Catching Up

I've been slacking in the blogging department lately so I'll post a few pictures from the past month or so to try to catch up. One rainy, cold Saturday, Krista and I thought it would be fun to take the kids bowling. I'm not a bowler myself, I've never liked it. I don't know why I thought it would be fun to take Charlotte. After a couple turns, I didn't want to be there anymore and as you can see from the picture, I'm not even really sure the kids were all that into it. I don't see me rushing back anytime soon. :)


We also went out to Royalston to celebrate Charlotte's cousin Emma's 7th birthday. Charlotte loves birthday parties. When the birthday song was over, Charlotte kept saying "again". She wanted to keep singing I guess. Here's a picture of all the Landry cousins.


My family has a tradition of cutting down Christmas trees the day after Thanksgiving. This year it was raining and cold. The farm was full of mud but we all managed to find trees anyway. The kids seemed to have a good time and not even notice the bad weather. Here they are before they came home covered in mud. Oh, and Charlotte, who was bundled in many layers, decided to mess her diaper in the middle of everything. Thanks to Auntie Krista who took her back to the car to change her so I could find a tree. Total chaos!! LOL


This past weekend, Santa made a visit to the Gardner Museum for the Festival of Trees. I took Charlotte knowing she wasn't going to like it but figured every kid has to at least try to see Santa. Much to my surprise, when we walked in the door, Charlotte immediately went for the room Santa was in and cried because we had to wait in line. We finally made it up to the front and Charlotte gave just the reaction I expected:

GIANT Present

So tonight I'm driving home from work and get a call from Stephe. Here's the basic conversation:

Stephe: Can I buy Charlotte a present?
Me: You mean a Christmas present?
Stephe: No, something I can give her tonight.
Me: Well, Christmas is coming. Maybe we should put it away until then.
Stephe: No, I want to see her face when she sees this thing tonight. I know she's going to love it!
Me: OK.

This Elmo is 3 feet tall! Needless to say, she really liked her present. Her hair is crazy because she just woke up from a nap. :)

Hey, I tried to be good. But now I'm thinking we better do all our shopping Christmas Eve so Charlotte can actually have something to open Christmas morning. We get too excited to wait for anything!! :)

Trick or Treat

Trick-or-treat buddies

The whole Halloween gang

"Best store-bought costume" winners
This is just a random picture I took while Charlotte was napping the other day. She's slept with her hands behind her head since birth... Doesn't it look like she's lounging in a hammock?? :)

The Wiggly Concert

I would have posted on this sooner but we were without a computer for a few days. I'm so happy to be back up and running.

The night before Halloween, Stephe and I took Charlotte to see the Wiggles. She LOVES the show and has for a while so it seemed like this would be a blast for her. I'd say she enjoyed the show overall but may have been a little young still to take her to something like this. For about 15 minutes she was 100% into watching the stage, clapping, dancing and jumping. Once the initial excitement of seeing them live was gone, she started getting fidgety and was more into playing the chair. I guess it explains why the TV show is only 20 minutes long! LOL

I had to post this clip... It shows why overall, it was absolutely worth it to take her. The show had been going for a bit already and I happened to have the camera on her face the first time her favorite characters came out, Dorothy the Dinosaur and Wags the Dog. "Oof oof oof" is when she spots Wags and "Dor-ty" is Dorothy. Her reaction is very cool...


(Pay no attention to the guy in the background texting. LOL)

I had a tough time getting any decent pictures during the show, it was dark and I was only about 5 inches from Charlotte's face so they really didn't come out good. Here are a couple walking out afterwards though sporting her Captain Feathersword gear. How cute!

Our Bees... Yes, That's Bees Plural :-)

I know it's early for Halloween but we had a costume party to go to tonight.

All dressed up and ready for trick or treat! It's only about 2 weeks early...

Charlotte is not our only bee though... Here she is helping to get her buddy dressed too. (Yes, I know we're dorks but come on, it's kinda cute!)

A couple of cuties

Charlotte with her cousin Ryan (the Scarecrow) at Julie's surprise b-day party.

Charlotte's cousins: Ryan, Jeremy and Olivia

There was tons of scary stuff in the house plus a few scary costumes. I couldn't believe neither Charlotte or Ryan were afraid of them. It was a lot of stuff that when you pushed a button it moved and made loud noises. The kids thought it was fun and didn't seem scared at all! Charlotte played with this dancing skeleton most of the night. Here's a clip of her fancy moves. Notice she even had to put her cookie down so she could really get down.

Here's Charlotte at the end of the night. It's so typical for her to still be playing and going strong. This kid will never admit she's tired. She's pretending to be a witch and fly on her broom.

Gatta Love Fall in New England

This is by far my favorite time of year, not only is it so pretty outside but you can't beat the weather. Plus there is so much going on for the kids. Last weekend we hit a little fair at one of the schools in town. Charlotte LOVED this inflatable slide that dumped her out in a pit of balls. The boy at the top was working and would help her climb up, he was so nice!

Today we went apple picking with Laura, Mike and Ryan. It was a perfect day. Here's Charlotte checking out the goats.

A nice photo opportunity... Too bad it was impossible to get both kids to look at the camera at the same time. Charlotte's the worst. I have a million pictures of the top and back of her head. :-)

Charlotte climbed or stepped on every rock she saw

Looking for apples

Having a snack

Helping to put apples in the bag

Another rock. Notice Charlotte's 2 pony tails? It's the first time I was able to get them to stay in and I have to say, it won't be the last time we see them on her. I wanted to eat her up every time I looked at her!! Way too cute!!!

Miscellaneous Charlotte Fun Facts

Princesses Charlotte & Alayna

Charlotte is coming up on 21 months old. I've been meaning to write down some of the things she is doing these days so I can look back and remember. Some of these are things she's been doing for months and others are more recent.

Has a new found attachment to Elmo. She's been carrying him around everywhere she goes. Last week, she found another stuffed Elmo at Grammy & Pop's house and now she carries TWO Elmo's, she takes them both everywhere too... to bed, in the car, in the high chair, basically anytime she leaves the house. She always used to have to grab some toy when we left the house but it was always random. Now it's always Elmo 1 & 2, then add a sippy cup and possibly her elephant from the circus. I don't know how those little hands can hold so much! :)

Repeats the entire alphabet, skipping only W. (I say A then she says A, etc)

Recognizes the letters Y and B. Both letters are on her bedding and she'll point to them and say the letter all on her own.

Counts to 6 all by herself. Then she'll randomly say 8, 9. :)

Points to all her body parts.

Loves to brush her teeth.

Says "potty" then squats down to poop. We were at a party over the weekend where she kept looking at me saying "potty" and grabbing at her bum. I took her up to change her and sure enough, she needed to be changed. She'll also sit on the potty with her clothes on. I'm hoping this means when we start actually potty training it won't be too bad since she seems to understand a little.

Says a ton of animal sounds. When she sees an animal she makes the noise instead of saying the name of the animal. She's been doing this since around 13-14 months old. Here are some of the animals: lion, doggie, bunny (boing boing), frog, duck, bird, snake, bee, kitty, owl, monkey, cow, sheep, elephant, pig, horse, turkey. I'm sure there are more, I just can't think of them all! :)

Actually gets air when she jumps.

Does just about all the dances from the Wiggles.

Gets some decent speed when she runs.

She loves to kick a ball.

My favorite new thing -- She's starting to venture more and more away from Mommy. We can go to a party and she doesn't have to be clung to me anymore, she's getting better at playing with the other kids.

I think we finally found a food she doesn't like, cheesecake!

Loves all fruits and veggies. Brocolli, peas and carrots seem to be her favorites. When I picked her up from daycare recently, Janet commented on how she gave the kids brocolli for lunch and all the kids protested and didn't eat it except Charlotte. She ate all of hers!!! :)

Loves to read books, her current favorite is a recipe book of Christmas cookies. I know, this is random but she pulled it off the shelf one day and points to each cookie and says "cookie" in her sweet little voice. She also really likes Where's My Binket, Mr Brown Can Moo and Happy Giddy.
Watches baseball & football on TV, she claps if someone gets a hit or kicks a field goal. Other favorite shows include Jepardy, the Simpsons (or Bart as she calls it), Sesame Street and The Wiggles.

Loves to "talk on the phone". She's got a few toy phones. The people I hear her "talking" to most are Mamma, Daddy, Lainey, Pop, "Me" (Grammy), Sue and Auntie.

Is starting to put a couple words together like "my elmo".

Places Lainey's tennis ball in Lainey's mouth then claps like she and Lainey just did some spectacular trick!

Ringling Brothers

Krista, Jim, Laura, Stephe & I took the kids to the circus last night. I went to the circus once as a kid but don't really remember it. This was really fun! We'll have to go again in a few years so Charlotte can remember it. It started out dark then the music suddenly got loud and there were a few really loud bangs with fireworks. Charlotte cuddled into my neck, she had no idea what was going on, this was her first show of any kind. But once things really got going and the elephants came out, she had a great time. She was pointing out the animals, clapping, waving and bobbing her head to the music. All the other kids really seemed to enjoy it too, especially Owen! Krista almost didn't take him thinking he was too young but he sat in his own chair clapping and waving with a giant smile through the whole show!

Daddy & Charlotte

Charlotte worked her way over to sit in Auntie's lap. Then Owen wanted up too. Those two are definitely kissing cousins. As you can see in this picture Owen had his arm around her the whole time they were together and he stole a couple kisses as well! Soooo cute!!

Owen had a great time

Uncle Jim and Hunter

Auntie, Owen and Daniel watching the show

Daniel and Hunter catching confetti

These clowns were not even a little scary. They were actually quite funny!

At the intermission, Stephe went to check the Clearchannel suite to see if it was full. It was empty so Stephe, Charlotte, Laura, Ryan and I made the move. Krista and Jim decided to stick to our original seats which I have to say were really good too. The suite was nice because it wasn't crowded at all and we were able to hang around after the show to let the crowd leave and get the kids changed. In fact, we were the last guests to leave the arena! :)

Laura and Ryan

Ryan watching intently. He was fascinated by a guy in a spinning wheel.

All the kids got snow cones. Here's Charlotte having hers.

Charlotte watching the show

In the suite after the show

Walking back to the car

I think it's safe to say we all had a great time. The kids were all so well behaved even though it was a late night. Seeing how good Charlotte was and how much fun she had has me looking forward to taking her to more shows. She's really such a big kid now!

Random Pictures

These were taken last weekend at the Ferncol Fair.

Charlotte and Ryan wedged into Charlotte's stroller

On a hay ride