So Charlie is learning to walk. He wants to go faster than he really can. He's stitches waiting to happen. But it sure is fun to watch him go and he couldn't be happier.

Charlie laughs until he throws up.

What would Charlie do if I let him go wherever he wanted and do whatever he wanted? I was wondering this one day, so I decided I would follow him around with a camera. I had to help him a couple of times just to make sure we didn't have any bumped heads. Other than that, it's interesting to see what he chose to do.

Charlie is up to new things lately. We thought we'd share.

First, he has been crawling for several weeks. He likes to chase mom around the house, and he is so happy that he can move to where he wants to be. It's so weird to think that just a few weeks ago, he was stationary. Now our little boy is all over the place!

Second, Charlie's learned how to pull to stand. He has to use both arms, and some times his mouth, to get to standing. But he's gotten pretty good at it in the last few weeks. Here is a series of pictures of what it looks like when Charlie pulls up. He's actually started to just pull straight up, but no pictures of that yet.

When Charlie's really concentrating, he purses his lips and breathes through his mouth. It's really funny. This usually happens when he's trying to crawl to something he wants, crawl over some obstacle, or pull up on something that he's not used to pulling up on. This actually Dad's "basketball face" according to Mom. Dad's not convinced, but what are ya gonna do?

Third, he's also started eating food from the table in addition to smaller servings of baby food. The problem we have been having is that both meals - lunch and dinner- are usually about the same time that he is getting sleepy. When Charlie's sleepy he's not a happy camper, and so he's less likely to put up with mom and dad making him feed himself and actually chew food. So that's the battle we've been having.

Fourth, Charlie's trying to talk. He says "mamamamamam" with ease. He says "babababa" with no effort. Sometimes he combines two sounds and says "ha-bababab." Just today, we noticed that he picks up his little plastic baseball bat and says "baa" (bat minus the 't'). He says it over and over. Probably just a coincidence. He has never said "dadadadadad" on purpose. When we try to teach him, he just grins, laughs, and says Bababababababa- much to his delight and our dismay. When Dad plays his guitar and sings, Charlie tries to sing along. Charlie also tries to play the guitar.

Here's a video of what Charlie's "singing" sounds like.

it's official. there's a few things that will take getting used to. and i'm sure as i figure this thing out the blog will change a little (or a lot). one thing i wish is that the splash page had the most current blog post on it. i'm sure that's a customization that can be done if you're a pay account.

when you're doing something as uncomplicated as we're doing, the most important thing is simplicity and aesthetics. Wordpress is easier to update, but gutensite beats the pants off of the other two in aesthetics.

It was time for a change. Now that I have a little more time, I'll try to keep this thing updated fairly regularly.

Now that I'm finished with seminary- I have more free time. At least what I mean is that my free time isn't already reserved for reading, paper writing, and book reading. I get to choose how I spend my non-working hours.

So that leaves a little time for blogging. Right now, we have three blogs set up. blogspot, wordpress, and this one.

I like blogspot because we have used it for so long and all of our older blogs are there.

I like wordpress because I use it for our student ministry blog, I know how to use it, and it would be a one stop place for all my different blogs I contribute to: www.evangelicalvillage.com, www.sbcvoices.com, www.seguinstudents.com, and others.

But gutensite looks the best. My only problem is figuring out exactly how to use it. If I just want a blog, I don't need a lot of these functions. So since I have some free time- I'll see what I can come up with.

More than anything, this is a test post anyway.