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...