So I just got in from checking the mail and guess what came today… Charlotte’s stocking. This year we got the “1st Christmas” stocking for her, just like we did for Bo on his first year. Next year we will “graduate” to her official stocking!!
We are finally complete!
No real post here, just some pictures I got off my camera!
Two of the sweetest people I know…my cousin Liz and my sweet baby girl! A lot of my family members think Charlotte could be a lot like Liz…I’d take that any day!!
Sunday night after our “day of decorating” we headed down to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens for their Christmas Light display! It was absolutely beautiful!!!! It was a beautiful night, we had a blast! Bo loved the lights! We met up with my Uncle Sam, Aunt Rachelle, and cousin Parker. The boys had a fun time together running here, there, and everywhere to see it all! I must admit I wouldn’t mind going back with just Jarrod and I and be able to actually enjoy it from the standpoint of not having to chase a 3 yr old around, but oh well!
still wearing his Santa hat!!
Don’t you love Jarrod’s face…we were totally holding up the line here trying to get Bo to cooperate!
This weekend we finally finished up our decorations with our tree. We now have 3 trees in our house! One in the playroom, one in Bo’s room, and now our family room tree. I must admit getting out the decorations this year has been so much fun with Bo. I can say that this year he REALLY gets it…he gets Santa, he gets the decorations, he gets the “you better be good Santa is watching” line, he’s getting it all. The other night we were in the car leaving the neighborhood and he told Jarrod and I that we needed to put lights on our plants! I was cracking up give him another year and he’ll want one of those inflatable snowmen in the front yard! He has been such a big helper decorating the trees and every night he makes sure the lights are turned on, especially in the playroom.
This past weekend our friendly Elf Edward decided to join us! For anyone who may not know the “Elf on the Shelf” story…he is an elf who has been sent by Santa to watch the boys and girls throughout the day. Every night he goes back to the north pole to tell Santa if the kids have been naughty or nice and returns the next morning. He moves around the house and finds a new spot to “watch” from each day. The only rule is he cannot be touched or that will take away his “magic”. You can talk to him and he has this nifty little power where he can actually talk back to the parents :) So far it’s been a lot of fun! It’s fun to see Bo come down each morning and look to see where Edward is.
I also decided to make an Advent Calendar. There are tons of Advent calendars around and on the internet, but I wanted to start the tradition of an “activity” calendar. So each morning we come down, remove the number for that day, and see what we are going to do. I made this out of a mini muffin pan, some Christmas scrapbook paper, and magnets to hold the numbers on…easy peasy! Then I just typed up a bunch of different activities for us to do on different days. Since I’m the CEO of our family calendar I know what we have going on and when so for example one day may be Christmas program at school, or pictures with Santa…things we would be doing anyway, but it’s just more fun for it to be an actual event!
Some of our activities include…
Christmas crafts in the afternoon (Bo loves crafts)
Mail Christmas cards
Family movie night with a Christmas movie and popcorn
Ride around and look at Christmas lights
Read a Christmas story before bedtime
Bake Christmas cookies
Go buy Christmas gift for Charlotte (mommy has already taken Charlotte to buy hers for Bo)
Donate old toys to a local shelter here in town
Deliver Christmas goodies to neighbors, Dr’s office, and I think we’re even going to stop by the firestation!
So we have a lot of fun things planned this month and Bo is loving it!
Edward the Elf came Friday night and turned this…
into this…
Daddy ready Bo the Elf story so we understood where he was from and what he did!
He even brought Polar Express, a wonderful Christmas movie!
Just taking it all in!
Getting out the decorations…Jarrod is actually telling Bo about the ornaments he made with his daddy when he was a little boy, they are now hanging on our tree.
He LOVED decorating the tree and he wore that Santa hat ALL day long!!!
Charlotte’s stocking hasn’t gotten here yet, but it’s definitely been ordered!
One of my favorite decorations…Bo’s Santa pictures from each year. I still have to frame last years, but I just love having them from the past years!
Our big family tree
The playroom all decorated
Bo put all of the ornaments on all on his own, he is so proud!
Wow how time is flying these days!! I’ve always heard it goes by faster with the second and man does it ever! Our sweet little doodlebug turned 6 months on November 19th. She is growing so, so fast!! We have had quite an interesting month. Sweet Charlotte actually came down with RSV a few weeks ago. I think we’ve paid for a new wing at the pediatrician’s office! The past two months we have literally been in there once, if not twice a week. We were doing breathing treatments every 3 hours, which absolutely wore me out. Of course the medicine was wiring her up so we weren’t getting much sleep either. It was a LONG few weeks. She’s doing much better, right now she has a runny nose and is a little congested, but that’s expected with big brother bringing home all of his lovely germs from school!
At her checkup last week she weighed 16.2 lbs and was 28 in long. I looked back at Bo’s stats at this age and she’s an inch longer than he was!! He’s very tall for his age, so at this rate I can’t imagine how tall she’ll be!! Everything looked good. She’s eating well, I’ve been making most all of her food except for her oatmeal. A friend gave me a Baby Bullet baby food maker and I LOVE it!!! I use it all the time! She loves fruit, by far her favorite. She’s had most all of the fruits and veggies that she can at this point. The doctor said we can start giving her meat at 7 months, that I will definitely have to figure out how to make for her. I’ll admit the meats always grossed me out with Bo. I’ve started giving her a sippy cup with water in it a few times a day, she basically just chews on it. I think we’ll have a tooth coming through any day now she’s chewing on anything she can get her hands on. She’s also so close to crawling. She’s getting up on all fours and rocking back and forth so it’s coming! You can ask anyone who has been around her she is such a happy baby. She smiles ALL the time!! We are so blessed with this little girl!!!
Her “1/2 Birthday” cupcake!
I absolutely love her expression here! I feel that’s going to be her look for him for years to come!
