Thursday, December 28, 2006

Christmas in Dixie

We had a great time spending Christmas this year with the Andersons in Georgia! It was so nice to get to visit with all of Rob's family and for all of them to meet Charlotte.

There was much watching of movies, and playing of games, and singing around the piano, and yummy foods- as we expected. And Charlotte was a great traveller- which we certainly did not expect. She slept the whole way home- from the ride to the airport in Atlanta to the baggage claim in Baltimore... of course, then she was wide awake until midnight, but that's alright. ;)


We went for a long walk with Ally and her kids (+ 1 neighbor) on Saturday. L to R - Joseph (who dressed himself), Hailey (the neighbor), Savannah, Elizabeth and Charlotte.

3 adults, 3 strollers, 5 kids under the age of 4. It went amazingly well.

A family picture at the park.

The Anderson Family Singers!

Rachel, Becca (Tom's wife), Tom, Mom and Rob singing Christmas carols around the piano.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

2 months old today

Happy Birthday to our baby girl! ;)

Yesterday I thought that Charlotte was sick. She was just so mellow- nothing upset her all day- also nothing was making her smile. It was just too weird. So I took her temperature with the ear thermometer and it said 98.6... now, I could've sworn that I was told to add a degree to whatever that thing said, so then I was convinced she was sick. I decided to take her temp again with the rectal thermometer just to make sure before I called the doctor and sure enough it said 99.6.

So I called the doctor and they told me to monitor it and call back if it went up. Sure enough, 2 hours later I got 99.9 on the rectal thermometer (I also got pooped on, which was delightful) and we made an appointment to have her looked over.

We met with the nurse practitioner- Rochelle- and she said that Charlotte was fine... no fever, no signs of illness, etc. Also she informed me that 99.6 is NORMAL when taken rectally. Why didn't anyone tell me that before?? So I felt like a goober... but at least we got to find out that Charlotte now weighs 11 lbs exactly and she is 23 in. long. Oh, and she has a clean bill of health for our trip to GA. :)

Monday, December 18, 2006

1 week until Christmas!

On Saturday we went to the Palmer's house for their Christmas party. It was nice to see all of my family again before Christmas. Oh and Melissa, the moldy ham was great- I'm so glad we stayed until it was done cooking- it made a great dessert. Hee hee.

(Info on "country hams" for the uninitiated can be found here- http://ces.ca.uky.edu/lyon/fcs/Cooking%20a%20Country%20Ham.htm and it wasn't the ham she had ordered but they cooked it like a pro.)

Anyway, we will be in Georgia for the big day and we can't wait for Charlotte to meet all of her Anderson family and cousins! We'll definitely have photos to share when we get back home.

We have certainly been feeling blessed to have so many wonderful friends and family to share laughter and tears with during this season of love and giving.

We wish you all a very merry Christmas.

Rob, Julie & Charlotte


Monday, December 11, 2006

2 weeks until Christmas!

This past weekend we had some friends over to celebrate the upcoming holiday and enjoy their good company. Charlotte and Josh are finally starting to recognize one another's existence. They even tolerated their moms propping them up on the couch to take a picture of them in their cute holiday clothes. ;) We can't wait until they are big enough to play together!

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

a day in the life... part 1

Several people have asked me how I like being a stay-at-home mom, and I tell them how I really do love it... then they ask me what I do all day, and I tend to draw a blank. Although I feel like I am always busy. So today I thought I would photo-document our morning. When I have more time another day I'll do our afternoon and maybe our evening too. :)

This morning after Rob left for the vanpool (5:30 am), Charlotte awoke in her crib- she was not this happy, but it didn't occur to me until later in the morning to do this little project. She has only been sleeping in the crib for about a week now, and last night was the first time I was able to lie her down awake and have her fall asleep on her own without major screaming or crying! Yay, Charlotte!!!


After I got her up and changed her diaper, we snuggled up in bed, fed her some breakfast and slept for a while longer. She woke up again around 8:15 and I fed her some more breakfast before heading off to take a shower.


Despite playing music for her and setting her up on her "activity boppy," she never likes when I go to take a shower. This morning she seemed to quiet down once I left the room though, so I think this is more of a show than real anxiety at this point... it's nice to know she misses me! :)


Once I am all ready for the day we hang out in the bedroom for a while and play with her toys. This bumblebee is her favorite thing to look at right now. She tries to reach for it but hasn't had much success yet in hanging on. Some days I spend an hour with her like this, just talking and looking at different objects.


Eventually it's time to get Charlotte ready for the day- today that happened around 10:30. Here she is all dressed and cleaned up and ready to go! The cell-phone is next to her because we had just finished chatting with Rob.


Next we headed downstairs and looked at the Christmas tree for a while... of course she decided to ignore it as soon as I was ready to take a picture. Oh well.


Then we sat down on the couch and thought deep thoughts and had a meaningful conversation. Charlotte is a VERY good listener. For example, I told her some of the options for dinner tonight and she responded by grunting and then tipping over to emphasize her point. All that talk about dinner made Charlotte hungry for lunch so I fed her again after which she promptly fell asleep.



12 noon and it is naptime in the swing. This is the time of day that I do other things like laundry, dishes, eating food for myself and oh yeah... blogging. :)