Charlie - 3 months old

Charlie turned 3 months old on March 18th.
Here is a look back from February 19th through March 18th.


Charlie gave me a WONDERFUL gift on February 27th. He slept ALL NIGHT LONG! He did this a few nights in a row but then went back to waking up once a night. But within a week or two he was sleeping through the night from 10 pm until 6 or 7 am. 

Charlie discovered his hands in early March.
He loved to suck on his fist and to play with his fingers. 

 

I finally captured his smile on camera! 

He's such a happy, chunky baby!

Charlie went on his first walk and loved it.
Henry loved sitting in his "new side" of the stroller. 

This is how William felt about being kicked out of the stroller.
 He was not thrilled to learn he now has to walk everywhere!
We had a really nice walk, though, and we loved the nicer weather.

Charlie's first St. Patrick's Day. Even though he was wearing green he may have had his cheeks pinched. How could we resist?

Charlie is such a happy, sweet baby. He loves his brothers.
We sure love having him in our family! 

St. Patrick's Day

I once saw a post on my friend's blog detailing what she and her son did for St. Patrick's Day. I loved what she did so I planned to do it for my boys on the next St. Patrick's Day.

The night before St. Patrick's Day, William and I read The Night Before St. Patrick's Day.
Pretty clever, right? He LOVED it!
We talked about leprechauns coming and how he could try and catch it and get his gold.

So we found a trap we liked in the book and we made it together.

We put a little gold of our own into the trap. Leprechauns like shiny things, you know. We were hoping he'd climb up the stairs, crawl through the tunnel, and fall into the cup while trying to get our gold. 

We also set up this trap hoping that as he stood on the rim of the container to get the gold he'd slip and fall into the box and get stuck inside. 

Another little trap. 

William dreaming of catching a leprechaun.

While William slept, a leprechaun came and made a TERRIBLE mess in his bedroom.
When William woke up in the morning he couldn't believe how messy his room was! 

As he started searching through the mess for a leprechaun, he found gold coins and little shamrocks. 

We checked the traps. 

And cleaned up the mess since toys, 

books, and clothes

were EVERYWHERE!!! 

Then he followed the trail of shamrocks out the door,

 down the hall,

and into the kitchen where he found a Rainbow surprise!

We also found this little note from that tricky leprechaun. 

He LOVED it!
This is definitely going to be a new St. Patrick's day tradition in our home. 

Silly boys!

March was incredibly warm this year.
We spent some time outside playing around.


Henry is singing, "La la la la, la la la la, Elmo's World! That's Elmo's World!"

This kid cracks me up!

 

Such loving brothers. 

Cheese!

Nose!

 

 

CHEESE!!!

He's getting so BIG!!!

Charlie's Blessing Day

On Sunday, March 11th, Charlie was given a name and a blessing by David. This is a very special day and we are so grateful to our family who came out to be with us on Charlie's blessing day.


Our handsome family of 5! 

Charlie received a wonderful blessing from David. Joining David in the circle were my dad, David's dad, both of my grandfathers, Eric,  and Bishop Catale.  I am truly grateful for the Priesthood. I'm grateful for my husband who is a worthy priesthood holder and who lives his life in a manner that he can exercise his priesthood at any time. I'm grateful for our fathers and grandfathers and how they have lived their lives and for their worthiness. I'm also grateful for our brothers and for their worthiness.
One of the greatest blessings and something that brings me so much comfort is knowing that someday I will have a houseful of worthy priesthood holders. My sons will have the opportunity to hold the priesthood once they turn twelve. I really look forward to them receiving this great responsibility. I know each of my boys will be worthy priesthood holders and that they, too, will be worthy and righteous fathers just like David.

My mom made this outfit for Charlie as a thank you for all our hard work fixing up her craft room. It turned out so cute! 

I cooked my very first turkey breast for the lunch after the blessing.
It turned out perfect and was SO delicious! 

Charlie with his grandparents

With his great grandparents

With his grandparents

With his great grandparents
(And a VERY big thank you to my sweet grandparents for letting us have our luncheon at their house again. We've been so blessed to have such a sweet friendship with them. We love you lots and lots!)

A note about Charlie's name:

We, well I, debated his name for a long time. Soon after we found out he was a boy I thought of Ethan or Caleb. For a while we called him Caleb. But it just never felt right. We discussed Charlie or Charles and I liked that but I wasn't sure if that name would be okay to use due to personal reasons. I also considered naming him Owen David or Owen Charlie, but then his initials would have been ODD or OCD. I just couldn't do that to my child. So we mainly stuck with Charlie. William really loved the name when we told it to him. We would say the name Charlie while saying family and couple prayers. I liked it but I still wasn't sure. Once he was born I still debated it. David felt impressed that his name should be Charlie. So then we were trying to decide if it should be Charles or Charlie and we would call him Charlie either way.  David once again felt impressed that it should be just Charlie. So Charlie it is.

And I couldn't imagine his name being anything else. Charlie fits my sweet little boy perfectly.

Another note about the origin of Charlie's name:

While David was on his mission I would scribble names on my notebooks during class when I got bored. I would scribble William Floyd, Henry Dann, and Charles David and 3 girls names (which I will not share because I still treasure those names).  So we've pretty much stuck with those names except for some minor changes we've made - Henry James and obviously Charlie.

Charlie is more so named after an experience I had than a person or family member. The name Charlie stuck with me after an experience I had 9 years ago or so. While in high school I taught piano lessons to my bishop's son - Charlie. He was (and still is) a sweet boy. When he was getting baptized I made the trip back from Provo so I could be there. He was so nervous about getting baptized. He hated going under water. His father tried to prepare him for this occasion by taking him swimming. But his nerves still ran high. When it came time to actually immerse him in the water he freaked out. The bishop (his father) spoke to him and comforted him. He finally was able to immerse him in the water. When he came back up he jumped up into his father's arms and was carried out of the font. The spirit flooded the room and my heart during this experience. I was so touched by his courage and his complete trust in his father that the name Charlie just stuck with me.
 I hope and pray that my Charlie will be a man of great courage and a man with complete trust in his mortal father and in his Heavenly Father.

Henry's Owie!

On the morning of February 20th Henry stuck his finger in one of the vents in my parents' kitchen. He was left with a lovely L shaped cut on his middle finger. We bandaged it up but he kept trying to take it off. So we wrapped his whole hand in a gauze wrap and medical tape.

His finger bled off and on throughout the day. I took him into the doctor to see if he needed stitches. The PA we saw said it was a borderline cut. Stitches would help but the torment of having to restrain him would be far more traumatic than the injury itself. So the nurse put steri-strips and glue on it and then wrapped it up.

This is how it looked:

 

I promise he doesn't usually walk around flipping people off. 

He kept the wrapping on pretty well at first. But then he figured out a quick way to get it off. Thankfully it ended up healing well and we avoided stitches!

Charlie - 2 months old

2 months old!!!
 Stats at 2 months
10 lbs 12 oz
22 1/2 inches long
He'd almost doubled his birth weight - just 2 ounces shy!
All of my boys had almost doubled their birth weight by 2 months.
I guess it's not hard to do when you start out so little.
It's always fun to compare their sizes. William was 11 lbs 14 oz (this is 6 oz over doubling his birth weight) and Henry was 13 lbs 9 oz (1 oz shy of doubling birth weight).

Here is a look back at his second month - January 18th through February 18th.

Charlie has been a wonderful baby from the beginning. He is a great eater and a great sleeper. During his 2nd month of life he went from waking up 2 or 3 times a night to only waking up once a night. He has such a soft, sweet cry. And he is so snuggly! I love it!


Charlie was rather stubborn, though, when it came to smiling. He made me wait until he was 7 1/2 weeks old  before he shared his first "social smile". And after that it still took a while for him to really share that smile regularly. But his smile was worth the wait! He has such a sweet smile!

With Henry I didn't take the opportunity to nap like this with him when he was an infant. I'm sad I didn't. And I know this is a picture of David napping with Charlie, but I took the opportunity many times to snuggle with my  baby and take a little nap. I would only do this while Henry was taking his afternoon nap. William would usually be playing in the room while I would nap. 

Living in a 2 bedroom apartment is rather tricky with 3 little ones. Charlie slept in our bedroom in a cradle. Since David worked in our bedroom during the afternoon and evenings Charlie would typically nap on his bouncy seat in the living room. I love the picture above because it shows how he is starting to get chubby cheeks!

'
The many faces of Charlie! He's a cutie!

Nap time!

Charlie fit into newborn clothes until he was almost 2 months old. Well longer actually. He could fit in them for quite a while. But I got sick of the same outfits over and over again around the time he was 2 months old so I started putting him in 0-3 month clothes. Above and below were some of my favorite newborn outfits. 

Charlie with one of his great grandpas. My boys are so lucky to have all 4 great grandpas still living.
 I love watching my Grandpa hold babies. You can just feel of the great love he has for them. 

Finally wearing 0-3 month clothes!

Charlie's first time wearing a bumGenius cloth diaper. We didn't use these very consistently with him for another month or two.

Some other notable things:
Charlie first rolled over from his tummy to his back when he was 5 weeks old. He did it several times but then refused to roll over again until just a month or so ago when he was 7 months old.

He had a cousin born on the double side during January. So he has a cousin on each side of our families born within a month or so of him. When Calvin was born in January he already weighed more than Charlie!


We love you little Charlie!