Our little Easter hams

Happy Easter! We have lots of great pictures and memories from our most recent photo shoot with Katie and Charlie.

Katie (5.5 years) is eager to start kindergarten. She will be starting at Canterbury, an independent Episcopal school in Greensboro, in the fall. We are all so excited about this new development for our family. She is taking hip hop dance and more Indian dance and playing on a soccer team for the first time this spring, too. Her current career choices are artist, doctor, or crane operator (inspired by the awesome claw we saw picking up storm debris on our street and depositing it in a dump truck).

Charlie (almost 17 months) gets into everything with great gusto. He is always busy and can turn anything into a toy. Exciting new words include "steps," "truck," "body," "hat," "shoes" and "socks." He is a climber and has learned to maneuver his way onto the couch and then run from end to end, giggling the whole way. Luckily, Katie is great about sounding the alarm.

Charlie loves to put things in bags and baskets, so Easter egg hunting is just his thing. Fortunately, he doesn't realize the eggs are filled. He has quite a sweet tooth but hopefully we can keep him away from most of the candy.

Hope the Easter Bunny was good to you!

Katie and Charlie in action

Katie and Charlie have been especially cute lately, and we've captured their accomplishments and personalities in several videos included below. (If you are viewing this post via email, you will have to click on the link to view the videos on this website.)

These first videos illustrate Charlie's sunny personality - his glee setting off rockets with Sriyesh:



Click here for a video of Katie's belly laughs as a baby.

...And his joy dancing with Katie and Anne:



Click here for a video of Katie dancing as a toddler.

These next links show Charlie's first steps:



...And his early walking, once he gained some confidence:



Katie has had a number of firsts, too, including her first time sledding in the recent snowstorm:



...Her first time playing the ukelele and hula dancing on our trip to Hawaii:



...And her first time reading a book by herself! We are so proud of her!

Charlie at one year!

Charlie turned one on November 22, and we are terribly late in celebrating this milestone on our blog!

Here's what we wrote about Charlie in our holiday letter shortly after his birthday:"Charlie’s first year has gone by impossibly fast. He has a sweet, sunny personality and an easy giggle, and he brings joy to everyone he meets. 

His favorite games are peekaboo and anything Katie wants to play with him. 

Charlie is curious and adventurous, even as a crawler, so we know that walking will bring even more antics and fun. He is days or weeks away from walking, and may have hit that milestone by the time this letter hits your mailbox."

Sure enough, Charlie took his first steps on December 26, just after turning 13 months, and he started walking as his primary mode of transportation almost exactly a month later. Recently, he has looked pretty close to running!

Charlie loves playing with balls, trains and his red Fisher Price car. Recently he has started cooking in the dog bowls by pouring from a toy bottle and stirring with a kitchen spoon. He considers it his duty to collect the bowls and stack them after the dogs eat each day. Charlie adores the dogs, and since he has begun eating more table food, they adore him too. At the top of his mealtime favorites are cheese, yogurt, black beans, beef, fruit and rice, but he is eager to try whatever is on our plates. He also has quite a sweet tooth, and Katie is always wonderful about sharing a bit of her cookie or ice cream with him.

At nearly 15 months, his vocabulary has expanded to include "more" (spoken while making the sign for "more"), "book," "ball," "all done," "down," "dog," "this," "uh-oh" and "go!" He is saying more words every day, and recently he told us "more ball!"

Charlie brings so much delight to our lives -- we can't wait to see what the next 12 months will hold!

Here are a few more cute pictures of Katie from this shoot:

Charlie is growing up! (10 and 11-month photos)

Charlie is 11 months old now, and he's getting more and more personality every day.

He's crawling like a champ, and nothing makes him giggle more than chasing or being chased by Katie or Daddy. He's also pulling up on everything, and we were thrilled when the photographer caught him standing without holding on for one of the first times at our 10-month photo shoot.

 

 

The past two months have seen a steady progression in Charlie's ability to pull up, and he has an amazing reach. All of a sudden, things we thought were babyproofed are no longer safe. More than playing with toys, he loves to explore the house and the items he finds. There's never a dull moment with Charlie!

Charlie started waving bye-bye at the beginning of November, and he knows and uses the sign for milk. We were also amazed to see that he has learned how to snap his fingers, which seems like it must be some kind of record. He entertains himself sometimes by snapping while he nurses.

 

Charlie also says "duh" when he sees the dogs, and has for some time now. We're still waiting on any variation of "Mommy" and "Daddy."

His tooth count has moved up to eight - an even set on top and bottom. This gives our little guy a great toothy smile that he's happy to share.

Finally, Katie dressed us all as characters in the show "Jake and the Neverland Pirates" this Halloween, and Charlie was the little boy pirate "Cubby". Here he is with his namesake. If only he had been willing to keep on the bandana!

   

Katie is five!

It's hard to believe how quickly time passes, but our sweet, spunky Katie turned five in August.

 

Katie is full of questions and loves to learn. She is kind, generous and loving to everyone, but particularly to Charlie, whom she adores. The feeling is definitely mutual. We love watching them play together, and we can only imagine the kind of partners in crime they'll be as they get older.

 

Katie currently wants to be an artist when she grows up. Her favorite things to do are singing, making art, doing science and baking. She's getting to be really good at all of them. Here's a drawing she made in September, and her artwork frequently surprises and delights us.

And without question, she has a fun flair for the dramatic.

We celebrated Katie's birthday with a visit from Professor Plutonium, who regaled the kids with fun science experiments. Click here for an album from her party.

Charlie, meanwhile, keeps growing up! He started crawling soon after he turned nine months old and is into more and more each day.

Here are a couple more cute photos from Charlie's nine-month photo shoot with Katie.

Summertime fun at seven and eight months

Charlie had a big summer! Between trips to the beach, visiting family in Louisville and -- last but not least -- a trip to Peru, he proved himself to be a great little traveler.

In his eighth month he also mastered some fun milestones, such as learning to clap, which he learned from his great-grandmother, Doris ("Darwa").

He also took his first scoots to mobility. We crossed our fingers that he wouldn't start crawling before Peru, because a seven-month flight with a non-crawler sounded much more appealing than trying to hold onto a little guy on the move. Luckily, he waited until the week we got back to start his explorations.

He also became a little more wary of strangers, though he's still one of the friendliest little guys you'll ever meet.

And at eight months, we were able to capture his two new bottom teeth easily, though he also had some teeth emerging on the top, too.

Although Charlie's christening was in May, we couldn't resist getting a few official photos in his christening outfit during his seven-month portraits.

 

 

Finally, just a few more sweet pics from seven months:

 

I love how similar this last photo is to one of Katie at nine months. Coming soon, a big milestone for Katie, her fifth birthday!