Guess What??

Finished guessing yet? Well lets just say Charlottes Web will soon be Charlotte and BLANK's web. Still trying to guess? We dont know if its going to be a boy or a girl but YES we are having another baby! Eta set for May 12th. Today we got our first ultrasound and everything appears to be growing and developing properly. :) Stay tuned for more details.

Tonight was Halloween. We were pretty nervous that Charlotte wouldnt put on her costume. But we finally got her to dress up as little Nemo! Phew! We hit the town Halloween Party at the local school. Unfortunately she didn't win 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in the under 3 costume contest. Fixed. Totally fixed. Just like the Chili contest was fixed. Oh well. There is always next year.

Paul & Jena brought a little lobster over our house to help hand out candy. Kelly & Dave brought over a dragon and Superman to also pitch in. Nemo was traded in for a princess/ballerena. Our town's "trick or treating" festival is just insane. I cant even begin to give you an idea of how many hundreds of children come to trick or treat. I took some pictures to give you an idea of the lines at all of our houses, but it doesnt do it justice. Its non stop kids for a solid two hours.

What Not to Do

Never ever ever leave your almost two year old alone for more than 4 minutes in your house. A house that has red Sharpie markers in it. She found the red sharpie marker as you can see. Great. That will never come off. She kept saying she had crayon on her hands and shirt. No honey. That is not crayon (we wish it was).




Aunt Julie and cousin Caitey made their way to Boston this weekend for a little visit. Charlotte was very excited to see them both and even more excited to go swimming at CoCo Key indoor water park. Everyone had fun playing in the warm water and racing down the waterslides. Julie had fun playing with Charlotte in the kiddie area and mom relaxed as they floated down the indoor lazy river.






After the water park we hopped over to Salem to grab some lunch and to walk the streets looking at the scary people in costume. Caitey was so excited to be able to wear her earmuffs. Living in Myrtle Beach she doesnt get to wear them very often. Luckily it was just cold enough.



We also got to celebrate Colins birthday at Lisa and Ryans. Charlotte had so much fun playing with all the kids and ate more chips then we have ever seen her eat. Handful after handful. Some how, some way, she was able to still have room for cake.

Fun

Every day Charlotte is getting older and smarter. Saturday morning she tore through the house, spewing toys in her wake. By late more there were puzzle pieces, dolls, books, and all kinds of stuff all over the living room floor. In the middle was an assortment of letters that usually stick to the refrigerator. Instead they lay in the middle of the floor, barely touched.

Dad asked Charlotte "Can you go get me the letter W?". Intently she walks over to the letters, searches for a moment, picks up the letter W and hands it to dad. He was half expecting her to just hand him any letter in hopes that this game will help start her picking up all the letters from the floor. Thinking it was just a fluke...this time he asked, "Charlotte can you find me the letter O"? She walks over, looks at each piece, finds the letter O then hands it to dad. WOW.

Before you get too excited that we have a prodigy on our hands, she did get the next two wrong. Seems the letter L looks like the letter Q. And the R? She just didn't even bother looking for it. We will keep practicing. This teaching stuff is fun.

Saturday evening the Reeves invited us over to have munchies and participate in the annual Christmas tree burning experience. Charlotte of course was so excited to see Mason, Brodie, and Colin. Unfortunately it rained very hard Friday night, thus making the burning of the tree a little slower and more controlled than usual. We had fun and Charlotte was pooped by 8pm.

Mason, Kelly, Dave, and Brodie

Lisa , Ryan, and Colin

The tree burning in the fire

My first marshmellow

My 2nd marshmellow

Once Charlotte woke up Sunday morning we came downstairs and opened the package she got from Grammy. She loved playing with the vacuum sealed bag before dad finally cut it open to reveal a hand knit dolly. The doll has two sides, one side is sleeping, the other is awake connected at the feet with a dress that you pull up or down revealing the other side. I know its hard to describe. Thats the best I can do. It also came with a purse/cradle for the dolly. Charlotte of course thought it was a hat and did a great job wearing it on her head.



Today Mom packed the van up with Charlotte and the dogs and headed to Vermont to visit with Tiffany, Liam, and Chase. Dad is leaving tomorrow on a work trip to Seattle for the week. Its only been one hour and thirty two minutes since they left and dad already misses them.

Fall Day

Today was a perfect fall day. Dry, crisp, cool air. Lots of sun. Lots of leaves. Dad raked the leaves into a big pile in the back yard. Charlotte quickly figured out how fun it was to run through the leaves. And jump in the leaves. And pick them up and throw them into the wind. And slide down her slide into the leaves. And play with the dogs in the leaves. These prefect days make dad realize how lucky he is to have the family he does.

Forget me nots

Unfortunately for most people without blogs, you lose track of what your kids did when, how often, etc. Sure you can grab the videocamera out and make a recording. Those are always nice to sit around and watch 20 years later on a rainy day when you cant remember what is on what video. And of course in 20 years from now who knows if you can even play back those lovely video tapes or DVD's you have. My parents spent a small fortune having all of our "kids" movies moved from 8mm to VHS. Videos of me making a mess eating an orange when I was one year old. Lots of little snippets of my sister and I playing as kids at Christmas and most holidays. Sad thing is we dont have a VCR to even play back the VHS tape any more. So yet another small fortune will be ponied up to move the memories from VHS to DVD. (Soon to be replaced by BlueRay or HD-DVD). With that being said we have done our best to capture the "essence of Charlotte" by taking tons of pictures and of course by keeping this site updated. I don't think the internet is going anywhere so we should be good for a while.

As a dad it's becoming impossible to capture all the milestones Charlotte is hitting. She is changing and growing daily. This week she is a parrot, mimicking everything we say (which is also really fun teaching her to say Yankees Suck). Last week she was jumping up and down, showing us how high she can get off the ground. Oh and of course she loves to now challenge both of us by doing things we tell her not to do.

In reality none of this is for her anyways. In 20 years from now when reading this she will think its cute and of course tell me how I am the best father in the world, how amazing I was updating everyone, and will undoubtedly give me a giant hug and tell me how much she loves me. However, the reality is I find it doubtful she will care at what age she learned to do somersaults or string multiple words together. But for me and her mom all of this is priceless and something we will have forever. For you as a reader, as friend, family, or just the occasional passerby you get a personalized glimpse into our little family world. So we keep it updated and we do our best to capture the milestones as they fly by at an exponential pace.

Here is the latest on words she says. Keep in mind she can string them together. Sometimes turning into cute phrases. Other times just gobbly gook.

Shar Keek = Charlotte
Pee tess = Princess
Hyme = Hide. She loves to hide under the blanket and call the dogs to find her.She will yell HYME! HYME! and quickly cover her face.
Bee Ball = Baseball. Also used to describe football, soccer, tennis, golf.
Pee Pee Poo Poo Elmo Daddy = Used to tell us she wants to watch the Elmo Goes Potty video that has Elmo's father in it.
Bless You Mamma, Bless You Dadda = Whenever someone sneezes. Or coughs. Or chokes.

Milford Pumpkin Festival

Ok, it wasn't quite the Keene Pumpkin Fest (world record holding Keene NH for the most amount of carved pumpkins) but it was still a festival and there were pumpkins and it was Milford NH. Mom, dad, and Charlotte met Jena, Paul, and Marin there to partake in the festivities.




Charlotte liked listening to the live music (moosick as she calls it) and had a ball just walking around. There were crafts, there were booths with food, and there was Charlotte playing with the puppets that people were selling. Charlotte learned one of life's hard lessons today. She learned that just because she picks up the turtle puppet and hugs it and kisses it, does not mean that it is hers. We could have just bought her the turtle puppet. But that wouldnt have help her learn anything. So instead we made her put it back. In reality she screamed and cried for a second when we told her to put it back. Then she shot us an angry glance. So we had to take it from her and put it back. I'm not sure if that really taught her anything except mom and dad are mean, but our intentions were noble.




After we got home and after Charlotte woke from her nap she decided it would be cute to walk around the house in Da Da's shoes. She was right. It was cute.

They Are Back!

When dad got home from work tonight and walked through the door, Charlotte was there to greet him by screaming Da-da! and giving him a giant super long hug. Ahhhh.
Mom and Charlotte returned today after a quick visit to Vermont/NY to welcome Alexander William Shea to the family. He was born a week ago wednesday and is doing well, at home with mom & dad as they learn the ropes of first time parenting. Oh the stress of the first week! Those of you with kids can empothize. Cute kid huh? Too bad he is going to grow up with the heartache of being a Jets Fan like his dad Ryan.





We wish them luck in raising their new son.

Nanny played babysitter while Shelby spent some time with Melissa and Alex when Ryan went back to work. From the pictures, it looks like she put Charlotte to work sweeping the garage out. Child labor laws should prevent work like this




But from the looks of it, the work didnt last long. From what I can tell, Charlotte went on strike and decided to play soccer golf then went for a quick bike ride. All work and no play makes....you know how it goes.