Mike, Mai Kou and Charlotte

This past weekend....

2009-06-25T23:44:00.002-04:00

We had a GREAT time in Wisconsin this past weekend. Thank you Auntie Nhia for the wonderful pictures!!!!

Visit to the Park....

2009-05-29T17:05:00.005-04:00

Has it almost been a month since our last post????
Charlotte and I have made it routine to visit the park by our house. We bike there together (actually, I bike and pull her in the trailer). She LOVES it and is so fearless when it comes to going high on the swings or climbing the spider-dome thing. The water is a whole other story. She barely goes INTO the water and would rather stand next to it and touch the fountains with her hands and feet.

Princess...

2009-05-07T08:54:00.004-04:00

Auntie Robin brought over a new dressup gown for Charlotte.

She was so excited to put it on. At first, she just want sing and sit in the patio chair (I'm guessing her version of a scene from a Disney movie). The finger pointing was her acting out as she sang... :)

Then she decided to do her version of Dancing With the Stars. She tried a raised leg, but could only keep her leg up for one second. So we got an "arms in the air" shot instead.

We ended with a cute smile...

Singing in the bath

2009-05-01T10:38:00.002-04:00

This morning during her bath, I forgot Charlotte's towel and ran to get it in her room. I could hear her singing when I got back. It was so cute. Can you guess the song? She and her cousin/best-friend Norah are exactly the same, where they both sing random songs.

Prayer.

2009-04-21T20:46:00.001-04:00

Here's the best video I could get of Charlotte praying. She did not want to be taped and mumbles the words..... :)

Prayer

2009-04-21T14:55:00.003-04:00

Every night we pray the Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep prayer. Last night before bed I made Charlotte put down her me-me (pacifier) and she put her hands together. Immediately, she started to pray by herself and got the entire prayer right. It was so cute! We'll try to record her one of these nights!!

Potpourri....

2009-04-10T22:59:00.007-04:00

I've got a varity of topics to blog about....
First, we had Morgan over this week. First she and Charlotte wanted to watch Dora and lay on the Dora couch/bed together. We also went to Conner Prairie, McDonald's, and then the park. They were both tired by the end of the day.

I heard clacking again today as I was cooking. Charlotte has once again discovered Mommy's shoes. They're sandals and she loves to put them on. Each time she does, she sticks her toes in wrong and they're usually on the wrong foot. :)

Lastly, I've been wanting to paint for a long time and I've finally picked my colors and started painting.

I've picked a Laura Ashley color called "Princess Pink" for Charlotte's room. She's got a pink and white chandelier as well as book case in her room that I'm using for inspiration.

Wish us luck on the painting!!

Future artist.....

2009-04-03T13:56:00.005-04:00

Charlotte loves painting and so I took her to the store today and bought her an art easel with a chalk board on the opposite side. She LOVES it! As soon as we got home she could not wait for me to assemble it. I tried to get her to wear one of Mike's white t-shirts but she refused. So I gave her a pink shirt of mine and she loved it. She also let me put her hair in a bandanna. So cute!

The finished product....

Early Easter!

2009-04-01T23:27:00.003-04:00

We had our Easter Extravaganza at church last weekend and Charlotte did really well. We had breakfast, crafts, games, and ended with the egg hunt.
I wasn't with her when she looked for the eggs, but Mike said she did really well. She and Lincoln even traded eggs....so cute!

Charlotte also had an egg hunt today at school. It was a blast!

Helping Mommy Mulch...

2009-03-26T18:19:00.000-04:00

Just a quick story....
I was turning the mulch today and let Charlotte play with a spray bottle filled with water. As I was turning and pulling out the weeds in the mulch, I heard Charlotte telling me, "It's growing, it's growing". Turns out she was watering the weeds prior to me getting to them and pulling them out. It was so cute!

First day and night..

2009-03-19T09:19:00.003-04:00

The Conspire Conference at Willow Creek has been awesome so far! Yesterday was from noon until 9pm. We had a couple breaks and then a two hour break before heading back at 7pm. Sarah Groves performed live and it was WONDERFUL!!
South Barrington is a suburb 20 minutes or so from Chicago. Our hotel is right across from IKEA and we are out by 4pm today, so maybe we'll stop by.

I really missed Charlotte (and Mike) last night. :)
I had to call Mike to take a picture of my sleeping princess and text it to me.

"She still gets her 'meme' at night. We're progressing much faster in the potty training than "meme" weaning."

Poor Charlotte.....and Mike...

2009-03-17T23:41:00.002-04:00

I'll be leaving tomorrow morning for a three day work trip to South Barrington. This will be the first time that I've left Charlotte for more than 8 hrs!! I've talked to her about it for the past couple of days, but she's too young to grasp what I'm saying. I expect her to be persistantly asking for my by the end of the day tomorrow.
I also have to formulate a detox program for her since Mike anticipates taking advantage of my absence and taking her to Taco Bell everyday. My hope (and maybe I should threaten him too) is that it will only be one meal a day at the most and not the three meals of Taco Bell like he did in college.
Of course, I will call and text every chance I get.

Charlotte's Harmonica

2009-03-12T14:03:00.002-04:00

Mike bought Charlotte a harmonica a few weeks ago. She either calls it her "instrument" or "harmocaca". She's had me pack it into her backpack for school, but each time I pull it out to play for her teacher, she acts shy and won't play it.

Breakfast...

2009-03-05T09:54:00.004-05:00

It's been a while since I last posted. It's been a crazy week.

This morning instead of immediately giving Charlotte her breakfast, I decided to clean a bit (everyone knows how I HATE a messy house). So after I washed the trillions of sippy cups on the counter (another pet peeve of mine), I looked over at Charlotte and found out that she had already found her own meal.

She found a can of mixed nuts and was content eating that while watching Dora the Explorer.

I couldn't miss a photo op, so I asked her to smile for me. The result is her new fake, cheesy smile.

Princess Monkey...

2009-02-22T12:15:00.002-05:00

Charlotte made her first visit the Build A Bear this week. She chose a pink monkey and of course a Sleeping Beauty (she calls the character just Beauty) outfit. So far, the monkey's name is Princess Monkey.
Charlotte has a variety of princess nightgowns that she has to wear on an almost-daily basis. I couldn't resist taking a picture of them.

Haircut

2009-02-17T23:13:00.002-05:00

FYI for those of you who noticed. I did take Charlotte in for her first haircut. The back of her hair was getting long and uneven and when she woke up, there would be a tangled mess that stuck straight up. So we went to Clubhouse Cuts. They have individual seats that look like various cars and her own tv and DVD player. She picked out Diego while they ATTEMPTED to cut her hair. She screamed the entire time and the cut took about five minutes. I'm surprised I lasted that long in trying to calm her down. Right afterwards, she was happy and climbing on the big slide they have in there!

Bird feeder

2009-02-17T11:07:00.003-05:00

At the toddler time this morning, Charlotte made a bird feeder out of pretzel, peanut butter, and seeds. She hung it up once we got home and could not WAIT to see the birds. First she looked out the window and was impatient and wanted to go outside. I told her that she had to be quiet so the birds would come.
*Note the outfit. We've entered the "I want to wear...." phase.

Just pictures...

2009-02-16T10:36:00.003-05:00

Not much to post about, so I decided to just take a few pictures this morning and post them. Charlotte was being serious and watching tv until she realized I was taking pictures and decided to ham it up for the camera.

Lipstick and I love....

2009-02-09T17:18:00.002-05:00

Charlotte loves to play with my makeup and usually it's the clear lipgloss or chapstick. While I was putting on makeup today, she had an actual lipstick and put it all over her mouth. When I showed her in the mirror what she looked like, she started to giggle and let me take a picture.

Today Charlotte's class talked about love. When they asked her who she loved, guess who she said? I was able to get her to say it on video...

New haircut...

2009-01-30T14:42:00.002-05:00

I decided to get my hair cut and styled DIFFERENTLY and I like it. I had bangs when I was pregnant and hated it. But that was 50 lbs ago, so it looks much better now.

Loving girly clothes....

2009-01-22T16:29:00.003-05:00

I took Charlotte shopping the other day at Gymboree (sp) and she immediately picked out this shirt. She carried it around the entire store until we checked out. Later that night when Mike came home, I showed him all the clothes we bought and she dropped her dinner and wanted to wear the shirt as a dress.

Charlotte has also been into wearing any dress that has a princess theme to it. Her cousin Lilly has a lot of princess dresses and doesn't like to dress up. Each time we go to their house, Charlotte wants to them to dress up. Today, Auntie and Lilly were nice enough to let Charlotte have the one that she always wants to wear. I've had a princess in our house all day.

Dress up

2009-01-16T10:12:00.003-05:00

Charlotte has been going through the total girly faze. She loves makeup and especially grabbing anything to make a dress. In the past week, she's grabbed paper towels, kitchen towels, scarves, etc. Today she grabbed the table runner and insisted it be on her shoulders. That gave me an idea to make a Laotion dress for her. She also demanded her "pretty crown", which I couldn't find. I had to improvise with the necklace I wore at our wedding. Since I can't get the child to stand still for two seconds, I had to quickly take the pictures and was only able to get two of her looking at the camera.

Trip to Haiti...

2009-01-15T15:54:00.002-05:00

Please keep in mind to pray for my friend Jennifer as she prepares for her trip to Haiti on January 28th. She and several others will spend time in the capital (Port-au-Prince) and then travel 6-8 hours to St. Louis De Sud where they will help support a church and school.
I'm very jealous of her. :) Maybe when Charlotte gets older (next year?), we can start taking her with us on mission trips.

Timeout...night night time...play time...

2009-01-14T23:23:00.005-05:00

Charlotte was given timeout tonight because she wanted apple juice (we water it down) prior to going to bed. As a rule, no apple juice is allowed. But what really got her into trouble was telling me "RIGHT NOW!" when I told her that we don't drink apple juice before bed.
You can see from the pictures:

- she got timeout

- was taken out

- gave me an "I'm sorry" kiss

- went upstairs for night night time

- got sidetracked by the playroom on the way to bed

Typical Charlotte filled day.... :)

picture day...

2009-01-09T12:12:00.002-05:00

It's been a while since we took some pictures. In two of these, she's blowing kisses to daddy.