Trip to SM

Koby enjoyed an A&M game/child-free weekend for his 31st birthday (a little early, but it still counts). Rather than stay at home, we headed to San Marcos to hang out with Oma, Opa, and Aiden.  Just to warn you, I was practising some photo stuff I read, so there's a toooon of pictures. 

The next morning, too early for my taste, the kids were ready to go.  Charlotte and Oma ran from me when I tried to fix her hair.  I love the over-the-shoulder look she gave me.

 

 Luckily, I can run faster than her, so her hair was mostly fixed for the pictures.

 Calling for Oma to come with them.  They were going to race to check on the horses.  I'm sure you can guess who got there first.

 

 This is Charlotte's "no" face.  We see it alllll the time now.  Even Aiden got it a few times!

 "Dis. Pigtail."

 The last evening, I wanted to catch the sun as it was setting to get rays in some pictures.  Charlotte wasn't a fan of the "session", but I got a few cute shots.  (And a ton of grumpy "nooo" shots...)

 

 Let me just say - she carried that baby EVERYWHERE.  He was her sidekick, I guess.

 

 I know that there are a lot of pictures of Charlotte, but she just makes for more interesting shots right now.  Someone is always carrying Paige.  She looks pretty, but you can only see the same pose so many times.   Unfortunately, it's not always the easiest thing to get Char to be happy for her pictures.  Thought I'd throw in a pic to remind myself of the reality of photographing my toddler.

 

 

Patient Paige

I do believe Paige will earn this nickname by the time she's done.  She is such a mellow baby.  Charlotte graciously shared her crown with Paige while I was cooking and I never heard a peep out of her. (I think she even looks a little bemused in the picture.) What a sweet girl!

Tummy times

Charlotte is all about Paige having "tummy times," as she calls it.  Sometimes she gets in front of Paige and reads her a book.  This time, she was holding Paige's hand and showing her her baby.  Paige has gotten so strong in the past week or so.  She is really getting pretty good, steady head control.  Soon she'll be sitting up and then the photo-taking gets fun!

 

Charlotte's first "solo" prayer

After blessing our dinner, as Koby, Gigi, D, and I are about to start eating, Charlotte says, "Char-Char pray."  So we wait and this is what she prays:

Dear God,

I luff you.  Luff you Gigi, luff you D, luff you Gigi...luff you Gigi, luff you Mama, luff you Gigi, luff you Gigi...luff you Gigi, luff you Daddy... <I prompt her with Amen> ... A-men.

So sweet!

Women's Retreat

Two weekends ago, Koby and Charlotte got some quality alone time while Paige and Mommy went to Ecclesia's Women's Retreat. It was held at the beautiful 4H Guest Ranch in Waelder, TX.  I now want a ranch of my own, but that's another story....

There were about 40 women and only two babies, so there were plenty of extra hands to hold Paige, which means I enjoyed almost every meal with two free hands.  I also got to run sans kids, quite the novelty and so enjoyable!

The entrance to 4H

Our bunkhouse

Our awesome room

The main house where we ate

The pool - man, really wish I had brought a swimsuit...

There was water everywhere.  Streams, ponds, waterfalls, bridges over them all.  The whole place had the most peaceful bubbling sound. 

The chapel (with waterfalls outside)

My first run, complete with cows, horses, and old cowboy on the way.

The porch where we did a ridiculously hard workout.

My second run

Fun at the Fall Festival

Cornelius, our local plant nursery, hosted a miniature fall festival this past Saturday, so Koby, the girls, my mom and I went to check it out.  Yes, Charlotte had to bring her purse with her. It was very small, very humid, and very busy.  But it was cute, and Charlotte had fun.  She's really into "punkins" right now, and they had small pie pumpkins to decorate, so it was right up her alley.  

Paige was passed around while Charlotte glued things on her pumpkin because that baby girl gets heavy!  She turns 3 months tomorrow and is about 11 pounds now.  Already bigger than big sis was at the same age.

 

 We finally got smart and let Charlotte "show her the pumpkin."

 There was a cute pumpkin display set up, so I thought it'd be sweet to get a picture of both girls there.  Obviously Paige did not think it was such a great idea...

 

So we thought it would go better with the grown-ups.  My mom definitely won the prize, picture-wise.  Koby was the loser - Charlotte lost alllll interest in participating.

 

She got distracted by the insides of some flowers we walked past and had to touch every. single. one. before we could move on, then found a scarecrow to mess with.

 

She wasn't any more interested in being photographed once we got outside, so we gave up and let her play in the big piles of pumpkins. (And then got in a wonderfully air-conditioned van and drove home.)