Good Time Charly

Warning: The following blog post contains a healthy amount of photos. Our favorites from the summer.

We have not fallen off the face of the earth . . . we've just gone back to school.

Last Monday, Kelli and I dropped Charly off at daycare together and headed to the high school to kick off the year. Monday night, after a day filled with meetings, we were already exhausted, and the school year just began!

I know, all the non-teachers are rolling their eyes, feeling zero remorse for us . . . but this school year, our SEVENTH school year, is different in that we just spent the entire summer with a little girl who is growing into a toddler before our very eyes. After one day of teacher stuff, we missed her already.

Charly adjusted well though. She squealed when we pulled into Mel's driveway (our daycare provider), and she crushed Kelli by wanting to stay at Mel's and play instead of going home to be with us. We realize though, that this is a good problem to have. Mel loves Charly and we couldn't be luckier. While Kelli would love to see her little girl run to her with open arms at the end of the day, it's a different kind of warmth to see her happy and playing on her own. However I may have to start picking her up a few days, as not to crush Kelli's spirit.

Since summer is officially over, we felt it was time for lots of final random summer pictures and random summer notes:

Charly's vocabulary developed this summer. She now says "No". Loud and clear. She says "home" when we pull into our driveway. She calls me "dad" (not "daddy", not this girl) and for a stint this summer we swear she referred to Kelli as "Kel". She says "cat" and "more" and "blue". She loves to say "Owie", even when it doesn't apply to the situation, especially in public when it really doesn't apply to the situation!

She says "Brooks" and "Cooper" and "Grandpa" and "Grandma". She loves "bikes" (she will help me talk Kelli into letting me get a motorcycle one of these days) and she loves to tell Elliot to "move". She loves staring at the "moon" and has all her animal sounds down pat: "moo", "arf", "baa", "oink", and "ooh ooh ah ah" (a monkey). Just this morning she even rambled off more colors we didn't think she knew, "purple" and "pink".

She loves to give us kisses and this summer even turned it into a game. She'd touch our face softly, kiss one of us, then turn to the other chanting "more, more, more" until we would crawl over to her and kiss her. She's recently started this with her stuffed animals as well.

She loves to play in our car. I have to turn off the lights, the wipers, and the radio when we get inside now. We went on lots of walks and played in lots of parks.

She loves to hide (which actually scares us sometimes), she loves to push the shopping cart in the grocery store (which makes grocery shopping not so fun), she loves to color with markers (all over our floor), and she loves to help around the house with chores (usually making more of a mess and drawing out the process).

She loves her family, and bawls when they leave her.

Her favorite thing to do, hands down, is to read books. Kelli and I, two teachers, couldn't be happier. We just wish she'd get a new selection of books to choose from every once in a while! We could sit with her for hours on end, reading books to her, and she would be as content as could be. Her favorites are Go Dog Go, Bears on Chairs, Farm Kisses, Snuggle Puppy, and Jesus Loves Me. They are read over and over and over. She hasn't really graduated from her favorite board books to some of the classic picture books that Kelli and I keep buying for her, but she'll get there soon!

She loves to be outside and would stay out there for hours if we didn't bribe her to come in. Usually upon returning from daycare, we sit outside with her watching her play even more, to avoid a minor meltdown were we to go inside the house! She even started to like the water by the end of summer, something we thought was quite the accomplishment!

Kelli and I both have been blessed with good classes this year, making life all that much easier as we return to work. Plus Fall is both Kelli and I's favorite season and it's just around the corner! As much as we love our summers it's nice to be back to some sort of a routine. It's hard to imagine that next summer, we'll have another little one to tote around!

Oh, had we not mentioned that yet?