Christmas in review...

CWH had his own little tree he decorated

We all had a great Christmas, except Steve had to work on Christmas eve, Christmas day, and the following weekend. The weekend before Christmas was our Wolfe and Dugas Christmas party that was at BeBe and Pop Pop's new house. We've really got the Chinese Christmas thing down...it went very smoothly and I think everyone ended up with something they wanted. The outdoor fire was nice, and it as nice to have a new baby in the family (Dausen).

On Christmas eve, Carter and I got dressed up for the candlelight service at church, but on our way to pick up Steve from work, Steve called to say it would be at least another hour before he was ready. Carter and I headed to Barnes and Noble so that he could play with the Thomas the Train set - he entertained himself for at least and hour and twenty minutes, and still didn't want to leave. He was crying "Gordon! Gordon!" as we left the store (one of the trains). We didn't make it to the candlelight service, but we did make it to Candelaria's for a nice family Christmas Eve dinner. We checked out the lights in River Oaks afterwards - Carter likes to point out all the Christmas trees.

Christmas day was spent at Katy at the Carltons, where we had a big feast and presents. We are up to our eyeballs in toys. I am desperately trying to keep all the pieces to everything together, but he keeps hiding things in our shoes, in random drawers, etc. I think CWH really likes the customizable play table we bought - we bought the tool kit and the kitchen kit that goes with it. The doctor kit he'll get for his birthday, which we are starting to plan.

Cute things he does nowadays...CWH is on a first name basis with us. In the morning, he stands in his crib and hollers "Er-ca, Steeeve, Er-ca, Steeve" until we come get him. Still a picky eater, likes straw-bees (strawberries). Straw-bees is actually the same word for his toy "screwdriver". I had fun keeping him while Steve was at work, but it certainly makes one appreciate stay-at-home moms! CWH loves roll call of all his family members - he's always running through everyone's name...BeBe, Pop Pop, Jen-NAH, Zee Zee, Granny, Scott-tee, Paw Paw etc.

Halloween costume/Almost over croup...

School Halloween Party

Carter's Elmo Pumpkin

Little man's been sick this week, spending his days lounging in his jammies. We've been blessed with lots of family help. Can climb into the bathroom sink apparently. Saw his first snow last week!

Baby's first..... PINK EYE!

Pink eye is expensive!

25$ doctor copay....66$ eye drops......3$ Thomas the Train flashcards to keep CWH occupied while the drops go in....

The good news is he's gained a pound in a month! I am one of those annoying moms that constantly worries her kid isn't eating enough/growing enough.

Our trip home is postponed a day, will reassess the situation in the morning.

Happy Thanksgiving anyway!!

22 Months - It's all about Thomas!

Go! Go! Thomas!

It's all about Thomas the Train. A $10 wood train goes with CWH everywhere, including bed. Today he is decked out in his Thomas shirt. New sayings: "Ready, set, go!" before pushing his cars. "Bed?!" when we try to rock him to sleep - he doesn't want to be rocked anymore :(
My favorite - hug attacks! Likes books, watches way too much TV. Went pee pee in the potty a couple of weeks ago! Apparenty, he does that from time to time at school. I don't think we are ready for that....Maybe when he's two...

He's still our biggest joy.. 22 months later, it still feels like Christmas each morning as we go into his room to say good morning. What a great way to start the day!

20 1/2 months

Here's a few pics - one of Steve and me since we never take pics of ourselves anymore, just CWH. The other are of CWH's first Astro's game.

Since the last post, I am happy to be home for a while after trips to Palm Springs, CA and Cleveland, OH. CWH is bonded more to Steve due to my absence, so it's time to set things right again :)

His big things now - always wearing the Cars backpack, learning to "pick up" his toys before bed. Matchbox-type toy cars are huge for him right now. Used to spend forever in the tub, now he hates it. Feeds the cat - gets the huge tupperware container out of the closet and everything. Got a couple head bumps at his day care, which made me sad, but didn't bother him much. Praying for protection from H1N1. Glad autumn is here - looking forward to spending some time outside!

19 1/2 mos Family Picture Day!

Here are some pics of picture day with my family and Carter's aunt Linz's family. Uncle Scotty took the kids for ice cream while we picked out the pictures.

We bought Carter his first potty this past weekend. He's a little young, but the day will be here soon. I came home to find Steve already took it out of the box and let him play with it. I missed his first moment seeing his new potty! It's now in the bathroom for him to get accustomed to it, it just needs batteries (so it can cheer for Carter after he goes!). It even has a fake handle to flush.

19 1/2 mos Catching up on photos!

Carter had fun at the Hermann Park Splash area this summer. He's hanging on to his Cars sippy cup in the middle pic- he has a Cars couch, Cars push car, Cars shirt, Cars sippies, Cars punching bag, Cars matchbox cars - he really should watch the movie at some point.

19 months...and 1 day

Just a short and sweet update....new words today - "nana" (banana) and key. loves the old-school blow up bopping bag (the one with sand in the bottom). Likes to shake his finger at us and say " No, no no!" and fusses at us, although we can't understand the details of the fussing. Had a good time this past weekend with his Granny/PawPaw while Steve and I went to Austin (I kayaked for the first time - usually not the outdoorsy type but it was fun!). CWH still tortures the cat and the cat allows it. He usually is a good sleeper, but has some bad nights (I've been up since 2:30 am!). He's gaining proficieny with spoon/fork. LOVES "gogurt" - will eat two a day or more. Loves Sonic drinks...

I've got cute pics on my camera that I need to upload soon!

18 months!

CWH turned 18 months last Friday. He spent a few days at his BeBe and Pop Pop's and had fun at a waterpark in Louisiana. The bad news is that he has "herpangina", a viral infection that has caused sores in his mouth and high fever (up to 103.6). He is better today, but wont eat or drink much (lots of popsicles). BeBe is on her way, as Steve is home sick as well :)

The pic is from June - CWH is heading to school on Splash Day!

Little man is 17 months and doing well after surgery

Here are some pics of CWH playing in sand at his BeBe's house. It's been an exciting time for him this month. He started at the UT Child Development Center June 1, and as expected, the first few days were a transition for both of us. He's adjusted quite well. It's been almost a month and no illnesses. They have fun activites like splash time and popsicles. However, we surely appreciate all the love and kindness that his previous sitter showed him before he went off to "school". We do hope to keep in touch!

CWH spent three nights at his BeBe and PopPop's house while Steve and I went on vacation. It was our SEVEN year anniversary, can you believe!? We had a lovely time at La Canterra in San Antonio. CWH apparently didn't miss us too much, and even slept good away from home, which is unusual. He even had a play date.

CWH had surgery on Friday (June 26) for bilateral inguinal hernia and hydrocele repair. We were headed home after the 8:15 am operation by 9:10 in the morning! CWH did great, although we were all quite anxious to have it over with. He was chasing the cat after about an hour of being home.

New words that I can think of off the top of my head - apple, happy, abby (abby cadaby on sesame street? dunno.) He likes to play peek a boo, and sometimes uses his feet for peek a boo when in the car. He will sort of slap your face and laugh, which, of course, is not funny. He has learned to pull the cat's tail, and takes his Lighting McQueen car all over the house. He can work chunky puzzles. Still a picky eater, but favorites are chicken rings, oatmeal, cheese, and he likes to suck the juice out of apples and spit out the rest. He now takes one long nap after lunch. Not sure how long he would sleep, because we wake him after it's been three hours!

That's enough for now!

16 month old little mister!

Mr. Carter turned 16 months old this past Sunday. Thanks to Jeremy for taking our pictures! The bottom one is a pic from the zoo today. CWH is more interested in touching signs, trash cans, and climbing on things than watching the animals.

This week we found out we got a spot for Carter at the UT Child Development Center near our house. Carter has been so well cared for by his sitter, and she and her family have given him so much love. We have been really blessed to have a place like that for Carter to go. I always knew it would be emotionally hard to transfer him to "school", but it seems to be time. We will at least give it a shot.

I have missed my little man recently as work has taken up all my energy and then some. I think things will get better in the next few months at work. My family deserves more of my time than I can give them right now. Carter is growing into a little boy too quick to not cherish more of this time wtih him!

Check-ups and Crayons

Little man had his 15 month checkup on April 23. I was nervous that such a picky eater would have fallen off his growth curve. Sure enough, he went from 25th percentile down to 8th percentile. I was thinking of ways to add heavy cream and fat to all his meals, but when the pediatrician came in, it turned out that the nurse had just plotted his weight wrong on the growth curve. He's still actually 25th percentile! The numbers are:

Weight: 22 pounds 14 ounces (25th percentile)

Height: 31 1/2 inches (60th percentile)

Head circumference: 19 inches (85% percentile) (His head is bigger to hold his extra-intelligent brain :)

He is still a sweetie. We're anxiously awaiting some new words. He does blow kisses and wave "Hi" to strangers. The pictures are him drawing with his first set of crayons. Apparently toddler crayons are triangular now. The middle pics are a father/son trip to the zoo while I was working today. The last pic is Carter playing with his bath letters his ZeZe bought him.

CWH gives good hugs, and still wants mommy to rock him to sleep. I am a little embarrassed to say we still use the bottle at times, but it's the only way to get milk into him. Otherwise, he will occasionally sip from the sippy cup, and the milk gets warm and I wonder if it's still good, and spill-proof isn't really spill-proof.

We're back!

After a long hiatus, the Carter Chronicle if finally back online. Our camera had stopped communicating with our computer, and we just got a new Canon Elph, so we are good to go.

Today's was Carter's 2nd Easter, and he spend it in Cleveland/Coldspring with the Hightower family, including his great-grandmother, MawMaw Hightower. He had a good time playing on the piano and hanging out with his cousins Lauren Jillian. When we got back to Houston, we went to the Garden Center for some photos. 15 month olds don't stay still long, so there were lots of shots of him running off. Today he discovered a new favorite food - cucumbers! He's got a lot of back teeth coming in, so I'm sure it feels good on his gums. The temper tantrums are getting a little more intense, and are most likely to occur when it's time to get in the high chair!

Carter's First Birthday!

Gymboree Day

We had a coupon for a Gymboree class so we though we would check it out. Carter had a blast, and we had a blast watching him! It was a nice break from Carter's condo-life. He loved the bubbles, the parachute, and just wandering around in general.

Carter's First Haircut

Carter had his first haircut yesterday, after much resistance from BeBe and Pop Pop. He slept 95% of the time! He even slept through much of the clippers. His Dad had a haircut first. We went to TGF Haircutters b/c they had a cute car you could sit in, but I just held him the whole time.

In other news, we are going to a class at gymboree today for the first time! Carter is broadening his food menu - yesterday was the first drive-thru chicking nuggets! His favorite is tex-mex. We're also transitioning to whole milk and off the bottle.

Holiday Update - Baby's 1st Christmas

Unfortunately, our digital camera isn't communitcating with the computer, so pictures will be delayed. It's time to update anyway!

This has been a bittersweet Christmas this year. My work schedule has been very taxing on Carter and Steve, and there wasn't much time for the usual Christmas celebrating. No tree or decorations, and presents were bought at the last minute. We even went through all the trouble to get Christmas cards made, and they didn't even get mailed! Of course, all these things arent't the point of Christmas anyway, but it will be fun to do them next year when Carter is older. My supervisor was very kind and I was off on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, so we were able to spend some time with Steve's family. I know it was a hard Christmas for them this year as it was the first without two of their grandparents.

We celebrated Christmas with my family the weekend before Christmas, and Carter has so many toys we don't know where to put them. ( I started with getting rid of our collection of VHS tapes!). We only got Carter and little Cars couch for him to watch TV. He got enough from everyone else (but he still prefers playing with our cell phone the most). Speaking of TV, Carter pulled up on the entertainment center this morning, turned the TV on, and scrolled though the channels unitl he found the cartoon he wanted to watch. How about that?

The big news is that Carter started walking just about on his 11 month birthday. He's still a little shaky, and has the bruises to prove it, but he gets better every day. He REALLY needs a haircut ("Is your baby a girl or a boy") but BeBe and Pop Pop are quite opposed, so I figure I won't get his first haircut today as planned since it is Pop Pop's birthday after all. Carter's also been clapping and is quite proud of that, he dances to the TV now, and he does some silly thing were he clasps his hands together and twists back and forth.

Carter sort of has a second word besides MaMa. He calls our cat Sally "So". He only says it when pointing at her, except sometimes he uses it for our cat Harry as well (who looks the same as Sally).

Catching up...

There are a lot of things besides blogging that I should be doing right now, but I am going to do it anyway. My work schedule has been quite busy the last few weeks, and my pager doesn't stop. Today I tried to take a nap twice, but got paged before I could fall asleep. I even had time to go get a manicure/pedicure, but was too exhausted to even do that! I figure a little blogging about all the good things going on in our lives would lift my spirits.

Phoenix trip - Steve and I had a nice time in Phoenix. The resort, the Phoenician, was beautiful, and had lots of places to hang out and enjoy the scenery. They back of the resort was basically multiple levels of outdoor seating areas, complete with fire pits to stay warm. I was in conferences all day, but Steve got to hang out by the pool and climb Camelback mountain. We missed our little man, especially that last day. We couldn't get home fast enough to see him.

Thanksgiving - We went down to my cousin's Cindy's house north of Orange. Getting there was a challenge. Usually Carter just sleeps on the 2 hour trip. This time, it took about 3 stops to get out of the care and see why he was crying wildly (we took two cars). Nothing was really wrong - dry diaper, not hungry; he had just had enough of the car seat. Once we got there, Carter enjoyed watching the cows up close and personal. We stayed in town so BeBe and PopPop could watch Carter while I worked on a work project.

Christmas pictures (this story really deserves it's own blog entry)- My schedule hasn't allowed anytime for taking Carter's Christmas pictures, but I wasn't going to let that stop me. Turned out to be a crazy day. First of all, going to take Carter to Picture People by myself is not the greatest idea. It's truly a two-person deal. We pulled up to the Galleria and parked, and I got the stroller out. We had just driven in from Orange, and I had made it to our appointment just in time. This valet person then informs me that this part of the parking garage that usually isn't valet, all of a sudden is, even though there are no signs marking it as such, and I need to pack it up and find another place to park. I offered to pay valet, but they only took cash or check, neither of which I had. I was livid at that point. It was just a sign of things to come...

Fast forward to getting pictures made. Carter had a cute reindeer sweater vest, so I bought him a reindeer stuffed animal to hold. Turns out he hates it, and kept pushing it out the way. I also brought a strand of battery operated Christmas lights that I though would be a cute prop, but he would not keep them out of his mouth. Everytime I put him down on the floor for the photographer to take a pic, he would turn around and try to crawl up the backdrop, which just cracked him up. It's amazing we got any good pics ( we did!)

It was going to be 20 minutes to see our photos, so my bright idea was to get in line to see Santa. We waited 40 minutes. Carter's diaper has never leaked in 10 1/2 months (which is a blessing in itself!) but for some reason, it was our turn next and I noticed his jeans were soaking wet. I basically told Santa we weren't going to wait in line again, so I was going to put a burp cloth under Carter to keep Santa's costume dry. Carter just stared at Santa like "what in the world am I doing on this person's lap?" and we got a cute pic. No smiling, but no crying either.

I then proceed to change his diaper back at Picture People. His jeans are wet, and I didn't bring a change of pants. So yes, that was me with the baby in the button-down dress shirt and a diaper and no pants! Soooooooo tacky, but I had come so far that day, I wasn't leaving without my pictures!! And somehow during the diaper change I managed to get the lid off the container of Gerber puffs so that they all spilled out on the bathroom floor!

We came home exhausted, both or our pride had been hurt, but I sure am proud of those pictures!

What else is new... We continue to experiment with solid food, which makes me nervous. Carter took down some Tex Mex yesterday - beans, rice, and shredded cheese. He sat in the high chair and ate the entire time we were at the restaurant. He also likes teething biscuits, puffs, and the Gerber Wagon Wheels. Dado (his sitter) says he loves bread. He also loves yogurt, and drinks the drinkable yogurt through a straw. He will stand for 3-5 seconds, and gets closer to walking everyday. He loves books, and of course TV, and big cardboard boxes. He hates the high chair. We aren't going to make it to the one year mark before his first haircut. He says a lot of "doh!" and what sounds like "wow", and has 3 and a half teeth on top, two on the bottom. And, as always, he has more energy than both Steve and I put together!

Bittersweet...

Today Steve and I are going to a conference in Scottsdale, Arizona and will be gone 3 nights. Our little one is well taken care of, but it was hard to say goodbye. This is our first venture out for more than one night since Carter's been born (minus my stay at the hospital), so we will try to enjoy it.
We saw a 5th tooth last night, which explains a lot the last couple of weeks. He is doing great, except a little runny nose. He needs a haircut so bad, and is getting a mullet. I can 't bring myself to do it yet. He has said mama a few times, and is getting stronger in regards to trying to stand and walk. He is an absolutely joy and we are really enjoying him right now. He is worth the exhaustion!

Happy Halloween!

Carter's outfit from BeBe says "Little Monster". Of course, he's really a sweetie, but it was a rough night. He was up from 1:30 am to about 4 am with teething issues, so we're a little sleepy around here. He's otherwise doing fine... it got a little cold here this week. The only thing cuter than a nekkid baby is a bundled up, snuggly one!