Scary faces in Spain

We went to visit Charlie's Great-Grandparents in Spain recently for a few days and he had a brilliant time, he loved playing outside but wasn't sure about the pool. There's a dolphin mosaic on the bottom of the pool and he kept telling us "I'm very worried about that dolphin..." and wouldn't go in any further than the top step. He also sat and watched Chicken Run with Grandad just before we flew home, which made him keep asking on the plane if we had to pedal and why the chickens did because he was sure they didn't drive planes anyway! My camera is broken at the moment, and I only had my phone so unfortunately I only go 2 snaps, but they're beauties:

This is the funny face...

And this is the scary face!

Charlie's Birthday

We had a little party in the park and Charlie had a wonderful time, lots of people to do whatever he wanted!

Here's a group shot of everyone:

And here's the cake we made for him. They're animal candles in the top, in case you're wondering!

He spent a lot of time riding up and down the hill on his bike, got loads of lovely presents and slept for hours when we got home!

"Not fair!"

We had our very first "It's not fair!" yesterday. I think it was something to do with a gingerbread man, I said Charlie couldn't have another and he said "It is NOT fair when I cannot have a gingerbread man. You CAN'T do that to me Mummy!" Melodrama!

Northumberland

Just a few pictures from when we visited Andrew's folks a few weeks ago...

The boys starting to build a sandcastle:

The stage Charlie always calls 'Pat-pat-patting':

Looking victorious behind a construction fit for a king!

Charlie Buckaroo!

Charlie and Andrew invented a new game!

I think the record at the moment is 21 items:

Bedroom finally finished

So we finally got Charlie's room done, and he's quite excited by all the dinosaurs everywhere!

Dinosaurs and bears

Dinosaur pyjamas waiting!

Happy boy in his new bedroom! The things you can see just above his pillow are dinosaur stickers that he is gradually building up. The boy is slightly obsessed at the moment!

Favourite picture of the lot!

Charlie's face makes this picture for me, it's fantastic!

Edit: It's still pretty hard to see, but you can see it a little better here hopefully!

Dinosaurs get the thumbs-up!

I mentioned I would pop this up when I retreived the camera, here it is. He took a while to actually manage it, most of the time he would just point with his index finger and think it was the same thing! But the combination of dinosaur pyjamas and a dinosaur book must have helped!

Some older pictures...

These are stupidly in backwards order, sorry about that! I think some may already be on, but there's a couple of older ones...

Driving a rally car, 27/11/08

I miss this hair!  25/11/08

Second birthday, 11/09/08

Big boy bed! 

Busting some moves in Jamaica at Uncle Chris and Auntie Ju's wedding, 28/05/08

Having a story, some time in May 2008 I think

The mess I had to clean up on Mum's wedding day! 8/04/08

Bin on head, 30/03/08

Looking good! 14/02/08

Holidays!

We had a brill holiday, just a few choice snaps:

Showing off some shells

Giving a dinosaur a love

Being scared of buttercups!

Sitting on a big rock

There's all the pictures over here (Hope it works!) So enjoy! 

On a seperate note, he's finally mastered the thumbs-up, so I'll post a picture of that tomorrow - I left the camera in his room after I took the photo!

Hiding

Just had some camouflage and hiding fun...

Now you see him: 

Now you don't!

Then we got his house out:

And if you're in any doubt as to how enjoyable he found all this:

And here's a video for good measure!

Strong boy

One of the books we're reading quite a bit at the moment is Dinosaur Roar - which Charlie loves because he can remember it all and 'read' it to me without any help. We also do actions/sounds for them all, and one is "Dinosaur weak, dinosaur strong, dinosaur short or very very long." We faint a little for 'weak', make a right angle to show our bicep muscles for 'strong' etc. There was also a Boogie Beebies on recently which included the same 'strong' action and now he's started to say "I have got very strong ears!" All this time I presumed he realised what we were doing when we did the action, but he thought we were pointing to our ears! He does have strong ears though, especially when food is mentioned in a whisper!

Books in Bed

This is what I walked in to the other morning. When I asked what he'd done he replied "I read a book." Good answer! He also started to make up a story to go with the pictures in My Little Fire Engine (in his hand) which went "Hello, I am a fire engine. I play with dolls." (The second picture in the book has some dolls and a house!) 

Arcade machines and Batman - I'll make a geek of him yet!

This picture makes me smile so much! Charlie loves the aeorplanes on some of the games and he's quite fond of the levers that go forward and back too! (See Boogies Beebies Digger episode!)

In other news, I bought Charlie a new jumper the other day with Batman on. He tried it on and liked it and I said "You like bats, don't you?" and he said "Mmm, yeah, I like bats. I eat bats." He meant gingerbread bats, but it was still quite funny!

Oh, and he apparently recognises the opening sequence of Doctor Who, but I'm not sure how! "The Doctor fights the Daleks," is still one of my favourite things he says.

My boy the superspeller!

 We were playing with letters the other day and before I knew it he'd got a picture of a sock and started spelling! Then I asked him to make 'Mummy' (which he can spell out loud and read) and he made the above - I was so proud!

Mothers' Day was also fun, he did know to say happy Mothers' Day but he is still saying it now, so not sure he quite got it! He came out of his room in the morning and gave me a card and when I asked if there was anything else he was supposed to give me he said "Yes, the chocolate." So I asked where it was and he replied "It's lost." Andrew had been in not 60 seconds before to give him them! We did find it (it wasn't a chocolate though!) and he was a good boy all day. What more could I ask for!

Pizza Hut

So, I took a break from the diet and decided to treat Charlie to Pizza Hut. But, obviously, I'd paid for it so he ate hardly anything! But he did get a cool hat (although it was doubted by the rest of the party that it even *was* a hat!) which  he actually wore, which is rare. So here's some pictures: 

Writing

I do lots of writing in the bath every night, mostly different names (mostly Charlie, Mummy, Andrew, Nanny and Sarah. Sometimes also Mama Mirabelle!) But tonight Charlie did the writing and I'm very proud to say this is his first (known to me!) attempt at writing anything - lots of Cs.

A short song

This is from a while ago and I still can't work out how the heck to make it turn round, but it does make me laugh! He was singing his song (Five Little Speckled Frogs) for me in the car when we went past the John Deere place on the way to Retford, so he didn't get to the end!

Bath time at Auntie Rae's

He had his bath at his Auntie Rae's the other day and she ran the bath and he got in. She asked if it was too warm and he said it was so she started the cold tap running, he stood up and did a wee then said "I put some more water in too." 

Made us giggle, anyway!

My lovely boy!

This evening I was sat down and Charlie wanted to play a game where he basically jumps on me over and over again, but I wasn't feeling too good so I told him that I was feeling poorly and didn't want to play that game. So he came and kissed my nose and said "You can feel better now!" Which I thought was really cute until I realised his real motive - jumping on me! Still, a gorgeous sound bite if nothing else.

Bedtime

He loves bedtime so much at the minute, especially as the books he's reading are so much fun to read that we regularly spend 45 minutes reading together. But anyway today was the first time he used a cup without a lid for his bedtime milk, which he was very proud about, especially as it "says me" on it! He keeps picking his foam letters out in the bath and saying "That is a mmm for Mummy," "That is a c for me," and "That is for Andrew," because he hasn't learnt it's an 'a' yet!

Gingerbread

Charlie made some gingerbread when he was at his Nanna's this weekend. We shared the last of it last night after tea ("You can have the heart Mummy and I have the bat, for the bat hasn't got any raisins in.") and he thought it was really funny when he bit the bat's head off. It was kind of funny so I took a picture. Got my own little Ozzy!

Lovely phrases

Yesterday I got told "No, Mummy, YOU are a beg to differ." I had countered his "I am a really good boy," with "I beg to differ!" and 2 days later he decides it's his new insult. I also got "I love you trillions and trillions Mummy, you are a fat snowman." Charming!

Just a quick one!

My big boy at our "big posh new posh table"!

Charlie's new words!

He's stringing more and more words together all the time, last night he learnt that Nanny was a nurse at Winterton. We tried Nurse Practitioner, but it was a bit of a mouthful! 

He's also developing a definite independent streak, he refuses to let me dress him even though he can't do it himself, his favourite phrase at the moment is "No, no, no, Mummy CAN'T help me, I do it myself." This applies to pretty much everything, including climbing up to his rather high car seat and regularly taking a full 5 minutes to actually get up!

He also knows where a lot of people live - including Ada Tweet-Tweet lives at Morton with Grandma, Nanny lives at Scotter with Grandad, Auntie Rae lives at Scunthorpe with Chris (and "another Chris lives with Alyssa"!) and Andrew lives at Retford with his house. Oh, and Maddy lives in "Japanned"!

There are lots of pictures and things to be putting up - we have a new dining table that he's very excited by, he likes eating like a big boy (except when I use being a big boy to try and convince him to do something, then "No, no, no, I not a big boy!")

I'll put some pics and videos up as and when, but just thought it might be nice for people to be able to keep up and hear the little things he's up to, and I promise I will actually keep it up to date!