"Ah, Spring!"

(Narrated by Charlie)
I love Spring, it means that Mom and Dad let me outside where there are so many awesome things to explore like garden tools, bugs, puddles and of course my favorite thing of all---dirt.

Here's me helping Dad to plant. My job is to shake all of the dirt off of the shovel or wipe it off on the front of my shirt. I also look out for interesting bugs that I can pick up and play with. Mom doesn't like me to put them in my mouth so please don't tell her that I think I may have eaten an ant on accident.

I also help with watering. I have a little trouble getting the water to come out in the right spot. I think it's much quicker to toss the whole can on top of the plant and let the water run out of the top.

All right, don't look too close...ok yeah maybe I ate some dirt. See...this patch of dirt looked different from what was in the front yard so I had to try some to check it out. Yup, same old taste. Shoot, mom's gonna kill me...

Charlie's playgroup buds

These are Charlie's playgroup pals: (L-R) Charlotte, Benjamin, Bronte, C.K.A., and Brendan. Sid's here too, but he stepped out of the photo. We meet every Tuesday and let our little ones go wild while we Moms snack and chat. At one point, we looked over to see our kids playing piano together--very cute! It's such a great group.

Baby Lexi!

During our recent trip to South Carolina we got a chance to meet Alexis Kim Wright, Mark and Jenni's 3-month old cutie. She is such a sweetheart even when her dad's poking her chubby cheeks to "toughen her up". So glad we were able to meet you in person Lexi and next time we promise to bring Charlie!

Gram and Gramps in SC

Charlie got to take a ride on Grandpa's tractor. The weather was beautiful while we were there, so we spent a lot of time outside.

This is a picture of Grandma and Grandpa's house. They moved to Simpsonville, SC about a year and a half ago.

Grandma got a special treat for Charlie--miniature ice cream cones! These seem to be a lot less messy than the big ones!

This bubble hippo is way cool!

Wrestling with Grandpa. Sweet, it's past my bedtime too!

Charlie got to try his first watermelon with Grandma, it was a big hit.

Only one blanket in the whole wide world

Charlie got this homemade fleece blanket from mom's friend Danyelle soon after he was born. When he was around 6 months old we noticed that he liked playing with the fringe, chewing on it, etc. Then when he was around 10 months old his affection for the blanket became more obvious. Whenever he spotted it, he would crawl over from wherever he was and dive onto the blanket, stuffing it into his mouth and growling. Apparently this is how Charlie shows love because he often does the same diving and growling thing to his parents.

3 cuties in a wagon: Charlie, Madelyn and Katie Beth

Mealtime Twister (left hand sippy cup, right hand pudding...)

"Charlie and the spoon" (a series)

The other night we relented (after Charlie had already taken a ravioli in his hand and smeared it generously all over his scalp) and let Charlie have a go at feeding himself some butterscotch pudding...Here he is surveying the spoon.

There was no hesitation on the part of the young novice. He dove in with fervor...

and eventually made it to his mouth...and chin...and nose...

Then he found a quicker way

The end.

Walking never felt...so painful!

Charlie is walking---rather unsteadily I must add. He takes so many spills now and, being at a higher altitude, these spills are more traumatic. Yesterday, right before Mom was about to take him to meet friends for lunch, he took a header into the coffee table. As soon as I picked him up I saw that his eye was bright blue which of course freaked Mom out. Putting ice on it seemed to bother him worse then the injury so eventually we gave up on that. Today it is a pretty rainbow of purple, red and blue. I'm sure it will only get more attractive.

A Snowy Easter in Cherry Creek

We headed out to Cherry Creek to spend Easter with my parents and were just a little disappointed to see nearly two feet of snow--ok a lot disappointed! It snowed ALL weekend and was cold and cloudy. Not really the weather we were hoping for. Charlie had been so excited to swing in the tree swing too. But...indoors we had fun exploring Grandma's cupboards and, hmmm, garbage can. We also caught Charlie with a piece of dog food, hopefully he hadn't already eaten a piece, but who knows! Charlie loved the music on Easter Sunday. Whenever he hears music he starts to mark the beat with his arms and sing along.

Friends

--(Above) Abel Austin can teach Charlie a lot, especially about how to eat cake and ice cream:) (Left) Cousin Aaron, Madelyn and Kaylynn and (below) Natalie and "Charlie Barley"

Charlie is lucky to have so many great buddies to pal around with. Mom and Dad are starting to realize that they're lucky too b/c Charlie is learning valuable lessons about sharing, hitting, poking, throwing..well, you get the picture. It's always entertaining on co-op days (one day a week a bunch of us exchange childcare) because Jen gets to see the kids' little imaginations at work. Natalie is the queen of make believe and always incorporates Charlie into her themes. The best yet is the day that Natalie was rescuing Baby Moses from Pharoah. I saw her insisting to Charlie that he "Let my people go!" and found out that Charlie was Pharoah! On another day, Little Mermaid was on the docket with Natalie as the main character, Ariel, and Charlie assigned to play the part of Flounder. Very amusing!

Charlie had his one year appointment last week and has finally stopped gaining weight like a madman. He is staying steady at 25.3 lbs, but has grown almost 3 inches from his 9 month appointment and is now 31.5 inches tall. Everything looked good and Charlie was showing off his steps to the doctor and smiling until...shot time. Three Elmo bandaids seemed to make it better...

We are struggling with the bottle to sippy cup protocol. Seems that Charlie's solution to the bottle being gone during the day is to survive the day on a few sips of milk and then just slam 16 ounces at bedtime when he finally gets his dear old bottle back. We're going to have to figure out a new plan...

He's also started to take pleasure in "sharing." This means that when he is eating or drinking anything, he stops to offer it to Mom or Dad or whoever is near by. This is cute until you get caught off guard and a slimy graham cracker is shoved in your face!

More birthday moments and messes

Charlie was pretty excited to come down on the day of his party and see balloons everywhere!

Charlie gets into the party spirit...

Hangin' with Uncle Jon

Cousins, Charlie and Lincoln (9mths), play at Aunt Jan's

Leaving no crumb unsmushed...

"I'm One!"

Charlie's birthday didn't quite turn out as expected, but he turned 1 regardless and definitely enjoyed all the cake! I, Jen, was in Baltimore for work the week prior and got stuck due to a "snow storm" (they called it a snow storm in Baltimore, but needless to say, it was minor at best). Anyway, the airline delayed my flight from Friday night to Wednesday! Since I wasn't interested in sticking around in Baltimore for an extra five days (and I was missing my boy's birthday!), I rented a car and drove home on Saturday. Meanwhile, that day Charlie was busy turning 1 year old without me! Luckily he had his Dad, Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle Jon with him so he had lots of family around. We had to postpone his party to the next week and we weren't sure what to do with the huge sheet cake we had ordered. But...everything turned out well in the end. I got home safe and sound--even in time to wake up little Charlie and sing him a sleepy Happy Birthday. Then...the next day we all got together at Aunt Jan's to celebrate St. Patrick's Day and Charlie's birthday too. That took care of the sheet cake! The next weekend we had a wonderfully chaotic party with all of Charlie's pals. So...in the end, Charlie was lucky. He got to celebrate for two weeks instead of one day and, in all, that meant more fun and more cake!!

Our little chef!

Charlie spent the day at the Watsons and had a ton of fun hanging out with three beautiful girls!! [He'll realize later how lucky he is]. Kat said that Charlie loved playing in "the kitchen" mostly swiping everything off the counters and out of drawers. I don't know if I believe it, look how innocent he is in this photo:)