Charlotte is a year old!!! She made her debut of sleeping through the night in late March, but this last week has been the first full week that she has slept through the night. Hallelujah! She loves eating. And now that she is one, she is starting to show favor towards some food. Like this morning when she had egg and bread on her tray, she made a lot of noise until I finished cutting up some peach to add to her tray. Thankfully, her fine motor skills aren’t perfect yet, so whatever is on the tray near what she wants also gets into her hands and most of it is in her mouth. I do sweep the floor around her seat after each time she eats. 
Charlotte says Ma and Da. She is playing with other sounds, but nothing is consistent. Above she is making sounds while making raspberries.
It looks like her blue eyes are here to stay. She also has 6 teeth. 
Charlotte doesn’t want to be left out. If her sisters close their bedroom doors, or I close the bathroom door, she will scoot to it and bang on the door. Charlotte doesn’t have the typical crawl, but her scoot is quiet fast. The nurse practitioner we saw yesterday said 7% of babies don’t crawl, 7% find a way to move that isn’t crawling, and the rest crawl. She also assured me that she is okay scooting about. Charlotte can crawl if I am behind her making sure her legs move in the typical way, but she is much faster scooting with one leg tucked below her. 
Can you see how delighted she is to learn to stand on her own? She isn’t walking yet, but she is thrilled to stand several times a day. Here she is standing on a blanket my Nanny made for Eliana.
I am so thankful that Charlotte is a content baby. So much of her first year was hard, but over the last few months she has grown to be a happy content baby who loves exploring. My back is thankful for the relief. The added sleep sure does help too!
We love Charlotte and are glad God put her in our family!
Charlotte, my sweet baby, is growing and trying new things everyday. For the most part, she is a content baby. I am so glad that after such a rough start, I can finally say that. She doesn’t have the typical crawl, but I think that is due to the tile in most of our house. She is quick, so we have to keep the doors closed. She did find the toilet this week! Yikes! So, I again reminded the girls that the doors MUST be closed when she is awake. Charlotte thoroughly loves her sisters. She will bang on their door if she is left out. Charlotte is in the wonderful season where she likes all of the food I make. It would be nice if one of my girls stayed in that season rather than becoming picky and then “getting” to eat what I make for dinner. Charlotte is pulling herself up on chairs, the couch, and our legs. This week she started trying to free stand on her own, and we all clap and cheer her own. All the praise delights her.
Bedtime… well… we are still working on it. She lays down completely awake for her naps without a problem and falls asleep, but that is not the case at bed time. We moved Lydia back in with her last week. After a Bible story, prayer, hugs, and one last run to the bathroom, Lydia goes into her room. I nurse Charlotte with the hope that she will go to bed, and most nights before I bring Charlotte to her room, Lydia has fallen asleep. This is great for Lydia. She is getting better sleep now than when she was with her sisters. They would talk, play, and fight until late. Things have settled for both rooms for the most part. 
Charlotte still is not a fan of other adults. When friends try to hold her, she cries almost every time. It takes her several hours of watching someone to warm up to them. We saw extended family on Wednesday, and I was blessed when she was happy to play with Aunt Marcie and Aunt Rachel near the end of our visit. It took her a little to warm up to GramE when she stayed with us, but then she was golden.
Eliana has learned so much this past year. Most days she does her own hair. She not only makes her sandwiches, but she helps make her sisters. She loves planning and being efficient, so she came up with a system in which she folds the clothes and Natalie puts them away. And I must admit, this is a much faster option than when they would fold clothes together and play for an extended amount of time. Eliana is even tall enough to start the washing machine now! She can also do most of the parts needed to make bread with our bread machine. She continues to love art and is a flourishing reader. She has read The Chronicles of Narnia several times this year. Eliana and her sisters don’t always get along, but she loves them and they love her.
Charlotte turned 10 months old last week in the middle of Eliana and Natalie’s last week of school. It was a busy week, so this post is a little late. Charlotte is enjoying interacting with her sisters and playing of the ground. Hooray!!! We have come a long way from the season when she was content for 10 seconds on the ground. She is scooting places. I can get her to crawl the typical way if I am behind her and making sure her legs move. But she has gotten to be fast scooting places and isn’t interested in crawling. We will keep working on it since I know that crawling helps with reading. I do wonder if the tile floor is part of the problem. When I work with her to crawl, we do so in the carpeted bedrooms.
I am enjoying that Charlotte is content overall. Even when she was up in the night, she was happy if I was holding her. We love her giggles and that she thinks her sisters are funny. I enjoy her cuddles, and that when she is having a hard night I can now rock her in a chair rather than having to walk the house. She gets super excited when Kyle comes home, and she loves pulling on his beard.
The beginning and middle of Charlotte’s 7th month was full of little sleep for me, BUT she has made great strides at night. There have been a handful of nights that she slept through the night. They aren’t in a row, and she tosses in a night or two a week with very little sleep just to keep me on my toes.
The girls’ GramE and Aunt Marcie wore green dresses as babies. Each of my girls has had a picture in the green dress. And a small miracle that happened, all four girls are smiling at the same time. This is the only photo that happened in of all the ones I took. Hooray!!!
Charlotte went on an adventure with me this past weekend. Ladies from my Life Group went to the beach, and they graciously were okay with me bringing Charlotte. Another mom brought her wee one too. We timed our travel to match her naps, so she did better than I hoped for travel time. She still prefers me over others, but she was okay a couple of times with others holding her.
After being inspired by my friend Sarah, I am playing with the idea of negative space and minimalism. I think I would have needed more of the fence in these pictures to capture the full idea, but these were fun to take.
A half a year has passed. The past few months are pretty fuzzy due to sleep deprivation. A blessing of the last month is that I didn’t have blue days. There were plenty of hard moments, but not blue days!
Charlotte was sitting on her own for a few moments last night. She still prefers to be up in my arms, but I am working to slowly get her to be content not in my arms. This is simply because all of the rocking, swaying, and holding her is taking a toll on my body. She was pretty sick last week, and I held her upright, propped up some pillows behind my back, and slept on the couch. It took some effort, but she is back to sleeping in her crib. She prefers me over everyone, and although that may sound cute, it is pretty hard. I left the room to throw a diaper away, and I returned to her screaming at Kyle. Charlotte is happy for a while outside watching her sisters on bikes and scooters and the cars driving by. She is even content while I sit in a chair holding her while we watch her sisters. This is progress from only being content if I was standing. So we go out front nearly every day. Being outside is good for all of us. It is a moment of rest for me.
Our Adventure 