little piglet

As Charlotte's first birthday gets closer and closer, she's becoming a big girl before our eyes!  She is so over milk and bottles and nursing and wants nothing but people food.  A LOT of people food.  And so far, we have quite an adventurous eater on our hands.  I hesitate to even say that, knowing what can happen down the road, but right now, this girl will try - and seems to love - just about everything.  In the past week she has scarfed down stuffed pasta shells with spinach, clam chowder, garlic bread.. you name it.  Except fruit.  She doesn't like fruit.  You may recall that fruit is about the only thing I can reliably count on Colin to eat.  These two are seriously polar opposites in every way.  It's pretty funny when your 12 month old is stuffing her face with foods the four year old won't even try a bite of. 

Anyway, when she eats, she gets in to it.  Here are some pictures from this week of charlotte ... believe it or not, most of the food actually makes it in to her mouth...

Every night when she's covered in food, Colin makes a point of telling me, "Mommy, she's a disaster!"  ha! 

Here's hoping her appetite and adventurous eating continue! 

pop quiz, hotshots...

which baby is this?  I almost can't tell :)

star of the week! (sort of)

At the end of last week, Colin got some very exciting news.  He was chosen to be "Star of the Week" in his classroom.  I cannot emphasize to you how very, very important this achievement is in his class.  Here is his plaque he brought home.

Star of the Week confers many benefits.  A special chair, an "all about me" display in the classroom, and several other important perks which colin outlines in the below video.

So, on Sunday night, when we found out school was cancelled for Monday, I thought Colin would be thrilled at having another stay home day.  Unfortunately, I forgot about Star of the Week, and my enthusiastic announcement about stay home day was met with a crumple to the floor and sobbing.  The second cancelled day didn't go over any better.  "I'm not going to get very many days to sit in my special chair!!" wailed Colin.

Thankfully, Colin has the best teacher ever, who went out of her way to send me an email letting me know that she felt awful about Colin's big week, and that she would make sure he got extra days the next week to make up for it.  She also said that she's "never had a child work harder or be more excited" about being Star of the Week.  Colin was so relieved when I told him about Ms. Mel's plan.  What a special little star.

christmas 2013!

finally getting around to uploading lots of pics from christmas!   We had a wonderful time visiting family in st. louis, even with the long drive and a certain crabby teething baby.  Our travels allowed colin to have three different days of present opening, which he was thrilled about...

charlotte seemed to have a good first christmas, though of course the ornaments and wrapping paper were the most exciting to her..

we enjoyed spending christmas eve at Aunt Zoe's new house…

and colin had a great time spending time with G and Uncle Adam!

lots of pics of our christmas are at:  share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0ActG7Vs4cMWrno

my little elves

Quite the adventure this year, decorating for Christmas with two little ones underfoot.  

We had the traditional wearing of the santa caps...

Colin made up for Charlotte's lack of enthusiasm.  

We had a baby assisting with inspecting the tubs of decorations...

I'm sure this is safe.  

… and a monkey helping to trim the tree.  (yes, monkey suit is still around.  We're getting our money's worth?)

Tag team..

we had to take a break for a dance party.  This was the funniest thing to ever happen to Charlotte, apparently.

and she doesn't even seem fazed by having a tree in the house suddenly.  

 In other Christmas-y news, it is so much fun this year now that Colin really "gets" what's going on and is so excited for Christmas.  Today Mike took him to the Christmas parade downtown, where he had a blast despite the cold and snow, and got to give the mailman a letter for Santa.  While he was gone, I wrapped one of his presents and put it under the tree, where there was already one present for him.  He came home, ran straight for the tree and yelled, "TWO presents?!"  He snatched it up and then said, "Mommy!  It says, C-O-L-I-N!  That's me!  It's a present for me!"  Looking forward to twice the holiday fun this year with my two little elves.  :)

soooo big!

thanksgiving 2013

we all had a great thanksgiving with family in the quad cities… despite the stress of our first real holiday on the road with two kids.  Look how much they love each other!  Haha

we stuffed ourselves silly at grandma pat and grandpa ron's… then headed to cousin Taryn's for even more food.  Here's Colin enjoying second thanksgiving (i.e., Teddy Grahams) at the kids' table with Uncle Matt.  

checking out Grandpa Doug's mustache ….

reunited with auntie ginger...

little C's creeping on the kids' table…  look at those twin profiles!

baby lineup with cousins Madison and Elodie

 The rest of the weekend was spent having lots of family fun.  The boys had a day out at the movie theatre….

Charlotte and Grandma got some quality cuddle time...

and we all lost to colin in candy land 43700000 times.

charlotte loved seeing her first puppy dog, Junior..  and he was excited to have a baby dropping food around….

and I got lots of snuggles with my pumpkin pie.   

 so much to be thankful for this year :)