"and to all a good night"

Well, I think Santa did good this year. I have one happy baby girl.

Just like Thanksgiving, things were a little different this year, but I liked it. Instead of my family gathering on Christmas Day for our gift exchange, everyone came over Christmas Eve. We enjoyed a delicious ham courtesy of Ameristar Casino, texas potatoes, green beans, mostaccioli, and pie.  Followed with lots of presents and games!

Charlie is very lucky to have such crafty Grandparents. Pop-pop made Charlie several push/pull toys.

And of course, Gam-Gam is always sure to keep us warm every winter with lots of hand knitted scarves and hats. My favorite of all has to be the long hat/scarf off of the Christmas Story. They also made us a very cool Snow Man Kit. It includes a top hat, carrot nose, red scarf, coal eyes, mouth, and buttons. I can't wait for it to snow!

Charlie even got a cool convertible sports car with a personalized licensed plate. The cool thing about it...it comes with a remote for Mommy and Daddy to steer her around until she can drive herself. So its like a toy for all three of us! Right now, Charlie isn't too found of the car moving around. She really just prefers to sit in it and listen to the radio (thats right, you can listen to any station you want or plug in your ipod!!)

And I cannot forget my crafty sister! She made me the BEST present in the world. It is a photo frame made out of her old garage window. And of course it is filled with pictures of the most beautiful little girl :)

After a few horse race games (also made by Pop-Pop) we made the trip to Festus for the Greer Family Christmas gathering. Every year, we all exchange homemade ornaments. This year the Dicken's Family all made painted glass ornaments (see previous post about our ornament catastrophe). In exchange we got a paper mache light house and rally squirrel (made by the Kapplers) to go with our previous ornaments and a cool spaceship looking ornament (made by Grandpa Greer).

On the way home for Aunt Barb's we swung by Candy Cane Lane for a quick peek at some Christmas lights. All I know is good thing we helped Santa essemble Charlie's toys ahead of time, because by the time we got home we were pooped!!

Charlotte must have been pooped too. Because Chuck and I woke up an hour before her Christmas morning. I think we were more excited about her opening her gifts!

After our presents were opened and breakfast was devoured, we headed to Wentzville. Chuck's Grandfather hasnt been in the best of health. Just this past week he was in the hospital and then moved to a nursing home. So we busted him out and went for a joy ride! He was so happy to get out of his room and I dont blame him. Those rooms are quite depressing. On our drive he kept saying, "this is heaven" over and over. It made me very happy to see him smile. We took him home, made some lunch and opened even more presents. Charlotte was particularly fond of Grandpa Frank this day. She sat at the table making faces at him and laughing. She even had us laughing too trying to imitate Frank's wink, which was a double eye blink for her. I wish I would have snapped some photos. Maybe next time.

Overall, this was a GREAT Christmas. I am so grateful for all of our family and friends. Charlie got soooo many toys this Christmas that we will need a bigger house to keep them all! Seriously. As I am trying to type this blog I am surrounded by toys and books. And her toys keep getting bigger and bigger in size. sheesh.

Christmas...or something like that?

I was a little stumped on a blog title this week. So I asked Chuck. His response was "call it Christmas...or something like that". So there it is. My husband is just so creative.

Speaking of my dorky husband. Last week Charlie was watching her morning show The Cat in the Hat. I started to sing the beginning hook of the show..."Here we go, go, go, go. On an adventure. The thing-a-ma-giggy goes up and awaaaay". And Chuck, very boldly, corrects me. "Its a thing-a-ma-giger. Get it right!" Geez. I guess I need to start studying my cartoon lyrics so I can be as cool as my husband. ha.

Anyway. Not much to report this week. Chuck and I finally got a night off from parenting to play some wine pong with our friends...but I think I will leave that craziness out of this Charlie related blog :)

Last week we had plans to see Christmas Lights with the fam. One night out of the season, Fort Zumwalt Park opens up the light display to pedestrians. And we were sooooo bummed that this year was cancelled due to rain!! Grr. So instead, we walked the Zoo Lights Sunday evening. It was OK. I expected something spectacular, but was pretty unimpressed with the boring lights strung across the trees. And it was busy. At least we got to see some stinky penguins and this time we were dressed to their freezing climate.

Less than a week til Christmas, whooo hooo!! I cannot wait to see Charlie's reaction to all of her cool toys. Hopefully this year, she will be more interested in the toys rather than the wrapping paper and boxes. Here is Charlie last year on Christmas:

Boy has she changed alot since then! Since this week's blog is lacking some excitement, I'll give you a video!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Cookies, The Nutcracker, and Good Ol' Saint Nicholas

We had quite the festive weekend...

Saturday, Grandma and Aunt Jes came over for cookie baking. We started at 10:30am and did not finish up until around 8:00 pm!! We did take an intermission from baking to see The Nutcracker on Ice at the Webster Groves Rec Center, followed by dinner at Chili's. By the end of the day my back hurt, my feet ached, and I was dog tired. Who knew baking cookies was so exhausting....

Our official taste tester:

Finished product: 

 -oatmeal scotchies

-chocolate drops

-chocolate chip

-candy cane twist

-oatmeal waffle cookies

-sugar cookies

-peanut butter reindeer cookies

-snickerdoodles

-chocolate covered pretzels

-and some others I cannot remember....

and a cookie just for Grandpa, made by Charlie: 

Nutcracker on Ice:

And then Sunday we went to the Galleria to say HI to Santa. I was truly SURPRISED by Charlie's reaction. I was expecting to have a picture something like this:

Nope. Charlie LOVED Santa. Which is a total shocker because she is all about the stranger danger, especially with big hairy men. But as soon as Chuck put her down, she walked right up to him and started jib jabbering away. We put her up on his lap expecting a total melt down and she started playing with his stuffed animals. We even got a smile out of her!

HOLY GROWTH SPURT!

When I was pregnant I signed up for weekly baby update emails and I still get them. LOVE THEM. Normally they are right on track. As I am reading, "around this time your baby should start pulling up on couches, chairs, etc." or "your baby may begin drooling like the Niagara Falls" or "picking her nose", you get the picture. I look over and Charlotte will be doing that exact same thing as I am reading it! It's crazy how dead on they are. Well this weeks update mentioned that around 18 months toddlers growth spurts start to slow down. Not my child. She is still growing like a freaking weed on crack! Seriously. Look at this picture. I swear these jammies were on the ground last week. Now look at them:

And then I look back at photos 6 months ago. I cannot believe how much she has changed! For instance her hair:
12 months-


18 months!:

Wow, right? My baby girl is growing up. (tear). Other than Charlie growing like a weed, nothing new and exciting has happened lately. Last weekend Charlie and I did take a trip to the Science Center. Just us girls. Normally I dont like going out in public with her. She tends to throw loud and embarrassing tantrums. But this trip was acutally quite enjoyable. There was really nothing for her to destroy, which was great. I just let her run wild like a crazy child! She did walk into several window displays. They really do keep the glass clean at the SC. I watched an older child run full steam into a glass display. Hit so hard it almost knocked him unconscious. At first I was concerned, but then laughed my ass off. It would have been a big winner on AFV if it was caught on tape. lol.  

I wonder what was going through her head here:

She stood in this same spot for about 30 minutes looking up at that big ol' dino. And occassionally would tense up and give an evil laugh- you know what I am talking about Aunt Jes. Here is one last clip. Explanation: She has been trying really hard to JUMP lately. She is so darn cute :)

Mashed Potatoes & Gravy

I have alot to be thankful for this year...great family, great friends, and great FUN! This has been an amazing year. I almost don't want it to end, but I know 2012 will bring even more amazing things for us.

Planning for this years Holiday dinner was a bit of a challenge. It started off great. I spent last weekend and the beginning of this week decorating. I browsed ideas on pinterest and had my table set. Grocery shopping done. Tree up. Charlotte and I  even made our Christmas ornaments. Everything was going great and I was sooo happy I didnt have to fight any crowds for last minute shopping. That was until day before Thanksgiving.... I will start off by saying, we normally do not have a formal dining table set up, so Charlie must have thought this was a special indoor playground just for her! Our painted glass ornaments were sitting on top of my beautifully decorated table drying. And of course, our little turd of a daughter crawled up the table (she is very sneaky. Quiet as a mouse when she is getting into trouble), smashed the ornaments on the floor, and dumped the paint from the trays all over my table cloth/runner/place mats/EVERYTHING!! And she had a great time doing it too. A finger painting set-up just for her apparently. I only wish Chuck would have snapped an after picture for the full effect. But I will share a before picture:

 

 

 

Thank goodness my office closed early Wednesday and I was able to run to the store and pick up a few replacement items. Oh! and of course, also thankful Charlie did not get hurt in her destruction mode.

One other lesson learned. When you have a toddler ornaments do not tend to stay ON the tree. I was taking a little cat nap on the couch this week and when I woke up...I had about 10-15 ornaments on top of me. Little stinker. That is why our tree is currently on top of a box. So Charlie cannot reach the ornaments!

So this year we had a  scheduling conflict and had to move our Mattison Thanksgiving meal to Friday. Chuck and I had the slightest idea what to do with ourselves on Thanksgiving Day. We did not want to sit at home doing nothing. And we especially did not want to go without eating turkey on Turkey Day! So we bundled up and headed downtown for the parade. Afterwords we made a trip to the one and only- Golden Corral. hah. I was really amazed by how extremely PACKED it was. No parking and a line out the door. sheesh.  

I had a lot of fun hanging out with my crazy (and apparently-competitive) family today. We stuffed ourselves and then played games all afternoon. Dominoes-Mexican Train is probably my all time favorite family game. And I won! Neener Neener Neener :) And by a lot:

Cory - 237

Justin Donze- 394

Granny Jo- 401

Papa T- 435

Chuck- 437

Jes- 500

We were also able to sneak in a few family photographs, pups included:

I will leave you with one last funny, but also disgusting, and a little bit impressive toddler story. So after the family left today, Charlie went right into the bathtub. Normally after a bath I let her run around naked for a bit. It is probably her favorite part of the day!! While she was having her nakey time, I  finished up on some dishes. When I looked down, she was squating on the floor reading a book. However, she happened to be squating right over a dog bowl. And when she got up, I noticed she peed right in the dog bowl! not a drop on the floor. So I quickly grabbed the bowl and cleaned it out. And when I looked back down... she pooped on the floor!! Thats a first. for both. hah. That's my Charlie!

Denny's Disaster!

Sunday Morning.

I was so happy that Charlotte slept in til 9:30am, so I decided to take her to Denny's for a lil girl time and pancakes while Chuck caught up on some sleep. Little did I know we were going to be sitting in a booth next to my worst nightmare- An old lady with 27 cats!! TWENTY SEVEN. Her oldest cat is 22 years old. I did not even think that was possible. So while we are trying to enjoy our breakfast, this old lady is talking about her cats, her terminally ill sister, and her brother who is in a psychiatric hospital. I honestly think she should room with her brother. Should have went to Uncle Bills Pancake House instead!!

So besides this awful breakfast. Charlotte and I  have had a great weekend together. Yesterday we attempted some holiday shopping (with no luck), visited with Aunt Tiffany and her cousin Isabella,  had lunch with Grandma and Grandpa,  and followed up with more holiday shopping. When we got home Charlie let me clean the house in preparation for our holiday decorations and then we snuggled on the couch and watched Sherk 3 (for the 100th time this week!!). Today we are moving in our formal dining table out of the garage- It only makes an appearance for one month out of the year- and setting up our decorations. Hopefully we will get our tree up. BUT, this is our first time doing a real tree and I am not sure if it is still too early. I haven't seen any of the usual tree lots set up in our neighborhood yet, so that might have to wait until next weekend.

Oh! And we also got a new car this week. We traded in our Equinox for a more family friendly Pacifica. I think we are all pretty happy with the new trade, especially Charlotte. She LOVES her new dvd player. Although, now I am losing that much needed car nap since she is GLUED to the tv :(  Most of our cartoon/pixar movies are taped on our DVR so we made a special trip to Target to purchase some movies for the car. So far we have watched Little Rascals and the Cat in the Hat. I am sure Santa will have to add movies to her Christmas list. ;)

Chunky Baby Butt

So it looks like I am in the market for a new coffee table! I will give you one guess on who broke my table....that’s right, Charlie's Chunky Baby Butt!! I couldn't really give you the details on how it went down. All I know is I came home to a missing table and a child with a fat lip. Thank goodness she still had all of her teeth! Just wish I could have captured her reaction to the legs collapsing out from under her. Does that make me an evil mother?? lol.

　　

Charlotte knows she is not allowed to crawl up on the table (or the toilet, the stairs, picnic table, on top of the dogs...you name it, she climbs it!). Normally I give her one warning. After that I flip the table over. Smart right? Nope. She thinks it is absolutely great because she then gets her own personal sized dance floor! It seriously keeps her entertained for at least an hour (and me too because she turns into a miniature river dancer. Its pretty funny.).

　　

I have been noticing these past few weeks that everything in my house gets put up higher, and higher, and higher. Pretty soon I am going to have to start storing my stuff on the ceiling! This child is like a raccoon. She seriously gets into everything. We started with child locks on the bottom cabinets to keep her from pulling our pots and pans out every two seconds. Now we have moved to the top drawers, cabinet above the toilet, and pantry door. Some of the cabinets we cannot figure out how to put locks on, so they are just completely empty. The laptop can no longer stay open. Clothes rarely stay folded in her dresser drawer. Its a bit of a nightmare.

　　

Last week, Charlie went to Gramma Sue's (Chuck and I had a Totally Awesome 80's party to attend). So I spent Saturday cleaning the entire main floor top to bottom. It was spotless....until my lil’ tornado of a toddler came home and wrecked my house in less than 5 minutes. ugh. Its like the cleaning never stops. Sometimes I wonder how parents with multiple children handle this stuff. Its exhausting. But I guess it is all worth it when you look at your little turd and they smile back and say "cheeezzze". Oh ya! Charlie has added "cheese" to her vocab this week. I love her!

Here is her cheese face. Such a corn ball:

I will miss October.

October has to be my favorite month out of the year!!

For Grandpa's Birthday we went to Erkerts Farm for some apple and pumpkin picking:

We have spent several evenings exploring Tower Grove Park and playing with the other kiddos at the playgroud. Charlotte can now go down the slide all by herself. Such a big girl!

 

 

The other half of the month we have been rooting for the Cardinals. Thank goodness they won the World Series. Now our house is somewhat stress free and we can get back in the routine of putting Charlotte to bed on time without worring about waking her with our late night cheering. GO BIRDS!

This past weekend we celebrated Halloween. Saturday we went to Boo at the Zoo. I was even able to get Chuck to dress up, as long as he could sport his Cardinal jersey of course! Sunday morning we took a trip to the Magic House with our buddies Laura and William. Later that evening we made the trip downtown for the Cardinal World Series Parade. Monday was Halloween. We had plans to go out towards Wentzville for Trick or Treating but they were cancelled. Instead we turned out all the lights and pretended no one was home. I'd say this has been a pretty fantastic month. Bring on the Hollidays!

FLINTSTONE FAMILY

Fishing at the Magic House

GO CARIDALS!



Hola Blog World!

So I have finally decided to join the blog world! Yaaaay. Let's just hope I can stay motivated past this first introduction.

Of course the main subject of my blog:

Meet Charlie. She is the coolest kid I know and she happens to be my daughter. I am one lucky momma!! Or as Charlie says, "mamamamamama". Charlotte is 17 months old and on a mission. A mission to make me laugh and smile all day everyday. I just love her so much.

The purpose of my blog will be to document all the funny things she does, so I can look back years from now and still get a chuckle or two.

For example. Yesterday, Charlotte learned that if she pushed her highchair close enough to the kitchen counter, she could climb up and get to the Halloween treats. Smart baby. I am sure she will have more hilarious stories, new tricks, words, and all other sorts of things to keep me busy in my blog.

Oh! and in case you were wondering about the blog title "Ouch! Charlie bit my finger". Although my Charlie is a biter, I actually stole this from one of my favorite youtube videos. If you haven't seen it you should definitely check it out. Brittish kids are just so darn cute! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE4FJL2IDEs