John and I were watching videos off the computer through the Playstation the other night. We noticed that there are less and less videos lately, compared to the dozens each month when the big kids were little. I am trying to change that, and we have a Flip HD on the way to help with it since i STINK with manual focusing the videos on the D90.
Just a quickie of Charlotte pulling up. Notice how her
i am slackin’ here! john leaves in a week (actually 8 days – yes i’m counting!), and then our count down starts. 369 days. what a long year this is going to be. i hope the kids deal with it okay, it’s been a long time since he’s been gone. we were totally spoiled by having him around so long on shore duty. will will miss him a lot. it is good for his career, though, so we’re just trying to look at the silver linings. i haven’t been taking too many pictures, we’ve just been busy and enjoying our time together, but here are a few. can’t have a post without pictures! 
oh – and i have to mention these things! i am not normally a gimicky kinda gal. buut these caught my eye at target the other day, so we picked them up and let the kids try them after dinner one night. they are little straws filled with chocolate beads. you drink white milk with it, which turns into chocolate milk as you drink it- ha! i might buy them again once to pack with lunch as a treat, but they were too funny not to share!
some outtakes from the 8 months pictures. i have no idea how i am going to do it while john’s gone!
and my personal favorite. 
She turned 8 months two days ago, and we finally had some time to take pictures today. it is getting harder and harder! with john’s help, i still had to do a head swap in one picture, and a ton of cloning in the other. don’t look too closely – it’s sloppy!
SO! charlotte is eight months old now. she looooves pulling up, crawling all over the house, and up the steps (the gates went up last week!). she’s started eating some food the past couple weeks. she loves bananas and peas. and she is great at getting the skin off grapes (i cut them up in like 16 pieces and she eats them, but spits out the skin). she’s napping in bed more and more, and her red hair is getting these wild curls – just like her gene twin, ethan, did at this age. happy 8 months charlie girl!
remember, click the “month birthday” tag at the end to see ‘em all!
a few months ago, we went to this awesome little cupcake shop in parker, Nomélie Cupcakes. there is a super fun park right down the street, so we stopped in one day after the park and the c-cakes were YUMMY! In usual mamarazzi fashion, i had camera in hand. The owner, Selah, asked if I wouldn’t mind sending her some of the pictures for her site. Here is a link to that blogpost -sunny days and cupcakes!. I sent them to her and not only is john’s hand on her homepage, but she used a pic in a print ad, also! For thanks, she told us to come by for a dozen cupcakes on the house. We finally got down there yesterday. Yum, yum. I may or may not have eaten 4 yesterday alone, & may or may not have been full until 9am this morning. OMG. lol they are good! but we did make the mistake of going to get cupcakes, THEN the park. on a 97 degree day.
before
after, lol!! hey – how’d that half eaten one get in there? darn prairie dogs ….
guess they aren’t joking.
good news, though. they still taste good all melty.
they were good, but i don’t know if i’ll be able to eat another one for a good long while! i think i od’d on cupcakes. whew.
on a totally different note…. i took some really cruddy pics of the adorable “daddy and me” board book i had printed at pint size productions. the pictures do it no justice, though, and i meant to take some more … but we’re all crazy busy around here again! so just note that the book is ADORABLE! and looks nothing like my crappy pictures. I think this will be a great way for charlotte to remember john while he’s gone. They also have personalized Sandra Boynton book whick would have been killer when Kayleigh was little (now we own almost all of them it might be overkill!).
it will definitely be able to take a beating!! and it helps that charlotte totally loves it, too! i kept all the files in case I need an emergency backup book while he’s gone!
that is it for now! trying to catch up on housework tonight. trying to clean while the kids are awake is impossible.
so we’ve been pretty laid back the past few days. it’s been nice, no obligations, no appointments. of course wednesday to is back to the hustle and bustle, but it is a nice break! john is on his pre-deployment leave for a few days. i have not been taking too many pictures, just living in the moment, i guess.
oh, and charlotte’s board book from pint size productions came. it is adorable!!! mo’ betta pics to come tomorrow!
and by studio, i mean “garage” … but studio makes me sound like a big wig, eh? 
i forgot how fast it all happens when they are so little. i’ve been though it four times now, and it just speeds by faster each time! charlotte has started pulling up & even cruising a bit this week. i told john i better get the crawling on video this week, before it’s a thing of the past. and she just started two weeks ago! the big three all started walking in the 8th month. charlotte doesn’t look like she’ll be far off! she’ll be 8 months old next week!
in baby jail. she doesn’t look too sad about it though, eh?
and it’s just as cute from the back, lol! (wish chubby thighs were as cute on 28 year olds!)
and in other kid news! we had a fun july 4th weekend. we didn’t make it to the fireworks because it was pouring! but we went to an old fashioned fourth festival at a favorite place of ours. we panned for gold, rode in a covered wagon, and played old fashioned games. we had a great time!
oh – and this is too funny not to share. the big 2 have been bugging me to let them have a bake off. they don’t watch too much tv, but we recently all watched a food network cake bake-off. they wanted to make three different types of cookies, & have us judge them. but i had a tube of sugar cookie dough in the fridge (i am normally a from scratch kinda girl, but i suck at sugar cookies! like worst ever!!) for a fruit pizza thing, and told them we could have a decorate off instead, lol! so i gave them each a slice of dough, & a ramekin full of decorating goodies.
eventually they ended up just rolling them (like norah’s log? lol!). can you tell who ate half their dough? well he ended up winning the taste off!
and one last share – this one is weird. i am not sure who signed off on the houses here when they built them in 2005, but what a design flaw. our living room looks right into our neighbor’s bedroom! and he NEVER closes his shutters, lol. i will leave it at that! so we always keep our curtains or at least the privacy thing on that window closed (but had them open the day i took this when we were getting our carpets cleaned). seriously, worst planning ever!
IT IS! Woo hoo! What a long. exhausting. week. Sick kids, a husband who has been on the night shift (and going in for pre-deployment stuff during the day), carpet cleaners, speech … TGIF!!! Sharing some pics from the past couple weeks as I back up and move to the other hard drive.
kayleigh’s last night as a 6 year old.
the cake. she wanted a two layer LPS cake. so i did what I could. Is it possible I am getting WORSE at cake decorating? lol. but she loved it. i saved myself some time and bought CCC duff’s buttercream fondant. it is $20 a tub (WHAT!), but I had a 50% off coupon. for $10, i think it was worth it. i just dread making marshmallow fondant anymore.
so she ended up with her own personal little cake!
we went to the american girl store here that opened a few months ago, and she got to pick out a new outfit for one of her AG dolls, and a brush (because their hair is out of control!). i didn’t bring my camera, though.
then we got sick. kayleigh was the only one who made it through with just a scratchy throat, but everyone else was MISERABLE.
charlotte was pretty crabby, but i was able to get some smiles out of her. .
john is off from no until monday night – so hopefully we’ll have a nice relaxing weekend. one can hope, eh?
not the greatest pictures, but after being missing a week, i finally found all the onesies (thanks norah – not!). it was late, and my iso was high and pics underexposed …. so they are what they are.
charlotte turned 7 months a week ago, and she is on the move! she is crawling everywhere, and has just started munching on a banana here and there to keep her busy. she’s a little happier during the day now that she is able to get to what she wants, but still prefers my hip if she has a choice!
click on the “month birthday” tag at the bottom to see them all together!