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?!”