What Was I Thinking...

...when I grabbed the cookie sheet out of the oven without a mitt?
...when I let Charlotte play alone on the stairs?
...when I put dishwasher detergent on my sponge while doing dishes?


Yeah, it's been one of those weeks.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

I think we're getting closer to the "I do it myself" stage. Lately, Charlotte likes to help wash her body when I give her a bath. I have a feeling we're going to go through soap a bit quicker from now on.

Girls Camp

Last week I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to go to girls camp. I LOVE girls camp, and it was so exciting to go as a leader. We have great girls who make my job so rewarding.

One of the best things about being up here in Ohio is all the church history sites. Girls camp is held every year on the John Johnson Farm! What an awesome spirit it brings to the camp knowing that Joseph Smith walked where the girls are walking. Here we are standing on the steps that Joseph Smith gave a sermon on the morning after he was tarred and feathered.

The lovely women I get to learn from and serve with.

And just for laughs I thought I'd put up a picture of me during my last year of girls camp as a girl. I didn't feel like scanning a picture, so this one has been donated by Nichole. Wowza - take a look at my jungle woman hair! Yikes!

Dancing Queen?

While I'm sure Charlotte envisions herself doing this:



I can't help but think that she's more suited for this:



What do you think?

Taking a Stand

This morning Charlotte discovered that she could stand up. She was thrilled with this idea and has been working on it all day. Here are some videos at the request of Mimi and Aunt Lippy.
Failure:

Success! You can see the pride in her face as she hugs her bear. She thinks she's something:

The Three Little Pigs

Pigtails,Stuffed Animal Pig that she's always excited to play with,

and the little piggies she uses when playing with her toys.

11 Months

Another month has come and gone in the life of Charlotte. My mom always said that time goes by faster when you have children. It's true. I know I'm going to wake up tomorrow, and Charlotte is going to be 16. Yikes! She's already becoming interested in clothes and jewelry. The other day I found her trying to put on my flip flops, and she wasn't happy until I put them on her feet. She could play the "take them off and put them back on" game all day.This next video makes me laugh because she'll sit for quite a while just trying to get the necklace around her neck, but she always seems to lose it.

This past weekend we got Charlotte a convertable carseat. Her infant one was getting a little too snug, and she would cry everytime we'd go somewhere in the car. She's all smiles with her new one!

Charlotte now has eight teeth, and she's more than willing to show off her pearly whites if you tell her "cheese!" At Mimi and Poppie's she figured out how to cruise along the furniture. She also figured out a couple days ago how to go down the stairs. She loves to play hide and go seek games, epsecially anything that involves hiding her toys behind furniture or blankets. She likes to hide herself.

And she's a climber. Her favorite toy is my laundry baskets.

Just one more month until this one is a year old! How fun!

Charlotte's First Fourth of July

I LOVE Independence Day! It is my favorite holiday by far (Yes, even more than Christmas). I've always held a special place in my heart for the liberty that I've been blessed with. I always get choked up during the fireworks scene in The Sandlot with "America the Beautiful" playing in the background, when we sing patriotic hymns at church, etc. One of my first fights with Adam was on the 4th of July, and it was about how we were going to spend the 4th. I wanted a full day of celebrating, and well...he didn't. He learned pretty quickly how important the holiday is for me and has happily celebrated ever since.

This year our friends, Seth and Emily, hosted a cookout. We had a wonderful time there eating hotdogs, salad, fruit and the cookie pizza/cake thing pictured above. It was my first time making a cookie sheet sized cookie. It was pretty tasty. There was good company and fun games!

Later that night we got together with some of our friends to watch the fireworks.

Emily and Seth

Matt, Kaia, Sarah, Gatlin and Gabriel (Sorry Sarah if I got the twins wrong!)
Brian, Ryker and Stephanie
And, as usual, I couldn't get Adam to make a normal face for any of the pictures.

Charlotte had a lot of fun until the fireworks actually started. Then she spent the rest of the night with her head buried in Adam's shoulder.
She wanted nothing to do with the fireworks! Hopefully she'll enjoy them more next year...

No, it's not weird to visit my in-laws without my husband...

Adam has been preparing like crazy for boards this past month. My wonderful in-laws were kind enough to save me from ten days of being ignored by my better half (Bless you!). I am happy to report that Adam has made it through boards and the cloud of stress has been lifted (until mid-terms). Anyways, I went down to Houston right before the major studying began and had a wonderful time while Adam stayed here and studied (and played XBOX and softball). A lot of people asked me if it would be strange to visit my in-laws without Adam. It wasn't! I have great in-laws who always make me feel like I'm part of the family.
I really have a lot of pictures from the trip. I narrowed it down to my favorites, and I still have a lot to share.

Charlotte loved playing with Poppi. He's so much fun!
Aunt Cassie and Hailey came from California to play too!We went to eat at Gringo's and the babies loved the black beans!Charlotte and Hailey spent most of their time at this window watching Shadow, the dog. Hailey was so cute and would bark at Shadow everytime she barked. Charlotte just liked following Hailey around.

We spent an afternoon at the beach in Galvestion. The salt water and waves where a whole new experience for Charlotte. She really loved it and kept licking her hands.

I've always wanted to go to a butterfly center. It was so neat to have all the butterflies landing on us and flying arou Hailey and Charlotte almost had matching outfits one day...little twins!

Little birds drinking from Mimi's cup.

Playing with the uncles.