Bridgette & Ethan

B- 2004

Ethan and his Dad, Lake Huron 2001

Probably the cutest picture of all time- Ethan and Lady

Helping dad fix the shed

Our poor shed is rotting away. Matt is out redrilling holes for the door every other weekend. It's so cute though, I don't want to fix it too much. I think if Matt had his way, he'd tear the whole thing down and build a man-shed, but for now, we just fix and mend, fix and mend.

Tinker Toys from Grandpa Divine



Charlie got my father's Tinker Toys from when he was a child for his first birthday.




Tinker Toys have a some very small parts, so we had very supervised play time with them this weekend.  I had Charlie had a good time building a helicopter.  It was his first time playing with them, I only had to pull one piece out of Charlie's little hand that was going straight for his mouth.  He liked them, but didn't really understand, and the holes you stick the pegs into were just too much for his not-so refined motor skills, but he had fun helping me.



They were one of the only toys that were at my Grandma Divine's house when I was little. I played for hours and hours with these Tinker Toys.  I swear, I could smell the townhouse when I opened them up.  There is a round with a yellow peg in it that was always stuck, I was never able to get it loose, and it's still in there!

Ethan & his Brother

Ethan helping with bedtime

Getting his Ducks in a Row




Charlie likes to line up all his toys in a row, especially his wheeled toys.  He is either a genius or this is the beginning stages of major OCD

 

Animal noises

As you can see, we had just come from a long, messy day at day care.

Is it horrible that it takes me taking this video to realize how messy my kid and kitchen are? Eh- what do you do. My house isn't messy, my kids are just making memories. Yeah, that's it

Oh and Charlie is playing on the magnet board we are making for him. It was drying on the table and he couldn't resist. I'll post more on that later- it's going to be awesome.

Charlie's Favorite Things - 18 months

His train - we reserve it as treat to play with , so he's obsessed

His Curious George & blankie.  He'll reach into his crib and pull them out for book time

He doesn't really understand books, but he keeps going back to this one, so he knows he likes it.  It is a pretty cute book.

Puts lighted starts on the ceiling at bedtime (plus has buttons he likes to push over and over)

Any books with flaps.  He lifts them and says 'hi' 'hi' 'hi'

Shoes Shoes Shoes!  He adores his shoes

Any and all things with wheels

His wooden train

His red rocking chair

a nice big sippy cup of milk

 Charlie's not-so-favorite things:

Ethan's orangutan, he won't go near it.  It makes monkey noises and it just freaks him out







Cutie of the Day

There was a sticker on my clementine that said 'Win a College Scholorship' go to http://www.whatever/

So I went and entered Charlie- it had to be holiday themed, so I entered this one

http://cutieskids.com/video/1098/ - do you remember him when he was this little???

There are definitely cuter videos of Charlie, but not in the theme's they needed,  but Charlie won the 'Cutie of the Day' and yesterday, he got his prize!

The Seal of John Jacob Link



I've been working on some amazing things over at my King Blog.  Researching the already existing genealogy work my grandmother did (which was impressive and extensive, especially before google) I found a ton of information on our oldest traceable relative John Jacob Link.  And this is his family seal.  I'm officially obsessed.



Day at the Park....in January

We stopped by the park on the way home- it was almost 60!

Even though it was warm, the sun was setting and the temp dropped quickly.  It was very windy, so we just ran around for about 20 minutes and headed home.  Not bad for January though

Baby Toss!

Don't worry Grandma- he loved it

Last Three from Iowa



Kennedy & Charlie, just 3 weeks apart





More of them playing the Kinect - Austin, Ethan, Elise, Lauren & Gavin



New Piano



I wanted to wait to post about this until it was all tuned and set up, but that's going to be a while, so I'll go ahead and post this now.  A co-worker was giving this away and thank goodness, Matt's mother piped up that claimed it for us!  I didn't have high hopes with a free piano, we were just happy to get one, but it is beautiful.  I can't believe how well we made out.  It's has been very well taken care of, only needs a good tuning




Matt tuning it





Charlie kept banging on the keys, so Matt got him out of the way





This was yesterday, Matt is using the old keyboard to help tune the piano



Joyce & Charlie

My cup runeth over

The King Christmas at the Barta's

Elise, Caroline & Jack

Charlie opening his Cat toy from Aunt Joyce

Kennedy with her dad

Kennedy

Mallory, Jack & Myrna



John with his dad Steve & Joyce



Hot Tub Time

Trying to rangle the kids into a picture, it was a huge effort and there were like five of us taking pictures.  It was like the paparazzi were in there

Kennedy was not having it



Back: Jessie Birch, Lauren Hubbard, Haley Birch with Charlie on her lap, Elise Hubbard, John King (Steve's son). Austin Barta Front: Kennedy & Ali Barta (Greg's girls) Caroline & Jack (Lea's kids) Ethan and Gavin Barta



Funny Faces

Jack, Elise, Ali & Lauren

Eric with his girls, Lauren adores Eric

Everyone hunkering down to watch a movie

Playing with the Kinect- Dance Party USA

Cousins- having seriously waaaay too much fun.  I don't even want to tell you what time this picture was taken, but we had a blast acting like we were all still in our 20's!