Merry Christmas!

Charlotte on Christmas morning

Christmas Eve...opening a gift from Grandma

With Daddy between Christmas Eve services

Hope you have a blessed Christmas!

Baby Stone #2

I had an ultrasound today at my 12 week check-up (I'm about 12 1/2 weeks right now). Everything looks great! This baby didn't wiggle around as much as Charlotte did at this stage, but he/she did a few spins :) We will find out the sex of the baby in January! We can't wait...our gut feeling is that the baby is a girl, but God clearly has a way of surprising us!

Christmas Card

I had a tough time picking out our Christmas card this year. I suppose I put extra pressure on myself because we didn't send out birth announcements :) Just thought I'd share the finished product! I ended up choosing a folded card so I could include more pictures. Hard to believe that next year's card will have TWO kids. Crazy :)

Two of the photos we used in the card were taken by Holly's mom when we went to visit her in San Antonio. She took some really cute ones of Charlotte and Canon, too. Click here to see some of my favorites! :)

7 months old

I've been a terrible blogger this month. Part of it, I'm sure, has do with the fact that I'm pregnant and have been sick for the past few weeks because of it. On the bright side, I've really only been super sick at night which is such a blessing because I can still be a fun mom with Charlotte :)

I never updated after Charlotte's 6 month doctor appointment last month, but everything looks great! She was 21 lbs 9 oz and 27 inches long. She's above the 100th percentile for weight and height. Let's put it this way, she's in 18 month clothes. And some of her pants are 24 months because her legs are long. Insane. She wore a dress to church the Sunday before last that was mine when I was a little over a year old, and it was a little small.

I don't think she's gained any weight this month, but she may be a bit longer. I really can't believe that she's 7 months old. How is time going by so quickly? Her personality has really come out in the last month. She's SO giggly and happy. She's really such a joy to be around.

- She is making lots of fun new sounds. Lately she’s on a “B” kick…bababababababbaba  Love it :)

- She's constantly lunging from a sitting position toward objects, and then lands on her tummy and gets so frustrated that she can't get there. I think crawling may be close by...

- She’s FINALLY rolling over! She’s had the ability to for awhile, but she just wasn’t in the mood :) Now that she’s discovered her new talent she won’t really stay on her tummy.

- She's eating 2 solid foods a day and 4 bottles. She also loves to hold a banana and gnaw on it. Most of it turns to mush and makes a huge mess, but it’s fun to let her experiment.

- She LOVES peek-a-boo, reading books (especially touch-and-feel), music, anything that’s paper (she loves to rip it up and make it crinkle) and banging her toys together to make loud noises :)

- She’s actually getting a little bit better at napping…which is wonderful for her preggo mama :)

- She’s really into faces and is always grabbing ours and squeezing our noses. I love to watch her explore. She’s so curious

- For some reason she thinks it's hilarious when one of us carries her down the stairs and other walks behind her...that makes her laugh so hard

- Her favorite game these days is finding me :) I put a blanket or something over my head/face and she pulls it off and just laughs and laughs. It’s so sweet.

-She’s still such a social butterfly, but when we’re at home and she can’t see me she gets pretty unhappy. I guess it’s just the age for separation issues. At least she has no problems being left at the church nursery!

Halloween (finally!)

Sorry this post is over a week late! I was out of town this past week in San Antonio with my friend Holly visiting her mother...more on that in another post!

Charlotte had two Halloween outfits-naturally :) One for church and the other for trunk-or-treat at Lakewood United Methodist (this is where Ben and Holly serve). Halloween was warm so Charlotte would only tolerate her bear costume (which first belonged to Canon, Ben and Holly's son) for a few minutes, but at least we got a few pictures!

graciously smiling for me :)

hehe what a cute bear :)

My little pumpkins

she's so sneaky...every few seconds she would reach for pine needles

my sweet girl

not a fan of carrots

Charlotte just tried carrots for the first time...she was not happy with me. I guess she gets her distaste for carrots from Matt's dad :) Thanks for that, Grandad!

Pumpkin Patch

We took Charlotte to a pumpkin patch yesterday here in Kingwood. We had such a good time taking pictures, exploring and meeting lots of people. Our Charlotte certainly loves to be social :) Here are a few pictures. As always, if you would like to see more go to our photo share site :)

Beach

Charlotte went to the beach for the first time this weekend in Galveston...I think the picture explains how much fun she had :)

Cloth Diapers

Anyone who has ever had a baby knows how expensive child rearing can be! Matt and I have been looking for ways to save a little here and there. One of the biggest changes we’ve made recently is the move to cloth diapers. I know, it seems crazy. But I promise cloth diapers have come a long way! It's not as gross as you would think (trust me, I'm super girly-so if I can do it, anyone can!) There's really nothing to it. You just pull the insert out of the diaper and wash them in hot water and tumble dry (if it's a dirty diaper you just shake/spray it off into the toilet first---sorry, that's gross) And that's seriously all you do. Pretty easy :)

We’ve discussed using cloth diapers since I was pregnant with Charlotte. I’ve felt like this would be a great thing to do, but wanted to talk to other families who do this and wanted to adjust to motherhood a bit before I made this decision. After much thought and discussion, we have officially made the change! We decided to go with The FuzziBunz one-size diapers. They’re incredibly adjustable…they fit babies 7-35 pounds. You can adjust around the legs and waist which is pretty ideal if you have a baby with either chunky or skinny legs :) The disposable diapers dig into her thighs but leave a wide space in the back (not so fun). The cloth diapers have snap closures which are supposed to withstand 3+ years of use. I found this especially appealing. Take a look at all of the different settings:

I love the idea of not having to buy tons of disposable diapers for all of our children. Ideally, these will last through all of our diapering years (we ordered all gender neutral colors). Clearly when we have babysitters or take her to the nursery we’ll put her in disposables, but the majority of the time the cloth diapers will work great! Hopefully this will prove to save money, and at the very least it's great for the environment :) If you're interested in seeing a chart of the cost breakdowns of the many different kinds of cloth diapers vs disposables click here. It's very interesting :)

We're starting with 10 diapers and if we need more later we'll order them. Next on our list are an antibacterial pail liner (you wash it with the diapers) and a diaper sprayer

Wish us luck!!! :)

5 Months Old

My sweet Charlotte is 5 months old as of Sunday. I just can't believe how quickly the months are passing by. Sunday after church I put away all of her 3-6 months clothes. I was sad to see the pretty smocked dresses and tiny bloomers all folded up. And while I will miss her as a snuggly, tiny baby that could nap anytime/anywhere, I sure do love getting to know her more every day as her little personality starts to blossom. She's so giggly, and squirmy...and just too much fun. She's almost figured out how to put her pacifier back in her mouth. She can take it out, but hasn't quite mastered the art of putting it back in. Most of the time she ends up putting it on her eye. She prefers me to sing Beatles songs and old hymns to her over the traditional lullabies (thank goodness), and anytime she's really upset I can just play music and she’ll almost instantly calm down. We have this in common. Her eyes are slowly becoming green like her daddy's! Lucky girl ;)

The whole world is opening up to her and we get to stand by and watch. What a gift! God is so good :)

Charlotte's favorite things are:

watching our chihuahua, Tako

Football (yes, seriously)

being in charge (holding the spoon, bottle, etc)

sitting up by herself

being naked

Swinging at the park

Charlotte's least favorite things are:

putting clothes on (she throws a fit)

nap time (she doesn't really believe in it)

not having her paci

hairbows (she takes them out and eats them)

Milestones she reached this month:

playing with her feet
sitting up by herself
two lower teeth!

started solid foods...she now eats sweet potatoes, avacado, bananas and peaches (her favorite!)

ps- I post all of the photos I take to our Shutterfly share site. If you'd like to see them click here!

Look-A-Likes?

Since Charlotte was born my family has been telling me that she looks just like me (minus the red hair)...I haven't really seen it.  I see so much of Matt in her! (mainly when she sasses me)  Well, I just came across this picture of my mother with me the day I was born...it kind of weirds me out how much I looked like Charlotte did the day she was born! Take a look :)


PS- Can I just say my mom looks incredible...let me remind you I was a 10.5 lb baby with a 24 hour labor...love you mom! 

Fall is here!

This morning we awoke to beautiful fall weather!!!! As soon as Charlotte finished her morning nap we headed out for our morning walk.  When we first stepped outside she was a little shocked by the change in weather, and wasn't sure what to think about it. (She always furrows her brows when she's questioning my actions!)

We took a bit of a different route this morning and found ourselves in the neighborhood park! Charlotte loved it! I pushed in her in the swing for around 15 minutes and she giggled the entire time.  I'm so sad that I didn't have my video camera with me!

Here are some pictures of our adventure in the park!