Happy New Year's Eve

Charlotte, Victor & I are now in for the evening...the 3 of us are hanging out together in the "craft loft"...she's in her swing, Victor's working on miniatures and I'll be stamping soon. We want to wish you & your family the best of everything in 2007. Happy New Year!!!

Phil & Doralisa asked us to go out to dinner tonight. It was great having one last meal out tonight for 2006. We had a fun time at McGrath's before they went off to see a movie.

Thanks DL & Phil for inviting us along! The pud actually stayed awake the whole way home.

Watch out world...somebody is standing up on her own......

Can I just say, we are so not

ready....but you can't stop progress!

Zoo Lights - pre-New Year's Eve

Last night we went to the Oregon Zoon - Zoo Lights. It seemed like a great idea when we were home where it was nice and WARM. Apparently tons of other people in the Portland area thought so too. I've never been to Zoo Lights, but it was quite crowded (which is probably normal)....oh-well. We asked Doralisa to come along with us too. We were all cold, but had a great time! Here are a few highlights.

Who says I don't like green beans??

Hhmmmm....not sure WHY daddy didn't think I liked green beans?? I ate them all tonight for mommy (except of course the ones I'm wearing on my face and bib).

Rubber duckie escape.....

She loved taking a bath in her rubber duckie tub, unfortunately it's a little too small to actually give her a bath in.....so instead, we get to play in it on dry land.

More holiday fun...This one is for your Aunt Phyl

Tonight we were able to attend a Holiday Open House at Karla & Mark's house. Karla is Grandma Cina's (Charlotte's Grandma in AZ) cousin who lives in Portland (are you following all of this)?? We've been lucky enough to see Karla a few times this year. Their daughter Sarah, her husband Randy and their adorable daughter Emily are here in Portland for the holidays (they live outside of Atlanta). Here are Karla holding Grandaughter Emily and Sarah holding Charlotte.

Here's Randy (who was trying to hide in the last photo) holding Charlotte.

Emily is a little over a year older than Charlotte (May 30, 2005).

Emily LOVES to share...in fact she was nice enough to share her wafer cookie with Charlotte (this was Charlotte's first cookie---YUMMY)! Emily even tried to give her a chocolate dipped one, but Karla did what any Grandma would do...she cut Emily off at the pass before she could hand

it off to Charlotte.

Here's Charlotte playing with a quacking duckie that Emily also handed to her! I was so glad we were able to spend a little time over there tonight. Can't wait to see these two THIRD cousins together again. Thank you Karla & Mark for a lovely evening.

Charlotte fell asleep on the way home...but just before daddy left for work, she got changed into her PJs for some last minute play time before bed and rediscovered her inner Mariah Carey??? This baby girl can hit some high, HIGH notes!! At least she's HAPPY and screeching them out......

Merry Christmas 2006

2nd cousins Marilyn (born May 3) and Charlotte (born May 11). These two really hit it off this time around....they had fun hanging out all day together.

Marilyn has that 80's band Flock of Seagulls hairdo going on....isn't she adorable!!!

Here are Dave, Charlie & Uncle Terry getting cutting tips from dad on how to use Uncle Terry's new "knife".

Grandma Sissy (aka-Aunt Lil) gave Claire & Katie a sewing machine for Christmas. Claire (age 7) is pointing out the different features of her new machine. You should have seen how excited she was! Can't wait to see what they create!

Marilyn & Charlotte got a few matching outfits this

year.

Here's Claire feeding Charlotte.

Charlotte, Victor and I had our own family Christmas early this morning. Charlotte didn't get the concept of opening the gifts, but she enjoyed pulling the paper and then trying to eat it!

Here's a cool Nemo hat from Charlotte's cousins Jack & Kaylie. Newt (our cat) enjoyed watching the festivities (those are her ears in the photo).

We had a wonderful weekend! It was so great to have Terry & Lil down the entire weekend and to get to spend Christmas Day with Dave, Katie, Claire & Marilyn. Becoming a parent this year has taught me so many things! #1 to always be greatful for what you have! I'm so lucky to have a big portion of my family here in the Northwest! I wish everyone else could have been here too! Having Charlotte in our lives has made life so much better than I could have ever imagined! This is the just the first of many, MANY wonderful Christmas Days to come! Merry Christmas to all!

Christmas Eve and catching up.....

Mommy helped me open up a gift from Grandma & Grandpa.

Aunt Lil is trying to use me as shield from the camera.

What a great surprise! Grandma Green gave me a sweater that she had made my mommy 37 + years ago.....she had to update the ribbon, but otherwise it fits me quite nice!

Here are Grandpa Green, Jessie and I hanging out.

Friday night we went over to James & Angie's house to celebrate Christmas early with a wonderful meal, great times with friends and the boys went to the basement to "wargame" while the girls stayed upstairs and played Mexican Train. Here are LeeAnn and Charlotte hanging out. Thanks again James & Angie....we had a great evening!

Here comes trouble.......

Actually she's no trouble at all....just wouldn't sit still long enough for me to take any real photos tonight....she's too busy exploring her living room. Victor installed the baby gate at the top of the stairs today...we'll be getting a gate for the bottom of the stairs this week or early next after Christmas.

Baby girl NOT getting upset at her 2nd round of flu shots....PRICELESS!!!

I spent a few too many moments today worrying about somebody getting her 2nd round of flu shots.....the nurse was GREAT and Charlotte didn't even flinch.....this face later when we got her home says it all..... I'd also tell you that she's practicing the "sign" for "Thank You" in this photo,
but it was just a coincidence.

We're BACK from Sunny Arizona....

Four generations...ages 7 months to 90 years!!!

Baby Charlotte with Grandma & Grandpa Cina

Friday we went to Old Scottsdale....

Look at these two funny looking dudes.....

Saturday we went to Sedona via Jerome. What a cool old mining town on the side of a mountain. We ate lunch at The Haunted Hamburger (Rachel Ray recommended this joint).

Jerome from the car...... What a great old town....if you ever visit Sedona...you must go via Jerome!

Cathedral Rock as seen from the visitor's center.

More views of Sedona

The most important part of our trip....FAMILY!!!!
Here are Victor & baby Charlotte with Great-Grandma Charlotte.

Great Grandma took us all out for a wonderful meal Friday night near her home in Casa Grande.

Grandpa & baby Charlotte hanging out....they hardly get along, can't ya tell???

Somebody FINALLY let me take a picture of her two teeth! Ya kinda need to look really close.

Oh, one more little detail...."the pud" sorta learned how to stand this weekend. Yes, we had to put her in that position, but the port-a-crib that Grandma & Grandpa got for her is just the right height for her to practice STANDING....YIKES! We so aren't ready for this, but she enjoyed seeing the world from her own height for a few minutes at a time.

No photos of Charlotte would be complete without the SLEEPING photo. She slept the entire flight down to Phoenix and then slept about 30 minutes on the way home, but was a little angel the rest of the flight even AWAKE and singing to all the rest of the passengers.

We had a great view of Mt. St. Helens letting off a little steam as we approached PDX this morning.

The east side of town was sunny & dry...our side of town however...not so much. Here's the street that I work on less than 3 miles from our house...we came home to a winter wonderland....luckily we missed the big wind storm that hit Thursday night (we got out of town just in the nick of time).