my big big boy :(

Every day my little guy looks more and more like a big kid.  We're just about a month and a half away from Kindergarten and I can hardly believe it.  Here he is today playing baseball at school.  Where did the baby go?

We had his kindergarten physical last week and he's up to 43 1/4 inches tall (25th %) and 35 lbs (3-5%).  While the doctor was probably expecting a different reaction I was ecstatic to hear that he's finally back on the growth curve at all :)

He aced the rest of the exam and is cleared for Kindergarten!

Cousin (and grandparent) Time!

Grandma Karen and Grandpa Doug came down for a visit this weekend, with speical guest visitor cousin Graham!  The boys hit it off immediately though they hadn't seen each other since they were 3.  So much mischief in these faces...

They had way too much fun with squirt guns.

so Mike put them to work on his car rather than the grown ups... good thinking.

The boys got some ice cream and then hit up a movie in City Park Saturday evening...

Colin was excited to have another cub fan around :(

Sunday we all headed out for a very hot morning at the zoo.

It was Charlotte's first time on the train!

I was worried how she'd do on the train - well, no baby has ever loved the train as much as Charlotte.  As soon as it started moving, she squealed "WHEE!" ... she was waving to everyone, and shrieking "Train Train!  Choo Chooooo!"  the whole way.  At every stop she would yell "AGAIN!"   When it was finally time to get off the train I had to physically pull her off, screaming in rage.  So, I guess we'll be doing that again soon...

When she wasn't riding the rails, lady got the grandparents to escort her about the park.

Meanwhile the five year olds decided to ride in style...

We got to see lots of cool things we didn't get to last time, including the hippos, elephants, and even a chance to see the brand new polar bear.  Very cool.

 So fun to have another kid around to play with!  (and yes, Graham is only four months older than my peanut!)

charlotte the entertainer

Here's a random sampling of videos of charlotte from over the weekend...

This is Charlotte's rendition of "Charlotte Hanson," the song I used to sing to her when she was a baby.  She has learned it entirely from watching videos of me singing to her when she was a baby.  

This is charlotte's new game at bedtime, listing everyone that loves her.  Aw!  G gets top billing on this night... though it's possible everyone else is lumped into the gibberish in the middle...

and here she is portraying the "huggy monster" -  no idea where this came from but she has recently started lurching around our house like a zombie and then attacking her victim with hugs.  This girl. 

charlotte update!

I have been a total slacker on updates about Charlotte!  So for her 28 month and 1 week update, here’s what Charlotte is up to:

- This girl’s vocabulary is exploding.  She’s gone from being pretty quiet to complete sentences almost overnight.  A lot of what she says is either gibberish, or completely insane, but it’s fun to get to have a conversation with her finally!  Here she is making up a totally fabricated story about a flight we were going to take on a “big plane to chicago” “tomorrow.”  (I know many of you have already seen this, but it’s just a charlotte classic!)

- She’s about a year and three months ahead of colin with potty training.  We are very close to being done with diapers FOREVER!!!  Hooray!

- We had her parent-teacher conference last week and her teacher said she wished she had “twenty charlottes” in her class.  HAHA.  Okay..  But it was good to hear that Charlotte is happy there and doing well.  She is apparently the class singer (no surprise there), loves her dollies and playing dress up with the other girls, but is more than able to “hold her own” against the boys, even though she’s the smallest (not the youngest, mind you, but the smallest) in the class.  Good for her!

- She still seems very musical, she has plenty of songs memorized and will burst into song at any given moment, including when she wakes up in the morning in her crib.

- Still loving books and pointing to pictures and asking, “What’s this?”

- She has an incredible memory – and we are used to those with Colin around -  but every day I am just baffled by something she’ll recall or remember or understand.

- Still adoring her brother.  Here they are “dancing” (?) after bath last night.

- Still just our happy, fiery, fun little cha cha!  We love this girl!

busy saturday

We had such a fun long weekend.  We started out Saturday with a trip over to St. Louis.  We stopped by my old neighborhood to get coffee at Kaldi’s and let the kids run around the park across the street.  This tree stump was a big hit.  That night, Colin told me it was his favorite part of the day?

They also checked out the little mini park in the neighborhood...

Aw....

Then we headed over to the zoo.  Bad picture of Charlotte, intrigued by penguins.

A monkey watching a gorilla...

Colin was equally intrigued by this statue with tiny bronze animals as he was the real things... sigh

King of the world!

Then we met up with Aunt Zoe and Uncle Zach for delicious lunch and Colin took over the bags...

And after all that, we still had energy to hit the Bonifest later.  The kids' first real fair!  Colin LOVED it.  He's been begging me to "find another fair to go to" ever since!

Charlotte claimed the entire funnel cake as her own and screamed at us whenever we tried to grab a bite...

And both kids had a blast on the super slide!  I couldn't believe they both went on it and LOVED it!

Happy kids, happy day!

trip to the gardens!

After a jam-packed birthday weekend of fun, we were prepared for a lazy rainy Sunday afternoon to recover.  However, the forecasters really blew that one and we found ourselves with a warm sunny day and two kids who desperately wanted out of the house.  So we decided to go check out the gardens at SIUE, which I had heard great things about from my friends.  They were not wrong!  

We went for a long walk/bike ride through the woods and discovered this beautiful pagoda overlooking the lake.  This would be my kids dashing back and forth to throw pinecones in the water.  I don't know.

Pine straw!  I had to breathe deep and pretend I was back in North Carolina.

Look closely and see Colin trying to give me a heart attack by leaning over the bridge.

What is everyone looking at?!

Turtles!   Too many to count, though Charlotte certainly tried...

What a fun little impromptu afternoon.

happy mother's day!

hope all of the moms in our lives had a wonderful day yesterday.  I got to spend the day with my two favorite little muffins.. so lucky to be their mom :)

Since I was given a break on parenting for the day (ha!) the kids got into all kinds of fun.  Like.. climbing to the top of the changing table to hang out together...

and pushing charlotte through the house at high speeds in a doll stroller! 

oh well.. at least they were playing together?  Happy mother's day to all!  :)