Charlie the Clown

Since the day we met him, Charlie has always been a bit of a ham. For him, it is all about making people laugh. How? A funny face, a well-meaning joke, a silly sound... really, anything he thinks might earn a chuckle is something he is willing to try.

He recently went to a birthday party for a friend, and the party favors contained clown gear. Ever since, Charlie has had fun donning his nose and gloves. They also gave out sunglasses, but Charlie feels that they are better "rock star" glasses, so they usually aren't included with the clown costume.

One day Charlie put on his nose and gloves and started making what he must deem to be clown poses. I had my camera downstairs, so he demanded that I take pictures of him. I obliged, because it was rather cute!

Some of my Favorite Things

Hello! Ephram here. I thought I'd take some time to share with you just a few of my favorite things. Oh, my mom says to tell you that all of these pictures were taken when I was 7 weeks old, and that she knows she still has some catching up to do!

This is one of the best things ever! My mommy and daddy seem to know that I like it too... because I spend a lot of time here. It rocks me, plays me music, makes chirping noises, and a lot of silly things go round and round in circles. What I really like to do here, though, is stare out of mommy and daddy's bedroom window. There is so much to see out there!


Can you guess what my favorite thing is in this picture? Here's a hint: they're a little blurry. Here they are in better focus:


You guessed it - I just love my feet! Mommy says I have monkey toes because I stretch them apart so much and can grab things with them tightly.

But my favorite thing to do with them is ... kick!

I also really, really like my car seat. I don't like the buckling part, but other than that this thing is awesome. It is my most favorite place to sleep... I just love taking my naps here!

I am also learning about these things called toys. My Grandma sent me this book for Valentines Day. It makes a lot of fun, crinkling noises!

Okay, that's about it for now. Thanks for listening! Oh yeah, one more thing I just can't live without... it's hiding in the next picture...

My binky! I can even shove it into my mouth now if it is in close proximity. That thing is really great too!

Valentine's Day

We had a very nice, peaceful and relaxing Valentine's Day this year. Actually, Valentine's Day crept up on me... I didn't realize it was already time until Charlie's preschool teacher sent home information for their Valentine's party. I quickly went out to the store to get some things for the kids.

Andy got me flowers this year. I love getting fresh flowers, especially tulips. They were really pretty and lasted the whole week.


Even though Ephram was too little to appreciate the holiday, we still got him some loot as well. He does enjoy staring at his giraffe!


But I think that Charlie made out the best. He has a taken a real liking to all things Charlie Brown over the last year. We found Snoopy chocolates for him and knew they'd be a hit. I also found two of his favorite things combined in one - race cars and pez candy dispensers. I got one each for Charlie and Andy so that they could race them.


Charlie was extremely happy with the Snoopy chocolates!


I was a little surprised when he left the room quickly and ran upstairs without explanation. But when he showed up with Snoopy's friend Woodstock, it all made sense to me. These two have been stuck together ever since!

The Foster Years in 100 Pictures

Today we finalized the adoption of our eldest son, Charlie. Expect many changes to come to this blog over the next month, and have patience with this mom that has a million things going on... because it may take me some time to get everything updated! In the meantime, I have compiled a slide show of our first two years with Charlie. As a person that usually takes way too many pictures, you can imagine how many pictures I had to wade through... literally thousands. But it was such fun to go through them all and see how much our little man has grown and to remember all of the things we have done. At first I took every picture I loved, and that left me with 352. So I decided that if I could get it down to 100, that would be pretty good.

Realistically, I realize that you will probably not wait and look through all 100 pictures. But if you want to, you can. After such a long wait to be able to post his picture online, I just couldn't narrow it down further!

Finding the Rattle

About once a day, if we're doing well, Ephram gets some play time on the floor. I've been trying to give him more "tummy time" lately and he genuinely hates it. So, after we're done with that torture, we usually roll him over onto his back to play with him more. We often take out some toys to capture his attention, but he undoubtedly prefers to stare into the corners of the room or at the ceiling fan in the kitchen. However, there's one toy that has always caught his attention... the rattle.

Andy was playing with Ephram one day when he was six weeks old, and put the rattle by his hand. Ephram grabbed onto it. This was the first time that he'd grasped a toy. He'd had lots of practice with grabbing that week... just a few days earlier, he'd surprised me by reaching up to grab my glasses and then promptly threw them on the ground. They narrowly missed our brick mantle.


Once he had the rattle in his hand, it took some coaxing to get him to move it. I honestly don't know if he had a clue that he was causing the rattling noise... probably not... but he did have a good time shaking it around until he threw it, (just like my glasses.)



But he was still up for more play as he took it back in his other hand for awhile!


Ephram was pretty proud of his new accomplishment, and played for quite awhile in that session... here's his smiling face!

Ephram at One Month

Ephram hit the one month milestone on January 31st. A facebook friend of mine recently asked why time seems to go so slow in the present but so fast in retrospect... that sentiment perfectly represents how I felt about Ephram's first month. In some ways it felt like ten years, especially with all of the worrying I did, but in other ways it went as fast as a blink of the eye.

So here were Ephram's stats at his one month check-up...

Height: 20 1/4 inches (9%)
Weight: 6 pounds 15 3/4 ounces (2%)
Head Circumference: 38 cm (44%)

Yes, we have a tiny guy with a big head. Several people have told me that his head isn't that big, and I just keep repeating that it is for his little body! I was really, really hoping that he would be to 7 pounds by his one month appointment, and he was so close. I am just happy that he fought his way back from the 5 pounds, 4 ounces that he was at homecoming.

I want to keep track of some things from month to month, and I'm sure I'll have more ideas in the coming months... but for now, here are some things I want to remember.

Milestones:
2 weeks - rolled from back to side
3 weeks - smiled and started cooing

What he's eating:
2/3 breast milk and 1/3 formula

Favorite things to do:
Eat, eat and eat
Sleep, particularly in mom or dad's arms
Play with his hands (he could clasp them together by the end of the month)
Take a ride in his swing (the only place he'd let us put him down!)

Least favorite things to do:
Spit up (especially through his nose)
Be alone, or even just not being held by someone at anytime

Nicknames:
Houdini (the nurses gave him this one because he could escape any swaddle from birth)
Fuzzy (I gave him this one because he was very, very fuzzy at first... still is a little)
Spock (a la Andy - yes, Ephram's pointy ears revealed in the ultrasound months ago really do exist!)

We took our first non-doctor outing when Ephram was four weeks old and headed to the outlet stores that are about a half an hour away from our home. We had a lot of fun, and the outing was successful... this is a good thing because we really enjoy shopping.

Ephram got a new blanket on our outing and he really likes it. Here are some pictures taken a few days after he turned one month!

Ephram's Fourth Week

When Ephram was 3 weeks old, Charlie developed a nasty runny nose. Then Andy caught it and about two days after the initial symptoms, Andy started running a fever over 102. Then I got worried because I did not want Ephram to catch something with a high fever potential when he was still fighting his way toward 7 pounds. So we went to the doctor and found out it was bronchitis. Not fun for Andy, but also not contagious. Andy promptly went on antibiotics and as Ephram entered his fourth week, was able to start helping out a little bit again. Just in time for Ephram to get sick too. Thank heaven he didn't develop a fever above 100, but he did have the sniffles and goopy eyes for the whole week. He also showed me that he is an excellent sneezer and cougher... at least I know he is capable of moving congestion through his body on his own.

The week was a rough one. The pictures are not great or plentiful... but here you go. :)

While Andy was running his fever, I ran a 3 day marathon with about an hour of sleep each day. It is not easy to take care of a recovering 4 year old, a newborn that eats every 1.5-2 hours and a sick husband. All while I was crossing my fingers that my fatigue didn't wear my immune system down so much that I would get sick too. I hope never to relive that experience. So when Andy was finally better, I couldn't hand Ephram over fast enough. This is what they spent most of their time doing...


And this is how Ephram looked for most of the week. Poor guy...


Although he did show us his first social smiles between the tears. I never caught one on camera... but here is a sleeping smile that is kind of close.