Growing Up

I've said it a million times.  My kids are growing up so.dang.fast.  It's such an interesting phenomenon to me that the older you get, the quicker time moves. 

This weekend we bought Hunter a booster seat to replace his previous more sturdy, convertible carseat with a five point harness.  I know it's shocking.  He's only 3 1/2.  How is it even possible that he's out of the 5 point harness?!  But you have to remember, my son is closer in size to a 5 1/2  year old than a 3 1/2 year old.  By the way, it's very important to note that he is three and a half...don't you leave off that last part, because he'll quickly correct you, which is also shocking.  how is he already old enough to care about the and a half? 

Anyway. 

The point is he's a big kid, and when I looked into the combination seats that started out with a 5 point harness and then transition to the booster, H was already within the weight limit for the booster without the harness part.  So we bit the bullet.  We bought that booster seat and as frightening as it was, we put our son into it. 

And y'all, he loves it.  He is such a big boy now...

Clearly Charlotte doesn't see what all of the fuss is about.

But we get it.  This was a BIG day...

Everytime we get in the car now, his face lights up, and he says, "Oh! Look at my new carseat!"  He's so excited, I don't know how he forgets about it in between car rides. 

He is also always really excited to unbuckle his seatbelt.  Sometimes a little too excited, I'm afraid.  There have been several panicked, "don't unbuckle your seatbelt!!!!!" moments as we are driving down the road.  And Sunday after church, James went to put Charlotte in her carseat, and the seatbelt that was supposed to be strapping it onto the bench was no longer buckled.  I'm just going to tell myself Hunter unbuckled it after we got to church.  Much better than believing we drove 20 minutes with our 16 month old completely unattached to the car.

Charlotte is also growing and learning a TON lately.  Her newest word is "up", and the girl says it all the time.  Up now means several things in our house, from up to out to in to most other prepositions in the English language.  She is also insistent on brushing her hair everynight after I'm done brushing it.  And she loves to walk around and snuggle with any of her baby dolls or stuffed animals...also with kitchen towels, clean laundry, and as sad as I am to say it, dirty laundry.  She'll hold whatever she has chosen to snuggle with up to her cheek, lean into it and scrunch her little nose up.  It's so sweet.  Except for when it's the dirty laundry, when I'm certain that the nose scrunching is for a completely different reason.

The last couple of nights, she has pulled out Hunter's Buzz Lightyear wings from Halloween and insisted that I put them on her...

Precious.  I am so blessed by them.