5 months

At 5 months Charles....

-is Mr. Smiley

-is teething, which results in him ferociously sucking on anything he can get his hands on...his favorite being his toes

-loves toys. I loved recently when we went down into the playroom and the second i opened the door he began to squeal with delight

-shows how much he loves his sisters through smiles and laughs

Rodeo

Unfortunately Matt was out of town for the Spanish Fork Rodeo and I didn't want to send both girls without one of us, so Lyla stayed behind with me and Charlie. I didn't want her to feel bad that she wasn't going and so I told her there were parts that even Grandma Mary doesn't like at the Rodeo. When the bull riders come out Grandma Mary leaves the stadium so she doesn't have to watch it. Later that night when Lyla was saying her prayer she prayed, "Please bless Grandma Mary that when those angry bulls start chasing her, she will find a good place to hide." Clearly Lyla misunderstood what I was saying, but it was still a very sweet prayer.

Utah

We have only been in Utah for 8 months, but there have already been a number of things that we have experienced here that make me grateful to be here.

-In this short period of time Matt and I were able to talk with Elder Perry, the girls were able to talk with Elder Holland and Sister Wixom and sit in Sacrament meeting and watch President Eyring sing the hymns, partake of the sacrament and listen to the speakers with that genuine smile that is permanently affixed to his face.

-At Olivia's school watching kids walk down the halls with arms reverently folded when the teacher asks them to go quietly to their class.

-Olivia being so excited when she realized that her school teacher was a member of the church because she saw the Gospel Library app on her iPad.

-A man from the security system company came to checking on things with our alarm system. He was working on things and i was asking the girls how they were doing on their morning list. When I asked them if they had read their scriptures, the security system man piped up "I read 2nd Nephi this morning, where are you guys?"

-A delivery man came to our house and i was carrying Charlie, he commented how big Charlie was and then said "when i was Sacrament meeting yesterday a youth was giving his talk and he was so big I thought to myself the BYU football department needs to give that boy a call."

Things I love from this week....

Olivia
1. In a very exasperated voice. "Oh mom we are going to have to get ready to have so many play dates at our house because Charlie is going to be so popular. Kids with blond hair that's combed like that are always so popular."
2. Someone had come over and was just sitting and holding Charlie. Finally Olivia went over to her and in a very sweet but concerned voice said "He actually likes people to talk to him, instead of just hold him." Something she has seen that I really make a point to do with him and have her do as well when she watches over him.

Lyla
1. At the grocery store Lyla grabbed a bag of gummy worms. "Mom can we get these, they are so healthy I promise. Look...these have vitamin K, vitamin Q and vitamin G!"

2. While looking at the cover of a new book she said, "This book is called Bunny Cakes written by Jackson Pollock, I mean this book is called Bunny Cakes written by Claude Monet, I mean this book is called Bunny Cakes written by Edgar Degas" Laughing the whole time she was saying this, thinking she was so funny!

Charlie
1. Laughing hysterically over the littlest things like me saying "hi" or making the letter B sound
2. Copying me buzzing my lips and us taking turns back and forth

4 months

 Charlie at 4 months....
-Loves to laugh
-Loves to stick out his tongue

 -loves to play patty-cake

 -loves to grab and pull on things, including his sisters hair

3 Months

Charlie is 3 months

-loves to read books even more than before...involves big smiles and sometimes flapping arms and legs

-makes all sorts of squeaky noises, which has earned him the nickname of R2D2.
-still an easygoing guy
-giggles
-love to stand

I Love...

I LOVE...

That Olivia is so responsible. She has always been a very responsible little girl. Last week I was reminded of this. When I picked her up from school she told me that when they got out of school her best friend Nethee, asked her to come play on the playground while she waited for me to pick her up. Even though the playground is side by side with the hill that I pick her up on, Olivia told her friend that she couldn't, and that she needed to wait for me on the hill. Nethee's mom, who we know very well, told Olivia that she could go play with Nethee on the playground and she would wait on the hill and she would let Olivia know when I got there. Olivia told the mom that couldn't and needed to stay on the hill. I'm grateful I can count on her!

That Lyla loves to read book SO much! I often ask Lyla if she wants to play a game together or draw...it doesn't matter what options I give her she always says she wants to read books. Last week I knew she was very tired and so I put her down for a nap and told her I was going to feed Charlie. She is usually very willing to take nap, but a few seconds later she came out of bedroom and said in a very concerned voice, "Mom, when you feed Charlie its not time to rest, its time to read books!"

That Charlie is such a happy little baby. Last week Lyla and I were playing with Charlie, and Lyla was playing a trick on me that she thought was very funny...she laughed and laughed. Although Charlie had no idea what was so funny, every time Lyla laughed he started laughing too.
 

2 months

At 2 months Charlie....

-loves to look at himself in the mirror

-smiles

-favorite toy: holding onto his rings

-loves to look at the ceiling fan

-likes to read books

-likes to talk

he is quite an engaging talker. he coos and gurgles all the time.

-likes music. 

sometimes while we are in the car he will start to get a little sad so I will turn on country music and he is immediately calm again. Once he's happy again I will turn off the music so I can talk to him, this causes him to start getting sad again and so I turn the music on again and once again and he is happy as a clam.

Things I love from last week.....

- I loved all the times that Charlie "talked" to me. He has the sweetest coos and when he talks to me his eyes literally twinkle.
- Lyle helped give Charlie a bath for the first time last week. I wish I had a video of it, she was absolutely giddy. She had the biggest smile and loved helping!
-I loved hearing Olivia give her sister compliments




General Conference loves...
-We have a little activity during General Conference where we have a bowl with a happy face and a bowl with of a sad face. If the speaker cries you get a snack from the sad face bowl and if the audience laughs you get a snack from the happy face bowl. Friday night I told Olivia that we had gotten veggie sticks for the sad face bowl (a snack she was super excited about) She immediately said "I cant wait until President Eyring speaks, he always cries and has so much happiness when he speaks I will definitely be getting a lot of veggie sticks during his talk." I was so grateful that Olivia is familiar enough with President Eyring 's talk that she immediately knew that he would cry during his conference talk.
-During her 4th session of General Conference, Lyla shouted "Please pause it, I have to go to the bathroom!" I was impressed that after watching a lot of conference this weekend, she had a desire to pause the conference so she wouldn't miss anything while she went to the bathroom. 

Lyla...also known as Olivia

Lyla wears Olivia's clothes 90% of the time. If anyone asks her age, she tells them she is 6. She asks us to call her Olivia...it's safe to say Lyla wants to be just like her big sister.

1 Month

I cant believe that Charlie is already 1 month old, he is growing way to fast. I wish time could slow down. Its amazing how the great love you have for your baby from the second they are born. The girls have been smitten with their baby brother from the moment they met him. This is Charlie at one month...


1. He is a VERY calm baby...he doesn't cry. When we were at his 2 week dr. appointment I held Charlie in my arms as they had to prink his foot and get blood. The blood was not flowing very fast, and it was taking forever. The dr. commented how brave he was to be calm that whole time.


2. He absolutely loves taking a bath.
3. He is a big grunter and is extremely loud when he sleeps
4. No jealousy of the new baby here...his sisters absolutely adore him
5. He loves to snuggle
6. He loves his dad. I'm not sure if Charlie has a special connection with Matt as the only other boy in the family, but there is definitely a special connection there. I obviously spend a lot more time with Charlie since I am able to stay home and take care of him, but when Matt gets home at night and holds Charlie...Charlie just stares at Matthew and you can tell he is so happy in Matthews arms.

Charles Woodruff Lambert

I along with everyone else, were convinced that our baby boy was going to be born early. I had a dr. appointment on my due date and there was no indication that the baby was coming. That afternoon I started feeling regular contractions and by the time I went to get Olivia the contractions were coming frequently. The contractions were 5 minutes apart, but I wanted the girls all ready for bed before I went to the hospital and had Mary come get them. I was trying to get the girls showered and help Olivia study for her spelling test, but I finally couldn't wait any longer and called Matt at work and told him to come home. 

We got to the hospital and at 9:40 pm on February 4th, Charlie was born. Charlie wasn't crying when he was born and when the doctors immediately gave him a vitamin K shot he didn't cry for that either...matt was certain we had a tough little guy.

The doctors immediately gave me Charlie and I started feeding him right away, and gratefully he proved to be a very good eater from the start. They actually waited quite a while before they weighed him, I was anxious to find out so finally I asked the nurse if she could please weigh him. He weighed 9 pounds and 10 ounces. The doctors and nurses said they hadn't seen a baby born with that much hair that was blond.

 

 

 

Lyla came to see Charlie at the hospital and was so excited! Olivia had to wait a little longer, after school Matt brought Olivia to the hospital to see her little brother. The girls were both so excited to finally meet their brother! 

 

 

After a first rough night at the hospital, I was very eager to get out and go home, but we ended up having to stick around another night and weren't able to leave until the next late afternoon. We were so excited to go home!

Olivia

1. She is creative. Whenever she has any free time it is spent making something. She has recently become very interested in drawing and making crafts, such as making paper purse, cards and fashion designs.
2. She is planner. She is always planning a party... making plans, thinking who she would invite and what the activities would be.
3. She is obsessed with amusement parks. I'm not sure there is anyone who thinks and dreams about amusement parks more than Olivia.  She loves to look on the computer and see the rides that are at different amusement parts. She also likes amusement park trivia...wanting to know when the first amusement park was, where the fastest roller coaster is, etc.
4. She is a singer. Olivia LOVES to sing. She it always singing and she loves to make up her own songs. I love hearing her sing from the shower.

Lyla

 

 

1. She's not afraid to give you her opinion. As we approached December, I told the girls "oh this is so exciting now we can listen to Christmas music in the car!" Lyla replied, "No I only like to listen to classical music or BYU (referring to BYU sports.)"

 

2. She's a fashionista. She definitely has a style. She will also point out to you if your outfit does not match. This morning she was getting ready for church and for the first time I let her pick out her own outfit. she selected her aqua dress, but was having trouble finding a sweater. Olivia offered her an aqua sweater. Lyla didn't want the sweater explaining that she couldn't wear it because it was a spring sweater and it is not spring time.

 

3.She loves to read books. Usually after reading a stack of books her response is, "that was not enough books!"

 

4. She loves to dress up. She loves to layer in this process and has been know to wear 7 layers at a time. She has always loved princess dress up clothes, but her current obsesion in dressing up in Olivias clothes.

 

5. In her mind she has a very clear definition of what is acceptable for girls and what is acceptable for boys. She has reorganized my closet removing any shoe that is not "girl" enough (which includes my gym shoes, boots and flip flops) and moving them to Matthews closet. The other day while Charlie was sleeping I laid a pink blanket on him, to keep him warm. A while later Lyla came marching out of his bedroom holding the pink blanket saying, "this is not grey or black...it is pink...boys don't like pink!"

 

...things she'll frequently say... "I'm right here!"    If she's not obeying and you try to talk to her about it she responds "I will go and do the things the Lord commands!" "Did you know that I'm 6?"



Sunday

Two sweet memories from Sunday

1. We were walking into Sacrament meeting and while we were sitting down in the pew, I stopped to talk to another girl in the ward who was also just about due. The meeting was just about to begin so I quickly sat down, not noticing who was sitting on the stand. The meeting started and Lyla jumped up and shouted, "I see President Eyring, I see President Eyring!...but where's President Monson?" I looked up and she was right, president Eyring was on the stand.

2.  We were driving out of the driveway to church and were wanting to make it on time, so Matthew asked if I could say a family morning prayer on the way to church. Olivia said "I don't think it is very reverent to pray while dad's driving. Could we pray first?"

Big Sister

Matt, Olivia and Lyla had gone together to the part to eat dinner. Matt had told the girls that after dinner they could go get a popsicle...we never have popsicles, so this was a very exciting treat. They each selected a popsicle from the store and started walking home together. Right away Lyla tripped and fell on the ground dropped her popsicle smashing it on the sidewalk. Immediately Olivia gave Lyla her popsicle and calmed her crying sister.

We arrived in Utah unprepared for Halloween, so we went to Pottery Barn Kids to find a costume for Olivia. This store had a lot of thing on display that the girls found exciting. I purchased the costume for Olivia and we started heading for the doors. Before we left, Olivia leaned over to me and whispered that she felt bad that she was getting something and her sister was not. She asked if she could use her money and buy something for her sister. I told Olivia that was very thoughtful of her. I saw a pile of catalogs near the door and explained that getting one of those catalogs would be exciting for Lyla.

Good Bye New York

After 8 years of many adventures we made a rather quick decision to leave NYC and move to Utah at the end of September. When we told the girls that we were moving to Utah, they were completely overjoyed! Olivia had a reaction similar to someone who had just won the lottery. She asked if we were going to live in a house, something she had always hoped for. When I told her we would be living in a house and we would probably have 2 cars that was more than she could handle...if I only I had a video camera nearby to document her joy.

Since we have been in Utah there are many things that I have observed during this transition from city life to the suburbs.
- some things my girls have had to learn...you need to be careful in a parking lot, neither one of them know how to open a door here (all the door handles in NYC were levers instead of knobs and they still don't know how to open a door knob).
Having the subway be Lyla's only form of transportation, driving around in a car and being strapped into a carseat is a new thing. After owning a car for a week or so we came home and Lyla said "could we please never drive in a car again."
Olivia started the 1st grade again here in Utah and was so excited to come home one day and announced some astonishing news. She was so excited to share with us that her teacher was a Mormon. I asked how she knew and she told me she saw the "Gospel Library" app on her teachers iPad.
One day we were pulling into our driveway and Lyla asked why we were stopping here and I told her it was because this was our house. She replied that this was not our real house and that NYC was really were we lived.
The other day we were driving to pick up Olivia from school and we were driving toward some huge snow covered mountains. I commented "Look Lyla aren't those snowcovered mountains beautiful. Do you think those mountains are beautiful?" Lyla quickly replied, "No I don't like them, I skyscrapers are better."
When we first moved into our house, Lyla would sprint back and forth the length of the house...she found this to be a lot roomier than a 1000 square foot apartment.