Soggy Halloween

Carter's first Halloween was a wet one. It rained most of the day but it was predicted to end by late afternoon. Well, that didn't happen. We did get a little break but it's been raining since around 5 pm and is still raining.

We took some pictures of Carter in his costume before Sarah, Brent, and Mary Grace got here ...


This one is my favorite ...






We tried to get a few pictures of the chicken and bee before heading out, but we didn't get any good ones, just this blurry picture ...


We took Carter and Mary Grace to about a dozen houses before the rain started getting heavy. They were a very cute bee and chicken and got lots of compliments. Mary Grace was excellent at saying "trick or treat" and "thank you" - hopefully she will teach Carter what to do next year!


Our neighborhood was an awesome place to trick or treat, even in the rain. There were tons of people out. It looked like a scene from a movie with all the kids running around. Neither of us remember it being like that when we were growing up. Hopefully next year won't be so wet!

UT Basketball Game

We took Carter to his first UT basketball game tonight. UT played North Alabama in an exhibition game. They had a promotion which got us free tickets for donating children's books. The tickets were for the 300 level, but we moved down to the 100 level during the middle of the first half to sit with Sarah and her family and friend.


Carter did really well.


He was really chill at first taking it all in but then was a bit of a squirm bug switching who he was sitting with ever few minutes. He was quiet though and seemed to like watching everything going on around him. The game didn't start until 7:30 pm (which is his normal bedtime) but Carter's been staying up to 8:30 pm the last few nights as we were getting ready for the end of Daylight Savings Time.


Around 9:20 pm, Carter couldn't keep his eyes open any longer and passed out on Brian.


We easily got him home without really waking him up. Once here, we got him ready for bed and I nursed him. He seems to be asleep now. Hopefully he sleeps well tonight and even sleeps in a little tomorrow!

Dancing

Carter has figured out how to turn on the music on one of his toys. Once it's playing, he likes to "dance". I caught this video tonight right before bath time - it's not the best, but it generally shows what he's been up to.

Ripley's Aquarium

Sarah and I took the kids to Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies in Gatlinburg today. Sarah has an annual pass and I got one too today so that we can go there a few times this winter when we won't be spending as much time outdoors.

Carter was a little less interested in the aquarium than he usually is, but I think that's because he's tired. He still hasn't adjusted to me trying to slowly prepare him for Daylight Savings Time ending. Even though he's going to bed almost an hour later, he's still getting up at his normal time of 6am or earlier. I think he still had fun though today!

It's always hard to get good pictures in an aquarium where it's dark so using the flash means you can't see the fish but not using the flash usually means either blurry kids or kids that are just shadows. We still managed a few cute pictures ...


Doesn't Carter look like such a big kid in that picture? He wasn't actually sitting there nicely and posing for me. I just happened to catch him when he was changing directions as he crawled on the little ledge at the base of the tank and this is the picture I got.

Matching

Somehow I always seem to dress Carter and myself alike lately. I don't do it on purpose, but I'll realize it after I have us both dressed for the day. Maybe I do it subconsciously?

For example, I'll have on a green sweater and brown shorts and end up putting Carter in a green shirt and brown pants. Here is what we wore today ...

Walking

Here are a few short videos of Carter walking. Charlotte wanted in on the fun and blocked the camera part of the time. Luckily she never took Carter!

Carter's balance is getting better and better. He's still only taking 5 or 6 steps at a time, but it's a start!

Illness

Carter may FINALLY be getting over his cold. He didn't cough today and his nose was less runny. Carter did manage to give me some of his cold though and I haven't had much of a voice this weekend.

We didn't do too much this weekend. The Parade of Homes is going on right now in Knoxville so we went to a few houses yesterday. We're trying to get some ideas on how to finish our third floor. I think we want to make that floor one big room that serves as a playroom / craft room / workout room. We'd love to do built-ins to increase the storage in that space. We didn't figure much out but it was fun to look at some houses!

Since daylight savings time ends next weekend, I've been slowly pushing back Carter's bedtime. Unfortunately he hasn't been getting up any later! I'm not looking forward to getting up by 5 am starting next week if he doesn't get used to sleeping later!

Today's Pictures

A couple of cute pictures from today ...



Carter has figured out "no". When he doesn't want something or doesn't want to give you something, he shakes his head "no". I haven't noticed him shaking his head "yes" yet.

Pumpkin Family

Here is our pumpkin family.


I wasn't really into doing messy pumpkin carving this year. Maybe we'll try it next year when Carter will be more interested in it.

Carter has finally mastered turning his walker around on his own. His new favorite game is to turn it around, aim for me, and go as fast as he can until he runs into me.

Oakes Farm

Sarah and I took the kids to Oakes Farm today. This is the other local farm that has a corn maze, hayrides, and a pumpkin patch. The farm isn't officially open during the week, but Sarah called ahead of time and found out that we could come anyway since they host school groups during the week.

We had gorgeous weather here today. Sunny and warm (in the upper 60s). So much better than last week!

The farm had several little areas set up for picture taking. We worked hard to get the kids to look at us and smile so we could get some good fall photos. I think we both got a few we are happy with!

There are some areas set up at this farm for kids to play. The school groups seemed to have taken over most of them, but Mary Grace tried out the giant slide!

After that we took the hayride out to the pumpkin patch. The pumpkin patch was actually a field filled with pumpkins that had already been picked. Even though we didn't get to pick the pumpkins off the vine, it was still a really good set up and we had fun looking for a pumpkin.

Ear Infection

Carter has his first ear infection - poor guy! However, he made it over 11 months before getting one. And today was the first time we had to take him to the doctor for an illness. So he's been a pretty healthy baby.

Carter's cold started with a runny nose on Saturday afternoon. He had some trouble sleeping that night but we only had to help him back to sleep once.

Carter's nose ran a lot on Sunday, but he acted normal. He started coughing a little in the afternoon, but it wasn't often. He slept a lot worse last night. He wasn't crying, but moaning like he normally does when he wakes up in the morning around 5 or 5:30 until I get him at 6am.

When Carter got up this morning, he just wasn't himself. He was crying (not the normal fussing) about everything. He also wanted to be held a lot which is not like him. We took his temperature and it was 101.1F. Because of the fever and how he was acting, I decided to take Carter in to the doctor. I was a little unsure because I didn't want to be the overprotective parent that takes their kid in with just a cold, but it turned out he has an ear infection in his left ear.

Carter has a prescription for amoxicillin and after taking that and some ibuprofen, he was already acting more normal this afternoon. He's taking a long nap right now which will hopefully help as well.

Carter got weighed at the doctor's office today. He was very upset while we tried to weigh him and wouldn't sit still so we had to guess on what number we were seeing most often. With a wet diaper on, he weighed 18 lb, 12 oz. Subtracting for the heavy diaper, he probably actually weighs around 18 lb, 10 oz. So he's probably gained about 1.25 lbs in 2 months. I think that puts him in about the same percentile as 2 months ago (6-7%).

More Charlotte Pictures

Charlotte is scared of the vacuum and hides when it's on. Today she went into her crate and Carter followed her in there. We usually try to make Carter leave Charlotte alone when she's in there because we consider it her space but we couldn't resist taking a few pictures before pulling Carter out.

Dog

Here's a video from today of Carter petting (or hitting) Charlotte and saying "dog" ...

Charlotte used to be so scared of cameras. We have very few pictures of her from the first few years we had her. She's finally gotten used to cameras now that they are out all the time to take pictures of Carter.

11 Months Old - First Steps!!!

Carter is only one month from being a year old! Wow! Brian and I were looking at pictures last night that we took of Carter's first few months and we are amazed by how quickly he's turned into such a big kid!


Carter took his first steps tonight!!! Unfortunately Brian wasn't home when he did it so only I got to see them. Carter stood in place all on his own for a second or two and then took three or four steps to me and grabbed on to me. He was really balanced and didn't fall into me, just walked to me upright. He did that five times and then was over it. He was really happy with himself though and laughing. He knew he was doing something new.


Carter is getting more personality all the time. It's getting easier to make him smile and laugh. He's been such a serious baby and it's fun to see him happy. Carter's also perfecting his wave which is sometimes just with a hand on his outstretched arm and sometimes his entire arm. He's starting to wave to more people and not just to us or the dog anymore.


When it's just the two of us, Carter is good at playing/exploring on his own as long as he can see me. If I leave the room, he usually screams and follows me. The other day I managed to leave a room without him noticing, but when he did notice, he said "mom" and then went looking for me. He doesn't say "mom" to me very often. He usually says it to someone else once I leave.


I tried Carter's Halloween costume on him today and tried to take a couple of pictures. I didn't really get any good ones, except this one, which is just funny. This is what happens when a chicken crosses the road on Halloween ...

Cabinets

I haven't put locks on the cabinets in the upstairs bathrooms. I haven't decided yet if I even want to.

We don't keep much in the guest bathroom cabinets and this is what Carter has discovered he can do:

Books and Blooms

Carter and I finally went back to Books and Blooms at the UT Gardens. I had known that they were doing a fall program but kept forgetting to check to see if it had started up. Sarah reminded me about it a couple of weeks ago and since Mary Grace has fall break from preschool today, we met up down there.

It was raining again today so the program was inside. Either too many of the kids that came in the summer have school or the rain kept people away because there were only 3 other kids there today. It was nice for us though because we could sit on the floor up front with the kids and there was plenty of room to listen to the stories and do the craft without getting smothered by older kids.

Mary Grace and Carter hung out on the blankets looking at books before the program began:



The theme today was dogs and there was a therapy dog in the class. She was a six year old golden retriever named Maggie. Carter loved looking at her and tried to say "dog" and "doggie" a few times.

Carter did pretty well during the reading of the books. He sat quietly for the first book but got a little bored by the second one. He crawled over to Sarah a few times and wanted to hang out with her. He got a little chatty too but wasn't too disruptive.

For the craft we made boo-boo bunnies. They are very cute, though not really age appropriate for Carter and even Mary Grace with the small pieces we glued on.



I'm glad we finally went back to the program and got to go with Sarah and Mary Grace. I think Carter had fun too. One of the best part of this program is that it's at the UT Gardens which is a great place to picnic afterward but since it was raining we just went out to lunch instead.

Rain, Rain, Rain

It's been raining a lot the last few days. Sarah and I have been trying to get together to catch up and decided to walk at the mall this morning before it opened. It actually ended up not being that bad walking there. I think we'll be going back on rainy and really cold days!

I headed over to the Farragut library right after walking for Baby Bookworms. Luckily the good librarian was back to lead the class. It wasn't very full either so we had a really good time. Carter doesn't like sitting in my lap the entire time anymore, but he's still pretty well behaved. He doesn't crawl far away from me yet so it's still easy to keep him from bothering other people. His favorite thing is when I lift him into the air during one of the songs. He was all smiles during class even though he'd only had two 10 minute naps in the car and not a normal morning nap in his crib.

After storytime, we met Brian for lunch. Carter and I have been trying to meet up with Brian about once a week lately. It's nice to get to see him in the middle of the day. We headed home after lunch and played there the rest of the day.


As usual lately, we had some trouble getting Carter to eat dinner. He didn't want his breakfast this morning and it was hard to get him to eat much dinner tonight. What's happened to my good little eater?!? Even with foods that aren't new, Carter blocks me with his hands when I bring a spoon towards his mouth and throws food on his tray to the floor. He's usually pretty good about eating in the middle of the day so maybe he's just not that hungry at other times. I don't want to create any bad habits by forcing food on him if he's not hungry but he's such a little guy still that I don't want to starve him either.


Carter doesn't eat much food that we eat yet. I usually try to put something on his tray during most meals but it often ends up on the floor for Charlotte. Charlotte never used to be interested in most human food but she'll eat just about anything now. I try to beat her to it and pick it up, but she's often faster than me.