Charlotte’s Third Birthday

On January 10, 2014, we celebrated Charlotte’s 3rd birthday with both sets of grandparents at Chuck E. Cheese in Ocala. Technically, it was a party year for Charlotte, but we ended up just doing another family event this year, too, and it worked out just as well.

 

Rosemary and my dad playing some air hockey

Skee ball is a favorite

Charlotte was excited about her presents

 

Blowing out the three candles

Grandma Peine played some games

So did Grandma Workmaster

The hardest part of the morning was picking out the prizes

Happy birthday, Charlotte!

As a little bonus, Charlotte also inherited Rosemary’s old bike. Charlotte was so excited!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Charlotte!

Charlotte Blythe Peine – age 2

On January 10, Charlotte celebrated her second birthday.

We met up with Jonathan’s parents and my parents at Cracker Barrel for a birthday breakfast.

We enjoyed our breakfast then Charlotte opened her gifts from her grandparents.

 

We headed home and Charlotte tried on her Minnie dress.

Then opened her gifts from us.

And after dinner we enjoyed some Publix cupcakes.

I’m pretty sure Ben used this same candle for his second birthday…Rosemary may have, too.

Ben helped her actually get the candle out.

Mmm…icing!

And she’s done!

Happy Birthday, sweet little one!

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And here are a few highlights from the year.

Taking her very first steps

Happy Easter

A favorite little hiding spot beside the armoire

Fun at the beach

Ready to swim

Hiking with Daddy

Ready to eat in Williamsburg

A beautiful little bride

We learned that Charlotte has no fear of the stage. It was harder to get her off the stage than to get her on it.

A little butterfly

At 21 months, Charlotte decided she was ready to start using the bathroom. She started crying every time she wet her diaper so I took her to the doctor suspecting she had a UTI. When those results came back negative and she was still crying right before she peed, I started sitting her on the toilet. Sure enough, she was ready. So our family is officially out of diapers. Crazy.

Charlotte is talking up a storm now. She uses more words than I can count and tries to repeat just about everything.

On her birthday, she was still sleeping in her crib and taking a two hour nap in the afternoon. This girl likes her sleep. She’s usually the first one to bed at night and the last one up in the morning, usually between 7:30 and 8am.

We had our first visit to the ER with Charlotte this year, too. She fell and bumped her head and few hours later started throwing up. While it eventually ended up being a coincidental stomach bug, I wasn’t surprised that Charlotte was the first child we took to the ER. (And the first one I’ve ever called poison control for when she ate air dried clay). She keeps us on our toes!

Charlotte is spunky, happy, hilarious, and wants to do everything that Rosemary and Ben do.

She is one sweet little girl.

Charlotte’s Birthday

Jonathan took the day off to celebrate Charlotte’s birthday. We spent the morning at home while Ben was at preschool. The kids napped in the afternoon and that night we went to dinner at Cody’s. It was just a nice relaxing day as a family.

After dinner, we headed home for Charlotte’s birthday cupcake.

We had Charlotte’s one year check-up later that week and she weighed in at 18 lbs, 12 oz (the biggest any of our kids have been at 1 year, but still 10th percentile) and was 28.5 inches long (5th percentile). Her head circumference was in the 75th percentile.

Charlotte is a confident cruiser but has yet to take her first steps or stand on her own. She babbles a lot but isn’t saying many words on a consistent basis.

We’ve been transitioning her to be on table foods completely and we are completely off bottles and onto sippy cups. In the weeks since her birthday, we’ve also moved her to a booster seat at the table in moved the high chair out of the dining room. She is a little Houdini so she’s strapped in much better with the booster! We’ve moved out of the baby bath tub as well and she’s now getting her baths in the big tub.

Charlotte continues to have a sweet temperament. She’s a great sleeper, still at 2 naps a day and sleeping about 12 hours at night.

She’s still our little baby, even though I know she’ll be less and less baby-like in the coming months. We’re cherishing this time while we can.