Multitasking

After doing chores yesterday, Carter is now multitasking!


He can eat Cheerios and ride on his bulldozer at the same time (and feed the dog). Charlotte is great for cleaning up any Cheerios that Carter drops or sends flying when he pulls them out of his cup.


During lunch, Carter suddenly discovered he has ears!


He hasn't quite learned the word yet, but we're working on it.

Doing Chores

Carter is already doing chores!


Not really ... he got ahold of the broom today and would not let it go. He took it with him everywhere downstairs. When I had to take him upstairs to change his diaper and to go to bed tonight, Carter screamed so hard. It was like he just hurt himself with the wailing he was doing. I wish he found a smaller item to make his favorite today because he kept getting stuck when he couldn't fit through doorways, etc and would scream until I helped him.


We went to Baby Bookworms today at the library. Carter did better. He's still not into sitting on my lap the whole time, but he stayed there for probably half of the time today. There were a couple of screams but no tantrums.

Belly Button Video

I was able to get Carter pointing out his belly button on video tonight. And then he was just being silly afterward - I have no idea what he was trying to do.

Playdate

We had Amy and Caitlyn over today for lunch and playing for a couple of hours. Carter and Caitlyn played really well together. There was very little toy taking and they were able to work everything out on their own when wanting the same toy. I think their favorite activity was playing in the ball pit.

Carter's finally getting to the age where he'll sort of play with other kids. Thank goodness because we still have a lot of winter left when all there is to do is play inside!

I took a few pictures of the kids before Amy and Caitlyn left. It was hard to them both to look up at the same time ...

11 Weeks

I am 11 weeks along today with baby #2 and can't believe how much I'm showing! I've put on about one pound so far but am already having a lot of trouble fitting into most of my normal clothes. I pulled out my box of maternity clothes this weekend but haven't started wearing any of them yet. When I was out running errands today, I looked through the maternity clothes at both Target and Old Navy and they had nothing cute at all. Hopefully the stores will have some stuff I like by the time I really start needing it.

Here's a quick picture I took today to show off just how big my belly is already ...

Belly Button

Carter has learned how to point to another body part (other than his nose). Lately, he'll lift up his shirt and scratch his belly (he's such a boy!). So today I told him he was pointing at his belly button and then asked again for him to point at his belly button and he lifted up his shirt again and found it. He'll also point to my belly button if I lift my shirt a little bit. He actually jams his finger into it - it kind of hurts!

We're discovering that Carter understands a lot of what we're saying too. We asked him a few times today to do random things and he did them (I can't remember what they were now). We're going to have to be a lot more careful with what we say around him!

Holiday Express

Carter and I met Sarah and Mary Grace at the UT Gardens today to check out the Holiday Express. This is how their website describes it:

"Holiday Express at the UT Gardens is a 4,000-square-foot garden railway display nestled in the beauty of the fall and winter UT Gardens. Featuring garden-scale model trains running through a perfectly proportioned miniature landscape, complete with rivers and waterfalls and decorated for the holiday season, the Holiday Express depicts the railroad history of the East Tennessee area over the period of the 1930s to present day."

The display was under a large tent that had a few heaters in it (thankfully because when we got there at noon, my car was registering only 31F!!!). As soon as we walked in though, I put Carter down and he did a face plant into a real railroad track and some mulch. After a bit of screaming and having a very dirty face cleaned up, Carter LOVED the trains. I don't know if he was trying to say "train" or not, but he was saying something repeatedly as he pointed at the trains going by.

Some pictures of the display ...




Checking out the trains ...




Carter and me ...


Mary Grace and Sarah ...


The UT train ...




There were 4 cars that were mini fish tanks. I say fish in them, but thought they must be fake because they weren't moving. One of the guys setting up the trains later told us that it was so cold that the water and frozen in the tank (but the fish were okay)!


The carnival display (everything was moving in it) ...


Happy boy ...


My FAVORITE picture of the day ...


Mary Grace gave Carter a hug and he hugged her right back. They kept giving each other hugs. Carter would lean into Mary Grace so much that he almost knocked her over a few times!

We had the place to ourselves except for one family that stayed for about 5 minutes. We hung around for about 45 minutes because Mary Grace and Carter seemed to love looking at everything. We probably could have stayed longer, but we were all starting to get pretty cold by then. I'm really glad we went though, and if we get the chance, we'll go back with Brian soon.

Attention Span

Carter usually has a VERY short attention span. I joke that he has ADD. I took a video today to show just how short his attention span can be. This is why I often get very little done during the day! Some side notes about the video:

1. I had to chop the video up into 4 parts because the blog wouldn't let me post such a large file.
2. The ball pit is what we got Carter for his birthday. I had gotten a baby pool at the end of the season for super cheap (like $2) and then we got 300 balls to fill it up with.
3. Carter loves to dance when one of his toys plays a song. It's so cute!
   
4. Carter is carrying around a washcloth because I was trying to fold laundry while he was playing and he got ahold of it and wouldn't let go of it.
5. He's not ALWAYS this bad. Sometimes he'll play with something for a couple of minutes!
   

This is another video I took today. I just thought it was cute!

Carter and I went to Mary Grace's preschool today to watch her in a Christmas parade. It was really cute and Carter loved watching all the people. Here's a really cute picture that Sarah took of the kids before the start of the parade ...

Nose and Other Stuff

Carter has learned where my nose is and where his nose is. If I have his attention (he ignores me often) and I ask him "Where's Mommy's nose?", he'll point to my nose. If I ask him "Where's your nose?" or "Where's Carter's nose?", he'll usually point to his nose. He just learned that one today so he'll still often enough point to my nose.

Carter's doing great walking. He's been a real pro for a couple of weeks now. I don't worry about him when he's out of sight anymore. He doesn't fall often and when he does, it's usually because he trips on something (not for no reason anymore).

Carter doesn't have any real words yet other than mama, dada, and dog. He says something like "that" when he points to something, but I'm not sure what he's really saying. It's the same sound all the time though. He may be saying a lot more, I'm just not understanding him yet. Also, Carter's stringing together a bunch of sounds like he's saying a sentence, but it's just gibberish. He does often seem to know what we're saying to him, he just hasn't figured out how to repeat many things he hears.

Christmas Card Picture Outtakes

I worked on getting a picture of Carter in front of the Christmas tree for three days. He wore the same outfit Friday, Saturday, and Sunday as I tried to get a picture good enough to put on our Christmas card.

I'm still not thrilled with the one I used, but it was the best we got. Here are some of the pictures that didn't make the cut but are still cute ...