Charlotte's Videos

Charlotte singing the milk song

She is saying "I love milk-y"...and yes, that is her 5 yr old sister (who is starved for attention) being a dog in the background.

Charlotte saying some new words and phrases

She is saying "peanut butter" and "shut the door".

Of course, we couldn't get Drea's video to upload so now we seem partial. =)



Drea stories

The girls and I do a variety of silly things together and one of their favorite things is to pretend to go to the doctor.  Well, a doctors visit consist of a few different things.  First, I check their ears for potatoes.  Next, their nose for boogers and their teeth to see if they are shiny.  Then, "follow my finger with your eyes."  I check their reflexes by tapping their knees.  The "appointment" always ends with me telling them to raise their arms and I tickle them.  Charlotte has yet to figure this out or...she just enjoys the tickling.  Drea on the other hand always says, "No, Daddy you are going to tickle me!"  I always respond by, saying, "I promise I will not tickle you this time."  We go back and forth for awhile and then, of course, she gives in and then I tickle her.  The other night Drea suggested that she be the doctor.  When she got to the end, she, of course said, "Daddy, raise your arms, I promise I won't tickle you."  I told her, "Drea, I don't believe you."  We went back and forth about it until I finally raised my arms.  Drea didn't lie.  She didn't tickle me.....she punched me.

Drea has molluscum contagiosum, it looks like little water blisters on her skin.  (Our friend and dermatologist has been treating them.) Anyway, Stacey thought it may be a good idea to explain to Drea that God can heal her spots.  That conversation led to Stacey telling Drea that God doesn't make people sick. Somehow that lead to a conversation about the devil being responsible for these things.  In the beginning of the conversation it was going well, but at some point Drea got scared. (Stacey insists that I note she probably did not say the right things and probably should not have mentioned any of this right before bedtime.) The reason I bring this up is the next story. ~ Drea and I were praying one night and she said "Dad, I'm scared. Can you pray that the devil doesn't get me."  I said sure and explained to her that she didn't need to be scared because God is in her heart.  She shot back with, "Dad, I think the devil is in your heart."  I asked her why she thought that.  She said because I get angry.  I explained to her that, I am a person and I make mistakes and I am not perfect.  Wow, out of the mouths of babes. 

Drea is such a sensitive soul.  She seems to get upset and cry over the simplest things.  She has cried over her sister changing the channel.  She gets upset when we leave family or friends houses.  When I say upset, I mean...a loud cry, followed by sobbing and tears.  Now as much as I wish Drea would sometimes express her sadness in another way it is her sensitivity makes her who she is.  This same trait is the same reason why she recently took the time to make Valentine's card for some of her friends even though it was after Valentines Day.  She didn't get to see them on the 14th so she needed to make them something.

I heart Fancy Nancy

Drea is in love with The Fancy Nancy books like I'm sure many other little girls are currently. I just wanted to comment on how much I love them too!

Nancy, the main character, loves to be fancy...of course! She is engulfed in a family that is pretty plain but she doesn't let that make her who she is.  She stands out as the eccentric, fashionable, frilly-loving member of her family. That is Drea. She could live in a dress or skirt but we force her to wear pants in the winter at least under those dresses (we're awful, I know!) She doesn't necessarily take it as far as Nancy but if she could I think she would. I love that this character encourages Drea to be who she wants to be even if its not always the same as the rest of us. So...uniqueness (that's fancy for one of a kind) is one of the reasons I love Fancy Nancy and what Drea is learning from it.

The other reason I love Fancy Nancy books....vocabulary, vocabulary, vocabulary! The words that Drea 's learning are amazing me. In the books, Nancy uses a more advanced vocabulary and tells the reader the meaning of each word. Of course, they do it in a way that makes kids like Drea excited to learn them just by calling them fancy words. I quiz Drea on these words often and she usually remembers what most of them mean and uses some of them in her everyday speech now. Fancy Nancy also has me thinking. The concept of the books has made me stop trying to use words that I'm sure Drea would understand and instead use the words I would normally use. I make sure to tell her what the word is fancy for (I know horrible english.) I think she actually hears what I'm telling her because I'm relating it to the way she learns it from Nancy. Oh that Nancy, she's the best! She's teaching me stuff too!

PS. I think Drea likes her because "Nancy" is her Nunnie's name, too.

Example of My Fancy Nancy:
These aren't great pictures but this is after Drea received her Sketchers Twinkle Toes from Nunnie for her birthday that apparently she wanted really bad. They are sparkly if you can't tell. Super sparkly and they light up. I have never really been a fan of light-up shoes but she thinks they are the best thing she owns. As you can see she had to add her super ruffle skirt on with these to feel extra fancy for her birthday dinner. These are pictures of her dancing around in them in sheer excitement!

Just a side note to this blog...when talking about books I wanted to add this note about Drea and reading. (Note: This is not to brag but rather to document so we can remember one day when she asks us what she could do at certain stages in her life.) Below are pages out of a book that was sent home with her from daycare for her homework one night. She can read this book and only needed help sounding out a few of the words. Andy and I have her read for us sometimes but we have to admit that we were blown away by her ability to read this book. Amazed! We have also been astounded by watching the change in her from noticing letters all around her to reading words all around her. She really tries to read everything. This change excites me! Watching a person go from not reading to seeing letters put together to form words in cool.

Down with Valentine.

I have always been a Valentine cynic as long as I can remember. It just always seemed that the holiday was silly. Why we spend one day a year going overboard to make our loves feel special is beyond me. We should be making them feel like our Valentine all year long, right? Yes. But do we do that? No. So I should stop being cynical about it, right? But for some reason, the people we are not nice to...our loves. The people we will be so quick to be mean to...our Valentines. Why is that? Why is it that we can be so nice to strangers, even going so far as to pay for the car behind you in the toll booth but sometimes its so hard to speak only kind words of love to the people that are the closest to us.

It finally dawned on me today. I don't have to be wrapped up in all the hubbub of the holiday. I'm using this day to celebrate! Celebrate my husband. Celebrate my wonderful little girls. Celebrate the life I have because of these awesome people. Maybe that's what the day was already supposed to be about but it has always been clouded by the commercialism of the holiday. I plan on making a resolution today to celebrate the loves in my life and use this opportunity to make them feel special everyday.

So today I spent the day celebrating my husband, our marriage, our children, our love...and it was wonderful! What a great Valentines' Day!

Charlotte's language

Everyone who has a child under two knows you have to speak their language to understand them. This is a feat in itself sometimes. We think Charlotte speaks French. Ha ha! We really have trouble understanding her. We are finally beginning to speak Charlotte's language. Here are some of her words and the real words (not many though because most of the other things she says are so foreign we have no clue):

den-dent: blanket
bubbie pood: puppy food
shuuz: shoes
gockies: socks
jackies: jacket
helpoo: Can I help you? Or sometimes this means "Can you help me?"
poon: spoon
bobble: bottle
bayee: belly
melmo: Elmo
i wobu: I love you.
hap-a-dirde-to-you: happy birthday to you. (She sings it all the time!)


Words she says perfectly clear:
*Yo Gabba Gabba (Hilarious, I know! I didn't even know she had watched the show before when she started demanding it one day.)
*Cheese
*TV
*Nose
*Eyes
*Poppy Jo (little girl at her daycare)
*Pizza
*Pasta (she says both of these brilliantly! Like she's pure italian and doing some hand motion at the end of it! PastAAAAA!)

Here are some cute pictures of our littliest munchkin! She's pure funny lately! Well, mixed with a lot of rotten.

Daddy caught her "reading" to herself. Loved it!

Drea and Charlotte catching a morning show.

Snow Tub with Drea.

Trying to wake Drea up one morning.

She thought feeding her apples would do the trick.

I was trying to capture her new found curls. Look at the long one over her ear. They are usually only there after bath time.

Helping me wash grapes.

Electronic overload!

PS - Right after I posted this post, Charlotte seems to be throwing out all of these full sentences and they are super clear. I put her on her changing table the other day and started changing her diaper and she said, "Don't touch me." I swear it was in a sweet little baby voice and not the little scary voice you probably hear in your head when you read this. : ) Another day Andy was tickling her and she said, "Don't tickle me, Daddy." This was in her best serious voice like she did not want any part of that nonsense for the evening.  Love it!