Thanksgiving

I don't even remember much of what we did for Thanksgiving. It was nice having Max home for a couple days, but other than that I just know we went to My red Grandma's house on Thanksgiving Day and Max's Uncle Jay's house the day after! I even just looked back in my calendar to see if I'm missing anything and I hadn't written anything down...Wow, Edwin's first year of life has put me in a whirlwind...hopefully I'll get caught up soon so I can write about his first birthday before he is two....Anyway, The only proof we have of family time is the awesomely awkward pictures of my crazy family that were taken at my grandma's house. Thank you Elizabeth for humoring us. And why say anymore...here you go!
  

 The vain part of me wants to point out that I was ten pounds heavier than I am now and getting closer to my pre-baby weight! NBD Also... Edwin has grown out of all these clothes!

 "Kiss mommy right there!"

 Oh, and I just reviewed my phone pictures and it reminded me of a couple more things we did during Thanksgiving weekend...We bought a new mattress...which is like sleeping on a firm fluffy cloud.  We finished painting Edwin's room (formerly Max's office) and moved Edwin into his own room...and he slept through the night the first night in his room. Just picture this...we finally had our 8 month old out of our room, he slept through the night and we slept on a brand new amazing mattress after years of an awful one! Amazing! Max also did some black Friday shopping and did pretty much all of the Christmas shopping. Oh and Max's uncle had a new spaceship massage chair that Max sent me up to enjoy while he watched the kids and visited family...so that was nice! Oh and we took care of our friends' chickens and gathered their eggs. That was super fun. There we go some memories documented!

Sidekick

My Charles is a clown! Which actually makes him a great photography assistant when kids are involved. Especially when that kid is someone that already loves Charlie. So one Saturday morning I had a day with Charlie and he came to help me with a family photo shoot. He was super helpful at times....and he disappeared with my supplies at other times. Either way it was fun for us. We got to the garden a little early and scoped out some good photos spots...this garden just keeps surprising me with the beauty it's capable of! It's like there is a new surprise every time we go...like these fiery red leaves! And good thing I practiced some photos on Charlie because most of them ended up blurry...had to get those ones out of the way! hah!

 We thought this was a really big leaf....

...until we found these ones!

 

So we went around the garden scoping out the best photo spots. And Charlie was more than willing to pose for me!

 

Super official

And just because I know you are wondering...here is one photo from the shoot.

 After a crisp and sun shiny morning, Charlie enjoyed his payment of hot chocolate!

Time Out For Women

At the beginning of November I got to have a fun overnighter with some wonderful friends. There is an annual conference that comes to town called Time Out For Women. It is two days of uplifting and enjoyable speakers. I had never gone before but I had heard great things. Then one of my friends mentioned getting a group together to stay the night in a hotel downtown and I was all ears...an over nighter without the kids sounded great. (We don't even live far from downtown, where the conference was) My dear friend Heather had access to a free night at the Hilton down town so some of us went there! And it was divine. The conference was filled with incredible music and speakers and it sure was enjoyable to not chase kids...or put them to bed.

 And these are the pictures that were taken...haha! When it was over, none of us wanted to go home...so we went out to dinner. Max had taken the boys to visit his brother and parents over the weekend...let me rephrase that....My incredible husband, alone,  took all 3 of our boys on a 3 hour road trip/overnighter to visit his family and to be in attendance at an old family friend's baptism. So I came home to an empty house and it was lonely but I felt so grateful for an amazing weekend with wonderful women. My favorite speaker was the mother of Emily Parker who was killed in the Sandy Hook school shooting. She spoke of Love and forgiveness and finding light and miracles in her life and continuing her daughters legacy of kindness.

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!