Now A Family of *gulp* Six.

Oh, Charlie. He was so excited to sing for the mayor at his holiday party today. But could I get him to wear something festive? Oh, no. Could I even convince him to wear a more traditional color like red or green? Heck, no. So there he is, front & center, wearing a bright orange shirt & camouflage pants. Not worth the argument, although on the inside I want to make sure everyone knows - he chose his own clothes today! It was so darling to see them sing. They performed four songs - Jingle Bells, Up On the Housetop, I Made A Snowball, and We Wish You a Merry Christmas. The other 3 songs are together on a separate video and too long to post here. But I hope this gets you in a festive mood!

Already I have a bunch of videos I could share of bouncing, sledding, snow angels, and general goofing off (not to mention 2 of our "pet" squirrel!). But this one just shows the joy they had on Day One of break. Watch it a couple times to keep an eye on both boys.

Continuing to encourage Charlie in his pedaling pursuits, Roman first modeled correct biking procedure while Charlie watched all summer. At this point, Roman was giving Charlie pushes from behind & chanting songs to encourage him. And then, all of the sudden.... Charlie pedaled! Currently he pedals about three-fourths of the time, doing the "Flintstone" with his feet the rest. But he does love to be like big brother!

While Roman is just as adorable and wonderful as Charlie... he isn't thrilled to have his picture taken and he rarely will pause for a video anymore. So here's more of Charlie! On one of the days Charlie was "suspended" from daycare I started singing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and was surprised to hear Charlie trying to sing along. I ran for the camera and got him almost cooperating with me to sing it again. What does it matter? He's just darn cute to watch anyway.

Some days are frustrating and crazy with two kids. Then there are days where this happens and I just have to grin and count my blessings.

The boys were fooling around last week - I had put Charlie in his crib to calm down, and Roman decided he'd try to cheer him up. By the end they were wrestling, climbing on top of each other, and laughing like fools. True brothers.

It's apparent now that Charlie knows more words than he actually lets us hear. He picks and chooses. Often he prefers to grunt (a second-child habit, I'm sure). Many times it takes us awhile to understand his version of a word, too. In the video below you will clearly hear him say "wet" but when I ask him about outside , the high pitched "die" sound you hear is actually him saying "outside" in a very excited tone. And then, he just looks cute at the end. I post this because today he let fly with 3 words we didn't know he knew - baby , hug , and pink . This follows the last few days, where we have heard guy , purple , and finally the long-awaited word NO as a response. Amazing. Clearly he's going to be the strong, mostly-silent type.

There's a lot of love in our house!

Saturday was unusual in that our power went out for 3.5 hours. It was sunny with barely a cloud in the sky, so we figure it was an overload of everyone turning their air conditioning on. We ended up doing burgers on the grill and hanging out in the front yard to catch the breeze. Came back on around 7:30, just in time to cool off the house so the kids could go to bed. Today to celebrate Father's Day we put Doug to work. Wasn't very relaxing, but as I told him, he has received a sense of accomplishment for Father's Day! We got the backyard ship-shape for summer, including putting up the shade gazebo, new sand in the sandbox, and filling up the little wading pool. In fact, the one you'll see in the video below we discovered had a crack in it, so I bought a plastic wading pool for $12. It'll work just fine seeing as Charlie will want to be taking dips, and Roman likes to do daredevil stunts like the following:

It's been a fun week with just Roman home and Charlie in daycare. The "what could've been" thoughts were in my head briefly - "if we hadn't had Charlie, this is what my summer would be like..." But today Charlie had to stay home because of a fever (passed down from Roman earlier in the week), and I have had a good time with both boys home. I do like watching Charlie explore and learn, and he's so very sweet. Spontaneous hugs and open-mouth kisses. Plus him adoring his big brother and trying to imitate everything he does. We got our entertainment value out of him today at lunch. Charlie was so tired, he started falling asleep while eating. It was hard not to laugh out loud watching him, eyes closed, chewing away as his head started to sink lower...

This was taken a couple days ago. Roman showing his "pirate dance." And the above was while camping. Our first realization that Charlie is saying yes to us, with a nod of the head & grunt.

While he has been taking a handful of steps between objects for quite some time, Mr. I'll-do-it-when-I-want-to Charlie hasn't struck out on his own. Until this morning. He was standing by the fridge, watching me as I talked to Doug behind him. Next thing we know - boom! - he's toddling across the room to me with a big grin on his face! We shot this video just after that: And then, after he turned the corner (in the video above), I moved and caught this video of him coming back to me: A few minutes later he walked from the windows all the way across the room to me again. Awesome! Side note: We're off on vacation starting tomorrow. Disney World! Will be posting again on the flip side. Happy Easter, everyone!

Charlie is just moving along with his development like nobody's business. We introduced actual solid foods this weekend, trying beans, pasta, chicken, ground beef, & homemade french fries. The only thing that went over well was the french fries. Everything else was about a two-bite maximum and the chicken he actually spit out. Partly he had trouble because he fists the food and then can't maneuver it into his mouth and gets frustrated. He wants to crawl all over, and he's beginning to navigate the steps in our living room. He can go from carpet up to wood floor, but more trouble with wood floor up to carpet (too slippery). I pulled out a lot of "older" toys that were Roman's and cleaned them up. Charlie took to them immediately, proving he's no longer an infant. In fact, as evidenced in the video above, he can grab a ball and shove it into the toy pretty darn well. This weekend Charlie got to know his grandparents again, as it had been awhile since he ...

A fantastic weekend - so good, there's too many pictures and videos to load up at one time. So first I'll talk about Roman... he tested for his yellow belt on Saturday and passed. Daddy took him and was awesome with the camera - got shots and videos of many aspects. Above is Roman doing high blocks and low blocks. Doug said they also were led through a 20-step form that Roman did really well on. Next Saturday is the ceremony where he will be presented with his yellow belt. Hooray! My parents were visiting this weekend and Grandpa took Ro out to lunch to McDonald's for some "just the two of them" time. Roman was thrilled. It also worked out that for most of the day, the 2 brothers got time apart - and that wasn't all bad. Ro wanted movie night on Saturday and we all watched part of "Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets." He's getting into HP now, which is okay by us. There are a couple scenes here and there that he is scared to watch, but we...

(loosely to the tune of The Muppet Show) It's time to clear the shelves off It's time to put things away It's time to lock cupboard doors Because Charlie crawled Saturday... Yup, folks, the boy is mobile. Not very fast yet, but he's definitely propelling himself across rooms. The first official crawl was to go after Roman's candy that he was sorting on the floor Saturday morning. Charlie also has launched himself down the step toward the side door to get at my Crocs, and has gotten into our videotapes three times. He also tried to eat a dried leaf that someone had tracked in. Needless to say, the time has come - more vacuuming, small toys are spirited off to Roman's room, and once he's roaming room to room, cupboards will be locked again. Haul those gates back out of storage. Time keeps marching on... We also had returned to us a little play table that encourages kids to stand. Charlie would stand at it all day if he could, he was enthralled with it yesterd...

I have results of Roman's "at risk" testing for ADHD, news from Charlie's 9-month dr. appt., and cute pictures to post. But since my Dad has requested more videos, I bring you Charlie in the Jumperoo. And the news that's fit to blog tomorrow. Identical to the one he fell asleep in at daycare, we borrowed this from Baby Kaelyn (who I can't really call "baby" anymore - Toddler Kaelyn?). It's a hit. This is a mild video of Charlie's raucous jumping, I'll try to catch one of his full-on jumping fits soon.

The other day I was sorting clothes, getting winter stuff out that would hopefully fit Charlie (hence the hat), and so I had him in the crib. Imagine my surprise when I glanced over to see that he was fine and discovered him practically on his knees and peeking over the top of the rail! He has done this a few more times since, both in the crib and once on the couch, attempting to pull up on the arm from a sitting position and launch himself onto the side table to get at whatever goodies are in arm's reach. I was relieved to read today on my weekly email ("your child at week 4 of 6 months") that only 1 in 6 babies at this age sleep through the night regularly. Thank goodness we're not alone. Charlie is still getting up one time a night, usually between 3:30-4:30am. We've begun to cut back on formula and just give him water in a bottle to see if it's the protein he needs, or just a "full feeling." Yes, we did that once before. I know. But I'm gett...

Today is a nice day at home. We all lounged in our jammies until about 11am, when Ro and I had to get ready to go to a birthday party at a local park. While he partied, I graded 4 sets of papers. It took me 1.75 hours, not bad. I already had done 2 sets on Friday afternoon. Anyway, got back home and we all lounged some more in the living room, football on. Decided to take a quick video of Charlie's attempts to crawl, when Roman decided to get in on the action too. Since my posts have been all doom & gloom lately, thought it'd be fun to share. We've been doing a lot of research and talking to lots of people about Roman's potential issue. I'll answer the FAQ here: Yes, we trust the teacher. No, she's not just trying to hyper-control him. Yes, we've seen these issues ourselves (I've verbalized and blogged about it 2-3x before this). Of course we will talk to an outside source & not just take the school's word. Of course we're going to check ...