Charlotte's words

Ok, I said I wouldn't bore you with a complete list of Charlotte's words, but I lied. So if you don't care, don't read! Here they are in no particular order (other than this is the order that Nora, Kris & I thought of them last night). Pronunciations are in parenthesis (say THAT 5 times fast!)
Hi, bye-bye, sock (gock), shoe (do), car, slide (ide), all right (after she "gives 5"), light (ite), mouth (mout), eye, egg (uck), thank you (dan do), milk, please (peas), dada, mama, no, uh oh, hat (at), sis (iss), kitty (titty), bear, book, dry (die), bubble (bah boat), juice, out, hello (ello), sit (it), teeth (teet), bowl (bo), hot (ot), vacuum (backoom), up, baby, all done, all gone, go, all fall down (ah na da), nigh-night, banana (nana), yogurt (go go), ride (ide), remote (mote), eat (deet), waffle (wapple), more, apple, star (tar), back, ball, truck (guck), bike, belt, bath (bat).

Take the kiddies bowling, take them bowling

Well, I thought I'd give it a try putting a video on here. For some reason, it's just a black box instead of showing the first frame of the video. Oh well, just click on the triangle and it will play. This is from December when Nora went bowling with her before/after school program. This was her second time "at bat." Most of the other times, she walked slowly up and rolled the ball (which took forever to get to the pins). Several of the other kids were running up, so I guess she thought she'd give it a try. She actually did pretty good-- got 9 pins down on her first trip up, which was more than anyone else did in her lane (even the teacher). With her height, we've always thought about the WNBA, but maybe bowling will be her sport!

We had a great Christmas: Christmas eve with Kris's family, Christmas day was just us, and we celebrated with my sisters & their boyfriends on New Years day. It was nice to have Christmas day all to ourselves. Santa brought a pop-up Dora tent, which seemed to be the favorite thing for the day, and we've already gotten our money's worth out of it-- just as we suspected, it's providing hours of entertainment.

We just made plans to go to New York to visit my parents in July. We realized that by the time we go, it will have been over 2 yrs since we went last. (Luckily, my parents come here more often than that.) This time, I'm hoping to do some more sight-seeing, especially in New York. Last time we went was in February, so it wasn't very conducive to walking around much.

Last night, we had my friend Alice and her family over for pizza. They have 2 girls too. Emily is about a year younger than Nora, and Brigid is 10 months older than Charlotte. So it worked out pretty nicely, with them playing together well (minus a few brief squabbles with the youngest ones who don't really get "sharing" yet). And I was pleased that the girls entertained themselves enough that the adults actually got to talk!

Speaking of talking, Charlotte is getting quite the vocabulary. I won't bore you by listing all of her words, but for you great-grandmas, here are a few that she says on a regular basis: up, milk, bye-bye, car (sometimes she says these together), light (her newest favorite, especially today when we went to Home Depot), apple, mama, dada (which she also says for Nora), No (of course!), bear, all done, all gone. Hmm... I guess those are the most frequent, because that's all I can think of right now. She is also seriously addicted to bananas and yogurt. We actually have to HIDE them from her because if she sees them, she'll get really upset if we don't give them to her. She calls bananas "nana" and yogurt is "go go." As for her latest physical feats, she's been climbing up her little plastic slide and going down on her own since before Thanksgiving. She's mastering the stairs now-- she does great climbing up on her own (with us right behind her, of course) and has recently discovered that she can go down on her own by sitting down and scooting on her rear. She is also climbing up on the couch by herself. This is a bit nerve-wracking, but it had to happen sometime!

Nora is still enjoying school and is starting to read words! She does really great when we help her sound out words letter by letter. She is also fascinated with writing and will often ask us how to spell something. She can do "I love mom dad" on her own, so that's her favorite phrase to write. But we had lunch at Subway today and she got a little notebook with her meal (MUCH nicer than the dumb plastic toys you get most other places). So as soon as we got in the car, she asked for a pen and began asking how to spell things. After lunch, we went to Home Depot, so of course, she wrote "Home Depot" and any other signs she could (she kept begging us to stop as we were walking through the store so she could write down the signs). She is also still loving to do artwork. Kris's parents got her an "art box" for Christmas-- a plastic 3-drawer dresser filled with markers, crayons, scissors, glue, paper & stickers-- and she is just having a ball with that. I love hearing about the stories behind the pictures she draws.

I've posted some pictures on Flickr since Christmas, so check them out if you haven't already. I have more in my camera that I need to transfer, so hopefully I'll get to that soon. Here's a photo of the girls having fun in one of our first snows, about a week before Christmas.

I hope you all had a great holiday season!

Number 5

Well, it's official. Nora can now sing "all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth."


Also, I took Charlotte on Friday to the ENT doc who took out Nora's tonsils a couple years ago because Charlotte has sleep apnea too. Hence, all the photos of Charlotte sleeping on Kris. Here's another from this morning:

Yes, she's sleeping like that.

The doc said she's too young to really do anything about it (that's what I thought, but the RN we saw on Tuesday for Charlotte's double ear infection said they do take them out this young). Anyway, I'm relieved and annoyed at the same time. I didn't want her to have to go through that (the ENT said hopefully her throat will grow faster than her tonsils, so the problem will fix itself), but I was annoyed that we paid $20 and spent 2 hours to have the ENT look in her ears and throat and say, "well, there's nothing we can do." I wish the RN had told me that on Tuesday. Oh well. Guess Charlotte will be sleeping with us for a while.

Halloween

Well, we had a good Halloween. Nora got so much candy that she didn't even notice when I took about a third of it out for Kris & I (the good stuff, of course). Here's the loot:


Nora was the Corpse Bride (corpsebridemovie.warnerbros.com/) and Charlotte was a bat (I tried to think of something that would coordinate with Nora's costume, and something I could get cheap!) Nora's costume was improvised, of course. That's half the fun. Hopefully I'll get better at improvising before Nora starts to care what her costumes look like!



We went to the high school where they had booths set up. After we made the rounds there (where the teenagers gave hand-fulls of candy), we went to a church near our house where they had "Trunk or treat." The congregants decorate their cars and park them in a big circle, then you go around to each one to trick-or-treat. You can vote for the best one when you get to the end, where they're serving hot cocoa. Again, lots of candy. Then we went to Kris's parents for a little while. A parent could get used to this-- I wonder if Nora will ever ask to go to a neighborhood to go trick-or-treating. She did ask on our way home, when we were going to go to some houses. But seemed ok when we told her it was too cold.

October

I figured since it's almost Halloween, I'd better sum up what we've done in October. This month was also busy, busy. We had a garage sale the first weekend to sell all the baby stuff Charlotte has outgrown. Friday was pretty busy, but Saturday was surprisingly dead. But, we still managed to sell almost everything. So there's a bit more space in our attic, for now. Nora had a lemonade stand:



For the record, when I asked how much she wanted to sell it for, she said "free" and I was ok with that, but Kris suggested a tip jar. So, as one of her customers put it, "Free lemonade!" and then, (cynically) "Oh. And a tip jar." Oh well.

Later that week was "McTeacher night" at McD's, where the teachers work behind the counter. We were going to skip out on that, but Nora really wanted to go because her best friend Hailey was going to go. So we made sure to go at the same time Hailey was going to be there:



Aren't their matching missing teeth adorable? Reminds me of a certain someone that I met in Kindergarten. We'll see if they remain friends for the next 26+ years too. Hailey's mom said that they hug hello and goodbye every day. (They both go to the before and after school program at their elementary school)

Then the second weekend in October, I took the girls with me to Austin for my cousin's (beautiful!) wedding. I vow never to travel by myself with them again (at least until Charlotte is 5). Nora was a perfect angel the whole trip (until the last day, anyway). Charlotte was sleep-deprived and, of course, a curious toddler. So I spent literally the entire trip chasing her around restaurants and other non-baby-proofed public spaces. I spent maybe an hour total out of the whole weekend actually talking to my relatives. But I know they did enjoy seeing the girls, so that was good. Was it worth $400 and my total exhaustion? Debatable. But, lesson learned. I'd post some pictures from the wedding, but I only managed to take a few, and I haven't gotten them onto Flickr yet.

Then, the Wed after we got home from the wedding, Nora's after school program (called Kids Country) had a celebration at Paradise park. (I don't think I mentioned that the day we left for the wedding, Nora's Kindergarten class had a field trip to Paradise Park. So in one day, she got to go to Paradise Park, fly on an airplane, got to see my mom, AND sleep in a hotel. She was jazzed.) Anyway, we went to Paradise Park (again) that Wednesday and the girls had a total ball. I can't remember if I took any photos (if I did, they're still on the camera too), but Kris took some of Charlotte getting totally soaked in the water play room. I'll try to figure out how to get them off of his phone and onto Flickr.

Then on Friday, we had a playdate with my high school friend Alice and her daughters. Emily is 1 yr younger than Nora and Brigid is 1 yr older than Charlotte. They had a fantastic time and I'm plotting when we can get together again (after I have a little bit of a breather from all these planned activities).

Well, that's probably enough to digest for now. We have a parent/teacher conference this Thursday and a kids' Halloween party on Saturday, so I'll try to post once more before Halloween. We'll see how that goes.

Sorry!!

Oh, I am SO terrible. (This is especially terrible because it is actually October 22nd, which means I started this post almost a month ago.) The last month (Sept) has just been a blur of activity. I don't know that I can even write about it all, it's just too overwhelming. So I think I'll start fresh and not worry about writing about everything. Kris has been super busy with his landscaping business. This weekend and last weekend were his first "non-working" weekends in the last couple of months. That's in quotation marks because he's still had to go out to give bids on those weekends-- but at least he wasn't out installing plants all day, so that was good.

Nora is L-O-V-I-N-G Kindergarten. 'Nuff said.



Saturday, we went to Oktoberfest at Unity Village. The girls had a good time playing games at the booths and Nora rode some rides (we started to put Charlotte on the little car with Nora, but she got scared when the other kids started beeping their horns.) The main thing Nora wanted to do was ride the ferris wheel, but once we were on it, she hid her face in my lap almost the whole time. I must admit, now that I'm an adult and hear all those wonderful stories of carnival rides not being put together very well, the ferris wheel is now MUCH scarier for me than it used to be. (I think my eyes watch the nuts & bolts more than they look out at the beautiful view). But, of course, I tried not to let Nora know that I was nervous.

Also, Nora has become QUITE the architect and played quite a bit with the Duplo blocks (big Legos) in the last month:

First Day

Well, the day has come. Nora's first day of Kindergarten was Wednesday. She was very excited leading up to Wed, and luckily, that excitement continued. I'm so glad. The story my mom tells about my first day of Kindergarten is that my teacher sent home a note saying "She had grape juice this morning, didn't she?" (As in, my breakfast came up for all to see). I still remember looking out into the hallway and seeing my mom & dad silhouetted as they walked out toward the double doors of the school. Mom, feel free to comment if I have some of these details wrong.

Anyway, Nora had a GREAT first day. She absolutely loved it, and when Kris went to pick her up at the end of the day, she asked "Can I come back tomorrow?" Thursday and today seem to have gone just as well.

Round Two

Well, here we go again. Nora got another stomach virus on Monday night. She stayed home on Tues and Wed. She was fine Wed, but had to stay home 24 hrs after her fever went away. Kris was already planning on staying home Wed because I had a momentary lapse of good judgement when I made Charlotte's checkup appt for 9am. I realized a few days later that it wasn't particularly nice of me to take her to get shots in the morning and then dump her off at daycare. So K volunteered to stay home that day. Then Charlotte got a fever that evening (most likely from the shots) and couldn't go to school all the rest of that week. So from now on, checkups will take place as late as possible on Thursdays (our doctor isn't in the office on Fridays.)

So Kris and Nora went to Oceans of Fun by themselves on Friday. I was REALLY disappointed, not only for having so much money go to waste (I bought the tickets in advance to get a good deal), but because Nora was SOOO excited about going and I really wanted to experience her happiness first-hand. This was her "prize" for doing a good job of going to bed 10 days in a row. So that is why I have no pictures of this event-- Mom, the picture taker, stayed home with a fussy baby. Kris said Nora had an absolute ball and went on tons of water slides, even going under water a few times. Of course, the ones that she went under water on, she never went down again. Anyway, the important thing is that she had a great time. I'm sure we'll go again next year.

Done!

Well, here are photos of my favorite windows (sorry about the color, I'm on Kris's computer so I don't have my fancy-schmancy Photoshop and can't adjust the colors. The close-up photo is the closest to the real thing). These are the only "woodgrain" windows we got because these are the only windows in the house that don't have painted trim. We like these so much that I kinda wish we'd gotten them for the dining room too. It would've been worth it to strip the trim there. Oh well. We'll have enough to do with painting the new trim pieces they put on some of the windows (since the new windows are square, but most of the window holes weren't, there were gaps on many of the windows). You can see what I'm talking about in these photos-- we'll have to stain the light-colored trim. But the important part is done, and as I said before, we LOVE them!

Going, going... gone

Well, our windows were installed on Friday. So far, ... we LOVE them! As Kris pointed out on Sunday, "it's 95 degrees at noon on a sunny day, we don't have any curtains up, the house is comfortable and the air conditioner is not running!" It was a very exciting moment. We've even decided not to put curtains back up in the dining room. Previously, if we didn't have the curtains closed by noon, it became an absolute oven in there. Now, the sun streams in during the afternoon and we don't notice a change in temperature. I'm going to try to find the most minimal window covering I can find-- some kind of nice roller shade perhaps-- so we have something for privacy when we want it (and to keep the rug from fading too much).

The installation went really smoothly, I thought. They did have some major trouble with the bay windows-- cracked one of the new window frames, as a matter of fact-- because the openings were so slanted. They ordered a new frame for that one. It was a really hot day (August, what else can you expect?) and I got quite a workout running from room to room taking down curtains, moving things from in front of the windows, etc. Why we didn't do more beforehand, I don't know. I did manage to take some photos-- it was kinda cool because they took all the windows out on one floor before they started installing. So in our dining room and "parlor," it seemed almost like we didn't have any walls (each wall is mostly a bay window.) It was also fun to stick my head out of the huge holes in the walls.





And then I spent most of the day Saturday and a half day Sunday vacuuming & wiping down as much as I could manage. Major dusty mess.

Good times

We spent what seemed like a good portion of the weekend at Marissa (Kris's sister) & Gary's new house. They now have a pool, so I think we'll be spending a lot of time over there, at least until the end of the summer. Good thing for them that summer's almost over, so hopefully they won't get sick of us. We all had a great time, especially Nora. Spending time with Dominic (Marissa's son, whom Nora adores), swimming, playing with their dart game-- all add up to FUN for Nora.



Also, we're excited (and a bit nervous) that we get our new windows on Friday. I'm anxious about the possible mess (dust...possible lead paint??? I need to do some research on how to clean up) and a little sad about losing the old windows, but overall it will be good as long as everything goes smoothly. I even found some new homes for the old windows. Several people at work have asked for some for decorating projects. I was originally worried about finding homes for the 15 or so panes that have the original glass, but those are all spoken for, as well as about 15 of the old frames with newer glass. Wish I'd thought to charge a couple dollars each!

1st Birthday!

Yesterday was Charlotte's first birthday and we went to Kris's parents for dinner to celebrate. She got a TON of clothes and some toys that she just loves. Doesn't it look like she's amazed at all the cool stuff?



Charlotte also discovered a new place to sit-- the bottom of a shelf in Grandma & Grandpa's sunporch. She was on and off of it more times than I can count:


We all had a blast.


I got a bunch of great photos, but don't want to post them all here. So click on one of the above photos and then on "joannac5950's Photo Stream" to see more (birthday pics are in the "July 07" set, but feel free to look around).

Jamaican Jam

Have I said before that I love being within walking distance of downtown LS? We walked to the Jamaican Jam reggae festival last night and Nora had a blast playing in the squirty things (with colored lights, no lesss) that they have in front of city hall. Who knew they had those? If we had, she'd have worn her swimsuit. The city hall is a nice place to have these kinds of things because people can sit on the steps (there are many) AND in the street. So we're thinking they'll start to have these kinds of events in front of city hall, instead of on Main where they usually have them. (Some of the downtown streets are under constructions right now.) This is unfortunate for us, because it makes for a longer walk, and I'm sure the businesses on Main are going to miss out on some profits. In any case, we may have Nora wear her swimsuit next time. Luckily, she has the best dad in the world-- Kris took his shirt off so Nora could take her wet clothes off and wear his shirt home. Walking shirtless through downtown during an event was probably not at the top of his list of things he'd like to do someday, but he did it anyway. Such a good dad.

Ahh... Love

Background: A couple of months ago, we bought a Dyson. I totally love it and raved about it for weeks. (Hey, our other vacuum was 10 years old. A new one was definitely reason to celebrate...Can you believe I'm old enough to have such a grown-up thing for 10 years? I can't.) I even took to using it as a verb, as in "I'm going to Dyson."

It was obvious that Nora had picked up on my enthusiasm for the Dyson when she told me "I gave that to Charlotte. It was on the floor, but it was clean because you just Dysoned." And last night when we were eating our (deliciously addictive) burrito bowls from Chipotle, Kris asked Nora how she liked her burrito bowl. Nora replied "I love it as much as Mommy loves her Dyson." I kid you not.

Hippo teeth

I just HAD to capture Charlotte's hippo teeth. Nora had the same adorable gap in between her first 2 uppers. But Nora's showed every time she smiled. Charlotte's only show if you're looking up at her or she's lying down. Simply adorable, if I do say so myself.
This one is a little better shot of the teeth:


Not much news to share today. We're all (finally!) well. Knock on wood. At least one member of our family was sick with stomach flu or fever/sore throat every day for the last 2 weeks. Finally on Thursday we were all well! Hooray!

Carolyn's visit

Well, we had a great time while Carolyn was here (despite the girls being sick for most of her visit--see below). We only walked downtown once, and all the stores were closed because it was Sunday. Don't people like to shop on Sunday? (the photo is off center because I had to take it quick before Charlotte took off her sunglasses)


But we did manage to get to the pool twice. (I just LOVE how gorgeous photos turn out with the blue pool in the background, don't you?)


And in case you're wondering, we DID manage to go shopping and see a movie on Monday. Kris came home early to take care of the girls so we could go. Thanks, honey!

Sick day

Thursday evening, Nora complained that her tummy "hurt." Around 8:30, she got sick. On Friday morning, Nora said she felt better, and she ate her whole bowl of cheerios, but then just kind of laid around for most of the morning. VERY unlike her. Later in the morning, she seemed to be her old self, so we spent a few hours at the Unity pool (Nora had been looking forward to it all week and she really seemed fine). We all went to bed and woke at 1:30 am this morning because Nora felt bad again. Right after she got sick again, Charlotte woke up and was pretty warm. So far, Charlotte hasn't gotten "sick," but she's definitely not herself and her fever at 2:00 this afternoon was 103.2. We got a dose of Tylenol in her and she cooled down quite a bit and is feeling better. We're hoping everyone will be feeling 100% by tomorrow. Especially since my cousin Carolyn is in town, and Monday was going to be our kid-free day so we could go shopping and see a movie. But if the girls haven't been fever-free for 24 hours before Monday, guess who'll be staying home with us? So wish us luck.

Nora put her head down on the couch, and Charlotte crawled over, pulled herself up, and laid her head next to Nora. Too sweet.

Visit

My best friend and her hubby came to visit, I mean wear us out, I mean visit, this weekend. Nora and I went with them to the Cardinals/Royals game on Thursday night (they're from St. Louis). Unfortunately for them, Royals performed a small miracle and beat the Cardinals 17 to 8. Fortunately for Nora and me, all we cared about were the sweets. Nora's first cotton candy:

She also had about 3 bites of a $4 snow-cone.

Here's how they wore us out (did I mention it was 90+ degrees all weekend?):
Thurs night baseball game (thanks to Kris's employer, we sat in the friends & family section one tier back behind home plate. We had fun picking out the players' wives sitting around us.-- dressed too nicely for a ball game, nice jewelry & purses, toting kids & parents but no husband)

Friday out to lunch and in the evening walked downtown (Lee's Summit) to the carnival & Zydeco music festival

Saturday walked to Farmer's market and to lunch (again downtown LS) We had BBQ from the new Beauchamp's restaurant-- we ALL agreed it was the BEST bbq we'd EVER had. We'll definitely be back.

Now we have 2 and a half more days to recoup and prepare for my cousin's visit. She'll be here Thurs afternoon through Tuesday and I can't wait to see her. Kris pointed out that the girls will both be in daycare/preschool on Monday, so I'm seeing a shopping trip in my future. I haven't been shopping in ages!

Sleep!

Sleep, glorious sleep! I got almost 8 hours last night!!! Kris gave Charlotte a bottle at 10:30 last night and she slept until 6:30! The last time I had 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep was over a year ago. Ahhh... (though this is a bittersweet victory. She probably slept that long because she went to daycare yesterday and she only sleeps about 30 min all day at daycare.)

Wow.

Does it GET any cuter than this?!


I'm working on helping Charlotte figure out how to go to sleep on her own. Last night was the second night that I put her down before she nursed off to sleep. She rolled around, sat up, stood up, sat down... (repeat many times) and finally layed her head down and fell asleep. I am DETERMINED that she be a good sleeper. Unlike Nora, who STILL gets up in the middle of the night & comes into bed with us. And wants one of us to stay in the room until she falls asleep. What can I say, I'm a pushover.

Anyway, I've been working on my "plan" since Thursday and already I'm pleased with my progress. In addition to the falling asleep mentioned above, I've been making sure that even if she does fall asleep before I put her in her bed, I wake her just a little so that she sees she's in her crib before she goes back to sleep. Up until Thursday, I literally had to run back upstairs 3-4 times in the first 2 hours after she fell asleep because she would wake up upset. After Thursday & Friday of waking her a bit when I put her in her crib, I have not had to go back in her room AT ALL until she wakes to eat around 2am. And she's only been waking once in the night to eat. Yay!!