Three year check up!!

Char went to the doctor today for her three year check up!! We are happy to report she is happy, health and sassy.. all of the things that a little three year old lady should be!!

Halloween

Charlee is IN LOVE with Princess's.. its pretty much the only thing she really cares to talk about and when she isn't talking about them she is thinking about them.

So when we asked her what she wanted to be for Halloween, I think we already knew the answer... A PRINCESS!!

We found this adorable princess dress at the book store and she has been begging and pleading to wear it!

Well she finally got to take it out for Halloween night and she had a great time!! For the first couple of houses she really tried to keep up with the big kids, but it became clear that her short legs had her doomed. Never fear.. she got to Trick or Treat with Colten and the two of them had a great time talking about the costumes and the houses and the candy. I honestly think they were a little sad when we met back up with the big kids:)

Birthday Weekend!

Charlee had a great weekend celebrating everything that is her!! We started the weekend off at Von Maure looking for a new birthday dress and of Charlee was able to find one.. Then home to make pink cupcakes for her friend birthday party!! They each had about two inchs of pink frosting and she LOVED them:)

Saturday morning we got all ready for her birthday party with friends!! AND then the party!! She had a full house.. Marlee, Maddie, Colton, Austin and then she was almost beside her self.. Her friend Abby came, and it was AMAZING!! Those two had a great time playing and eating cupcakes!!

Saturday night Charlee got to go to the Halloween party at gymnastics and loved that she was one of the big kids!!

Sunday morning she woke up signing happy birthday so to say she was excited would be an understatement! We opened presents which she had a great time doing.. and loved all of them and then the playing started!! She got a lot of great presents and had so much fun playing with all of them!

We ended the night at the Pizza Ranch in Vinton celebrating with family!! It was a wonderful weekend!!

Charlee and Abby.. busy being princess's:)

Checking out her present!

Of course her sister was willing to help her open presents!

Hugs for friend Colton!!!

lunch with her friends!

Opening more present the morning of her birthday!

Paint

This weekend we were working on a little project we have at home and were at the store talking about buying paint for the project. I asked the girls if they wanted to use Glossy paint or flat paint and Charlee responded back "I don't want Bossy paint, I like it when paint is nice"... oh Char Char:)

More Kansas City Pictures!

We had a great time in Kansas City and wanted to share a couple more pictures!

Char is sleeping and Z is happy to be watching a movie

At the Kansas City Zoo!!

at the Tiger at the Kansas City Zoo!

We have finally arrived at the Lodge!! So happy to get out of the car!!

travel Visa re instated

You might recall that after last fall's trip to San Diego.. Charlee lost her travel Visa.. she wasn't the best traveler..

Well we gave her another chance and headed to Kansas City the last couple of days and she had a great time and did a great job.. she is free to travel the friendly skies again:)

We stayed at a water park and charlee had a great time going down all of the slides.. she also loved her puddle jumper life jacket because she can be in the deep pools and swim.. she thinks its great to jump in and touch the bottom and then just pop right back up!! SO much fun!! She was also so brave and did all of the fun big kid slides as well!!

The resort talked about a kid spa they had but because we were there during the week it wasn't open so we took the girls to a nail salon and they got to get there nails painted.. they had a great time and Charlee did purple with white polk a dots and then put pretty pink flowers on her thumbs!

We also did some trick or treating at the hotel, where she got to wear her Princess halloween costume.. she loved it!!

Tuesday we headed to the Zoo.. we had a great time looking at the animals!! Then back to the water park! After we swam for about three hours Charlee was begging to go home and I am pretty sure she was asleep before we even got outside of Kansas City!

Keeping up with the big kids can wear a little lady out.. notice the purple polk a dot pants.. she loved that they matched her nails!

Charlee the pretty pretty pretty princess!!!

Weekend!

We love to support the panthers and for almost all home games we head to the dome early to do a little tail gating, or as Charlee calls it... Panther Party!!

This weekend was Home coming and they had some face painters... Charlee normally says no but this time she was game and it worked out well!!

We also got to celebrate Charlee's friend Colton's birthday!!! They had a great time swimming and then of course came the cake and presents!!! Those two are great friends.. and had lots of fun!!

First night of Gymnastics

Char was beyond thrilled last night was her first night of gymnastics. We had been telling her she was going to have to wait until she turned three but they said she was close enough and she could try it out! You should have seen her skip into the large gymnastics room that has always been off limits to her... she was in heaven!!

Pretty sure she is trying to figure out what is going on here!!

Holding a friends legs on bar work!

Just being silly and of course not listening to her teacher:)

Stretching and doing the splits at the start of class!

She did a great job and gets to go back again next week!!!

LIfe lately!!

We have been busy lately just enjoying life and each other, and we wouldn't have it any other way!!

Char has been loving the move she has made to the three's!! She is adjusting well, making friends and loving the structure of the three year old class!! She is learning to cut, learning to follow directions and every day she is happy to report that she didn't hit any friends.. I am yet to get to the bottom of that one.

One day last week she was so excited to show me something new that she learned.. she kept telling me, "Mom, I learned umpin acks" she was saying this over and over again and I really wasn't to sure what she telling me, so I asked her to show me what umping acks were and she started jumping up and down with wide legs and clapping her hands together.. and then I figured it out... she learned jumping jacks, and boy oh boy is she good at them and hearing her say it is.. AWESOME!!

Two peas in a pod

This is such a cute picture of Charlee and her cute little friend Colton playing!! They hadn't seen each other in awhile, and they were so happy to spend a little time together!

First day in the threes!!

Today is Charlee's first day in the Three Year Old classroom, and she couldn't be more excited!

She has a great friend in the Three's Abby and she is very excited to get to spend more time playing with her.

This morning she told me that they have a vacuum in the three year old room (I assume a play one) and that Abby stays home and vacuums and Charlee goes shopping..girl after my own heart:)

To celebrate she got to get a new dress and socks and shoes.. she was looking pretty sharp this morning:)

Some time you need to....

Stop and smell the flowers!! 

Saturday night we went up to Clear Lake and spent the day on Sunday on the water.. It was a wonderful day!! Saturday night was a little chilly so we went and walked around the Clear Lake gardens, they are beautiful and I loved this little shot I got of the girls.. They were busy smelling all of the flowers!

family date night!!

We had a wonderful weekend but the best part for sure was the family date night that we did Saturday night!

We all got all dressed up and headed to Brown Bottle in Cedar Falls for dinner.. the girls loved getting dressed up and being included in the fun of going out to eat at a fancy dinner.. it was wonderful.

We had a great time, had a wonderful waitress that would play Cat's Craddle with Z when ever she came over and of course Charlee was just being busy being Charlee:)

Sunday fun day!!

We had a great Sunday!!

Charlee had a great time at the farm looking at all of horse and even got real brave and decided to ride Custer for a bit. I was so proud of her!

After all of that farm work we were hot, so we headed to the Vinton pool where Charlee had a great time jumping in with Aunt Sue making big splashes and doing cannon balls! She had so much fun!!!

After swimming Sue made a wonderful dinner and then we got to make Smore's... Charlee loved the Smore's and helped her self to two along with half of anyone else that would share with her, but she had to eat that many because she got half of everything all over her cute little face:)

It was a great Sunday Fun day spent with family!

4th of July

Charlee had a great 4th of July. Her and Jake headed to the lake on Wednesday!

Thursday we went to the parade, boated, tubbed, swam and even made home made ice cream.. it was wonderful!

Friday Papa John, Mary and Aunt Sue came to the lake and it was wonderful! we had a great time of swimming and a picnic on the boat. Charlee also got to go to the carnival and had a great time riding all of the rides that she could, if only she was a little bit taller:)

Saturday, Charlee got to go swimming with just dad and he can throw her pretty high up in the air and she just loves it. Charlee loves the water this ear and its so funny when ever she goes all the way under she comes back up almost growling.. so cute!!

Saturday we also tubed, where Charlee became airborn for a second, until Mimi was able to pull her back into the tube:) We also anchored and played on the beach for a bit, they had a great time building sand castles.

Sunday we swam and did the carnival again and then headed home...it was a wonderful weekend!

Catching up!

Char got to spend an entire weekend at Clear Lake with just Mimi and Grandpa and to say that she LOVED it would be a MAJOR understatement... She got a new Mickey Mouse poll and had a great time fishing off the dock with Grandpa.

Going for a Jet Ski ride with dad... This was Charlee's first time ever on the Jet Ski and she handled it like a champ and had a great time. She also tubed for the first time this weekend and had a great time jumping off the back of the boat and swimming in the lake around to the stairs on the boat, climbing in and doing it all again!

I am sure I have said this before and I am sure I will say it again.. we have a great neighborhood!!

A few houses with kids of about similar ages have decided to do our own t-ball league and the kids and mom's and dad's are loving. The kids love it because they get to play with kids they already know and the mom's and dad's love it because they don't have to haul the kids anywhere.. just walk to the end of the block:) Charlee likes to take her mit and she stands around for a bit but normally she ends up playing on the hill with some of the other littler kids and that is okay, either way they are having fun!

We had a great weekend. On Friday night we spent some time with the Whites and the Slickers and the kids got to be kids in the summer running around and playing until well after dark. They had a great time. We also have a small airplane that flies over the neighborhood every once and while and he showed up on Friday night and parachuted out some stuffed animals to the kids, they loved it:) It is so fun to watch Charlee keep up with everyone, she tries so hard to sign along and do all the dances and cartwheels and she does it all with a smile on her face, she loves every minute of it:)

On Saturday we headed to the lake and sun was shinning off and on.. so the girls took the opportunity to do some swimming:) Then we hoped on the boat and headed to town to have lunch and do a little shopping.

Sunday the weather wasn't great so we went on a nature walk and then headed to town for a yummy coffee shop lunch and then the sun was out, so into the pool we went, until the clouds came again and it started to rain. We headed into the bath to warm up and head home. Char was sure she could swim and was busy mastering her cannon balls just like her sister and she would get so mad at me when I would try and catch her, she sure has came a long ways since last summer.

Sunday evening we went to the waterhawk ski show, it was a great show and a wonderful evening spent with great friends and we even got to meet the new puppy Jade:) Charlee loved Jade and kept asking us to put her on her lap but the minute we would, Charlee would run away, it was very funny!

Ditching out on tball and running in the grass

Swimming on Saturday!

The Mall

We had a great long weekend. When I say great I mean it was filled with lots of family time, the weather wasn’t great, but we made the most of itJ

We spent the majority of the weekend at the lake.

Saturday morning we did some shopping downtown Clear Lake and had a great time. On Saturday afternoon we ran into Mason City and did some more shopping with the cold and rainy weather there wasn’t a whole of other options, which of course was okay with us.. we like to shopJ

Saturday evening Jake and I went to a movie and the girls got to stay with Mimi and Grandpa and they had a great time playing and of course.. getting ice cream.

Sunday when we woke up the weather was still pretty bad so we decided to make the short drive up to Mall of America and play at the amusement park they have at the mall.

It was a great trip.  Char had so much fun on the rides, but of course she was mad that she couldn’t do more of the rides herself and when I would have to ride with her, she would get mad at me if I would laugh or scream, she would tell me no talking!!

We did a lot of the rides during Charlee’s normal nap time so of course she got really tired and right before she was about to fall asleep her dream came true, she got to meet Dora and she had a wonderful time and walked right up to her and told her “Nice to meet you” And then you couldn’t get her to stop talking about seeing Dora!

Monday we were able to get out on the boat for a short boat ride. It was cold but it felt great to be out on the water! Char had a great time on the boat and even got to drive for a bit, but of course always wanted to go faster.

Monday afternoon Charlee and I came home early so she could take a nap in her own bed, that weekend had worn her out. We had a great evening of playing outside and we got to go over to Amy and Brian’s to meet baby Gavin. It was a wonderful weekend.

We had a great weekend!! Friday night the girls got to play outside until well after dark, that's a BIG deal in the summer time:) and they got to play with great friends!

Saturday morning we woke up and did the heart walk and then hung out around the house and got our garden all planted. It was a great Saturday spend with LOTS of great friends, including the Kleigl boys, where we got out the water.. and charlee would get upset any time her clothes got wet... after the fourth outfit we fixed all the problems by just going NAKED!

Sunday we went to the Spring Fling for Z and it was so much fun!! and Char loved trying out the equipment and being on the "other side" of the window!

Watching her sister at the Spring Fling gymnastics meet!

Jumping on the trampoline at Gymnastics

At the Heart Walk

Running around naked in the backyard:)

Sprinklers and writting letters

The weather has been touch and go this spring so we spent some time yesterday when it was 100 to playout side in the sprinkler, of course it was much to windy and the girls decided rather quickly that it was to cold.

Charlee is in LOVE with her little cousin Wes.. and this week Mimi and Grandpa are out in Washington to see baby Wes and have been sending us pictures of him.. so Charlee wanted to write him a letter..

This is the final product from her hard work!

Charlee hard at work, putting a lot of love into her letter

Best cheerleader EVER

With the nice spring weather that we have been having Charlee has been spending a lot of time at the soccer field and she does a great job of watching from the sidelines and trying to do what the big kids are doing with mom and dad. She has a great kick!!

She always gets a little sad when the kids get to put on the pennies to scrimmage, and last weekend Zoey's coach noticed and said that she could wear one as well.. she was in heaven..... as you can see its just a little bit big, but she didn't let that stop her at all!

Big Girl Bed

Well is was bound to happen it finally did.. Charlee moved out of her crib and into her big girl bed:)

She was so excited about having a new bed and then just a couple of weeks later we painted her room purple.

She did a great job of sleeping in it and staying in bed, she loves that she needs a step stool to climb into her bed.

Easter Weekend

We had a great weekend.

Charlee started hers out a little early, her day care closed early on Friday due to technical plumbing issues, so she got to spend her good Friday with Brandie, Marlee and Maddie and of course... She loved it.

Friday night we went to Good Friday services.

Saturday we went to the Annual Vinton Egg hunt. At first Charlee wasn't all that interested but then I told her about the candy inside of each egg and she asked me why we were still standing there and not out getting the eggs. I told her we had to wait for the whistle and then the whistle couldn't blow soon enough!

After the egg hunt we went to Mimi's and colored egg and Charlee of course wanted all of her eggs to be purple but she did a great job of coloring them.

Sunday we went to church and then to Pipac where the brunch was wonderful and Charlee enjoyed a HUGE waffle.

After brunch we headed home to see if the bunny had came and look for eggs. Charlee was sure that the bunny was going to bring her bubbles and when she saw the bubbles she was very very very happy. It was a cold and windy day so we had to do some bubbles inside.

it was such a tough decision to figure out what color to color eggs when she found out they all couldn't be purple.

Easter Best!

More coloring fun!

Finding an egg and more importantly CANDY!

It was getting pretty cold at this point!

Smiles!

Checking out all of the eggs in her basket!