Charlie the great!

This week our sweet little Charles Gorden turned three. Here's a quick look at his three years of life:

Day 1

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Charlie makes us smile every day. He is thoughtful and eager to help (on his terms of course). He finds joy in anything he is doing (a quality I admire in Max as well) .  He is still learning obedience but is making progress. He likes to run and jump and play. Poty training is what it is. I'm not super strict or forceful with it so he is doing ok with pee and not so great with poop. :) He has enjoyed doing more crafty things recently. I'm not sure if this is because of our new whiteboard, his age, or the fact that he can see better but it's neat that he can focus on a craft for a little while longer now. 

I Love listening to him speak and hearing the logic that he comes up with. 

Here are a couple funny things that I wanted to document for us.

He likes to mix up compound words such as Rubber bands are sometimes called rubber band aids and Construction cones are called pine cones.

When we are drawing pictures of people he says they are "sleeping" until you put dots in their eyes, then he says "they woke up!"

He's really into opposites, when he is talking about food he says it's not yucky, it's yummy." or "it makes you happy, not sad"
He recently started praying by himself and has been praying for daddy to come home (he's been gone hunting)

One of my favorite and unexpected quotes was when Miles was getting his 6 month shots and was crying. Charlie proclaimed that "he needs chocolate so he feels better."

There are probably more that I want to remember but that's what I can think of now.

Charlie's Birthday

The plans for Charlie's birthday kept changing. Max was out of town so I planned on having my mom watch Miles while I took Charlie out on a date for dinner and swimming. It wont be long before Charlie doesn't want to spend his birthday with his mom so I wanted to take advantage of that, plus I wanted a little one on one time. It turned out that my mom had to work later than expected and we wouldn't have time for dinner and swimming. Also, Elizabeth called me the morning of Charlie's birthday and said she could come down with the kids to celebrate if we were up for it. I was so excited because it has been a tough week with Max gone and I knew Charlie would love some cousin time.  So we got to celebrate Charlie's third birthday with an unplanned party with his cousins. Charlie lit up when his cousins came over. He was ecstatic and it made me happy that he was able to spend his special day with them. We started the cousin play time by getting out a whole bunch of toys!

The strong girls pushing the boys!

It makes me happy that my kids have cousins so close in age. These boys were able to interact a little more. 

These are Charlie's birthday brownies that we made together. He decorated them

We made homemade mac and cheese for dinner, somehow Charlie got Aunt Elizabeth to feed him.

My baby is 3!

Our baby boys playing together more.

After dinner and some birthday brownies we went swimming!!

Miles loved the warm water, Charlie loved going down the slide. I was mad that I forgot his arm floaties. so it was a little more stressful. I will not be forgetting them next time. 

Everett slept for most of it then woke up and was super content watching.

Charlie was super exhausted by the end. It was nearly 9pm and he hadn't napped. We decided to get out of the pool and get dressed all the cousins came soon after.

Miles is wearing Everett's old pajamas and Everett is wearing Charlie's old pajamas. It's great having cousins!

Charlie had quite the meltdown as we were going to the car but once we got home, he fell asleep quickly. Our cousins stayed at our house. It was pretty great birthday, especially considering that Max wasn't here.  Charlie is easy to please and I was so excited that we were able to spend time with Elizabeth and cousins.