Trick-or-Treat

Halloween started with a bang. Literally, Charlie banged his mouth on the windowsill. He hit it so hard that his tooth actually chipped the paint and left an impression in the wood. Shortly after that, Nick left to play football with some friends. Daddy leaving coupled with a sore mouth was more than Charlie could handle, and he never really recovered.

We had been invited to a Halloween celebration at 11:00 by our friends, The Jordans, and I decided that we definitely needed to get out of the house. I proceeded to get both of us ready, which took extra long with a super unhappy Charlie in tow. I tried letting him watch his favorite Elmo clip on YouTube, playing some music, and just about every other trick in my mommy bag, but nothing seemed to be working. I thought maybe he was tired, so I put him in his crib to see if a little alone time would help. For ten minutes, he just babbled to himself in his crib as I finished getting ready. Perfect, all he needed was a little time to himself to calm down. I went in to get him from his crib, and he seemed to be happy. He ran out of his room as I collected his diaper and shoes. As I approached our bedroom, I heard Samson yelp followed quickly by Charlie screaming.

I knew immediately that Samson had bitten Charlie before I even got into the bedroom. He has never done it before, but Charlie has been soooo mean to Samson lately. He hits, pinches, pushes, pokes, and sits on Samson all of the time. He knows not to do it, but he continues to abuse the poor dog. Sure enough, Charlie came running towards me, tears in his eyes, holding his little hand out for me to see. Samson was laying on his doggie bed and looked absolutely terrified. Samson hit his breaking point, and I am hoping Charlie has learned not to mess with the poor dog any more. Charlie's pinkie finger had little teeth marks in it, but he was fine. I think it scared him more than anything else. Samson on the other hand may not be okay. He has been yelping when Nick and I touch him and threw up this afternoon. He seems to be better tonight, but I am worried that Charlie sat on him and broke rib or something...lovely. You may think I am a bad mother for being more concerned about the dog than I am about Charlie, but you haven't seen what this kid does to Samson. It was just a matter of time before Samson fought back.

Anyway, after that incident, I did not have the energy to meet up with the Jordans. Instead, Charlie watched a little TV while I did some deep breathing and prayed for a fresh start after nap time.

Nick got home right around the same time that Charlie woke up, and I had high hopes for a better afternoon. We headed over to our friends' house to watch the GA vs. FL game before trick-or-treating. Charlie was in a great mood and even got to play outside in the leaves with some of the boys. My nerves had recovered, and at 6:00 we headed home to get Charlie in his costume and get ready for trick-or treating.

Charlie did not protest putting on his Elmo costume at all, and I was so excited to take him out. I had Nick take out his red wagon so that he wouldn't have to walk. This was a fatal error. Mr. Independent did not want to ride in the wagon. No, he wanted to pull the wagon. That was not easy with cars and kids everywhere, so I decided the wagon had to go. This sent Elmo into a fit. He stood on the sidewalk and screamed at us. Our neighbor came out of his house because he heard him crying from inside. I am not proud of what I did next, but desperate times call for desperate measures, right?. I gave Charlie an M&M to make him happy. Yes, I am the mom who bribes her child with candy. What can I say...it had been a long day. The M&Ms seemed to do the trick and we managed to make it to a few houses without anymore tears.

Once we got home, Charlie seemed to perk up and enjoyed watching the kids come to our house to trick-or-treat. He looked super cute in his Halloween skeleton PJ's from Grandma, and we managed to get some cute pictures of him playing in them before bed time.

Hopefully, next year our Halloween will be a little bit calmer and less eventful! We hope that you and your family had a very Happy Halloween!!!

What a Mess!

Charlie feeds himself all of the time, and it is always a mess. Dinner last night was a whole new level of messy, however. You can't really see just how bad it was from this picture, but Charlie had decided to wipe his hands in his hair and all over his face when he was done. Oh my! Needless to say, he took an early bath last night.

Balloon Love

Oh how we do love a good balloon around here! Last night, my mommy friend, Stacey, gave me this pumpkin balloon to give to Charlie. It was for her daughter, but unfortunately, it scared poor Miss Matney. So, we scored a free balloon. I knew that Charlie would be thrilled to see it when he woke up this morning, and boy was I right. The little guy nearly jumped out of my arms when he saw it waiting for him in the kitchen this morning. He took that darn balloon with him all over the house today. When I walked into his room to get him up from his nap, he started asking for the balloon right away.

Thank you to Stacey and Matney for the balloon! It provided hours of entertainment on this dreary day.

Halloween Fun with Friends

We hosted our play group's annual Halloween party on Thursday. All of the kiddos looked so adorable in their costumes, but they were NOT happy about the pictures that the mommies tried to take of them. There were a lot of tears and children trying to jump off of the couch. I took about 20 shots, and the one below truly captures the moment.

Charlie was a real trooper about wearing his Elmo costume. It is super furry, and he had to have been hot. But as long as I kept feeding him pretzels and had an Elmo DVD playing, he kept his costume on until everyone arrived. I did not get any great solo pictures of Charlie, but I will try again tomorrow.

Retraction

I have to make some corrections to the information that I posted a few days ago. Nick was highly offended when he read the post "Take my Hand" and saw that I only gave Charlie credit for saying a dozen words. I have to admit, I was very wrong. Charlie says almost twice as many words, and I want to give credit where credit is due. So, I apologize to both of my boys for making such a big mommy mistake. Here are all of the words that our little man can say:

Momma or Mommy

Dadda

Baby

Ball

Balloon (pronounced "balllll")

Banana (pronounced "nana")

Puppy

Lovey (pronounced "wubie")

Hot

That stinks (usually said during a diaper change)

What's that?

Elmo (pronounced "melmo")

Bubble

More

No

Wow

Bye-bye (pronounced "eye-eye")

Uh-oh

Noodle

Bug

Tickle -tickle

Photography Class

I am SO in love with my new camera that I decided I wanted to take a photography class to learn how to use it properly and take great pictures. I did a simple Google search and found The Showcase School in Atlanta. Their courses run in six week sessions, so it is not a huge commitment each time you sign up. I loved the class and my instructor, and I cannot believe how much I learned in such a short amount of time. I know a lot of you have a similar camera, and if you are interested in taking a class, I would highly recommend this program.

Well, my last class was this Monday. Our final homework assignment was to choose a theme and take ten photographs that demonstrated what we had learned. For those of you with Digital SLR's, you will be proud to know that I shot all of these pictures in Manual Mode. Basically, this means I had to adjust the settings on the camera specifically for each picture. It's a lot harder than you might think, and I am still practicing every chance I get. You'll notice that there are no pictures of Charlie. He has proven to be a tough subject to photograph. By the time I get my settings perfect, he has moved and I have to start all over. So, for now, I am practicing with stationary objects.

Here are the pictures from my final project. Enjoy!

Take my Hand

Charlie is a man of few words. Even though he only says about a dozen words, I know exactly what he is trying to say most of the time. Maybe it's because we spend almost every waking hour together. I took the picture above to illustrate one of the nonverbal ways that Charlie communicates. He will often come up, take my hand gently, and lead me to where he needs help with something or to where he wants to show me something interesting. I love it. Each and every time (even though it means I need to get up off of my pregnant tush), it makes me smile. I am so glad that I captured this picture today, because I never want to forget how good it feels to be needed by my sweet boy.

P is for Pumpkin

Today was just a good day. We did not have to be anywhere, and I decided to ignore all forms of housework for the day. Charlie and I just played, and it was great!

I love arts and crafts, and I have been waiting for Charlie to be old enough to do some simple art projects with me. He has been coloring with his Color Wonder markers for a while now, and he has recently discovered a love for stickers. I decided to let Charlie get nice and messy with a few creative, Halloween centered activities today. We had so much fun playing with Halloween stickers, coloring a pumpkin, baking pumpkin muffins, and painting a pumpkin. It was all very messy, but so much fun.

I was very impressed with how seriously Charlie took each of the activities. He made sure that all of his stickers were on the paper, colored only on the pages that I gave him and not the table, and took great effort in painting his pumpkin. I am already looking forward to our next project together!