Charlotte's Family Picture Book

I finally completed a project that has been “in the making” FOREVER. This is a family picture book I created for Charlotte based on a project my Mom did for the ‘Not boys and a suggested project from Jan Parish (Early Literacy classes). Anyway, we “read” the book to Charlotte as one of her bedtime stories every night and she alternates between repeating the names back to us, kissing the picture or just pointing and saying the name without being prompted. Actually we kinda hide the book from her until the end of story time because she otherwise only wants to read THIS book. She just loves seeing all the people who love her every night and she is picking up their names so quickly. She can say Ramie, Cameron, Tony, Rose, and Brennan clear as day! I am thinking of making her a book of common things she sees every day like her Ducky, crib, bike, toy box, etc or her extended family and friends. I’ll let you know if I ever get there….

“Making” Cookies for Daddy

Tonight Charlotte helped me “make” cookies for Daddy. I thought it would be best to start her baking with the easy (READ: less messy) stuff so break-away cookies it was! Charlotte liked “making cookies” but mostly she LOVED eating raw cookie dough. The first time she took a bite she made a face like she didn’t like it at all but about two seconds later she said “MORE” really loudly. She kept saying “MORE” until she could get her hands on another one. You can see the evidence in the pictures, the more cookies we put on the cookie sheet the bigger her bites got. Charlotte really enjoyed licking her fingers but was not as impressed with the baked cookies – go figure.

One Summer Night in the Baby Pool...

Tonight Grandma brought over a special treat for Charlotte – her first baby pool! It is the most adorable Giraffe pool and Charlotte just loved it. They spent the better part of an hour playing in the water - Charlotte was just laughing and squealing! She alternated between standing up and splashing back in the water, kissing the giraffe and making the biggest splashes she could. She had such a fun night with Grandma!

Charlotte’s First Baby Doll

This afternoon we decided to give Charlotte a doll she received for her birthday.  Although she opened all her gifts onn her big day, we have been slowly introducing the presents she received at her party for maximum wow factor!  She was just so adorable with the baby – loving on it, rocking and feeding it.  Charlotte just melted our hearts!

“Big Girl” Cup

Lately we have been giving Charlotte a chance to practice drinking from a “big girl” cup. Here is a picture of her working new skills – her technique is pretty good! She still gets a lot of water down the front of her shirt but has learned to keep the cup upright and hold it with both hands!

Yummy…Watermelon!

Chamber's 4th Of July

Today Wayne, Charlotte and I headed down to Palm Bay to celebrate the 4^th with the Chambers’ Clan!  Charlotte and I met so much family and we all had a great visit.  

Charlotte with Cousin Lisa

 We were also celebrating Cousin Chris' 40th Birthday and Chris & Maggie's Wedding Anniversary!  I took so many photos, too many to post but here are some photo highlights of our great day.

Charlotte’s 1st Birthday Party – In A Magazine!

Check it out – Charlotte’s birthday party was featured in the Summer ’09 edition of Playground Magazine. “Central Florida's hip and sophisticated source for all things related to parenting”. Pretty neat, right? You can click on the magzine below to enlarge the pictures and flip to page 61 to see what they published!

Open publication - Free publishing - More hip