Ellie's Christmas program

Ellie was in a Christmas program at her school today and yesterday. She was supposed to say a bible verse ("You will be with child and name him Jesus") with Cain and another little girl, but she was a bit overwhelmed by the microphone and the crowd. For some reason, the video is really grainy, but you can sort of see her shake her head when asked whether she was going to say the verse:

Then her class sang "Jesus Loves Me." Ellie has been singing it for months...everyday...several times a day. But today, she didn't utter a word of it. Instead, she flirted with the school director (over her right shoulder) and messed with her dress. Oh well -- she looked cute standing up there!

We didn't have the Flip yesterday so we don't have footage of it, but during the finale (all of the kids took the stage and sang a song together), Jackson and Cain had a very audible debate about whose mommy was in the audience. Jackson said "that's my mommy!" and apparently Cain thought he was talking/pointing to his mommy, so he said "no, that's my mommy!" They went back and forth (louder than all of the other kiddos combined) the entire song -- it was hee-larious!

We just love this school and it's so sweet to see something that the kids and teachers have worked so hard on!

My little turkeys

I forgot to post pictures of the kiddos in the little turkey shirts I made for them.  I was so sad when Thanksgiving came and went and I had to pack away the shirts.  Damian pointed out that I can cut out the turkeys and sew them on bigger shirts each year – he’s so smart!

The Little Man at 15 Months

We had Charlie’s 15 month appointment last week and other than two infected ears, he’s in tip-top condition.  As we all know, he’s big – he’s 34 inches tall (way off the charts – above the 98th percentile; Ellie was 32.5 inches), he weighs almost 28 pounds (a mere 85th percentile; Ellie weighed almost 27 lbs), and his noggin has finally dropped onto the charts at the 95th percentile (Ellie’s was also in the 95th percentile).  This was actually the first appointment that Dr. Chad didn’t re-measure his head, convinced that the nurse made a mistake.

We did subject the little man to one vaccine this time and he didn’t even flinch!  I was cowering in the corner, pretending to look for something in the diaper bag, while Daddy held Charlie down.  And it turns out that I was the biggest baby in the room…by far -- Charlie was all smiles, even while being jabbed with a needle!

The appointment was a bit of an eye-opener for me because one of the developmental milestone questions was “can Charlie point to different body parts?”  And I realized that I have never (not once!) told Charlie where his nose, eyes, ears, etc. are.  Poor second child!  He just seems like such a baby – I can’t believe that he’s old enough to be pointing to his nose.  But then I look back at what Ellie was doing at the same age and the difference is unbelievable.  After all, by 15 months she said nearly 60 words (http://ellieandcharlie.blogspot.com/2009/05/words-words-and-more-words.html) and started speaking in 2-word sentences (http://ellieandcharlie.blogspot.com/2009/05/this-week-in-words-part-ii.html).  Charlie, on the other hand, doesn’t really have any words other than “Gacie”  (it’s finally become a “g” sound, but still missing the “r”).  He can say “go, go, go,” and “wastha?” (what’s that?), but not reliably.  Just recently, however, he started picking up signs.  Predictably, his favorite sign is “eat;” but he also knows the signs for “more,” “again,” “all done,” and “sleep.”  I need to study up on other signs and be better about using the signs for “please” and “thank you” because he loves being able to communicate – he just gets the biggest grin on his face when he signs!  Perhaps he’ll learn to sign “hey, Mom, how about teaching me where my nose is?!”

Baby's New Shoes

A few weeks ago, when Charlie was able to walk, but not willing to walk, I thought it would be a great idea to get him some squeaky shoes -- I figured that the squeak would motivate him to walk, rather than crawl. Well now he's a fulltime walker and his squeaky shoes just arrived. We may be disabling the squeakers faster than I anticipated...but it was pretty cute for the first few minutes!

Christmas cards

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Well, actually, it’s not (Damian went to work in shorts and a t-shirt and I think it hit 80 degrees yesterday!), but we’re getting into the Christmas sprit anyway. We’re even being super daring and we’re putting up a Christmas tree on Thursday – we’ll see which kiddo strips it of ornaments and/or knocks it over first! There are lots of things that I’m looking forward to (seeing our UK family, taking the kids to look at Christmas lights, listening to Christmas music on the radio, etc.), but one of my favorite things about this time of year is finding little treasures in our mailbox every day…not gifts (although we love those too, of course), but Christmas cards! I love them! I love seeing pictures of family members and friends whom we haven’t seen in ages. I love posting them throughout the house and pulling out Christmas cards from years past. Just love it!

This year, I found out about a fantastic deal (thanks mydfwmommy.com and Hillary!) – Shutterfly is giving bloggers 50 free Christmas cards! You just have to sign up at http://bit.ly/sfly2010. The hardest part is deciding which card to order – there are so many fantastic designs to choose from! Luckily, you can narrow down the options by size, color, designer, etc. You can also save your card and come back to it later – handy when your hubby won’t sit still long enough to look through all of the options! Now I can just show him the 10 (yes, 10!) cards that I’ve designed and hopefully between the two of us, we’ll decide on one. I love being able to show more than one picture: http://www.shutterfly.com/ssc/viewPreview.sfly?fid=e3a62285696cf858328a6b68bbcad23c5625c431369d420afd12f45bbad520eada27fa73774b895d587981ff14e26afc. But then again, I love the simplicity of having just one photo: http://www.shutterfly.com/ssc/viewPreview.sfly?fid=4ae2a182b683c578328a6b68bbcad23c5625c431369d420afd12f45bbad520eada27fa73774b895d7386f5d652e9b5f7 Even if we can decide on how many pictures to use, we still have over 100 fabulous designs to choose from: http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery. At this rate, maybe we should start looking at Valentine’s Day cards instead!

Happy Halloween!

The Wizard of Oz characters never looked so cute…

Dorothy demonstrating how to knock on the door before saying “trick-or-treat” (she was REALLY exciting!).

Charlie actually hated his costume (I can’t really blame him – it was way too hot for the beautiful 80 degree weather that we enjoyed today), but we tortured him just long enough to take some pictures and then go trick-or-treating to one house.  Then we packed up the kids and took them to our church’s big Halloween festival.  Charlie lucked out and got to wear Baron’s  much more comfortable scarecrow costume (Baron was already asleep for the night)!  Unfortunately, we didn’t bring our camera to the church, so we didn’t get a picture of Dorothy and the Scarecrow with Jackson was the Tinman; but trust me – they were adorable!

Since we were volunteering at the festival, we decided to be good sports and dress up – I don’t think I’ve worn a real costume since high school!  It was worth it to hear a little boy scream “IT’S SUPERMAN!” as soon as we walked in.  Oh, and for this classic: we ran the duck pond game (kids picked a ducky out of the pond and if it had a red spot on the bottom, they got candy – it was clearly designed for the youngest visitors) and when Damian’s first “customer” found a red spot, she requested a KitKat.  Unfortunately, Superman couldn’t get the bag open.  The sweet little girl asked if he needed help.  Ha!

  It’s hard to believe how much our sweet babies have changed in that just one year:

And how much Ellie has changed in two years:

Frankenstein Baby

Charlie still isn't walking, but he's practicing more and more (on his own terms, of course). I just can't get enough of his Frankenstein-like waddle!

Amazingly, Damian got a first on video -- Charlie standing up on his own:

Pardon our dust

I'm having serious problems with my blog layout/background, so excuse the mess!

Labor Day

We spent Labor Day weekend (yes, Labor Day…the holiday back in September!) at Natalie’s dad’s ranch and we had the most amazing time!  We don’t get to spend nearly enough time with the Greco Family, so it was such a treat to spend a few lazy days with them.  Ellie absolutely adores “Baby Molly” – for weeks afterward, every time we got in the car, she would ask if we were going to Baby Molly’s house.  And the ranch was unbelievable – so, so fun!  The first day, we went swimming – how amazing is this view?

Charlie got right into the swing of things:

Love these guys!

We also fed the fish at the pond…twice.

I love this picture of Damian and Ellie

The girls spent most of the time trying to get in the water:

Natalie was particularly thrilled to see this picture when we got back to the house (she stayed home with a napping Charlie):

The kids were "going” constantly…until we turned on the TV and then Baby Molly and Ellie cuddled up for some down time.

A rare, rare photo of the four of us:

And the four Grecos (yes, there is a little Greco in that belly):

Damian was so intrigued by the cacti – luckily these did not have thorns:

Trying to feed the armadillo:

There was one slightly…uhm…terrifying aspect of the trip.  The most enormous spiders EVER!  Apparently, they’re friendly (or at least not deadly), but it was hard to remember that when we saw one swinging just inches from Ellie’s head.  As a point of reference, that’s Damian’s big hand:

      The kiddos had fun eating meals…and a crazy amount of watermelon…together.

 We plopped the kids in a baby pool several times a day just to de-stickify them.  Charlie’s expression in this picture cracks me up – I’m pretty sure he had just gotten a face full of water!

I found Damian and the girls snuggling in the hammock – they just loved it…until Charlie arrived and then Ellie bailed.

Thank you so, so much for treating us to such a wonderful weekend, Greco Family!  It was such a nice treat to get out of the city and enjoy some relaxing family time – we certainly returned to Dallas refreshed and recharged.      

What a treat!

Damian and I are both really bad about taking pictures of ourselves with the kids, so I was so thrilled when I came across these on the camera (I had completely forgotten taking them):

See? She really was here!

We were so lucky to have Grandma Sue with us for two weeks in September.  Unfortunately, we did an absolutely HORRIBLE job of taking pictures, so here’s the underwhelming photographic evidence of her visit:

We just had so much fun with Sue – I loved having the companionship during the day and the kids loved having the time to bond with Grandma Sue.  Ellie talks about Grandma Sue flying back to England every time she sees an airplane and then usually follows it up with a comment about all of us going to the UK for Christmas – she’s very excited!

Anyway, we’re all missing Grandma Sue and the rest of our British family – can’t wait to see everyone in a couple of months!