8 Months

Charlie -- with food on his face doing "so big!"

Some fun facts about our Crazy Charlie at 8 months old:

**He gives the most delicious kisses – big wide open mouth with drool coming at you and then when he finds your skin to “kiss” you usually get some teeth too!

**He has crossed the 20 lb mark

**He sleeps happily on his belly

**He scoots across the floor on his butt in a sitting position.

**He has been spoken to in the “mean Mommy” voice (for continuing to try to roll over on the changing table) and in response to the voice sticks out his bottom lip and it quivers as he thinks about crying.

**He enjoys a late afternoon cat nap

**He typically takes two other naps a day anywhere from 45 minutes – 2 hours or so.

**He is most ticklish on his thighs, but also his armpits and neck sometimes too

**He rolls quickly across a room trying to get to something.

**He’s good and creative about reaching objects.

**He’s teething again – we think. Lots of signs point to teething so maybe we will be announcing some top teeth soon.

**He has just started eating puffs and does NOT like them. He actually clams his mouth shut if you try and put one in there. He will play with one on his try though.

**He pushes up more and more each day trying to get on all fours to crawl. He is also trying to get to the crawling position from sitting and is getting so close.

**He loves the “belly button dance,” as Kenny calls it. He balances on his belly and squeals while he moves his arms and legs around. It really is funny and if I could figure out a good way to post a video of it, I would.

**He sits up perfectly now on his own for tons of time.

**He reaches for lots of things from sitting and if he starts to fall can either pull himself back to sitting or fall into a roll smoothly.

**He’s getting better at bearing weight on his legs.

**He loves a bottle. He gives the biggest smile to his bottle each day – forget his Mommy and Daddy, it’s the bottle that really counts!

**He continues to talk more and more.

**He is getting harder and harder to photograph since he is always on the move. You don’t want to know how many pictures I had to take to get this one!

**He feeds himself his bottle at least once a day. As long as we lay him down, he will take over the bottle feeding duty.

**He is starting to get a little clingy to us and overwhelmed by larger groups of people. He’s so social though, we hope it will pass quickly.

**He has learned how to push trucks and cars back and forth across the floor with Daddy. Boy oh boy is Daddy proud of that!

Happy Birthday!!

Kenny and Charlie a few days ago...inspecting a new truck.

For Kenny’s 35th birthday, I thought I would list 35 things about Kenny:

#1: He’s a fighter…not physically with people, but he’s fought so hard in the last 6 months to make it through so much, it’s amazing to me how strong he is…physically, mentally and emotionally. It’s been a rough road sometimes, but he’s never thought things wouldn’t be normal again, like they are now! I’m beyond proud of him!

#2: He’s like a big old teddy bear. Makes you feel nice and secure to hold him or be held by him. That was my very first impression of him when I met him almost 10 years ago.

#3: He loves learning new things. He watches the history channel and reads constantly to learn lots of new things all the time.

#4: Charlie is his world. He loves that boy so much. A dream came true when he got his wonderful healthy son. He can’t wait to teach him things.


#5: He loves to read to Charlie and does the best voices during a story. Charlie looks at him like he’s crazy sometimes, but Kenny continues on. I don’t have that in me.


#6: He appreciates things that people do for him and will tell you so over and over again.


#7: He is so sweet, sensitive and kind.


#8: We can’t fight very well because of this. One of us is always apologizing within 10 minutes of getting upset with each other.


#9: He loves dogs and really can’t wait to get another one, but also realizes how much work one would be right now for us.


#10: He is a hard worker at whatever it is that he is doing.


#11: He has literally traveled the entire country and has visited nearly every state. It makes me jealous.


#12: I know I can get him to go somewhere on vacation if I have a “historical” sort of excursion to go on.


#13: He was a mechanic for a car race through Mexico called the La Carrera. See him with one of the cars last year at a Packard event here: http://friedrichfam.blogspot.com/2008/02/packard-winter-weekend.html


#14: He’s really a kid at heart. He loves Charlie Brown, Underdog and many other classics.


#15: He’s understanding and forgiving. Five years ago, I felt like a chump because I didn’t do something “over the top” for his 30th. So, I said for his 35th, I would buy him any car he wants. What was I thinking??? So, for the last five years, he has reminded me of this promise. It’s not happening, but he’s ok with it. He knows I owe him one someday. Instead, he is getting gifts that relate to cars, in an attempt to make amends.


#16: He loves mechanical things…cars, tractors, trucks, snowmobiles, anything.


#17: He has LOTS of what I call junk…he calls it car parts. He knows he needs to sell them and I think he could retire if he could get them all sold.


#18: He’s very laid back. He takes his time, nothing is really a rush to him. It drives me crazy, but I’m learning to live a slower paced, laid back life because of it.


#19: Our truck is the first brand new vehicle he has ever owned.


#20: He is currently in the middle of restoring a 1966 Cadillac that sits in our garage.


#21: There are more cars ready for restoration after this one is done.


#22: He isn’t a sports person at all. I just realized, we have never even gone bowling together!


#23: He does love NASCAR. The race in March is the one way I may get him back to Vegas with me.


#24: He hates it that I make him take off his shoes at the front door.


#25: He gets dirty doing work and doesn’t mind it one bit.


#26: He works 4 miles from home.


#27: He thinks there should always be 3 things on your plate for dinner.


#28: He thinks I’m a great cook, but faults me for not making meatloaf (yuck!) and chili.


#29: He is the funniest person I know.


#30: He used to race cars at a dirt track. After we got married, he stopped. I had nothing to do with it.


#31: He’s really tall and I’m short --- we look kind of funny standing next to each other, but people remember us.


#32: I know he loves me like no other.


#33: He loves to go to cruise nights and just wander and look at the cars and can’t wait for Charlie to be old enough to appreciate them. This is Charlie’s first cruise night: http://friedrichfam.blogspot.com/2008/07/kennys-little-hemi.html


#34: He MUST have lemon cake with lemon frosting for his birthday cake.


#35: He LOVES root beer floats.

Charlie and I love you tons and tons!! Happy Birthday!

Reese's Birthday!

Charlie's girlfriend, Reese, just turned one. Charlie celebrated at her house by eating her legos.

Reese has fun new toys that Charlie hasn't gotten to drool all over yet!

Cutie Reese in her birthday hat. She was a bit overwhelmed to waking up to a house full of people. Poor kid really just wanted Mommy and Daddy all day.

Her adorable cake by Danielle.

Happy HEART Day!!

Exactly one year ago today, we found out that our little baby was Charlie. We both teared up at the news that we were having a boy. I KNEW it!! Kenny was overjoyed, even though he just wanted a healthy baby, a boy was even better. His dream come true...a son to play cars with. We SAW his HEART beating away on a screen, instead of just hearing it and Valentine's Day will always be extra special to us for those reasons.

This year, we really just wanted to spend the day together. We didn't need to leave Charlie with a sitter and go out because we are doing that in the next few weeks. A nice family day seemed in order. A car problem has changed thos plans a bit and our evening may not go as planned, so we started the celebrating a last night. Kenny came home from work with these:

Beautiful roses

Charlie so happy for HEART day! (See the shirt: "I stole Mommy's HEART!")

Fresh HEART shaped triple berry muffins for breakfast.

I really want to start more family traditions now that Charlie is getting older and will soon understand some of them. For Valentine's Day, I bought a great little HEART shaped muffin tin. I plan to make muffins in them on Valentine's mornings. My Grandma and Grandpa were married on Valentine's Day and my grandma made HEART shaped cakes with a tin my cousin now has. So, this is a bit of a variation of that. Charlie and I made a batch of homemade triple berry muffins while Kenny got a little extra sleep after working much of the night.

Charlie checking out a new Valentine's gift from Mommy and Daddy.

The present that I HEART the most this year is that we have a wonderful family of three. Charlie has been an amazing addition to our family that Kenny and I still feel so lucky to have. Kenny is the best and it warms my HEART to see him completely back to normal. I couldn't ask for anything more.

Handsome Boy

Sitting Up

This baby is just the cutest and is so good at sitting up now after only a few days of practice.

A Photo Session

After all that's happened in our lives lately, many things have been neglected. One is that I never took the classic kinds of pictures of Charlie with just a diaper on. And I know some day he won't have these rolls and folds and cute little legs and arms and that I'll want to remember them, so since he was in such a good mood the other night, I took some pictures of him playing in a new soft cuddly blanket from Cousin Lauren.

New Year's Day

Yes...New Year's Day was a month ago...but here are the pictures from it. We had brunch with Cousin Lauren (the baby whisperer) and Cousin Megan. And Charlie got his Christmas presents.

Charlie liked the ribbon...but Meg was trying to show him the sheep.

Kenny, Michelle, Charlie and Megan.

Charlie and Lauren.


Charlie eating the blanket.