Blog-a-thon....

OK everyone... after my most faithful blog reader (aka Pops) reminded me that I am terribly behind on the blog, I have been motivated to catch up. After a nice 11 hour sleep last night, I think I am up for it!! I am going to attempt to blog every night for 1 week and hopefully will at least be into October by then. I am also motivated by my little darling's precious pumpkin patch pics that I am dying to blog but I am too OCD to go out of order :)

So, here goes! First up is my wonderful 30th birthday celebration with my family. Charlotte and I headed up I-35 on Wednesday night as Lauren and her bunch were headed west from NOLA at the same time. Football season had officially begun so we had to leave Daddy behind. We all arrived at Nana's around midnight-ish with 3 sleepy babies and 1 wild Owen!!! He was so excited to see everyone and just could not stop giggling until he passed out. It was so adorable. We had a fabulous but exhausting weekend running the goof troop around town, they are a handful!! Nana made one of my favorite dinners for my birthday - Chop Suey, yum!!! Vinny and Lauren hosted the best 30th birthday party ever at Uncle Vinny's new digs!! We are so proud of him and his great new house in Arlington. He has a gorgeous pool and we spent lots of time enjoying it! Jordan and Lofton came to help celebrate, it was so great to see them as it always is. Vinny grilled burgers and Nana brought all of my favorite sides. Nana kept us well fed all weekend! We finished off the weekend by baptizing sweet Hannah and Everett. They looked so darling in their special little outfits. Everett wore his godfather, Uncle Vinny's baptism outfit, and Hannah wore a beautiful dress hand made by our friend Rose. It was a beautiful ceremony followed by a lovely party at Kathy and Fred's house. It was sure hard to leave, I wouldn't mind spending every weekend with my sweet family. I miss them tons.


Breakfast time on Thursday!

Charlotte LOVES her baby cousins

Playdate with Shelley's boys

Auntie and her boy

Charlotte inspecting and kissing on her sweet cousin after way too long!

Love this pic, could they be any cuter??

Stare off!!

FUN at the splash park!

Runnin'

Silly girl

Pretty Hanny and her pretty mama

Charlotte "borrowing" a complete strangers bike, she's not shy!

I love this girl.

Goofy kids

Mother hen

Birthday dinner!

My favorite... best birthday guests ever!

Bath time! Thank goodness Nana has a big bathtub!

Breakfast time! There is nothing better than bebe jammies.

Nana sent us to "water the flowers" after breakfast. Ha, you can see what it turned into.


What Mom?? We're just a little wet!

Love this pic. Nana offered them a lollipop at 10am. Wow. We're clearly on vacation!

Classic Ev

Hannah helping in the kitchen

Everett, Charlotte and Lofton sunbathing on the step

My little fish... this picture reminds me how HAPPY she was in the pool!

Nana and Owen relaxing after nap time... notice the fun decorations in the background, so sweet!

Charlotte pushing "baby Lofton" in the stroller, she doesn't realize they are only 4 months apart!

Fun!!!

Baby duty :)


Pops got the easy job! He loves snuggling his grandbabies!

More babies in pj's!

Baptism ceremony at Most Blessed Sacrament

Uncle Vince and Everett - two handsome boys!

Parents and godparents with the babes

Precious Hannah

Terrible pic but the only one I got of Charlotte with her sweet cousins. Hannah is down to her slip but still looks darling!

I loved Kathy's decorations

Pretty (and yummy!) cake

A few things...

that I don't want to forget. I hope I never forget how much fun this age has been. Your sweet words are enough to make my heart melt all day long. You are also VERY entertaining and keep us laughing most of the day. I am not very good with remembering the video camera and I never catch my favorite things anyway so I thought I would document a few.

1. You call your daddy "daddy bear" these days.
2. You call spotted bananas "giraffes" which comes out "yi-raff-a". I think that is so clever. They do look like giraffes :)
3. You seem to forget who you're with often and suddenly look up and say "hi mama!" with the biggest grin like we haven't been together all day long.
4. You love the moon and we have to go out and say goodnight to him every night before bed.
5. If we forget to say grace before we start shoving food in our mouths at dinner, you reach your hands out and say "prayers". You say "Amen!" with lots of enthusiasm at the end.
6. You love football. Last Sunday morning when you're one video of the day was on, you looked up and said "Barney, off! Football game, ON!! Watch it!". Your daddy never got up so quickly and changed it and sure enough you stood there and clapped and watched football.
7. You LOVE babies. You spend lots of time at the Regents games mothering baby Dean. You feed his bottles, wipe his face with his burp cloth and pat his little head. You will be the sweetest big sister ever.
8. You are in love with Owen. You ask for my phone all day long and say "video" meaning to watch the video of you and Owen. You sit there and do that darling belly laugh over and over again at the same 3 minute video. You think he is soooooo funny.
9. You finally say "love you" which sounds like "yuv you" and give great kisses and hugs anytime we request them.
10. If you aren't listening to me and I say "Listen to Mama!" in a stern voice you go sit in a corner and say "time out" on your own. It breaks my heart. You are too good to be true.
11. You call yourself "Char-dit".

My dear Charlotte Grace, I just never imagined I could love you any more than I did the day we met, but I do. Just like we sing every night when we rock, you are my sunshine. You make my world sooooo happy. I love you, sweet baby!

Galveston

Another family weekend! You can see we really made our way through the family reunions this summer!! We spent one weekend in July with all of Jeanne Ann's siblings and their families in Galveston. Sam and Charlotte headed down Thursday night to meet everyone and I flew in Friday afetr work. We spent the whole weekend relaxing - swimming in the pool, checking out the ocean, walking the strand and eating lots of yummy seafood and ice cream! Charlotte had a great time with all of her second cousins. What fun to have lots of little girls in the family for her to play with!

Pool time!

Cruisin' with Phoebe on the beach



Sisters



Playin' in the ocean with Phoebe and Scarlett - Charlote was NOT a fan!


Sleepy girl

Little Larkin - LOVE her!

Phoebe playing with her daddy

Had to document Charlotte's first limo ride! And of course she's naked :) It was HOT waiting on the strand for the Hummer to arrive!!

Ohio trip

We had the most wonderful visit to Ohio this summer. It had been way too long since my last visit after 3 years of residency and having a baby. This was Charlotte's first trip to meet all of her family! We truly had a lovely time. Even though we moved from Ohio when I was young, it still brings back such good memories of my childhood every time I go. My favorite times are spent at Aunt Ruthie and Aunt Nancy's house, where I so vividly remember having a blast playing with my siblings and cousins. It just seems like everything moves a little slower there. I know that's probably not true and that their lives are just as crazy as ours - but sitting out back with family drinking a beer mid-afternoon and watching the kids play is just something I don't get to do. We spent our first night at Aunt Nancy's, and Marisa came over to play with Nic. He is such a doll and Charlotte loved having a little friend! We were so excited to escape the Texas heat but unfortunately a heat wave blew through Ohio and it was hotter there than at home!! But we still enjoyed Aunt Nancy's beautiful yard and spent the evening outside. On Friday, Charlotte, Nana, Aunt Ruthie and I went to Columbus Country Club. Charlotte was in heaven!! We had a great time swimming and eating lunch thanks to the Gibboney's. I think we would spend every Thursday there if we lived there! Friday night we went to visit Grandpa Cecil and check out his new place. He was so happy to see Charlotte and was thrilled that she liked Donato's and M&M's, what a good little Bosworth baby! We went to the annual Bosworth family reunion Saturday. Char slept through most of it after being worn out early in the trip. It was a nice break to have a chance to catch up with my family. Sunday we went to Meghann's wedding shower, it was so beautiful. We had a delicious lunch and a wonerful time with my aunt's and cousins. I love the Koebel girls dearly and wish I could have lunch with them much much more often. It was an action packed trip but we had a great time and got to see almost everyone! I hope we can do it every summer.

Playing with Nic. After a long day of traveling and no nap, Char kept Lovie close by!

Charlotte loved pushing this baby and grocery cart

Nana's shoes - goofy girl

Hard to get a good one of these two!

Aunt Nancy kept sweeping up the leaves and then these goofs would play in the pile and scatter it again!

Fun!!





Me and my girl

Vacation is tiring!!

Love!

Swinging with Mama

Charlotte loved the BIG slide!! Little daredevil!

The only pic I took of the Bosworth's, what was I thinking!?!?

iPhone pic - better than nothing. Charlotte and Cecil!

Gorgeous shower - homemade cupcakes....mmmmm!

Centerpieces from Heidi's garden, unreal!!!

The hostesses

Mama and Meghann, the beautiful bride!

Mother of the bride


Another day without a nap, I think Charlotte was delirious at this point!

Wild woman helping to open gifts


Bride-to-be, I miss this girl!

Toddler

It has been so long since I have written about what my little sweetie is up to! I took this picture at 18 mo and intended to do an update with it, and here I am catching up 2 months later! Charlotte Grace is quickly approaching 2, which (as I always say) I just can't believe. At 20 months, my favorite of her tricks is her speech. She is a little chatterbox all day long, can pretty much say anything and now is starting to put little sentences and phrases together. It is just amazing to see her little mind work and I still get teary eyed occasionally when she says something new in that precious little voice. Miss Martha took her to music class yesterday and when they pulled back up to the house for lunch, Charlotte said "Gracias, Martha". I am so proud of her please's and thank you's and yes ma'am's (which actually sounds like yes sam)! She is learning more and more spanish which cracks me up. She likes to go to the "parque" and when she sees kids there she says "muchos ninos"! She also just started talking on the phone and will say "hi daddy, I love you!". Makes him melt. She loves her days with Martha, and they have quite a time together. They are doing Rolly Pollies on Mondays, storytime at the library on Tues/Fri and music class on Wednesday. And of course lots of walks and going to the park and playing in the playroom in between. Charlotte loves her little friend Brooke, who walks down most days in the afternoon to play outside or upstairs. Charlotte's loves to do anything outside - thank goodness it is FINALLY cooling down! She loves to play on her little cars and bikes, check the mail, run around in the grass barefoot (really naked is best), water the plants, look at the moon and stars at night, play on the deck and slide after dinner, run up and down the hill in the backyard and throw Macy's ball. Charlotte is still a great eater and pretty much eats what we eat. She is even less picky with veggies these days and will eat peas, carrots, corn, asparagus and spinach! We had a set back last month with sleeping when I tried to put the poor thing in the closet to sleep at Nana's. She is in a fearful stage anyway right now and she still hasn't forgiven me. She has to sleep with her door open and night light on and won't sleep in a pack 'n play away from home. She is slowly getting better at home though and sleeps her usual 11 1/2 - 12 hours. She never fights naps with me but does with Martha. She definitely thinks she is the boss of Martha. Yesterday when Martha tried to put her down, she said "Martha, rock!" so guess what, Martha rocked her to sleep. Spoiled ;) Charlotte loves music these days, we spend many many hours singing songs together. It is a perfect way to pass time in the car, airplane, car wash, etc. Her favorite is "friends", where we go through all of our friends and family's (and dogs!) names. Charlotte loves everyone in her life and prefers to have guests all the time! She used to cry when anybody left but has gotten better about that. She also likes to dance and is really into dressing up in her tutu's and jewelry and fancy shoes! She loves new clothes and says "oooooooooooh or wow!" when I bring new clothes home for her. Then she says, "try on" and "fits?" and tries everything on! I really don't need any encouragement from her to buy new clothes!! Charlotte is the perfect combination of a girly girl who is tough and can keep up with the boys! I love seeing her little personality develop. She continues to be my little sunshine and fills my heart with joy everyday. She loves her mama dearly and doesn't like me too far from her sight these days, I don't mind. I just read this to her daddy to see if there is anything to add and he reminded me that she LOVES football!! He is quite proud. It is true, she says "football game, FUN!!" all the time and does love the games. What could be better than staying up late, playing with lots of kiddoes, watching the cheerleaders and eating hotdogs?! Oh, and how could I forget? Char can count to 10, knows all of her body parts, recognizes animals and their sounds and is learning colors and shapes! I am so proud of my smart little girl!!!

Charlotte's 18 month stats:
Height 31.25 in (40%) - you go girl!!!
Weight 27 lb (85%)
Head circumference (97%)

Wordless Wednesday

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