Heirloom

I met a woman up in Vail who specializes in creating beautiful hand painted furniture and accessories.  She created an amazing table and chairs and gave them to our preschool classroom.  I bought a toy chest off of the internet and asked her to paint it.  Here is the result.  I was blown away!

I hope Charlie grows up loving this toy chest as much as I do! If you're interested in hiring Janet to paint something let me know.  I'll pass along her info!

Baptism Outfit

With all the craziness of Charlie's baptism weekend in St. Louis, I never got a chance to photograph Charlie in his baptism outfit.  So I made sure when we got back to Denver to capture a few pics of Charlie before he grew out of it!

"Why are you making me do this?"

"Alright fine, I look pretty good."

His hair is looking pretty ginger...

Excuse You!

Rick had an Enterprise outing Monday night, so Charlie had to accompany me to my Junior League Meeting.  I of course had him dressed to the 9s in an adorable outfit my mom bought him from Janie and Jack.  He was quite the handsome prince:-)  The meeting got started and Charlie laid in his carrier sucking his fingers and taking in all the estrogen.  The women began introducing themselves one by one.  And then it happened.  (Insert loudest farting noise you've ever heard come out of a baby here.)  The room went silent and my face went red.  All eyes turned to me and all I could muster up to say was, "Excuse you!"  Charlie smiled and I picked up him and rushed him out of the room, diaper bag in tow, to assess the damage.  You'd think the Junior League, an organization created to benefit women and children, would have a changing table in the bathroom.  Wrong.  The next best place I could find was a conference table in an unused room.  I was about to lay him down when I felt the slightest drip on my foot.  Is the ceiling leaking?  Nope.  My baby is leaking.  And no, it wasn't pee.  Upon further inspection it became immediately evident that the situation was much more dire than I'd initially imagined it to be.  He had exploded, and I do not use that term lightly, out of his diaper, all over his new, adorable outfit, and was now dripping onto my shoe.  Delicious!  I managed to hold my poop covered son in one arm while retrieving the portable changing pad within my diaper bag with the other hand.  I finally laid Charlie down and went to grab the diaper and wipes.  Many, many wipes.  I'd forgotten that I'd shoved a book for this meeting into my bag and when I went to grab the diaper the book came tumbling out and landed with a thud on Charlie's head.  I braced myself for the scream.  Thankfully it never came, but a giant red bump did:-)  This is going well.  9 baby wipes, a new diaper, and a change of clothes later and we were packing up to head back to the meeting.  I feel sorry for whoever meets in that conference room next...We headed back, Charlie in his far less adorable outfit, and brand new forehead welt, and me ready to collapse with exhaustion.  Luckily, everyone seemed so enthralled with the speaker that nobody seemed to notice.  Maybe next time Rick should take Charlie to his Enterprise outing.  Mama needs a nap!

Namaste

After a couple of sleepless nights, Charlie and I decided we need to de-stress.  And what better way to do that than with some yoga?  We were both a little apprehensive about our first mommy and me yoga experience.  Charlie is new to the practice and was unsure about how difficult the moves would be.  I was worried (like I always am) about what sort of mood Charlie would be in and you know, the "roulette" scenarios (see older post) were playing out in my mind.  Turns out, Charlie and I had nothing to worry about.  From the moment we entered the studio, we knew we were in a safe and welcoming place.  Charlie started to get fussy while I was filling out paperwork, and the yoga instructor immediately went to him and began rocking his car seat.  She was so sweet!  The class was a mixture of baby yoga and mommy yoga.  There were only three moms and babies (including us) which made it comfortable and personal.  The two other babies were only 8 weeks, so Charlie looked like the mature older brother.  He loooved the yoga moves!  We sang songs and stretched.  The two other babies had to eat during the 1 hour session, so the teacher fed them while instructing the moms on what yoga poses to do.  It was so wonderful!  The second half of the session, Charlie slept and I got to do some yoga.  It was so relaxing.  By the end of it, all three babies were sleeping and all three moms were laying on the floor in "shavasana" which in sanskrit means corpse.  That sounds about right!  I would have paid 1 million dollars to remain a corpse next to my sleeping baby for the next three hours.  Both Charlie and I felt a lot better after our yoga session.  I believe we've started a weekly routine!
We also attended our first MOPS meeting today.  MOPS stands for Mothers of Preschoolers.  It's an international organization made up of moms with young children from infants through preschoolers.  They meet a couple times a month to discuss various parenting and marriage topics as well as do crafts.  And the best part is, there is free daycare!  The babies must be at least 4 months old, so for now Charlie stays with me.  The meeting was great.  I met some lovely moms and I'm looking forward to getting to know them better throughout the semester.  Today's topic was on food and how we teach positive food behaviors to our children.  Charlie isn't quite at this stage in life yet, but it was interesting to see what I have to look forward to!
Tonight we're heading to Vail for a friend's wedding.  I'm looking forward to catching up with friends from my old job and taking Charlie on a tour of Vail Village!

Charlie has a new best friend!  This is his Wubba Nub who we affectionately call Clifford.  It's a stuffed animal attached to a pacifier.  Charlie can hold on to it which helps keep the pacifier in his mouth.  This is one dog mommy loves!

Roulette

As far as I can figure, grocery shopping with an 11 week old is akin to playing roulette.  I've never actually played the game, but it's safe to say it's based on luck and so are your chances of making it out of the grocery store without your child having a breakdown.  You pick a color, red or black, you pick a number and you place your bets.  Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose it all.  Yesterday, while at the grocery store with Charlie, I went all in, and lost my fortune and my mind.
The errand started out well and I had high hopes.  He was awake in his car seat, but in good spirits.  He had his lovie in tow as well as his pacifier.  What could go wrong?!
As we approached the checkout line, Charlie began to fuss.  I started to sweat.  Don't do this to me.  We are almost out the door.  Within seconds that fuss turned into a whimper, and that whimper turned into a full fledge breakdown.  He face turned a nice shade of red and he screamed bloody murder, apparently trying to communicate to the cashier that I was in fact torturing him.  There was nothing I could do to calm him down except take him out of his car seat, which wasn't an option since we were about to get back in the car.  No pacifier was comforting enough to tame this tantrum.  I fumbled for my wallet and did my best to act like I was in control of the situation.  Let's be honest, Charlie held the reigns here.  The cashier handed me my receipt and I all but bolted out of the store.  With Charlie still straining his vocal chords, I got him into the car and went back to the cart for the groceries.  With three bags in my hands I turned to the car only to have one of the bags rip sending my cans of tomatoes and beans flying all over the parking lot.  Fail.  I scurried like a squirrel gathering nuts for winter, grabbing cans as they began to roll underneath nearby parked cars.  Meanwhile, Charlie continued to voice his distaste for trips to the grocery store.  I finally collected all of my groceries and placed them in the car.  I went to comfort Charlie, hoping that my 47th offering of the pacifier would be the golden ticket, when I heard what could only be the butt of my jeans ripping in half.  Yep, that sounds about right.  With my forehead slick with sweat, my son on the verge of transforming into the Hulk, and the butt of my pants swinging in the breeze, I took a deep breathe and climbed into the driver's seat.  I said a little prayer, thankful that the grocery store was less than two minutes from the house and looked forward to the glass of wine that waited for me when I got home.  I see now why casinos offer free drinks.  When you gamble and lose, at least you get a free drink out of the whole thing.

Lucky for me, those crazy grocery trips are few and far between.  Most of the time, life looks more like this.  I can't get enough of that smile!

Getting to know that baby in the mirror.  He loves looking at himself!

Fall has arrived in Colorado.  Monkey looks nice and cozy and ready for a nap.  He's also giving me that look that says, "Don't you dare take me back to the grocery store. Ever."

Sometimes Less is More

I wanted to get Charlie's godparents gifts for agreeing to play such major roles in Charlie's life.  I picked Sarah's gift from Etsy.  It's a locket shaped like a Compass.  The seller calls it the "Guidance" locket which was perfect for the occasion.  Plus, Sarah loves compasses so it worked out perfectly.

Finding a gift for Matt proved a little more difficult.  If you know anything about Matt, you know he's very into hunting.  He often jokes around about how he's going to take Charlie out for his first hunt.  That got me thinking...what if I set up a photo shoot involving Charlie, a paper gun, and some knitted puppets that could double as his "game"?  I googled "shotguns" and quickly sketched a picture from one of the images.  Next, I drew some trees (not my best) and located a green blanket to serve as the grass and a blue blanket to serve as the sky.  And no hunt is complete without animals. So I grabbed some puppets, a rabbit, a rooster, and a moose for the shoot.  I struggled to come up with an appropriate outfit for Charlie.  I had no camouflage onesie.  FAIL.  I thought about creating an orange vest out of construction paper, but yeah that's part not of my bag o tricks.  Instead I opted to strip him down to his diaper.  And I remembered some moose boots given to him by my brother and his fiance, perfection!  A hunter was born!  I delicately set up my shoot.  The trees framed the scene and I dispersed the animals accordingly.  All that was left was to place my baby in the center, and we're set.  Unfortunately, babies are not professional models.  I know, shocker!  I tried to provide direction, but Charlie had his own ideas.  The poor puppets were kicked left and right and my paper trees didn't stand a chance.  By the time I got the paper gun in his arms, he'd already knocked over the animals and crumpled my perfect white clouds.  Babies.  Sheesh.

The moose is already down and the paper gun is about is about to get demolished.

Now the tree is about to get it.  The rooster sees this as an opportunity to get the heck out of dodge.

I tried simplifying the hunt.  The moose is dead and Charlie has gas.

My next brilliant idea was to have Charlie hold his "kill" ie the rabbit puppet.  Charlie wanted nothing to do with that rabbit.

Sometimes less is more:-)  This is the picture we ended up giving Matt.  He loved it.  SUCCESS!

Baptism Weekend

Rick and I survived Charlie's first airplane experience unscathed!  Traveling with an infant is no joke.  We were only gone for a long weekend and we had enough stuff to sink a small ship.  I cannot imagine going on an actual week long vacation...Charlie better start carrying his own weight.  It's funny how routine things you've been doing for years suddenly become more complicated when you have a kid.  When you check in for your flight at ticketing its second nature to ensure you have your boarding pass and ID before getting to security.  In fact I am always anal about checking rechecking and checking one more time to make sure these things haven't up and walked out of my purse.  However, all routines are out the window when you add a baby to the equation.  Suddenly instead of checking for my boarding pass, I'm smelling butts and searching for pacifiers.  And that is exactly why Rick, Charlie, and I made it all the way through the 15 minute security line before either of us realized the ticket agent forgot to give us our boarding passes.  AMATEURS.  Charlie batted his sweet eyes and the TSA agent agreed to let Charlie and I stay with the luggage to the side of the line while Rick sprinted back to the Frontier desk to grab our boarding passes.  The rest of the process from Denver to St. Louis went smoothly.  Charlie was a perfect angel on the plane, sleeping nearly the whole way.  He did drop a bomb on us during the descent.  I felt terrible for the row of people directly in front and behind us.  Since we were already descending there was nothing we could do, but wait it out and breathe through our mouths.  Charlie was the only one who seemed even more relaxed afterwards:-)

The baptism weekend was a full blown success!  Charlie was great, sleeping throughout the service until it was his time to shine.  I kid you not, at the first mention of the word "baptism" Charlie's eyes shot open as if to say, "Let's do this!"  It was a beautiful service.  We were so lucky to have so many friends and family there to celebrate with us.

The three of us before the service.  So mad I didn't get a picture of Charlie in his adorable baptism outfit. Worry not, I've planned a photo shoot for him later in the week to show it off:-)

After the service with Charlie wide awake and ready to party!

Charlie's beautiful cake made by the one and only Aunt Francie.  She belongs on the Food Network competing for the big bucks!

Meet the godparents: Matt and Sarah Hamann.  Charlie was tired of all the partying...

I love my family.  I feel so blessed when I look at this picture.  Especially when I think about where this whole journey began a couple of years ago!

My family

Rick's family

Erin drove in from Kansas City to meet Charlie.  Looks like I'm interrupting him, sorry!

Charlie met his Great Grandma Betsy for the first time.

Our friend Dan was nice enough to come to Charlie's baptism.  I think Charlie liked him.  He fell asleep in Dan's arms.

The weekend was great.  We were so happy to have family and friends there to celebrate with us.  I'm thankful to have our first flight behind us.  Maybe next time we'll remember to check for the boarding passes!