The world seen through Charlie's eyes...

Charlie got a kids digital camera for Christmas and he is a picture taking fool! He loves it and takes pictures of everything...even my rear end when I'm bending over...see the picture below...it's fun to see how he sees things!

The mother of all holiday posts...

December is a busy month for us! We have Charlie's birthday that falls on the 10th, Hanukkah that falls somewhere in the middle and Christmas. This year was no exception but having a 4 year old who gets it all, is alot of fun, but also makes for more celebration, more parties, and more chaos. We belong to a Synagog here in the city so we attended their Hanukkah celebration.

The above pictures are from the Hanukkah party. We invited Alex's brother Sam and Kim and Ethan so they had fun as well. Charlie, Sam and Ethan hanging out listening to some cool tunes from a live band, and Charlie and Alex dancing!
We also celebrated Hanukkah with Alex's family. Aaron got a few toys so he hung out and played while everyone opened gifts...

Ethan and Charlie opening gifts from Bubby and Zayda...

Our pretty Menorah...Charlie actually really got into it this year, trying to recite the prayers with me and he loved watching the candles burn all the way down! I actually went to his school and taught three of the classes about Hanukkah and gave them all dreidels to play with!

A gingerbread choo choo train that Charlie and I made

The biggest snow storm we've seen here. We got 23.2 inches of snow about two weekends ago. It was the biggest december snow fall on record here in the city and the second biggest snow fall ever, the first biggest being in 1909, 100 years ago! It was really something. We pretty much hunkered down inside all weekend and had lots of family time!

Aaron's newest trick is that he is pulling up to stand on lots of things. He's really an amzaing but spoiled little guy!

Now on to Christmas...we spend Christmas eve at my mom's where she and my dad have a huge open house at night. We then open presents christmas morning there and come home that night. Charlie left the above toys out on our piano for Santa to play with when he came to our house. He thought he might be lonely with no toys to play with! Since we don't have a fireplace or chimeney...we texted santa our garage code and he came in that way!

The milk and cookies and note we left for santa. We came home and our stockings were filled and the cookies and milk were gone!

Aaron obviously excited about his first ever Christmas eve!

Our family in front of my parents' tree...

Bode very upset that he has to sit still while eating a candy cane...

Aaron was the first one up on Christmas morning. 7am and he got to see the ridiculousness that was my parents' living room!

Charlie with a HUGE smile on his face!

Oh yeah, and my parents adopted a new dog two days before the mayhem that is Christmas at their house. This is Gracie. She's an 8 year old Shi-tzu rescue and we think she's adorable!

Charlie still smiling!

My boys...Aaron slept through most of the gift openening. Both boys got alot fo fun things and we did as well. We are so grateful for such an amazing and happy family. Thanks for making life so special mom and dad!

Too cute!

Charlie in a toy coma!

What could possibly top all those fun presents and his first Christmas that he'll remember...sledding with the best Gampa in the world!

This is Charlie going down by himself. He had so much fun! He kept asking my dad to push him faster!

Love this!

Tip over!

My boy!

My other boy!

Charlie over the past 4 years...a bit late, but you know what they say...

December 2005- 2 weeks old
June 2006- 6 months old

December 2006- 1 year old

June 2007- 18 months old

December 2007- 2 years old (the beginning of this blog!)

June 2008- 2 1/2 years old

December 2008- 3 years old

June 2009- 3 1/2 years old

December 2009- 4 years old!!!!!

I can't believe how quickly time has flown by. It seems like only yesterday!

Doctors Appointment for both boys...

Thursday 12/17, was a day that I brought Alex with me for reinforcement! I made an appointment for both boys with their doctor. Charlie's 4 year check-up and Aaron's 9 month. Both boys needed their H1N1 shot and Charlie needed 4 other shots. So I knew I'd need help!

It ultimately was a great appointment. As for Charlie, we are STOPPING ALL ASTHMA MEDS to see how he does! I wrote it in caps so I'd see it more clearly. Really the past year was so much easier with him, barely an issues but it was still 2-3 meds every day. And this has been going on for 3 1/2 years...not a long time in the grand scheme of things but I am totally excited. We are to watch him closely, call with any hiccups, but hopefully this is the beginning of the end of his daily meds! He weighed 39lbs 15ounces, and wasn't terribly tall although we know he's grown a ton. He was in 4T pants but they were long on him in september/october and they now fit him very well with no extra length just a couple months later. Last winter he was in 3T. It's funny because he always gets measured short but is actually afraid of the measuring thing, so maybe he hunches down. Anyway, he is good. He HATED the shots though and I totally felt like the worlds worst mother!

Aaron weighs 21lbs. He's 40th % for both height and weight and his head is growing but he has a skinny tall head! He was put back on reflux meds because of his breathing problems and worsening of his spit-up (throw up?!), I'm okay with this if it makes it better. They've tried albuterol on him in the past and I would like to avoid the whole reactive airway/asthma route! he got one shot and cried for less than a second. He is all over the place and gets into plenty of trouble! He's really starting to feed himself meals. He can eat cut up chicken and noodles and chews quite well the with 6 teeth he has!

I am planning to put up a montage of Charlie's 4 years on the blog but I lost all my pics when we "lost" our computer so now that I have the archive CD's from shutterfly, I can load them back on my computer and get to working on that!

Hope everyone is well, we are weathering a huge storm for us here in Philly, 12 inches of snow and counting. It's actually fun since we don't really have anywhere to be this weekend! Charlie loves it and Aaron just likes being in his house all day playing! Take care!

Sorry for the delay in posting anything...but we have a new computer as our old one went and got all infected on us!

So as the title of this post would indicate, our old computer caused us some major trouble this past week and my mom and dad were so awesome and bought us a new computer...they were planning on doing it so that we'd have a computer to support the software used to help visually impaired people use the computer...but we got it eraly thanks to our old computer...we plan to fix it eventually and use it for the kids to learn on. So THANK YOU MOM AND DAD! Lifesavers as usual!
Okay, so we are in the throws of the December holidays! Charlie has his birthday, Hanukkah is thrown in there as we are raising the kids Jewish, and we also do Christmas as I cannot give up my traditions from this time of year. So we have a tree and a Menorah and two very lucky children!

I finished the family stockings. Mine was the last to be completed. I have to say that I am really proud of how these turned out and hope they last forver...they certainly took long enough to complete!

We don't have a mantel here in the city so we hang our stocking by the bainster (we have plenty of these with 4 stories in our home!)

Charlie cheesing it up on the first night of Hanukkah at my parents' house. We had our first night there because my aunt and uncle who drove cross country from California (to move up to New Hampshire) were there and we wanted to see them! So they got to witness my butchering of the Hebrew language as I lit the first candle!

Bode in his Harley gear. My dad got this do-rag for Charlie and we've had pics of all the kids in it, Bode was the last one...funny thing is this didn't fit Charlie after he was 10 months or so...Its huge on Aaron still and fits Bode at almost 2 years old!

Cuteness!

The boys on Gampa's motorcycle....love it!

Aunt Judy and Uncle Jim who drove forever to get here!

Aaron looking super cute...he is crawling everywhere now and gets into EVERYTHING! Charlie, literally, never touched things he wasn't supposed to. Aaron is totally different and we are learning how to cope!

He also claps which is totally adorable

Every year Charlie and I make the star for our tree. This year we made it out of foil. Pretty snazzy!

Milk coma...

Charlie hearing his birthday wishes the morning of his birthday...

The crown his teachers made for him...we also had cupcakes that we brought to school!

Blowing out all 4 candles in his cupcake

Look at the smoke we created!

Hope everyone is enjoying their holidays!