July  2006:
Charlie is three years old!  She has been talking about her birthday ever since we had Alex's birthday party.   She is so excited.  She practices singing Happy Birthday to herself everyday.  She's been having a pretend birthday for weeks now. She couldn't decide what kind of theme to have for her birthday this year.  She wanted a Disney Cars, Thomas the Train,  Princess,  Unicorn Party.  We finally decided on a Chuck E. Cheese party because she loves Chuck E Cheese and it was easy for mommy and daddy. 

Lots of fun stuff to report about Charlie this month; Her vocabulary has increased tremendously and includes colorful words such as disgusting and unbelievable. Her speech is not very clear yet since she has difficulty with some of her sounds but it doesn't stop her from having a lot to say. Charlie knows her numbers and sounds pretty well now and enjoys playing with them.  She still loves books and movies.  She is easily engaged in any story.

Last week, Charlie became fascinated with a large Thomas the train toy when we were at the library for story time.  She played with it the entire time we were there and cried when we had to leave it.  She talked about it for days. She wanted the "Mommy train" for her birthday.  She also wanted the "black and white car" (Sheriff ) from the Cars movie which mommy had a difficult time finding and finally had to order off eBay.

Charlie loves to go swimming.  She asks to go swimming every day.  It's been really warm so often we will swim.  She is fearless in the water with her floaties on.  She jumps in from the side of the pool and will even venture to swim a little without them.

Charlie still has many of her funny quirks.  For example, she still doesn't eat any fresh fruit unless it's been pureed. She's never had juice or any kind of candy.  Her favorite deserts are popcorn, "banilla" pudding, and vanilla ice cream.  She also likes plain cookies like vanilla wafers. 

Some other Charlie things:  she only likes warm milk and warm water (like her sister).  She loves to play with small figures like ponies, kittens, dogs, care bears, people, and character figures from movies.  She puts the figures on the table and makes stories with them.  She loves to do puzzles.  She can easily put large puzzles together and enjoys doing them for extended periods of time. 

She still gets up very early (around 6:30 am or when the sun comes up).  She will climb into mommy and daddy's bed then and try to snuggle although she can't seem to lie still and is constantly moving.  When it's time to get up she pops out of bed as happy as can be.  She loves to eat yogurt, bagels, oatmeal, pancakes or scrambled eggs for breakfast.