Now my little Charlotte. She is just too funny. She is growing up so fast. She can say more things now and tries to repeat more. Here's the list of what she can say... let's hope I remember it all: eyes, socks, shoes, dinosaur, kiss, water, spoon, shhhh, awww, dog, good dog, hi, hey, bye, cheese, share, spongebob, yeah, yes, no, cat, frog, duck, sit, hat, hair, tree, Char (for Charlotte), Mom, Dad, Daddy, bowl, balloon.....I think that's most of it. She doesn't always say things clearly of course. Like dinosaur sound more like saur and spongebob tends to be either just bob or bob-bob. Oh and wa for water. But I'm starting to recognize things more and its making communication a little easier since I never taught her any sign language. Maybe with the next kid. Charlotte is a pretty good listener when she wants to be. When I ask her to pick up toys or put stuff in the trash she usually does. When you ask how old she is she holds up 1 finger. Charlotte's quite the independent little girl. She's a pretty good eater but sometimes gets kind of picky. I think she likes a large selection. I've been trying to do a little more to give her more options at breakfast so she fills her tummy up. I got some of the flavored oatmeal packets a different kind of cheerios and some whole grain waffles I can put some nutella on and serve with fruit. First time I gave her waffles and nutella.... she made quite the mess. As you can see in these pics:
So now onto Christmas Eve. On Wednesday night my dad, brother and sister all headed down to Simi to pick up my nieces and nephew. That was pretty much a joke I won't get into too much but my brother's ex made up some excuse about the car needing some repair she couldn't get fixed in time, then something about some DMV appt she had at 11 am on the 23rd, then suddenly she was too sick to drive. Funny thing is my niece had pictures on her facebook from the 22nd and she looked fine. Well I could on about my annoyance with that but luckily my dad, brother and sister all traveled safely out to Cali with fog, flooding and no sleep. They picked the kids up at about 4:30 am Cali time then headed home. It was a long 24 trip for them but they managed to pull it off and the 23rd I took Charlotte down to see them when they first showed up. We kept the visit short since everyone was tired and knew we'd spend time together on Christmas Eve. We went down and cooked up some treats and Charlotte played with her cousins. She just loves being around them. She's had a blast and has been worn out pretty good playing with them. We just spent the morning and early afternoon with them. Then we took Charlotte home for a nap. After that we had plans with Scott's family. Every year Christmas Eve, they like to watch their old family videos and we all just laugh at how funny all the boys are. Most of it is Mark talking about how he broke Scott's arm or Scott who can't sit still or is picking his nose. Scott has a few classic lines. There is when he knocks a little girls head on the swing set and says "she should've watched out" or when he's playing with Rick and jumps from who knows where saying "there he is!" Scott was a funny kid and its so fun to see all the boys so little. They were cute kids and pretty entertaining. Still trying to figure out how Scott's parents took care of 4 energetic boys. They must have had a lot of patience. But we have so much fun watching those videos. It's fun for me to see since I didn't know Scott growing up at all.
So Christmas Eve was great. I know Scott was still working on feeling better but we had a lot of great family time. Christmas Day was great too. We woke up and headed down to my parent's. They had made breakfast so we ate with them then opened up gifts. Charlotte got some neat toys. Don't know if I can remember it all. She got a pop up tent thing with balls... kind of like a ball pit. We got her a stuffed animal dalmatian since that was her favorite sing along. We also got her this tent thing with a tunnel she can play in. She got a bath toy and this plate and place mat thing. She got a baby doll from an anonymous doner in the ward. My mom also got her this toy that makes noises and is like a steering wheel thing. I can't remember if there was more. Oh and then in her stocking she got a basketball toy, a little 4 wheeler toy, a recorder (whistle), some candy, winnie the pooh plastic figurine and a tiny stuffed animal cat. Scott got some white shirts (he has been wearing his mission ones for the last 5-7 yrs), a new jazz wallet, nba game for the xbox 360, and Seinfeld scene it. I got a sweater and a new food processor that I'm so excited to try out today! There was probably other stuff but I have a horrible memory right now. We got a lot of great stuff from my family and we feel so spoiled.
After spending a couple hours there we took Charlotte home to nap. Then got up and went up to Scott's Grandma and Grandpa Bennion's for a quick visit. We had hoped to spend more time there but Charlotte slept longer than planned. Charlotte got some books from them and we got this neat decoration Scott's grandma made. I'm so excited to use it next year when we decorate. It's so nice to have more decorations to add to our tiny collection. After that we headed over to Scott's parents to give them their gifts. We pick names for Scott's brothers and we chose Rick this year because we got his gift early. I had happened to be online and saw this sweet Beatles belt buckle so I had to get that for him. So up there Charlotte got a really cute new dress with a little sweater that goes with it. She also got a fisher price Noah's ark thing. It has the ark and some animals and Noah. It's really cute and she loves playing with it. She also got some books. Scott was able to get another white shirt (he needed them so bad). We also got a really cute frame with a quote on it. I hoping to get that hung up this week. I got a really cute little sweater/cardigan thing. I love it. I might be forgetting more but we got a lot of great things from Scott's parents and just really felt so lucky to have the great parents we do and that they love to spoil us so much. We got a lot of gifts!
After being with Scott's family we went back down to my parent's for dinner. They had bought this HUGE prime rib that was almost $100 at Costco. We only do it once a year but it was amazing. And I'm not a big meat person. It was a really good dinner and we just had fun hanging out and playing games and Charlotte had a blast as always playing with her cousins. I really didn't take a lot of pictures today. I did more video earlier in the day then kinda slacked off. Oh well. Here's what I have of my little munchkin. She loves the stairs, she loves her ball pit and tent and she loves to play the piano. The keyboard in the picture below used to be my Grandpa Zapka's. I used to play with that as a kid. I loved that thing growing up. They were nice enough to give it to us and my parents have had it since. A lot of good memories there and now my little Charlotte (who is named after my Grandma Zapka) gets to enjoy it.
We slept so good Christmas night and didn't get up until about 830 am the next morning. Scott's kept Charlotte home from church since he wasn't feeling great still and you never know what Charlotte can pass on to other little kids so we kept her out of nursery. I went to teach but then came home after that. We had a little gift exchange and dinner planned with all of Scott's cousins on the Spence side for Sunday. We were a little late because Charlotte took another long nap. We had been wearing her out with everything. We made it though and had a lot of fun. It's always fun to see all his cousins and how much all their kids have grown. Scott's really lucky to have a lot of great family on both the Spence and Bennion side so I always look forward to family stuff. I wish we could do more through out the year but it is hard since everyone has different schedules. I think Charlotte had fun playing with all the kids though. We had a fun gift exchange. Charlotte got another recorder (whistle). Of course she loves it. The theme was something you can't live without. We gave a couple sing along dvds. I had a bunch of Disney Movie Rewards points so we cashed some in for those two dvds. I think Aaron and Malia got those. I think her's was actually the last one picked too. Kinda funny. Then for our gift exchange Scott gave away a mini basketball and hoop set that his Mom ended up getting so the grandkids could play with it. Scott got some Stephen's mint truffle hot chocolate mix and a chapstick. I gave away a $5 bath and body works gift card that I cashed in Wells Fargo rewards points for and then I always have a stash of bath and body works soap under my sink so I took one of like 8 or 9 and gave that away. I think Camille ended up with that. I got a vinyl tablecloth. I know that will come in handy soon enough. I hope it fits on our table. I just realized that. I don't know if it even fits! Hahaha.. oh well. if now we'll use it for whenever we're doing messy stuff at the table even if it doesn't fit a round table. Oh well. It will be of use.
We had such a blast there and then headed over to Scott's parents again for another mini gift exchange since Mark and Ashlee and their kids were out. They had us so they gave us the game Cranium. I've never played but it looks like a lot of fun. I can't wait to try it!
Well we've had a lot of fun since then. We've been busy and I've been trying to keep the house clean. Later this week Rick is staying with us for the reunion so I'll be cleaning on Thursday since we'll be busy Friday and Saturday doing stuff for the reunion. I'm really excited to see everyone. Some very kind person in our neighborhood had basically given us everything for a full on turkey dinner so I'm making that tonight. That'll be handy since Scott doesn't get paid until next week and this turkey should give us quite a few meals. We are so fortunate to be surrounded by a lot of great people and are so very blessed. Oh and tomorrow is my big day. I get my IUD out at the doctor. Not sure if he's gonna put me on metformin like last time or if he'll just let my body try and do its own thing and see if I can get pregnant on my own. I've been running a little bit. Just like a lap around the park then around the neighborhood. Still building up endurance. Hopefully losing a little more weight is helping and I would hope that the exercising is keeping my body working properly with my PCOS. Charlotte's loving all her new toys and has been so great playing so I can keep things clean and laundry done. We've had a great Christmas holiday and are looking forward to a new year and hopefully adding a new member to our family. If for some reason I don't post before the end of the year I wish everyone a happy New Year and and I'm so thankful for all of you who have done some amazing things for us this past year. We're so lucky to have such great neighbors and such amazing family. And I look forward to hopefully getting out of debt minus our house of course. Yahoo! Well here are some more pics of Charlotte. She loves all her new stuff. So If I'm not on here before the new year.... see you in 2011!
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