Such the big boy...

Every night while I am getting Charlie's bath ready, I put him in the hallway to play. Usually, after the bath is ready, I find him halfway to the living room. The other night, I look in the hallway and no Charlie. Huh? Where was he? I find this:

He's gotten so fast at the crawling!

The big boy bath!

Riding the car all by himself. (We used to have to put a belt around him and the car to make sure that he wouldn't fall off.)

Crawling, pulling up, and dancing


Talkin in the bath

Baby, It's COLD outside!

Let's get bundled up!

Babyproofing

We had our house completely babyproofed on Thursday. Our cabinets and drawers have locks on them, our plugs have been plugged, our furniture is attached to the walls, our TV has been tethered to the TV stand and our folding doors are now attached to the wall so that Charlie can't open and close them and get his fingers pinched. This makes for some more restful night sleeps. After the babyproofing man left I went to pick up Charlie from daycare, brought him in and sat him on the floor just to see what he would do. What's the first thing he went to?

Of course, one of the few things in our house that isn't babyproofed! Huh. I guess we still have a ways to go.

*** The babyproofing man gave me some tips that I have never thought of before and I thought that I would share. A general rule of thumb is that any piece of furniture that is taller than it is wide is considered a tumping-over hazard. (Think bookshelves, dressers, changing table, etc.) These should all be secured to the wall. Also, any cords should be attached to the leg of the piece of furniture that they are near with all of the slack taken out of the cord. That way, if a baby pulls the cord out of the wall it will still be attached to the piece of furniture so that they can't pull the lamp (or other miscellaneous object) onto their head. Hope this helps!

Abigail Allen 1996-2010

It's a sad day in the Allen household. Abigail Allen, Bob and Ann's 13.5 year old yellow lab, passed away peacefully in her sleep last night. Abby loved coffee in the morning and ice cream at night. She was very helpful with taking cans to the trash can so that she could receive a treat. She loved to carry around towels and other miscellaneous articles of clothing. In Bob's email this morning he stated "In spite or because of her stubbornness and single minded devotion we will miss her greatly." We are all thankful that we got to enjoy one more Christmas with Abby. She was still right under Charlie's highchair waiting for him to drop a piece of food. She was a great dog.

Charlie at 10 mths.

On Christmas Day Charlie turned 10 mths old. I can't believe how fast time is flying by. And I can't believe how much Charlie has changed over the months. Just yesterday, I went in to wake him up and I swear he looked older than he did the day before. It's crazy!! Our little baby is turning into a little boy too fast! Here is his 10 mth pic with the lion:

At 10 mths. Charlie weighs in at 23 lbs! He's a big one. He went through a two week bout of hunger strike over Christmas, but now he seems to be back on track (he also had a new tooth come in, an ear infection and a stuffy nose/cough over the holidays, which could contribute to the not eating). He now has 7 teeth- 3 on bottom, 4 on top. He is finally "properly" crawling... although he still uses his army crawl quite a bit. He pulls up on EVERYTHING and is really into opening cabinets and drawers to see what he can find to put in his mouth. (The babyproofing guy just left our house... our cabinets/drawers/furniture/etc will all be officially babyproofed in a week! YAY!) He LOVES hauling it into the laundry room so that he can play in Hank's water dish; playing run(crawl)-away-from-mommy when it's bath time; and throwing food off of his plate just to see Hank come and gobble it up... he laughs and laughs at all of this! Speaking of bath time, he is now in the big boy tub all by himself! Some of his new favorite things are:
Opening cabinets to find what he can play with:

LOVES his new barn: (thanks Uncle Meeks! This is what you got Charles for Christmas!)

Standing up on his changing table before I can get his diaper on:

"Helping" mommy with the dishes:

Pulling out every.single.toy. out of the toy bin:

Practicing feeding himself with the spoon: (he does this EVERY time I have the spoon... he wants to be the only one to handle it. It's fine with me, but it makes for a HUGE mess!)

Ringin in the New Year

On New Year's night my Aunt Jennifer came to babysit so that Patrick and I could go to dinner with friends. It was the most perfect way to spend New Year's. A nice meal with close friends and home by 11:30pm to celebrate the upcoming year from bed. Special thanks to A.J. for watching Charlie! On New Year's Day Charlie and I cheered on LSU (just to see them lose... boo!)


Then, we de-Christmasfied our house.
We then attended the annual Hamilton New Year's Day party. On Saturday we started off the New Year by having lunch with the Bates'... hopefully this will lead us to seeing each other more often in 2010! On Saturday night, Patrick and I had our traditional New Year's dinner of caviar, smoked salmon, and champagne. This year, we also added scallops to the main course. It was delicious!

It's not a FIESTA...

until someone smears refried beans all over his face!

GO TCU FROGS!