Halloween

Sorry it has taken awhile for this to get up. We've been pretty busy around here.

For Halloween this year, Carter dressed up as a Red Baron. Not our first choice, but the costume we borrowed was too small. However, he was absolutely adorable! He even kept the hat on for about two hours. No trick or treating this year, but he did sit in the wagon and "hand out" candy. I'll update you on Thanksgiving next week.

Carter's Accidents

Carter has been walking for about a month now, but he is still extremely clumsy. Of course, when he falls, he chooses to fall near sharp corners, tables, or head first. At daycare, he fell and bumped his right eye on a table. His eye swelled up pretty good, but not too much damage was done. Then, the following day, he decided to climb up on our fireplace and crawl around smiling at me as in "look what I'm doing, even though I'm not allowed". He then proceeded to get down from the fireplace head first. This escalated the bump into a nice shiner. The next day, we headed to NY for my cousin's wedding where family pictures would be taken. And, Carter has a exquisite black eye.

When we returned from NY, Carter ran into another table at daycare and scratched underneath is other eye. The next day, he gave himself a nice bump on the head when he fell into the steps that lead to the sink at daycare. Steve and I have decided that Carter needs excellent health insurance with a low deductible.

Look closely his right eye (the left side of the picture). It is multi-colored...blue, black, green, and brown.

Carter & Erin's First Fall

This month, we attended my cousin Becky's wedding in Swain, New York. We spent four days at my aunt and uncle's home in Rochester, where we spent lots of time with family. The weather was gorgeous, nice and cool for us Florida people. Since Florida only has two seasons-summer and winter-this was the first time that I had seen fall leaves. Our leaves in Florida go from bright green to nasty brown in a matter of weeks--no in between stages. I was the crazy person walking through the neighborhood taking pictures of individual trees. We took so many pictures, but here are the best ones.

Here is just one picture of a tree. I think I have over 20 pictures of trees.

This was the backdrop for my cousin's wedding. Her pictures are going to be absolutely beautiful. It took us many shots to get Carter to look at the camera, but the fingers won't come out of his mouth.

For the entire wedding ceremony, Carter sat on the ground, hit the ground and chairs with his bat, and ate Gerber Graduates and Goldfish.

This is how my cousin entered her wedding--on a ski lift. It was really neat. Guests could either take a tractor hay ride or the ski lift to the wedding ceremony. We chose the ski lift. :)

After the wedding, we put Carter in a "hay pile" (aka: dried up grass clippings). He hated it. This is him rolling around trying to get away from it.

After the wedding, Steve and I had a "brilliant" parent moment. We decided to take Carter back down the mountain on the ski lift. Horrible idea...Carter enjoyed about 2 minutes of it, and then, he wanted "down". Well, you can't just get down off a ski lift. So, 20 minutes later of Steve holding on to Carter who is bucking like a bull, and me singing songs to Carter to keep him somewhat calm, we made it to the bottom. I still have nightmares about it.

Our First Real Sickness Scare

It has been an interesting few days here in the Wagganer household. On Thursday, Steve picked Carter up from daycare, and was surprised to find out that Carter had been running a fever most of the day. When I got home from work, Carter looked terrible. We took his temperature, and it was 104! I bolted to the Internet, and our pediatrician's website said don't call until it is 105. We gave him some Tylenol and sent him to bed. Obviously, there was not much sleeping on my part that night.

On Friday, my mom came over to watch Carter. She said Carter was great all day, and didn't run a fever. When she dropped Carter off with me, I noticed he was running a low grade fever. By the time we got home, his temperature was 103 orally. So, off to the pediatrician we went. At the pediatrician, his temp was 104.5! They took some blood, gave him a catheter, and sent us home with a diagnosis of a viral infection. Great...we don't know what he has.

Three days worth of fluctuating fevers, bouts of diarrhea (one at Target in the shopping cart), a throwing up episode, tons of sleep (on Carter's part), non-stop crying, and severe crankiness I thought he might be back to normal today. Boy was I wrong. After an hour and a half at daycare, I got a phone call that Carter had not stopped crying since we dropped him off. So, off I go to get him and head back to the pediatrician. When I pick him up from daycare, they tell me he has a rash all over his body. My first thought was that he had chicken pox because he just had the vaccine this past Wednesday.

When we got to the pediatrician, of course we have to wait in the room for about 30 minutes. All Carter wants to do is "down" and "go" as he points to the door. Then comes the crying. I want to pull out my hair by the time the doctor arrives. She looks at him briefly and says its a common case of roseola. Roseola is a common childhood illness that begins with three days of high fevers, then the child breaks into a rash. The good news is that the rash is not itchy. The bad news that my child now looks like a strawberry. No professional pictures for his first birthday yet! Carter will be just fine and can go back to daycare Wednesday. It's nice to know that everything will be ok after a few days of craziness. Below are some pictures we took of his rash tonight.

Sea World

On Carter's birthday, Steve and I took him to Sea World. Both Steve and I get into Sea World for free because we are teachers, and Carter is free too. It was an inexpensive day full of great pictures. We only went to one show, Pet's Ahoy, because at this point, Carter doesn't know the difference :) We stayed about 3 hours, which was just long enough. No one was in the park, and we saw everything we wanted to see. Carter loved all the animals. His favorite place was the Shark Encounter. He loves fish, and it was a giant aquarium. However, everything we saw was a "dog". We saw fish-he points and says "dog". We saw the walrus--"dog". We even saw Shamu--"dog". It was cute. In the polar bear cave

Barracuda! It looks like the fish is going to bite him. :)

My favorite pictures of Carter and Steve with Shamu. Look at how small Carter is compared to the whale! He loved watching the "dog" swim past him over and over again.

Carter's New Chair

For Carter's birthday, our friends Ryan and Kelly bought him a rocking chair. It's not just any old rocking chair though. It is a Chicago Cubs rocking chair...Steve's favorite team. Carter loves it! His favorite thing to do in it is try to stand. We're working on that. Thank you Uncle Ryan and Aunt Kelly! (Steve is in Cubs heaven. I think he even tried to sit in the chair.)

Happy First Birthday, Carter!

So, after a couple months of planning and a lot of help, Carter's first birthday party went fantastic! His party was this past Sunday, at a park near our home. There were about 15-20 people there to help us celebrate. I am so glad that we had it at a park. Number 1-no clean up. Number 2-the park animals will eat all the cake that was dropped on the ground.

This is Carter's smash cake. I made it (a whole lot cheaper than Publix). We went with a dog theme because Carter says three words constantly now-- "Uh-oh", "ball", and "dog".

Testing out Mommy's handiwork to make sure it tastes good.
"Mom, here's the candle. It's in my way!"

Trying to share his yummy cake with others.

There were no takers on that one.

Taking big bites! Carter had a great time "smashing" and eating his cake. He made a huge mess! He kinda looks like Santa in these pictures. After the smash cake was "smashed", it was time to clean up. Of course, we forgot something--towels and baby wipes. Luckily, our friends Shawn and Jessica have a little one too, and they are always prepared. :) Shawn and Steve spent 10 minutes wiping frosting and vanilla cake out of every crack and crevice of Carter's little body.

Grandma and Grandpa Meeks bought Carter a popper for his birthday. He plays with this toy constantly, although he can't walk while pushing it yet. He's getting the hang of it though.

We brought out the bubble machine to the party. All the kids loved it!

This was one of the best $5.00 I ever spent.

Carter then got a little too close to the bubble machine. Commence the crying and bubble machine being turned off. He learned that you cannot try to drink out of the bubble machine while it is in operation.

Happy Birthday, Carter!

Smash Cake #1

We officially started Carter's first birthday a little early last week (his birthday is September 22nd). On Thursday, we had his first smash cake for Steve's dad. His dad works in Alaska two weeks out of the month, so he wasn't able to come to Carter's birthday party. So, Steve and I decided to have a small party for him before he went back to Alaska.

Carter had no fear! He stuck his finger in the icing, and once he realized it was sweet, he dug right in. However, I forgot to take off his clothes, so that was a fiasco trying to get off the icing covered onsie in the kitchen without smearing it all in his hair. The kitchen floor was full of vanilla cake and icing. The dogs had a field day licking up the leftovers.

Mmmmm...cake.....

Want some, Mom?

I will update you soon on his first birthday party, and Carter's first trip to SeaWorld on his first birthday. I have about 150 pictures to download first. They only turn one once!

Happy First Birthday to Maddie and Ruthie! We missed you!

Enjoy your smash cake too, says Carter. It's yummy!

Go Braves!

Although the Braves are awful this year, Carter still shows his team pride. This picture was too adorable...

Notice the new sneakers. Our child has to have Stride Rite, $52.00, sneakers because his feet are extra wide. Grandma and Grandpa Meeks are responsible for the next pair. :)

Goin' Hunting

One thing that I got Wrigley for was that I was going to compete her in hunting field trials. Now, I don't own a gun, nor do I know how to shoot one, so I will never actually go hunting. However, Wrigley was bred to run frantically through fields looking for birds, such as quail, and point them. See below--

About once a month, I go out with some friends to train Wrigley (she needs all the training she can get), and this month Steve and Carter went. I train out at a hunt camp, and we got some great pictures of Carter out there. We are all wearing hunter orange for safety reasons, not a fashion statement.

Daddy and Carter

Daddy's Birthday Weekend

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

August 29th was Steve's birthday. He is one year closer to becoming an "old man", as I endearingly call it. He turned 34 this year. This is Carter and Steve on his birthday morning. We all had to go to work (and Carter to daycare to play), but Steve and I went out to celebrate that night at a restaurant called P.F. Changs. It was the first time in awhile we had been out to dinner with out the "little man." It was very nice.

On Saturday, we went to my friend Shawn's wedding. Shawn and I were college roommates, and we share many embarrassing stories and some wonderful times. She has been dating her now husband for over 9 years! So, it was about time they got married. The wedding was about 2 hours from our house. My parents were supposed to watch Carter, but Steve and I couldn't part with him for all of Labor Day weekend. After all, we have just gone back to work, so we don't see him as often. The wedding and the reception were beautiful. The reception was outside and very hot, but Carter did great!

Steve and Carter at the wedding.

(We were smart and brought his high chair to keep him strapped down. Now that he can crawl, he wants to be on the go constantly.)

Erin and Carter at the wedding. Shawn's wedding theme was butterflies. During their first dance, the wedding party let go of monarch butterflies. It was really pretty. We tried to take pictures of Carter with a butterfly that landed near us after it was released. But, no picture. Carter wanted to grab it, so Steve kept having to move his hand away. So, here is the wedding favor, a cookie cutter. This was the best butterfly picture we could get.

Shawn and Ken entering the reception.

This was the only decent picture I got of the whole wedding.

On Sunday, we went to my parent's house, well, boat. There isn't much room for Carter to crawl around, but he finds lots of things to do, as you will see. This is a picture of a onsie my dad bought him of Jeff Gordon from NASCAR. I couldn't resist a picture of his little bootie while he was crawling around. This picture is why he wears this onsie a lot. It's so adorable!

So, Carter has learned to crawl over, under, through, and around things now. At daycare, he crawls over the soft gym set, and even sits still in a regular kids chair to eat his lunch. We can't even get him to sit still and eat his food strapped in his high chair (or keep him from throwing food he doesn't like on the floor). Anyway, this is a stool at my parents boat. Carter sat in front of the stool for a little bit, examining it, deciding if it could be fun. The chronicle of pictures shows the order of events with the stool.

Carter was playing near the stool. I asked Jamie to hold the stool in case Carter decided to play in it. Good thing I did.

Carter studied the bar and thought it would be a good starting point for this climbing adventure. He grabbed hold of the bar and contemplated his next move.

Carter then decided he should move into the stool. Still gripping the bar, he slowly moved one foot, then the other foot into the stool. He bumped his head a few times, but this did not slow him down. It only made him more determined.

Then, Carter thought it would be great fun to crawl out of the stool, over the bar. This took some concentration and problem solving. Both feet are still in the stool, and his hands are on the ground. Keep in mind, that Steve, Jamie, my mom and dad, and I are hysterically laughing through this whole event. Carter was taking this so seriously. There were only a few frustrated yells from him. At this point, Carter was perplexed. He had his hands out, but his darn feet wouldn't come out. So standing on his head, he stared at his feet for a moment wondering what was wrong and why they wouldn't get out of that dumb stool. He stayed in this pose studying his feet for about 30 seconds. (We are still laughing at him, and Carter is still taking this adventure very seriously.)
He figures out how to remove one foot, but now the other one is stuck. This took some concentration as well, but he freed himself in no time.
He is so proud of himself! Of course, we all cheered for him, and he gave a huge smile to his Uncle Jamie. Then, he went back and did the whole thing again.
On Monday, we spent the day shopping for Carter's one year birthday party. I can't believe how much work (and money) goes into such a thing! I hope the party is memorable...

By the way, my cousin's little girl, Maddie, who had heart surgery is now home and doing very well. We will miss the twins at the party, but I hope we can have them all celebrate together another year.