Random Cuteness

So you know Charlotte likes to dance, but did you know that she likes to sing, too? If she hears a fast song, she's starts shakin' the booty. If it's a slow song, she'll start babbling away in a soft voice, which I can only imagine is her way of singing. She cracks me up!

Last night she tried changing up her nighttime routine. The routine consists of Jeopardy ending, telling her it's time to go night-night, finding her cross and blanket, giving me a hug and kiss, walking to her bedroom, turning around a time or two on the way to tell me "naght-naght" (Southern accent?), Daddy turning her lamp on, Charlotte closing the door, and climbing up in Daddy's lap while he reads a Bible story to her, prays, then puts her in her crib. But she tried cutting the routine short last night: Jeopardy ended, we told her it was time to go nigh-night, she laid down on the floor in front of the couch and said, "Naght-naght" and pretended to be asleep. She must think the routine has too much fuss :)

Tonight I was at a baby shower at church so Charlotte and Jared had some special father/daughter time. He was in the kitchen and she came running in, very concerned, explaining something that seemed very important. He followed her into the living room, where Bob Ross and The Joy of Painting was on (Yay PBS!). He had some sort of gerbil/hamster creature with gigantic eyes on his show, and Charlotte was very excited about it. She was kissing at the tv with a very emphatic "Muah!" Jared caught a little bit of it on video, but by the time he got to the room with the camera the furry creature was gone and she soon lost interest. (She's especially cute and looking all redneck in just her diaper!)


She has shown a greater interest in her baby dolls lately. She has a Cabbage Patch doll that she carries around in her arms, hugs on, and kisses. She also likes to play with a doll that I had as a little girl growing up. Her name is Susie Q, but my mom and brother called her "Ugly Baby", which endlessly tormented me. It's hard to blame them, though, because she is not the most beautiful of baby dolls, to put it very nicely. Her lips have faded to a lovely shade of green and her hair resembles a Don King 'do. I've tried brushing it out, but it just stays all matted and in knots. The worst part is that she has looked like that for as long as I can remember. Even if she was pretty one day (my Mom swears she was), I have no recollection of that. But Charlotte loves her just the same, carrying her around the house (even though Susie Q is almost as big as Charlotte is). Charlotte just loves on those two dolls and it melts my heart.

She is going to love being a big sister (though I have a feeling she will be quite bossy in her new role:). She likes to come up to me, pull my shirt up and pat my belly and say, "Baby!" I just need to convince her that lifting my shirt up each time to pat the belly isn't all that necessary.

I was getting dinner ready today and noticed that things elsewhere in the house were just a little too quiet. I walked into the living room to find Charlotte with the laptop opened on her lap, her arms crossed, while engrossed with whatever was on the television. She must have seen me like that a time or two. Here, again, in just her diaper, but this time with a bow in her hair- all the necessities! If she doesn't have a bow in, her hair falls into her eyes, so it serves a purpose other than being cute :)



And a final random cuteness... Charlotte has been storing random items in her diaper the past few days. Jared found a bobby pin in a diaper he changed and I found two goldfish in one a couple days later. Maybe her cute little outfits don't have enough pockets. Or maybe we need to actually put an outfit on her so she can't so easily reach into the diaper!

Dancing Queen

I really have no idea where she picked up some of these moves... especially the one right around 30 seconds into the video!

Charlotte's Conversations

I'm sitting at the dining room table and Charlotte comes up to me all concerned looking (Jared loves it when people tell stories in the present tense... jk:). She starts telling me something... I'm not really sure what... but she is very serious about it. Her eyebrows are furrowed, she's pausing for dramatic effect, and even using some hand gestures. To top it off, she has a plastic cup in her hand and she takes a "sip" out of it every now and then. My interpretation is that she thinks she is standing at the water cooler at work and is discussing Obama's health care plan (and how ridiculous it is, of course).

I had her re-enact it for me so I could snap a few pictures.

What I'm about to tell you is very important, Mommy.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day! (The first and last ones are my favorites:)

Train Up Your Children (And Parents)

Charlotte has suddenly stopped doing the "trick" we wanted to show off :( It was a little game she and Jared played, and they both had so much fun with it. I'm not sure if she's being shy and not doing it because she sees the camera out or if she's just over and done with it, but we did manage to at least get a picture of her showing you what she used to do. Jared would put his finger to his mouth like he was thinking hard and say, "Hmmm... Where should I tickle you?" Then he would point to where he was going to tickle her, count to three, tickle her and the laughter would ensue. And after not too long of doing that, Charlotte started copying him with the finger on the mouth and saying "Hmmm..." It was hysterical! I'll still try to get it on video, but for now, here's a reenactment.



Another "trick" that I've taught Charlotte is to get a diaper from her changing table and bring it to me so I don't have to get up to change her diaper. Yeah, I'm lazy, but I'm pregnant, so what of it, huh? :) So anyway, I added a little twist to the trick and when she brings the diaper in to me, I say, "Now take the diaper to Daddy." And she does! I am sneaky and clever and hilarious, all at once with that one!

But Charlotte has learned a trick of her own: She comes up to us, grabs for our hand, pulls on our finger (not like that...) until we get up, then will walk around the house with us tagging along. If she has grabbed Jared, she is usually dragging him into the office so he will play some of the home videos on the computer for her (she knows where the remote control is that controls the media player- opens the drawer, reaches in, and pulls it out like we keep it there just for her). If she's dragging me along, it's usually into the kitchen to get her a snack ("Nack! Nack!" in Charlotte's language). But oftentimes, she has no real purpose or plan for why she is walking us around the house, I guess she just wants company to look out the window with her :)

Each and every day I look at her and think, "Wow, just yesterday she was so little..." She has so much personality and I just love watching her play and figure things out. I can tell she has quite the imagination already, even though there doesn't always seem to be a clear purpose to what she's doing. One of her favorite things is to pretend she is talking on the phone. If she sees a remote control or anything shaped like a phone, it goes straight to her ear and she starts chatting away. Today she was talking to someone, and was even pausing in her conversation (I guess for the other person to talk), and then started laughing, and kept laughing, as if they were telling her a joke. She had Jared and I in stitches!

Healthy Heartbeat

I had a doctor's appointment yesterday and was able to hear Baby Rollinski's heartbeat again! It amazes me each and every time I hear it that there is a precious life growing inside me. God is so good to us. The heartbeat was a healthy 156 beats per minute and my doctor said everything is looking good. I have felt a few movements that I've thought might be a little nudge or kick, but it's hard to tell for sure if it's the baby moving or just gas bubbles :) I remember not having a doubt in my mind about Charlotte's first movements, so I'm pretty sure I'll know it for sure when baby does get strong enough to let me know he or she is in there.

Other than that, things are pretty quiet on the homefront. Charlotte continues to be an endless source of entertainment for us. We're going to try to get a video tonight of one of her latest "tricks" to share with you so be on the lookout :)

Busy Weekend

This weekend was quite busy and I'm still not fully recovered. After a phone call to the pediatrician on Friday morning to make sure I didn't need to do anything else for Charlotte's swollen eye, and a reassurance from the doctor that it would be normal for it to be puffier in the morning, especially around the eye where the skin is so loose, the two of us headed down to Keystone. I dropped Charlotte off at Toto's then went up to the church to begin helping Amber with the flowers for Anna and Ethan's wedding. Amber put me in charge of making the boutonnieres for the groomsmen, pastors, dads, grandfathers, ushers, and the corsages for the grandmothers, aunts, and helpers involved with the wedding. I ended up getting some help from Kristin and Sarah, who had never made them before but after a short lesson were naturals in the area of all things flowers. We finished just before the rehearsal and had a great time spending the evening with all of Anna & Ethan's family and friends and eating some good BBQ :)

I wasn't really paying attention to my caffeine intake and didn't realize how much sweet tea and cherry Coke I had drank until I was laying in bed that night. It took me over an hour to fall asleep, and it ended up being a restless night as I woke up every half hour or so. At 4:30 I woke up and could not get back to sleep for the life of me. After a while I decided I'd just go ahead and get ready and head up to the church to help Amber with whatever she still might need done. I got there around 6:30 and had a great time doing some other flower arranging. It was a bit of a different role for me since I am used to doing the coordinating and not as much of the decorating, but I loved it! It was nice, for a change, to not have to stress about the timeline when the hair appointments took longer than planned and to not be the one in charge of getting everyone down the aisle in the right order. I still love coordinating, but it was a nice change.

It was a beautiful wedding with a gorgeous bride and a dashing groom. I was too busy to take any pictures, but check out Pam's, Whitney's, and Mrs. Alice's blogs. They aren't direct links to the posts with the pictures because they each have several posts, so check over the next few days for the pictures as they get them edited and posted.

It wasn't until Jared and I were back at his parents house that evening that I realized how sore I was from all the running around I had been doing that day. From the time I got to the church, I don't think I sat down until the reception (thankfully, I remembered to wear flats!). It was definitely worth it, though, and I was honored to play a role in the day Ethan and Anna became man and wife.

Pam took these pictures after the bride and groom left. Charlotte, being neurotic like her Daddy, was trying to get all of the birdseed picked up. You can see that the swelling in the eye had gone down but left a nasty bruise in its place.

Poor Baby

Charlotte was bitten by a mosquito yesterday afternoon while she was helping Jared take the garbage out, and the poor thing kept swelling up throughout the day :( I had to pick up my nausea meds at the pharmacy this morning (yay nausea meds!), so I had the pharmacist look at her then. He suggested Benedryl gel, so I applied that throughout the day. It still swelled up a little bit, so this evening Jared and I took her back up there, just to make sure there wasn't a weird reaction going on with her. It was a different pharmacist and he suggested an oral Benedryl, and said we might want to have either or doctor or someone in their Take Care Clinic look at her. It was almost 7:30 and they usually close at 6:30, but someone was still there and looked at her. She reiterated the oral Benadryl and suggested putting some ice on it, and of course she ooh'ed and ahh'ed over how cute and sweet Charlotte is :) In the meantimie, poor thing has this pitiful looking bug bite right by her eye. She's rubbed at it a little but, but as you can see from the picture, she isn't too bothered by it.



And here's a picture from last night when she was playing foosball with her Daddy :)

Another Sewing Give-Away

Arin is having another give-away over at Easy Sewing Tips! But, seriously, don't go there and enter the give-away because this tote is even cuter than the makeup bag she gave away, and I want to win this one! All you have to do to enter is sign up to receive e-mail alerts when she has a new post (upper right hand corner of her webpage), and then leave a comment to let her know you signed up. It's easy as pie. Doesn't get any easier than that. But don't do it! 'Cause I wanna win! :)