Father's Day and 7 months

First off, a very happy Father's Day to Brady.


He sure is a great dad, and deserved every bite of his doughnut picnic breakfast this morning. A while ago when he was out of town for an interview, I taught Ellie to sing the "Daddy's Homecoming" Primary song. She loves that song and now makes us sing versions of "I'm so glad when Ellie comes home," or Charlie, or Mommy, or whoever else she thinks of. She was delighted when the little kids got up to sing it at church, but I think she will be in for a rude awakening when they don't take her requests when she's in Primary next year.

So Friday was Charlie's big seven month day.


He is working on sitting up solo. I caught a couple shots before he toppled over.


He is also a grabby boy. That sign didn't stand a chance. He got to it before I even got the camera out. Finally I gave in a let him have it.


He was pretty proud.


This month he has perfected rolling, and rolling, and rolling. Not always with a direct goal in mind, but he can move.


He also grew a couple of teeth. I suspect is starting the process all over again today, but we have enjoyed the break from what I swear was the longest first tooth-cutting ever. He loves going for walks and being outside, especially now that we have him sitting up in the stroller instead of in the baby carrier. He is also quite entertained by his cousins.

Also, Charlie likes to eat now. A lot. I guess we just had a take a break and wait for him to get hungry enough.

Eating outside helps too. We have a lot of picnics these days. Anything to get kids to eat, right?

Ellie has shown him some of the finer points of eating (I promise, she's feeding him, not punching him in this picture).

She's also shown him the wonder of forts and usually insists that he join her when she has one built. He seems to quite enjoy a good fort as well, which bodes well for their relationship, I think.
They are really good playmates most of the time. Often Charlie has to join me when I put Ellie down for her nap these days. One day we were reading an alphabet book, and Ellie was looking for all the letters that were printed inside the front cover. I pointed out to her, "Look, there's an E for Ellie and a C for Charlie."

Ellie responded, "And a B for Charlie, and an O for Ellie, and a . . ." We had to sit there and divide up the whole alphabet evenly. Not sure what that says for her future reading skills, but I thought it was sweet of her to share the alphabet with Charlie.