Jesus Loves Me

I tried to take a couple of videos of Charlie last night before bed.  I thought they were pretty cute.  It's hard to hear him but he softly sings with me and of course, I love hearing him say "Charlie".  So sweet!

Animal Sounds

Happy Birthday Pops!  We love you!!!

Happy Valentines Day (2013)

 

Hope you have a beary nice Valentine's Day from our little Valentine!

 

Here's a little comparison from last year to this year:

 

Happy Birthday Daddo!

I wanted to leave a little note to the man who Charlie, Wally, and I truly believe hung the moon.  Matt, you make our world go around and we love you so very much.  You are my best friend.

I went back and found some of my favorite pictures of Charlie and you over the last year, which I think are pretty obvious that you are the best Daddo.   

I hope these pictures bring you many smiles and you have a wonderful day.  If this isn't evidence of a happy life and one great year, I don't know what is.  You are very special to all of us.  We love you!

First haircut and few more pictures from the weekend

We finally got Charlie's first real haircut for the first time this weekend.  He made it to almost 21 months. He did really well.  He and I talked about it before we went.  I pretend cut his hair with my fingers as we were talking about it and said "Chop, chop chop" which he repeated a few times.  I was really nervous about how he would do since Matt and I have tried to do around his ears a few times and he always hates it.  The place we went had 2 train tables.  That's right, not 1 but 2.  He loved that part of the place.  When it was time to actually get in the big boy seat, he wasn't ready to leave the train table.  He was pretty reluctant of having a stranger touching him and wasn't 100% sure of the rest of it.  Luckily, he gave in for the sucker and as long as he could continue to hold on to the train, a pretty easy compromise I thought.  By the way, the girl that cut his hair was awesome.  She was so fast!

His hair now has some shape and we just need it to grow a little more in the front.  (I'm pretty sure he has a lot more hair than I did at that age!)

My little baby is looking much more like a little kid though!

After the hair cut, we took a quick detour to Old Navy.  I took a picture of Charlie with the dog mannequin that he always loves to see.  He looks so grown up.

 

Speaking of growing up, he was really showing us how he could be a big boy.  He did a little vacuuming today

and then when out to dinner, he opted to sit in the seat beside his Daddo.  

(These boys are so handsome!)

 

He was really good at dinner and ate well, which is nice for a change.  (Eating out has been really difficult lately.)  After dinner, we came home and he wanted to wrestle with his Momma. He was laughing so hard.  After being pounced on about 20 times, I told him Daddo was going to have to take a turn and he wasn't too happy about that.  Apparently, it's much more fun to do that to Momma.  Oh boy!  This boy was all too cute (and well behaved) this weekend making it all that much harder to go back to work tomorrow! 

Happy Birthday to our first child

As of last week, Wally is 7 years old.  Wow!  It seems like yesterday that I found this cute little puppy that needed a home and I was immediately smitten.  Fast forward to our first night home where I was asking myself what did I do.  (Very similar to Charlie's first night home, by the way.)  Wally immediately became my best friend and brought me so much joy while the two of us lived on our own for a year.  During that year, Wally made himself a friend that stopped by and gave him walks.  He also taught me to love running and was my travel companion in the car.  I think he also quickly learned that life was going to be okay as long as Matt was around as Matt always brought Wally something nice whenever he came to visit.  I thought the dog only adored me until I saw how he took up with Matt.  Matt and Wally immediately became best buddies and Wally stole Matt's heart just as quickly as he stole mine. 

We've had so much fun since moving to Richmond in 2007:  going to the dog park, taking walks, hanging out with our friends and their dogs, etc..  We officially became a family of 3 in 2008 and Matt even drew up adoption papers when we got married.  :-)  Wally is holding on the Matney name though.  He just added one more name to his long formal name, Wallace (Wally) LaDainian Papi Matney Wheawill. 

As of 2011, our family grew and I realized that Wally really worked at at preparing us for Charlie in many ways.  All of those throw up episodes weren't even close to what Charlie did within 2 weeks of being home.  Wally taught us a little about child proofing when he ate the chicken wings and bones and then the phone book because we think his mouth was on fire and he had already drank all the water from his water bowl. 

Life certainly has changed for little Wally since he went from being an only child to sometimes the forgotten child.  We haven't been to the dog park since before May 10th, 2011 and walks these days are a little more involved, with a stroller or wagon.  He gets his tail pulled, ridden like a horse and even a few times, he's had some fingers in his eyes.  But he loves Charlie and for that, I'm so thankful.  Wally is such a good dog and greets us with a smile everyday when we come home.   I can always count on him to be right by my side at night and first to greet me in the morning.  :-)

Keeping with tradition, we took Wally to Three Dog Bakery to pick out some treats.  Charlie got to help but I could see that this year would bring it's own challenges.  The treats look so delicious and the "pup"cake was just too much for Charlie and he started saying "me" while we were picking it out.  We then celebrated last night after dinner and to help Charlie understand that Wally got his own cake and to aslo help make the occasion fun for Charlie, we had chocolate cupcakes.  Wally's dinner consisted of his favorite, bacon fried toast which he finished off with his very own cake. 

Here are a couple videos and a few pictures from the big birthday party:

 

Charlie fully approved of this birthday party!  The boy loves chocolate.  :-) 

 

Here are a few pictures I came across from Wally's birthdays years past:

(As you can see, the hats come out every year!)