5 Months of Jillyness

So our little Jilly Bean is now officially 5 months old. She's getting bigger an bigger every day. We've started putting her in the high chair and giving her solid foods every now and then. She's still not totally sold on the fruits and oatmeal yet, but as you can tell from the pictures, she loves the rice rusks and is a fan of those little puff things. She's had to fight Charlie for the puffs lately, because he's also taken a liking to them, but she hasn't complained yet.

When Jenni was pregnant, I always said that Jill was gonna be a feisty little bugger that was full of sass. Lucky for us, she's turned out to be just the opposite. She's about as close to perfect as a baby can be and loves being social. She's always got a big smile for me when I get home from work and she loves just hang out. The only time she ever fusses is when we don't include her in the activities. She always wants to be a part of what's going on and loves cuddling up with her mom after a long day.

And a mandatory for our cute little girl has become the bow. I joke that they're as big as her head sometimes, but that just adds to the cuteness. We're not ready to make any big declarations yet, but her hair seems to be a tiny bit thicker than Charlie's was and also seems like it might be staying dark. Like I said, we don't want to make any declarations yet, but maybe some of those Johansen genes finally made it through.

So what outfit wouldn't be completely without a fancy pair of shoes? Jill's Aunt Danielle decided that the bows needed to be complemented with some sweet kicks and she got Jill some high heels. Yes, they're slightly ridiculous, but isn't that what makes them so cute?

Jenni already mentioned that my parents came out to visit just before Thanksgiving and while I was at work they put Jill through quite the fashion show. My mom had a bunch of old dresses from my Great Grandma and they had Jill try them all on. When I walked in, they were at the end of the "shoot" and Jill wasn't in the happiest mood, but as you can see from the picture, she had lots of fun and always love showing off her cuteness.

Fwimmin!

The hot Arizona summers are quickly approaching, so we've started heading to the pool and Charlie loves to go "fwimmin!" (Yes, there's always an exclamation point on it when Charlie says it).

Jenni has taught Charlie to be sure to bring his toes to the edge and now his favorite activity is jumping into the pool. He's also started swimming a little bit. He gets his floaties on and kicks away. I'm not sure what we did to get him to do it, if anything, but now he says "kick, kick, kick" and just starts swimming! He also closes his mouth and goes "mmmm" when he gets to the edge. Now, he just needs to remember to do that all the time while he's swimming.  He is becoming quite the little fish!  His swimming skills are getting pretty good (for a 2 year old that is).

I've never understand why the "cold" water out of the tap is so warm while the water in the pool is so cold. But this usually makes for about 25-30 minutes of swimming time for Charlie. Which is then followed by some lounging on the chair to warm up/dry off and general hanging out. Usually, we can talk him into going on the slides, but the cold water usually makes that not last too long. I guess that is the one advantage of it soon getting so hot, is that he'll be a little more in favor of splashing around in the play area.

Adding a little spice to nap time

So one of the "fun" parts of Charlie sleeping in a real bed is seeing what the little guy did to entertain himself before finally laying down and sleeping. Usually it consists of pulling all of his clothes out of his dresser or all the books off the shelf, but this past week there was an extra twist.
My grandparents gave Charlie a pair of full on cowboy boots and for a while he loved walking around in them, but like everything else he eventually lost interest in them. Well, one day last week, he decided to re-spark the interest.
Jenni told me that he just strolled out of his room with them (binky in hand, of course) and wouldn't take them off (can't you tell how excited he was from the picture?). And then the next morning, I heard him rustling around but waited a minute to get him out because he was being quiet. I guess that during that quiet time he pulled out his boots and slipped them on, because he strutted out in them again. It took getting in the bath to get him to finally take them off. I guess we're just lucky that the kid realizes that he needs to take his clothes off to take a bath or we might have had a bunch of wet cowboy boots that morning.

Last bit of Sedona

So I posted about the beginning of our adventures in Sedona, then Jenni posted about the Grand Canyon and our shopping trip, and this is the wrap up of what we did in Sedona. There are lots of Indian ruins in the area and we went to the Palataki Indian Ruins (a little south of Sedona). We got there and were surprised to see that it was snowing and quite a bit colder than we expected. Jenni commented that each of our activities had had some sort of unexpected twist, and I'd have to agree that she was right. I guess it just added to the excitement and made Charlie a little tougher. The poor little guy was shivering like crazy on the way back to the car, so I guess rubbing chapstick all over your face, playing with snow, and digging in the dirt don't keep a little kid as warm as he might expect.

So then on the way back we made a pit stop in Phoenix to see Casey, Emily, and Adam. It's crazy to see how much the two little kids have grown up so fast (I think the last time I had seen Adam was when he was less than a month old). We stopped and grabbed some burgers at a local eatery and then made a mandatory stop at Last Chance. I spent most of the time chasing Charlie around the store, but in the middle of all the fun he walked up to this bench said "piture" and then sat on it and said "cheese". He's such a little cornball.

So all in all we had a great time and did lots of exciting things. It was lots of fun to get together with all of my family and Charlie had a ball with all the extra attention. Hopefully, we'll be able to do it all again sometime soon.

We swear he's getting thinner

Sometimes we get funny looks when we tell people that Charlie is getting thinner, but thanks to Picasa's new face tagging I created this collage. Jenni and I thought it was interesting to see how thin he was early on (the first row), then started to chunk up (the second and third row), and stayed chunky until about a year (the next few rows). But you can see that he's started to slim down over the last few months. Yes, we know he's still built like a linebacker, but he is starting to look more toddlerish and it's just so cute to watch his little left arm pump when he gets running.

In other recent happenings, we went to the Biosphere a little while back with the Lewises. It probably wasn't the most little kid friendly experience, but us adults found it interesting. The rain forest room was pretty cool, but we were only in it for a minute or so, and the exit room with the huge wind from the pressurization was probably worth the admission on its own (well, at least the half price admission that Patrick and Erica's coupon hooked us up with).

We also took Charlie to the zoo this past Friday. It was the first time that he actually realized that there were animals and it was tons of fun. He tried feeding the giraffe for a second before he got scared and loved feeding the ducks (he even tried the food), but we'll have to post the cute videos of him later.

And here is the final set of random pictures from the last month. We discovered that Charlie HATES costumes (as evidenced by the crying monkey pictures) and that he LOVES tools (as evidenced by him "fixing" my bike). We definitely need to move my tools because he's learned where the screwdrivers and hammers are and always grabs one to help me when I'm in the garage. He's also continuing the Burns tradition of loving clothes/shoes, and has started his Mr. Independence phase complete with freak outs and starting up the bath when Mom and Dad aren't looking (which has instituted the locked bathroom policy in our house).
As always, he's a cute little kid and we have tons of fun with the little guy.

A Little Time Off

Last month we went out to LA for Jenni's cousin Cierra's wedding. We decided to make a little trip out of  it and spend a few extra days there.

We spent the afternoon that I flew in, hanging out at Jenni's Grandma's place and playing in the pool. Charlie got all decked out and definitely wasn't going to be drowning any time soon. He also loved playing in the Cozy Coupe that they had there and would get so excited to show off his "Drivin!" skills.
The next day we went to Torrance Beach and played in the sand. There was a little playing in the water, but Charlie was deathly afraid of the waves for some reason. He would get all excited to see the water, but whenever the waves would start coming at him he would turn and run. He finally dipped his feet in with a little help and coaxing, but it definitely wasn't his favorite experience.
That was also Cody's birthday, and show we took him out to dinner that night and went to the LA Temple. It was a lot of fun seeing Cody and being able to hang out, but I guess it wasn't cool enough to take a picture of or something.
Pics on Facebook (1, 2) and PWA (1, 2).

Then we went to Cierra's Wedding in San Diego the next morning. Charlie was a trooper, because we lugged him around all day and even though we wore the little guy out, he still was happy as could be and had lots of fun running around the reception and being a cute little kid.
Pics on Facebook and PWA.

Then Jenni and I parted ways with Charlie and went to Lake Arrowhead. Jenni's Aunt and Uncle have a cabin up there and were kind enough to go out of their way to bring their boat up there and let us borrow their boat and cabin for a few days. Kenny and Kristy and Lindsay and Ryan were their to join in the fun and we had a GREAT time. It was nice to take a little break from our little guy, but we were definitely anxious to get back and give him a big hug when we were done.
Pics on Facebook and PWA.

Since we had left the little guy for a few days, we figured we should have a Charlie Day and so we went to Disneyland and did all the little kid rides. Charlie's probably still a little too young to get super excited about the whole experience, but he had lots of fun and we so worn out that he even slept in the tram ride back to the car.
Pics on Facebook and PWA.

We owe a BIG thanks to everyone who helped out and made it all possible. It was a great trip, an unbelievably fun time, and we're already looking forward to doing it all again next year (well, I guess minus the wedding).

The Fruits of Our Labors

So my flight ended up being delayed and I decided to take advantage of my spare time and the free wifi that they have here by making a blog post. We actually took some really funny pictures of Charlie before Jenni took off to LA, but they're on the camera still and she has it, so that will have to be for a later post.

On a semi-related note, Charlie slept in his bed for the first time on Sunday night. I guess the floor either got too hard or he finally realized that his bed can be slept in, but who knows.

So finally on to the real topic of this post, our backyard. Jenni and I's track record of caring for plants has been rocky at best (as evidenced by the dead kumquat tree in the picture). Most of the plants we've tried to raise have died within the first few weeks, so thankfully our skills with caring for people seems to be going a little better and Charlie is still hanging in there. But our first two success stories have finally come to fruition (pun slightly intended). The first I mentioned previously and the collage shows off some of the watermelons that are growing in our backyard. There were 6 that had popped up, but 1 was eaten by something, another ruptured (I'm guessing from the heat because it was sitting on a brick), and the little tiny one from the collage seems to have vanished. But we currently have 3 good sized watermelons and we're very glad to have finally been able to grow something.

The other accomplishment in regards to our green thumbs is the grass in our backyard. I previously mentioned that my brother, Cody, and my Dad were HUGE helps in getting it all done, and now we have a nice little grass spot that Charlie loves running around on (ok, he actually enjoys playing with the rocks more, but we'll just focus on the grass part) and Jenni and I have taken the chance to lay on once or twice. It's a bit annoying to have to mow it every week, but it's well worth the effort and we still owe Cody and Dad a lot of thanks for the help.

15 Months and Counting

So as a pseudo-follow up to my recent post about Charlie growing up so fast, here's an up date on what Charlie has been doing lately.

• I think one thing that everyone knows about Charlie is that he loves food, and that is definitely evidenced by his hiding to eat food, the eating of spilt Cheerios off his feet, and the nutella and yogurt mess all over his face.
• He had his first major ow-ee (is that how you spell it?) when he nose dived off of a curb and scraped up his forehead.
• His favorite thing to do is to put things together. He loves putting lids on anything he can find and has even made a hobby of breaking the top piece off our phone, hiding it somewhere for a few days, and then putting it back together.
• And last but not least, he now LOVES when we let him have a fork or spoon when eating dinner, and even he has also started holding the fork in his mouth using his two bottom teeth for some reason.

He gets more and more fun each day and we are always amazed by how fast the little guy is growing up. Now, if we could only get him to stop poking other kids in the face...

Oh, and for any of you who may still be doubting that Charlie's a little boy version of Jenni, then here's the final proof:

And of course it wouldn't be a post from me if you couldn't see all the pictures on Facebook or PWA.

Roughin' It

We've been talking about going camping since the first summer we got married, but rain and laziness had always prevented us from doing it. This weekend we actually made it on a camping trip and we were a little worried that Charlie wouldn't do well with sleeping in a tent, but it turned out well and we had a LOT of fun.
Charlie loved running around and getting dirty, and we had fun going hiking (well, other than when I accidentally ran Charlie's face into a branch) and playing a new game that the Hoeneses introduced us to, Kubb (ok, I had a lot of fun playing Kubb and Jenni would jump in every now and then).
Hopefully, we'll make this a more regular tradition and I imagine that the future trips will be even more fun. I'm also crossing my fingers that on future trips we'll have to spend less time chasing Charlie around to keep him from poking babies in the face but I'm not holding my breath.
You can check out all the pictures on Facebook or PWA.

Growing Up

So I'm not sure when it happened, but sometime in the last few months Charlie has officially gone from being a baby to a toddler. I mean it was only a 2-3 months ago that we were helping Charlie take his first steps and now we spend most of our time following him take more steps than you can imagine. He's such an energetic, happy, and social little kid. He gets bashful every now and then, but he's always saying "Hi!" (it definitely has an exclamation point when he says it) to people we meet. He also most definitely loves food and trying new things. He even loved eating chips and salsa when we went out to dinner on Saturday, so he's definitely got Jenni and my love for food (and the Burns' love for dip). You just can't help but smile when you see the little guy.

But here's the highlights of some of the things that we've done recently that are in the collage shown above. We went and fed the ducks at Reid Park, Jenni took Charlie to Madera Canyon, and my family came out to visit for the 4th of July. The biggest highlight for me was having the help with putting in the grass and sprinkler system in our backyard. It was a HUGE help and I can't thank my Dad and brother, Cody, enough for everything they did and for being willing to work on our yard during their vacation. Charlie loves playing out there and everyday when I get home from work, one of the first things I hear from Charlie is "side" quickly followed by "shis", which is Charlie saying that he wants to go outside and play and that he needs to put his shoes on first. Once again, you just can't help but smile when you see the little guy.

Happy Mother's Day

Unfortunately, the fevered pace at which I used to upload pictures has seemed to have slowed down, but Jenni was out on a Scrapbookingfest, so I had some time to kill and figured that I should catch up on the pictures. I won't take the time to link to all of the individual albums, but you can find them all at PWA and Facebook.

Recently, we've hit the highlights in blog posts, like Charlie's birthday, Jenni's birthday, and Easter, but it's been a lot of fun to watch the little guy continue to grow up and to rediscover the wonderful little experiences of life that we so easily take for granted. Some of the highlights have been remembering how relaxing it is to sit down and read a book (lower left corner of collage), how fun it is to shove a whole orange slice in your mouth (middle of left side of collage), and how fascinating the toilet is (middle of right side of collage), which has prompted the new "toilet lid always being down" rule in our house. Needless to say, with Charlie around it's always an interesting day with twists, turns, and stress, but we've loved every minute of it.

And it wouldn't be an appropriate end to this post without wishing everyone a Happy Mother's Day, and an especially big one to Jenni and both of our Mom's. We all owe more than we can ever express to our Mother's and I think that this quote said it far better than I ever could:

You are a person of the greatest importance when you are the mother of a family.
- Ethel Waters

Charlie's 1st Birthday Party

Today we had Charlie's 1st Birthday Party. Jenni did an excellent job of planning everything out so there was plenty of food to eat without any hassle during the party (we had 48 hot dogs cooked and wrapped with accompanying cupcakes and chips). It was also great to see all of Charlie's friends show up and we want to give a BIG thanks to everyone for coming and all of the GREAT gifts. It was lots of fun and we hope that everyone had as good a time as we did.

And we've already been talking about planning next year a little earlier so we can be cool enough to get Ramada #2 and the jump tent.

Oh, and if you're wondering what he's eating in the picture in the upper right, it's a Jalapeno Cheeto. The little guy actually likes them.

The Happiest Place on Earth

So in addition to going to Sea World during the weekend of Lindsay's Wedding, we also went to Disneyland and California Adventure.



During the day in Disneyland, we were joined by Kenny, Kristy, Lynn, Judy, and Chad, so we had plenty of hands to help out with Charlie and had a great time. Kenny made sure to coordinate efficient use of the Fast Pass, so we were also able to hit all of the big rides and have a great time thanks to all of the help. My favorite picture was the one of Kenny wearing Charlie's ears while holding him. Classic.

We also took Charlie on Pirates as soon as we got to the park, and it was far from his favorite thing to do. All of the loud noises in the dark freaked him out and he was clinging to Jenni and me for dear life during most of the ride, but he survived. We made it up to him and took him on It's a Small World and the Submarine ride, which he absolutely loved.

You can check out the rest of the pictures from Disneyland on PWA or Facebook.



In complete contrast to the perfect weather we had the day before, it was raining for the first hour or so that we were at California Adventure. Jenni and Grandma Lynn made Charlie a makeshift poncho out of a shopping bag and we just jumped from ride to ride to stay out of the rain. Because of the rain, we ended up having to sit through some Disney Live show that even Charlie was bored with, but then it cleared up and we had some fun. Charlie finally hit his limit in the mid afternoon and had a melt down, but he was a perfect little guy the rest of the time and it was fun to experience the park with the little guy. We're looking forward to taking him back when he can enjoy it even more.

You can check out the rest of the pictures from California Adventure on PWA or Facebook.

Better late than never

So Jenni made a post about the fun we had during Christmas break, I posted about the milestones that Charlie hit over the holidays, and I posted a short documentary about our adventures in the snow, but now that it's February, I'm finally getting around to getting all of the pictures up from Christmas.

The first part of the trip we spent in LA, and we had a lot of fun hanging out with all of the Burns/Mathison clan.

We were able to head straight from the plane and make it to the party at Dena-Rae's (sp?) to catch the traditional arrival of Santa.



Then everyone started working on making popcorn balls.



And even Kenny got involved for a minute or two.



But our favorite stocking stuffer was the Chunky Monkey himself, Charlie.



Even though he got lots of great presents, Charlie was more interested in playing with the paper than in the present itself.



Most of all we enjoyed visiting everyone and Charlie really liked all of the extra attention that he got.

You can also check out the rest of the pictures from LA on PWA or Facebook.

We then went and visited the Johansens/Townsends in Sacramento.

Charlie was a little extra wiggly on the plane, but he loved looking out the window.



We also kept up the tradition of making Gingerbread houses.



And we made sure that Charlie was all bundled up when we went and played in the snow, but fortunately he didn't mind too much.

You can check out the rest of the pictures on PWA (first set, second set) or Facebook (first set, second set).

Old News

So this is actually stuff from about a month ago, but I just wanted to be sure and write about this before moving on to the Christmas stuff.

But the first set of pictures is a series of stuff that our little Charlie has started doing. I'm not sure why, but he loves biting his bottom lip. He actually doesn't do it quite as much as he used to, but I'm still baffled as to why the little guy does it. He started rocking back and forth and we knew that crawling was soon to come when he started lunging and scooting, but he's still our own Dr. Seuss character. He also started picking his own sleeping positions with his new found mobility and always entertained us with the weird ways that he would sleep. You can check out all the pictures on PWA or Facebook.

Another fun activity was when we went to the 4th Street Fair in Tucson. I hadn't even realized that something like that even happened so close to home, but it was fun to get out, check out all the stuff for sale, and enjoy the beautiful Tucson winter weather while eating some good food. They were also letting people ride the trolley for free, so we hopped on and enjoyed the ride while waiting for Brian. It's wasn't anything too special, but it was fun and Coralee got some bunny ears on Charlie. You can check out all the pictures on PWA or Facebook.

And finally, here's a video of Charlie playing with one of his new favorite toys and showing off his new found ability of falling over to reach things. Here's the link to the video on Facebook.

Christmas is coming, the baby's getting fat...

So I already posted about the beginning of the Christmas season, but it just had a picture of a tree and isn't Christmas and the Holidays really about family and the things that are really important? So I decided to post some of the pictures that everyone really wants to see (pictures of Mr Cute and Cuddly, i.e. Charlie).

When everyone was out for Thanksgiving, Charlie's Aunt Kristy and Uncle Kenny (ok, it was mostly, if not all, Kristy) bought Charlie a cute little outfit and his Grandma Lynn bought him a Santa hat. Since we were at the mall, we got Charlie's picture taken with Santa. We were worried that the little guy would be scared, but he actually smiled at Santa and had a good time. I actually took some pictures from the side, because he was being really cute and "talkative", but right after I realized that I had forgot to put the memory card back in so none of the pictures were saved. Hopefully, next year he'll be just as good and we can actually get some pictures.

Charlie also has been a trooper with wearing hats. He's started figuring out how to pull them off when he gets sick of them, but he looks really cute in them and usually keeps them on to show off his cute little elf look when we're dragging him around on the weekends. He's also received a wide selection of Christmas/winter themed sleepers from his Grandma Lynn and Mom. But we were actually lucky that he got them, because the little guy is growing like a weed and is already in the 12-18 month clothing.

Charlie will definitely grow up being what I refer to as a "Tucson baby". He'll be used to the heat and hate the cold. I guess that when we're in Sacramento he'll get a dose of the cold when we go up to the mountains. But at any rate, as you can tell from the picture, we always make sure to bundle the little guy up anytime it reaches "frigid" temperatures (like the high 60's).

The rest of the pictures from the Christmas Festival in Rancho Sahuarita can be seen on the PWA or Facebook.

Thanksgiving

Mindy already posted about their version of the story, but I just wanted to add our 2 cents.

My family had been out during the last two Thanksgivings, so we were really glad to have all of Jenni's family out this year. We were also "lucky" enough to be the hosts. It actually went really well, because Mindy, Kristy, and Lynn threw in a helping hand, and the clean up wasn't nearly as bad as I had expected.

And of course, the guys all got up and went and played in the Turkey Bowl with the other members of our ward. I'm not sure how it happened, but Kenny ended up on the other team (he didn't mind too much in the end because his team won), but if there was a highlight reel from the game then I think that the TD pass that Brian threw to me on a crossing route would have made it.

Charlie also enjoyed seeing all of his family and took special interest in Kenny and enjoyed sitting and watching football with him.

We also got babysitters for the kidlets and went to the Cirq du Soleil show Saltimbanco. Overall, it wasn't quite as cool as the other one that Jenni and I had seen before (I think that it was Mystere), but there was this trapese thing with two women that was just crazy intense. You could hear the entire audience hold their breath and gasp throughout the performance. I think that that one act alone made it worth going and it was fun to hang out with everyone.

You can also check out all of the Thanksgiving pictures on the PWA or Facebook, and the pictures from the Saltimbanco show can also be seen on the PWA or Facebook.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

So it actually never really "looks like Christmas" in Tucson (or at least the cold snow covered version of Christmas that I grew up with), but the decorations are going up and it's amazing that we're already less than 2 weeks away from Christmas. Where does the time go?

But here's the picture of our beautifully decorated tree (thanks to Jenni), and to try and help add to the holiday cheer, I added snow to our blog. I wish I could take credit for making it, but I actually just grabbed it online. If you'd like to add it to your own blog then just go to the Edit HTML part of the Layout settings and add the following line above the <head> tag.

<script type="text/javascript" src="'http://www.et.byu.edu/~dj29/snowstorm/script/snowstorm.js'></script>

Happy Holidays and I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas.

Where did 7 months go?

A few weeks ago Jenni posted about Charlie being 6 months old and this past Sunday he turned 7 months. It made me stop and think about how much the little guy has already grown up and changed from the tiny bundle of joy that we brought home from the hospital (just look how little he was).

If you haven't had the pleasure of seeing the little guy recently, he's already sitting up, expresses his curiosity by grabbing at everything, and still smiles at everyone like their his best friend. He's even started to take an interest in being involved with the things that Jenni and I do (even though it's usually easier without his "help"). Jenni and I have loved every minute of it (especially now that he's sleeping through the night thanks to a book that I now swear by) and we hope that the the rest of his first year is just as fun as these first 7 months have been.

You can check out the first set of pictures on the PWA or Facebook, and the second set here on the PWA and Facebook.

A day at the Zoo

So a few weeks ago we went to the Tucson Zoo during one of my Off-Fridays. Jenni and I had a lot of fun, but Charlie wasn't overly excited about the experience. Even though I had driven by that area more times than I can remember, I never realized that there was even a zoo there. I think that Jenni summed it up really well when she said, "I never realized that there were llamas so close to In-n-Out." We got a family pass, so hopefully Charlie will start enjoy the experience a little more. You can check out all of the pictures on PWA or Facebook.