the pointer finger

charlie has discovered his pointer finger...he points at everything. he finds something really small like a snap to try to hone in on and will just pet it with his pointer finger once he gets it. i like it because when we read books i can point stuff out and he will sometimes copy me. he loves reading "where's spot" because he is able to open the flaps.

pointing at the orange wood block...

feeling the "silky" ear of the puppy.

in other news - charlie has a cold with a runny runny nose. he despises the booger sucker when we use it to clear out his nose. but, he loves it for a toy... i find him with it all the time. i guess it is better than the dog bone he tries to chew on daily - man he is getting fast at getting to things he wants and should not have. how gross!

normal??

charlie likes to eat and eat and eat. he will even eat in large crowds or at restaurants when he is distracted by everything going on around him. he just turns his head to look at things and then opens his mouth and waits for the food to arrive.

yesterday is a perfect example of his bottomless pit. by 12:30 he had nursed 4 times and had a nice sized breakfast and lunch. at 3:30 i nursed him again and by 5:30 he showed his signs that he wanted to eat again (ie: "attacking" me, crying when i leave the room, you name it). charlie usually has a dinner of oatmeal and bananas around 6ish so i nursed him and then prepared his oatmeal and nanners. bill and i had an ENT dinner to go to and bill's aunt amy was babysitting. amy fed him his oatmeal and nanners and was still wanting more so he got some applesauce. she played with him and then did his bath and bedtime routine. around 7:15ish she gave him his bedtime bottle - he took 8 ounces down and said he would have probably eaten more! since i nurse him i rarely see how much in ounces he eats, but i couldn't believe after almost 4 feedings in 4 hours he would have had more than 8 ounces!!! i can't complain though - he is one happy baby with a big belly that hangs over his pants!

7 months

another month down - charlie is now 7 months old! we are so blessed to have charlie in our lives. he is such a joy and i wish i could bottle his giggle.

here are some of charlie's 7 month achievements:
*making forward motion - not crawling, but frog hopping quite well and does get up on his knees like he is going to crawl but then decides that belly flops on the floor are much better.
*able to pull himself up to standing
*adding "dada", "mom", "mama" to his vocabulary
*squeals back and forth with you and has taught his friend addison how to squeal loudly too :)
*still nurses 6 times a day while consuming 3 large meals (lots of fruits and veggies that i make) and 1 snack! how in the world does he put all this down.
*eats cheerios, teething biscuits, saltines, etc
*improving his sleep habits. he "usually" (nothing has ever been that consistent) goes to bed around 7:15 pm and sleeps until 4-5 am - nurses - and then goes back to sleep until 6:30am. he naps about twice per day for roughly 1 and 1/2 hours.

here are charlie and lily's monthly pictures.

and last but not least - he's been begging for a cell phone and we gave in. at least this way he can keep in touch with his grandparents and friends. :)

besides talking on the phone - he loves chewing on it.

go pack go

charlie is obviously a packer fan. while the pack has not played the best football against the vikes - at least charlie was cheering the pack on in uniform.

watching aaron rodgers...

trying to figure out why brett is wearing the wrong jersey!!!

he's moving, moving, moving...

as of today - november 3rd - charlie is moving. he is 6 months and 4 weeks old. he is not fully crawling yet, but making these frog jumps/hops and is able to get to things he wants. it has been incredible to watch him improve his "crawling" techniques each day. check out a few of his "hops" in this video.

meet charlie's newest toy

louis...pete and margit's new basset hound puppy. he is just 8 weeks old and lucky for us they drove him down to rochester on sunday so we could meet him. lily was praying it was not a permanent addition to our family.

charlie - on the other hand - loved him. especially once he got so tired he was a floppy little puppy. he was just trying to sleep and we put him on charlie's lap to have a little photo shoot.

he was so cute and squishy! check out those ears!!!

what a good puppy. lucky for louis charlie never really got a good grip on his ears or eyeballs.

mom - i need one!

my little sweet pea

and what a cute little sweet pea he was...

we didn't really do anything for halloween, but we dressed him in this adorable little costume for a bit in the afternoon.

lily was trying to get into the spirit.