Carnival!

 I'm not going to lie- Catholics know how to throw a party.  The best thing (or one of the best things, anyway) about living in the city is the number of Catholic parishes in the surrounding area.  It means two things to the Freeman family- fish fry during Lent and parish picnics during the spring and early summer.  Our parish of choice is our neighborhood parish, Our Lady of Sorrows.  It was the church my grandmother attended as a girl and where she went to school.  She married my grandfather in that church.  There is a picture of the two of them at the front of the church and every time we walk by the entrance, it makes me smile.  I love having that real tangible connection to my past.  Charlotte will never meet her namesake on this earth, but she can walk the same streets and see the same sights my grandmother did so many years ago.  I love St. Louis.  But I digress.

The point.  The Saturday before we left for vacation, we attended one of the local parish picnics.  We weren't able to attend Sorrows' picnic since it was the Tuesday we were on vacation.  So we went to another.  It was fun, but hopefully next year we can go to the one in our neighborhood.

Charlotte refused to take a nap that day, so we were a little nervous how things were going to fly that evening, but we headed out in the strollers anyway, hoping for the best.  Charlotte, of course, fell asleep on the way, paving the way for a dicey evening.  Audrey, per usual, was happy and adorable.

After a little dinner and some walking around, Charlotte started to warm up.  We bought a wrist band that let her have unlimited rides.  I was surprised at how many rides they had available for little kids.  She rode the carousel numerous times, trying out quite a few of the horses.

She told me she wanted to ride the roller coaster, but I had my doubts.  Last year she had a blast on in, but this one did not allow parents to ride with the kiddos. You could not be more than 48" tall, no matter what. So I set her up on the ride, but she was not thrilled.  See Exhibit A  The ride ended a little early.  See Exhibit B.

                              Exhibit A

Exhibit B

The cars ended up being much more Charlotte's speed.  No pun intended.  Despite the first picture, she really was excited about this ride.  She rode it so many times, the carny running the ride asked us to ride another ride for a little bit so she could go to the bathroom.  She tried out every car, but I think she ultimately decided the purple one was her favorite.  

Let me in!  I want to ride!

Next on the list was the Ferris Wheel.  Charlotte enjoyed it!  She rode this multiple times as well.  She had to share a cage a few times and wasn't super keen on that idea, but she dealt with it like a champ.  She didn't say anything to the kids, but she didn't scream and cry so I'll call it a success.

Another failed ride.  Too much like the roller coaster, I guess.  She cried the whole time and the carny had to stop the ride to take her off.  Maybe next year.

 More cars!

One of my favorite pictures, ever.

Riding the train.

Carousel with Mommy!

The evening ended with fireworks.  Charlotte loved them!  The noise didn't seem to bother her or Audrey, but she became very concerned about the moon after the fireworks.  It was a very small crescent that night, so on the way home, she proceeded to inform us (over and over) that the fireworks broke the moon, we would have to get a new one and it should be purple.  Whatever.  I love the creativity.  Charlotte is so good at coming up with stories.  She'll pull her books off the shelf and start to "read" the books to Audrey.  She fills in pretty appropriate stories for the ones she doesn't remember and is pretty good at paraphrasing the books we read to her often.

All in all, a fun evening!  Excited for next year when we'll be back home at Sorrows!

Swimming at "The Puddle"

Our neighbors have a pool and are super duper nice and let us use it whenever we want.  It's pretty awesome.  Charlotte loves the "puddle", as she calls it.  We brought the girls over to swim a couple of weeks ago.  I even swam this time! (But there are not photos of that.  Gosh darn it all.)

Audrey was a little cautious and not so sure at first, but she warmed up, just as I expected she would.

Charlotte needed no warm up.  She was all over it.

Daddy swimming with the girls.

See?  A smile!  I told you she warmed up to it.

The original water baby.

Part deux. :)

Zoo Class!

My parents are donors at the zoo and one of the perks for us is my mom enrolling the girls in zoo classes!  Charlotte has been to a couple, but this is the first time I actually remembered my camera.  Charlotte had a great time, as usual.

Playing with the animal puppets before the class started.

Her father's daughter.

Touching an ENORMOUS cockroach.  Yuck.

Up close and personal with a salamander.

And a snake.  Charlotte asked to touch this one again.  Shudder.

The dove.

And last, but not least, the chinchilla.

Working on the art project.

I had to drag her out!  She had a such a great time.  Thank you, Grandma!

Memorial Day Weekend Fun

Sometimes one of the best things about making new friends is meeting their friends, too.  Through our friends Dave and Peggy, we've met some really great people.  Two of those people, Ryan and Jackie Miller, invited us to their home for a BBQ the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend.  I guess we've passed the test. :)  We had a great time and Charlotte had a blast playing with Abby.

Ryan and Jackie's neighbors have a little girl about Abby and Charlotte's age, so her mom got out some water toys for the girls to play with.  Abby and Charlotte had lots of fun with their new friend and her toys. :)

The daddys and their girls.

The girls didn't really sit in the pool.  They just stood next to it or in it and poured water in and out of different containers.  Whatever makes them happy.

A  really fun sprinkler toy.  I love the cop car in the background.

Audrey playing in the water just before...

Face planting.  Great supervising job, Daddy. ;p

The source of all comfort.  No, not Daddy.  That darn pacifier.

More water fun.  I think the girl's name was Sam, but I can't remember.  I'm a terrible person.

Playing "baseball".  Charlotte is behind Kai, watching Sam and Abby play, but not actually participating.

Airplane with Kai.

Now, aren't those the faces of fun???

Catching up...

We've been having a lot of fun lately, so I'm behind in the blog posts. These pictures are from Memorial Day. I have pictures from a party we went to the day before, but I uploaded these first by accident and they'll post in reverse order anyway, so I'm going backwards. Sorry.

Picnic in the backyard.

Audrey enjoying/wearing guacamole.

Off for a ride with sister.

Water play!

If Charlotte won't go to the sprinkler, the sprinkler will come to Charlotte.

Splashing!

Ribs at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Audrey enjoyed hers, too.

Such a cute girl.

A total ham.

Future blackmail. This is right after she turned to me and said, "Take a picture of my butt!" Done and done.

Off to explore with Grandma.

Playing dinosaurs with Uncle Ted.

It's a bird, it's a plane...

Bonding

She's 1!

Can you believe it? She's a whole year old! I cannot tell you where that time has gone. It has FLOWN by. Crazy. I promise to catch up with what we've been doing the past few weeks (vacation, parish picnic, Memorial Day fun, BIRTHDAY!), but for now, a very brief update on Little Bit.

She is FINALLY crawling. After months of scooting on her butt, she's finally figured out other ways to move forward. She has not, however, figured out that she can use both knees. Instead, she gets up on one knee and puts her other foot on the ground in a very awkward looking pose and kind of drags herself along. It's weird, but Charlotte did it, too, for awhile. I'll post a video. Maybe.

She is also FINALLY standing on her own. This girl would refuse to put any weight on her legs. It was weird enough that I actually started researching cerebral palsy on the internet. She now only wants to stand, but doesn't quite have the balance to do it herself, so if you have the audacity to sit her down and not help her stand and walk somewhere every minute of the day she will scream until you figure out that whatever you were doing is not nearly as important as helping her. I love her.

She is always talking. She is far more verbal than Charlotte was. I guess it's because she has to keep up with her motor mouth sister. She definitely has "hi" and "bye" and uses the words appropriately as she ways. She might have Dada, not sure on Mama, but pretty darn sure she says "Char Char". She'll call for her in the morning from her crib. It's awfully cute. She also might say kitty, but that hasn't been consistent enough to really know.

She is a shrimp, weighing in today at 20 pounds and measuring 28 inches (although Matt claims the measurement was incorrect and she's really only 27 inches), putting her in approximately the 25th percentile. We've started weaning her off of formula and giving her mostly cow's milk. She's pretty proficient at the sippy cup, but still gets more from the bottle. I'm not sure when we're going to totally wean her from that.

She L-O-V-E-S her pacifier. Sigh. She won't sleep without it. I had to make a 10:30 run to the store to get a back-up when her pacifier was left at school a couple of weeks ago. We're trying to only give it to her when she sleeps, but sometimes she just really wants that darn thing. I can't wait to get rid of it.

She is an absolute joy. She is such a happy little girl and I love watching her personality develop. I think she's going to be a trouble maker. Such a stinker sometimes! But so so glad she is part of our family. We wouldn't be the same without her. I love you, little bit! Happy first birthday!