Ode to the Pacifier

Charles has been pacifier free for about a week and half now. He still asks for "that" sometimes, but doesn't break down when we tell him it is broken. Lately he had been biting holes in them. We were down to 2 and at the baby-sitters last week he broke the only one he had there. She told him it was broken, so we ran with it. We had some rough nights where the whole family was up for a hour or so in the middle of the night. But we have moved past it. The only drawbacks have been finally cutting him to 1 nap and pushing his bedtime back a little. I was worried that he was going to hold it against me but don't worry he still loves me. The next hurdles are potty-training and a toddler bed. I'm not in a hurry to do either. My baby is growing too fast as it is. Here are some pictures of Charles and his pacifier over the last almost 2 years. Thank you pacifier, you were wonderful.

Memorial Day Weekend Camping

Be excited there are going to be a lot of pictures.

Day one at the beach.

It was a little chilly.
Charles and Grandpa. Charles much preferred the sand to the ocean.
He wouldn't let me move the towel not even for a quick picture. Maybe it was more than a little chilly.
Grandma helping Charles.

Charles taking Grandma for a walk.

Day Two at the beach was only slightly warmer.
But Daddy and Aunt Mam (Sam) were there.

See we took off our jackets. . .
. . .for a little while. Be impressed, he filled up the whole bucket by himself.
Smiling for Mommy.
Daddy and Hooch.
Mommy and Aunt Mam and no we can't see very well with eyes closed. It was windy leave us alone.

We did spend some time at the campsite.

One of Charles' favorite camping past-time. Stack the firewood.
This he tolerated, but didn't like that much. He looks so big in there.

We had a good time and a special thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for the camp site and the good eats.

Clarification and More

In case anyone was wondering about the previous post. . .

The law school degree is a J.D. aka Juris Doctorate; like a M.S. is a Masters of Science. And the character on Scrubs is names J.D. There is an episode, which we can't find, where an old man who looks like the Janitor has deep discussions with the Janitor. They talk about their struggles to catch their J.D. The Janitor is always pulling pranks on J.D. the person, while the old guy is talking about getting a law degree.

Anyway, here are some recent pictures of Charles:

Great-grandpa, Dad and Charles

Charles vs. the popsicle

My favorite. I don't know what happened to his shorts, but that is the best part.

You can't have him, he's mine.

He finally caught his J.D.

Chad graduated from Law School this past weekend. And he did it in style with Charles in-tow as he acrossed the stage. I am so proud of him. You can't imagine the volume of articles he has had to read and edit over the past three years. Even though Charles and I did our best to distract him, Chad finished strong by making the honor roll his last year. We celebrated with a BBQ Saturday night and then a quiet Sunday. Monday Chad began his bar review "class" that acts like a full time job with homework. Although he still has to take the bar exam at the end of July (3 day exam!!), we can now see the light at the end of the tunnel. Where that light will take us, we probably won't know until the end of the summer.

Prior to the graduation.

A quick shot before they walked across the stage.

Look in the middle. . .it looks like a floating Hooch.

What is a celebration without a large Costco cake?

Start your Engines

On Saturday all the girls in my family (Mom, Andi, Katie, Jill, Marianne, Samantha and Megan)and I participated in Race for the Cure. It is a 5K walk/run to benefit Breast Cancer research. The first year (three years ago) we walked the race due to the fact that 3 of us were pregnant. One was very pregnant (Katie) and another also had her son on her back (Andi). We enjoyed the walk so much that we decided to walk again. Who needs to run? Walking allows us to dance to the music being played and catch up on what everyone is doing with their lives, although I think the runners take all the good "after race" food. We still lucked out and got some free Campbell's soup cans. We are also so lucky that no one in our family (that I know of) has had to fight Breast Cancer. We hope that participating in this race will be good Karma and that they find a cure soon. So we will be doing it next year if anyone wants to jump on the good Karma band-wagon. Below is a picture I stole from one of my sister's blogs.

Easter- The Hunt

This is second half the Easter festivities. The first thing we did Easter morning was empty out Charles' basket and try to keep him from eating all the candy. Charles loves candy but we were able to distract him with an egg hunt (Chad hid the eggs we colored). Charles got a new Easter outfit for church (a family tradition from my family). After church we did another egg hunt at my sister Andi's house with all of my family. The egg hunt didn't go as well as the morning one because Charles discovered with the first egg that there was candy inside and wanted to eat the candy before moving onto the next egg. With a little pulling and pushing from mom he picked up some more eggs before the hunt was over. Afterward we left to have dinner with Chad's parents; always good eats.

The basket: Charles loves books.

Charles and me first thing in the morning. He was already asking me to read him his new book.

Pictures before church. Chad and Charles clean up nicely.

The last three are from Andi's house. We had a great Easter. Now we are looking forward to our Memorial Day camping trip!

Easter the Pregame Show

This is part one of the Easter posts. We have too many pictures for one post and it would take me too long to orangize it all. So before Easter Charles and I dyed some eggs. Chad helped cook them and then became our photographer. Charles loved it and was quite sad when all the eggs were finished. Sorry about any red eye, I just didn't bother to check. Here we go.

First we drew on the eggs with the special clear crayon.

Then of course the we dropped the eggs in the dye.

Then we waited and while we waited we showed all our teeth for the camera.

The finished product. We like to name our eggs. You can see mom's egg and Hooch's egg. It the back right corner is Jesus' egg but all you can see is the "sus." Don't worry Da-do had an egg too.