sponsored. Your $37 a month could make a huge difference in a child's life.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Two Year Old Portraits
When I got pregnant with Charlotte one of the first people that I called was Erin Cobb. I had seen photo's that she had taken of friends and fell in love with her fresh style of photography. I knew that I wanted her to shoot our newborn pictures at our home after Charlotte was born. She came in and made this new mom look pretty good and made Charlotte look like a complete angel (which wasn't a huge stretch, but her pictures were stunning!).
We have continued to use Erin over the past two years and were excited to meet up again for Charlotte's two year portraits a few weeks ago. We still haven't seen the full session proofs since Erin's been out of town, but have our appointment on June 6th and are waiting on pins and needles to see, what I'm sure will be, another spectacular collection!
These are the sneak peek images that Erin posted and they are fantastic! Charlotte took to Erin quickly as soon as we got there and didn't even want to come back to us after she had spent some time hanging out with Miss Erin. Even now, weeks later, she still takes about Miss Erin taking her picture! They are fast friends!
See? Erin and my daughter -- big buddies! She wouldn't take pictures with Jason and I but posed perfectly for a picture with Erin! :)
If you are near the area where Erin shoots or are in a location where she travels to (which happens a lot these days!) you've got to check her out! I am so glad that we've found her and would like to think that now we're even friends. She will definitely be shooting James' newborn session in September and many, many more sessions in the years to come!
Monday, May 30, 2011
Ex-cises
When I was pregnant with Charlotte I developed some severe back pain and so went to physical therapy for a little while which eliminated the pain. Last fall pain came back again and I was diagnosed with scoliosis (that developed since high school which is unusual!) and PT again helped me regain a life without pain. When the pain reappeared in a different spot during this pregnancy I knew the routine and quickly went in to PT for a few sessions to get new exercises for this pain.
Since then I've been doing my PT at home, usually while Charlotte is asleep but sometimes I do it while she's awake. She loves helping me count my reps and gets even more excited when she does her "ex-cises"!
Since then I've been doing my PT at home, usually while Charlotte is asleep but sometimes I do it while she's awake. She loves helping me count my reps and gets even more excited when she does her "ex-cises"!
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Potty training? Not yet.....
We've slowly been trying to introduce the whole potty training concept to Charlotte over the past few months with the intention of doing an intensive weekend or week to kick the diaper habit once school let out. But, sadly, Charlotte is still showing little to no interest in actually sitting on the potty although her animals are sitting on it quite frequently to use the potty. We're about to kick up our persuasiveness a few notches to see if we can encourage a progression to using the potty (tips and tricks would be appreciated!) and one of the things that we've done is invest in some Minnie Mouse underwear.
When I spotted them at Target I thought that they might be our key and so let Charlotte pick some out and she immediately chose the ones with Minnie and Daisy on them. She was so excited about them and carried the package around the entire day! I washed them a few days later and then she learned that she couldn't play with them again until she sat on the potty. I just knew that this was going to be our final ticket to getting her to at least try it, but, she's much more stubborn than I anticipated (although I should have since she is mine and Jason's child!) and while she acknowledges that she doesn't get them until she sits on the potty she is still adamant that she doesn't want to try it. Maybe in the next month or so we'll have a change of heart!
When I spotted them at Target I thought that they might be our key and so let Charlotte pick some out and she immediately chose the ones with Minnie and Daisy on them. She was so excited about them and carried the package around the entire day! I washed them a few days later and then she learned that she couldn't play with them again until she sat on the potty. I just knew that this was going to be our final ticket to getting her to at least try it, but, she's much more stubborn than I anticipated (although I should have since she is mine and Jason's child!) and while she acknowledges that she doesn't get them until she sits on the potty she is still adamant that she doesn't want to try it. Maybe in the next month or so we'll have a change of heart!
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Date with Daddy
I have the best husband. He's patient and kind and loving and a good listener and I could go on and on. I always knew that he would be a great Daddy, but seeing him in action is remarkable. Our kids are so incredibly blessed to be his children!
Charlotte loves going outside and especially likes going out with Jason when he's grilling. After getting everything underway on this night he took her and they sat down on the couch out back to play. They had a serious looking conversation (at least that's what it looked like to me inside!) and then Charlotte proceeded to pull out her cakes from her doctor's kit bag and hand them out. They had a little tea party!
I'm pretty sure that smile means that she loves her Daddy so much! And his means that she's got him wrapped around his finger!
Friday, May 27, 2011
Our Unplanned Adventure
When we woke up on Thursday morning after the tornadoes the power was still off. At this point we were starting to hear rumblings that it might be days before it was returned although we really didn't believe that at all. I don't remember what we did for breakfast or for lunch but I know that we were cooking all of our meals on my parents grille. Charlie had joined us during a break in the storms the night before. He went out Thursday morning to check on the damage and later came back with more clothes for himself as well as anything he could salvage from his fridge. We also went down and got what we could out of our fridge and stuck the food in coolers.
With no sight of power on the horizon the guys headed off for a round of golf that afternoon. After Charlotte's nap Mom, C, and I got in the golf cart and caught up with them and watched them finish their last few holes. Charlotte thought it was just the best thing to be watching Daddy, Papa, Char-Char, and Dude Mike golf.
It was, all in all, a pretty fine day. It was discovered that Mom and Dad's conventional water heater still had some hot water in it so the guys took really quick showers in hot water although Mom took a cold shower so as not to waste any water and I just waited because I also didn't want to take their water. We listened to the radio most of the time to hear updates and whenever we could get information on our phones we looked at it, but our batteries were running down.
On Thursday night we grilled most of what we had left from our freezers. It was, honestly, a pretty decent meal with hamburgers and a pasta dish I had frozen as well as some other items. We were still doing ok although we knew that we didn't really have any "real" food left and would be eating a smattering of dry goods or refrigerate only items that were still good in our freezers in the day to come.
Jason let me sleep late on Friday which was good because I was nearing my point of exhaustion and a mental breakdown -- pregnancy hormones aren't doing me any favors these days! But they had a fun morning while I slept and took Charlotte out to the nearest sand trap! We had decided to cancel our trip to the beach the next weekend because we already knew that going away again wouldn't be a great experience for any of us. And so Jason, Papa, Memma, and Char Char introduced Charlotte to sand for the first time! She definitely had a blast!
The guys played golf again that afternoon and Mom and Charlotte went and met them on the golf cart while I did some necessary tasks. I spent C's nap time deep cleaning our fridge and freezer...I figured, no better time than when all the food had to be thrown away anyway and I wasn't wasting any power! At least that task is done for a while! Our fridge and freezer have never looked better!
I also had to find some place to board Luca since we had made the decision that we were going to leave town for a few days. After going up to our normal vet I found that they were opening every day from 4:30 to 5 to take previously scheduled pet boardings and so I just went up there with Luca and they were so sweet to let him stay with them over the weekend. I'm not sure what we would have done if they hadn't taken him!
By the time I got back and the guys got back we had made plans to head to Atlanta and first thing Saturday morning Jason, Charlotte, and I headed out of town. Our food had basically all been eaten and with a little one and a pregnant Momma we really needed to get somewhere that we could get decent meals. We got to Atlanta and put C down for a nap and Mom, Dad, and Charlie came after golf. We spent the evening relaxing at the hotel and ate at the hotel restaurant because we were all too tired to make the effort to really go out.
On Sunday we got up and took Charlotte to the indoor pool at the hotel. We had made the mistake of telling her that we would go to the pool in Atlanta and she thought that meant as soon as we got into town but she very patiently waited until Sunday to go. She hasn't changed much since last summer -- she's still fearless and really didn't want any of us holding her even though we didn't have floaties or any type of float! She's now dying to get the pool here and is so excited that it opens tomorrow!
On Friday, once we got the hotel reservation secured, Jason and Charlie set out to get us tickets to the Braves on Sunday. With the spotty cell service that we had (it was honestly really like we were pioneers because we had no power and our only reliable connection to the outside world was a battery powered radio!) they could never get through but we immediately got tickets as soon as we got into town on Saturday. So after the pool we set out for the ball park.
Charlotte went to a game when she was 3 months old and has since learned to do the chop so she was really excited to go to the game. We found out on Saturday that it was also Bark in the Park day so there were going to be dogs everywhere which we knew would only make the day even better in her eyes! We weren't mistaken! She did great and loved the game! She missed a nap to stay for the entire game and only started getting tired near the end when she laid her head down on my chest but she was a trooper and never got fussy or anything. As opposed to her mother who was about to have a serious marital spat if the game had gone into extra inning's! :) Thankfully, God is wise and in control and the Braves won in the 9th to save us from that drama!
We had big plans to go to a big dinner out on Sunday night but were totally exhausted after the game and chose to eat at Maggiano's across the street. You could tell Charlotte was tired by that time though so as soon as Jason and I finished eating we headed back to the hotel and put C down.
That night did turn out to be interesting as we were watching royal wedding coverage that night on tv (still bummed that I had to miss the live event!) when all of a sudden we got news that the President was making a special speech. After delay after delay the news finally leaked on Twitter and we watched as the President announced that Osama Bin Laden had been killed. It seems that Obama had made the final call to apprehend OBL on Friday after leaving his tour of Tuscaloosa. It's been rumored that Saban took care of that -- we wouldn't put it past him! :)
We also got other great news around midnight that the power was back on in our neighborhood so as soon as we got up on Monday we all packed up and headed home. We were very lucky to have been spared any type of damage or injuries but it was still a very stressful and emotional five days. Honestly, we're all still kind of reeling from it and still making adjustments to try and recover. But we were very glad to be going home!
With no sight of power on the horizon the guys headed off for a round of golf that afternoon. After Charlotte's nap Mom, C, and I got in the golf cart and caught up with them and watched them finish their last few holes. Charlotte thought it was just the best thing to be watching Daddy, Papa, Char-Char, and Dude Mike golf.
It was, all in all, a pretty fine day. It was discovered that Mom and Dad's conventional water heater still had some hot water in it so the guys took really quick showers in hot water although Mom took a cold shower so as not to waste any water and I just waited because I also didn't want to take their water. We listened to the radio most of the time to hear updates and whenever we could get information on our phones we looked at it, but our batteries were running down.
On Thursday night we grilled most of what we had left from our freezers. It was, honestly, a pretty decent meal with hamburgers and a pasta dish I had frozen as well as some other items. We were still doing ok although we knew that we didn't really have any "real" food left and would be eating a smattering of dry goods or refrigerate only items that were still good in our freezers in the day to come.
Jason let me sleep late on Friday which was good because I was nearing my point of exhaustion and a mental breakdown -- pregnancy hormones aren't doing me any favors these days! But they had a fun morning while I slept and took Charlotte out to the nearest sand trap! We had decided to cancel our trip to the beach the next weekend because we already knew that going away again wouldn't be a great experience for any of us. And so Jason, Papa, Memma, and Char Char introduced Charlotte to sand for the first time! She definitely had a blast!
The guys played golf again that afternoon and Mom and Charlotte went and met them on the golf cart while I did some necessary tasks. I spent C's nap time deep cleaning our fridge and freezer...I figured, no better time than when all the food had to be thrown away anyway and I wasn't wasting any power! At least that task is done for a while! Our fridge and freezer have never looked better!
I also had to find some place to board Luca since we had made the decision that we were going to leave town for a few days. After going up to our normal vet I found that they were opening every day from 4:30 to 5 to take previously scheduled pet boardings and so I just went up there with Luca and they were so sweet to let him stay with them over the weekend. I'm not sure what we would have done if they hadn't taken him!
By the time I got back and the guys got back we had made plans to head to Atlanta and first thing Saturday morning Jason, Charlotte, and I headed out of town. Our food had basically all been eaten and with a little one and a pregnant Momma we really needed to get somewhere that we could get decent meals. We got to Atlanta and put C down for a nap and Mom, Dad, and Charlie came after golf. We spent the evening relaxing at the hotel and ate at the hotel restaurant because we were all too tired to make the effort to really go out.
On Sunday we got up and took Charlotte to the indoor pool at the hotel. We had made the mistake of telling her that we would go to the pool in Atlanta and she thought that meant as soon as we got into town but she very patiently waited until Sunday to go. She hasn't changed much since last summer -- she's still fearless and really didn't want any of us holding her even though we didn't have floaties or any type of float! She's now dying to get the pool here and is so excited that it opens tomorrow!
On Friday, once we got the hotel reservation secured, Jason and Charlie set out to get us tickets to the Braves on Sunday. With the spotty cell service that we had (it was honestly really like we were pioneers because we had no power and our only reliable connection to the outside world was a battery powered radio!) they could never get through but we immediately got tickets as soon as we got into town on Saturday. So after the pool we set out for the ball park.
Charlotte went to a game when she was 3 months old and has since learned to do the chop so she was really excited to go to the game. We found out on Saturday that it was also Bark in the Park day so there were going to be dogs everywhere which we knew would only make the day even better in her eyes! We weren't mistaken! She did great and loved the game! She missed a nap to stay for the entire game and only started getting tired near the end when she laid her head down on my chest but she was a trooper and never got fussy or anything. As opposed to her mother who was about to have a serious marital spat if the game had gone into extra inning's! :) Thankfully, God is wise and in control and the Braves won in the 9th to save us from that drama!
Given the choice between nacho's, pizza, and a hot dog, C chose nacho's and thoroughly enjoyed them!
We had big plans to go to a big dinner out on Sunday night but were totally exhausted after the game and chose to eat at Maggiano's across the street. You could tell Charlotte was tired by that time though so as soon as Jason and I finished eating we headed back to the hotel and put C down.
That night did turn out to be interesting as we were watching royal wedding coverage that night on tv (still bummed that I had to miss the live event!) when all of a sudden we got news that the President was making a special speech. After delay after delay the news finally leaked on Twitter and we watched as the President announced that Osama Bin Laden had been killed. It seems that Obama had made the final call to apprehend OBL on Friday after leaving his tour of Tuscaloosa. It's been rumored that Saban took care of that -- we wouldn't put it past him! :)
We also got other great news around midnight that the power was back on in our neighborhood so as soon as we got up on Monday we all packed up and headed home. We were very lucky to have been spared any type of damage or injuries but it was still a very stressful and emotional five days. Honestly, we're all still kind of reeling from it and still making adjustments to try and recover. But we were very glad to be going home!
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Two Going on Sixteen
Charlotte,
You have developed quite a sassy personality little girl! You are fun and loving and caring and sweet and generous and loud and hilarious and the best little girl that your Daddy and I could ever ask for. You say the cutest things and are developing such a vocabulary and ability to talk that it's astounding! I love the stage that your in and don't want to forget any of the adorable things that you are doing these days!
You love Jesus and your Bible. You carry this little white Bible around and have to have it when we go to church. When we ask you who your Bible is about you say "Jeee-sus". You also love watching your Praise Baby dvd's sometimes and when they're over you always ask for "More Jesus". We sing "Jesus Loves Charlotte" at night and nap before I put you down and you've started singing some of it to yourself sometimes. This past week you learned that God made rainbows and that rainbows mean that God loves us. I hope you keep your love for Jesus in your heart and that it grows so much over the years so that you come to a saving relationship with Him. This is the most important thing that we can teach you and I pray daily for wisdom in how to do the best job teaching you.
You are always on the GO! A lot of times when we're going somewhere in the house you'll start running yourself and yell back at whoever is following you telling them to run also. And we have to run hard to catch up to you! Even though you've taken a few spills in the past few weeks because you are going so fast it hasn't deterred you in the least and you still GO, GO, GO!
You are definitely a girl who loves her jewels. You don't really care if it's plastic from Hobby Lobby or pearls from Miss Stephanie, you love it all the same and would wear fifty necklaces and fifty bracelets at all times if we would let you. Sometimes when you put something on you look at us and say "Charlotte booo-tiful" and we always tell you that yes, you are beautiful with your jewels, but you are ALWAYS beautiful -- jewelry only enhances your beauty!
You love Alabama. While I'm pretty sure another conclusion couldn't be reached given the amount of games that you've already attended and how much you love "T-town" we love seeing you passionate about a place that we hold so dear. You love Big Al and most nights recently we've had to read both of the Alabama books that we have before bed. You can identify Denny Chimes already which we all get a huge kick out of! While you are free to go to most any school that you want to, we hope that your love for Alabama won't diminish over the years.
While a lot of little girls your age are all about their baby dolls, you are all about your animals. You have developed a love of your Belle doll recently and sometimes tolerate pushing your baby dolls around the house in your stroller, you rarely go anywhere without at least one animal! You have named every animal that you have and most at Memma and Papa's and get a little annoyed with us when we call an animal the wrong name! You have your favorite -- currently Terry (Yorkshire terrier), Sandy (lab puppy), and your Minnie and Mickey -- but you sleep with probably 25-30 animals in your crib and which one you wake up holding changes daily.
Along with your love of jewelry you are also a fashionista. You love Mommy's shoes and your own shoes and want to have shoes on at all time. You have always learned that some things "match" and so have started asking if something matches before you put it on. You also will always choose to wear a dress over pants if I give you an option. You love to spin around in your dresses and when we get something on you you always say that you're beautiful. You also notice when we get dressed up and tell us that we look beautiful which is sweet!
You are quite the talker these days. You love yelling "Let's GO!" when we're heading out of the house and are putting so many sentences together! Yesterday you yelled to Daddy from your high chair, "Daddy! More applesauce please!" It's so impressive how quickly you pick up on new words and you understand just about everything that we say even if you can't fully verbalize everything exactly that you want yet.
You go back and forth between being a good eater and being a choosy one. Your favorites are Mac Mac Cheese and grits (the cheese kind of course!) and you have started to like sauces, especially Chick-Fil-A sauce. You eat three times a day and sometimes, if you remember to ask for one or I remember to offer one, you eat an afternoon snack. We can definitely tell when you get hungry though because that's the one time that you get whiny and grumpy, but as soon as we get food in you you get pretty happy again! You love your milk (although haven't liked 2% when we've given it to you) and also love juice (which we still mix with water). You also love milk shakes but even when I give you options you will always chose to get a vanilla one rather than chocolate or strawberry. Ice cream is another thing that you love, but you aren't a big fan of cake or cupcakes even though from this picture you couldn't tell it!
You are still my great sleeping girl. You nap for 3 hours and sleep from 8-8. Now, to be honest, you aren't asleep for that whole time -- you like to talk to your animals and sing to yourself for a little while before you go to sleep and when you wake up early -- but you are in your crib content and happy for that long which is a great blessing! Yesterday you actually came to us and said, "Sleepy. Go crib." which was a first! A lot of times when we say it's time to go upstairs you say "No sleep" and we tell you that you don't have to sleep in your crib but you have to be in your crib which you're fine with. You've also started pretending to fall asleep including a pretend snore which is hilarious. You love waking us up from "sleep" also!
You have just in the last few weeks started to really identify people by their names and have expressed your adoration for some big kids. You love Sam and Abby and love playing with them. You also love Lucy and think she's the coolest kindergartner - soon to be first grader - ever! You are saying most everyone in the immediate family's name, although Kevin still is kind of getting overlooked. You also love your teachers at school (Miss Bonnie and Miss Julie) and are going to be sad once you realize that it's summer!
Speaking of school, you love it! You had a great year and grew so much! You learned how to be content when I left you for the day and made lots of new friends, especially Gracie. You love your teachers and give them lots of hugs and talk about them a lot. You also love Miss Amy who teaches you music and talk about sitting on her red carpet so that you can sing. The last few weeks of school were tough for you with all the change in schedule and routine from the storms and spring break so you sometimes didn't want to go in the morning, but you were always so happy when I got there to pick you up, and on the last day of school you even ran away from me because you didn't want to leave!
Miss Amy introduced you to lots of fun new songs including one of your favorites, the "Alligator Song." You also love the song "Bubblegum"! You love to sing and insist on "Charlotte's music" as soon as we get in the car. You will dance around to it if we're playing it in the house too. You also love to watch Daddy's U2 concert dvd with him at night. Y'all jump and dance and you sing along with the music. A week or so ago Daddy lifted your arms up and had you sway along to the music like the people in the audience were doing and now you often stop and throw your arms up and sway them like that and say, "Naaaaa, Na, Na, Na"!
I know that you love me and your Daddy, but Luca might be your biggest buddy in the house. You call him "Yuca" and "Buddy" and get so excited when he comes with us to wake you up. You follow him around the house saying "Hug Yuca" and love to sit down next to him and hug him and pet him. Thankfully, he is really sweet with you and pretty much lets you do what you want with him. I guess that's him repaying you for all of the toys that he's stolen and eaten! He's eaten so many that you know that you have to pick up your toys to keep them "Safe [from] Yuca".
We have your two year appointment on Wednesday so we'll get your stats then but you seem to have definitely grown a lot to us! You are wearing pretty much all 2T clothes and they fit you well. You wear size 5 diapers and size 7 shoes. You are still good about letting me put a bow in although I have had to convince you that Minnie wears a bow, therefore so should you, a few times!
I can't believe that you are already two baby girl! Last night we were talking about your birthday and you answered "Charlotte's" when we ask whose birthday tomorrow was. We are going to have such a fun day and I hope you enjoy every second of it! You might not remember this birthday, but I want you to know that we celebrated you all day! We are so glad that you are part of our family and we love you so much! You are such a wonderful blessing to us Charlotte and we couldn't be happier and prouder to be your parents.
We love you,
Mommy and Daddy
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Last night as a one year old
My sweet baby Charlotte,
Tonight is your last night as a one year old. Tomorrow you will wake up and you will be TWO! You don't really know what your birthday means but sometimes you answer correctly that you're two (sometimes the answer is four or eight!) and when you saw your cake today you got all giddy and and said, "My birthday cake!"
I can't believe that two years ago from this moment you weren't even here yet! We waited so long for you and were so excited to welcome you to our family. These past two years have been the best of our lives. You bring such joy and excitement and energy to our family. I can barely remember what our lives were like before you graced us with your presence.
You are our little princess and as I think back to what the past year has held for us it has been a crazy ride. At your birthday last year you still weren't even taking any steps and now you are running FAST, FAST, FAST! We have to run as fast as we can to keep up with you! Your little pigeon toes have already proved that you will be one fast little girl!
This time last year we were weaning you off of nursing and your passy. Now you drink exclusively from straw sippy cups and have developed a sweet thumb sucking habit when you go to sleep. You can feed yourself pretty well with a spoon also and don't need your food cut up much at all anymore.
You have grown so much in the past year and your personality has really started to shine. You are the sweetest little girl and I had to catch my breath a few weeks ago when I said, "I love you baby" and you looked at me and said "Love you too". You had been saying love you when we said it and asked what you say after that but that was the first unprompted one that you had ever said and it made me so very happy. You are a sweet cuddler and I cherish our times together when I rock you and sing two rounds of "Jesus Loves Charlotte" to you before I put you down for nap and bedtime.
We have had to start enforcing some time outs and sometimes we have to explain exactly why we want you to do something before you'll do it, but you are still such a good girl. But I do want you to know that even when you disobey and throw tantrums and get mad, your Daddy and I still love you with all of our hearts. You are our baby girl. Our firstborn. And we will always love you exactly the same. There is nothing that you can ever do to make us love you any less, and even though I know you will succeed in so much one day, our love is unconditional and won't change even though we'll be so proud of you.
We love you so much Charlotte. This second year of your life has been so much fun and we are so thankful that we get the privilege and honor of being your parents. I can't wait to celebrate your birthday with you tomorrow and start the third year of your life which will be a little crazy for all of us! I can't wait to watch you become a fabulous big sister and grow into even more of a little girl than you already are.
I love you with my whole heart,
Mommy
Tonight is your last night as a one year old. Tomorrow you will wake up and you will be TWO! You don't really know what your birthday means but sometimes you answer correctly that you're two (sometimes the answer is four or eight!) and when you saw your cake today you got all giddy and and said, "My birthday cake!"
I can't believe that two years ago from this moment you weren't even here yet! We waited so long for you and were so excited to welcome you to our family. These past two years have been the best of our lives. You bring such joy and excitement and energy to our family. I can barely remember what our lives were like before you graced us with your presence.
You are our little princess and as I think back to what the past year has held for us it has been a crazy ride. At your birthday last year you still weren't even taking any steps and now you are running FAST, FAST, FAST! We have to run as fast as we can to keep up with you! Your little pigeon toes have already proved that you will be one fast little girl!
This time last year we were weaning you off of nursing and your passy. Now you drink exclusively from straw sippy cups and have developed a sweet thumb sucking habit when you go to sleep. You can feed yourself pretty well with a spoon also and don't need your food cut up much at all anymore.
You have grown so much in the past year and your personality has really started to shine. You are the sweetest little girl and I had to catch my breath a few weeks ago when I said, "I love you baby" and you looked at me and said "Love you too". You had been saying love you when we said it and asked what you say after that but that was the first unprompted one that you had ever said and it made me so very happy. You are a sweet cuddler and I cherish our times together when I rock you and sing two rounds of "Jesus Loves Charlotte" to you before I put you down for nap and bedtime.
We have had to start enforcing some time outs and sometimes we have to explain exactly why we want you to do something before you'll do it, but you are still such a good girl. But I do want you to know that even when you disobey and throw tantrums and get mad, your Daddy and I still love you with all of our hearts. You are our baby girl. Our firstborn. And we will always love you exactly the same. There is nothing that you can ever do to make us love you any less, and even though I know you will succeed in so much one day, our love is unconditional and won't change even though we'll be so proud of you.
We love you so much Charlotte. This second year of your life has been so much fun and we are so thankful that we get the privilege and honor of being your parents. I can't wait to celebrate your birthday with you tomorrow and start the third year of your life which will be a little crazy for all of us! I can't wait to watch you become a fabulous big sister and grow into even more of a little girl than you already are.
I love you with my whole heart,
Mommy
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Twisters
I woke up in the early morning on Wednesday, April 27th to Jason moving the computer out of our room. He said that the storms had started to get bad and he was going to watch to make sure we were ok. The next thing I knew he was waking me up to tell me he was leaving for work so I didn't think that they were very bad. But by the time I got up they had delayed schools for two hours meaning that Charlotte didn't have school that day at all. I had a physical therapy appointment at 10 so Dad stayed home to keep Charlotte and met me in the parking lot with her at 11. The sky looked pretty bad but Jason had told me that things wouldn't get really bad until 2 or 3 so I stopped by Chick Fil A and got us some lunch and went home.
By the time we got home I heard a tornado siren blaring and so I checked with Jason and he said that we were still ok. I sat Charlotte in her high chair with her nuggets, fries, and Chick-Fil-A sauce and turned on the tv's. I was pretty frantic since I was home by myself. Although I've always kind of poked at Jason for having weather radar software on our computer I couldn't have been more thankful for it that day. I had the radar pulled up on the computer and the tv's blasting the news but still didn't feel really comfortable. I rolled C's chair into the den so I could see and watch the tv as well as the computer and ate lunch really quickly. I quickly grew pretty scared and kept calling Jason for updates. My stomach started to hurt when I saw video of a wall cloud with a possible tornado right over my parents office (where they both were) and the area near Jason's work kept being mentioned as a possible tornado location also.
Jason told me that we would probably be fine in our closet and didn't need to get under the stairs because the tornado's were probably not going to hit us. He was monitoring all of this from his phone in the hallway at work because they had been put into their safe place as well. I was sometimes giving him (and my parents) more information than they had because I had the tv and internet handy. I threw our comforter and pillows in our closet and sat Charlotte down with some stuffed animals and the iPad playing Wonder Pets. For the first of many times in the next week I was so thankful for last year's Mother's Day gift of the iPad because it kept Charlotte entertained, quiet, and oblivious to what was going on around her.
It's hard even writing about it now, three weeks later, because remembering it takes me right back to that place where I was so scared. I was in charge of Charlotte and I was terrified that we were about to get hit. I have always hated that we are kind of at the end of our neighborhood with no houses really between us and the west. For some reason I've always felt like houses between us and oncoming tornados would slow their progress and damage. In hindsight I now know that that is utterly false, if anything those extra houses held the tornado pick up momentum, but at that point I still thought that and was pretty scared to be the only one in charge.
When the tornados got close to our house and we were told to take cover I made sure that Charlotte, Luca, and I were all in the closet. The tv was blaring so that I could hear it through the wall and I was also streaming it live on my computer. I remember holding Charlotte's little hand in mine and pulling the comforter over our legs and just praying that we would be ok. A few minutes later Jason let me know that it had gone north of us and that it was safe to come out. He said that the line was dead for an hour or two and that it would be ok to take C upstairs and put her into bed. Again, I'm so thankful that I can implicitly trust Jason with weather news because he always watches it like a hawk. Being able to trust him and go put Charlotte down for a nap helped make a stressful day a little more normal.
I decided to go ahead and take a shower since I hadn't gotten up early for one that morning because of PT. Again, in hindsight, a very fortuitous decision that helped me feel a little more normal for a little while longer due to the power outage and loss of hot water that occurred that night. Jason came home from work in the break in the storms. When he got home I was sitting at the kitchen table going over my to-do list and schedule. He immediately pulled up lots of news and the radar on his computer with the tv on in the den. But he soon came in to where I was and set the computer down where we could both watch the live tower-cam video of the tornado hitting the city of Cullman. It was surreal to watch and heartbreaking. We knew lots of people in Cullman and were familiar with the downtown. As we watched it wreak destruction on the city it started to sink in that this might be a very bad day.
Honestly, Jason had been talking about this day for over a week and about how it was setting up to be a monster day for tornados. His weather forum buddies couldn't decide if it was going to set up perfectly for storms or if it would all fall apart. But, in his opinion, this was the worst day he'd ever seen set up. If any of you have weather nuts for husband's though you know that a lot of times they cry wolf. Weather is unpredictible and can change on a dime and a lot of times that Jason has said in the past that things were going to be bad, it was going to snow, etc, the weather hasn't shown up. So I wasn't really expecting it to be as bad as he said.
But when he came home early and we saw the footage from Cullman I started to get convinced. Like I said earlier, our home is not surrounded by houses on the west and I am always antsy about tornados so I wanted to go to my parents who live nearby and have a basement. As soon as Charlotte woke up from her nap we packed up enough to get us through the night (since we were anticipating the storms lasting until 9 or 10) and headed down to their house. At the last second Jason threw in his hand crank radio and hand crank flashlight although he says that he definitely didn't think he would even come close to needing them.
Not long after we got to their house the sirens started again and we decided that we would all be safest staying in the basement for the next little while. We carried down our computers and phones along with a blanket and pillows and some drinks. Jason brought down his radio and Dad brought down the box with the battery powered tv that Mom bought all of us probably five years ago. We got Charlotte set up again and were a happy little nest for a little while with one of us on an iPad and all other four on our own laptops.
Throughout the next hour or so the guys would go up occasionally to look outside and we were all keeping up with the weather ourselves. Around 4:30 or a little later Jason told Mom and I to pull up ABC 33/40 on our computers. He said that there was a tornado getting close to Tuscaloosa. We did and all three of us watched in horror as we watched the tornado demolish the city that we love. While it was hard watching the storm hit Cullman earlier in the afternoon, watching the tornado take out a sizable chunk of Tuscaloosa was horrifying and heartbreaking. Not only did we know a few people who were there, we had six cousins in town as well as too many friends to count. We know Tuscaloosa's layout by heart and as it came through we knew exactly what it was hitting. Even watching it on their feed we couldn't imagine the damage that was occurring right then and the lives that were being lost and totally decimated.
Not long after the feed from Tuscaloosa was lost (or perhaps in the middle of it, my timing isn't perfect now) we lost power. We got the flashlights out and Mom lit some candles before we realized that we were pretty much out of danger and could go upstairs and use the remaining daylight. I never really thought that we would lose power and once it went off I couldn't imagine that it would be off for long. I was so sure that it was a short fluke in our neighborhood that I even tweeted the local power company to let them know that our area was out in case they were trying to identify the area's where they needed to send workers.
I think that in some ways the power going out was a saving grace. We were spared a lot of images of the damage nearby and far away other than what we could pull up on our phones and while we saw a lot on our phones our service quickly turned horrible and the ability to download photos and videos was very slow and trying. I think if we had been able to see all of that right away without hearing filtered versions of it on the radio first that it might have been more than I, at least, could take. As it was, we cooked a big dinner on the grille with food that would spoil immediately and eventually went to bed.
We were so very lucky on April 27th. We had no property damage -- even the condo in Tuscaloosa had no damage. We were all safe. Our family in Tuscaloosa was safe and although we eventually heard of a number of friends who had very close calls and lost everything, they were safe as well. At the end of the day all that we had lost was power which is a need that you can live without if prepared and most of our modern forms of communication which you can definitely live without. I am so thankful that more wasn't lost to us but I am still heartbroken at all of the lives that were changed forever on this day.
In most areas it will be easy to move on. I would guess that most of the country has already forgotten that we had major damage on April 27th in Alabama. In our city things are back to normal -- grocery stores are fully stocked, there are no lines for gas, and other than a few incidental outages we all have power. But there are lots of people still digging out. Still searching through rubble for valuables. Still working each and every day to try and put together a semblance of the life that they had on April 26th. And for those people the task of rebuilding still stretches in front of them in an endless road.
I think most people in Alabama and throughout the South were changed on April 27th. I know that I will make sure and keep a good stock of flashlights and batteries on hand from now on. If we ever get to build a house we will definitely have a storm shelter installed as well as a generator. And honestly, the cost of getting a generator installed in our home now doesn't seem as outrageous and unnecessary as I would have thought. I will pay much more attention to Jason when he tells me that severe weather is on the horizon and I will constantly pray that a day like that will never happen again.
And for many cities, they will never look the same. It's been said that it will probably take at least six months for the destruction in Tuscaloosa to be fully cleaned up and I would guess that it will take years and years before things are rebuilt fully in the damaged areas. Hackleburg, AL was basically wiped off the map. Businesses are gone. People are without any possessions. Families lost their loved ones who will never be replaced. Please pray for everyone affected by these storms. Pray for healing and help and love and understanding in the days and weeks and months and years to come. The damage will run deep and will take a very long time to recover from.
By the time we got home I heard a tornado siren blaring and so I checked with Jason and he said that we were still ok. I sat Charlotte in her high chair with her nuggets, fries, and Chick-Fil-A sauce and turned on the tv's. I was pretty frantic since I was home by myself. Although I've always kind of poked at Jason for having weather radar software on our computer I couldn't have been more thankful for it that day. I had the radar pulled up on the computer and the tv's blasting the news but still didn't feel really comfortable. I rolled C's chair into the den so I could see and watch the tv as well as the computer and ate lunch really quickly. I quickly grew pretty scared and kept calling Jason for updates. My stomach started to hurt when I saw video of a wall cloud with a possible tornado right over my parents office (where they both were) and the area near Jason's work kept being mentioned as a possible tornado location also.
Jason told me that we would probably be fine in our closet and didn't need to get under the stairs because the tornado's were probably not going to hit us. He was monitoring all of this from his phone in the hallway at work because they had been put into their safe place as well. I was sometimes giving him (and my parents) more information than they had because I had the tv and internet handy. I threw our comforter and pillows in our closet and sat Charlotte down with some stuffed animals and the iPad playing Wonder Pets. For the first of many times in the next week I was so thankful for last year's Mother's Day gift of the iPad because it kept Charlotte entertained, quiet, and oblivious to what was going on around her.
It's hard even writing about it now, three weeks later, because remembering it takes me right back to that place where I was so scared. I was in charge of Charlotte and I was terrified that we were about to get hit. I have always hated that we are kind of at the end of our neighborhood with no houses really between us and the west. For some reason I've always felt like houses between us and oncoming tornados would slow their progress and damage. In hindsight I now know that that is utterly false, if anything those extra houses held the tornado pick up momentum, but at that point I still thought that and was pretty scared to be the only one in charge.
When the tornados got close to our house and we were told to take cover I made sure that Charlotte, Luca, and I were all in the closet. The tv was blaring so that I could hear it through the wall and I was also streaming it live on my computer. I remember holding Charlotte's little hand in mine and pulling the comforter over our legs and just praying that we would be ok. A few minutes later Jason let me know that it had gone north of us and that it was safe to come out. He said that the line was dead for an hour or two and that it would be ok to take C upstairs and put her into bed. Again, I'm so thankful that I can implicitly trust Jason with weather news because he always watches it like a hawk. Being able to trust him and go put Charlotte down for a nap helped make a stressful day a little more normal.
I decided to go ahead and take a shower since I hadn't gotten up early for one that morning because of PT. Again, in hindsight, a very fortuitous decision that helped me feel a little more normal for a little while longer due to the power outage and loss of hot water that occurred that night. Jason came home from work in the break in the storms. When he got home I was sitting at the kitchen table going over my to-do list and schedule. He immediately pulled up lots of news and the radar on his computer with the tv on in the den. But he soon came in to where I was and set the computer down where we could both watch the live tower-cam video of the tornado hitting the city of Cullman. It was surreal to watch and heartbreaking. We knew lots of people in Cullman and were familiar with the downtown. As we watched it wreak destruction on the city it started to sink in that this might be a very bad day.
Honestly, Jason had been talking about this day for over a week and about how it was setting up to be a monster day for tornados. His weather forum buddies couldn't decide if it was going to set up perfectly for storms or if it would all fall apart. But, in his opinion, this was the worst day he'd ever seen set up. If any of you have weather nuts for husband's though you know that a lot of times they cry wolf. Weather is unpredictible and can change on a dime and a lot of times that Jason has said in the past that things were going to be bad, it was going to snow, etc, the weather hasn't shown up. So I wasn't really expecting it to be as bad as he said.
But when he came home early and we saw the footage from Cullman I started to get convinced. Like I said earlier, our home is not surrounded by houses on the west and I am always antsy about tornados so I wanted to go to my parents who live nearby and have a basement. As soon as Charlotte woke up from her nap we packed up enough to get us through the night (since we were anticipating the storms lasting until 9 or 10) and headed down to their house. At the last second Jason threw in his hand crank radio and hand crank flashlight although he says that he definitely didn't think he would even come close to needing them.
Not long after we got to their house the sirens started again and we decided that we would all be safest staying in the basement for the next little while. We carried down our computers and phones along with a blanket and pillows and some drinks. Jason brought down his radio and Dad brought down the box with the battery powered tv that Mom bought all of us probably five years ago. We got Charlotte set up again and were a happy little nest for a little while with one of us on an iPad and all other four on our own laptops.
Throughout the next hour or so the guys would go up occasionally to look outside and we were all keeping up with the weather ourselves. Around 4:30 or a little later Jason told Mom and I to pull up ABC 33/40 on our computers. He said that there was a tornado getting close to Tuscaloosa. We did and all three of us watched in horror as we watched the tornado demolish the city that we love. While it was hard watching the storm hit Cullman earlier in the afternoon, watching the tornado take out a sizable chunk of Tuscaloosa was horrifying and heartbreaking. Not only did we know a few people who were there, we had six cousins in town as well as too many friends to count. We know Tuscaloosa's layout by heart and as it came through we knew exactly what it was hitting. Even watching it on their feed we couldn't imagine the damage that was occurring right then and the lives that were being lost and totally decimated.
Not long after the feed from Tuscaloosa was lost (or perhaps in the middle of it, my timing isn't perfect now) we lost power. We got the flashlights out and Mom lit some candles before we realized that we were pretty much out of danger and could go upstairs and use the remaining daylight. I never really thought that we would lose power and once it went off I couldn't imagine that it would be off for long. I was so sure that it was a short fluke in our neighborhood that I even tweeted the local power company to let them know that our area was out in case they were trying to identify the area's where they needed to send workers.
I think that in some ways the power going out was a saving grace. We were spared a lot of images of the damage nearby and far away other than what we could pull up on our phones and while we saw a lot on our phones our service quickly turned horrible and the ability to download photos and videos was very slow and trying. I think if we had been able to see all of that right away without hearing filtered versions of it on the radio first that it might have been more than I, at least, could take. As it was, we cooked a big dinner on the grille with food that would spoil immediately and eventually went to bed.
We were so very lucky on April 27th. We had no property damage -- even the condo in Tuscaloosa had no damage. We were all safe. Our family in Tuscaloosa was safe and although we eventually heard of a number of friends who had very close calls and lost everything, they were safe as well. At the end of the day all that we had lost was power which is a need that you can live without if prepared and most of our modern forms of communication which you can definitely live without. I am so thankful that more wasn't lost to us but I am still heartbroken at all of the lives that were changed forever on this day.
In most areas it will be easy to move on. I would guess that most of the country has already forgotten that we had major damage on April 27th in Alabama. In our city things are back to normal -- grocery stores are fully stocked, there are no lines for gas, and other than a few incidental outages we all have power. But there are lots of people still digging out. Still searching through rubble for valuables. Still working each and every day to try and put together a semblance of the life that they had on April 26th. And for those people the task of rebuilding still stretches in front of them in an endless road.
I think most people in Alabama and throughout the South were changed on April 27th. I know that I will make sure and keep a good stock of flashlights and batteries on hand from now on. If we ever get to build a house we will definitely have a storm shelter installed as well as a generator. And honestly, the cost of getting a generator installed in our home now doesn't seem as outrageous and unnecessary as I would have thought. I will pay much more attention to Jason when he tells me that severe weather is on the horizon and I will constantly pray that a day like that will never happen again.
And for many cities, they will never look the same. It's been said that it will probably take at least six months for the destruction in Tuscaloosa to be fully cleaned up and I would guess that it will take years and years before things are rebuilt fully in the damaged areas. Hackleburg, AL was basically wiped off the map. Businesses are gone. People are without any possessions. Families lost their loved ones who will never be replaced. Please pray for everyone affected by these storms. Pray for healing and help and love and understanding in the days and weeks and months and years to come. The damage will run deep and will take a very long time to recover from.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
She's Got the Beat
This spring we enrolled Charlotte in a music class. She has always loved music and dancing and I was kind of tired of the gym, so we thought that music would be a good change of pace. The first month or so of class was hard for me to take because class was in a room without windows and I was exhausted from my first trimester but when I saw how much Charlotte loved it it made it easier to get up and go.
Charlotte loved everything about her class. Miss Daphne was great and really connected with the kids. She got to play with new instruments in each class (although the sticks with the bells on them were by far her favorite!). They sometimes got to play with stuffed animals. There was story time. And the kids usually got some sort of small treat (like a sticker) at the end of class!
On the last day all of the Mom's brought our camera's and took some pictures. I'm glad I did because it's hard to explain the joy that Charlotte had in music without seeing the pictures!
Charlotte loved everything about her class. Miss Daphne was great and really connected with the kids. She got to play with new instruments in each class (although the sticks with the bells on them were by far her favorite!). They sometimes got to play with stuffed animals. There was story time. And the kids usually got some sort of small treat (like a sticker) at the end of class!
On the last day all of the Mom's brought our camera's and took some pictures. I'm glad I did because it's hard to explain the joy that Charlotte had in music without seeing the pictures!
Sometimes they got to play with hula hoops. Charlotte loved playing with the purple one!
Waiting on Miss Daphne to pour out the animals so that she could choose one...
Of course she chose the puppy dog!
The class was great for her counting because most of the time she had to get four instruments from each box -- two for her and two for me. She quickly learned how many four was in actuality as opposed to theory in a book and was usually one of the first to grab her instruments.
Probably her favorite instruments. Right here she's tapping them on her chest. Class also taught her concepts like high and low!
Near the end of the semester they started bringing balls out near the end of class. This was a huge hit for Charlotte!
And as a special surprise on the last day they got to play with balloons!
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