Happy Birthday Happy!

 How perfect is it to have a baby named Happy when there is a hit song called "Happy"?  I really wanted to make a music video of her first year set to the song.  It took me a couple of months to figure out how to make my own music video. I had to get a music video app (Video Star, I recommend) for my phone and then buy a couple of the "power packs" so I could use existing video clips.  The result is not a masterpiece, but it is exactly what I wanted.  Happy's first year certainly was happy!

Charlotte Turns #3!

If you ask Charlotte how old she is, she'll hold up her fingers and say, "I'm number 3."  We celebrated three ways.   Charlotte's birthday part 1. Her birthday happened to fall on the same day as the Twin Cities Marathon Family Day, so we had a nice breakfast (pancakes,  Charlotte's favorite) and headed over to the capital to sign Charlotte up for the toddler trot.

Birthday breakfast sausage

We also signed Happy up for the Diaper Dash.  We debated whether or not it was worth it, after all she is nowhere near crawling, but we agreed that it was worth it for the photo op alone.  I think you will agree.

Happy at the starting line 

Totally worth $11!

There are not many things more joyful than watching a 3 year old run.  All the kids got race t-shirts and Charlotte wore hers for 3 days in a row.  I had to bargain with her to get it off her long enough to wash it Sunday night.

Happy's souvenir from her first race - CUTE!

Then we went home and took naps to get ready for Chartlotte's birthday part 2.  After dinner it was time for cupcakes and presents!  Charlotte has a mild obsession with cupcakes. Ever since her birthday last year she has asked to look at pictures of her birthday cupcake on my phone at least once a week.  She has fond memories of the "fire" and frosting.  This year's cupcake did not disappoint - Oreo!  The frosting tasted like the filling of an Oreo.

She's in love.

 Charlotte got this gift from her friends Nathan, Noah and Alma.
I think these fruit snacks were her favorite present.

Trying to tempt her with another present, but she can't stop talking about those fruit snacks!

Frog Trouble - Sandra Boynton's best work yet.  Seriously, I would listen to this without any kids around.

Charlotte's big present - a sweet stove.

And to top it off, cupcake PJs!!

A week later, we had a little party with Netta and Bailey for birthday part 3!  We had a little cake and went to the park to play.  Charlotte was very excited for Netta and Bailey to come over and spent the morning talking about which burner of her new stove would be for which cousin to cook on.

Bailey, Netta and Charlotte turning 3 together.

Big Birthday

This weekend, I turned 40.  I felt obligated to do something "big" but I don't like big productions.  So, Mike came up with the perfect solution - WaffleJam.  We invited my family over and Mike made Belgian waffles and we had all kinds of fun toppings - chocolate chips, strawberries, whipped cream, flavored butter, syrup.  The waffles were so good!  

For my birthday, Mike gave me improv classes at the Brave New Workshop.  Five years ago I took community ed improv and it was really fun.   Mike and my sister came to the last class and Mike has been encouraging me to take another class ever since.  

Me, on stage!

Old School

Here is Charlotte playing with a phone that her cousins Calvin and Sophia played with.  Exactly how Charlotte knows this is a phone is beyond me.  Other than the telephone in Goodnight Moon and a few other picture books, Charlotte has never seen a phone with a headset.  And then there is a video of her opening her gift from Calvin, Sophia, and her parents.  It even features a bungled stupid joke by me because that's what I do.

More Videos

Here are three short videos of Charlotte opening and the playing with her new present from Suze.  The spacing is weird between the three videos, but you should be smart enough to scroll to each one if you want to see all three.

In the last video she started counting the blocks which was the first time I've seen her count on her own.  Such a prima donna, show boating for the camera.

Anyway, the stacking boxes are a hit for Charlotte and some sort of Sisyphus type punishment for me.  Picture Charlie Brown trying to kick the football while Charlotte, I mean Lucy, keeps pulling the football up at the last second.  Charlotte implores me to stack the blocks and then she'll act like she's doing something else for ten seconds  and then come over and knock them all over the place and happily pronounce "Oh no!!!"  And then all meek and innocent like say, "More?  Again?"  Kids these days.

Discovering Presents

Day two of my gradual release of all of Charlotte's birthday videos.  This video is from Thursday.  Charlotte is discovering the concepts of presents in this video.  As a result, the process is long and drawn out, but some highlights happen along the way.

1. She scolds Nacho for being Nacho, just like I do.  She lets the dog in.

2. She sees me filming her with my phone and comes over to it saying "Charlotte" because she wants to see pictures of herself.   Right around three minutes I give her the phone.  Her first movie she has ever filmed.  It's a stupid movie.  Boring, plotless, and poolry shot.  Mercifully this tour de force is only about five seconds long.  Then we look at Nacho being filmed on the phone WHILE looking at Nacho right in front of us and Charlotte's mind explodes.  Well if it did, she keeps her feelings close to her vest.  If only she could be so stoic when Emily brushes her hair or I give her sweet potatoes instead of squash.

3. One of the presents (from Beth, Justin, and Hannah) she treats like a step and says "big step" as she walks all over it.  Like I said, she is still figuring out the concepts of presents.

4. Our house is messy.  We should clean it up today.

So the package arrived two days ago, but since Charlotte marches to the beat of her own, slower than Christmas, drummer, she is opening one or two presents a day.  All the videos I shot are pretty funny but I am biased.  This one is long.... perhaps the kind of length only a father could love.  More such unedited videos to come.

Catching Up Is Hard to Do

Haven't much time to update things here.  I have a few videos to post that are already almost a week old.  Probably not overly exciting videos, but I know of quite a few people in Texas who would like to see Charlotte in action.  So here they are in their unedited glory.

Both videos are from Charlotte's second birthday.  The first video is Charlotte looking at one of her favorite books and talking about hearts, stars, and apples.  Exciting stuff.  Kind of funny to watch her do her classic moves, like sitting down to her book the same way a dog settles into its dog bed and then reading the book upside down.

Then a few minutes later Charlotte requested to be in her crib to read.  I figured it was a good time to show the mobile Deb made and the ceiling Zach painted.  It looks so cozy and welcoming, it's easy to see why Charlotte wants to spend so much time there.  At the end Charlotte sees Emily coming in with a balloon and her crib gets even better.

Charlotte's Birthday Cupcake

Note that her baby doll is wearing a onesie with a cupcake.

Charlotte asked for a napkin to wipe the frosting off her hands. 

Last week was Charlotte's 2nd birthday.  We went out to eat (for pancakes) and then came home for cupcakes.  Charlotte was really happy.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Charlotte helps Mike blow out his candle.

Cake! Cake! Cake!

Last weekend we had a big birthday party for Charlotte, Netta and Bailey.  If you bring your baby's birth certificate in to Lund's you can get a free cake for your baby's first birthday, so we got three cakes. 

The kids table.  That's Oscar in the middle.

The big kids have to help blow out the candles.

Charlotte is biting into her first piece of cake.

Bailey is playing with her cake.

Now Charlotte is biting Netta's finger.

Balloon!

Netta and Bailey go after the papparazzi.

Charlotte is One!

Can you believe it?  Actually, I can.  People always say it goes so fast, and it does, but I feel like I got to spend a lot of time with Charlotte and I really savored every moment.  Last night, I made a video with highlights of her first year.  The keen eye will notice a few things about this video:  Charlotte was F-ing tiny when she was born;  the proportion of videos from her first month of life compared to the other 11 months shows how completely enchanted we were with her, or it shows how we had more time to make vidoes when other people were caring for our baby;  that we could not find the Flip camera when we got home from the hospital and did not find it until early 2011;  Charlotte has always been very "vocal"; she is really funny; and Charlotte is no longer tiny.  In fact, yesterday at the park we were on the swings with another mom and baby.  She asked me how old Charlotte was and I said, "she'll be one tomorrow!"  and when I asked her how old her baby is, she said 14 months.  Charlotte was a giant compared to this other girl.   Poor Charlotte, she is going to be the tallest girl in class, just like mommy.  We'll see how tall she is when we take her to her 12 month appointment this afternoon.

By the way, I just learned that today is the most common birthday.  Having something to do with New Year's Eve....