Happy Holidays!

Charlie was absolutely spoiled this Christmas and New Years (and so were we). In addition to having gifts galore, he got to spend time with his family. After going to the church service on Christmas Eve, we had dinner at our house with the Boyers and Grammy. This is when the loot started rolling in. Grandma and Grandpa Boyer from Pennsylvania even sent gifts to our little guy - too kind of them. Charlie wasn't so keen on Santa coming into our house - he needs some security clearance or something so Daddy met the reindeer in the yard to get the presents Christmas Eve. Then Christmas morning, Charlie got to open all of his gifts with Sami and Papaw in Ohio via Skype. They got to see him open all of his stocking stuffers and gifts and then find his play kitchen awaiting him in the toy room. That Santa really did seem to know all the right things to get. Maybe he's not so bad after all.

We spent Christmas day at Uncle Jason and Aunt Michelle's where all 6 of the Roberts cousins got to have dinner together and open presents from the exchange. Then we headed down to Duxbury for the big Roberts Christmas gathering at Grampy and Patty's. Let's just say that Charlie quickly found all of the little dishes of chocolate and worked the crowd to get as much of it as possible. This may have been what lead to him waking up the day after (in Duxbury, where we stayed over) with a green stomach. Fortunately that little bug was pretty mild and only really lasted two days because Sami, Papaw, Jeremy and Julia arrived the day after Christmas and stayed with us for four days. Charlie played lots of Mario Kart on the Wii with his older cousins. After dropping the Warner clan off at the airport, we headed to Quechee, Vermont where we stayed in a 4 bedroom condo with the Roberts families. The cousins had a blast and Charlie is still in withdrawal. He went sledding, to a farm where he saw animals and took a sleigh ride, and he went swimming. We were all very tired when we came back but we had lots of fun.

We finally had Charlie's two year doctors visit yesterday. Good news is that he is still a big boy (37 inches tall and 33 lbs, 4 oz) and that his speech is *very* advanced. He is speaking well above the level of a 3 year old. I had nothing to compare him to and people kept saying this to me so I guess it is true. The doctor said they are usually looking for kids his age to string 2-3 words together into phrases and Charlie is stringing many full sentences together with context and changing pronouns appropriately and everything. (I wouldn't be a mom if I didn't brag just a little :) The bad news is that his behavior is very much at his age level. So we have lots of tantrums, screaming, kicking, etc. It can be very trying. The doctor gave me some good advice though and something tells me that Charlie is going to put in some good time on the naughty step. I will make this child an upstanding citizen if it is the last thing I do (and at this rate, it just might be). Well, that is about all for now. The latest pictures are posted above. My New Year's resolution is to photograph adults, including me. It's going to be so sad not to have any pictures of us later in life. Anyway, Happy 2010!!!