10 months

This is only about a week late but here is the info on my baby from the last month. Mostly this is for my own record so I remember different milestones. It's fun to look back and see how much Charlie has developed

Charlie is a big boy. Still in the 90th percentile for height and 70th for weight. We've met many one-year-olds that are much smaller than Charlie

Charlie has figured out stairs. He never had the opportunity to climb them until this last month.

He has a fantastic bear crawl when he doesn't like to feel concrete under his knees

Charlie started clapping, usually between bites of food

Still not standing for long on his own but goes from feet to bum with great stealth and control. This boy is beefy.

I'm afraid that this boy is going to have as much energy as Max. He will not cuddle and has to constantly be moving and exploring and grabbing (and tasting) everything in sight.

He loves seeing other babies and gets so excited that he flaps his arms like mad and hits the other babies and scares them away.

He has been playing with his voice more and making new sounds. Got the mama and dada down

He rarely cries. And when he does cry, he's very consolable.

He has been sleeping better but still wakes up once in the night. There was one night where he slept all night for 12 hours! My theory is that he needs sustenance in the night to support his massive baby body!

He has a sense of humor! He'll play games with us such as peek a boo, initiating it himself with his blanket, also, he loves being chased. He will laugh and laugh

Charlie played with balloons for the first time this last week and loved it. Especially rubbing them to make them squeak. 

In the last month Charlie has been in California, Washington, and Oregon.

Charlie has tried tons of new foods, some of his favorites include raspberries, saltines, pasta and string cheese.

He still just has two teeth

Charlie loves being outside, going for walks, and playing in water

OMSI

Oh how I love OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) It is one of the most wonderful places in Oregon. When we were moving back to Oregon last year Max and I discussed many of the Oregon things that we would finally get to do. OMSI was near the top of that list. We never went because it was kind of expensive and life just got really busy with a new baby. I went a ton as a kid, with school field trips and during the summer when my cousins had a season pass. Max and I also went as DARE camp counselors in high school . So this year, we thought, "hey, we're grown ups, we can get an OMSI membership if we want." We know we have been adults for quite awhile but sometimes we still have those moments when we realize that we make money and can spend it how we want. Anyway, we can say we did it for Charile but I'm pretty sure Max and I are a little more excited than Charlie. It is only 3 miiles from our house and a perfect place to "get out" even if it's pouring down rain. Point is, I could go on and on about how excited I am to go to OMSI. Charlie and I have gone twice already. Max will come with us this weekend when we go with some cousins. And here are some pictures...  Charlie loves it too!

  Anyway, we haven't even explored half of the museum so we will be doing that all year long.

Our soon-to-be-home

The beginning of September we get back to Oregon and Max gets busy right away working on the house. Shortly after my graduation last year and just before Charlie was born we moved into Max's uncles house while he was working on a second retirement in Central Oregon. He were basically house sitting while he was away and got a great deal out of it. Max's Uncle Jay ended up retiring in May, one year sooner than he was planning. So he moved back here shortly before we left for California. The house is big and we could definitely still live here if need be but we would be happy with our own space and we think Jay has hinted at this as well. He's been a bachelor all his life so i think it is probably weird for him to know that he can't do laundry when the baby is sleeping and other various things. Jay proposed the idea (actually maybe Max brought it up, I'm not sure) that we can help fix up one of Mumzie's properties and live there. Mumzie is Max's grandma and owns a lot of property but now that she is getting older and in the later stages of Alzheimers, the properties have been neglected. Max's uncle Max has been in charge of all her properties and got in way over his head so 3 have been neglected without renters for years. Anyway, instead of paying rent we would become the project managers and fix up the houses so they are ready to rent out. First we are fixing up the one we will live in then work on the other two to earn at least another year of free rent. Good deal right? The house we will be moving into is very close to where we live now, in a nice secluded area surrounded by trees. It has three bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and a garage. It has some fun quirky little things like the ceilings slant and go pretty low upstairs, you have to shower downstairs (for now) and the windows are all pretty low and a little scary upstairs. Max has been working hard to get things ready and he is loving it, he has always wanted to get into property management and this is a great way to learn how to do a ton of the maintenance stuff. So far they have put a ton of new sheet rock in, a new back door, powerwashed the deck, cleaned all the junk out, picked paint colors out (That's my one duty), fixed the plumbing. Soon they will get the wood floors all refinished, the kitchen counters redone, the deck stained, the upstairs ceiling sheet rock replaced, everything painting, tile back splashes installed, hopefully more insulation in the walls, and probably a ton more that I don't even know about because I'm usually home with the baby. Anyway, here are some BEFORE pictures to see what we were working with...it already looks a ton better

This junk has already been cleared out..and look..and mini Harry Potter closet on the right.

Lovely right?

I spy a cute baby

doors were unattached and everywhere

Garage

The master bedroom

The office

Upstairs bathroom

ceiling

I'm loving the backyard!

       That's all for now, we should put some updated pictures up soon. I forgot to take pictures of the utility room and the downstairs bathroom and they have already done a ton of improvements there! We should be moving in with a month.

Oakland

 On August 31st we were kicked out of our apartment as the summer sales program was over and the furniture rental company wanted their furniture back. We stayed until the last day because we were going to an Oakland A's games that evening so we weren't quite ready to head back to Oregon. We finished up our packing and cleaning and headed to Oakland for the baseball game. Our tickets had been accidentally sent to another Clark employee from a different branch but Max had spoken with him on the phone and we had plans to meet an hour before the game, at the stadium to get our tickets. Within the hour before the game we called him several times and waited for awhile with no luck. We were frustrated but also happy to spend the rest of the night wandering Target and eating Panda express. We stayed with our friend, Kelly Reynolds who lives about 45 minutes from the stadium. She's a good friends from BYU and we hadn't seen her in awhile. She was happy to meet Charlie and Charlie was happy to meet her dogs, Toby and Enzo. We stayed up for a bit and caught up with her before going to bed. 

The next morning we were planning to spend the day at the beach. We received a call from the guy that supposedly had our tickets. He said the had the tickets and the game was for that night.( a day later than we were told)  He was camping so he wasn't able to use his phone. So it was an annoying misunderstanding but all turned out well. Charlie ended up taking an incredibly long morning nap so we didn't have time to go all the way to the beach before the baseball game so we ended up going to a lake about 7 miles from the stadium. (My poor baby has lived in 2 west coast states and still not been to the beach, well, I guess he has been to the ocean in Washington but it was kind of in a bay and he was asleep the whole time, if we are being completely accurate...holy run-on-sentence...)  Point is, we went to a lake so Charlie could experience Sand. He loved it, the water, the ducks, his sand filled diaper...

He was obsessed with Max's nipples...hahaha

We spent a couple hours at the lake then cleaned up and headed for the game. I'll be honest I'm not too into baseball. I didn't even know there was a team called the Oakland A's until this summer but it was still an experience. Boxed seats are the way to go when watching baseball. It was a lot warmer and there was free food. I don't really have much more to say about that...it was an experience that we can now say we had.

The next morning we loaded up the car and went home.

Here we are in our "just-waking-up glory"

We took it nice and slow and just enjoyed the journey as opposed to trying to get there by a certain time. I guess that's the only way to road trip with a baby if you want to keep your sanity. Charlie did really well and we made it home before midnight so we were happy.