7 months

Charlie is 7 months. I am sad bc I realized we are now closer to 1 year old than 1 week old! This boy is such a sweetheart and a cuddle bunny. His smile is contagious and his big brown eyes melt my heart. He sticks his little tongue out all the time! He is now sitting up and likes to sit and play with toys. He wants to crawl but is not close at this point. He is trying desperately some way to get to things he wants though! He loves Whit and they are so funny together. Bath time is funny bc Charlie will kick in his tub and Whit splashes and they both just laugh at each other. Oh it makes my heart happy!
Charlie is eating good these days! Still an 8 oz bottle at 7, 11, 3 and 7. He actually is loving food now too! He eats oatmeal mixed with a fruit in the morning and then a vegetable in the afternoon. Sometimes at night he will eat some more too.
His sleeping is ok these days. He goes to bed at night between 6:30 and 7. He usually will be happy in the crib in the mornings until I get him around 6:40 during the week and around 7 on the weekends. You never know what his naps are going to be. If we are at home on the weekends he will usually take a good morning then another good afternoon nap. He always takes a little cat nap in the early evening too.  Night time was good up until a week or so ago. He is waking up in the middle of the night now. It started when his teeth started coming through. He would wake up with a painful cry. So a couple of nights i would just sleep on the couch with him bc in all honesty I just wanted to go back to sleep. Then a few nights he was back to his full 13 hour nights. Now we have started back waking up. I let him sleep on the couch for a few hours with me but now I am just annoyed bc he cannot be hurting or anything if he is going to sleep on me :) Last night he did sleep without waking up so who knows! *** update from the weekend.....
We went to the doctor Friday and she told me it is common for them to stop sleeping through the night but just to let him cry so Fri night i did. It was so terrible. He cried on and off for 2 hrs and when he woke up his eyes were so swollen from crying! I was sad. So I determined I was not going to do that again. Thankfully he did not wake up Sat night and Sun night he woke up around 3 just talking and eventually went back to sleep. Surprisingly I find myself wanting to sleep with him on the couch. This is so not me bc I just want them to be scheduled typically but I am getting soft and realizing how soon these days will be gone! Do not get me wrong, in the middle of the night I am not really happy about it :)
So hopefully we will get back to our regularly scheduled sleeping soon!
He is getting his bottom teeth. One has cut the skin but I am not sure about the other. It breaks my heart bc he just cries tears if you touch his mouth.
This is such a second child bc we are just now going to his 6 mo check up today :) He weighs 17 lbs 8 oz which is the 40%. We are growing!! He is in the 25% for height.
Love sweet Charlie Boy!

Charlie's Dedication

We had Charlie dedicated at church yesterday. It is such a sweet time. We chose 2 Thessalonians 3:5 as his verse:  
"May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ"

We had lunch at my parents house after church. It was a great afternoon to celebrate sweet Charlie.
I had Lauren come take some pictures for us bc since Charlie has been born we have not gotten any good ones! She did a great job and I appreciate it so much. I am so glad to have these pictures from this occasion!

Delicious Olexa's cake

Beautiful flowers from Marigold Design

Our weekend

Last weekend was the 4th but we did not have any major plans. Thankfully my office decided to give us Friday off too so I was going to be home for 4 days! So in my head that meant one thing..... potty training.
I have not really been in a hurry bc Whit has not shown a lot of interest. I have been talking with his teacher a lot about it and she said he had been watching his friends go and had shown a little interest. I figured if it did not work we would try again in a few months. So I bought him a little potty and some undies and we were ready to go!
We woke up Thursday morning and I took off the diaper and put on his underwear. I asked him approximately 5,000 times that day if he needed to go get on the potty. He had about 5 accidents the first day. I realized that he did not really care if he got his underwear wet so that was a problem. So we decided to go naked and that helped a lot. I will admit that by the afternoon I was very low on patience. Every time he went on the floor I seriously had to bite my lips. Day one was over and I would say it was progress. Friday we did the same thing all over. At some point he finally realized he could control himself and "make" himself go to get MM's. To me this was great bc he was showing control! He probably had 4 accidents Friday too. We did venture out to dinner which I was so scared of. He would not go at the restaurant so I just knew he was going to wet himself but we made it back home and he went as soon as we got home. I was very proud! Saturday morning we went to breakfast and Target. We were gone for about 2 hours and he did not go the whole time! I was shocked!
So I believe that he was ready and he is doing so good still! He has not wet himself at school one day this week. He has told his teacher when he needs to go. They put a diaper on him when they play outside bc there is no bathroom close and he gets distracted but that is ok with me. We are still having issues with #2 and have had some accidents with that but I have heard its a lot harder so we are just going to keep working on it! I am so proud of him and hopefully we can be totally through with diapers very soon!!

Update on Whit

I felt like Whit was getting left out on updates bc he is not really counted in months anymore. So I want to remember a little about this time we are in right now.
He is just so much fun. This boy has such a great personality. We went through a couple of months where he was screaming and being "2" but really he has not been bad. Do not get me wrong we discipline a lot. Most of the time it is for not using listening ears. Besides that though Whit has the sweetest heart. I pray his gentle spirit sticks with him. He loves to laugh and he makes us laugh on a daily basis. He is an early riser(6 am) but is happy and ready to go! He can be dead asleep and if we walk in the room he sits up so happy for the day.
He talks in sentences and he knows what he wants to say. If he knows it did not come out exactly right then he will try again. He is very observant of his surroundings. His memory is ridiculous! I think it is common for this age to have a good memory but it is amazing the stuff he remembers even if its something he saw one time.
Right now he loves: Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Mickey Mouse, playing golf, singing and any musical instrument. His favorite books right now are: Corduroy, Little Blue Truck, Mr. Brown Can Moo, and still the    one page in his Bible with his "friends" on the page. He can "read" most of the books to me if he is in the mood.  He is a fairly good eater. What he eats really depends on his mood. Every single morning he eats a nutrigrain  bar, milk and a danimals smoothie. He asks for it literally as he is getting out of the bed.
He is definitely all boy and would play outside all the time if we could. He loves mowing the grass, the blower and now loves to "run" in the yard with daddy.
He is so big and I forget sometimes that he is only 2 1/2. I feel like he is so old! He and Nate have already built a special bond and it makes me so happy to see them together. They play and laugh together all the time. I am beginning to see the relationship between him and Charlie more and more. He talks to Charlie often and makes Charlie smile a lot. It makes me so happy!
I am LOVING this time in his life. It is such a great age. He has so much fun with things and he brings so much joy to my life. He is very loving and gives the best kisses ever. TO hear him say "I love you so much Mommy" is one of the best things in the world! LOVE my Whitman!!

Charlie at 6 months

Charlie is 6 months old today! Half a year seriously! I love this age and moving forward bc they just get so much more animated and are so sweet. He has made some serious improvements in the crying area. He is much more content playing for more than 2 minutes now. He was going through a little phase where he would wake up at night but we have moved on from that too! I realized that it just made it worse when I went in to try and settle him down so I just let him cry and it worked! We have not been to our 6 mo check up yet so I do not know his stats. I feel like he is growing for sure bc I see some more rolls around the leg area but I think he is still small. He weighs nothing when i pick him up! He is wearing 6 mo clothes.
His hair is growing and I am kinda thinking it might turn blonde now! I thought for sure it was going to stay brown but its getting lighter for sure. His eyes are still blue and brown. If you are inside they look brown but when you are in the sun they are brown in the middle and blue on the outside. I do not think he and Whit look much alike right now. I think they are both pretty cute though :)
We just started eating food this week. He is doing ok with it. I send one little jar of 1st foods to school and they give him half around 11 and then the other half in the afternoons. He still takes 4 8 oz bottles of milk a day.
Naps are still kinda random. If he is at home we get a morning and afternoon nap but at school its just sorta random. He always needs a little cat nap around 5 or 5:30.  He goes down at night about 6:30 or 6:45 and wakes up about 6:30 but is totally content playing til I go in there. Its so funny bc Whit still wants to get out of the bed as soon as his eyes are open and will cry til you get him. He has always done that. Charlie just hangs in the crib til I go get him. Whit was easier to just put down at night though. With Charlie you kinda have to get him good and sleepy first.
I am beginning to see glimpses of Whit and Charlie as brothers. They are both pretty entertained with each other. Whit talks to Charlie a lot like he is going to respond to him. He shows him things and tells him about something. Its so sweet! I am so excited to see them become good buddies!
Sweet Charlie we love you and I can't believe its been 6 months!!

6 mo old

New house!

We had a big weekend! Friday was the big moving day! I cannot believe we are in a new house.
Last Monday we closed on both houses back to back. Mom and Debbie headed to the new house bright and early Tuesday morning to start cleaning! I am so lucky to be in the same town with all my family. I could not have made it through the week without them. I could not take off any bc we had been at the beach the week before so they graciously offered to help me. They were amazing! They cleaned and cleaned and cleaned. They got my whole kitchen set up for me and had everything perfect. Debbie had a great painter come to paint the bedrooms too! We took stuff over every night and Thursday night we had all the boxes over at the new house.
Mom and dad kept the boys Thursday night and Nate and I finished up everything. We ended up staying at Debbie and Jim's house so we could close it all down. Friday Nate could not take off so Debbie and I headed to the old house to meet the movers. They had us out of that house by about 10:30. Mom was ready at the new house when the movers got there! By 12 we they were gone and we started getting everything situated. Kat was there to help me place everything which was a huge help!
I feel good about where we are at this point. We are pretty much out of boxes. The house feels like home and we are loving it! I feel so blessed to be in this home. It is not too big but definitely bigger than the last. It is the perfect space for us. We do not need any more room. The boys have their rooms and we have our own bathroom. This is new territory for us :)
We loved our first house so much and it was the perfect home to start our lives in. We had been married 8 months when we bought that house. We never imagined we would have 2 little boys in that house. Nate said he could not even remember what we did the days before we had them there. I do know it was great though! We loved that little house and were so lucky to have had it. It served us through ups and downs over the past 5 years. We lived and loved a lot there. I hope our new house will serve us just as well!

Sunday was Father's Day. I have been so crazy with everything that I did not do anything for Nate. His gift was me taking both boys for a while to Target and he slept the whole time :) He is a great daddy and I am so very thankful that these boys have a strong. hard working, and loving daddy to look up to. He plays with Whit all the time and I am pretty sure they both thing each other hung the moon. Charlie will soon be in with the big boys too! Thank you Nate for working so incredibly hard all the time to provide for us. We love you more than you know!

I am going to try to take some more pictures of the house later!

loved this house

Movers loading

Moving in

Saturday night in my OWN bathtub that is approx 2 ft deep!

The den...where we spend all our time

Whit's room

Our bathroom... we do not know what to do with space

Beach 2013

We just got back from our week at the beach with my family. We had a great trip! I am not going to lie it was exhausting but it was so much fun! This year we were in Orange Beach in 2 condos. We were not sure how it would work out but it was great! Being on the beach with the pool right there was huge at this point. We stayed in one condo with Mae Mae and JD and the others were in another condo. It really worked great!

 The first time down to the beach was a little worrisome bc Whit would not touch the sand. Nate and I looked at each other and were like this is going to be a looong week! But after about 30 minutes he decided he was ok with it and he never looked back. He loved the ocean and the waves. He would take a wave directly in the face and just laugh. It got a little too rough toward the end of the week but it was ok. His favorite part was swimming in the pool. I will say that I am so glad we did the swimming lessons. The stress of those lessons paid off. He was a little fish and did so good. He played in the pool forever in the afternoons with Nate. He was at such a great age and he was so good all week. He was content sitting in his chair on the beach eating teddy grahams when it was not time to be in the pool. He wore himself out every day. I have never seen him this exhausted. By Wednesday he was so tired he fell asleep as soon as we got out to the beach in the morning and then took a long afternoon nap too! He played his heart out! Charlie was at a tough age honestly. He is not big enough to be sitting and watching everything but he is not small enough to be content just laying down. I did a lot of holding him and walking down the beach to get him to sleep. The good news was that he would easily fall asleep and I could put him on a towel for naptime.

We always cook in at the beach. Its just too hard to try and go out with all of us so mom makes amazing meals every night. We would put the boys down and then enjoy a great meal with everyone. Thankfully we were able to move them to our condo with no problems when it was time to go up for the night. In the mornings we would just go downstairs to their condo and sit outside on the porch and enjoy our early mornings with everyone.
It was so fun to be with everyone. I loved that my sisters got to play with the boys so much. They love their aunts and uncles. They all helped me so much! I wish that we all lived closer but thankful that we get to see each other when we do!!

 We enjoyed our vacation so much and I am already looking forward to next year! I could not do a week at the beach without everyone to help me.  Thanks Cookie and Doc for such a great week!

picture overload....

All loaded up and ready to go!

Playing with daddy and JD in the waves

Snack Time!

Building sandcastles with Doc

Hanging with HK in the mornings

Happy baby!

Absolutely nothing better than this

All the girls... maybe my 10 minutes of sitting still!

Love

FloraBama on Kittys bday

crazy hair for me but loving the pool

I love my family the bigger it gets!

Love this guy

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Brothers

Fell asleep eating his corndog on the way home!