Charlie - 9 months

 Hard to believe that our sweet Charlie is 9 months old. 

(As usual, I took these back in January, but am just now getting around to posting them...)

He & Mr. Elephant had a great time hanging out...

...until Charlie tried to eat him.

The picture below is a little blurry, but I wanted to include it because it showcases one of Charlie's favorite toys.  It's a John Deere teether that vibrates when you chew on the corn.  How awesome is that?  (Thanks, Grandma & Grandpa!)

He had his 9 month checkup, and the doc said he's doing wonderfully.  He's in the 50th percentile for height (27.5"), weight (18lbs, 13 oz), and head size (18"), so he's very proportional (way to go, Charlie!).  The doctor also said he has the teeth of a 1 year old.  That's all well and good, until you have to try and extract cat food from his mouth.  There have been several times where I almost lost a finger.

With a couple of months of crawling under his belt, he's now a pro.  The only issue is that James like to sit on him and attempt to ride him like a horse.  Some days, I feel like the only two things I say are "James, do not sit on your brother!" and "Charlie, stop eating cat food!".

 Speaking of eating, Charlie has come a long way since last month.  He now LOVES to eat.  He even gets kind of angry when I put him in his high chair and his food is not ready right that second.  His favorite foods at the moment are cheerios, black beans, cheese, blue berries, chili, and peas.  

He has also been doing a lot of this:

One of his favorite places to stand is next to the window.  

Charlie's nickname of the month, given by his brother, is "Hog".  James got an Angry Bird puzzle for Christmas, and has been having a lot of fun with it.  He calls himself "Red Angry Bird", Matthew is "Black Angry Bird", I'm "Yellow Angry Bird", and Charlie is "Hog" (maybe because he eats so much?).

"Hog" are the green pig-like things, if you're not familiar with the game.
(source)

Big Boy Haircut (*sniff, sniff*)

So it all started on Thursday, when I had the (not so) brilliant idea to give James's hair a trim.  It was constantly getting in his eyes and was pretty long on his neck, and I told myself that with his hair's body and curls, it would be pretty hard to mess up.

I was wrong.

A couple of days before "the incident"

I'm sure there are probably more, but here are three really, really good reasons why this was a terrible idea:

1) I come from a long line of bad hair cutters.

    When my mom was young, my Grandma decided to give my mom's bangs a trim the night before picture day. She couldn't seem to get them straight so she kept cutting...and cutting...and cutting until my mom ended up with bangs about 1/2" long.  And I think they were still crooked.  

    I'm sure many of you heard of the time my brother decided to give me a haircut the day before our Uncle's wedding.  He was 4 and I was 2; it did not go well.  He blamed it on me.  

    And then there was the time my sister hid under a bed and gave herself a lopsided haircut.  That did not go well, either.

2) After Matthew and I were married and moved to Seattle, I attempted to give Matthew a haircut twice.  His father had always cut his hair when we lived in the Midwest, and Matthew didn't want to start paying to get his haircut just because we moved across the country.  Both attempts ended in anger (on his side) and tears (on my side).  After that, he willing paid the exorbitant price that our neighborhood barbers charged.

3) I had no idea what I was doing.  (Didn't you google it or anything?  Matthew asks me after the fact...)

Matthew told me later that from now on, he's going to talk me out of these crazy, hairbrained ideas I get  (so maybe it's his fault for not talking me out of it this time??).

So back to Thursday night.  James was in the bathtub and since he was being relatively still and his hair was wet, I thought it would be good opportunity to break out the shears.  And this was a bad idea because

1) Since his hair was drenched, I had no idea how it would lay when it dried; and

2) All of the hair ended up clogging our bathtub drain.

When he went to bed that night his hair was still a little damp, so we didn't see the final product until the next morning...

Do these glasses distract you from my bad haircut?

Matthew thought he looked like Hayley Mills from the Parent Trap.

James's Doppelganger

I made an appointment for him to get his hair professionally cut the next day.

Ah, much better.

Thankfully he can still play with his hair while sucking his thumb.

To be honest, I'm not that crazy about it, although it is growing on me a little bit (but not enough to where I want to keep it short!).  However, I fully admit that it is way, way better than the Hayley Mills 'do I gave him.

And besides, even with the new big boy haircut, he's still the cutest 2-almost-3 year old I know :)

January {2014} 10 on 10

On January 10th, I took part in the 10 on 10 project.  Once a month on the tenth, participants (when they remember!) take a photo an hour for ten consecutive hours to document the life and beauty among the ordinary things of our day.  Click HERE or on the button to the right for more information about the project.  Enjoy!

Finally!! A Food He Likes!!

Chwabie is 8 months old!

On Christmas Eve, our little Charlie turned 8 months old.  James no longer calls him Be-Cha (although Matthew & I sometimes do!), but he has recently introduced the new nickname "Chwabie", in addition to calling him "Snoopy" or "Snoopy Dog".  I kind of worry that the poor boy will grow up not knowing what his name is!

 

He was sick when we took the photos, hence the runny nose.  Big brother & Dida were on hand to help solicit some smiles.  Charlie's so good natured, though, that it wasn't that hard to do :)

About a week and a half after he turned 7 months (December 3rd, to be exact!), Charlie performed his first official "crawl" while we were in Chicago:

He had been army crawling for a while, and doing a couple of single crawl/hop thingys, but this was the first time that he actually hands-and-knees crawled.  Now we can't stop him!

He really enjoys exploring the house, especially James's toys (much to James's dismay) and the cats' food & water bowls (much to Wrigley & Boo's dismay).

He still doesn't like solid food, but does enjoy sucking on an apple or orange slice (it's the swallowing part he's not a fan of).  He also has a new tooth - his upper left canine - for a grand total of three teeth.

 

Do these glasses make me look smart?

 Love this little guy!!

PS - click here to see his monthly pictures side by side!

Thanksgiving & Chicago

I know it's a bit late, but I thought I'd share a few pictures from Thanksgiving and our trip to Chicago.

My sister Emily and her husband Phil were in town for the week of Thanksgiving.  It was so great seeing them!  Emily, Stephanie, and I cooked the Thanksgiving meal for 13 adults.  That kept us pretty busy, so I regret to say I didn't take many pictures.  Emily took quite a few, though, so here's hoping that she'll send me some!

1. Charlie meeting Aunt Emily & Uncle Phil for the first time.  He was a big fan!
2. Charlie & James playing "Operation" with Papaw while we were cooking
3. SmartMatt & HazMatt carving the bird
4. An Adult Night Out: Emily, Stephanie, Kristi, Leah, & Jill at the Houndmouth concert

(we took one of these pictures with the 11 of us plus my Uncle Bruce and his family, but unfortunately there was a large spot from sun glare on the photo that looked pretty bad.  I spent about 20 minutes trying to edit it out without much success before giving up)

The week after Thanksgiving, Matthew, Charlie, and I went to Chicago for  5 days.  Matthew had a conference to attend, so Charlie and I tagged along.

1. Charlie's first flight!
2. The view from our hotel room
3. Charlie LOVED the large windows in the hotel
3. The Millenium Park Bean
4.  Close up of Charlie and I in the bean
5. Hanging out, waiting for Matthew to come home
6. Chicago River
7. Charlie's first trip to Michigan Avenue
8. Sweet boy :)

We debated about brining James with us, but in the end, we thought that both he (and we!) would have a better time if he stayed in Indiana.  He spent one night with Uncle Matt & Aunt Steph, and the rest of the time at Grandma and Grandpa Nett's.  We missed him dearly, but I think he had a lot of fun (thanks Steph, Jim, & Patsy for sending us pictures of him while we were gone!)

1. James went to Bass Pro with Matt & Steph; we received this picture saying that James wanted this for Christmas.  Ha!
2. One of his new favorite things at Grandma & Grandpa's: the red wagon
3.  Meeting Uncle Jim Book's dairy cows
4. Uncle Jim Book & James

We were able to FaceTime with him a couple of times while we were gone, too.

FaceTime!

 He said "I want to go to that room with Mama and Charlie."  Love that little guy!

Hope everyone had a wonderful New Years!