Charlotte May

Since we still can't upload pics in the usual way (grrrr), I've created a temporary work-around to show what we've been up to these past few months.

I'm going to focus on Charlotte today, since she's been growing leaps and bounds it seems. Here's a quick update on our little squirt:

In the past month she's gotten really good at animal noises. She can do a monkey, doggy, kitty cat, sea lion (my favorite), elephant, bee, cow, owl, snake, and lion. She's mastered "Mama" and "Dada" too - which basically gets her anything she wants. The conversations she has with us are often very serious, only we can't quite tell the gibberish apart from her real words. But she's getting there - it's almost as if we need to figure out her language, not the other way around.

She loves to pretend jump, which is adorable. Crouching down then stretching up really-really fast, arms flapping over and over. I'm pretty sure she thinks she's really doing it.

She's in love with her baby dolls. She likes to cover them with blankies (head to toe) then instruct everyone around her to "shhhhhhhh" so baby can sleep. She's meticulous about getting the blanket placement just so, and it often takes her more than a few tries to arrange it perfectly. She also gives the babies a bottle or spoons them some food. Once they wake up, naturally.

Our amazing eater has become a little pickier about what she's in the mood for, at the ripe old age of 18 months. She might turn her nose up at veggies one night, then clamor for more broccoli the next. She also seems to now hit a point during mealtime when she *finally* feels full and asks to be done. (This has been a welcome change since it used to be up to us to cut her off, otherwise she would have kept on eating and eating and eating.)

 

With all the warm weather we've been blessed with this winter, we're spending lots of afternoons at the park. Playing on the slide mostly, since it's her favorite. She also seems to enjoy getting friendly with the other kids by sidling up (so close she's only a couple inches away from their faces) then just staring into their uncertain eyes. And it's funny (well, not really) to see how the other kids handle what is clearly an invasion of their personal space. Some cry and call for their mom or dad, some sit there frozen and completely uncomfortable, and some take a swat at her. Doesn't seem to deter our little observer.

Obviously we spend a lot of time reminding her to be gentle and not crowd the other kids. But who wouldn't want to be super close to this cute face?! ;)

Video Only

Bad news: we still aren't able to upload pictures to the blog. Womp womp. I had to bring Matt in for consultation last night and even he couldn't figure out the problem, which is bad news since he's fairly good with computers (a HUGE understatement).

This has put me wwwaaaaaayyyyyy behind in posting. But instead of focusing on that frustration today, I'll turn to a sweet girl who always takes my troubles away. This time using a more reliable medium: video!

Just some ordinary dinner-time fun. Actually this is a pretty mellow dinner. I'll work on getting a rowdier video of the girls up soon. Shouldn't be tough to find. Those two can get GIGGLY :)

Charlotte's Candles

Charlotte turned 18 months on January 30th. (A fact that would probably have gone unnoticed if my sister hadn't emailed that day asking me to pass along a hug to the b-day girl. Thank goodness for aunts!)

She also celebrated her baptism this past Sunday, which means she got to enjoy two cakes last week. The first was a strawberry cupcake, for her birthday, which we stuck a candle in, of course. It was a boxed cake mix, and couldn't compare to the one we had after her baptism. Becky made an amazingly fancy-shmacy layered cake (easily boutique bakery quality). The restaurant we celebrated at kindly popped a candle in that one too. And you know, this baby girl of ours surprises us every single day and these candle encounters were no exception. Now I'm not an expert on 18 month olds, but we all thought this was pretty incredible. And the same thing happened with the one on her cupcake too!

(I'm having trouble loading pics to the blog this week, luckily I have a video to accompany this post. Hopefully I'll be able to add a few pics later, once Google's got things back up and running...)

Conferences

We recently had our first parent teacher conference at Emily's preschool. Cue the suspense: dum, dum, dum. Not really. We figured there wouldn't be any terribly shocking news, since anything significant would have come up sooner.

Turns out we were right: she's doing great! She's proficient in nearly everything on the 3yr old chart. She's a "loving, confident, happy, friendly, empathetic girl" - which, when it comes down to it, are some of the most  important qualities, in our minds.

Her best buds are the 4 year olds, and apparently she recently jumped up to their learning group. (She was invited to be a guest before the switch became official, and we heard bits & pieces about this when she'd say in her all-knowing tone: "When someone invites you over, you are their guest." So learning about the switch finally explained where those seemingly random factoids were coming from.)


One of the two "challenges" her teacher pointed out is always seeking permission before doing something new. But is that really a challenge?? I love that she asks before starting a new task or taking out a new toy. Although, I can see where she might be overly cautious at times, so they're going to try and encourage her to start new activities during "free play" without asking first. And seeking approval also comes up when negotiating social situations with her friends. Evidently, she tends to ask the teachers to intervene instead of working out conflicts on her own, but we think she'll learn how to handle that herself over time. She is hanging with the older kids, after all, who were playing together an entire year before Em joined their group.

Her other "challenge" is trying new things, including food. Ha! We know new foods are tough for her, so that wasn't much of a surprise. But what we didn't realize is that she also has her own daily routine over there, which she evidently doesn't really branch out from. Wow. Anyone who knows us well, knows that my favorite thing in life is a routine. And it looks like I've passed that on to her. So flexibility is something we're both working on this new year ;)

Charlotte's Alternatives to Talking

Charlotte can snap. She puts her little thumb and middle finger together, and snaps just happen. This is not a freak one time thing like when Emily rolled over at 8 months. She saw Amy and I do it once or twice and probably thought she'd pick it up just to prolong having to talk to us.

Fortunately, she's not holding back with the singing. Charlotte quietly sings the tune of Wheels on the Bus. That's expected, considering how much she loves that show on Netflix.

There has been a little progress with the words. We think she's associating Amy to "ma ma ma" and me to "da da da da da da."

We don't know who "GUP" is however.


-Matt

Christmas Day 2014, a little bit blurry but so much fun!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Complete with beef tenderloin and lots of tasty sides. Thanks, Santa!!

Holiday Prep

December was a busy month, full of baking / creating / buying / decorating. We really fit a lot in!

Emily helped make 4 or 5 batches of Great Granny's Shortbread (we made so much I lost count!) for potlucks, parties, and presents. And of course we also made sugar cookies, covered in frosting and sprinkles. And cinnamon ornaments, ala Martha Stewart. And clay snowmen complete with sticks arms collected in our backyard and rolled paper noses, ala Matt Peterson. Emily stamped and stickered the heck out of our Christmas cards. (Charlotte tried to help on a few, but ended up beautifying the floor instead.) I sewed an advent calendar which Em enjoyed decorating - especially on the days when princess ornaments appeared. I even found time to make a couple wreathes.

Oh, and Matt had a birthday in there too, so of course he had help opening presents and blowing out candles on his gingerbread cake, ala Becky Pilapil (!). There was lots of chai tea too. Seems both girls are now fans. All in all a VERY good December.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Holy Moly!!

We discovered last week that Charlotte's top left tooth has poked through. Hooray! We've been waiting and waiting and waiting for some new ones to show up and join those two lonely guys on the bottom.

Then Matt caught a glimpse of a molar (!!!) that's broken through as well. Wait, what?!!? And just yesterday Matt spied another molar on the opposite side. (We've been joking for weeks that she's working on her molars, since she's been gnawing her fingers up and down. But we didn't really think they'd show up so out of order.)

Since then we've gotten tactile confirmation of all 3 of these new puppies, so Charlotte's 2014 focus so far has been growing new teeth.

The funny thing? At this point we figured all her teeth would be showing up late, but these two molars are right on time. And she's been a real trooper taking all this movement in her mouth like a champ. I think she knows they'll open up even more delicious food options. Like raw carrots and dutch pretzels :)

Before we welcome in 2014...

2013 was a good year in the Peterson household. Looking back it had its fair share of changes, but we rolled with them:

• Mama went back to work in February after a whopping 7+ month maternity leave!
• Charlotte started daycare and Emily started preschool with a bang!
• Fortunately, things stayed the same in Matt's work world.

2013 also brought several upgrades to our home, including:

• a much needed new stove, including double ovens which Matt put to good use for BOTH our Thanksgiving & Christmas meals!
• some backyard landscaping, including an expanded patio and a teeny square of GRASS!
• a 2nd car, which was l-o-n-g overdue. And while not technically a "home" upgrade, it was definitely an overall "quality of life" upgrade. Basically, we bought ourselves an extra hour or two each day.

And finally some random numbers from 2013:

• 13,456 raisins & gold fish eaten by the girls on our walks
• 43 times we sang Little Mermaid songs during dinners (Matt would claim this is too many)
• 89 hours Matt spent watching Naruto (probably to forget said songs)
• 12+ hours the girls sleep every day (a very important number to us!)
• 4 raccoons constantly trying to rip up our sod (grrrr)
• 67 pieces of fuzz Charlotte consumed before realizing it doesn't taste good. Now she sticks with raisins.

Sledding in the City

Early in the holiday season, we heard there would be
a manufactured snow park near city hall, and incredibly it fell on a weekend when all 4 of us were healthy and could go. It was small, but perfect for two kiddos who've never played in snow before. There was a sledding hill and separate sections for building snowmen and toddler play. Emily and Charlotte started off there, but both girls quickly decided they weren't impressed by the cold icy slush, which was frustratingly tough to walk in.

We wanted their first encounter to be a positive one, so after striking out in the toddler area we stood in a l-o-n-g line for balloon animals. Charlotte got a yellow bear and Emily opted for a pink crown. Those were a hit!

After that we ventured over to the sledding hill. From first sight Emily waffled on whether or not she wanted to go for a ride. Lucky for us Aunt Beca was along for the afternoon, and she always seems to bring out the courage in Emily. So together they stood in line while the 3 of us hung out at the bottom of the hill to watch her fledgling flight. (She comes down the right side trail.)

You can see that Emily really didn't know what to make of the ride. She was clearly spooked by the end, and the fact that she had no idea where she was, or more importantly, where we were didn't help. (Which explains why I'm yelling her name over and over and then abruptly stop the video to try and get to her.) Luckily as soon as I stopped taping one of the guys picked her up and hand delivered her into Matt's arms. Probably didn't seem like much to him, but we were very grateful that he didn't just let her stand on the side and panic all by herself.

Once she was back with us we made a BIG fuss over how cool the ride was and what a great a job she'd done, so her uncertainty soon changed to pride and triumph. And it turns out she'd been holding on to the sled so tightly, as Beca rightfully instructed, that her fingers had scraped the hill on the way down and she got a teeny ice burn. Nothing a princess band aid couldn't fix though :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Next year Charlotte will get to ride too!!! Something tells me we won't have to talk her into it ;)