19 months

To commemorate the 19-month mark, here are a few of Charlie's favorite things...


^ Playing basketball, although he wishes he were a little taller. Or that our hoop was shorter, like the one at our ECFE class. Using the parking garage for parking himself (climbing on anything, really, but I'm generally not fast enough to get a picture of him scaling his latest challenge, since I'm rushing over to make sure he doesn't fall on his head. Again.)


^ Eating black beans. Ok, black beans are probably only #8 on his list... french fries, pizza, and any kind of fruit typically dominate the top 3. But check out that mustache & goatee!


^Putting himself in unusual places, especially if it involves dumping out 83 cars so he can climb in.


^Playing football, or any other type of contact sport with his brother. Unfortunately sometimes this is the end result... this particularly beauty (the one on his head and under his eye are the same injury) is from being tackled directly into the leg of the table he's under in the picture above. This is eight or so hours later; trust me, it looked much much worse right after the crash. And he did cry, so we know it hurt a lot, but he barely let us comfort him before he wiggled himself down to the floor and ran straight back to Zach and the football. Game on.


^Getting his own way. And pouting when he doesn't.

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^Books, books, and more books. Preferably neatly arranged on a shelf so he can pull them onto the floor as he peruses them at his leisure. Charlie can occupy himself for quite a while with his books; he'll sit and turn the pages, talking constantly as he points at the pictures (often in a strangely guttural voice, not sure what that's about). He actually prefers to "read" them himself, rather than have us actually read the words to him, although he occasionally humors us.


^ I may have to add art to the list. I fully confess that I have not given Charlie opportunities to be artistic... but the teacher at ECFE bravely handed him some markers and let him go to town. And since the end result was this masterpiece and only a few dashes and dots on his face and hands, I guess I need to start pulling out the supplies.

A lotta Halloween

Zach had two costumes to choose from this year; he wore this lion costume two years ago (back when I got to pick what he'd wear for Halloween), and it was huge on him. There was a chance his Wario costume might not arrive in time for the Brodd's celbration, so I pulled the lion out and had Zach try it on - a perfect fit! He wore it long enough for me to take a picture; if his Wario costume didn't arrive, he wasn't going to wear any costume to the party. The Wario costume came with a stick-on mustache; this picture was taken in the 30 seconds Zach kept it on so I could take a picture. Notice how stiff he is - he looks like he's in the military!

Our next Halloween celebration was the annual Monster Mash, sponsored by our ECFE program. Lots of games and activities to keep the little ones happy:

I didn't think we'd ever get Charlie out of the bounce house, or away from the basketball hoops. But Zach got through every single game very quickly, so we had time to head to the party hosted by his preschool's church...

Where he met up with his buddy Brett (Mario) and Brett's brother Riley - the Mario Brothers! Zach got to play some more games, and increase his candy stash.


And finally, the actual day of Halloween! Zach's school celebrated with a little party (more candy), and then that night we headed out to trick or treat.


Zach ended up cruising around in our neighbor's riding lawn mower-pulled trailer with a pack of neighbor kids, so Charlie and I hurried home to hand out treats (Scott was curling) to the hordes of trick or treaters ringing our doorbell. Charlie enjoyed seeing the kids, but was equally enchanted with this flashlight!

Whew... I wonder what Halloween will be like next year???