Friday, April 8, 2016

Charles' Birthday

For Charles' birthday we took the boys to the Sacramento Zoo. We went the day after his birthday after James got out of school.

The zoo was a ton of fun. James really loved the monkeys. Charles just soaked the whole experience in. Can't wait till we go again.

The ant eater was fun to watch.

Sleeping Leopard.

Ducks.

 The boys watched the flamingos for awhile.

Zebras

This was James' favorite part.
This little monkey would jump at James and try to play with him.
It was the cutest. Kind of got some of his playfulness on video.

Orangutans


More different monkeys. 
(I don't remember or can name all the different types.)


After the zoo we went to dinner at Red Lobster. Man it's hard to go out to eat now with both kids.


Then after dinner we went to the drive in and saw Zootopia. We loved it. Such a cute, awesome movie.

Because we made improptu decision to also go out to dinner and see a movie, we had cake and Charles opened his presents the following day.

James loved the toys almost as much as Charles.
He even stole Charles' lego set for awhile.

He loved his cake!
It was fun celebrating Charles. Can't believe he is now one. Happy Birthday little one.

Thursday, April 7, 2016

Charles is One!

It happened my baby turned one years old! The year went by too fast and I find myself missing that little tiny baby at times.


Pictures from each month's photo shoot.

Charles is now 30" tall and weighs 21 lbs. 13 oz.

He's learned a few new things this past month. He says, "baby", "mama", "baba" for bottle, "ha" for hat, "kit" for kitty, and tries to say many other words. He can climb stairs and go down slides. He also climbs just about everything else he can climb; couches, chairs, tables, etc. Every once and while I'll catch him standing for a couple of second before he falls or grabs back onto something. So he'll be standing on his own soon.


Charles has four teeth and loves to bite. Mostly he'll start biting you when he's hungry.


James and Charles now share a room. It's going pretty well. Though sometimes they wake each other up and then we hear a bunch of silliness going on through the baby monitor. Fun to hear them bonding, but not fun when they should be getting sleep, instead.


He is our sweet, strong-willed, smart, very loved baby who is now a toddler. The fun has only begun.


Monday, April 4, 2016

February

February has come and gone. March is ending very very soon. So let's back track and here's what we did nearly 2 months ago.

Start off with messy Charles. He really loves food and playing with his dishes!


It felt like we didn't walk to/from school much because of rain and needing to run errands while James wasn't home. Those times we did though James found silly ways to ride the stroller.


We celebrated James' birthday. The post about that is already on the blog. Read it if you haven't already. The Friday before his birthday was when they celebrated it at school and I brought a birthday snack. I also had the pleasure of meeting his new class bunny, Lavender. She's a cutie and I kind of want a bunny like her.


Sometimes the days were nice enough for playing at the park after school. Charles loves the swings where as James won't have anything do to with them.



Sometimes my big stroller comes in handy to help bring in groceries from the car.


Tracy went out of town Valentine's weekend. We had gone on a date the Saturday before. It was nice to spend time with just the two of us, something that doesn't happen often. 

While Tracy was gone I had a pretty good weekend with the boys. We went on daily walks and bike rides, watched movies, played games and made messes. 

Eowyn found a new place to sleep since the car seats were in the house while Tracy was gone. Good thing she's within the weight limits of James' booster seat. She just sitting in it properly. ;) 


We assembled some of James' wooden dinosaurs he got for his birthday and he had fun painting them.

With Tracy gone James decided I was lonely and scared at night and he needed to sleep with me every night. Such a sweetheart some times.


I noticed one day that James and Charles kind of matched. It is hard to get normal smiles out of them at the same time.

Charles turned 11 months in February as well. Time sure goes by fast.


We joined the Disney Movie Club and received these for the introductory pricing. No regrets here. We love movies and are excited to be getting more Disney ones added to our collection.



We discovered a really good bakery by our apartment back in Novemeber. The pastries are amazing! These pictures are form our monthly trip to it. James loves their hot chocolate.



Sunday naps are important!

I found a sandbox on craiglist for like $5. It was a great purchase. James spends some time outside playing in it just about everyday.


We started a Sunday tradition of ice cream sundaes after church. At our ward conference the stake presidency emphasized Sabbath observance. They suggested that we should do special things, like a having a treat and/or doing at activity, only on Sunday to make the day enjoyable for kids and so they also look forward to it. We still have a ways to go to change some of our bad habits to making it a more special day. But the sundaes have helped change James' attitude a bit about church because he knows he get a treat for going and being good.