Special Birthday Announcement!

I haven't done any birthday posts in a long time but this is a special occasion.  My older bro turned 40 last week.  What a big time birthday! I had to say something! 

Here are a couple more family pics to see how far you've come! ;-) 

Happy Birthday Bro! Hope it's the best one yet!! 

Meeting Friends from the West Coast

We went over to the Neals to meet baby Aashni for the first time. Aashni was born two weeks or so before Charlotte.  

 They're birth month buddies!

Instant friends! They each have each other's outfit and in fact, both almost wore the other's that night. So weird! 

 Aww, I think Charlotte is trying to hold her hand! Besties! :)

Tommy had a great time with friends too.  

Wyatt and Harper were at this table but had already finished their dinner before Tommy and Emme.  Tommy also grabbed a grape tomato thinking it was actually a grape and popped it in his mouth.  He almost puked.  Yikes! I bet it was almost as big of a surprise as when my friend Angela took a big gulp of jewelry cleaner thinking it was water! I know I would have puked. :)

It was great meeting baby Aashni and hanging out with friends.  Glad Aashni and parents could visit during another polar vortex.  I'm sure they miss snow in sunny San Diego. ;-)

Charlotte is 4 Months Old!

She is! Just look at her! 

AHH-DORABLE.  

Here are some outtakes from the photo sesh.  

 NOT HAPPY.  I mean, duh.  She's not wearing a bow.

Then the sheer weight of the bow completely toppled her over.  Poor thing. 

So anyway, let's get on to the stats.  

 Charlotte took her giraffe and blankie to her appointment for comfort.

 Charlotte weighed in at 13.25 pounds.  She's 35 percentile, up from 28th percentile at her last appointment. Hey, she's growing! She was 25 inches which is 70th percentile.  She's got a long torso and long legs.  I don't remember her measurement for head size but they told us she was 80th percentile.  Big ol' gourd! Turns out, Charlotte is long and skinny with a big head.  So she's our little Lollipop.

 They said we could start solids so we did (because of these studies).  People have been asking us a lot if we can tell if Charlotte has any food allergies.  At this point, Tommy was already completely rashed out so things are looking up.
I started with rice cereal at dinner.  She did NOT understand what was going on at first.  Then she finally got the hang of it and would grab at the spoon! She hardly got any to stay in her mouth but she did great! Awesome first round, Charlotte!!

To go over the things I mentioned in the first picture… You've already seen in a previous post that she can roll over.  She also loves to grasp toys now. She can grab them and get them up to her mouth to chew.  It keeps her busy for a little while.  It's kinda nice! Why? Because she gets really mad, very quickly.  You can tell she's getting mad because she will start to grunt.  She grunts louder and longer and angrier if you don't do something about it.  She is definitely particular! She gets her message across! :) She could be grunting because she's mad about her first real cold.  It's pretty sad to hear her cough but she's toughing through it like a champ.  

 She doesn't wear bows all the time… but when she does, it's beyond precious.  She's the most interesting baby in the world. ;-)

Happy Four Months, Miss Charlotte! 

Polar Vortex of 2014

The Polar Vortex was coming and Andrew was going to be gone all week so the kids and I packed up and went to my parents.  I didn't want to be stuck at home by myself with two littles during this disaster.  It was a good thing too, as you shall see… 

 The kids moved into my parents house and pretty much took over the place right away. :-)

 Grandpa fell asleep watching Robin Hood for the 4 billionth time with Tommy.  Yay Netflix!

 Charlotte was so tired but she still wanted to see if Robin Hood ended up with Maid Marian.  Must. Not. Fall. Asleep. Must. Watch…

 Grandma got out Uncle Adam's old toys and Tommy had a ball! Teenage Mutenant Injun Tuttles!! Batman! Legos! Jets! Planes! Cars! Where does Grandma have rooms for all these bins of toys???

Mama got to play with toys too.  Grandma got out my old American girl doll collection.  So cool.

 We spent a lot of time under blankets watching movies.

 Charlotte did too! Only she learned a new trick which you will see in the next post.

 Grandma risked the SUBZERO TEMPERATURES (Liar, Liar) to take a super cool picture of the Sun Dog.

 We took baths! (I seem to remember a similar picture of someone else we know from 3 years ago… )

Here's Tommy taking a bath at Grandma's from 2011!

 Here's Tommy taking a bath in 2014! My, how he's grown!

We all did a lot of lounging while we were stuck snowed in the house.  

Tommy spent some quality time going around and sitting on everything in the shop.  The four-wheeler is the perfect size!

 We also checked out the boat!

Then after the snow emergency was lifted, we headed back to our house.  I wanted my parents to come back with me just to make sure the house was in good shape after the awful weather.  I had a feeling something was going to go wrong (because something usually does when Andrew leaves).  I was right!

During the extreme cold, our furnace had a wire come loose. The house hadn't been heated in who knows how long.  The temperature in the house when we walked in was 40 degrees.  It was like we were still outside.  Everything in the house was freezing!!! The countertops were so cold, you couldn't leave your hand resting on them for more than 5 seconds. I couldn't take off my shoes because the floors were so cold.  My dad was able to fix the furnace and get it running again.  So my parents, the kids, and I all left for two hours hoping the temps would rise quickly.  We got back to the house after 2 hours and it was 44 degrees.  It was going to be a long night.  I got out the space heater and electric blanket for Tommy's room and put him to bed. We had a fire in the fire place.  But man, it takes the house a LONG TIME to warm up from 40 degrees.  In the morning, it was 59 degrees.  Are you kidding me?? Sheesh.

 Charlotte didn't mind.  She wore layer upon layer and was perfectly happy.  Phew!

Something else I discovered before I went to bed were these water stains on the ceiling in the kitchen.  Oh shizz.   I shut the water off and went to bed.  What else could I do?

The next morning, it got bigger. :(
We called a plumber assuming it was a burst pipe and then spent the night in a hotel room.  (Turns out, a lot of people had plumbing issues after the cold temps so we had to wait a day for them to come out.)

The next morning we ate breakfast at the hotel. They had individual TVs for each of the tables.  Tommy LOVED watching Mickey in his Star Wars jammies in the restaurant.  I'm sure people got a kick out of that. :-)
The plumbers came out and said they believed it was only a leak and they were able to fix it right away.  We were extremely lucky that there wasn't more damage.  We can do the leftover repairs, thank goodness!
So even though it seemed disastrous at the time, it turned out the problems were not that bad and we survived! Whoo hoo!

All I have to say is thank goodness for my parents! Mom and Dad to the rescue! AGAIN. :-)  Thanks Ma and Pa! I seriously can't thank you enough! 

Charlotte's New Trick

A week ago, Charlotte decided she was tired of all this laying around on her back that she's been doing… and she decided to do something about it!

She kind of skipped right over the tummy to back part and went for the big one.  Good for you, baby girl! Overachiever!

This video is my favorite. She's so proud!

Cindy Lou Who Wears Purdue

I took so many pictures to get this shot where you could see the Purdue logo, see the tassel, and have some sort of smile. It was a rough one.

Here are some of the better outtakes. 

Heehee!! 

Christmas 2013

So Christmas… 

 Yes, I'm a little late on these posts.  Time really gets away from me these days.  So let's talk about Christmas.  First, there was our Christmas card.  We set up my new camera and stood out in the snow in our jammies.

 Then we took some pics inside of just the kiddos.  Charlotte looks like a cabbage patch doll in this shot! :)

 We also tried some other shots that did not make it on the Christmas card. Haha!

 Charlotte had several Christmas outfits as you can tell.

Our first Christmas of the year was the Sunday before and it was in Renssy.

 The best gift of the night was a GIANT DOLPHIN.  Tommy kept saying "I got a GIANT DOLPHIN!"  Then he would ride it like a horse.

 Charlotte didn't know what to think.

Tommy quickly got bored while everyone else was opening presents so he played 5,4,3,2,1 Blast Off with Grandpa.  

 Charlotte got a new toy that she loved because she could actually hold it… and eat it.

 Then she fell asleep.  With all the noise, this was really impressive.

 Then we took a family photo! Oh those crazy Keipers-Keipers-Bickleys-Thornburgs.


Then it was time for Christmas Eve…

 We let Tommy open one gift.  It was from his Godmother Traci.  Oh my, it was a good choice!

You can see it in this picture.  It's a four-wheeler pulling a jet ski.  Are you kidding me?? Awesomeness! He lined it up with some of his other toys.  Loved it!

 Then we watched It's a Wonderful Life.  I cried. Duh.

 THEN SANTA CAME!!

 He filled out stockings too!

 Tommy got a drum set.  Thanks so much, Santa! ;-)

Then we watched movies all day.  The Aristocats was the choice of the day.  Thanks, Netflix! :)

 Then we made allergy-free Grinch cookies (sugar cookies with green icing).

 YUMMY! Best allergy-free cookies I've made to date! They were greasy as you can see in this picture but they actually tasted like cookies! Sweet! Thanks, Squeezy Parkay!

Charlotte enjoyed watching us decorate and looked super cute doing it!  

Then the following Saturday we had Christmas in Fishers with the Thornburgs. 

 We tried to get Tommy to ride Otis but it didn't work out so well.

We spent some time trying to get Charlotte to nap in a new environment.  She did but she liked to fight it!  

 But Tommy had a great time!

Charlotte had a good time too, hanging out in everyone's arms.  

Then we took a family picture.  Andrew thought the walls would make a good green screen.  Boy was he right!!

This was my first not so successful try.

Then oh the humanity, we tried this one.  

Then I got this great idea.  Andrew said, "Peter, pass the bread!"

 Finally we thought this would be a good ending to the green screen posts.

We laughed so hard at these.  Love them!

We really had 3 lovely Christmases this year.  Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!!