A sweet conversation

Two days ago Charlie, Will and myself were playing on the floor before bed and Will was saying how cute Charlie is.  I agreed of course and then Will turned to me and said "Thank you so much for making him Mommy.  Now I have someone to play with."  I told Will that was the sweetest thing ever and that I loved hearing him say that.  Then Will said "Remember when it was just you and me and Daddy?  That was so sad."

Out of the mouths of babes!

Bath Brothers

 Charlie is sitting pretty steadily now so most nights we are able to bathe the boys together which is great on all counts.  It's so nice to do one bath together, and Will requests it most nights.

He loves to bathe with Charles and I think Charlie likes it too!  The do gentle splashes in the water, play with water toys and even roll around in the shallow bath together.  

I usually end up getting Charlie out first and then topping up Will's bath with some more warmer water.

 Will is a very good big brother and very careful with his baby brother.  I could never have imagined that he would be so sweet with him.

Two bathing beauties!

Cheerful Charlie

Every month Mommy and Daddy update your baby book and every month, on the 11th, we take a current picture you of.  This is your 8th month photo.  As usual you are as cheerful as can be :).

My little joyful boy!

Jolly Jumping

Charlie really enjoyed the Jolly Jumper this past week.  You were good in it for quite a while, spinning on one foot and jumping over and over again.  I even moved an activity table within your reach and you just loved being able to play with that from a different perspective.  It won't be long until you are standing on your own.  You are already pulling yourself to standing and last week we found you standing up in your crib!  Daddy had to lower your crib mattress to the lowest setting already!  Way to go Charlie!

Pots and Pans

 Sometimes I have to remind myself that the best toys are the simplest things.  These pots and pans and some tupperware were the best entertainment for the better part of an hour the other day.  Will loved banging the lids together and Charlie even had a go with banging a spoon against the metal.  Charlie also enjoyed looking inside the tupperwares and thumping them on the bottom with his hands.  They make such neat noises!

 It is so much fun to see the two of you together and increasingly able to interact with eachother.  We are getting closer and closer every day to playing together in earnest!

 My sweet Chuckie!

Jenifer's Birthday

We just celebrated Jeni's 31st birthday and had a special treat of chocolate cake!  Will of course blew out the candles before Jeni could get there so they had to be relighted...Happy Birthday Jeni!

Company for Sunday Dinner

 We had some friends over for Sunday dinner to catch up over the holidays and the house was full of little ones!

Claire and Charlie were fast friends:

 Sam and Charlie also really hit it off:

 Emma and Will watched a flick together:

What a fun night for all!

Pottery Class

 After your Henri Matisse class had ended we discussed signing you up for another class in the future.  You requested a pottery class, saying that you really liked playing with the clay at school on occasion.  At first, I didn't know what you meant since you kept saying "play" as in I'd like to do a play class.  But I finally figured it out by how you described it!  I found a drop-in opportunity at the Bowen Complex on Sundays and we dropped in.  The room was full of pottery makers that took things very seriously so we were slightly out of place, but we had fun on our own!

 Mommy bought a 40lb bag of clay (the minimum) which I could barely carry to the car, and we used some of it sculpting, kneading and forming different shaped together.  You especially liked using the "slip" and applying it none-too-sparingly with a paint brush!

A masterpiece!

Kung Fu Panda

 This month we watched Kung Fu Panda for the first time and you are nuts about it.  After you watch any part of the movie you want to "play" Kung Fu and act like the characters in the film.  You always want to be Tigress "because she's fierce."  You do a variety of Kung Fu that looks like twirling and some slapping of Daddy's legs, and poses that look like these, haha!

I guess I'll be looking into some martial arts classes soon...

The Lions!

 On the 28th we went to Detroit to see the Lions play.  It was Daddy, Will, Mommy and Grandpa Cooper.  We decided to leave the Ford Flex at the house and take te bus across the border which was a huge thrill for Will.  The Ford Field was total chaos on this game day and we had lots of fun!

 Sadly for Daddy the Lions lost :(.  But he's used to that by now.

Lauren, Liam, Charlie and Josh

 Over the Christmas holidays we went to Daddy's parents' house in Windsor and got the chance to meet up with some of Daddy's friends and their families.  We met Chad and Nat's son Josh for the first time and April and Cam's Liam for the first time too!  Look at all of our little ones!

Charlie and the Christmas Tree

We have the exact same photograph of William under the tree when he was 9 months old.  Of course, Charlie is a little bigger than Will so he was basically bursting out of the same outfit at 6 months.  Boy am I glad we finally have a good eater!

What a cute little baby boy.  Look at that smile!

Andrew Lloyd Webber's Wizard of Oz

For Christmas, Daddy got Mommy tickets to see Andrew Lloyd Webber's version of Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz which happened to be playing while we were at home.  The gift of musical theatre is always a winner for me!

The show was amazing, I loved it.  And we got an adult night out, imagine!

Sledding at Appleby

On our way home from Whole Foods (where else) Dadday and I saw a bunch of kids sledding on the hill at Appleby School.  We went into the garage and dug out the age old GT Snowracer (which Daddy says is outlawed now) and assembled it pronto!  You were a pro at it of course.  You loved sledding down the hill but also spent a lot of time at the bottom just playing in the snow.  So cute!

 

Oh, right. Snow.

We had almost forgotten about the fluffy white stuff!  Will couldn't get enough of it.  He wanted to shovel it (what a helper!), roll in it, sled down it and take his toys outside to push them through it.  Oh, and he wanted to stomp in it, eat it, throw it...pretty much everything you can do with snow.  Well, I guess he should get his fix, we don't see much of it at home!

 

Papa was so good about showing you how to use the snow blower.  Will is in ecstacy!

 

Great-Grandpa!

Charlie with your Great-Grandpa!  Kinda look alike, in a way I think.

Will's Photos

At one point Will got a hold of my camera and these were the result.  I think we should give Will the camera at every function in the future...

Not sure at what point in the wine tour these were taken but it was clearly underway.

The Moulin Roty

Will wasn't the only little boy spoiled this year.  Grandma found this precious ride-on airplane for Charlie at a baby store in Oakville and we just love it.  

Charlie was too unsteady to use it right away but he will learn to do it shortly I'm sure.  It is so gorgeous and we managed to fit it into our suitcase and get it home unharmed.  Phew!

Little Sophia spent Christmas Day with us opening presents and staying for dinner with her mom and Al.  She was really interested in Charlie and spent lots of time with him.  Will was so possessive of his little brother, interjecting whenever possible.  Such a cute and protective little boy.

Charlie sure is lucky to have such a great big brother to watch out for him.  He loves his little guy so much!

 

Christmas Dinner

 When the excitement started to die down we all sat down for a delicious Christmas dinner.  We had the traditional turkey and stuffing with all the fixings and it was perfect.

We had the crackers with treats inside and everyone got a paper crown, even Chuckie!

What a good lookin crowd!

 

Christmas Morning 2012

 Will is still too young to do the stay-up-all-night, wait-for-Santa, listen-for-reindeer-hooves-on-the-roof thing.  He had a full twelve hours of sleep on Christmas Eve and slept in so late we adults were getting antsy!  We probably won't have many more years of that so we knew to enjoy it while it lasted.  Soon enough we'll be up at 5am!

When he did wake up it was like a flurry of present opening with him ripping open one box and moving on to the next immediately.  There were unopened toys aplenty that didn't even get any play for a while...there were too many!

Grandma and Papa and your Great-Grandparents went nuts with the gifts, not to mention the big man himself!  There were so many gifts we didn't know what to do with them and you didn't know what to play with first!  Guess you were a very good boy this year :)

 

Even Daddy got a fun gift of an old rotary dial phone handle called a "Pop Phone."  Haha!

John Deere in the house!

Look what else Santa brought!  Will got his very own John Deere tractor to ride around on at the cottage.  What a special treat!  Even Charlie got a ride!

Will was so excited.

 

Tractor hugs!