Cousin Time

While I was seeing a great new play called Tennis in Nablus tonight, Carter got to spend time with Anna and Sammy. Thanks to Aunt Ashley for the sitting and the picture!



- Posted by T using BlogPress from my iPhone

Happy Valentine's Day

Pink milk and balloons! What more could a boy want for valentine's? (Decorate-my-own cookies? We did that, too.)




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Snow Day Projects

This morning, in honor of the snowy day, Carter and I made chocolate chip pancakes and glittery snowflakes.

Carter is getting very good at cutting. He cut 24 very good hearts for valentines for his class and he did about half the cutting on these snowflakes (cutting over lines I drew for him in both cases).













- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Snowy Day

After enjoying the blizzard in NYC earlier this week, I came home to more snow!

Carter and I had fun making snow men, snow angels and snow balls this morning.

Otherwise, we're using the snow as a good excuse to stay in and relax!







- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

My Next Adventure

I took last week off (between jobs), and while it was nice, the experience definitely reminded me that I'm best when I'm busy. I'd finished my to do list (which included, among other more useful things, "sleep in" and "be lazy") by noon on Wednesday, and I had a hard time figuring out what to so with myself the rest of the week. Maybe I just need at least a full month to ease myself into relaxing. I'd like to give that a shot next time.

I start a new job tomorrow morning. I'll be working in the consulting group at Wireless Generation (click the link for more info on the company) on a variety of education/education technology related projects. The company is based in Brooklyn, so I'll continue telecommuting, as I have been for the last two and a half years. Long term, I should be traveling about a quarter of the time, but as I'm getting up to speed, the travel will be a lot more intense. I'll be in NYC by 9am tomorrow morning, and will be there during the week for the next three weeks. After that, I'll be traveling to NYC about every other week through the spring (and that doesn't factor in any client trips...).

So, if you're in Atlanta, give Thomas a call--he may need some parenting relief over the next few months!

Updated Office

In preparation for my new job (more on that later), I've been engaged in an overhaul of our home office. LOTS of cleaning out, rearranging and two coats of paint later, here it is! The biggest change we made (other than the color of the walls) was moving our personal computer to share a desk with my work computer, since they are rarely used simultaneously. Our computer was previously on our little leaning desk, but we wanted more space for spreading out--and now the little desk is freed up for our new baby netbook!

News

We have all kinds of news!

On the work front, tomorrow is my last day with S&P. The company decided to shut my business unit down last year, so I've been winding things down for the last several months. After five and a half years, I'll be on to a new adventure! More on that soon, but let's get on to the more exciting stuff...

Patrick & Kirstin produced a new family member earlier this week! She's the second new addition to our family in the last 3 months (with nephew, Sammy's arrival in October). She's the first Stegall in the next generation. I couldn't help stealing some pics of her to post here. Isn't she a beauty?!

Eavan Marie

The Carters' Weekend

While we were in Chicago, Carter had a big time with his Cart Cart. As I understand it, they worked at a soup kitchen, went to Carter's gymnastics and swimming classes, played with the cousins, enjoyed the aquarium, played at Cart Cart's house and ate a LOT of food (at least Carter did, not sure about Cart Cart).

Here's an anecdote that Cart Cart shared with us about the weekend:

"I was, as usual, trying to figure out your TV remote. Carter walked over, said, 'Let me show you Cart Cart -- first push this, then this, then this.' And the $%^# TV came on! It's no longer, 'Are you smarter than a 5th grader,' but 'Are you stupider than a 3 year old?' Looks like that would be a Yes."

(Thanks for sharing, Cart Cart! And, to be fair, our remote is very difficult to use. I'm sure he just got lucky. Maybe.)

Chicago Trip

We took a grown-ups only trip to Chicago this weekend. I went up early to help Mandi with wedding dress shopping (we found one!). Thomas came up on Friday and we stayed the rest of the weekend with Stubbie & Shannon (and their growing fetus). While we were away, Carter had an excellent time with his Cart Cart here in Atlanta.

At Hopleaf with Andy, Mandi and Ross
(Not the only favorite food spot we hit, I also ate at Victory's Banner and Cross-Rhodes the same day!)

Playing darts at Cody's, our favorite neighborhood dart bar

Grocery shopping (with beer!) at the second largest Whole Foods in the country

Stubbie makes us a feast!

Carter Draws Our Family

Carter loves his Fisher-Price computer games. He can hook it up all by himself and will escape to our office to do his "work" for half an hour at a time (which, if you don't have a 3-year-old, you may not realize is a huge chunk of time).

Last night, called us into the office to see his work. "Look! It's our family!" He had used the art program to make a picture of the three of us. He used the stamp tool to select and make the faces, and then used the stylus to free-hand the bodies (and he even drew in noses).

His picture of the three of us:

The other Fowlkes family as a work-in-progress. (He switched to pink for them. He also gave them arms...)

And the completed pic of (from L to R) Sammy, Park, Anna and Ashley (who is apparently the tallest, in Carter's mind). You can click the photo to see larger.