Happy Thanksgiving

We off for a whirlwind trip. We are headed to Vermont today to celebrate Thanksgiving with Nanny, Grampa, Liam, Auntie Tiff and Uncle Ian. Then we head back to New Hampshire Thursday night b/c we have to catch and early Friday morning plane ride out of Boston into South Carolina. We are going to visit Grammy, Pappa, Aunt Julie and Caitey. We are very excited. We can't wait to see them it's been too long. We won't be back till Tuesday so you'll have to check back for pictures of our South Carolina adventure.

Photo Shoot

Saturday was photo shoot day for Lottie. Dad had the house to himself as mom was out shopping. The living room quickly became a mock studio as soon as the minivan pulled out of the driveway. Tripod up. Backdrop up. Digital camera ready. 35mm camera ready. Flashes ready. All we needed now was a cooperative child.

Im not sure if all babies enjoy eating cameras as much as ours. As soon as she sees a camera she heads straight to it. "Ah ha!" dad thought! I have two cameras. While she is eating one I will take her picture with the other. This worked for about 10 shots. Then she figured out I was taking pictures with the other one. She would then come crawling over. Not to mention having picutres of her eating a camera was not the type of photo he was going for.

After about 30 minutes dad was exhausted. The black backdrop was useless. She crawled and tugged at it until it came crashing down. The tripod was even more useless. She would use it to stand up then push it over and start laughing. 100 digital shots and two rolls of film later dad was done. All of this for one Christmas card photo! And yes you will have to wait for your Christmas cards to see the final photo. However, here are a couple of random candid shots dad took. If you like these you will love the Christmas shots!

Love Thursday

Love is watching your baby grow into a child. It was hard to believe how small Charlotte was when she was born. It goes by so fast. Everyone tried to warn us and explain how fast it goes by...but it is something you have to experience for yourself.

The things that Charlotte has learned

Yesterday Charlotte walked 5 steps! Of course mom couldn't verify because she was in the shower. Today Mom finally caught Charlotte walking! It wasn't far but it was more than two steps in a row. Hard to believe in the next couple of weeks she is going to be more and more mobile!!

Those of you who have had the dis-pleasure of seeing Shelby mad know the look she gives. She carries her expressions in her face and mostly in her eyebrows. It's very easy to tell when mom is happy, mad, or sad, just by looking at her.

For some reason over the past week, Charlotte has been shooting dad (and everyone else for that matter) these terrible angry looks. Mom of course trying not to encourge it has been telling dad to just smile and give a happy look. Tonight he caught mom telling Charlotte "No" for ripping up magazines and realized the look she was giving was that same exact angry look they are trying to discourage.

Happy Birthday Brodie

Saturday was a beautiful day. Mom was already walking on her foot (with the air cast on). Dad washed moms car. Mom and dad went for a drive to Nashua to do a little window shopping for Christmas presents. And they went to Starbucks. It was a great day.

Saturday afternoon Brodie celebrated his 1st Birthday. There were a lot of kids but it was actually very tame. Everyone had a great time and for the first time dad wasn't so overstimulated that he wanted to hide out in a dark child-less room.

Charlotte loved having all the kids around and was very happy to play with all the toys. Brodie doesn't like having a ton of people in his house but really seemed to enjoy his cake!! The Theme for the party? Happy Feet. We haven't seen the movie and probably won't be going to the movies anytime soon. But it has something to do with penguins. Some people think Penguins are cute. Dad knows they are not cute. They smell horrible and make a lot of noise. Regardless they made a movie about them and how happy their feet are?? Thank you Kelly and Dave for the Happy Feet soundtrack. We are listening to it as we type. Its great for kids and parents!






At the end of the party Dave lit a bonfire. The warm air outside made it that much more enjoyable. Charlotte loved sitting on Dad's lap to watch the fire.







Yes that is Dave burning the Penguin pinata on a stake in the fire. The kids really enjoyed watching it go up in flames. Dad has a feeling Dave doesn't think penguins are cute either.

How to entertain a child

-Spend countless hours making funny noises with your mouth.
-Hang child upside down by her feet and swing her back and forth.
-Get on all fours and chase child around the house making growling noises and saying, "I'm going to catch you!"
-Take her for a walk outside with the dogs.
-Put child on your shoulders and walk around the house.
-Squeak lots of dog toys any chance you get.
-Pick up child and show her random things around the house like the pumpkins on the mantle.
-Let her play with mom's old cell phone.
-Make beeping noises with your mouth while she plays with the phone.
-Blocks.
-Pull out every single stuffed animal she has and come up with name for them.
-Read "Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can you?" over and over and over again.
-Feed her grapes. Feed her cheese. Feed her prunes.
-Let her play with above food throwing it as far as she can.
-Play Baby Einstein video on the television while you hold her in your lap explaining to her exactly what she is seeing.
-Dance with her to any music you can find.
-Sing Itsy Bitsy Spider 10 times in a row.
-Tickle her belly while she laughs uncontrollably.
-Take her to see mom who is resting in bed.
-Let her play with pots and pans.
-Make a top out of the salad spinner.
-Add items such as a hairclip and a pacifier with flashing lights to the salad spinner.
-Let her play with the bowl.
-Give her a bath.
-Read to her again.
-Give her a bottle and rock her to sleep.

REPEAT TOMORROW.

Post Op

Shelby's surgery went very well. She is recovering and trying to adapt to not walking again. By early next week she should be up and around but for now it keeping her foot elevated to get the swelling back down. Hard to believe that Charlotte was only 5 months old when mom first had surgery. Charlotte wasn't even crawling! We thought it was tough then....now it's a whole different story. Gone are the days of Charlotte just sitting on your lap content with looking around. Now she wants to play.

Luckily the surgery went by very fast today. We were in at 10am and out by 1:30. This time Charlotte was big enough to play in the childrens area (of course after dad disinfected all the toys with antibacterial wipes). She was the only one in there and it seemed like a very quiet day at the hospital. Dad pushed Charlotte around the halls of the hospital in her stroller while she ate mini-goldfish. Dad says she is better than having a GPS system because everywhere Charlotte goes she leaves a trail of goldfish behind. It made it very easy to explore the hospital without getting lost. We just followed the goldfish on the floors back to mom.

While in recovery Charlotte played with anything she could find. Yes she is wearing a surgical bootie on her head. Its sort of like a hat. Anything to keep her occupied.






Here are the screws they took out of moms foot. Yes we asked for them and yes they gave them to us. They are probably 2.5" long and they are hollow...and super sharp. No the penny didnt come out of mom (although dad did swallow a penny once when he was a kid). We just wanted to give some perspective to the size of the screws.



When we returned home mom retired to bed and dad and Charlotte had the run of the house. No mom to tell US what to do! We played and played and played. Then played some more. Dad decided it would be fun to finger paint with Charlotte. Charlotte thought it would be fun to eat the paint. And then paint her face. And everything else within hands reach. Then she decided it would be fun to paint using her face and mouth instead of her hands. Dad of course let her do whatever she wanted. So after the paint came a bath, then dinner, mixed in with playing and fussing. He has a new appreciation for the amount of work mom does during the day!

Screws and Spoons

The hospital called yesterday and moved mom's surgery up one day. So tomorrow at 11am she will be going under the knife to get the screws out of her foot. We really have no idea how recovery will go. At first the doc said recovery will be quick, but then again mom shouldn't have any pain at all right now and she does. So who knows. We just hope and pray for a fast recovery to get mom up on her feet! Dad is going to ask for the screws so we can put them in a scrap book. Sick? Yes but those screws cost us a pretty penny. We might as well ask for them back. Plus it's nice knowing they are in our hands and not being reused for some other patient. Hey it could happen! No I will not be selling them on ebay.

Charlotte is learning to feed herself. She isn't very good at it but she is learning. Dad came home from work to find her sitting in her booster seat, food all over her face, cheeks, & nose. She was holding the spoon trying to get it into her mouth. She did a pretty good job but none the less needed a bath after dinner. She is growing so fast.

Original Gangsta

What up Peeps? Hottie Lottie has been kickin' it in the hiz'ouse all weekend with her cuz' lil' L Dogg. They be rollin' with mad style. Dis morning they jet ta da Fireman's breakfast in the hood ta git a hot home cooked breakfast up in here. You know das' right! When dey came back home da played fo' uh little while den Hottie Lottie took L'dogg's hat from him. Don't be messing with lil' L Dogg and Hottie Lottie. Word up.






Even 'ol Ollie be rollin' with the childin up in here!

Updates?

We know, we know. The blog updates have been few and far between. There are many reasons. One is Charlottes hair. It takes all of our effort to try and control it.




Another reason for the lack is updates is because of the amount of time dad spends picking up tissues around the house. This was ALWAYS an issue with mom alone. She has a never ending runny sneezy nose. Since the day he met her mom has always had tissues around. He learned very quickly that there would always be dirty tissues somewhere. Used tissues in the bed, used tissues in the pockets of mom's jacket (or dads if she wears it), used tissues in the couch. In fact, his wedding vows included "I promise to never get mad at the tissues you leave around the house." It is a never ending job for dad to pick these up and throw them out.

Well Miss Charlotte also has a thing for tissues (and wet wipes). She feels the need to find them and add to dads work by leaving them all around the house any chance she gets. Thus the lack of updates.




Still another reason for the lack of updates is the time spent ensuring Charlotte does not eat scissors (which he took out of her mouth the other morning) and removing any and all sharp objects from her little hands. Charlotte likes to get in the cabinets and drawers. When that happens she goes right to the sharpest objects she can find. This is VERY time consuming as she becomes more and more mobile.





Finally over the past few days Mom hasn't had much time to take pictures or update the blog because not only is she watching Charlotte, she is also helping Tiffany watch Liam. Here is a picture of Liam chugging a mason jar of moonshine. Amazing how he walks after drinking.

Excitement

Charlotte was very excited to see her cousin Liam today. He drove up with aunt Tiffany to visit for a couple of days. Hopefully on Sunday we will all go to the Fireman's breakfast. Liam will love to play on the firetrucks!

Trick or Treat

Last night was Trick or Treat in our town. Since we are in the town center, the police close our road down. There is wave after wave of parents with children that come to our house. There are so many trick-or-treaters that the town actually donates candy to anyone that lives in the town center. We estimated last night over 600 pieces of candy were given out at our house alone. We just about ran out of candy after the first hour. By 7:30pm with still a half an hour to go we did run out and resorted to handing out pennies. Dad decided to shut it down last night at 7:45 because, well giving out pennies instead of candy is embarrassing. I always hated those people when I trick or treated. I don't want to be that house on the street.

Paul and Jena came over to help hand out candy as did Kelly, Dave, Brodie, and Mason. We hung out on the porch, had some pumpkin beer, met everyone in the town, and handed out candy.