Charlie Challenges

I knew that having a baby would be a challenging adjustment for Charlie. Here we are becoming a family of four:

And here is a new view that Charlie sees everyday now:

Before we came home from the hospital, Charlie left on Thanksgiving Day to go to OKC with the Leclercq's. He was supposed to be there for a full week. This was the first time he had been away from us for a trip, other than going to Shreveport with the Leclercq's for a weekend when he was 18 mths old. This was mistake #1. Mistake #2 was not letting him see Collier in our house before sending him to OKC. That weekend he made the comment to Julie, "So, I live with Aunt Jelly now and Collier lives with mommy and daddy?". (Enter lots of tears from me here.) Needless to say, Patrick spent that Sunday on I-35 going to get Charlie to bring him back home. The next week was full of adjusting. Charlie said things like "I'm just so sad." and "I don't like baby Collier." and "Can you put baby Collier down and hold me now?". Not to mention, we had major regression on the potty training front. Luckily, Charlie has not once shown aggression towards Collier. In fact, he really loves his baby brother.
And even tries to feed him like mommy does:
And he likes to be around him:

Now that we are 6 weeks in, Charlie is becoming more himself. The best thing, though, is that he now calls me "mommy" again... for a good 6 mths. before Collier came I was just "mom". And now he says things like "I love you so much, mommy." Melts my heart, I tell ya!

Christmas pics

These are the chosen pics from this year's Christmas/Birth Announcement card.


Update on baby Collier... he is now weighing in at 7.14 lbs., so we have officially passed his birth weight of 7.9 lbs. This means I am letting him sleep at night. Last night we fed at 11pm and he woke up at 4:30am to eat... I am LOVING that this man lets me get a good 5 hr. stretch at just 3.5 weeks old!

Back to Thanksgiving

We had a "thankful tree". Each day we would write down something we were thankful for and hang it from the tree.

Here is Charlie's list:
Mom, dad, hank
Toy snake
Baby Collier's bed
T-ball, baseballs and bats
Bailey (the Allen's dog)
School
Baseball horse (the Rangers mascot)
Milk
My doggy
Thomas the train
Cooper, Isabelle, Sophia
The bird house (random gift that my mom gave us)
Toys
Baseball shirt (he owns 3 Rangers shirts; not sure which one he was refering to here)
Chick-fi-let cow (even though he is terrified of that thing each time we see it)
Micky, Minnie, Donald duck, goofie

Excuse the delay... with a newborn in our lives I'd much rather sleep than update the blog.

Collier James Allen

Collier was born on 11/22/11. He weighed 7 lbs, 9 oz and was 19 3/4 inches long.




Check out pics from our photo shoot! But hurry, pics expire on 12/18/11.
Go to: http://emilymulkeyphotography.com/proofing
Our password is yellowcouch

Have I mentioned....

that we are having a baby in ONE WEEK! And, that this baby has a name??? Collier James Allen is scheduled to arrive on 11.22.11 at 7:30am via c-section. Here is a sweet video of Charlie talking about his baby brother coming:



On my end, things are good! Blood pressure, unbelievably, is still holding strong so I haven't had to do any bed rest this pregnancy. (I was on bed rest with Charlie for 5 weeks!) They have baby Collier measuring in at approximately 8 lbs., so life is pretty uncomfortable for me at this stage. But, I am literally counting down the hours until his arrival. I can't wait for our little family to grow and for Charlie to become a big brother!!

Just Like Daddy

The above picture pretty much sums up our household. Not just for me, but also for Charlie. He is going through a major "Daddy" phase right now. He doesn't want me to help him do anything, just Patrick. He will put his hand up in my face and say, "No, mommy, I'm talking to my dad." The first thing he asks for in the morning is daddy, when I pick him up from school he cries because I'm not daddy, and biggest of all... he wants to be just like his daddy.

Charlie is LOVING the Georgia Bulldogs this football season, just like daddy.
Wearing his towel, just like daddy.
He even has a North Face jacket, just like daddy's.
Stretching with daddy before going on a run.
And, obviously, they share a love for the Rangers.

This past weekend, on 11.11.11, we celebrated Patrick's birthday. Happy Birthday to the best husband and father a family could ask for. (Seriously, we are truly blessed!)

Rangers Season

Charlie became the Rangers #1 fan this season...

Patrick took him to 3 games this season and by the third Charlie wouldn't leave his seat to do anything because he was so fixated on the game. Everyday he would tell me he was going to hit baseballs, then crawl out the doggy door and hit baseballs off his little tee set for about 20 minutes before coming back in and to tell me about all of the home-runs he just made. Every night he asked to read his "baseball book" (aka. the Rangers program from a game) through which he literally memorized every Rangers player. (Mom, there's Wash, Ian Kinsler, Josh Hamilton, Nelson Cruz, etc.) By the last World Series game he was saying "Mom, there's Matt Harrison." He even said "Mom, Albert Puljols is scary. But, I like David Freese." What? Now we know the Cardinals players?? Too much.

Patrick and I also got to enjoy some games. We went to the ACLS Game 1 and stayed through the 2 rain delays to see the Rangers win against the Detroit Tigers.


And we got to go to the World Series Game 4. Such a great game to see in which the Rangers won after their blowout loss in Game 3. And, an awesome experience to see Derek Holland pitch such an outstanding game.










Even though the Rangers ended up losing the World Series (which was sort of like having a death in the family to Patrick), we had a great time watching their success this season. Until next year!

Famous family

The Leclercq's are famous... at least in OKC. How cute are the triplets in the clip? SO proud of the whole fam and so sad that we can't be there on Monday night.

A Look Back

Halloween 2009 (7 mths)

Halloween 2010 (19 mths)

Halloween 2011 (2 yrs; 8 mths)

Halloween 2011

Charlie decided early on that he wanted to be Josh Hamilton for Halloween and never really waivered from this idea. We have worn a lot of Rangers apparel in the past month!
Thanks to the Hamilton's for hosting another successful Halloween party!

Hangin with Dean

Rhodes and Charlie at our neighborhood Halloween Party.

Fun with neighborhood friends:

Mommy and Charlie at the Arboretum's Goblins in the Garden

Lauren and Charlie and Goblins in the Garden

Halloween night:
Put me in coach!

Charlie was great at Trick or Treating and scored lots of candy loot! Soem the houses were to "scary" for him to go visit... maybe next year bud. All in all, he had a great Halloween season!

November? What?

I can't believe it is already November. Where did October go? October recap:

We spent A LOT of time at the Arboretum. I love the fall there.. such fun!



Charlie and I supported Patrick while he ran the Race for the Cure.

The triplets came in town last weekend. We hit up the Arboretum again, went to a Lake Highlands Halloween party and had fun hanging out.









We've done A LOT of Ranger watching, which really deserves it's own post and had a great Halloween. Halloween post coming up next...

Me and my boys

I'm 30 weeks now. Things are going well. Still super tired, but that might be the case even if I wasn't carrying a human. The countdown is on... less than 9 weeks before we are a family of 4!

Potty Training

Here we are, into week 4 after our first initial weekend of potty training. I have to say, things are going stellar thus far. I pretty much copied my friend, Molly, word for word and went for it.

Amo for the weekend included:
-A variety of juice boxes and other beverages
-A bag of M&M's
-A variety of stickers
-Fun "treasures" in a Treasure Chest (that I typically use with my speech clients)
-Portable potties in the living room and in Charlie's room
-My IPAD, which we used for a timer
-Loads and loads of undies
-Cleaning supplies, just in case there was an accident on the couch/rug (I think I only had to use this once!)



The day started off with diaper off, big boy underwear on and a trip to the potty.
Timer was set to go off every 15 minutes for the first hour, then 20 for the second hour, 25 for the third, etc. Drinks were pushed all day and Charlie pretty much consumed 1 juice everytime the timer went off. By the time nap time came around, he was pretty much telling me everytime he needed to potty, so we started fading out the timer that afternoon.

Prize system went as follows:
-A sticker for every time he sat on the potty and tried.
-An M&M everytime he either (1)pottied in the toilet or (2)everytime he told me he needed to go potty before the timer was up.
-A "treasure chest" prize everytime he pooed in the potty.

If he had an accident, he didn't get a prize, but was just told "better luck next time". Here he is washing hands. Such a big man!

At the days end, I asked Charlie what he wanted for his Potty Party and he requested cupcakes. Done, little buddy! (Notice the band-aid on his tummy. He requests a band-aid because his tummy hurts before he has to poo.)

On Day 2 we didn't push liquids or prizes for pottying. Just let things fall as they may, but we did keep close to home and to the potty. Day 3 was treated as any other day, we left the house and went to the park and to lunch and just reminded him to potty. The next week he started school and had just 1 accident while there.

Now, he has done really well over the past 2 weeks. No accidents except at nap times (when we forget to put on his pull-up). When he has to poo, he says his tummy hurts, so we know when to go sit. At school, he wears his underwear for naps and at home, we put him in a pull-up. His naps at home are always much longer than at school, so we need back-up. He also has started to use the potty without us even having to go in the bathroom with him, which has been super nice. He tells us, "No mommy/daddy, you stay. I do it." Ok then, you go for it! Hopefully things will progress until baby Allen arrives! I hear that some kids regress when they have a younger sibling come along. Please, no!