Charlie chatting it up with his frog...

Charlie is really trying to communicate now.  I decided to take a video to show off his new sounds...

Charlie on the move!

Charlie crawled for the first time today.  I was actually able to get it on video... so here it is...

I really like this one because of the big smile he gave to Zachary when he looked at him and said "peek-a-boo":

Here's a better one to show off his progress:

A visit with Great Uncle Ralph and Great Aunt Lois

My Aunt and Uncle for BC were in town visiting family and they came our to visit with my little clan this morning.  It was wonderful to see them and the boys had a blast!  Usually they are very shy with people they don't see often  but they warmed up to them in just a few minutes.

They spent a few hours here and then we dropped them off at my cousin's house.  On the way home, Nicolas and Zachary kept talking about Uncle Ralph and Aunt Lewis (they were unable to say Lois).  They thought her name was so cool since it is the same (in their minds) as one of the race cars in Cars 2 (Lewis Hamilton).  They had all kinds of plans about their next visit with us and is was so sad to think that it will probably be a year or more before we see them again.  I guess we need to set up Skype so that they boys can "see" them more regularly.

Here are a few pictures from our visit...

Aunt Lois giving Charlie some breakfast:

Uncle Ralph and the three boys:

It was a wonderful visit and it makes me wish that the physical distance between us wasn't so far...

Daddy's little moose

Nana and Papa bought Zachary and Nicolas these adorable jammies for Christmas.  Without having the slightest idea, my best friend (Auntie B) bought Charlie the exact same jammies for Christmas.  We saw her briefly this morning and she dropped his gift off.  We have yet to get together to exchange gifts since we`ve all been either busy or sick.  She wanted to make sure she got it to Charlie before he outgrew the outfit.

So, obviously I put all three boys in the jammies to get a picture...

Charlie's eating grilled cheese...

Charlie is so interested in feeding himself that I decided it was time to try some grilled cheese for him.  He does so well with toast that I figured it would be a good alternative.  Boy was I right!  He loved it and ate 1/2 of a sandwich.  There was very little left over when he was done.   Here are a few pictures of him enjoying his lunch...

Charlie is 7 months old...

I find it so hard to believe that my littlest man is already 7 months old.  It seems like just yesterday when he was born.  Yet it's also hard to imagine a time when he was not a part of our lives or our family!

He is a really good boy and doing such an amazing job at becoming his own person.  He already has a "fake laugh" that he uses when he's excited or when he's trying to get his brothers to laugh at him.  He loves to eat... especially bog people food.  He eats toast and Cheerios like a toddler.  We are working on getting him to figure out how a sippy cup works.  He always puts himself to sleep and is just so adorable when he wakes up.  We usually find him "talking" to his aquarium in his crib or to his Buster.   He always greets us with a smile!

He is learning to crawl.  He has figured out how to turn himself around and now knows how to move backwards.  He keeps trying to go forward but has only managed that a few times.  Zachary and Nicolas have been spending lots of time trying to teach him to crawl.  I cannot wait to see the look on their faces when he does figure it out!

Here are a few pictures of my 7 month old!

Our vacation to the Great Escape Lodge and Indoor Water Park

We left Wednesday morning and headed to Queensbury, NY for a mini vacation.  We stayed at the Great Escape Lodge since we heard that the water park at the Lodge was amazing.  Everyone who suggested it was so right!  It had lots of fun water activities for every age group.  Since we went during the week and in their off season, we got a great deal on the rooms and the park was not at all busy.

There was a great area for the little kids.  All of the boys loved it, including Charlie...

They also had an area designed for bigger kids (or ones that are more adventurous than ours!).  It had a huge bucket at the top that filled up and dumped on the area as well as some cool small water slides...

They also had an arcade which the boys enjoyed as well.  They loved all the flashing lights and had a great time racing cars...

And there was basketball...

One of the favorite parts of the vacation was the "lazy river".  I think the boys liked that aspect the most.  They got on a tube (with one of us hanging on to the tube) and raced the other down the river.  Nicolas even managed to get Mom-I and Pop-I to accompany him in the river.  Let's just say that for the adult with them, it was anything but lazy!  It was quite the workout...

 

There were also some big water slides.  There was only one of them that we could go in with the big boys.  The only thing was that it was pitch black in the tunnel (we did not know that going in) and the boys were quite scared.  But, they were willing to go down it again.  We were very proud of them for being willing to try it again.

It was an amazing time!  We will definitely be going back again...

Great Sleeper

Charlie is a great sleeper.  He is doing so well at night that I usually only have to go in to him once to give him back his pacifier during the night.  He generally goes to bed around 9:00 and will not wake for a feed until 6:00 in the morning.  After which he goes back to sleep until at least 8:30.  We can put him to bed completely awake and he will drift off all on his own.  I am so proud of him.

Yesterday after putting the big boys in their room for "quiet time," Steve placed Charlie in his crib so he could make himself some lunch.  I was in the kitchen doing the same.  After about 10 minutes, I suddenly realized it was really quiet in his room I walked in and this is what I found:

He was due to take a nap within a 30 minutes so it is not overly surprising that he fell asleep.  But, it is surprising that he did fall asleep without having his bottle.  I am also so happy that he seems to love his Buster as much as his brothers do.  He generally is always touching or holding him when he falls asleep.  So precious!

Playing hockey at Super Dave's

Our neighbor across the street has built an ice rink in his backyard.  It is finally ready and the boys were invited over to play some hockey before bed last night.  They had an amazing time!  It was quite cold last night so they didn't stay out too long (and besides it was very close to bedtime when we went out).  But it was lots of fun for them so now I need to look into finding the cheese cutters I have for them (or some double bladed skates) since they were only out in their boots.  Here are a few pictures...

The boys with Super Dave:

Nicolas:

Zachary

Christmas with Aunt Kiki

My sister and parents were up visiting withe boys today.  It's been a while since my sister has seen the boys, so we had a mini Christmas so that she could give them her gifts and they could give them hers.  They boys had fun and were very anxious to try out their bath markers.  Nicolas kept asking me all day when he could go take a bath.  So, before bed they had a bath and had a great time playing with the markers.  Here is a picture of what they thought of the gift after trying it out.

Play time

All three boys had so much fun playing this morning.  Charlie got his hands on one of the boys' airplanes and was quite happy to play with it.  Here are some cute shots I got of him with it...

Then I got the boys lined up with their Busters to get a picture.  It was hard to get them all to look at the camera, smile and have their Busters in the frame.  So, this is the best one I got...

First snowman of 2012!

Since Nicolas is still recovering from the flu, I took Zachary outside to enjoy the relatively mild weather.  We shoveled, took a walk and built the first snowman of the year.  Here are a few pictures of our masterpiece!

Happy end of 2011 to us!

Well, we were given the not so great gift of the flu this Christmas.  Steve got it on Monday night, Zachary got it on Wednesday night and Nicolas came down with it on Friday night.  And now I wait to see if I am the next victim to fall prey to it...  Our house has been germ fulled and lifeless for almost a week now and I am ready for a change.  Hopefully now that the new year has started, it will bring with it health... so that Charlie and I can be spared of this flu.

Needless to say, all our plans for the last week had been cancelled.  We were not willing to risk infecting anyone else since we knew that we were carrying the virus.  I really don't understand why people feel the need to go out even when they know that they are carrying around such an awful virus.  Especially subjecting other families with young children to vomiting and diarrhea.  I know it's the holidays and no one wants to stay home, but sometimes putting others first is just the right thing to do.

Hopefully all of our friends (some of which we only get to see this time of year) that we cancelled plans with appreciate the fact that despite us wanting to see them, we put their health first.  We hope that we can see you all soon and that you were able to stay healthy and happy this holiday season!