Charlie's 2nd Birthday

Charlie Ross celebrated his second birthday with a visit from his Grammy and Grandpa, a day at Dewberry Farm, and a birthday party with his family (Grammy and Grandpa, Aunt Gina, Uncle Dan, David and Danielle) and friends (the Orgerons).

The pictures are a bit out of order, but we started out with Dewberry farm on Saturday, there was so much to see and do (maybe too much) - CR enjoyed seeing the animals and a play area with lots of farm toys and tunnels to play in, the play area was for little kids only and a closed in area so he could run around to his heart's content. He enjoyed that very much but got tired quickly - the farm is only open seasonally in the Fall and we are looking forward to going again next year when we can (maybe) try out the hayrides and pumpkin patch.

The next day was CR's birthday, we had a low key get together with a Go Diego Go theme, we put eveything together when CR took his nap, and when he woke up it was a flurry of gifts, cupcakes, and friends.

On Monday - his birthday - I stayed home and we all had a low key day, CR and Grammy went out for a 'run', an activity he enjoys very much. For several weeks after he associated this directly with wearing this Elmo shirt (below) and could not have one without the other.

At two years old CR is very fond of trains, cars, and Dora and Diego. In the car he likes to listen to his favorite songs, some of which he requests by name, and he enjoys singing along - Wheels on the Bus, Old McDonald, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Freres Jacques are some of his favorites. Non-sing along favorites are Three Little Birds (Bob Marley), Ghostbusters (Theme Song), and Into Yesterday (Sugar Ray, from Surf's Up).

Catch Up

Please bear with me for the lack of posts over the past 2 (!) months, it has been a busy time. I will kick off with some pictures from early October at the Katy Rice Harvest Festival (so backtracking just a bit more from before Halloween).


CR's Maw-Maw joined us, and CR took some (impromptu) pictures at a photo booth of a local photographer. You would never know it from the pictures but it was actually an overcast day and these pics were taken outside!


More posts to follow....

It's a Boy!

Just a quick announcement - we had the big ultrasound this morning and found out we are having a boy! I wish we could get ultrasounds every week - it is so fun to see the baby and this one was so clear (and it was not even 4D).

Happy Halloween!

Charlie Ross enjoyed his first real Halloween thoroughly - leading up to it he enjoyed seeing all the pumpkin (Oh! Pumpkin!) and ghost (Ghost! Boo!) and monster (Monster! Scary!) decorations everywhere. He had a Halloween party with pizza and got to wear his costume to school on Friday. And he discovered candy corn, which Charlie and I started having to dole out carefully.

But on Halloween night it was on (!), there was the Annual Halloween parade in the neighborhood. We had never gone before, and were surprised at the turn out. The organizers from prior years were ready to pass the baton, and in a move that was totally out of character for me I volunteered to lead up the preparations - which really was not much, everyone loves a parade - the hardest part was navigating through the red tape to be sure the local volunteer Fire Department showed up to lead the parade. But they did and it turned out to be a great parade, we all brought potluck and there was no end to all the cookies and cupcakes CR could eat.

In particular someone made these eyeball pops, which was red velvet cake balls on a stick with white icing and piping to look like eyes. In nearly all of the pictures below that is what he is gobbling up or smiling around.

He was raring to go with all that sugar - he enjoyed climbing and touching the fire truck, and when the parade started he wanted to RUN! FORREST! RUN! (or, in his words, 'I running!!') - he ran over a quarter of the parade route and then walked with Gina, Charlie, David and me, the whole rest of the way, which was pretty impressive. We enjoyed walking the parade and waving at the other neighbors who came outside to see.

Now with every up there's a down and the sugar crash happened not too long after the parade's end, but we were able to get in some trick or treating - about five houses which I thought was not too bad after all that other activity.

It went like this: Charlie, David and CR go knock on the door - making sure CR did not completely assault the Jack-O-Lantern, CR says 'trick or treat' and gets the candy and says 'thank you', the door closes and he melts down on the front porch as though Halloween had just shut down completely, Charlie convinces him there is more trick or treating at the next house, he finally calms down and looks up, sees me, and comes running down the walk saying 'Mommy! Mommy!' to show me what he got. Repeat for four more houses, at the last one, there was barely any convincing him to move on - luckily it was across the street from our house so we trick or treated at our own door - where Aunt Gina was giving out candy. We went in, CR and David dug through their stash, ate some more candy then we had roast beef sandwiches - and then called it a night.

All in all a fun evening - I love Halloween. The best part is Daylight Savings was the next day which means Charlie comes home from work an hour early for the next few months (yea!).

So I am just going to post a bunch of pictures, to give a full view of the night - but all the pictures posted backwards - so the bottom pictures happened fist and so on. Not too many of the actual trick or treating because it got dark. (Oh, CR went again as Darth Vader this year because he really did not get to use the costume last year - I thought he was cute in it and we got him to say 'I scary!').

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Ross

Yesterday Charlie and I went to the craft fair and pumpkin patch at a church nearby - we went on kind of a whim but CR had a really great time in the pumpkin patch, and is enjoying pointing out pumpkins where ever he goes now.

I think his school pics on Wednesday must have been in pumpkins because the first thing he did when he saw them all was to sit on one look at me and say 'cheese!' with a big grin. I am surprised this did not make it into these pictures, but there were tons of other parents and kids taking pictures here, some of them were dressed in costumes - very cute!

The Big News

With 10 of nearly 14 weeks to plan you would think I could come up with a more creative post to announce the big! news! - but until very recently my creativity along with most of my energy has been zapped by our new little peanut Russo, who is due to arrive March 24th, 2010.

Big thank yous to Charlie, my Mom, and Gina, who faced the brunt of my complaints regarding nausea, which seemed incessant to me, and therefore, I suspect, to them.

We will find out the week before CR's birthday whether he will have a little brother or a little sister. If I had to put money on it based on how I feel and look so far (completely identical to when I was pregnant with CR) I would say we are having a boy for sure, we'll see - either way would be just fine with me.

Maw-Maw sent this book for CR (I'm A Big Brother! - thank you!) and the intent was to take a pic of him holding it with the title facing forward, but of all the pics this one turned out the best.

Got to go, CR has pulled his chair out and is DEMANDING pizza - which, unfortunately for him, and probably for me, is not on the menu tonight.

Pool Time!

Here are some pics of Charlie in his pool in the backyard, as mentioned previously, I have taken to making big blocks of ice in Tupperware to put in the pool so it is not just bath water in the Texas sun - CR loves to play with both the ice and the Tupperware. In the middle of July these big blocks would melt so fast, hopefully in September we can use the pool like normal people (no ice).

[I successfully resisted the urge to title this post 'Ice Ice Baby'.]