Carter the Explorer

      Right by our house is a huge mountain that people like to hike.  Blair and I don't consider ourselves outdoorsy people; we prefer to stay in the air conditioning.  Therefore we could never manage such a hike, so we took a nature walk along the base of the mountain.

C'mon Dad, enough with the kisses!

Carter and mommy, is he not the cutest little guy?!

Our village is Cheung Muk Tau, right down there, and beyond those highrise apartments is the ocean.

Here Carter let's touch this potentially toxic plant.

Carter's 1st Christmas

We went to visit Santa and to be honest, he was quite a grump!  Carter kept looking at Santa and then back at us.  After about 5 pictures, he started crying.  I was trying to take a few more pics, then Santa said "I think that's as good as it's gonna get."

Thanks Gram and Pop for this pair of pajamas!  I can't wait to see what else I got under the tree.

Carter Claus and his little elf were so sweet together. 

Carter genuinely seemed excited to open his gifts and play with them.  He was much more interested than I thought he would be.  Santa got him his first guitar, a xylophone, books, stacking cups, clothes, pop up weasels that you hit with a hammer, and doggie slippers.  He still has some gifts coming from Gigi and Granddad.  Thank you everyone for all my gifts! 

I got this cake idea from my best friend, Micheal.  I thought it was a great way to show kids the real reason for Christmas.  Crafty ole Blair designed the cake and then I ate most of it.  Next year, Carter can help with the design.

My very 1st Christmas was the best!  I can't wait until next year when I can get even more involved.

9 Months Old

      Since I've been off work for the holidays, I've really been able to see Carter develop and learn so much just in the span of a week.  He is 9 months old and has never been more fun.  I can't believe the changes and how fast they happen.  The biggest accomplishment is that Carter can stand by himself now.  Once he gets his balance he smiles so big and laughs.  It's weird how much pride I feel when I see him learn something new like that.  He also cruises around the couch and coffee table a little bit.  Mostly he'll just stand there holding on to the furniture.  We finally lowered his crib so that he won't try to escape.

    Carter has started impersonating Stevie Wonder.  If we turn our head from right to left Carter will copy us.  It's hysterical!  I feel like my sister when she trains sea lions to do silly tricks.  Listen carefully to hear me snort with laughter.

    The crawling is still too tricky for little stinky.  He gets in position from sitting, but his legs always slide out from under him.  Does anyone think he'll walk first?  I think so.  He's started babbling more with a wider range of sounds.  He's got the vowels and b, d, m, y, and r sounds.  If he drops a toy, I say "uh-oh" and he'll repeat the "uh" part.  Still saying mama and dada randomly.  He has started finding certain behaviors funny and laughing pretty hard, like when I fling my hair forward and back like a headbanger.  He's crazy over peek-a-boo and that usually gets some laughs.  He likes being tickled and when you pretend to eat his fingers or feet.  At his last immunization appointment he weighed 20 lbs. and when he got his shot he didn't even make a peep.  What a tough dude!  I think that about sums up his latest developments.  

9 Months In

9 Months Out

    

Little Snaggletooth

At 7 1/2 months Carter got his first tooth and just a few days later his second tooth broke through.  He has been fussier than usual, but the teething didn't effect his sleep, thankfully.

8 Months Old

Carter's recent developments:

• Can pinch with his fingers and pick up tiny objects.
• He is "trying" to drop his 3rd nap and eat dinner with us.  I'm not ready to lose his 3rd nap.
• Can say "mama", "dada", and "baba" without meaning anything.
• Pulls himself up to a standing position in his crib and on a chair.
• Knows how to transfer his weight and step forward when you hold his hands.
• He's not growing as fast anymore and he's taller and skinnier now.  
• Loves feeding himself finger foods.
• Turns in a circle while laying on his belly.
• Had 3 weeks of stranger anxiety, then it went away.
• Has 2 bottom teeth.
• Likes to wave bye-bye.
• Shows a sense of humor (Likes fart sounds)
• Has many tickle spots.
• Kind of reaches for me, but not really.
• Seems like a totally chilled little dude, very adaptable and happy.  

He was so adorable playing on "big kid" toys.

At a birthday party for one of our friend's 2 year old.

Carter's 1st Halloween

I'm a little lamb

Sure is hot in this get up.

Give me that hat

Please notice the saddest pumpkin ever.  This is all we could find.  It was so awful, you couldn't even carve it.

My buddy Oakley is only 5 weeks old

Kathie and Tom carved this amazing owl

The spread

7 Months Old

Dear Carter,

    Each month with you is even more fun than the last.  Your face lights up the whole room.  You are already 7 months old, can you please slow down!  I'm not ready for you to stop being a little baby.  This past month you've made it hard to eat out.  You can grab anything you set your mind to, which makes it very hard to take our eyes off you.  You even throw little tantrums when you can't have our cell phone or camera.  I'm torn because I want to give you everything you want and I can see how badly you want Daddy's iphone.  You start breathing heavy when you get close to it and when you manage to grab it, you're so happy.  I see now why all these toddlers have ipads and iphones on the train. 
    I'm so proud of you for being an adventerous eater.  You will try anything and usually you love it.  You have inspired me to eat more leafy greens.  You've eaten more spinach and green beans than I have in my whole life.  I hope you continue being this open-minded to food.  You even tried your first finger food and chewed it up with no problems. 
   You have started laughing more frequently and babbling.  This week, you have been saying, "Mama mama."  I've never heard a sweeter sound.  You'll repeat it after me and you will say it when you wake up.  You don't know you're saying my name yet, but it still makes me so happy. 
   Also you learned to bounce!  You just started doing it when I would hold you in a standing position.  I thought you must be ready to do your Johnny Jump Up and sure enough you know how to get it going now.  You really like it. 
   I've been trying to teach you some sign language and this month you learned to wave "bye-bye".  It takes you a few minutes of watching us and then your little hand will float up and start opening and closing.  I couldn't believe it the first time I saw you do it.  You are so smart!
  You haven't gotten any teeth yet and you aren't crawling, but I can feel a breakthrough coming soon.  Daddy and I love you more than you could ever imagine. 

                                                                                                                                    Love,

Mommy and Daddy

Canadian Thanksgiving

   Last week we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving with some friends from school.  We'll take any opportunity to eat turkey and home-cooked food.  Our friend Tim was gracious enough to allow non-Canadians to come and enjoy the festivities.  My favorite part was seeing Carter play with Malachi, our friend's 8 month old.

we were suppose to wear red

momma to be, Emily

Blair and Rus

Malachi and Carter

"Here, we can share"

"Would you like to share this red balloon, Carter?"

"I'm tired of all this sharing!"

Side ponies with our side babies

Amber has 3 boys.  She's a super mom!

  

So healthy

   It looks like a Farmer's Market at my house.  My kitchen has never seen so much produce.  At this very moment we have papaya, lemon, kiwi, oranges, pears, mango, banana, parsley, cucumber, carrots, sweet potatoes, limes, lettuce, tomatoes, pumpkin, spinach, and green beans.  That's completely unusual for us.  It all started when I bought a baby cookbook and became inspired to make my own baby food.  We went out a got a fancy new blender and a few veggies.  After successfully making carrot, pumpkin, and spinach baby food, I went nuts and bought a lot more produce.  Not only am I making food for Carter, Blair and I have been making smoothies too.  I'm so full of fruit right now!  My friend, Emily, even got me putting spinach in my smoothies.  You can't even taste it.  Since I'm getting so healthy, I had to balance it out with dessert smoothies.  So I bought chocolate and peanut butter to make milkshakes.  Also, I'm working on a caramel frapuccino recipe.  It's like I've discovered a blender for the first time in my life.  We haven't had one the past 2 years.  You guys know t's the little things that entertain me.   

Tossing and Turning

  The other day we put Carter down for a nap and thirty minutes later we heard him crying.  It's a good thing we went in to check on him.  Here is what we found:

He was on his back in the middle of the crib when we put him down.

At first we were scared, but he was just fine.

Latest Videos of Lil' Stinky

6 months post partum

       It's been 6 months since that traumatic, glorious day when my little guy was born.  I wanted to document my journey, so I can look back one day.  My recovery was very fast after having Carter, but I'm still not back to my old self completely.  I'm the new and improved me, with an appetite like Takeru Kobayashi, the competitive hot dog eating champion.  It's all because of nursing, which doesn't explain my eating up until Carter.  I'm burning 500 calories a day, is that per feeding?, I wish!  Seriously, I think I'm always hungry, especially for sweets.  Please pray for my addiction to sweets (I'm eating cookie dough as I type).  Blair's concerned about me.   :)  That being said, I'm still 7 pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight.  My tummy may never look the same, but I'm ok with that.  I read that my hair would fall out more than usual and boy does it ever.  I can't believe how much hair I shed everyday.  I hope it stops soon.  Maybe due to my lack of exercise and addiction to sweets, I still struggle when walking upstairs and hills, like I did when I was pregnant.  I feel so out of shape, huffing and puffing up the stairs.  The one work out I do is picking up Carter all day, he has got to be over 20 pounds now.  He's packing on the pounds now that he's eating solids.  Also, it's a blessing in disguise that my school has 7 floors and I'm on level 6; I'm up and down those stairs all day long.  I also walk to work everyday (and taxi it home).  God helps me out by making some exercise unavoidable.  Other than that, I feel great, full of energy, and getting by just fine with work.  To be honest, I can't wait to go through the whole experience all over again.  Isn't funny how you completely forget 9 months of crazy symptoms, followed by the scariest medical event of your life, and then look forward to going through it all again?  I find that very interesting and I'm glad that you only remember the best details when you look back.   

6 months old

   
    Precious Carter is now 6 months old!  What a difference each month makes.  I went to visit a friend's newborn baby yesterday and I couldn't believe how much bigger Carter looked compared to him.  Carter looks so much sturdier these days.  He can sit up on his own now, which gives us a little more versatility with what toys he can use and it's easier to feed him.  Little by little we've worked up to eating 3 solid meals a day.  I kinda cheated and gave him blended foods earlier than suggested.  Well that didn't matter to Carter, he'll eat whatever I offer, with one exception.  After 5 bites of a spinach and apple mix, he tightened his lips, turned red, and started grunting loudly.  I took that as a sign that he was done.  Of course, I would not waste all that spinach baby food I bought, so we mixed it with some other flavors and then he woofed it down.  (TMI alert) With all these new foods, Carter's diapers have become absolutely disgusting.  They barely even smelled before.  That is one good thing about being at work, I miss some of the diaper changing.  It's like russian roulette, who will get the nasty diaper.  I'm sorry to share such horrible details with you.
     Children must instinctively know if something is expensive, because Carter lunges for cell phones, computers, remotes, and cameras.  He is passed the out of sight, out of mind phase.  He will continue looking around and throwing a fit, even after you take the object away.  He also shows a big interest in our food and drinks now.  We have to push everything at least 2 feet away from him.  This week, he pulled an electrical cord until our lamp fell off the bookshelf and broke.  Whoops!  We're so used to him being immobile.
    Carter can only scoot or shimmy if he's on a cushy surface.  On the tile floor, he can't manage to scoot.  He's yet to get up on his hands and knees.  I'm not overly anxious for him to start crawling.  I like being able to take my eyes off of him for a few minutes. 
    On September 9th, life got much better because our helper, Mila started.  She worked for another family at my school for 16 years.  She is such a God send.  Carter loves her and I feel so comfortable leaving him with her each day.  Asia is thrilled to death to have someone give her some more attention.  Everyday she brings Carter to school at lunch time, so I can feed him.  Hallelujah, no more pumping! 

First Taste of Veggies

Asia is licking the butternut squash!

Now we're talking, real food!

Why is that dog so interested in my food?