Children's Museum

Pics from our trip to the children's museum yesterday:

New Read-Aloud Books

Another thing Carter and I did this weekend was to go to the bookstore to spend a gift certificate he got for Christmas. We got Where the Wild Things Are, one of my all time favorite books to read aloud. We also found two new books that I really like! The title of Llama Llama Mad at Mama immediately caught my eye. The story is told in rhymes and hilarious pictures, and it details a fairly realistic experience of shopping with a little one. The other one we found was Ten Terrible Dinosaurs, by the author of Dinosaur Roar (also a favorite of ours). It's a counting backwards book that starts with ten exuberant dinosaurs, and it has a really fun ending to read aloud.

Just in case you were looking for a good toddler/pre-schooler read!

While Dad's Away...

Thomas had to make a quick weekend trip to NYC for work this weekend, so Carter and I had the weekend to ourselves. I took Carter to his swim class for the first time on Saturday (my first class, not his - Thomas usually takes him). Apparently, I lucked out and got the first warm water of the session. We also made another frigid trip to the zoo (that's the only time we seem to go!). Here are a few other things we did:

We cooked

We went to the Children's Museum (more pics from that adventure later)

We bought a potty!

We aren't actually potty training yet, but we're working on potty awareness, and when Carter saw this at the store, he got very excited, so I wasn't about to pass up the opportunity to bring it home! If you can't tell from the photo, its a Sponge Bob Square Pants potty. And Carter mostly wore it on his head this afternoon, but I didn't manage to catch that with the camera!

Last Day at the Beach

Today was our last full day at the beach, and finally, we had sun! Tomorrow afternoon, we head back to Atlanta. Here are some pics from our day.

Lounging in the morning

It was sunny today, but COLD!
The house where my family stayed when we were here several years ago
Our bad "carma" strikes. First time since we've owned the car, though. Four months is pretty good for my family. (A big thanks to my dad for getting us supplied with important car stuff just in the nick of time!)
A lovely beach sunset

Rainy Day at the Beach

We may be missing out on the snow in Atlanta, but we got plenty of precipitation down here too. When it rains all day, you have to find ways to occupy yourself, so...

We drove by the World's Smallest Police Station in Carrabelle, Florida.
Carter practiced his photography.
We enjoyed some treats.
And we put stuff on our heads.

Chasing a Seagull

The first thing Carter did when we went down to the beach was to follow the seagulls around. Here's a video. I'm hoping to get a video of feeding the seagulls tomorrow.

St. George Island

We arrived at St. George Island right on time - at 2:30am last night. Thankfully, Carter slept for most of the way. We were happy to see Cart Cart when we arrived, and we were grateful that he got up to let us in in the middle of the night!

It's chilly here, but it's the beach (and we have internet access)! Here are some pictures from our day (which included 4hr naps for Carter and me).

Headed South

I'm headed back to Atlanta this afternoon. The boys will pick me up at the airport and we'll head to Florida. I promise to take lots of pictures for blogging when we get back, but we'll likely be offline for the next few days. Happy MLK weekend!

Headed North

I'm supposed to be in NYC right now, but thanks to the "snowstorm" that didn't actually result in any snow up there, my flight this morning was cancelled. So, I'm headed off tomorrow to DC for a day of meetings and then I'm taking the train to NYC. I get back Thursday night and then we all head down to keep Cart Cart company at the beach!

Carter and I have both been under the weather, so wish Thomas luck with the sick wee one!

Baby Shower

We hosted a little baby shower shindig for Park & Ashley yesterday. We had ladies only for the girly stuff and then the men joined us afterwards. It was fun to be able to host at our house!

Carter helped with the preparations

Ashley got some very cute baby stuff!

We all got lots of time with the belly

And we even got Park to scrapbook!

(Okay, so the men came after MOST of the girly bits were over...)

Christmas Video

At long last, here is some video from Christmas morning. Listen for Carter before you see him appear on the video, and note how he looks up at me to determine if he's going to be allowed to knock his blocks over - after he's taken the first swing.

(Also - FYI - his tower was set partially on the rug and partially off. It's wobbly-ness is not the result of shoddy late-Christmas-eve-assembly-required frustrations, though it could have been...)

Pancakes!

Last Saturday, Carter helped us make pancakes (I like to make a big batch and save them for his breakfasts during the week). The next day, my mom asked him if he wanted soome pancakes. He immediately ran to the kitchen and climbed up into his tower, ready to do more stirring and pouring. He was most distressed when he realized he was expected to sit at the table and eat pancakes.

Operation Big Boy Bed

Inspired by the Kimbro's O.B-B.N-N. posts, we're going to give you ongoing updates on how Carter's transition to a Big Boy bed goes. Park and Ashley came by this afternoon and helped us get the bed set up. Carter immediately began doing flips over the newly-installed railing (video to follow), so we were somewhat worried that he might want to play and not sleep in the bed.

After reading stories, I put him in the bed, and he, surprisingly, didn't reach for his bears or his water (his usual bedtime comforts). He just flipped right over on his stomach and sighed (as if to say... "Ah, a bed in which my feet don't hit bars... it's about time"). We, very smartly, planned this first night in a big boy bed to coincide with my mom's visit, so we left her with him while we went out to dinner. We just returned home to find out that HE HASN'T WOKEN UP AT ALL! (What a waste of a grandparent visit:) I'm not sure how the rest of the night will go, or tomorrow night, or subsequent naps (when he's much less inclined to sleep)... We'll keep you posted! Mom took this pic of him in his bed a couple of hours ago...

Update, 7am: Carter slept until 6am. That's earlier than usual, but pretty good, all things considered. At 6 he fussed a little bit, and then got himself out of bed and opened the door, where he met the baby gate. Mom met him at the gate, and he pointed back to the bed and said "Uh-oh". Not sure if he was claiming that his getting out of bed was an accident or if he forgot that we changed beds and thought that it transformed overnight. Mom convinced him to choose a book and take it back to the bed, which worked for a few minutes. We'll see how nap time goes today...

Update, 4pm: An hour and a half of climbing out of bed, rattling the baby gate, playing with his toys (WHY don't musical toys have off buttons?) and fussing, until, finally, we had success...sort of:

Update, 9:30pm: It took him a little longer to go down in the bed tonight than it did last night - but nothing compared to the difficulty of nap time today. Since he went down, we haven't heard a peep. He may be napping in the crib tomorrow. We'll see how brave his nanny is feeling...

Mama Helen is here!

My mom is here for a visit this weekend. She planned a long layover here on her way to Orlando for work, and we are very happy to be seeing her again so soon. Last night, Carter helped us make brownies, and we taught him how to lick the spoon. He seemed to enjoy it.

And he insisted on wearing my new purple coat around the house. When I started taking pics of him, he became quite dismayed that he couldn't wear my big purple coat and use the camera at the same (because of the sleeves being so long).

Zoo Freeze

It's finally, actually, starting to get cold here. So we celebrated with a trip to the zoo yesterday! Unsurprisingly, very few other people thought to visit the zoo on a cold new year's day, so we had the run of the place - and the animals were very active! Here are a few pics of our visit.

Happy New Year!

There are, thankfully, no photos of me attempting to finish the gigantic Medieval Times-goblet-o-beverage that Thomas made for me last night, so we enter 2008 with a few cute family photos...

Farewell 2007

We were pretty okay with saying goodbye to 2007. With two moves, intro to toddler-dom and busy work, we had a pretty stress-filled 2007. We're really looking forward to a more comfortable '08.

We ended 2007 with a good bit of housework. We had childcare, so Thomas and I were able to get the final Christmas decorations put away, unpack the last boxes that have been taunting us from the basement and to fix up Carter's room.

We took our Christmas tree to the local recycling pile, where it will meet the chipper on Saturday.

Next year, we want to take several friends with us so we can have a proper Christmas tree throwing competition.

In Carter's room, I did a little painting and we finally hung pictures.

We also rearranged to make room for a big-boy bed - coming to a blog near you in the next week or two... (I'm personally thinking we should introduce the real bed right before my next business trip ;)