Diving Board!

In the last year, Carter has conquered swimming. And as soon as the pools opened this summer, he conquered the diving board!

Mary Poppins

I've blogged before about Carter's great after school music program. To end the year, they did a performance of Mary Poppins. Carter was in the chorus, playing a chimney sweep and an English park bystander. He seemed to really enjoy the process, and he's still walking around the house singing Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, Chim Chim Cheree and Let's Go Fly a Kite. He's toward the right side in the photos below. 

Things About Carter's Birthday

[Elizabeth: I blogged previously about Carter's sixth birthday party, but needed to post on his actual birthday. Since he's a big 6-year-old now, I invited Carter to compose this post. He dictated and I typed. We'll let him do this on occasion going forward -- and hopefully he'll take over the typing sooner rather than later.]

I am six. I had cupcakes at school for my birthday. I ate them on the wall close to the field and close to the playground. After all that, I went back to learning. 

John and I had a good time at Fellini's Pizza

I liked having my picture taken close to the wishing well

Mama Helen is watching me open my presents

I found my bicycle below the back deck. I had a good time sitting on it and rolling it into the garage

I like my tight rope that I got for my real birthday 

Carter's 6th Birthday Party

Carter turns 6 on Wednesday, and we had his party at a park this afternoon. The weather was perfect!

At one point, we found that the boys had banded together to carry most of a tree onto the playground.
Here, they are marching it back to the woods where they found it (we presume). 

His cake! 

To go along with the baseball theme, we had hotdogs and crackerjacks.

And a baseball piñata!

John 9-Month Stats

So John had his 9 month check up yesterday and he is right on schedule developmentally, i.e. extra clingy and unhappy about getting shots. Now for the stats: Weight 19.95 lbs (50th percentile), Head Circumference 17.5in (just under 50th percentile), Height 30in (95th percentile).  While he's no Carter at 9 months, he's still pretty freakin' tall!  The doctor was very pleased with everything and our little baby is growing up really fast.

Sand, Steam and Pisco, and Pandas

Just a few things that appeared during our weekend.  We had a really fun, very busy, and somewhat productive weekend!

Thomas won tickets to the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival, which is a three-day food and drinking extravaganza that runs from Friday morning through Sunday evening. We only participated in a small fraction of the events, but really enjoyed everything we did. We got a sitter and went to a dinner Friday night, but on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, we got together with the other Fowlkes' and each gender got an afternoon away.

Thomas' company also hosted a festival on a property they own on Saturday, so we also did that.

And Carter performed at church on Sunday.

And I did some much needed shopping.

And I made a lot of baby food.

And John learned to crawl.

That doesn't seem like TOO much in words, but really, it was a crazy weekend. So I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

Friday Night: Food & Wine Festival (FWF) dinner at JCT Kitchen.
Where I met my new favorite cocktail: vodka, lime juice, maple syrup, white pepper and a tequila floater.
Seriously. So, so, SO good.  

Saturday morning: Festival at Riverview Landing
Playing in the sand ring
Carter says, "Mom, is there anything better than sand?"

Exploring the river
Anything to distract Carter from his demands that we take a dog home with us
(it was a dog-centric festival)

Saturday afternoon: the Fowlkes men head to the FWF
Ashley and I take four children under the age of 6 to the mall
All children survived and were allowed to ride the train
John opted to skip it in favor of milk with mom
Ashley and I actually manage to shop (briefly)
And we only buy one thing that's exactly the same (pretty amazing for us)

Thomas sends a photo of his point-of-view from the FWF
The "wine" part of the name is a bit misleading
There was wine, but there was also an abundance of beer, bourbon, pisco, vodka, tequila, moonshine, etc etc etc 

Later that afternoon, the cousins had some good outside fun

While I got busy steaming a LOT of veggies in preparation for smushing them for John
I'm pretty sure that this was my last batch of mush
By the time John eats all of this, I think he'll be on to all finger foods!

When Thomas returns from the FWF, the glass around his neck is empty

He takes a nap in the midst of the chaos
(remember: 4 children under 6 running about)

It really doesn't seem to bother Thomas

He did eventually perk up in time to eat again

Sunday morning: We're all up VERY early for Carter's last choir performance
(in my opinion, a big mother's day scheduling failure on the part of the church)
Carter did great, in part, (I think) because his ability to choose whether or not to be part of the choir again next year was predicated on him doing well. So he did. And I suspect that was his final performance.  

Saturday afternoon: Our turn at the FWF
Happy Mother's Day to us! 

Thomas and Park weren't able to do this on Saturday, so we got our glasses waxed by the Maker's Mark people 

Can we do this for Mother's Day every year?
Seriously. 

He Crawls!

He Makes Me Laugh

A couple of recent funnies from Carter...

A few weeks ago, we were eating ice cream and I told him about "brain freeze". After dinner tonight, he was eating one of our homemade strawberry popsicles when he gripped his head and said "Oh no! Mental cold!"

This evening, Carter was telling me that a friend in his class has broken his finger. I ask "How did he break it?" and Carter responds by bending his finger back, "Well, someone said it was like this." Next he bends his finger to the side, "But someone else said he did it like this." Okay, I asked the wrong question. So then I ask, "What was he doing when he broke his finger?" Carter says, "Hmm. I think it hurt really bad. He probably had to go to the clinic!" Silly me. Always asking the wrong questions.

Carter sees me writing this, asks what it is about, and asks me to add, "I hope that he gets better soon."

Recent Photos

John's first morning to pull up in his crib

Carter climbing to the TOP of this wall at Stone Mountain

My boys, with pretty classic expressions

Home!

Rachel recently did a nice post detailing her work travels, along with what her family was up to. I left town last Monday with aspirations to do a similar post about my 6 day, 5 night trip this week (my longest since John was born). Alas, much to Carter's chagrin, I neglected to take any photos, so I'll just say this:

I was in San Diego all week for the annual Boys & Girls Clubs of America national conference. I presented, networked, had a lot of meetings, went to a Padres game and saw several famous alums accept hall of fame awards (a few from this year: CC Sabathia, Ne-Yo and Cuba Gooding Jr). At one point, I snuck out to get a much needed massage. I returned home with the most milk I've hauled to date, and the San Diego airport didn't even screen it! I'm very happy to be home, and I'm also happy that John didn't start crawling while I was away. He did, however, start pulling up!