New Years Eve

Ethan was in spaz mode -singing & dancing to Journey videos on You Tube.  It was awesome.  The shutters were open and I saw the neighbors all huddled at their front door watching him, they must have been dying

Preparing a boat load more baby food

This is potatoes, sweet potatoes, apples & carrots.  All blended, frozen and ready to eat for Charlie

Christmas Morning

Our Christmas usually consists of socks and undershirts and things we need, but I always try to get at least one fun thing for Matt.  We did most of our Christmas on Christmas eve with the kids, but had a few presents for eachother Christmas morning

Our friend Rob has a Uke and Matt always picks it up when he's over at the Ritters.  He loves to play his guitar for Charlie, I thought this might be fun and portable for him to play.  Needless to say, he liked it

Christmas in Minnesota

More pictures of rosey cheeked Charlie dressed up

First Christmas present!

Loves it- wants to see if it will fit in his mouth

Dad with the girls- Lauren & Elise

'Here Grandma, let me help you with that'

'oh my gosh, oh my gosh, it's UP!!!'

Matt helping with the unwrapping

On the way to Louise's

Lauren with Sarah- excited about her 10 $1 dollar bills which she promptly tried to hand out to the grown-ups

Matt- always excited to get his picture taken

Family Pic

building a fort in Louise's shower

teething- loved sucking on the cold granite

Grandma the pro- giving Charlie her hand to chew on while holding a conversation

We almost had Anthony, but he was done before we could get a shot off

Lauren, Charlie, Kaylee & Elise

The cousins

Visiting the Hill's

We had a great time, as always, at home.  Good wine with Dad, amazing food from Lucy and good company with the Huber's.  I only get to see them once a year, so I really look forward to our Christmas party.  We lost Grandma Margaret this year, so it was a tough time of year for the family.  Smaller group, but we still had a good time and LOTS of food.  Charlie was a hit.  He is pretty much wherever we take him.  I'm so blessed to have a healthy laid-back baby. 

My first attempt at a batch of baby food

I had thrown a banana in the blender a few times, but hadn't done the big batch of baby food.  I bought a ginormous acorn squash, cut it in half and baked it meat side down in about 2" water at 400 for 40 minutes.  20 minutes in I put 2 huge skinned a cored apples with a little cinnamon, cut into pieces in about 2 " water and let them cook the remaining time



I blended the squash and apples together with a little of the water from the pans.  Got some on my finger and tasted it- it was actually quite tasty!  It made 2 1/2 ice cube trays, which I'll freeze.  Then I'll pop them out and put them in ziploc bags which I can keep in the deep freeze and just grab as I go. 




Didn't know what to think at first



Then he liked it

Merry Christmas

New rocking chair for the nursery from Aunt Sheila- and his corduroys have little penguins with stocking caps on!

Mr Charlie

A friend of ours Matt works with made us this for Christmas.  I love it

Bonk!

I promise, he didn't even wimper

All I want for Christmas is my one lower tooth, my one lower tooth

Charlie has been teething like crazy.  He gnaws on anything he can grab- this video is proof.  He's been fussy and up 10 times a night.  It's exhausting.  So he's chewing on Grandma's hand tonight and she feels a tooth!  It literally wasn't there the night before, so it just broke through today.  You can't really see it, well, and Charlie won't get his tongue out of the way, but you can feel it! 

SO Charlie got a tooth for Christmas!

Ethan's drawing table

Ethan is our little artist.  He draws and draws and draws, mostly pictures of Sonic the Hedgehog over and over again.  We fully support his artistic leanings and feel bad he's always drawing on crap surfaces.  Matt made Ethan this awesome drawing table from scratch.  Matt really put thought and time into this project for him.  It's a really cool table that can be raised to grow with him.  Plus, love the pose at the end.  So Ethan.  Awww....10 year old boys, gotta love em

Ethan and his Sonic the Hedghog

Ethan is obsessed with Sonic the Hedghog.  It's funny, because Sonic was big when I was a kid.  We got him Sonic comics, they were a hit.  And Ethan does this hilarious thing where he is so used to having to pose with every present, he poses without his picture being taken.  You'll really get that in the video I post next.

Christmas 2010

Because we have Matt's kids Christmas Eve, we already are done with our Christmas!  Matt and I will do a few on the morning of actual Christmas, but we wanted to make sure they got to be with Charlie on his first Christmas, and he doesn't know the difference!

The kids got hunting caps from their Aunt Sheila

His one Christmas present so we could get a picture

Lookin' good mama - ugh

Christmas with Matt's parents- got his shop vac

Charlie's baby blanket from his Grandma McAuley

Grandma McAuley explaining the patches which were mostly made with fabrics from all the McAuley children's old pajama's- precious

Charlie has a pigtail!

this is my favorite picture of all time of them

Got my pizza cutter- it's all I wanted for Christmas.  A new damn pizza cutter, so I could get rid of the broke one I've been using for 10 years.  I mean a pizza cutter is what- $15?  It's funny the money you won't spend on yourself. 

Christmas Eve Morning

I went to bed last night cursing that there was no snow and we weren't going to have a white Christmas.  I woke up this morning around 8 with Charlie and it was dumping this fine mist of snowflakes, it was beautiful.  Everyone was still asleep.  The house was quiet.  I just sat on the couch with my little man, had my coffee and watched the snow fall.  Heaven

Happy 16th Birthday to Bridgette

Lord help us all, she's driving.  I realized these are the only pictures we got from her birthday dinner, hopefully Grandma & Grandpa got one or two