My baby is 1!!

The holidays have come and gone and my baby boy has turned 1. Sorry I haven't shared with you about all of the exiting things that have happened over the past three or four weeks. We had a wonderful Christmas and a great New Year's Eve (Henry's birthday). We visited with family and enjoyed spending time with each other. The kids are almost overwhelmed with new toys. Charlie has a room full of dinosaurs and Isabelle is enjoying art supplies and princess dolls. She was most impressed with the nail polish and chap stick that Santa left in her stocking.

Henry's birthday party was a lot of fun. We didn't have as many guests as we had anticipated as Chad's grandfather is ill. Henry really enjoyed his birthday cake. He dug in with both hands and made a pretty big mess. He fed a few pieces to the dogs, but most every bite made it to his mouth. My husband was in charge of the food - Barbeque. It was really good, but there was so much of it. We probably could have fed most of our neighborhood.

We had a few days last week of Henry not feeling well, but he is all better now. Chad stayed home with him on Wednesday, and Thursday, and I was home on Friday. It is amazing how quickly they get used to someone holding them all of the time.

We are currently in the middle of birthday overload. Henry's birthday was Dec. 31st. Isabelle was invited to classmates' birthday parties on the 9th and 16th. Then we are having Charlie's birthday party this weekend. My birhtday is the following weekend. By the end of this month, she is likely to think that every weekend means a birthday party.

I hope to get some pictures up of the birthday party, Christmas and the photos we had taken before Christmas soon. This of course means me taking time to sit down at the computer at home to get them off of the camera and uploaded. Hopefully I can get it done soon.

Record

Chad and I were both able to make it to the Christmas Program at Isabelle's preschool. I got there first and recorded her coming into the gym. When Chad got there I handed the camera to him and since we were in the back, he stood up and focused in on Isabelle. He had the camera on her the whole time she was singing. She did such a great job singing and doing all of the motions with the songs. We were very excited to show her the recording once we got home. Chad hooked the camera up to the TV and got things started. We watched as Isabelle came in and then it went blank. No more video. It appears as if he forgot to press the record button. He has now been banned from the video camera.

I'm not allowed to say that

I should preface this little story by telling you that a while back Isabelle came home from school exclaiming "oh my lord" in front of I am hungry or I don't want to do that. Chad and I both had gotten on to her a few times telling her that we didn't think that it was very nice to say that. We offered oh my goodness as an alternative and she luckily dropped all variations of the phrase completely.
Isabelle starting practicing yesterday for her Christmas program at school. She sang her songs for me on the way home yesterday. She started with a song about there being no room at the inn and then moved on to a song about Jesus. She sang "There was a little baby," but then she stopped and said "Mom, I don't think I am allowed to say this." I told her is was OK and she continued "Oh, my Lord, there was a little baby, Oh my Lord." It was one of the cutest things. I couldn't help but laugh. I was also a little surprised that she had actually taken into account that we had told her not to use that phrase as she is at that stage where she doesn't always listen or do what we say.

Busy time of the year

Wow, the holidays are upon us. We are very blessed to be within a reasonable driving distance from most of our family members. This means that we will be visiting them over the next few weeks. We will begin in Lawrenceburg at my husbands grandparents house. It is always a very good time. We are meeting at 10:00am this year so that we will have plenty of time to spend together. Next weekend we will head to Paintsville to visit with my dad's family. We haven't made it to their Christmas gathering since we have had children, so at least 4 years. I am excited about going, but it is also the longest drive. Sunday we will be in Lexington with my mom and then at our house for Christmas Eve and with Chad's parents in Georgetown on Christmas Day. Sounds like a lot of traveling in a short period of time, but we are thankful for the opportunity to be with family. To add to the events, Henry's birthday is New Year's Eve (can't believe my baby is going to be one) so we are planning a birthday/New Year's Eve party.

I had to pleasure of meeting a very nice photographer recently who will be taking pictures of the kiddos this weekend. I am very excited to get some new pics. I know they will be great because I have seen some of her work and these are my kids we are talking about. I do worry some about keeping Charlie in line (he likes to run around a lot!), but hopefully we will manage.

Henry is cutting his sixth and seventh tooth so he has been a little cranky, but overall he is so pleasant. He is pulling up on everything, but hasn't tried letting go. I am afraid we will be there soon though.

Charlie has been talking a lot about being a big boy. He decided on his own that he didn't need his keys except at bedtime anymore. We are working hard on potty training, but aren't really getting anywhere. He is afraid to get on the toilet. He cries and cries until we finally get him settled and he "says that wasn't so bad", but the next time the whole process repeats itself. He has been talking recently about wanting to go to school like a big boy (the preschool where Isabelle is currently). He has to be potty trained to start at 3. I have tried to use this as motivation, but again it is a work in progress.

Isabelle has been the star student this week at preschool. Monday she colored a poster board. We helped her put some pictures on it and then she decorated it with stickers. Tuesday she took in a collection of her hairbows. Wednesday was her favorite movie (Wizard of Oz), today was her
favorite book (Purplicious), and tomorrow is her favorite game (hungry hungry hippos). She has had a lot of fun doing this. She is also really into baking right now. She loves to make things with "lots of ingredients", but she doesn't want to eat them. We are trying brownies next. I don't think she has had brownies before so maybe we will find something she likes.

Hopefully I will have new pictures to share from the photoshoot and our upcoming visits with family soon.

Trips

We have taken a few trips recently. On the 22nd we traveled to Frankfort to celebrate my husband's grandparents 60th wedding anniversary. It was a great day. All of the family attended church together that morning. Chad's grandparents attend the church he grew up in. We got our kids all dressed up, the boys in suits and Isabelle is a "sparkly princess" dress. We wanted to to be dressed up for pictures. We weren't able to get a picture of all three together. During the church service Charlie started to get rather loud, so I decided that I needed to take him out of the sanctuary. As I was trying to exit, we went on a little trip. My foot got caught in the handle of the diaper bag and down we went. I was just a little embarrassed.

We visited with Chad's family again over Thanksgiving. Then Chad and I decided to go out shopping on Friday morning. We headed out for Toys_R_Us which opened at midnight. It was crazy. It took us almost 30 minutes just to get into the parking lot. When we got out of the car and close to the store we saw many people and some were yelling and shoving so we decided it wasn't for us. As we left we looked back at the line to go into the store which covered almost the whole perimeter of the Value_City Store next door. We did make it to a few other places at 5:00 am and were able to get the stuff we wanted. We returned to Toys_R_Us at about 8:00 and got all the stuff we wanted there as well. I think next year we will think twice before heading out on Black Friday.

I survived!!

We made it through the birthday party mostly unscathed. Isabelle did great. She really enjoyed playing with her friends from school. They played duck duck goose, hot potato to open gifts, ate cupcakes and ice cream, and finally went swimming. I was very relieved and impressed that Isabelle did great in the pool without me. We put on her water wings and she had a great time. The only hitch was that the birthday girl got a Nintendo DS for her birthday. Isabelle decided that she wants one and has her Daddy convinced that she needs one for her birthday. I think that we should wait a while longer. The Leapster she has now keeps her entertained and has educational games. The DS has just entertainment games which are pretty pricey. What do you think? Nintendo DS for a five year old??

We are thinking about taking the kids to Dinosaur World in Cave City this weekend. As I have mentioned here previously Charlie is fascinated with dinosaurs. We visited a dinosaur museum in Pigeon Forge over the summer. It was sort of small and not so great in my eyes, but Charlie hasn't stopped talking about since June. He asks frequently when he can go back to see the dinosaurs. Hopefully things will work out for us to go this weekend.

We, well actually just Chad, finally got pictures loaded on the computer from our camera. Here

are our little munchkins on Halloween.

Pool Party

I broke down this morning and RSVP'd for the pool party of one of Isabelle's classmates. She is super excited about going. I, on the other hand, am not!!! Isabelle really enjoys swimming, but she does not swim on her own yet. (Note to self: Add swimming lessons to the to do list for this summer) The invitation stated that parents were invited to swim if children needed assistance. So I guess that I will be getting in a bathing suit to help her out. The way I see it, there a few things that I have working against me here. One, I have never meet any of these people before and two I have not worked hard at getting myself to the point that I would feel really comfortable even putting a bathing suit on in front of family. I take full responsibilty for the fact that I am facing this horrible situation as I have not tried really hard to make myself presentable after having a baby 10 months ago, but having three children has not been overly kind to my body. Isn't the saying that it took nine months to put it on, it can take nine months to take it off? It has been ten, so I guess my time is up. I would much rather have my children than a stellar appearance in a bathing suit, but really I would much rather just not have to wear a bathing suit out in public. I realize that this all sounds awful and no I am not obsessed with appearance, but I just sort of like being able to cover up things that I would prefer others not to see. It has always been so comforting when coming back to work after having had a baby... and maybe even ten months later to be able to put on my lab coat and hide what actually lies beneath. Now I have to put on a bathing suit :( I did try to talk her out of going, offering that we might have more fun at home, but that was not part of her plan. Also I feel bad for not letting her go on her field trip a few weeks ago because she had been a little sick and I didn't want her out in the cold. So as it stands, we will be hitting the pool on Saturday!! Pictures to come soon, no not of the pool party, but of Halloween. We had a perfect Cinderalla, T-Rex, and monkey.