4 years

Charlotte was sooo excited about her birthday today. This is really our first birthday ever where we had all the build up and the excited anticipation. It has truly been a blast.

She consented to 4 year old pictures this morning, wearing the shirt Grandma found for her. Then she went off to daycare with her cupcakes and favors she picked out from the Dollar Store. She was telling me that she will get to wear a crown and that Miss Kathy will pick her first to get a cupcake and she will pick a chocolate one with the purple balloon on top. I mentioned that maybe Miss Kathy might not pick her first and that would be okay, too, and she gave me the dirtiest, most dismissive, most "you totally don't know what you're talking about mom" look ever. Derek and I laughed.

Here she is in all her four year old glory.








edited to add: Charlotte's first birthday picture. This made me laugh this morning.

Snow Day

This morning, after wind gusts overnight up to 60 mph, Derek took the kids to daycare only to find they didn't have power when he got there. So he brought them home. Charlotte was so excited about her first snow day. As it turned out, Doodlebugs called about 45 minutes later and had reopened, but I didn't have the heart to make Charlotte go back in. Grace was happy to go, so it is just me and Charlotte hanging out today.

She consented to a few pictures, many of which I got out of focus. I liked these, though. Her hair looks curly here but it is really mostly straight these days. We washed it last night and she went to bed with it a little wet. She wants to grow it longer, so right now it is kind of a floppy mess.

some from Naples

Grace playing with the water out of Grandma's pool. Both girls liked scooping out the water and dumping it all over. Neither are that keen on swimming (although to be fair it was really too cold those days to try to convince them). No face shots because Grace really, really does not like to be photographed. Sigh.







Charlotte practicing writing. She wrote "Charlotte" across the top and is writing "Grace" underneath it.




One of my favorites. Gracie brushing her teeth before bed.



A nice shot of Charlotte and Uncle Pat.



Everybody on the morning we left.

Sea World

We went to Sea World Tuesday and Wednesday with Ron and Laura. We all really enjoyed it. It is a great place to visit with kids of any age. Here are a few pictures, all taken with Derek's new camera.

The underwater dolphin viewing was really cool.






Derek took this and I really like it. I don't have many pictures of me with the kids, and this one really struck me. Plus, I love his lens flare.



That string she is holding is the neck strap from Derek's camera. She calls it her elephant and it has a truck and a tail (and I got hollered at once for talking to the wrong end). He talks (constantly) by making elephant noises and then Charlotte tells us all what he said. She carried him around for most of the week and they talked and played all through all the parks. You sort of sometimes got the sense that we could have saved two grand and just let her stay home with a piece of string and she would have been just as happy.

Grace saying hi to the Penguin at Sea World. As she would say "I hi him!"

The first of many Disney posts

Just cherry-picking my favorites from last week. The first three are probably the best that I have photographically speaking (which may not be saying all that much) This is the Indy Adventure ride, or something like that, in Tomorrowland. Charlotte loved driving the car. I don't think Grace was that thrilled. The rides in general were not really her thing.

She was so cute peering over the steering wheel.



Probably the best smiley Charlotte picture that I have taken in 6 months. I love it!



Grace and Derek in the car behind us.



Grace went nuts over meeting the characters. She just loved it. It was by far her favorite part of the whole Disney thing. The first time we saw Minnie from afar, I held her up so she could see and she said "I want hi her!" She was ticked that we didn't wait in the 45 minute line to get to go up and meet her. That was the first day. Once we embraced the Disney Zen-like state in which you get used to waiting 30 minutes in line to do anything, we waited and met many of the characters in all the parks. Grace enthusiastically hi-ed them all.

Just two of my favorite shots.

Minnie at Animal Kingdom.



Here, she is posing with Pluto for the Disney photographer, who had a much better position. I kind of like the side view, though.

some Christmas snaps

Just a few from Christmas. I only took pictures Christmas morning, so we missed all the other nice visits we made in the three day Christmas marathon, which is a shame. I'll do better next year. I hope to have lots more Charlotte and Grace pictures next month, especially the Florida/Disney trip. The past two months has been so busy, I definitely neglected shots of the kids. I suspect they appreciated the break.

Grace rooting around in her stocking. She got all red lollypops, which she LOVES. She goes around saying "Wed lollypop! I yike it!" Say "lollypop" outloud to yourself replacing the "l" sounds with "y"s and you'll get how she sounds when she says the word. Adorable. Say "lullaby" the same way and you'll pass out from the cuteness, I guarantee it.



Grace playing the the Thomas the Train that Grandma brought. She got a little saturated with all the presents and sort of hid in there for awhile Christmas morning.



Charlotte stirring.



Grace playing with a combination of toys and the new kitchen



Just a cute snap of Charlotte.

Cookies at Nana's

The girls and I joined Allison and Nana this past Sunday and decorated Christmas cookies. Charlotte was very excited about it, but she only lasted for about 5 cookies. She was really just trying to get to the eating part. Grace kept it up for quite awhile. She really liked shaking the sprinkles on. Allison baked the cookies and they turned out great. They let me take about 6 pictures, so here they are. I should try to scan in the pictures Nana has of me and Alex when we were about this size.

First Snow

Charlotte was excited to make a snowman last weekend with our first snow. It was great snow for packing. She specifically asked for a picture of her with the snowman, and then she posed with it like this. Very cute.