Toddlers and Tiaras

Evy started her first dance class in August (the day after Charlotte was born), went to class every Wednesday night at our recreation center, and just wrapped with her recital last weekend. She made a new friend along the way and seemed to enjoy her class and the recital. Most days after school she would ask "Is tonight dance class?" Every week after class she begged to get a treat from the vending machine. On her last night of class I let her pick something and she choose "the red things"--known to most of us as licorice. Her teacher was Miss Caroline and they danced to Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo from Cinderella. We weren't allowed to watch class and Evy never gave us any details so I'm not sure if they learned anything at class, the recital performance was an adorable mess and we're looking forward to doing it all again next year!

Evy made a new friend, Savannah.

She looks like she knows what she's doing, but no one else is doing the same move!

Savannah's Dad took this video, but you can see some good shots of Evy too.

Evy is in the front row (duh!), second from the right.

Greeted by her Grandparents after the performance.

Our adorable ballerina.

Drill

Grammy Sherry emailed the whole family this morning to let us know about the recent recommendation to wear bike helmets while taking shelter during tornadoes (they've found that most storm related deaths are due to head injury). I wanted Grammy to know we were taking this very seriously so I sent her the picture, above, to show her that Charlotte, Evy, and I had been practicing our drills this morning. Evy knows to grab her bike helmet. Charlie doesn't have a bike helmet so she gets Rubbermaid.

8 Months

Charlotte Marie is 8 months old. At daycare she is transitioning into the "older baby" room, no more nursery! She is getting so good at grabbing things and moving herself around to pick up toys. She is not yet crawling, although she has gotten on all four a couple of times. Things have been pretty easy--the only challenge is constant diaper rash. Man--this girl has a sensitive bottom. She is clapping her hands and waving bye-bye and loves to hear herself talk with all kinds of fun noises! She continues to get a kick out of big sister and is a good sport at all of the "love" her sister shows her! Charlotte has been a sleepy baby the last few weeks and we LOVE sleepy babies. She goes to bed at 8 p.m. and sleeps until 6:30 a.m. When she's home she'll take a long morning and afternoon nap. I think she's making up for the lack of sleep at daycare--like Evy she does not nap well with all the commotion at school. Charlotte continues to be a "chubby bubby" weighing in at 22 pounds! The sleeper in this picture is a 12 month size, but 18 month clothing seems to be fitting better these days!

Overrated

Potty training is totally overrated. Road trips are a lot easier when your kids can just "go" in a diaper. Evy's emergency potties always occur in the middle of no where as she's crying "the potty is coming out of my tummy right now."

Lil' Swimmer

Charlotte's first time at the pool. At first she held her legs up trying to avoid touching the water but she warmed up to it pretty quickly.

How Big is Charlotte?

Parent's Day Off

Scott and I spent the weekend in Chicago. We've been to the suburbs several times in recent years, but it's been at least four years since we've spent time on Michigan Avenue drinking, eating, and shopping (in no particular order) like adults. We were due! And we made it count!

We rolled into the city around 3:30 on Friday and had our "first dinner" at The Purple Pig. Then we shopped. We shopped so efficiently that the credit card company assumed our cards had been stolen and locked our account. One call to the fraud department and we were back in business. I was laughing and Scott was shaking his head at this point. We decided to take a break from shopping and had a "second dinner" at Grand Lux Cafe. We slept in until 8 the next morning and enjoyed coffee while it was still hot then took the 10 a.m. Chicago River Architecture Tour.


Pizza is one of my favorite foods so it was no big deal to wait 30 minutes in line and another 45 minutes for my Gino's pizza to cook. Plus, we weren't in a hurry and weren't juggling kids!


Some of our friends from the burbs joined us for dinner at Texas de Brazil. Such fun to catch up with great friends!



We had a great time. Thanks to Grandma Joan and Papa Jake for managing the girls while we were off playing. When can we do it again??