Swim class

Charlie and I are doing a 5 week parent/child swim class. We did a 5 week tumbling class before swimming started. We have a local community center that does these classes for a pretty good price. They have been a lot of fun and I'd like to think that Charlie is getting better at listening and following directions from them. We were able to take both classes with our friends Kerri and Madeleine. Charlie is also becoming much more comfortable in the water and doesn't get as mad at me when I dunk him! On one of our class days, Madeleine's dad was able to come watch so he took some pictures. I've been enjoying the class even though it's only a half hour class and nearly an hour of getting ready before and after.  

We love swimming!

In the meantime...

Here is the place where I do a photo dump of some things we have been doing. As I'm in the last month of my pregnancy I feel that I am playing the waiting game so we try to make that waiting as enjoyable as possible. When we were waiting for Charlie to arrive (he came 9 days late) Max and I made an extra effort to do something special each night together. Oftentimes it ended up being us watching a movie on the couch because that's all my tired body could handle but we did go out on lots of dates and tried to cherish each moment together. We feel that this is an important goal for us now especially with Charlie. I know it will be a fun new dynamic with two little boys but we just want to make sure we make the most of our time whilst a family of three.  So here are some of those events....

I have mentioned before that Max has been very patient and involved Charlie in many projects. Charlie has really loved this daddy time...especially when he gets to use tools. My boys washed the car together. They were both soaked in the end but I know for sure that Charlie loved it!

  

On Monday, the sister missionaries asked if we could take them to their transfer meeting. We, of course, were super excited. I love helping out the sisters because I can definitely feel for them. They are doing some hard work! After we dropped them of for the meeting Charlie and I went to walk around he LDS temple grounds in the rain. The rain didn't seem to bother him at all. 

Most of the pictures I took were of him running away from me.

When we are at home Charlie likes to spend his time working on house projects even if daddy isn't there. So helpful! Our stairs and bathtub have been the current projects.

I love catching this boy sleeping! 

I got to go to a baby shower of an old friend at this awesome house 

Our Old Navy trip was a blast for this goofy kid! 

And just so it is documented...Charlie bit into this spinach leaf...after swallowing the first bite he took a second bite that did not stay in his mouth. 

He does not like spinach leaves although he will chug down smoothies made with spinach.  

 We took a trip to the Children's museum with Kim and Chloe...we got to explore their new cycling exhibit. (PS I think James needs to take his girls here...you can even build a bike...of sorts)

I love Charlie's tough face as he rides a pink bike. 

 He certainly loves painting his own face for the theater.

He made toast for me. 

This is how Charlie plays with "baby brother" or maybe he just likes my belly button. 

On Thursday night I was able to go see the musical Aida with my mom. Shortly before Christmas I found out that this play was being done in Portland, my mom had never seen it but has loved the music for a long time so we decided tickets to finally see it would be the perfect Christmas gift for her. I was excited to go with her. We had no idea that our tickets were in the front row and we were practically on the stage!

The beautiful theater. 

On Friday I got to go out on a wonderful date with Max. 

Before our date Charlie got ready for an outing at Grandma's by taking a bath then cuddling with his mama!

Charlie was thrilled to play with Grandma and Max and I were excited to go out to eat. We went to Gustav's mostly because I've been craving fondue for a couple months now. Also, when we got there we laughed because ever since we found out we were pregnant Max has been calling the baby Gustav or Gus, and we hadn't made that connection until we arrived at the restaurant. (That won't be his real name in case you were wondering)

After dinner we went to Toys R Us...sometimes you just need to go to a toy store without your 2-year-old right?  

We actually went for a couple reasons, partly because we knew we would have fun at a toy store as part of our date. We also needed to get a gift for a birthday party Charlie is going to. And, we wanted to pick out a gift for baby brother to give to Charlie when they first meet. Yes we know this is somewhat of a bribe but we haven't purchased many toys for Charlie in the past so we thought this would be fun. 

I don't think we will ever grow up...and I'm kinda okay with that!

And this is the second time Max has hula hooped in public this month :)  

We ended up picking out an official Buzz Lightyear toy for Charlie which we are pretty sure he will love. (But don't tell Charlie...he wont get the gift for another month) He loves Toy Story! Anyway, after our toy store adventures we decided to call it a night and go pick up our baby boy. Charlie was not excited to leave grandma's house and he tried to push us back out the door when we got there, I'm sure glad he loves playing at Grandma's house. It will make it easier to spend the time in the hospital with baby brother. 

So those are some things that we have done... but here are a couple more things we are looking forward to

• My first photography class tomorrow. 
• A baby shower thanks to Lisa and Annette next week!
• A temple date with Max
• Swimming classes with Charlie
• More OMSI and Children museum outings. 
• Spring!
• More in-home dates with Max
• BABY BROTHER!

Red Grandma

This last weekend we were able to celebrate my Grandma Wilcox's 81st birthday! It is always exciting to celebrate because she is a pretty wonderful grandma. It was requested that I take some pictures since James and Elizabeth's family wouldn't be able to make it down. I can't say I did that great on the picture taking...but I will try to document the event here so you guys can still get a feel for the excitement you missed. We first met at Izzy's buffet. Our family was the last to arrive so we were pretty impressed with how many of Grandma's posterity were there. We were all filling up nearly 4 tables. Let's just break down this posterity for a minute. (The main purpose of our family blog is to keep a record and document our family stories so this seems the appropriate place to do that.)

Dale and Nancy Wilcox (my grandparents)

6 children (5 were present, 1 passed away nearly two years ago)

19 Grandchildren (11 were present) and a whole bunch of spouses!

14 (almost 15!)  great grandchildren   6 were present!

That is a basic rundown but it definitely seemed like a great turnout                         

                           

Like I said, I really didn't do that great with the picture taking but here are a couple!

Kaden-Great Grandchild, 1.5 years

Aaron-Grandchild, 3.5 years

Timmy Grandchild, 5 years

Cheesy Charlie-great grandson, 2.5 years
Max-Grandson-in-law

And of course, a couple pictures of my boys!

We ate a whole lot of food then the plan was to go spend the evening at my grandma's house for games. As everyone was leaving, Max and I took a quick trip to Old Navy to get Max some jeans, he was in need and we didn't know when we would have time later...our Old Navy trip was a success then we headed over to Grandma's. Max and I got to play phase ten which was pretty exciting because usually one of us is following Charlie around seeing what he's getting into. We spent time visiting with family and eating birthday cake. It was a great way to spend time as a family and celebrate an amazing woman!

OMSI with some flashbacks

I'm not sure how many more outings I will have with just Charlie and me. Of course we plan to have parent/child outings in the future but who knows how much longer he will be an only child. We've been filling our time with swim class and other Mother/Son outings and I love it...even though it is pretty exhausting these days. We haven't been to OMSI in awhile and wanted to get some visits in before baby brother comes. We also wanted to check out the new Tony Hawk: Rad Science exhibit! So that is what we did. 

Overall Charlie wasn't that impressed with the new exhibit and we only looked at part of it. We'll go back again soon and look at the rest. Lisa, your boys might love it, we can go sometime when you are here. 

We then went to the health science exhibit which is one of Charlie's favorites. Except he apparently really hates looking at the fetal section which is my favorite right now. He would scream when we went to look at the babies. Is that a bad sign?

He climbed right up and tried some push-ups. 

And here is a movie of Charlie's impressive jump rope skills. He was able to jump on beat and do pretty well!

 

And just to see a little flashback...these ear pictures were taken 1 year apart from each other. 

Then we had a great time in the little kids playground

He has grown so much in just over a year

He has become quite the scientist

Anyway, that was our little outing and some comparison pictures. It wont be long until baby brother is right there exploring with us. And shortly thereafter both boys will be running in opposite directions leaving me to hunt down one or the other...this seems to be my number one fear about having two kids....oh well, we'll cross that bridge when we get there.