The Next Michael Buble?

Charlie loves to sing. He sings all the time! It's such a sweet a wonderful sound. The only problem is that you can't understand a word he's saying. And by the sound of it, I think he may be speaking in German as well.

Recently, I discovered that he knew the words to "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." You have to listen very close to figure out that he's singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" (again, parts of it may be in German), but indeed, that's what it is. He also has several other songs that he loves to belt out, but I have no idea what those are - if they're real songs, or if he made them up.

I was able to get video proof for you.  The first song is definitely "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." Listen closely for all of the words. The second song is his. Make sure you stick with the video for the duration because at one point, he really seems to get into it. What can I say, he's the next Michael Buble!

P.S. If the video gets wobbly for a moment, just imagine me pulling something out of Chase-zilla's hands before he rips it to shreds.

Back from the Beach

We had a blast on our beach vacation last week.  We were all sad to see it come to an end.  None of us had ever been to Hilton Head except Oma (and that trip was awhile ago), and we were all pleasantly surprised at how wonderful, non-touristy, beautiful, serene and relaxing it was.

The house we rented was perfect!  It had plenty of bedrooms and bathrooms.  Even Chase got his own room which made Mama and Dada especially happy.  It had a large kitchen and family room, a large deck and screened porch and its own pool.  Best of all, it was only 50 yards from, what felt like, our own private beach!

We rented bicycles and rode every day on shady, paved, private trails and even to the store for groceries.  We played on the beach and in the pool every day and had family game night just about every night (which I'm sure Mike was thrilled about).  And thanks to the grandparents, Mike and I had a date night and slept in a couple of mornings.  What more could you want?!  Except maybe another week...

Here are a couple of photos from our family beach vacation:

Field Trip!

Lucky for us, Dada has a really cool job which gives us the opportunity to take our friends on awesome field trips.  I invited my friend Michelle and her two car-crazed boys to go with us to Stewart-Haas Racing last week.  I knew she was probably just a sick as I was of hibernating from the heat in her house and would appreciate a chance to get out with the boys and go somewhere fun for free.  (It's very hard to find fun things to do with two little boys that don't cost an arm and a leg or don't require sweating outside in 100 degree heat.)  After coordinating nap times and gathering snacks and drinks, we headed out the the race shop.  Here are a few pictures from our field trip to SHR.

Ok, so this is actually not part of the field trip, but what a cute picture!  Charlie was comparing his racecar to the one on TV.  I couldn't resist.

Even Chasey is car crazy!

Charlie and his friend, Collin.  

I think we wore him out.

One last picture!

Splish, Splash

My neighbors have been on a two-week cruise to Italy, which is all well and good.  I'm sure they had a blast, yada, yada, yada, but while they were gone, they gave us the go ahead to use their pool whenever we wanted.  Now we're talkin'!  :)

Anyway, Oma and I took the boys swimming last week, which gave me a great opportunity to take photos... especially I never get the chance to do that.  HA!  Enjoy!

Oh, the Humanity!

Not all posts can be about sweet little babies taking their first steps or adorable toddlers dancing, singing and giggling.  Here's a video about what poor Chase has to endure every mealtime.  Oh, the Humanity!

Picture Day!

No story today.  Just cute pictures!  (And maybe a few comments...)

I just thought this was too cute.  The boys are watching Oma leave in her red car.

Chase always starts the day with pants on, but something always happens and they have to come off by the end of the day.  I took this photo b/c I just thought Chase looked ginormous.

I mean, check out his head!

See?  Pants!  (Chase loves to stick his tongue out, by the way.  Not sure what that's about.)

Charlie insisted on wearing sunglasses for dinner.

Again.  Just huge.

Charlie and George.  (Or as he calls him, "Doggie.")

Even his teeth are big!

But what a cutie!

A cutie and he knows it!

Flashback

I took Charlie and Chase to Joe Gibbs Racing the other day.  Yes, I said Joe Gibbs Racing.  No, I'm not living in the past.  I took the boys to Joe Gibbs Racing because that's where our IT guy works and I had to bring him my new computer to setup.  (No, I'm not kidding.  The True Speed IT guy works for Joe Gibbs Racing.  He's great.  We trust him.  He knows what he's doing.  Oh, yeah.  And he's inexpensive.  So... he's not technically our IT guy, but that's what we call him anyway.)

Ok.  Enough of that.  I took the boys with me to Joe Gibbs Racing because I knew we could pass a couple of hours of time just staring at racecars.  I knew Charlie would be in heaven, and he was.  We got up close and personal with three racecars out in the lobby and then we got to peek onto the shop floor and watch the crew working on racecars.  Charlie also wanted to go into the gift shop where he could stare at all of the diecasts.  Lucky for me they were having a clearance on matchbox cars, so I was able to get a No. 18 M&M's Camry for $5.  I'm supporting the cause there, right?

So, long story short.  Here are a couple of photos from our trip to JGR.  Chase, once again, was thrilled.

(Editor's note: Mike was not happy with the title of the original post, so it has since been changed.  I thought it was funny, but he didn't really see the humor in it.  Oh well!)

Hello, Muddah. Hello, Faddah...

I am so behind on my posts.  I have so many new things to tell you about, but I'm going to start with the most exciting and go backward.  Today, Charlie went to camp!  That's right!  It was Charlie's first summer camp.  Is that fun or what?!

This week, Charlie is participating in Dinosaur Camp at Romp n Roll.  I'd been hyping it up all weekend - "you get to go to Dinosaur Camp next week, isn't that awesome?" - so by the time it was the morning of Dinosaur Camp, he almost couldn't stand it!  I was afraid he wasn't going to like the fact that he was there without Mama or Dada.  I kept reminding him that he already knew all of his teachers and that he loves Romp n Roll.  I also preached "listen to your teachers," because I didn't want him to be "that kid" in class.  In other words, I think I was more stressed about it than he was.

The entire car ride over, he kept saying "Dinosaur Camp, Dinosaur Camp!"  The anticipation was killing him!  When we got there, he dropped everything and started running and giggling.  After 2-minutes, he turned to me and said "Mama go!"  Uh, ok.  What happened to the tears?  What happened to "I love you, Mama.  I'll see you later."  What happened to my hugs and kisses.  Nope.  I got "Mama go."  Nice.  I guess that's a good thing though, right?  When I picked him up, I could tell he'd had a blast.  He's even excited about day two tomorrow.

Anyway, I did take lots of pictures before we left and a couple after we got there.  Check out his new backpack!  I HAD to buy it.  You'll see why.  TOO CUTE!  I can't stand it!

Enjoy!

P.S. You didn't think I would send him to Dinosaur Camp without a dinosaur t-shirt, did you?