We have an announcement to make.....................
Charlotte went poop on the potty today!!!!!
We weren't really planning on potty training yet, but she keeps wanting to sit on the toilet and pats her butt every time she poops (or in today's case, when she needed to poop). So I guess we will have to enter the world of running to the bathroom like crazy people every time she makes the slightest indication that she has to go. Let the fun begin!
And some of you probably thought we were going to say we were pregnant with our number two baby. Shame shame on you for thinking those thoughts...... :)
Friday, December 12, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Big girl!!!
Charlotte went potty on the potty chair this morning!!! She loves to sit on it, but until today she's never actually gone! Of course we cheered and clapped and she looked so proud of herself.
Sorry it's been so long since we've posted anything. Charlotte has grown up a lot in the last month! I don't have pictures on this computer, so I can't put them up right now, but I will try to do it later today or in the next couple of days. If you don't want to read this without pictures, I understand...
Little miss sunshine is chattering more than ever, though we can only understand a few words. The understandable words are: shoes, baby, teeth, bear, grandpa, daddy, mama (although she more often calls Kristi "Ba"... go figure), egg, hat, hair, eyes, cow, ball, fish, thank you, wow, drink, agua (spanish for water), yeah, and no. No is the most clear word of any of them. She occasionally will say some words she used to know, like apple and breakfast, but she seems to forget words if we don't have her practice them a lot. Her fastest growing area of communication is signing. She learns new signs really fast right now. Her signing repertoire includes--please, thank you, eat, drink, milk, more, cookie, fish, puppy, ball, bear, shoes, and sleep.
Animal sounds are coming along nicely. She can do cow, horse, lamb, pig, chicken, rooster, duck, puppy, kitty, elephant, goose, alligator, lion, bear, and tiger (the last three are pretty much all the same...). Goose is probably the funniest--she knows that a goose says honk, but she also knows that when you squeeze someones's nose it goes honk. Put the two together, and you get a honk on the nose every time you ask her what a goose says. Ha ha ha...
She loves to help with anything. She likes to wipe things with a washcloth and wash dishes, especially with daddy. She pulls a chair over to the sink from the dining room and asks to be helped up. Then she'll stir the soapy water and play with the bubbles while daddy washes.
Her favorite thing in the whole world is to play with dolls. She has several at home and at Grandpa Mark and Grandma Cindy's house that she carries around (often several at a time!). At the moment she is at my feet dancing to some Cuban music with two of them in her arms. Spinning in circles is a good dance! She also loves to wrap her babies in blankets, although she gets really frustrated if she can't do it just right. She shares her pacifier with her babies, rocks them, pats them, and kisses them. She is such a little mama.
Charlotte has a funny face she makes on command. We call it her "surprised face." She started doing it when something surprised her, such as Matt's coffee grinder or another loud noise. She pulls her mouth into a little "O" and raises her eye brows. She'll do it if she truly is surprised and if you just ask her to "make your surprised face!"
At her daycare they speak almost 100% Spanish--and she understands it now! Matt went to pick her up the other day and the teacher was asking, in Spanish, about animal sounds, and Charlotte answered them correctly! She also knows what is going on when her teachers tell her something or ask her to do something! What a cool thing! Unfortunately she probably won't be able to keep it up when we move for residency because bilingual daycare is hard to find...Oh well. Our hope was that by exposing her to another language early in life that she would make some of the brain connections important for learning language later in life. Who knows if that will be true or not, but we can hope.
We just got back from Chicago where we had to take one of our licensing exams. We left Charlotte with Kristi's parents in Byron, and then headed to Chicago where we stayed with our friends Luke and Shannon. The test was a clinical one where we had 12 patients who were all trained professionals to have a particular medical problem. We had 15 minutes with each patient to talk to them and do a physical exam to discover the problem, then talk to them about what we thought was going on and what we wanted to do about it. Then we had 10 minutes to write a note on each patient (like one that would go in their medical chart) about our findings and our plan for their care. The exam was from 3pm to 10:15pm! It was a long day, that's for sure. We have to wait 6-8 weeks to find out if we passed or failed. Hopefully we both passed, because it cost over a thousand dollars each and we don't want to drive to Chicago again. The test is only offered in Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Los Angeles. Too bad it's not in Hawaii...
These next two weeks are filled with residency interviews for us in Minneapolis, Duluth, La Crosse, and Rochester. It should be fun, but also exhausting to be "on" all the time. The experts recommend not doing more than a couple of interviews in a row, but geniuses that we are scheduled 4 in a row in 4 different cities...We took the two weeks off before Christmas, and so we had to squeeze most of our interviews in to those two weeks. We think it will be ok; hopefully we don't burn ourselves out. I guess then we have the week of Christmas to recover.
Well, this post is certainly too long. But anyone who wasn't interested didn't have to finish reading the whole thing, so I guess if you read the whole thing you must have been starving for an update from us. Thanks for checking in!
Sorry it's been so long since we've posted anything. Charlotte has grown up a lot in the last month! I don't have pictures on this computer, so I can't put them up right now, but I will try to do it later today or in the next couple of days. If you don't want to read this without pictures, I understand...
Little miss sunshine is chattering more than ever, though we can only understand a few words. The understandable words are: shoes, baby, teeth, bear, grandpa, daddy, mama (although she more often calls Kristi "Ba"... go figure), egg, hat, hair, eyes, cow, ball, fish, thank you, wow, drink, agua (spanish for water), yeah, and no. No is the most clear word of any of them. She occasionally will say some words she used to know, like apple and breakfast, but she seems to forget words if we don't have her practice them a lot. Her fastest growing area of communication is signing. She learns new signs really fast right now. Her signing repertoire includes--please, thank you, eat, drink, milk, more, cookie, fish, puppy, ball, bear, shoes, and sleep.
Animal sounds are coming along nicely. She can do cow, horse, lamb, pig, chicken, rooster, duck, puppy, kitty, elephant, goose, alligator, lion, bear, and tiger (the last three are pretty much all the same...). Goose is probably the funniest--she knows that a goose says honk, but she also knows that when you squeeze someones's nose it goes honk. Put the two together, and you get a honk on the nose every time you ask her what a goose says. Ha ha ha...
She loves to help with anything. She likes to wipe things with a washcloth and wash dishes, especially with daddy. She pulls a chair over to the sink from the dining room and asks to be helped up. Then she'll stir the soapy water and play with the bubbles while daddy washes.
Her favorite thing in the whole world is to play with dolls. She has several at home and at Grandpa Mark and Grandma Cindy's house that she carries around (often several at a time!). At the moment she is at my feet dancing to some Cuban music with two of them in her arms. Spinning in circles is a good dance! She also loves to wrap her babies in blankets, although she gets really frustrated if she can't do it just right. She shares her pacifier with her babies, rocks them, pats them, and kisses them. She is such a little mama.
Charlotte has a funny face she makes on command. We call it her "surprised face." She started doing it when something surprised her, such as Matt's coffee grinder or another loud noise. She pulls her mouth into a little "O" and raises her eye brows. She'll do it if she truly is surprised and if you just ask her to "make your surprised face!"
At her daycare they speak almost 100% Spanish--and she understands it now! Matt went to pick her up the other day and the teacher was asking, in Spanish, about animal sounds, and Charlotte answered them correctly! She also knows what is going on when her teachers tell her something or ask her to do something! What a cool thing! Unfortunately she probably won't be able to keep it up when we move for residency because bilingual daycare is hard to find...Oh well. Our hope was that by exposing her to another language early in life that she would make some of the brain connections important for learning language later in life. Who knows if that will be true or not, but we can hope.
We just got back from Chicago where we had to take one of our licensing exams. We left Charlotte with Kristi's parents in Byron, and then headed to Chicago where we stayed with our friends Luke and Shannon. The test was a clinical one where we had 12 patients who were all trained professionals to have a particular medical problem. We had 15 minutes with each patient to talk to them and do a physical exam to discover the problem, then talk to them about what we thought was going on and what we wanted to do about it. Then we had 10 minutes to write a note on each patient (like one that would go in their medical chart) about our findings and our plan for their care. The exam was from 3pm to 10:15pm! It was a long day, that's for sure. We have to wait 6-8 weeks to find out if we passed or failed. Hopefully we both passed, because it cost over a thousand dollars each and we don't want to drive to Chicago again. The test is only offered in Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Los Angeles. Too bad it's not in Hawaii...
These next two weeks are filled with residency interviews for us in Minneapolis, Duluth, La Crosse, and Rochester. It should be fun, but also exhausting to be "on" all the time. The experts recommend not doing more than a couple of interviews in a row, but geniuses that we are scheduled 4 in a row in 4 different cities...We took the two weeks off before Christmas, and so we had to squeeze most of our interviews in to those two weeks. We think it will be ok; hopefully we don't burn ourselves out. I guess then we have the week of Christmas to recover.
Well, this post is certainly too long. But anyone who wasn't interested didn't have to finish reading the whole thing, so I guess if you read the whole thing you must have been starving for an update from us. Thanks for checking in!
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Time flies
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Family ties
Guess who this is? Not Charlotte, as many have assumed as this has been hanging on our refridgerator, but in fact is baby Matt in 1983. I guess we know who she looks like now! (Kristi has shuffled through many of her own baby pictures, looking for any sign of resemblance, but has so far been unsuccessful...)
Charlotte's kissing face--bottom lip sticking out.
She loves her swing...ok, not so much in this moment of fussing. But she actually does love it hanging in our sunroom, and rides in it at least once a day.
What more could a lady ask for than a purse and a dolly?! She always carries the purse like that, with the strap long and her arm up in the air to keep the strap on. She gets really mad if you try to help her with it.
Our little mechanic, working on her car.
Carving a pumpkin!
Helping scoop out the seeds.
This is Skeletor on Halloween. (Skeletor was from the cartoon "He-man") Her shirt was glow-in-the-dark. Grandma Cindy and Auntie Kate got it for her, figuring that as the daughter of two med students she could get away with wearing it at times other than Halloween.
For Halloween we went to Grandma Carol Ann's and Grandpa Randy's to help pass out candy and spend some time with them. Charlotte loved helping to answer the door and seeing all of the kids in costumes. She also loved playing with the candy in their crinkly wrappers. Lucky for us she doesn't know what's inside of them!Monday, October 27, 2008
A momentous occasion!
Drumroll please..............Matt and Kristi have submitted their residency applications!
We applied to family medicine programs in the following places:
Duluth
Rochester (Mayo)
LaCrosse
Minneapolis (UofM/Smileys, Methodist, North Memorial)
St. Paul (United, St. John's, St. Joseph's)
Matt has already heard back about interviews at Mayo and some of the Minneapolis/St. Paul programs. Kristi just submitted her application about 5 minutes ago (it is all done via internet), so she has not heard back yet. Interviews will be in November-January. We will rank our top choices by February 25, 9pm eastern time (very specific!). We will get our placement on March 19 at noon at a big celebration called "Match Day." Then we will know where we will be living and working for the next 3 years!
A tiny update on the shining star in the family--Charlotte can now say "apple," "shoes," and "breakfast." Some of you may be saying, "but she could say 'breakfast' already!" This is true, but it was more like "Buhf." Now she really says "Beck-fas." It is so cute (you know Kristi has to be writing this post as Matt would NEVER use the word cute). Charlotte also knows to raise both arms in the air if you yell "TOUCHDOWN!" And she has quite the signing skills--she can sign more, eat, drink, milk, please, thank you, shoes, and she's working on cookie. (she LOVES the sugar cookies we made this weekend Mom!) She picks up on stuff super-fast, so we will have to be careful what we say and do around her!
Here's a picture from last August just for the heck of it. Remember how fat and bunchy she was? I just want to squeeze her little thighs!
Friday, October 24, 2008
Little Mama
Here is a video of Charlotte taking care of one of her babies. She LOVES to play with dolls--I promise we did not get her started on this, she did it all on her own. She spends lots of time laying her babies on the couch, covering them up with a blanket (or in this case, the insert to a cloth diaper), feeding them bits of snacks, sharing her pacifier, and pushing them in her swing. She will carry a baby around with her all day if you let her!
Sunday, October 19, 2008
At home in Duluth
Last weekend we went to Duluth to celebrate our 4th anniversary. You may recall that we tried to go to Duluth two weeks ago but Charlotte was sick and we had to cancel our trip. Luckily no one got sick to interfere this time. We had a good time being back in our favorite city, and we did lots of our favorite things. A quick synopsis: stayed at the Edgewater hotel where they have an indoor water park, went to our favorite Indian restaurant and Pizza Luce, stopped by our old apartment and went to the farmer's market a few blocks away, walked around Canal Park and the boardwalk, chased seagulls, watched some TV in our hotel room (a rare treat for us), went for a couple of walks, went to church and saw a bunch of our friends and their babies, watched a hawk get released at Hawk Ridge, went on a hike and splashed in a puddle at Hartley nature park. Charlotte was unfortunately not a fan of the water park, so we spent approximately 10 minutes in the pool, all while she screamed hysterically. Luckily we were not there to hang out in the water park, but to traipse around Duluth, so we had lots of fun anyway. Check out some of our favorite pictures.
Here is Charlotte making some long distance phone calls from our hotel room.
This is what she liked most about our trip- lounging in bed with lots of pillows, talking on the phone, and watching TV.
If you click on the picture and make it bigger, you will see how much fun Charlotte is having at the water park.
These guys are making apple cider at the farmer's market.
It was a bit windy and cold on the boardwalk, but we still had fun!
Charlotte loves to ride on daddy's shoulders!
Charlotte and a store owner's dog get up close and personal. If you click on the picture, you will see a string of snot connecting them at the nose!
We call her old lady Florek, all bundled up and with a lap blanket.
Yum, Pizza Luce!
Daddy and Charlotte at Hawk Ridge
Mama and Charlotte
A nice family picture at Hawk Ridge where the colors were beautiful!
Miss Charlotte after a bit of stomping in a puddle. We'll try to get a video of it up sometime soon. It was probably her favorite thing to do in Duluth besides chase seagulls!
Here is Charlotte making some long distance phone calls from our hotel room.
This is what she liked most about our trip- lounging in bed with lots of pillows, talking on the phone, and watching TV.
If you click on the picture and make it bigger, you will see how much fun Charlotte is having at the water park.
These guys are making apple cider at the farmer's market.
It was a bit windy and cold on the boardwalk, but we still had fun!
Charlotte loves to ride on daddy's shoulders!
Charlotte and a store owner's dog get up close and personal. If you click on the picture, you will see a string of snot connecting them at the nose!
We call her old lady Florek, all bundled up and with a lap blanket.
Yum, Pizza Luce!
Daddy and Charlotte at Hawk Ridge
Mama and Charlotte
A nice family picture at Hawk Ridge where the colors were beautiful!
Miss Charlotte after a bit of stomping in a puddle. We'll try to get a video of it up sometime soon. It was probably her favorite thing to do in Duluth besides chase seagulls!Friday, October 17, 2008
Fall fun!
Just a quick post with some pictures from a visit to Kristi's parents two weekends ago. We went to the apple orchard and got some apples and pumpkins. Charlotte had a good time, though it is questionable whether she or Kristi had more fun. Kristi is a nut about seasonal fruit/produce activities (like berry picking, apple orchards, pumpkin patches, christmas tree farms, etc). Anyway, here are some pictures, with a promise of more to come this weekend or early next week. Kristi has a week off of school to hang out with Charlotte and get her residency application done!
Charlotte in the classic 'hole in a picture' pose.
We love apples!
The flying baby trick. She loves it!
Some people say you can dislocate a kid's shoulders like this. Might be true. But it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt.
A couple of nice family pictures. What you don't see are the 20 other shots where one or two or all three of us are not looking at the camera or throwing pumpkins. Matt promises next time he will not throw pumpkins.
Nice, yes?
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Much better
Charlotte is feeling much better today. She hasn't had a fever since 5am, so hopefully we are in the clear! It is kind of scary having your kiddo run high temps! She never really had any symptoms that would lead us to believe she had something scary going on, but when her temp was 104.2 in her armpit (roughly add a degree to get an accurate temp = 105.2), I was pretty worried. But she seems to have come through it ok, so we'll keep our fingers crossed and a bottle of Tylenol near by.
We took little sickie to the Minnesota Zoo yesterday. She loved the meercats (like Timon on the Lion King, funny little prairie dog like animal from the African desert). They have a glass enclosure where they all run around and Charlotte loved sitting on the ledge watching them. They weren't shy at all and they would come scratch in the dirt next to her. She thought that was great! She also loved the monkeys with the red butts (who doesn't?!) and the giant aquarium the size of our living room full of fish. She loved watching them swim by, especially the old shark that didn't have any teeth. Kristi especially liked the tank full of seahorses! If she didn't have such a bad record of keeping things alive (Charlotte not included), she would probably get a few. Charlotte was afraid of a few things, and a little clingy since she was still running a temp, but overall I think she had a good time. Some people have said we are bad parents for taking our sick kid to the zoo (you know who you are!), but really, what sounds like more fun when you feel a little under the weather: moping around at home with all the same stuff you always play with, or being carried by your mom and looking at neat animals? Charlotte picked the second one.
Charlotte has a new word. She can say "ball." Which suddenly made us realize that most of her words start with the letter "B." Baby, bird, bean, breakfast, and now ball. Her only non-B words are hi and uh-oh. I guess we'll have to start working on some new ones!
We took little sickie to the Minnesota Zoo yesterday. She loved the meercats (like Timon on the Lion King, funny little prairie dog like animal from the African desert). They have a glass enclosure where they all run around and Charlotte loved sitting on the ledge watching them. They weren't shy at all and they would come scratch in the dirt next to her. She thought that was great! She also loved the monkeys with the red butts (who doesn't?!) and the giant aquarium the size of our living room full of fish. She loved watching them swim by, especially the old shark that didn't have any teeth. Kristi especially liked the tank full of seahorses! If she didn't have such a bad record of keeping things alive (Charlotte not included), she would probably get a few. Charlotte was afraid of a few things, and a little clingy since she was still running a temp, but overall I think she had a good time. Some people have said we are bad parents for taking our sick kid to the zoo (you know who you are!), but really, what sounds like more fun when you feel a little under the weather: moping around at home with all the same stuff you always play with, or being carried by your mom and looking at neat animals? Charlotte picked the second one.
Charlotte has a new word. She can say "ball." Which suddenly made us realize that most of her words start with the letter "B." Baby, bird, bean, breakfast, and now ball. Her only non-B words are hi and uh-oh. I guess we'll have to start working on some new ones!
Friday, September 26, 2008
Sickie
Poor poor Charlotte is so sick...she has had a cold for over a week now, and we had to pick her up early from daycare yesterday because she was running a fever. Last night her temp was almost 104! She is so miserable...(not to mention her parents!) So much for our anniversary trip to Duluth this weekend!
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Here you go Auntie Laura!
Auntie Laura was requesting some more new pictures, so here you go! This is from when Lisa and Travis were here.
Charlotte and Uncle Travis have a special bond. She loves his goofiness!
Charlotte likes Lisa and Travis' birds. Here she is feeding Cheerios to Piper. She probably fed him at least 20 Cheerios! They were surprisingly both very gentle with each other.
Charlotte and Uncle Travis have a special bond. She loves his goofiness!
Charlotte likes Lisa and Travis' birds. Here she is feeding Cheerios to Piper. She probably fed him at least 20 Cheerios! They were surprisingly both very gentle with each other.
She is playing in Matt's hammock that is hanging up inside from the rafters of our sunroom! It's a nice place to relax.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Pizza face!
Lisa and Travis (Kristi's sister and brother-in-law) visited this weekend on their way from Iowa to Duluth for vacation. We went to an Ethiopian restaurant together. It was fun! Travis was very brave in trying everything even though he doesn't like weird food. And it was his birthday! Happy Birthday Travis!
Here are some pictures from while they were here of the center of attention. Funny how we don't take pictures of anyone else!
Here are some pictures from while they were here of the center of attention. Funny how we don't take pictures of anyone else!
Friday, September 19, 2008
Our little politician
I don't think we've mentioned in past posts that Charlotte LOVES to shake hands. She will stick out her hand with all of her fingers splayed out and say "HI!" until you shake her hand. Then she holds her hand out to the next available person and says "HI!" waiting for another handshake. She will continue doing this until she's shaken all available hands. Sometimes she starts over at the first person and does it all again. She should go into politics.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
three updates in a row!
Since people keep telling me they check the blog every day, maybe we'll post something small every day (or at least until that gets old or we forget or we are too busy...). So here's today's Charlotte update:
Buhp not only means "bird," but it now also means "bean." We had a southwest bean soup for dinner, and Charlotte only wanted to eat the kidney beans and black beans out of it. Every time she ran out of them on her tray she would yell "BUHP!" And then sign "more."
Also, she likes to whisper now. She will do it if you whisper to her. She thinks it's really funny. We think it's pretty cute.
Buhp not only means "bird," but it now also means "bean." We had a southwest bean soup for dinner, and Charlotte only wanted to eat the kidney beans and black beans out of it. Every time she ran out of them on her tray she would yell "BUHP!" And then sign "more."
Also, she likes to whisper now. She will do it if you whisper to her. She thinks it's really funny. We think it's pretty cute.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Words
Charlotte knows a few more words.
Buhp = bird
Baf = breakfast
Don't tell me those aren't real words! She says them consistently when you ask her about them!
Buhp = bird
Baf = breakfast
Don't tell me those aren't real words! She says them consistently when you ask her about them!
Friday, September 12, 2008
Just a few pictures
We told you she loves to brush her teeth! Apparently she is very concerned about dental hygiene--notice the bottle of mouthwash she is carrying!
Here she is having a good time licking out the last of the sour cream. Yum yum.
Our little girl after her first day at her new daycare. She looks so grown up!
The ladies in her room at daycare like to put the little girls hair in ponytails and pigtails! Kristi didn't even recognize Charlotte when she picked her up in the afternoon!Charlotte learned her first sign language yesterday and today. She can now sign for "more." It was so exciting when she figured it out! Today she was really putting her skills to use when mama was having some ice cream and Charlotte signed for more after each little nibble she got off the spoon! She's a smart one, that girl.
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