Charles the 6-Year-Old

Charlie basically got 3 whole days to celebrate his birthday but before I get into that, here are some things to know about Charlie. He is just as social as ever. He makes friends wherever he goes and rarely demonstrated any shyness. (Completely the opposite of me and EXACTLY like his dad.) He isn't scared to ask someone to borrow their toys or eat their snacks. 

(His photos were taken in 3 minutes in a friend's yard)

He Loves his brothers even though he doesn't always show it. He loves to incorporate Miles in his imaginative play and would probably be bored without him. (although, I've never seen Charlie bored) He loves Edwin and wants to wrestle him and play rough with him more than Edwin is able.

He is always ALWAYS trying to make people laugh. This is often by nonsense words, silly jokes, funny faces, or weird sounds. Sometimes he'll put his head in his shirt or wear his glasses backwards or upside down...

He always loves to help and is sometimes frustrated that his size limits him (Like at Thanksgiving when we wanted to help his grandparents and great grandma up and down the stairs but couldn't give them the support they needed alone) When Daddy says he needs help with a project, he always jumps at the opportunity. When mom asks him to put the milk away he sometimes ignores her.

 

Since starting Kindergarten, He has LOVED math. He has been figuring out all sorts of equations and constantly quizzing us on our math. He has also loved learning how to read and figure out how to sound out words, learn his sight words, and write. 

Charlie's mind is always racing...I've tried to have more patience and take more time listening to his ideas and doing things his way (even when my ways are more efficient) He loves planning "family nights" and parties for our family!

And here is his 6-year-old interview

Name: Charlie

Nicknames:Charles Gorden Baertlein

How old are you?  6!

What is your favorite color? Blue

What is your favorite animal? Cow...I mean Cheetah because they are so fast.

What is your favorite book?The Book with No Pictures

What is your favorite TV show?The PJ Masks

What is your favorite movie?The PJ Masks

What is your favorite song? I don't have a favorite song

What is your favorite food? Macaroni and Cheese, I mean waffles

What is your favorite drink? Juice

What is your favorite snack? Z bar

What is your favorite treat? Sucker, I mean cake

What is your favorite outfit? My clothes, these clothes

What is your favorite game? Don't eat Pete

What is your favorite toy? Something that spins and lights up

Who is your best friend?Gwenevere and Grace, I mean August, well they're both my friends

What is your favorite thing to do? Jump on a giant Trampoline

What is your favorite thing to do outside?Jump on the Trampoline

What is your favorite holiday? "I have 2 holidays, Christmas, and the one you stay up late and have covered strawberries."

What do you like to take to bed with you at night? My monkey

Where is your favorite place to go? To Gwenevere and Grace's house

What is your favorite restaurant? Ones that have macaroni and Cheese.

Where do you want to go on vacation? "camping"

What do you love? "My monkey, my brown monkey"

  What did you do on your birthday? "Have cake!"

What do you do really well? "Jump on a trampoline"

What makes you laugh? "When someone does a really funny joke"

What are you afraid of? "Monsters"

What do you like to do with your family? "Have family night, and count to 100 everyday"

What do you love to learn about? "Logs"

What is your mom good at? "jump?"

What is your dad good at? "jumping i think?"

What is Miles good at? "going crazy"

Tell me a joke? "knock knock" "who's there?" "Banana face" "banana face who?" "banana face from the face, from the computer, and from the CD!"

 What is something you learned this year? "Logs, on my field trip"

 What makes mommy laugh? "jokes"

What's a nice thing you have done for someone? "Playing with them"

His actually birthday was on a Sunday. The Friday before that, my mom and Don picked up Charlie and took him to OMSI and to get ice cream. He had a blast. He loves OMSI and he loved that he didn't have to share Grandma and Grandpa.

 He even got to go in the submarine and while he was in the submarine with Grandpa Don...my mom was left unattended in the science store and got him many gifts...Charlie didn't complain!
They came back to our house and we had a BBQ and Charlie opened his gifts from Grandma and Grandpa.

The next day was Saturday and since Charlie loves going to Pizza Caboose for his birthday, we decided that Saturday was the right day for it. He met with our good friends the Halls, and my mom, brother, and my dad. Charlie got his favorite pizza, Hawaiian, and a couple quarters to play arcade games. I took 0 pictures. But Charlie's friend Landon gave him a cool new Lego set that he has thoroughly enjoyed since.

On Charlie's Birthday we made his cake in the morning. I usually let them search recipes.com for what they want then we can try and make it. Charlie wanted to search for a chocolate cake. He found this super chocolate cake and he wanted it with blue frosting. (It called for a bundt pan but I only had an angel food pan...which worked great and made it look like a doughnut!

After church he decorated his cake with blue frosting! (FYI...my phone takes really blurry picture these days)

Daddy helped a little bit.

Then we played Charlie's hot and cold game while he found his presents around the house.

It was cute to see him open his gifts because he was so genuinely thrilled with each one!

Now we are parents of a six year old. And Charlie's high energy and excitement for every little thing he sees keep us plenty busy and challenges our patience but we sure love that big kid!

9 months/beautiful Fall day at the park

For Edwin's 9 month photos we revisited the magical place we happened upon when we were taking Charlie's photos last year. I thought there would be no way it could be as dreamy as last year because there was sun and fog and beautiful colors. It didn't disappoint this year either. The leaves were dry and the colors still vibrant. And Also, I just want to point out the the following photo of Edwin has been my favorite photo of him to date and it was the first of 100+ that came out of my camera that day. I never nail the first shot so...I guess I'm just bragging about that and now I'll stop...

 We have yet to follow the trail because I always promise my kids we can play on the playground if they let me take their photos. So, I guess next year we'll try it out and see if there's more Fall magic around the bend.

 Eating the foliage again...you would think I never feed this kid!

 

A brief tender moment between these brothers. Miles is generally pretty indifferent about Edwin. Edwin, of course, is fascinated with both his big brothers.

  And then the promised playground time until the rain clouds came...

These monthly post were originally supposed to be for me to track Edwin's development which I haven't done very well because I'm always months behind. (but catching up!!) So hooray for beautiful days at the park.

Halloween

 Halloween came and went quickly...we had intentions of doing the Moana theme...Charlie had it all planned out since before Edwin was born. Charlie would be Maui, I would be Moana, Max would be the giant crab, Miles would be the chicken and Edwin would be a little coconut guy. As Halloween got closer and after I cut my hair and realized I couldn't make it as moana-esque, we decided to make it more simple. Charlie and I discussed doing the "floppy guys" as he calls them and made a plan. The boys got really excited about the idea and our costume design kept changing to make it more simple. I kinda like how it turned out even if no one else could really tell what we were. I love that my whole family was so excited about such a silly and simple costume.

The first night we wore our costumes, we went to a church Halloween party. (Where the photo was taken.)

When it was actually Halloween I had to repair the boys paper hats a bit and we decided on not doing the arm streamers to make it even more simple. Max got home later from work than we hoped so the daylight was gone and we didn't take the photos we wanted...We had great intentions of taking photos using a fan to blow our streamers  but it didn't happen and we all survived. Our costumes were kinda...one-time-use costumes so it didn't even make sense to do it on another day.
We followed our tradition of visiting great grandparents on Halloween. We started with Max's grandma, Mumzie. The boys loved all the fun decorations that Justin had put out. We then made our way to Green Grandma's house where the boys got to play with her fun toys. We then made our way to red Grandma's house. Edwin and I stayed and visited Grandma while Max took Miles and Charlie to trick or treat a bit on her street. Then it got really late and we decided to take our sleepy and sugared up boys home.