Thanksgiving

We made it safely home from Arkansas last night with a full day to recover before what will be a very busy week. Here's a little video from our weekend. Hope you all had happy thanksgivings!

Hello Mr. Turkey

Yesterday they had the Thanksgiving program at Carter's school. Here is the 2 year old contribution. Ours is the tall one in the yellow shirt waving throughout most of the video. Carter watched this video about 300 times last night. Everytime it ended he would say, "More me!"


We're headed to Arkansas early in the morning and will be without internet till Sunday. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Propagating Pothos

Like everyone, we're looking for ways to save money these days. So when I decided that our kitchen needed some house plants, I decided to grow them rather than buy them. It takes longer, but it's free - and easy!

First, I took cuttings from the ends of my existing pothos plants.

I placed the cuttings in jars of water in a window and waited several weeks for roots to sprout.

Once the new roots were a couple inches long...

I planted them in a new pot!

It was so easy and successful that I have another batch going now. Plus, I think the cuttings look nice lined up on the window sill. I hope to never have to buy another pothos plant again!

Kanuga

We spent the weekend in North Carolina at a church retreat. It was cold and beautiful. Unfortunately, the first 24 hours were pretty rough.

Carter's illness, being in a strange place, staying up too late and sneaking a few handfuls of m&m's in the lodge were probably all contributing factors. Regardless, it took us until midnight to get Carter to "sleep" Friday night.

I say "sleep" because it was a fitful, cough-up-a-lung, nearly-fall-off-the-bed, keep-mom-and-dad-awake sort of "sleep" until 2:30am, when he did actually fall off the bed, which began the first crying portion of the night, followed by the I-just-want-to-be-awake-playing-loudly portion, followed shortly by the second crying (why-did-they-take-my-toys-away?) portion of the night.

By 3:30am, we were at the ends of our ropes, so Thomas and I threw on our clothes and spent an hour driving Carter through the mountains to get him to sleep. After a shockingly successful car-to-bed transfer at 4:30am, Thomas and I got a restless 4 hours of sleep until Carter woke up at 8:30am.

Nap time on Saturday didn't go any better (with only 4-6 hours of sleep the night before, he was in desperate need of a nap), so Saturday late afternoon found us driving through the mountains once again.

In any case, we are glad that we went. Unfortunately, we forgot the camera, so here are two not-so-good camera phone shots.

Playing on the climbing wall

At the sock-hop Saturday night. Carter had perked up by then and was the life of the party, dancing with everyone and hitting on the girls!

Nap

Sunday afternoon, we all has a very, very nice nap.

Dogs

Carter is in a very big hot dog/corn dog phase right now. We were grocery shopping the other day when he spied corn dogs in the freezer section and he HAD to have them. I had to use all my tricks to keep him from opening them up right there (frozen) in the store.

In the picture below, Carter has parked his stroller (which he retrieved from the garage by himself) so that he could sit and watch his corn dogs cook.

We were mid-way through getting dressed at this point. With 8 minutes left to cook, I told him that he could have his corn dogs as soon as he got dressed (that usually takes at least 10 minutes). He was dressed in two minutes flat, so we had to stall him. Once he got his hands on the "dogs" he ate 2 and a half of them--and only stopped then because we'd run out!

Pool Ensemble

On Sunday morning, Carter dressed himself--and this is what he came up with. He was subsequently adamant that he wanted to go to the pool. So I let him take a (second) bath.

Two Spoons

Carter discovered the joy of eating with two spoons at pretty much his first meal. But now he's taken it to a whole new level.

This is what I arrived home to Friday evening. He was so proud. We are so proud.

Carter Days

Just some quick photos and updates on how us boys are doing at home alone.

Sunday PM: Carter not feeling well, curled up on the couch not even wanting to watch TV. Eventually, though, the TV pulled him out of it.

Monday AM: Getting dressing was quite the challenge. The blue jeans lost out to the Fireman pants, and the green sock HAD to be worn, regardless of the fact that a second green sock was nowhere to be found. One green and one blue is okay, right?

Monday PM: Dinner was going well with meatloaf, potatoes au gratin, and green beans (thanks honey!) until I turned away for a little too long. Apparently I was not reacting to his repetitive "hot, hot" comments, so he took matters into his own hands. While I was at the sink, he got up, got the pan from the drawer, put it on the stove, and added his (apparently cold) green beans to it. Then grabbed my hand and said, again, "HOT."

He kept adding to the pan until all the beans on his plate were in and then waited for the magic to happen. Eventually, he let me use the microwave and seemed satisfied. The green bean that caught fire in the microwave was quite dramatic, but we'll leave that for another time. Suffice it to say we got some new green beans and made them "hot".
The rest of the week has been uneventful (more or less), I'll post again if other items of interest occur. We miss mama!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our favorite boy

I won’t be blogging much this week (or, at least, I won’t be blogging much Carter-cuteness) because I’m leaving this afternoon for NYC, and I won’t return until Friday evening. So, here’s a cute little video for you, but mostly, I’m posting it for Carter, who loves to see himself on the interwebs!

5K

Thomas ran the Chomp & Stomp 5K this morning. His goal (as mine was when I did one several weeks ago) was to run the whole way--and he did it! He even had the energy afterward to carry Carter around.

Chomp & Stomp is a chili cook-off festival. The run is in the morning and the chili is from 10am-8pm. We left after the race, around 9, ran some errands, and then went back for the chili around lunch time. Note to ourselves for next year: Don't leave after the race. Kill time until the chili starts and just eat chili and drink beer at 10am. By lunchtime, it's too crowded and they are out of lots of chili! Also, make sure friends are in-town (ahem, Park & Ash) to enjoy festival with you (and share child-watching duties)!

Potty?!

Carter apparently used the potty not once, but TWICE, today at school. We've been working on potty awareness for months at home, and he'll occasionally sit on it, but there's never been any...action. And then today--his second day at school--he not only went on the potty, but he asked to use the potty and then went (i.e. it wasn't just an accident of good timing). And he did it twice.

We are most impressed. But we are not holding our breath for him to repeat the feat at home anytime soon!

First Day (updated)

Today is Carter's first day at his new school and--so far so good! .

I think the four visits we made in the last two weeks definitely helped. He had almost no trouble saying goodbye. My stroke of brilliance in getting him a new backpack for today may have had something to do with his excitment to GO to school, but even once it was unpacked and put away, he seemed happy to be there.

I'll update this post this afternoon to let you know how the rest of the day turns out!

Trying out his new backback yesterday

Ready to go this morning in his new backpack and (huge) new shoes!

Update: Well, the first day went even better than we could have hoped. He played, he ate, he napped, and he didn't cry. And he didn't want to leave at the end of the day!

Halloween

By popular (okay, Rachel's) demand, here are some Halloween photos! It was a very busy day for us. After working all day, we had to dash up to Carter and Donna's house, get costumed, do a small round of trick or treating with Carter, say goodbye to him for the night, and then dash back downtown to meet Park, Ashley, Angie and Alan to see Wicked at the Fox. It was a fun, but packed night.

Carter quickly figured out what this trick-or-treating stuff was about. And he was OFF! He was an insistent door-knocker. Even where candy had been left outside, he was determined to knock, and knock, and knock....

Showing off his cool tattoos (he had one on each cheek).

Carter insisted that Cart Cart wear his "costume" at all times.

The three of us (we dressed up a bit for Wicked, too)!

Thanks for the cool pirate costume, Kimbros! And for the cool glow necklace, Cart Cart and Nonna!