Fun at the park

Just realized I had uploaded these videos a few days ago but forgot to post them. Last weekend Jack, Charlotte, and I went with Grandma and Grandpa to the park. Grandpa has discovered how to work the video function on the camera :)

We had a great Fourth of July weekend with friends and family. I'll try to get the pictures and videos posted sometime this week.

Charlotte was there there too! She loves the swings.

Jackisms

Look at that sweet baby. He was a tired boy in this picture.

Here is some of my favorite current Jackspeak (some of these are oldies but goodies):

"Hamaburger" (hamburger)
"Banoon" (balloon)
"Tocky toes" (taquitos)
"Sunscream" (sunscreen)
"Alligator" (elevator)

I also love that his usual way to greet Andy or me when we get home from work is to announce what bodily functions he had that day.

Something we've found very interesting is that Jack has come up with some alternate meaning of the word "highway," but no one understands what it is. He knows the standard definition of the word, and always comments when we're driving on one. But he'll also throw out these weird comparisons--for example, tonight my dish towel was "like a highway." Hmmmm...

A conversation we had a while ago as we were talking about colors:
Me: "What color is your hair?"
Jack: "Yellow."
Me: "We actually call yellow hair blond. So what color would your hair be?"
Jack: "Blond."
Me: "Very good! What color is Mommy's hair?" (me thinking the answer would be blonde, or maybe brown since the room was kind of dark)
Jack, after studying me thoughtfully: "Gray."
Thanks a lot kid.

Another funny thing about hair--according to Jack, he and I have lots of hair. Daddy and Charlotte do not. They have fur.

One last picture from this past weekend. We had a block party in our neighborhood, and the kids did all sorts of fun things in the street. Most of the kids are older than Jack, but he still at least had fun watching. In the picture, he and Andy are off to the right watching plastic Coke bottles and Mentos explode.

9 Months Old

Hey there, it's me Charlotte. I turned 9 months old on Friday. This has been a big month for me--as you can see I'm crawling all over the place now. I'm also making it quite clear that I don't intend to crawl for long. I'm constantly trying to pull myself up to a standing position, and when anyone tries to put me on the floor, I usually try to poke my legs down and stand versus sit.

My teeth have also started popping out like crazy. You can see my big tooth on my bottom right here. The tooth next to it, and my 2 top center teeth have also started coming through my gums. Mom thinks I also have 2 more on the top that will come out soon.

One of the biggest perks of my newfound mobility is that I get to take terrorizing my brother to a whole other level. He's found that often the easiest way to deal with me is to just lay still and play dead, like he did the morning we took these pictures. I'm also constantly getting into his toys now, which he is not happy about.

Funny face

Jack keeps his monkeys close so I can't get them.

Another exciting thing I'm starting to do is feed myself (just Cheerios so far). Mom says this seems to be the one thing I haven't accomplished faster than my brother, darn it. She says he was shoving Cheerios into his mouth by the time he was 8 months old. While I've been eating Cheerios for a couple months now, it's taken me a long time to figure out the whole food-from-hand-to-mouth process. I've just gotten a lot better at this over the past week. Sometimes I still miss, though; or forget to keep the food in my mouth. I'm sure by this time next month I'll be a pro.

And She's Off!

Yes, Miss Charlotte has been crawling for a few days now! I would have posted these videos earlier, but the blogspot website was having an issue with uploading videos.

She doesn't always crawl very far--as you can see, she gets sidetracked easily--but she can move pretty well if she's motivated. (In this case, by the baby monitor, which she knows she's not supposed to touch).

Finally!!

Disclaimer: for those of you who would rather not hear about poops and pees, skip this section and scroll down to the pictures :)

Jack got off to a slow start with potty training a few months ago, but he's made considerable progress, especially just over the last couple weeks. He generally wears underpants all the time time now, except for nighttime, and he hasn't had any accidents in quite a while. The only issue we couldn't seem to get past was getting Jack to poop in the toilet. He would always wait until bedtime and then go in his diaper. We tried offering rewards, sitting with him for hours in the bathroom, using different toilet seats, etc. NOTHING worked.

Until...Friday! Out of the blue, our nanny Elif somehow managed to get a successful poop out of him. Many texts and calls were made to Andy and me at work after the big event. Ahh, the joys of being a parent when hearing about poop is some of the most exciting news you've heard all week! I had been a little afraid Jack's poop was just an isolated occurrence, but we had another poop in the potty today!


Moving on--Jack has been enjoying some outings with Grandma and Grandpa during the week, since playschool is over. They've gotten in lots of great trike riding, had adventures at the park, and have even done some arts and crafts. Next week we may try switching things up and having Charlotte spend a day with Grandma and Grandpa.

Big day

Happy 2nd birthday to cousin Parker! Hard to believe he's 2 already. Sorry we had to miss your party.


We spent the weekend at the lake, attempting to do some house and dock repairs from storm damage (very minor). On Saturday, we stopped by a friend's daughter's 6th birthday party and were amazed at everything they had. You can see Jack and Andy riding the carnival ride above.

Jack also amazed us by how gung-ho he was to do everything. He's always been a little timid and hesitant to try new things, but he sure came out of his shell at the party. He wanted to do everything and went full-steam ahead the entire afternoon.

Petting some baby animals at the little petting zoo.

Jack and me being pulled by a pony.

Spinning around

He still doesn't like to get his hands messy! Here's the almost no-hands approach at eating a cupcake.

Dad and Jack in the bounce house. We could not get Jack out of this thing.

By the time we did finally drag him out, he was so red and sweaty that he insisted on going in the lake. We didn't have his swimsuit with us, but he barged right into the water in a diaper.

Toward the end of the afternoon (after he had gotten dressed from being in the lake), Jack stumbled backwards into kiddie pool and got his shorts all wet. So this is how he looked for the rest of the party. Classy!

Charlotte was there too! Here she is making some funny faces.

I don't know if this picture will show up big enough on the blog to really see, but I finally snapped a shot with her tooth in it. She's kind of doing one of her bulldog faces here, poking her lower jaw out to feel her tooth. It's her center, lower tooth, on her right side.

She is finally starting to get some other teeth, though they're either still below her gums or have just recently broken though, so it'll be a while before they're really visible. She's only had the 1 tooth for close to 3 months now. It's so funny to see that 1 big tooth in her mouth, and nothing else :)

Just hanging out

I took a few pictures yesterday afternoon as we were playing and relaxing. Charlotte's gotten good at standing for a little while when we prop her up against something.

She's pretty excited about it! (She just recently started clapping, too)

Jack saying "cheese" for the camera. I was looking back at old blogs the other day and realized that at this time last year, he was just starting speech therapy. Hard to believe that Mr. Chatterbox could barely say any words less than a year ago!

Jack giving Lou a hug.

Charlotte watching what her brother is doing, as always.

Charlotte loves to play with laundry baskets.

Peekaboo!

As Jack's shrieks of indignation when Charlotte plays with one of his toys, or even dares to play with a toy at all, are becoming more common, it's nice to see that there are some moments like this where brother and sister enjoy each others' company.