Jumping Bean

Charly likes to jump off of everything. Off the bed, stairs, out of the car, and pretty much anything more than a foot off the ground she wants to jump off of. She can stick the landing pretty much every time.

November Happenings

 Leland came home one afternoon so excited with this "new" game that a friend made for her. She thought it was the coolest thing ever. She was a little shocked when I told her that we used to make them when I was younger too. What do you call it anyway?

 This picture is for my sister, who says that blogs are only for people to brag about the good things, so I decided to take a picture of what my family room often looks like. Toys scattered and a overflowing laundry basket of clothes that need to folded. After I snapped the shot, Leland asks, "Mom, why are you taking a picture of a dirty room? Who wants to see that?"

 We always love when Nana gets to visit. We are so happy she is retired now and we get to see her so much.

We like to play dress up. There is usually only one princess and two super heroes in our house.

 I cooked my very first Thanksgiving dinner and had lots of helpers in the kitchen. My dad, his girlfriend, and my lil sister, Layni came for dinner. I didn't get any good pictures, but the food was delicious and there was enough to probably feed 25 people. Good thing we love leftovers.

 The girls had a dance party after dinner.

September

First day of school was a rainy, dreary, mess. Leland loves her new school and classmates. The bus stop is right next door with about 10-15 kids getting on the bus.

It's obvious that I let my children totally pick out their own clothes. Lucy has a mind of her own. Chuck once said that I should have my girls wear a button that says "I dressed myself." I told him that I think it's pretty obvious.

Messy hair - purple dress - red and black socks - brown shoes - oops! (Name that book)

I love this picture. We were opening up our weekly produce box from Dominion Harvest and I asked the girls what their favorite item was that we received. Charly picked the red peppers and Lucy picked the goat cheese. The way Charly was holding the peppers made me laugh.
"You're the cutest thing I ever did see. I really love your peppers. Want to shake your tree." (Name that song)

Charly (plus my other girls) love to use an umbrella. So much so, that they have broken or bent 3 umbrellas in the last month. Charly was so proud of herself getting the newspaper for daddy with her umbrella.

The love of Spider Man had been passed down. Lucy already grew out of the pjs that she got for Christmas just 9 months ago. Charly was so excited to get to wear the coveted pajamas.

2 years old

Charly turned two at the beginning of July, but she thinks she just turned six. She thinks that she is big enough to do anything her sisters are doing. Most of the time she does pretty good at keeping up with them. I am amazed at how strong she is.

I can't believe how much she has grown recently. When we went to her two-year check-up and she sat there in her diaper on the table waiting for the doctor, she looked like a little girl with actual rolls on her legs. None of my girls were ever chubby babies with rolls. I could hardly believe that she was the same child that weighed a mere 14.5 lbs from 4 months to 10 months old or that I had to take her in for weight checks every two weeks. I remember being so stressed when she fell off the growth chart and would just cry and pray that she would grow. It was so exciting when she finally hit the growth chart again when she was almost one. Well I'm so excited to say that she has caught back up! She is in the 75th percentile for height and weight!!! The doctor asked, "Is this really the same child we were so worried about this time last year?" We never figured out what was causing her lack of growth, but we are glad that her body figured it out on its own.

This little girl is such a joy to our family.

She has no fear and loves to jump onto, off of, or into anything.  (I had some great pictures of her jumping into the pool, but I can't seem to find them and think they may have accidentally gotten erased. Oh, well.)

Her favorite phrases to say are: "I do it!" and "Watch this!" which usually is followed be her jumping off of something. I'm amazed every day at the new things that she says and talks about.

When our other 2 girls where at this age, we were in the "lack of sleep from a newborn fog" and I really don't remember how much fun a two year old can be. She is hilarious and so excited to learn new things and new words. She is so in love with her sisters and loves her independence. I think I allow her to do some things I did not let my older girls do because she usually has her older sisters there with her holding her hand.

She is was one lucky girl to have such wonderful sisters and I am one lucky woman to be their mother.

Easter Hunt #1

We went to a community Easter Egg Hunt with the Morris girls. Leland and Lucy knew the drill and were on the run to get as many eggs as possible. Charly just stood there watching the craziness. Even when we showed her candy was inside the eggs, she still was not interested.

The girls showing off their loot (that I would later throw away).

It's funny how the girls are so different in little ways:

Just dump 'em all out

line 'em up one by one

Then the Easter Bunny came for a visit. He was kind of creepy looking if you ask me.

We then checked out the beautiful flowers...

and baby chicks at the local garden store. As much as I hate birds, I really wanted to take some of these home to have chickens and fresh eggs.

Lately

Lately I feel like not much has been going on in our lives, yet every day seems to be busy, busy. Between running the girls places, work, my church calling in Young Women, volunteering at Leland's school and training for a 10K. I feel like some days I don't have time to sit down at the computer for blogging.

Chuck and I recently both got Droid phones which I love, totally love. Leland and Lucy love them too and ask to play games on them all day long. Lucy is improving so much in regards to her speech. She also loves wearing band-aids for every little thing. Leland recently decided to stop sucking her thumb, which went really well this week. She made the goal she set and got her reward of going to the local indoor inflatable bounce house place. I realized that I really just needed to wait till she was ready and actually wanting to stop, and she did it. Do know you remember that little joke "Hi. My name is Chubba. My daddy's Chubba and my momma's Chubba....One day my daddy took my on a motorcycle ride and I said "faster daddy faster.." Charly loves that joke and wants to do it all day long. She's hilarious.

One morning while getting ready (waiting for Daddy to be ready) for school, the girls were watching the squirrels in the backyard. They are such cute sisters. Lucy was actually yelling "Die squirrel, die!" Not sure where that came from.

I spent this last Saturday visiting a farm for work. It was so much fun. I was bummed that it was muddy and rainy, so we didn't stray very far from the house, but it was fun planning the items that they will be planting for Dominion Harvest this year. Farmers are just awesome down to earth people. Most of them just love what they do and are trying their best to grow good food. The best line of the afternoon was "We just do the best we can, and we take what the Lord blesses us with."

Update

I recently looked at my blog and realized that I only posted 2 times in November. I have a lot to catch up on. I started working for a company called Dominion Harvest back in the fall and I love it. It has kept me very busy but, we are in the off season right now, so hopefully I can catch up. I like to date my blog posts according to when they happened, so they may be a little out of order.

A note from Leland with instructions on how to get to her hideout.

Chuck has sleep apnea and he finally got a c-pap machine. He no longer snores like a freight train, which means I don't have to elbow him in the side or kick him in the middle of the night to roll over, so we all sleep so much better. The first night he slept with the machine I seriously thought he was dead in the middle of the night. He usually is such a loud and fitful sleeper and he was so still and silent while he slept. It was a little creepy.

Lucy is in such a fun stage. She is adamant about dressing herself most days, which leads to great ensembles. She still loves everything about Spiderman and hyperventilates at the sight of anything remotely resembling Spiderman.

We recently switched the big girls from toddler beds to twin beds. Poor Lucy was complaining about her "small" bed and we would hear her banging against the frame at night. The picture on the bottom right is how we found her the first night in the twin bed. That bigger bed and she still was hanging off the edge. I think she will soon be taller than Leland.

Charly has a ridiculous smile when the camera comes out. She really is a cute girl, but I may not have many pictures to prove it.

Charly has recently discovered climbing. These two pictures were taken literally minutes from each other. I think she will be my first child to break a bone or get stitches.

This is us

School pictures

Since I have no professional pictures to share of Charly, I'll share a video of her most recent accomplishment. Don't you just the love the tongue poking out just like her Daddy does when he concentrates?

Chuck and I loved watching the Country Music Awards last night. I love all the performnaces, but this Brad Paisley one is the best. Chuck loved the "Wanna get scrappy?" bit between Jeff Gordon and Brad Paisley.

Just Pictures

Leland wearing Chuck's Hawaiian shirt for picture day. This is the same shirt that Chuck wore for his kindergarten picture day. Her favorite past time - dressing up for performances.

I love that top right picture of Lucy. She looks like a model. These pictures are from a local art festival we went to a while back.

Charly just cracks us up every day. She loves raspberries and loves making a big mess while she eats. She still can't walk that well but she loves to climb!

Our Bear - 15 months

Charly's new nickname is "Bear" for no real reason that I know of (see Chuck's edit at bottom), but sometimes we also refer to her as "Clifford." Do you know the story of Clifford the Big Red Dog? He was the runt of the litter, then a little girl named Emily Elizabeth, loved him so much and prayed that he would grow. Then in a day he grew, and grew until he became the BIG red dog. That's a little how we feel about Charly.

She was just a little bitty thing that we were so worried about and now she is just growing and growing. She can also pound down some food. She puts a death grip on her high chair tray when I try to take her out when she wants more food. She wants anything and everything that anyone in sight is eating, which is why another nickname for her is "Mooch." She still only has 2 teeth, but she can gum anything you put in front of her. Her top two barely poked through this weekend.

We love our little Charly Bear - big or small. She is in such a cute stage, but she also has quite the personality. She holds a grudge if you do something she's not a fan of. She will look at you with this scowl and grunt at you. It's hard not to laugh. It's usually when I tell her, "No!," so I have to try hard to stand my ground and not laugh. I would love to catch it on camera.

This summer, Charly's favorite places were the splash pads at Stony Point Fashion Park. She would crawl right to the middle with no fear. Other kids and parents would point and laugh. Since she would crawl all over the place, I had to always make sure she was wearing pants even though it was the dead of summer.

Charly loves to help unload the dishwasher, even if they are dirty. We put all of our kids dishes on a bottom shelf, so the girls can reach their own stuff. Charly will actually put bowls and cups away.

One afternoon, she found a box of chocolate sandwich cookies. She was quite proud of herself. Look closely and you can see the chocolate smeared all over the oven.

She's taking steps with her walker, which is awesome. I think she's finally realized that maybe walking could be fun. She turns everything into a walker - doll strollers, the clothes hamper, step stools, boxes, pretty much anything she can lean on and moves. This video is from a few weeks ago, she is much more stable now.

15 month stats:
weight - 22 lbs : 25^th percentile
height - 29 ½ in : 50^th percentile

Her growth chart looked something like this:

Chuck's background on "Bear": I am not quite certain when I started calling her "Charly Bear." When she was little and had her tummy issues, she would cry in pain lots and loved to cuddle and fall asleep in my arms. She really liked it when I would pull her close so she could feel my breath on her cheek. There were a few times that I fell asleep with her by doing deep calming breaths on her cheek for so long. It was then that I began calling her my "Charly Bear" because she was just like a teddy bear that was so nice to cuddle and fall asleep with. Plus, she never grew bigger for 8 months, so that was like a stuffed teddy bear, too.

Once I started calling her that, I always thought of my uncle Mike Bodell who always calls Jared, his third child, "Bear," which led us all to call him "Jare Bear." Growing up, I always knew that Mike's kids were so important to him and to this day, I enjoy hearing him say "Bear" to his son. So, after using it more and more frequently, Charly has become "Bear."

Bowling

We took advantage of Kids Bowl Free and went twice recently. Leland really got into it and drastically improved (as much as you can using a ramp). Lucy had fun her first game, then quickly lost interest. She had more fun hanging out by the video games playing with the guns from the hunting game. Charly hates missing the action. She tried as hard as she could to pick up a ball. I let her "push" a few balls down the ramp and she would just squeal with delight.Notice how the scores improve. Lucy bowled the very first game, then the rest are Leland's scores. Her only game and she got a 97!
Can you believe the very last frame of Game 4? Leland got a spare, then with her bonus turn, a STRIKE! Leland was ecstatic!

The Fun

While I was having fun on the West Coast, Leland and Lucy stayed with my mom and Charly stayed with Suzanne. I am so grateful for their willingness to watch our girls, so that I could enjoy my time with my girlfriends. It allowed me to enjoy my time much more because I knew the girls were having so much fun.

Suzanne said that Sarah and Charly had fun chasing each other around the house laughing and giggling. I took Suz's camera to Seattle, so I don't think she has any pictures.

My mom had a packed schedule for Leland and Lucy.

• Playing at her school
• Fashion show and Kid Fest at Belk department store
• Swimming
• Walking around the Marina
  
• Promised Land reunion where they got to watch the entire show
  

I love that Leland has friends that she loves to see when at my mom's house. She adores Hannah and Emily. They are about the same age as Leland and Lucy. Emily is blind and Leland just fell in love with her during her week at my mom's at the beginning of the summer. Leland even learned how to write her name in Braille.
The girls got to each pick out a new outfit that they would then model in the fashion show. Lucy's facial expressions are hilarious. Apparently, Leland and Lucy also sang impromptu solos.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE these pictures. (Disregard the fact that Lucy is in her nightgown and Leland's shirt is on backwards.)
Thank you again Mom and Suz for making sure my girls were taken care of while I was away.