Catch up

I  have fallen behind  so here is a quick catch up.  For our Valentines date this year we knew Charlotte would  be making her arrival soon so we didn't plan anything, but we did go to the family housing Valentines date for some delicious Indian food the Saturday before V Day.  We can't pass up a free meal and we love Indian food.  We had fun having a quick night out and I am glad we went because I am sure it will be our last for a long time.  We also had a date night and it was my turn to plan.  We hosted the Christenson World Cup in our very own apartment.  Turns out we are both terrible at golf and our homemade golf course didn't help.  It was still fun though.  We had a surprise visit from Logan's cousin Rudy and his wife Kristin.  Jack was thrilled to have a little buddy to play with and he and Nixon were instant friends.  They were super nice and treated us to a yummy lunch.  We are excited to see more of them.  Jack has been sick so much these last couple months.  I swear he has a permanent runny nose.  He has been germ free since Charlotte has been born so thats a blessing.  And Logan won some money for a paper he wrote in one of his classes.  He never ceases to amaze me.  And that is the quick update! 

Dinner at the Indian Restaurant.   

Our snack for the Christenson World Cup.

We had to wear polo shirts.  It wasn't a sexy date for sure.

One hole was outside in the dark.

Nixon sharing a snack with Jack.

Jack's pediatrician is right next to a John Deere Store so whenever he has to go his reward is to go see the tractors afterward.

Logan's smart brain pays off from time to time.

Baby in a basket

It has been awesome to have the Grandma's come for a visit.  Logan took Alice and Jack to Monticello so while they were away Charlotte let me play dress up with her.  Here are a few of the results.  

You can see her birth mark pretty good here just above her lip.  Sometimes its noticeable and other times you can barely see it.  It's a red birth mark and the doctor said it will most likely fade.  She also has a GIANT stork bite on the back of her neck.  Thankfully that's not on her face.  Looks like she got mommy's skin.  Sorry Charlotte.

Charlotte Kate

She is here!  Charlotte Kate was born February 13th at 6:28 a.m. at the Martha Jefferson Hospital.  She weighed 7 lbs 15 oz and was 20 inches long.  A fatty yes.  She was almost two pounds heavier than Jack.  At this rate my fifth baby will be 12 lbs.  Let's hope that doesn't happen.  It was a quick and painful delivery just like Jack.  I woke up around 1:30 a.m. on the 13th having some contractions.  We assumed this was it since I had yet to have any contractions.  We waited about an hour timing them and then despite my doctors orders to wait, we left for the hospital.  We called my dear friend Stacey and she so kindly slept on our couch.  We arrived at the hospital around 3 a.m.  I immediately asked where the anesthesiologist was.  For some reason nurses and doctors always seem to think they know best instead of listening to the mother.  Anyway, they checked me.  I was at a 6.  When I got to an 8 my anesthesiologist was finally summoned.  It was hard to hold still while she was doing the epidural with the intense contractions and she unfortunately had to do it twice because it got twisted.  It felt like forever.  I was at a ten and then the pain relief came.  Ahhhh!  They gave me a minute to get my wits and then it was time to push and there she was.  We (and I mean me) had a hard time picking her name so she was still baby girl for a while.  We knew we were going to use Kate after my mom for the middle name and had narrowed it down to Lily, Ivy, and Charlotte.  It was a tough choice but we finally picked Charlotte.  We chose it because first, we had decided we liked the name a while back before we knew we were moving to Charlottesville.  It's kind of fun that her birthplace is part of her name.  Also its the medium name we both agreed on the most.  I was leaning towards Ivy, Logan towards Lily but we both equally liked Charlotte.  Anyway, the point is it took me a day or two, but she is definitely Charlotte.  We are loving and adoring every minute with her.  I can't believe Jack is already two so I am trying to remember to enjoy it all, even the 3 a.m. feedings.  Jack will occasionally show interest in her.  Bringing her toys and wanting her to watch him as he does cool tricks.  We are training him to be soft and he does pretty good.  I love that he refers to her as baby sister.  "This is cereal baby sister."  I think he will be a good big brother even though she may not love trucks.    

Just a few hours old.

I delivered at Martha Jefferson Hospital aka a country club.  It is a brand new hospital and super nice.  Monticello is in the background just outside our window. 

A lamb hat I made for her to come home in.  Although I am grateful for the free patter, her 0-3 month size was obviously flawed.  I made her wear it anyway.

Finally home.

The Labor Cupcake

There is a famous cupcake shop in town called Cappellinos Crazy Cakes that claims to have a Lemon drop cupcake that will put you into labor if you are overdue.  Well I still have 9 days to go but I decided to do it anyway.  Obviously this cupcake has no such powers but if you are pregnant you get one free cupcake....and who can turn down free pastries? Here is the catch,  they recommend you eat two in order for it to work.  Haha.  Clever.  So I stuffed my face with two delicious cupcakes.  Maybe just the fact she was so hopped up on sugar will make her squirm me into labor.

Jack got a giant cookie he snarfed down.

Yum!

Big Brother

I decided to do a post about Jack being that soon his sister will be born and his little world will be turned upside down.  Poor kid.  Jack just keeps getting funner.  Here are some of the silly things he does lately:

He talks to animals, inanimate objects, and the moon.  Here is a sample conversation he had with the moon the other night.  "Hey moon.  How's it going?  What are you doing up there moon?  Come down here with us."  He also had this same conversation with some birds later that day.

He has started to offer things to us just like we offer them to him.  So if I give him some cereal he will usually ask, "You want some mommy?"  or if we ask him if he is finished with dinner he has to check to see if we are done too.

We watched some home videos recently.  Even though Jack seemed to recognize himself, his toys and us in the videos it still seemed to be a hard concept for him to understand that it was him we were watching.  There was one clip when we lived in Logan and I had put him in one of those mechanical cars that you put money in and it would move up and down.  It barely moved but he bawled the whole time.  This clip really struck him.  He had to watch it over and over and was trying to make sense of it.  Probably partly because he would love to ride in it now.  So for the past week, he has randomly brought it up.  But this i what he says to me, "You were sad in that car.  You didn't like that car.  It made you sad."

When we ask him what he wants to name his sister his response is usually "No."

I love that he has started to have imaginary play.  His favorite game right now is called Rats.  We have these little rubber rats.  He is always the gray one and I am the black one.  We build houses for them out of Legos and drive our cars around until the rats are tired and then they drive home.  They eat some fruit, take a bath and go to bed, get back in their cars and then we do it over and over and over again.  My favorite is when he tries to make his rat talk.  He uses a super tiny voice and basically only asks one or two questions over and over.  He is still learning that I guess.  

He is learning a lot about feelings.  He will often comment "That baby is sad" when a baby is crying.  Or he randomly will tell us how he is feeling.  Out of the blue he will say, "I am not sad mommy.  I am happy."

He tries to join in on singing "I am a Child of God" with us each night at bedtime.  He is really loud and usually hits only a few words right.

Instead of saying yes, he always says "hmmmmmm ok."

He is learning about boys and girls.  He is right about 80% of the time.  He calls girls, "grills."

Jack is quite polite.  Of course we encourage him to be so but I am impressed at how well he has caught on and just does it himself.  He frequently uses please, thanks, no thanks, and excuse me.  It's pretty funny when he uses excuse me.  He excuses himself around his toys and other inanimate objects.  For example "Excuse me dump truck."

Groundhog hunt

Our Groundhog day celebration this year consisted of making a groundhog-ulous treat, a groundhog hunt and then of course watching Groundhog day.  We even stretched it and said that our baked potatoes and toppings dinner was in honor of the groundhog and his diet of many vegetables.  We are privileged to have many groundhogs roaming our neighborhood and even though most of our neighbors see them as a pest because they eat their gardens, we love watching them scatter about with hoards of stolen garden veggies.  So we decided to see if we could find one to show Jack even though its "winter" (it was 70 degrees last week) and they are are all burrowed away.  We showed Jack a bunch of pictures of groundhogs and got him all pumped up and then headed out to see what we could find.  We found the home of a groundhog but our poking of sticks and yelling at him did not cause him to come out.  We convinced Jack that the groundhog was sleeping which is our answer whenever something or someone is gone and we don't know how to explain it.  So we headed back home and showed Jack a couple clips of Groundhog day which he really enjoyed oddly enough and then we sent him to bed so we could finish the movie.  I was saddened that we were not able to actually travel to Gobblers Knob in Punxsutawney Pennsylvania to the actual Groundhog day being that it is only 5 hours away!  Someday.  Someday....

Our groundhog meal.

Groundhog dessert.

Jack with his "groundhog" flashlight trying to get him to come out.