Today, Charlotte is 2 years old. We have a fun party planned where all of her favorite four legged and two legged friends will be in attendance. We can't believe that two years have gone by so quickly. We are so excited to see the little girl you are becoming. You have a zeal for life and you make life exciting each and every day. We hope you enjoy your birthday and all that being two entails. We love you! Enjoy a few pictures from the previous 365 days of Charlotte's life.
Richmond was a warm 60 degrees this afternoon, so we decided to head to our favorite local park and soak up the sun a bit. It was Oliver's first trip into the outside world. He slept. But Tiki and Charlotte had a great time together and I was able to got some proof of that.
Checking out the ducks by the lake.
Somewhere inside those blankets is a little boy...I promise.
Charlotte trying to call the ducks over to her. "here ducky ducky"
Elmo even decided to show up at the park. Peek-a-boo!
Can you tell that Charlotte loves her Tiki?
Charlotte thinks it is really funny when they both wear their hoods.
We have had a couple of busy days getting settled with Oliver. We finally decided to give Oliver his first bath at home. We grabbed a chair for Charlotte so she could be up close. It was pretty fun for everybody.
He did pretty good. Not too much whimpering at all.
Well maybe just a little bit. I love this shot from overhead.
A fun shot of everybody.
Getting dried off by momma.
This one makes my heart melt.
Then we headed to the bathtub so Charlotte could get cleaned up from our fun day.
We recently introduced bubbles and she asks for them just about every night.
She still loves the bath crayons we got her for Christmas.
The hands on her chin cracks me up.
Another overhead shot on the changing table.
Oliver drifting off...
Charlotte hasn't wanted to hold Oliver yet, but tonight she agreed and several great pictures and memories resulted. She even sang him a few notes of twinkle twinkle little star.
We had a great day today. Here's to more firsts and more memories made.
-jay
We hope that you have a great Valentine's Day. Tell someone that you love them. Eat chocolate. And enjoy these pictures of Charlotte and her friend Connor that we took last month, so Connor's dad could have some nice pictures of him and Connor to give to Connor's mom. You can really see her personality here. She wasn't afraid to climb up on the fence at all.
Those pigtails just keep getting cuter and cuter.
They are only about 12 hours apart age wise, so they get along like good pals should.
Cute close up.
It was a great overcast day with some lingering fog. I love the muted colors behind her pink shirt.
Say cheese...
Playing with some heart shaped stickers and crafts.
One of my favorite shots of Connor that morning. Such a cute little boy. Can't wait for Oliver to get here!
Another fun shot of Connor.
Both of the kids were very interested in the animals on site. I love the look on his face here.
Probably my favorite shot of the day. Nothing too amazing. I just love the look on Charlotte's face as Connor was walking behind her on the path.
We told them to hold hands, but they just couldn't figure out which hand went where and who was in charge. Ah, toddler romance! We hope you enjoy the pictures and have a great Valentine's Day.
-jay
Charlotte has hit another milestone and so have we. We are very happy parents of a full on toddler. Anyone with kids knows that a personality really starts to reveal itself right around this age and we are right in the middle of it. She can be spunky and passionate as we like to call it. She can also be very loving and gentle. She especially loves her dog Jack and hugs and kisses on him all day long. They will have a beautiful friendship someday when Charlotte tones it down a bit. As we say in the south, "bless his heart". That's how we feel when Charlotte is pawing (pun intended) all over Jack. He's a good sport about her being so spunky some times and he's just lazy enough to lay there most of the time and take it. We are learning what works and what doesn't work discipline-wise, but we try to stay consistent and try no to laugh even when it's hard not to. Parenting isn't easy, but we are loving every minute of it. She can still melt my heart with just a little pat on my arm or a kiss on the cheek or eye or lips or wherever she ends up kissing my head. She is a beautiful little girl and we're excited about her having a baby brother soon. She has taken a recent interest to any video on YouTube that involves a baby, so we're excited to see how she acts in March when she earns the title of big sister. But until then we'll share these last few months with just the three of us. I love our family and can't wait to see how Oliver changes the equation. Enjoy these pictures. They are brought to you by the James River and a little thing called back lighting. I am still learning a lot about parenting and about photography as well, so I hope you like what you see.
-jay
