He smiled at us!!

Such a pretty boy! As you can tell from the accompanying photo, Carter is ready for his modeling career. We got a really good photographer to come out to our house and do a family sitting, which produced the much improved photos that you see in this post...

Here, we all work on getting familiar with the local insect population.

A unique idea... that really worked out!

Carter got to sit in the grown-up chair all by himself. Seeing these photos full resolution is just plain amazing....

He slept so well on his tummy, he never even noticed the camera... or his lack of clothes. Hey! My contract explicitly says no nudity, lady!

Carter smiled for the first time this week. At first it was very sporadic, but over the last few days, he's smiled at both of us multiple times, and even at our visitors. Unfortunately, he doesn't do it on cue... so we don't have a picture of this yet.

We've been doing a lot of growing this week, so that means that we need to be near Mom all the time. And when we're not eating, chances are we're enjoying a nap... or thinking about one.

Grandpa Bardonner has decided that he wants to be Umpa. He took the time this weekend to drive all the way down from Indiana with Great-Grandma Treva Bardonner to meet Carter. Last time Treva was here, she missed meeting Carter by only 3 days! It was a great time having them both here... but of course the visit was all too short. Cierra and I were sorry that they ended up spending more time in the car than with Carter... but we were really happy they made it. Treva even brought a homemade meal with her in a cooler... what a treat!

Carter may have the makings of a daredevil. He likes to suddenly push away from you when you're not expecting it, or stretch backwards with all his strength, then suddenly crash his head forwards to land on your collarbone. We were thinking that was probably normal, but he even surprised Treva with his strength, and she has a lot of experience with little ones.

"Two hands, Great-Grandma! You never know what I'm gonna do next!"