Bring Your Kids to Work

Last week, we had Bring Your Kids to Work day at my office. This was the first year that Carter was old enough to attend. There were lots of games and activities for the kids, and Carter had a good time. His favorite part was "all of it."

Sight word relay for the 6-7yr olds

Tricycle racing
(Have you seen the Razor tricycles? They are super cool!)

I managed to get a whole hour of work done. And this is how...

It must be Father's Day

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Philly Trip

The week after Carter got out of school, I took both boys for a trip to Philadelphia to visit Patrick, Kirstin and Eavan. We played inside, played outside, visited the Franklin Institute, and (as always) ate very well!

We also took a side trip to NYC to visit Joo. Carter decided that Joo is his #1 BFF, and I don't think that it was totally due to the fact that she got him a cookie cake for a belated birthday treat. At first, Carter seemed a bit overwhelmed by the city of his birth, but he warmed up to it quickly. He walked a couple of miles the first day, and he definitely walked over a mile and a half without stopping or complaint the next morning.

Traveling with both boys on my own was tiring, but fun. It would have been a little more fun and a little less tiring if I hadn't gotten sick part way through.

I couldn't decide on just a few shots to share, so here's a slideshow of our week.



And here's a video of bubble-making in Central Park.

John's Funny Crawl

When John first started crawling, he had a really weird way of doing it. He still does this sometimes, but it's becoming less frequent, so I wanted to post a video so we never forget his original style!

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.