At the Tabonys' Crib

2012-01-08T21:08:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year 2012!

So sorry that we are low on the pictures this post, but we have been high on the work with the new business purchase.

Thank all of you for your well wishes and support. We'll try for more pics and stories next time :-)

2011-12-25T22:23:00.003-05:00

Merry Christmas to you and yours!

I thought I would post some pics from our Christmas season. Hunter may add some text updates later, so check back if you are interested in his musings.

(By the way - we have a new lens for the camera that is great in low light but Arden is always moving so quickly that most of her pictures are blurry , so this post is a little 'Carter heavy' as far as pictures go :-)

Things I'm Thankful For

2011-11-30T20:51:00.004-05:00

Thanksgiving week was a great time here, with Hunter's whole family visiting for 4 whole days.

Carter enjoyed playing outside on an unsually warm Thanksgiving day. His uncles even taught him how to catch the frisbee.

Grandma Tabony pushes Arden on the swings at the nearby playground. It was nice to get enough time with the folks to see the kids really warm up and show some love to them.

Uncle Sawyer helped Carter go "faster and higher" on the swings. Carter really likes the swings now. Sawyer began to be worried about the amount of wear and tear on his arm before Carter relented.

The Tabony Brothers Three pose for a picture. Notice that Sawyer's the only one really looking at the camera. This is seconds before Freeman and I chucked him into the leaves. We'd raked up a great pile and spent awhile catapulting ourselves into it. Then Freeman picked me up and tossed me, and it was so funny being thrown by someone... I hadn't had it happen to me for 15 or 20 years. We eventually even did it to Grandma and Grandpa, though with less trickery.

Carter contemplates autumn in the front yard.

Carter couldn't really jump into the leaf pile, he'd just fall into the side. So to give him the full experience, we pulled a bench off the front porch. I just love this shot, with Sawyer mimicing him in the background.

It took a few tries to get this picture to happen. But the one I have after it with Freeman face down in the leaves but holding the Frisbee up to show it was a clean catch is the real prize.

Freeman's lovely wife Kate got to visit our home for the first time. I think she really liked being around the kids too! Unfortunately, she got sick and had to spend a big part of Saturday in bed. Hopefully it wasn't the turkey... the bird is supposed to be nice and pink in the middle, right?

Whoops, that's the last of the pictures so I have to end with that lame joke. Ouch. Mom, please don't comment below attempting to warn the denziens of the interwebs that they shouldn't eat pink turkey. Or green ham.

Anyway, the biggest thing we had to be thankful for this Thanksgiving? Time together with family. Nothing beats that. Love to all!

Another Crazy Week

2011-11-13T22:28:00.003-05:00

We've been so crazy this past month with our little field trips here there and everywhere! I had tried to set up a trip to the mountains to celebrate Cierra's birthday, but since we ended up doing a vet clinic visit that week, our mountain trip was pushed to this past week. It was a quick trip, just 2 nights stayed in a friend's condo who was generous enough to lend us the keys. Fortunately the full day we had in the mountains was just beautiful, much warmer weather than the average for this time of year. (We were reminded of that the next morning when we awoke in a near-freezing cloud.)

Above is Carter in front of Grandfather Mountain's Mile - High Bridge which Carter walked across all by himself, no fear! That's more than some of the adults there could do! FYI, the mile high refers to height above sea level. The bridge is just 80 feet off the ground. Just in case you are thinking I'm trying to make him do crazy things.

Hey look, Bears! They're a lot hairier than Grandpa Baer. Grandfather Mountain has its own small zoo. Carter's favorite was the otter, but it was funny to listen to him tell the bears to take a swim in their little pool. He tries to tell Arden what to do too, with similar success.

Even though it was cold the next day, we still took a little hike. Carter is turning into a happy little hiker, even though we do have to plan extra time to let him jump off every rock he finds.

On the way back, just for some road rest time, we stopped at a mini-golf place for Carter's first game ever. No need to keep score, Carter beat me on most of the holes by picking up his ball and placing it in the hole. A hole in zero... why didn't I think of that?

Playing around on our back deck on a pleasant fall day. Carter loves throwing sticks off it!

Arden loves swinging! This picture makes her legs look funny, kind of like Popeye's arms. She hasn't been eating spinach, but she's been going to town on the broccoli. Correlation?

Sibling bath! These two like each other so much, its easier to bathe them together than seperately. Arden is getting so good at sitting up, I don't have to keep a hand on her the whole time anymore.

We spent a few hours watching a friends' kids this Saturday. Their two girls make great play companions for our kids!

Carter and Riley shared a cute ride to the playground in this stroller. She's giving him a nice smile, but Carter's too busy reading the Elmo book.

Tired of sick and sick of tired

2011-11-01T21:51:00.005-04:00

Wow, thought Carter, this blog post is going to be cornier than usual!

The family took an outing to a pick your pumpkin patch at Red Wolf Farms a week ago, and Carter had fun running around in the pumpkins and powering through the corn maze. Not pictured: me. I probably looked pretty terrible because I survived on my morning coffee until 2 in the afternoon. By the time we got out of there and found somewhere to eat I was ravenous and had a headache.

This pic is from after our big Halloween party, which turned out to be a lot of fun. Carter was too scared to put on his Elmo costume, so he got to dress up as a horse during the party. Once everybody was gone, he got braver and lent me his horse hat.

Arden dressed up as a pumpkin for Halloween. Our longtime readers may remember Carter in this outfit 2 years ago. Just one of the benefits of having your kids' birthdays closer together than sardines in the can.

We've had so much going on! For Cierra's birthday, we took a jaunt down to the shore for a couple of days in Myrtle Beach, SC. There was a clinic on the NC side of the strand that Cierra had wanted to tour for a couple of years and finally set something up with the owner. What a great excuse to go to the beach! The locals pointed us to a great seafood restaurant off the beaten trail for our farewell lunch. Above, Carter contemplates his fork. He had the shrimp platter, and when the chef came out to ask him personally how his food was, he had this look of revulsion on his face. Seconds later, out came a partially chewed shrimp by way of an answer. The chef took it well, and we quickly figured out that it wasn't the shrimp but the cocktail sauce that caused the rejection.

Sibling bath after a sandy day at the beach!

We also took the time to make a quick visit to Wilmington, NC. We wandered through Airlie Gardens and took a look at one of the biggest oaks in the Carolinas. 500 years old and it's only about halfway through its expected life span. Kind of blows your mind.

The gardens were really beautiful. We never got to actually admire this fountain because Carter discovered a different path at this point and took off.

... And here he is on the beach. Carter is really good at throwing sand, playing with his own shadow, and wandering off. But if he had to pick one thing, it would be sandcastle destruction. Daddy's sandcastles, stranger's sandcastles... his leveling skills are only matched by the ocean itself.

Cierra's been a little stir crazy on the weekends lately. Here are some pictures of a different fall festival we went to at some point. I lose track.

Carter loved the hay bale maze. Kids were jumping from bale to bale and flying all around and through the chaos Carter strolled calmly, like a Western hero through a storm of bullets. Just out of frame... me chewing my fingernails off.

And referring to the title... yes, we've all been sick again. Cierra and the kids went through a horrible sore throat and runny nose sickness that we've started to recover from. So far I've been spared the full experience, but Arden did remove her finger from her mouth and jam it directly into my eye and eyelid, giving me instant pinkeye and a nice stye. It's been far from a pretty picture around here lately, so that's good reason to look back at the past few weeks and see us looking a little better.

Balloons!

2011-10-23T20:39:00.003-04:00

A beautiful fall day and a good opportunity to visit the NC Balloon Festival. Unfortunately, after being bitten by a radioactive dinosaur, Arden and Cierra grew to gigantic proportions and Arden ended up eating a hot-air balloon. You'll be seeing it all on the evening news....

Okay, so not really. But we did go to the balloon festival. Arden and Carter got to ride together in the red wagon for the first time! Arden did really well in there... I was expecting tears in the first few minutes but we wheeled her all over the fairgrounds and no problems.

They both tried to break in to Daddy's new coffee cup. Good thing I finished it off early this morning.

Cierra grabbed this shot of Arden looking cute in her makeshift photo studio earlier in the week. When I say photo studio, I mean a chair with a fuzzy blanket draped over it.

I turned around a week or two ago and Carter had put himself in a box. "Hold on, don't move" I said as I leapt for the camera. Almost as cute as the picture I didn't get of him trying to get out.

Arden just goes after the food. Her thinking is, why settle for the mouth when I can have food all over my face.

Okay I have no idea when we took this shot. But Arden is definitely a "little blossom."

And finally, a pair of shots from our recent trip to Indiana, given to us by Oma and Opa. Carter and cousin William on the slides....

... and helping celebrate Cierra's birthday a few weeks early. Now the real thing is coming up in a couple of days, and we're all set to go to the beach for a couple of days to celebrate. I'll bet we get some cute pics... :)

Pictures Galore

2011-10-11T23:04:00.002-04:00

Thanks Jenine - we love them!

A quick trip to IN.

2011-10-07T22:29:00.004-04:00

Hi everybody! We spent four days in Indiana last weekend and we brought back a bunch of pictures of the kiddos and family. Here's Arden playing in the grass at Grandview Lake...

.... on two different occasions! They have such nice grass at Mimi and Papa's house.

We took a ride on the "slow boat" and Papa let Carter drive for a little while. During our ride on the speed boat later, Carter stared mesmerized at the wake we were leaving behind. He seemed to be enjoying the experience, but afterwards when we asked if he liked the "fast boat" he said no.

Arden spent time rolling this eye-ball back and forth with Carter. An excellent way to work on her hand-eye coordination.

Carter loved the "beach" at Mimi & Papa's house too. Many hours were spent chucking pebbles into the water and setting beach toys afloat. Some of them drifted into deeper water, which he then expected Daddy to go get. Fully clothed Daddy. We had to ask a lady on a jetski to give us a hand.

It was such a nice day and Mimi's flowers were so beautiful it was a perfect time to get some family photos!

This is Playboy, Cierra's ol' pony. He's getting up there, 35 I think Deann said. But he's still feeling good and was happy to take Carter out for a little stroll.

Oma and Opa spent a day with us at Great-grandma Treva's house. As usual when we go to Treva's house we all ate our fill of fantastic food, then were given enough food for 4 or 5 more meals to take home.

William, Carter's second cousin, was playing with Arden. When I started taking pictures, he suddenly showed off his modeling skills. Every single shot I took was a different pose and they were all good! After 5 or 6 shots I had to turn to his mom and ask if he was modeling in his spare time.

Arden and Great-Grandpa Hemmerlein get to know each other better. Since we were so pressed for time on this short trip....

.... all the Hemmerleins got together for us!

Another fun trip over too soon! Back next week with pictures closer to home.

2011-09-25T14:45:00.002-04:00

Ha! I hadn't seen this picture yet, but it looks like Arden and Carter have joined a dance troupe. Well, that's close enough to true, as we are attending Music Together class every Monday, where we bang on instruments and flail about to the music.

Here's a kiss, Arden. Carter is such a loving big brother.

Arden's sliding across the floor ever faster, now able to push up off the floor and get her hands on the sides of the furniture and low toy bins. She also enjoys eating books. So there's no turning your head even for a second!

Arden gets the back carry a lot more than Carter ever did. I was always afraid that I would drop Carter. I guess your confidence with the second one is just naturally higher. Or I'm more foolhardy with age. Anyway, I think she likes it back there!

We went to Charlotte's Nature Museum for a family outing today. One of Carter's favorite places there is the butterfly room... a greenhouse area where there are always tons (ok, not literally) of butterflies flitting about. Cierra snapped a picture of one of the prettiest. Though you can't really tell in this picture, this one had extra long wings and just seemed so graceful as it glided about without flapping them a whole lot.

Arden took her first ride in a swing this week! Unlike Carter, who panicked and demanded to be put down the first few times he got in one, she loved it!

But when your everyday routine is getting tossed in the air just for kicks, I guess a swing really isn't going to move the needle that much.

This sling always makes me smile because it looks like Arden is growing straight out of Cierra's chest. Plus, it makes me smile because it makes her smile. And her smile is now even more fun because she has two little teeth right at the front and bottom. We first spied them a few days ago, and it's been fun running my fingers over them every once in a while. That is, until today, when she bit me!

Well, we're headed up to IN in a couple of days, so we'll write again next week with a bunch of pictures of family and fun. Until then!

A Dinner with Arden

2011-09-17T20:46:00.002-04:00

Arden's eating now! Well, it was only a matter of time with all the stuff she was putting in her mouth that eventually some of it would turn out to be food. She's very enthusiastic about daddy's split pea soup and baked sweet potatoes. Dinner can be a rather messy affair, in fact most of our meals are followed immediately by a trip to the bathtub and a change of clothes.

A new chair for Arden as well! If you're going to eat at the table now, you might as well be attached to it securely. Carter thinks this is pretty cool.

We've had our first cool day of the fall, and Arden got her hoodie out to keep warm. Cierra is always remarking how much she looks like me, and I rarely see it, but in this case I would have to agree. When I put on my striped hoodie and get in my excersaucer, I look exactly like this.

Carter is more and more wonderful all of the time. He takes such good care of Arden. Sometimes just as she's getting upset, he comes right over to her and gives her a toy, a hug or a kiss. Just a little interaction with her brother is enough to turn her right around.

Oh, the other thing we should mention... Arden is sitting up now...although she soon sees something that she wants and chooses to topple in its direction.

6 months already! Who knows what wild new developments are just around the corner.

Recent Developments.

2011-09-09T21:39:00.006-04:00

Arden might not even be getting in the water yet, but that doesn't mean she can't make a fashion statement when the family heads poolside. That statement? "I am the cutest baby in the Carolinas!"

Arden has learned how to grab things, and likes to put everything in her mouth. So here she is with her first bite of food, a blueberry muffin baked by Daddy, with Carter's help. Carter's first bite of anything was bananna, which he hated. So, nutritionally, we've definitely backslid here, but on the positive side, she was enthusiastic.

The grabbiness is not limited to food. Also a favorite: tender parts of your face while you're rocking her back to sleep at 2am. It takes Arden around a day and a half to regrow razor-sharp claws after we whack them back to the quick with the clippers. And the power of those hands! I'm pretty sure there's either hydraulics or adamantium involved here.

Carter enjoys his own blueberry muffin. Muffin. Muffin. MUUUUUUFFFFFIIIINNN!

I can't hear you, Carter.

Muffin, Pease.

That's better.

Hello, class. My name is Arden, and I'll be substituting today for your usual Chemistry teacher. This model represents the complex relationships atoms can have at the molecular level. However, it is flawed in one very basic way. Atoms should be able to fit in my mouth.

Arden is such a skootcher! Anything you don't want in her mouth better not be in the room with her when you look away. I was helping Carter for a moment with something today and she'd gotten all the way across the room! For a second I thought that she'd started crawling when I wasn't looking, so I moved her back to the starting gate and let her go once more... and she showed me that slow and steady still gets it done for the pre-crawling crowd. That said, she's up on all fours a lot and it's week(s) only until she's really off to the races.

Carter's favorite pasttime these days... his "cd books." He'll spend so much time paging through, selecting the same discs over and over again. A prime canidate for work at a Top 40 station, as if those jobs will still be done by humans when he's old enough for employment.

Give peace a chance, says Arden! Actually I think she's counting how many fingers she can get in her mouth. Try a couple more, and you'll be closer to correct.

When I see this picture, I just think that the camera is about to cut to the E-trade baby and Arden's going to be giving him tips on home decor or something. Yeah, it's great you've got that killer portfolio, now how bout cashing in some of those blue chips to update that highchair? Floral prints are so last trimester.

Carter's been giving us some pretty rockin' concerts lately. His set list is expanding. Old MacDonald is tried and true, but then there's Twinkle, Twinkle, and Puff the Magic Dragon, often performed as a mash-up. Just today, for the first time with me he sang Frere Jacque, (sp?) but he still thinks I'm crazy when I sing "dan don dan" He looks at me with a silly smile and says "Ding, dong, ding" right afterwards like English is my second language.

He's holding the guitar now too, part of his bid to be independant in all things. Maybe some day we'll see him playing bass, he's got the stance right.

Carter's also really started to interact with Arden. Sometimes I like to take a step back and see what they will do. Here, he brought the slinkies over to Arden while she was in the excersaucer. They played for quite a while, one slinky apiece, with Carter brokering a trade whenever the one that she had looked better than the one he did. (That one must be better, with how much she's putting it in her mouth. The one I've got is tasteless!)

Keeping Things Moving....

2011-09-01T14:33:00.004-04:00

Arden is a schoocher! As of the last 2 days, she can use her arms to pull herself along and get to whatever she wants... to put in her mouth. In no time at all she's going to be up and crawling. Then I'm going to need to clone myself.

Big brother love for Arden! Carter comes over every once and a while and gives her a hug, kiss, and/or funny look, but mostly he just goes about his business. She, however, watches him with a fascination and love that is just amazing.

Carter is pretty amazing. Here he is with his two girlfriends, Mira and Emerald. "No fighting, ladies, there's enough of my lap for you both to get comfortable."

Greg (or Papa) came to visit very quickly over the weekend. Here's Carter getting comfy in his lap while being read one of his favorite books. This one stars Elmo and Grover. If there's any marketing that's gotten through to Carter, it's definitely this book. We were in the grocery store a week ago and he started saying, "Elmo. Elmo. ELMO!" I was all, "Huh?", until I looked over my shoulder and spied a mylar Elmo head hovering above the floral department.

Carter has turned our breakfast nook into his private art studio. Here he paints watercolors. Actually, I think Mommy helped a lot on this one, but he has lots of self-produced Rohrschat test coming out of this setup.

In other news, this is the last picture you'll see of Arden in the Bumbo on top of something else. Just as she has learned to schooch, she's also found a way to escape the Bumbo. Safety first!

Artist Carter surveys his outdoor work!

After a long day of learning, Arden rests against Papa's shoulder. What a snuggly little bear!

A Visit to Indiana (Hunter's Staycation)

2011-08-22T21:19:00.005-04:00

Arden is so advanced for her age, already learning to drive. Hey, aren't you supposed to crawl first? This photo reminds me of the car commercial with the father looking at his daughter as if she's still 5 years old. Someday, that will be a reality for me, but thank goodness that day is not today.

Cierra took both of the kids for a quick 4 day jaunt up to Indiana, leaving me at home, lonely but relaxed this past weekend. It was weird being without everyone, but I needed some time to myself just to reflect on life and realize how good I have it.

This will be a different kind of post, because I'm writing about all these pictures without having been there to experience anything firsthand. So Cierra will be breaking in occasionally to correct my mistaken impressions and provide the finer details.

Great-Grandma Treva and Arden smile for the camera. Cierra told me that Treva made a wonderful meal and all Carter would eat was strawberries and grapes. Boy, Carter, that was a big mistake. Treva's cooking is legendary. Now, I guess I'll try not to take it so hard when he does the same thing to me.

Great-Grandpa Hemmerlein got Arden a birthday cake, and though it was either 5 months late or 7 months early, he's wise enough to know that nobody ever gets mad about getting cake. Arden certainly has a hilarious expression on here and with her arm out like that, looks like she might be about to throw the cake in the direction of the camera.

Carter enjoys a boat ride with Mimi on the "slow boat", their pontoon. They also have a speedboat, which he refers to now as the "fast boat".

Arden is a go-getter like her mother and already training for positions as flower girl that may open up in the years down the road.

Quick guide on how to get all the relatives to show up at Grandview Lake... bring a cute couple of kids by for a couple of days. Either that, or book a sushi chef. We went for the less expensive option. Terri and Kara got their chance to give Arden a squeeze or two.

Great Grandpa Baer got to bounce Arden on his knee...

... While Great-Grandma read to Carter to keep him from getting jealous.

Papa grabs some time with Arden in his lap. I think the pattern on that chair has her attention!

The main reason for the trip was Cierra wanting to help her sister Alexis as she moved in as a freshman at Xavier. Sounds like it was an exciting move-in day, and most other campuses could learn a lot about how to streamline the process from Xavier.

When they pulled the two cars up to her building, the "Move Crew" of upperclassmen descended upon them and had both cars cleaned out in less than a minute. Then they followed her up to her room and deposited everything for her. The only thing she had to carry was her new key. When I think back to lugging everything up 4 flights with no air conditioning in my freshman dorm, I'm feeling just a little unreasonable jealousy. :)

Carter hanging out down by the lake, soaking up the sun amidst Mimi's flowers.

Wait, how did this happen? No one is holding Arden. I know, just off camera, everyone is arm wrestling each other to determine whose turn comes first.

.... Ahh, back to the natural state of things.

Okay, that's all I know... now we'll see how much Cierra has to add. Peace!

Just back from the beach!

2011-08-06T23:09:00.006-04:00

Here we are back from our week in Rhode Island at Hunter's family reunion and we've brought back a different little girl than the one that left our house just a week ago. Arden is way more alert, full of smiles and giggles. She grabs things and interacts with them... mostly orally, but you can tell that everything she does is with intention. She can turn over now, and she's even started to be able to scoot sometimes. But the big difference is, now she gets bored if you're not playing with her. Hmmm... 2 kids, one of me. And both wanting my attention. This could get interesting.

So Block Island is a good distance from the mainland, and it takes about an hour by ferry to get there. Carter liked standing on the benches so he could look out over the water.

Here are Arden and Mommy, posing in front of one of our rental cottages. The family rented the DuPont Compound, a grouping of 3 houses on 18 acres of beauty that just happened to be the high point of the entire island. The sunsets were beautiful and we had a great view of the harbor and airport.

The island is covered with stacked stone fences, not built with mortar, just stacked in place. On a 10 square mile island, someone told me there are 200 miles of fence. Think about how much work that was, and how long it took. I imagine that when it was first settled in 1660, it was just littered with rocks all over the place, so that you just had to build the fences so you could walk from A to B without stubbing your toe.

What is Carter thinking? Probably something along the lines of, "How much trouble would I get into if I knocked all these fences down?"

Arden still has those beautiful blue eyes. We're starting to really think she might keep them. Whatever her eyes' color, I think I'll always love staring into them.

Carter stares at a tree? Not sure where this was taken, but it might have been at Carter's "jumping rocks", which were 2 low-lying rocks near our house that he liked to stand on and jump off with big fanfare. I tried to do it with him, but he got very upset. These are my jumping rocks daddy. Get your own.

Looks like Arden is auditioning for the role of flower girl in future weddings!

Carter got to the beach one day to play and build sandcastles with his second cousins Zidane and Biggie. Well, they built them, Carter was more in a knocking down mood. Nobody wanted to go near the water, though. Carter got the closest, with a few toes going in before he ran away in tears. The other 2 kids wouldn't go within 15 feet of the ocean. In fact, they even refused to sit in the wet sand, and kept sending me with their tiny buckets to fetch more water for their building.

Carter loves the family reunion because there's always music! Practically everyone plays something. Here, my cousin Stone entertains.

The day of cousin Seth's wedding. Mom and Dad are dressed up, and so is Arden....

... But nobody can come close to Carter and his little suit. He is PIMPIN!!! You can't see it that well but there's a tiny purple hankerchief in his pocket to match his little purple tie.

All three of the cousins sit together after the wedding. Carter was so patient, he sat through a ceremony that lasted nearly an hour!

Arden Turns FOUR Months!

2011-07-14T22:53:00.003-04:00

Carter picks his favorite thing in the garden... cherry tomatoes. "This one... higher. This one lower.", he says, pointing up and down at the little red globes. He concentrates on the lower ones, and not too many of them make it into his bucket. I just let him go to town while I pick the big slicers. The other day I turned around to see him pick up one of the big ones and take a bite out of one side. "Carter, what are you doing?" I exclaimed. He started and dropped the tomato back in the bin, and turned around as if to say "What? I wasn't doing anything."

So much has happened since we last wrote a blog entry! We've had guests galore... in fact, we had a solid week of guests here. First Gary, April, and Alexis were here for the 4th of July, then my brother Freeman came through town for a few hours and dropped off my Mom to stay for a couple of days. Freeman was able to overlap for just a few minutes with Krin, and so got to meet Cierra's family members for the first time (4 in one day, and an unlikely combination.) As seen above, Krin's energy just makes the kids come alive!

Oma and Arden, clearly enjoying a relaxing moment together.

Carter is using the WiiFit to ski down a hill, with a little help from Opa. Gosh, thinks Carter. Don't know why everyone else was having so much trouble. This thing drives itself!

Aunt Alexis loved meeting Arden. The toy she is holding has become her new obsession. The only problem... it just won't go all the way into her mouth!

Jump! JUMP! Carter is allowed to jump off his red chair. And sometimes he does it a lot. Here he is in mid-air, one of many in a single photo session. Everytime I thought we were done, he said "Again" and climbed up, waiting for me to raise the camera again and count him down.

Now we can read to them both at once! Carter likes to turn the pages faster than anyone can read and Arden wants to touch (and probably eat) the book.

How cute she is! She just draws you in with every smile. Sometimes, it's just so she can spit up on you. Erp!

Today was Arden's 4 month checkup at the doctor. She got 2 shots, but this brave little girl didn't really seem to notice. Carter got one and pitched a fit. At least it was over quickly.

Arden is changing rapidly. She's now rolling over from her belly to her back, which usually makes her really mad. She can reach for and grab toys hanging over her head... in fact she seems to be miles ahead on that front compared to Carter at the same age. Talk, talk, talk, that's all she wants to do, and sometimes it seems like she's upset when she really isn't just due to how high-pitched her squeals can be.

One, two kids. Okay, I didn't leave any at the grocery store. We're good.

This is Carter with his friend Daniel at a playdate. We're trying to get Carter out of the house more often (and not just to the garden to gorge on tomatoes). These two are both pretty laid back, and therefore play well together.

Well, we'll keep on flying for another few weeks (got a vacation coming up... woo hoo! Hopefully it won't take us too long into August to get back on here and tell you all about it.

Garden of Eating....

2011-06-27T21:27:00.003-04:00

Now is the blissful time of year when we gardeners are rewarded in spades for our efforts earlier in the seasons. When our children gobble round red tomatoes as if they were Halloween candy hordes... and really, aren't they nearly as sweet? A few weeks ago, I had to cajole Carter to get him to come to the garden with me. Now, once out the door, he makes a beeline for our planting space, singing out "strawberries" and "tomatoes". He can identify "garlic" "onions" and "peppers". Should he ever have to grow his own food, I'm giving him a great early education.

... and if Carter could only grow Jelly Toast, we'd be all set. Actually "Toast... Cream Cheese... Jelly" is the official order of the day. After breakfast, we head straight to the bathroom for a good scrubbing. He loves to watch in the mirror as I scrub a dub his face to remove all the sticky residue. I smush his cheeks into funny shapes and he just smiles away.

Arden, you are so lucky to have Carter as an older brother. He's all kindness and kisses. We've seen some kids at the playground who don't get along so well with their siblings.

Arden looking happy and alert. Happy is not what she's been with her napping today... because she just learned to roll over from her belly to her back. She's been going to sleep on her belly, waking up when she rolls over and howling with frustration when she can't figure out how to get back to where she began.

But in general she's still a pretty happy sort. Lots of smiles for belly raspberries and daddy tickles. I've even got a few giggles.

What a respectable young gentleman.

Come here! I'm going to lick you in the face!

I went in to get Carter up from a nap the other day and he came over to me while I was sitting on the floor getting a diaper ready. I thought he was going to kiss me on the cheek, but instead he stuck out his tounge and licked my cheek very deliberately. "Carter! Did you just lick me?" I chortled. So, of course, he did it again.

Greg and Deann, proud grandparents (aka Papa and Mimi) stopped by this weekend to participate in the bounty and to visit us and the lil' ones. Okay, mostly the lil' ones and a little bit us.

They're into thoroughbred horse racing (they have quite a few horses now) and it was different having the laptops tapping into racetrack feeds all day Sunday. One of Deann's horses is named Ready's Rocket and it has the modern-day record for number of races one at Churchill Downs.... I got to watch him extend his record live, it was quite a thrill and I didn't even have any skin in the game.
My in-laws have never been quite so happy with me as they were this weekend at the dinner table. It was as if I was on Iron Chef and the secret ingredient was tomatoes. Well, okay, I took a half day to do it instead of just an hour. Fried Green Tomatoes, a platter of sliced tomatoes with fresh basil, balsamic and homemade mozzarella cheese, and Spaghetti with Fresh Tomato Sauce and homemade Meatballs.

The harvest continues at breakneck pace. I have 4 trays of tomatoes ripening on top of my freezer, and I just pulled up a wheelbarrow full of onions this evening, with more needing to come out in the next couple of days. Whew!

Summertime

2011-06-16T23:52:00.002-04:00

Summer is in full swing now and I just can't catch my breath most days. Here's Carter at the splash pool in the next neighborhood over. We're not members but his friend Mira gets him in with her guest pass. He likes to splash around in the various little fountains but lately he's been copying the adults and getting into a chair to relax and socialize.

Well, I can't say where or when this picture was taken but I'll bet Cierra took it and Arden was looking at Carter. She just lights up when she can watch her big brother doing things. And Carter really loves it when she makes her little communication noises. He laughs hysterically and then tries to repeat it back to her.

The garden is in full production right now. Peppers are starting to come in, and the tomatoes are at it in earnest. I've been giving away tomatoes left and right. Our biggest so far this year was 1lb, 6 oz. It was ripe enough today that I figured we'd better get to eating, so Cierra and I took some hearty slices off it to make some fantastic BLTs for lunch. We still had half of it left, so I carved that up, threw on some cheese and balsalmic and had that for dinner. Our garlic is all dug for this year, hung and drying in the barn. Onions are bulbing up nicely, and the watermelon is just beginning to set fruit.

I'm looking forward to my first market day of the year in early July. I'd be there more often, but it's rare that Cierra is off on a market day!

Sandwiches, sandwiches.... Carter likes bread. Toast for breakfast, Sandwiches for lunch, and sometimes toast for dinner. Peanut butter and jelly is a favorite....

And he likes to eat them all by himself.

Whoa, big brother. You'd better go clean your face before you give me any more kisses.

Cierra taking a moment to help Arden learn to fly. Cierra's got so much going on, but she is great about leaving work outside the house so she can spend time with them when she gets home. And that gives me a little breathing room most evenings.

Reality check: Arden is 3 months old now. Can you believe it? I can't. Time is flying.

Well that's all the pictures and I don't have any amazing stories springing to mind so I'm going to get some pre-Father's Day rest. Good night all!

Keeping Busy

2011-05-19T17:32:00.005-04:00

Aunt Kaelie dropped by for another visit! Well, she was in our fair state for a friends wedding, but it didn't hurt that she got to spend time with her niece and nephew. It has been hot and stormy lately down here, but the last few days just plain hot. Good sprinkler weather, so we got one out, fired it up and tried to get Carter to run around in it.

But it was scary, so Carter spent 20 minutes standing just outside it, getting his toes wet. He slowly warmed up to it, getting carried through, and eventually standing still in the water. Never did grasp the concept of running through himself.

Here's all three of the ladies... all of a sudden Carter and I are outnumbered! Well, this is a good kind of outnumbered.

Cierra looks like she's hoarding the children. Jeez, no need to squeeze 'em that hard. "Myyyy Preciouses" she hissed at me when I tried to loosen her grip.

Well, she is precious.

Him too. You can't see it, but I'm pretty sure he's playing with Mommy's phone. That's his concentrating reallly hard face.

Arden's having a staring contest with that frog photo album on the side table. Here's the weird thing... the frog lost.

Okay so, we had professional photos done around Easter, then waited a couple of weeks to get them back. Cierra posted them here on the 19th and waited for me to write an update. We all got ill except for her and we're just now getting back to 100 percent. So here are the super pretty pictures... thank goodness we waited until I could write that to post them!

We never put anything on Arden's head, so that still looks strange to me.

She got her first haircut this week when Cierra lopped off her tiny rat-tail. The hair on the rest of her head is definitely getting longer, so it looks like she'll have a much shorter bald period than Carter.

I'd promise another, better, post soon, but with the kids and garden both taking up my time, that might prove to be a lie. The first tomatoes are just starting to ripen, and I'm digging up garlic like a madman right now. Last night I had to put two 150 watt work lights out in the garden to finish stripping the bulbs I'd already dug after sundown. So I'll write again when I can. Until then!

Playing Catch up....

2011-05-13T21:54:00.002-04:00

Whoa. I am such a procrastinator. Yes, I've been promising Cierra I'd get around to writing this blog for a week now. But with two kids, a week can be over in the blink of an eye. 99.9% of my life is filled with feeding mouths and changing diapers with a side of frantically trying to encourage sleep. Throw in keeping the lawn mowed and preventing the garden from dying and I don't have enough time to rest my own eyes.

Okay first off, I promised Freeman that his visit would be covered in this edition a loooong time ago. Here it is Freeman, the one picture you get. Well, there are more but Cierra only uploaded one and I am way too lazy to go try to find them right now.
Freeman made the most of his limited time here. He's occasionally making runs up and down the East Coast delivering antiques here and there for a friend of his. When he comes through town he usually only has time to stop for an hour or so, but a couple of cancellations on this last trip enabled him to spend the afternoon with us and then stay the night. Lots of fun, this guy. Now we just need to get Aunt Kate to come down with him sometime! As you can see, Arden got along well with her uncle.

Speaking of getting on well, Cierra has gone back to work and it's the three of us at home most days now. Carter is so helpful. He tries to soothe Arden when she gets upset.

She's so alert now, and her head control is pretty perfect. Cierra and I don't even have to worry about supporting her head while we pick her up anymore.

Interesting! She's content to look at her surroundings for fifteen minutes sometimes. This is a real boon if I'm trying to clean something up or feed Carter.

Last week we took a trip to the Columbia Zoo, because we don't have a zoo here in Charlotte. Having been to some depressing small zoos, Cierra and I were both a little ready to be underwhelmed, but it was really great! Lots of beautiful animals and the smallish habitats made for really awesome viewing. The gorillas were sleeping right against the glass and their handlike feet captured Carter's attention (and mine as well!)

We brought our cart for Carter to ride in but he decided he'd rather be free, so I mostly used it to haul bags around. Carter took it upon himself to push and he was such a good pusher, all I had to do was steer.

Here we are looking at some animal. It's weird, but Cierra says we didn't get a picture of any animals. I'm the last person you can trust to get a seemingly obvious picture, but it's just strange that we forgot to document that we were in fact at a zoo by getting a few shots of an animal or two. Perhaps as you're leaving the zoo they remote wipe your memory card of all animal related shots so you'll come back to try again.

And here's Carter holding my hand as we walk across a stone bridge through a fountain. This is in Center City Charlotte, and the little bridge had openings he had to really stretch to get across. I thought he wouldn't want to try it, but after a few minutes of watching the big kids do it, he was raring to go. I held on tight, worried that I might be the only thing keeping him from getting drenched, but he never misjudged one bit.

Family Time

2011-05-01T21:36:00.009-04:00

Nose kisses! Carter is such a cool big brother. Always wanting to give Arden a hug or kiss. I keep having to remind him that she needs to be treated gently though. He wants to involve her in regular play but that is not to be for a while.

Well in the past 8 days we have been very busy with visiting family. First Opa and Oma Bardonner came down for Easter (sadly Aunt Alexis was sidelined by illness and Great-grandma Treva jumped on that excuse not to board an airplane). Then Betty, Hunter's Mom, took the train down from Virginia for four days. This past weekend we hosted Greg and Deann (or Papa and Mimi to Carter). I took them to the airport on Sunday night and was just relaxing on the couch with both kids asleep thinking, "Ok, well that's all the family visiting for a while" when a text message pops up on my phone and Uncle Freeman is popping by for an hourlong visit the next morning while driving a van down to Florida for a friend. So we have lots of fun guests in these pictures, but there are just so many that I think I'll let some speak for themselves... I think most of these are in reverse chronological order. Silly blogger... why can't I reorganize them?
Greg and Deann visited last (apparently Freeman's visit missed the picture deadline, we'll get you next time Freeman) so here they are first.

Zoinks!

Smiles! Arden doesn't do it very often yet but when they come they sure are great.

Papa pushed Carter in the swings for about 4 times as long as he's ever let anyone go before.

Carter and his stable of vehicles. There's the pony bike, the retro trike, the Radio Flyer wagon, Lightning McQueen, and now a new (to us) tricycle that's actually more his size. This one even came with a helmet, which is just awesomely cute.

A new toy... It sings and you can tickle it!

Oma (April to the rest of us) Bardonner enjoys some Arden time.

My mom took this picture of Oma and Opa with the whole family. She is such a good photographer.

And our little family. Not too bad!

Carter wanted to go down backwards so I told him to hold his hands up too to increase the thrill.

A basket full of eggs on Easter.

Opa and Oma helped us dye the eggs.

Carter rides a toy at Bianca's house.

We went strawberry picking! 6 gallons of strawberries. That ought to cover us for a little while. :)

Carter was very helpful. He would take a bite out of each strawberry before putting it in the bucket just to make sure it was good.

On the road to strawberry picking.

Popping out of our overgrown shrubbery is one of Carter's favorite activities.

Crocs on the slide don't make for a very smooth trip.

Looking at the birds in Discovery Place.

Arden wants to be a dancer. Already pointing her toes.

Mom was so good with Arden. She got her to sleep every time.

Look at me! I can climb stairs all by myself!

Carter has a blue version, so it's only fair...

Mom must have snapped this picture of me trying to document our Easter egg hunt. No matter where I was, Carter turned away from me as he was picking up the egg.

And one last pic of sleepy Arden. Until next week!

Some pics from Florida

2011-04-18T14:18:00.005-04:00

This was the view from our balcony while we were at the beach in Florida. I'm not used to getting the oceanview room. And I'm sure we wouldn't have, had we not booked late and gotten sent to the villas because the hotel was full. It was quite nice. Of course, so is a new flatscreen television, which would last longer than 3 nights. But I digress....

Mama! I can't believe you didn't pack a swimsuit for me. How am I going to lounge on the beach in style?

During a break from the conference, we explored a marshside trail. Apparently I am the tastiest member of our family. I was killing mosqsuitoes left and right while they got only a couple of bites.

Arden in mommy's arms as she watches her big bro running and playing....

This was the "bridge slide" in Carterspeak. Don't know why, we haven't gone over any covered bridges lately.

RUN! If you tell Carter you want him to run, he takes a deep breath before going anywhere so he can yell "Runnnnnnnn!" as he pounds off. This yell is puncuated by a little vibration in his voice every time he has a footfall so it's really more like RuNnNnNnNnNn!

Is this an old picture? I think so, but perhaps Cierra got out the St. Paddy's day lei once again. I wouldn't know, I've been so busy the last couple of days getting all of our tomatoes and peppers planted once again. Now everything save the watermelons and basil is in the ground out there. Cierra's been watching them both and doing really well with it, so that I could have the time to get this done.

It's too bad I didn't have the spare time to take many pictures while I was doing it, but this weekend was my first time watching them both while Cierra was in class. It went really well! The first morning I had them both, I took them out to eat for a nice breakfast. Carter tried to eat all my bacon, but other than that, he behaved very nicely. Arden snoozed through the whole thing on my chest in the ringsling. Then we went out to the grocery store and had our first shopping trip together. Arden didn't like riding in the cart, but she seems to hate being in anything with four wheels.

All right, as promised, there are our beach pics. Now I need to lie down....

Back from the Beach!

2011-04-16T09:57:00.004-04:00

I cannot even tell you how many pictures I took trying to get this one. Carter was playing with Cierra's phone and every so often, he'd give me a big smile and say something happily. The rest of the time he had a vacant expression. I'd sit there and wait, wait, wait. Bored, I'd take a few snaps of Carter-zombie. Then, just as I'd give up, he'd flash a smile, which was gone by the time I'd yanked the camera back up for a blurry picture. Well, we've spent the last 4 days on a road trip to Florida for a conference. We drove back this afternoon and boy are we glad that is over. Turns out Arden is not a fan of the car seat. I had to sit in the far back most of the drive and attempt to keep the kids happy. If I lean way forward and dislocate my arm at the shoulder, I can let Arden suck on my finger. Fun stuff.

We'll get some beach pics up soon, but for now, enjoy these snaps of mother and daughter spending quality time together.

Arden is pretty good at just hanging out peacefully... as long as she's not in a moving vehicle. And she is full of milk.

"I don't want to put this cranberry up my nose, I just can't help myself." Just kidding, he hasn't done anything like that... yet. I wasn't there for the taking of this, so I don't know what was going on. But it must have been pretty upsetting to get him to make that face while eating one of his favorite foods.

Carter trying out his new rain boots. Now all we need is a puddle!

We'll return soon with some beachin' pics!

I am Sick of Sick

2011-04-06T13:14:00.008-04:00

Meet Carter Tabony. This is Carter after he's let loose with a piece of peanut butter toast. It almost looks like one of those thin villanous mustaches and a lil' soul patch goatee. I've been seeing a lot of things smeared all over Carter lately. Everybody around here has been sick forever. Strike that. I'm told it's been less than a week. Well, anyway, since Arden came along 3 weeks ago, Cierra's been handling her at night and I've got Carter. So you'd think I've got it too easy, wouldn't you? I'm not so sure. Carter's had 2 different colds during this period, including a sore throat that kept him up half the night, morning diarrehea for most of the past week, and a cough so energetic it keeps setting off his gag reflex. I keep waking up to a series of screams and coughs, only to run into his room in time to see him blow lunch and dinner all over his sheets. Often I get him hosed down, the sheets taken off and changed and I'm just staggering back to change my shirt when I hear him go off again. Is it wrong to train your kid to sleep in a poncho on a plastic tarp? Last night it happened again at 3:30 and I could not get back to sleep the rest of the night. I got him put to bed tonight and 15 minutes later I'm running in from the garden (the monitor's got range) to witness another scene from the Exorcist. This time Cierra had stuffed him full of blueberry smoothie for dinner so for one terrifying moment I thought he was throwing up blood. The purple stain soaked through the sheets and onto the pad and pillow so I'm currently putting OxyClean through its paces. Oh, he really hates this. It's just torture for both of us. So unfair to watch it happen over and over.... Grrr. I get him clean and give him a hug and put him back for more of the sleep he needs to get better. Arden's been spitting up a little more than usual too as part of all this. She might be a little more irritable too. Plus, she and Cierra have been treating thrush with genitian violet, a purple dye (more purple!) that give her an adorable purple lipstick (Goth Baby) look and, when smeared around by her little hands, a five o'clock shadow. Hobo Baby! Aunt Kaelie came to visit her new neice right around the time that Flumageddon started a week ago. She only stayed a night but I think we still managed to make her one of our growing list of victims. Mwha ha ha hack cough wheeeeeeze. Sorry Kaelie, we hope it was worth it.

Arden is Daddy's little girl. Whenever I get her on my chest, she usually calms right down and drifts off to a wonderful, peaceful sleep. Those are precious moments. Everyone keeps commenting how Arden looks exactly like me. Looking at the above picture, I have two reactions to that....

1. They're absolutely right. That is almost scary.

2. How sad for Arden. I am so sorry, sweetie. Tell Mommy's genes to start resequencing or something. They have to take charge in this situation!

2b. Wow, I know you're sick Hunter, but that's no excuse for looking like that. If you were slouching around a medical facility instead of slowly denting that couch, somebody'd be putting an oxygen tube in your nose and parking you next to the defillibrator.

No pictures, please! I'm trying to sleep here. Arden has a hammock style bed called the Amby which lulls her back to sleep battery-free. She does pretty well in it. There was one moment early on when Carter tripped over the support for the thing and fell against the bed, setting it swinging wildly in a crazy motion. I ran over, expecting Arden to start screaming at any second. She was asleep, peacefully enjoying her very first thrill ride.

Let us give paws for a moment to be thankful for Carter's good attitude as he soldiers on with this illness. Carter's Oma and Opa (that's Grandparents to the rest of us) and his Aunt Alexis sent him a tickle monster book. I'm supposed to wear the gloves and tickle him as we read, but he likes wearing them and we love the look.

Caught: One Hobo Baby. Found this one trying to stow away in an empty boxcar. Book her!

Even though he's had such a rough time being sick all week, Carter has lots of happy moments every day. Here he is (admittedly looking a bit dazed) having picked a flower....

... auditioning for the cover of Family Fun....

.... Decorating the front steps with his sidewalk chalk....

... and popping out of our overgrown shrubbery with a delighted "Boo!"

On a final note this week, I've been writing this blog for over 2 years now, and I monetized it at some point during the first year. I don't do it for the money at all, I do it so that all of our friends who want to see what is going on in our lives can, because if I had to keep up with everyone... well, let's just say that I am terrible at time management. Google just sent me an email or pop up window or something that said I should do it, and I was like, "Money? Sure, I could use me some of that. I mean, if you're just giving it away in exchange for pictures of cute kids and rambling prose."

So I did that and forgot about it until just now. I clicked in to look at my stats. Over 4,000 page views later, I've earned a total of... buckle your seatbelt... $2.47. Think I'll keep my day job as a lunatic gardener.

Family Time Continues!

2011-03-28T11:36:00.009-04:00

Carter is getting along with his baby sis. And by getting along with, I mean mostly ignoring. He asks about where she is sometimes, he knows her name, but when I bring him over to her and show him Arden, he eyeballs her for a second and walks away to do something else. What can you do with a baby? he seems to say.

All of us together for a second... before Carter scampers away again. Arden never even knew we were taking pictures.

Arden enjoying a little snuggle time with Uncle Krin! Krin dropped by for a short visit this weekend just as he got back to the States from Turkey. Krin knew how to keep his nephew from feeling jealous.... he brought Carter a bunch of books and an awesome train set!

Krin is a natural! We told him he should have a couple of these things. Of course, there's a couple things he needs to do first.....

Hunter's parents, Mike and Betty, came down on Thursday for a 2-day visit. Betty was estatic to have her first granddaughter... she always wanted a girl of her own, but had to give up that dream after having her third boy. She was instantly in love with Arden and was a big help holding her whenever there was a need. Mike also enjoyed the kids but was a huge help to Hunter. Together they planted nearly two thousand onions and repotted all of Hunter's tomatoes.

More hangout time for Arden in Uncle Krin's lap! Mmmm.... comfy.

Carter got to try on Krin's shoes. Maybe someday they'll fit!

Oh dear. I think I'm getting sleepy again. Must...stay... awazzzzzzzzzzzzz.

It's hard to believe that we were playing outside in short sleeves just a few days ago. Now it's nearly freezing outside! And it's been raining for days, with pretty much more rain in the forecast.

Zzzzzz. Wha? Oh, yeah. I'm getting up. Be right there. Just going to shut my eyes for a seconzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Arden has quite a hat collection. It seems impossible that someone with more than 10 hats wouldn't have a single one that can stay on the head for more than 10 minutes. They just slide off of her downy head fuzz.

Arden takes her first bath. This is from the previous week when Deann and Greg were here. Deann helped hold her while Cierra washed.

I made fun of Cierra for buying this expensive bucket specially designed to bathe babies... but it did enable me to get this cute feet picture during the first bath.

Carter's been working with sidewalk chalk. He likes to pick up colors and make 2 or 3 slightly curved lines, then move on to the next color. Our driveway just got a lot more festive!

Cierra's such a babywearer... Under 2 weeks old and Arden is already a fashion accessory.

Carter walks his "balance beam" outside. He's getting ready to show off for Aunt Kaelie when she comes to visit this weekend!

Snuggle time with daddy! Apparently I produce the best swaddle.

Finally wide awake! Now, which one are you? The one with milk or the one who just bores me to sleep?

Carter's taken to eating cream cheese toast all by himself. This could get a little messy....

Arden enjoys a little grandma time. And Grandma enjoys a little Arden time.

It's a mutual thing. Next week.... more cuteness!

Carter Turns Two!

2011-03-18T19:15:00.007-04:00

This little boy is two already. Where does the time go? Carter has had a week full of fun and surprises. Mommy and Daddy got him an early birthday present when his baby sister Arden showed up on Monday... and then they tried to make up for all of the attention she'd be stealing by delivering a bunch of new toys interspersed throughout the week.

There's the set of wedge stacking pieces that make interesting towers for him to knock down, there's a brand new racetrack that he loves to watch wooden cars race down, new books...

Carter's got a new picnic area out near the garden that will be perfect for evening meals.... and we've even got a Carter sized table in addition to the one for adults. That comes courtesy of a Christmas present from the Baers, who are in town visiting now. Not only that, but for his birthday, they bought Carter a pony!

Well okay, it's a pony bike. But we should be thankful it's not a real pony, knowing Deann it could have been and then we'd be trying to build a stable and get permits from the city. Carter seems enthusiastic about his pony. He can't push the pedals yet but he is good at the dismount.

Carter is all smiles during the day, but nights can be a different story when he is sick. Mother nature had a present for Carter too... a nasty cold that kept him up on Thursday and Friday night. Friday it was so bad... he screamed and screamed and would not sleep so I had to make 2 Wal-Mart runs for different medications. Wal-Mart in the middle of the night... is there anything more depressing? First time I'd been there in 2 years, but when your kid is in pain, gotta put aside your preferences and just get him what he needs.

Carter had fun last Saturday, when we had our garden friends come over and plant some onion seedlings. That's him enjoying a wagon ride with his friend Clara. One of his last moments as an only child... Cierra came home right at the end of their play session with some very early labor pains that would result in Arden arriving 1 1/2 days later.

Adjusting to life with a sister... Carter is playing by himself a bunch while we tend to Arden. But he's always been independent. If we're not in his face, he'll just amble up to the front room and start pulling toys out of his bin.

He might be great at being independent, but he sure does love playing with others! Here Carter is with his playgroup friends Christopher and Rowan. Carter and Christopher have really become great playmates over the last few times, really chasing each other around screetching, laughing and smiling at each other. Carter used to be more of an observer and now he's getting in the game! Greg (or Papa) took Carter down to our playground today and he observed a family playing hide and go seek... he figured it out and tried to join in!

Arden Lily Arrives!

2011-03-18T19:11:00.003-04:00

Arden Lily Tabony was born on March 14 at 5:29 in the morning, after a couple of sleepless nights of hard work.... but boy was it worth it! Arden is so sweet. She's having a milky meal as I write this now.
Arden already knows to stay close to the food source. She started out at 7lbs 10oz, but by Wednesday was down to 6lbs 15oz. Thank goodness the milk has come in now, and we're back up to almost where we started!
We're already preparing Arden for study at Hogwarts. "Stupify!"

She is such a snuggler. I remember Carter just being unable to be still on my chest. He would always kick his legs and drive himself up past my head. She just wriggles in close and sleeps.
Carter is doing so well with his baby sister. He can already say her name "Ahh-den" and he stroked her head today and pointed out her facial features for us. Although he obviously can't do much with her yet, he's given me big smiles when I bring her in the same room and show off to him how I care for her. He seems proud to be a big brother.

Cierra's parents, Greg and Deann got to be the first of family to visit! They love their granddaughter too and think she's just perfect. Well of course she is! Cierra read all the books on pregnancy and birthing to make sure.

This time around we decided to forego the hospital experience for a birthing center that's opened nearby with midwives running the place instead of doctors. Wow, what a change for the better. Much more personal experience this time, care that focused on support and not intervention. I wish more women could have this experience. And I would say that we had a great hospital experience with CMC and Carter's birth. Their staff and care was great, but with the proper preparation and a low-risk mother, the hospital is just not the most comfortable place to give birth. This time, Cierra was happy to labor in the tub for more than 4 hours. Plus, we had mom and baby at home and resting up in just over 4 1/2 hours after Arden was born.

Arden and her wizardly hat take a tour of the property, properly shaded under an umbrella from the sun's deadly rays. If babies under 6 months can't get any sunlight, how did the human race survive to produce physicians in the first place?

We jest, we jest... but better safe than sorry. Obviously, there's so much more to tell... but we're tired, people! Next up: an account of Carter's 2nd birthday and other stuff about Arden coming soon too. But first: Sleep.

Gimme that camera!

2011-03-09T03:34:00.005-05:00

Gimme that camera, Dad! C'mon, it's my last chance to get top billing before I've got to share the spotlight.

Look at meeee! I'm EXCITED! Plus, I'm going to get a BABY SISTER really soon! Not sure what that means but Mommy and Daddy keep talking about it so it's gotta be GOOD!

I have become my father. I remember one of my earlier birthdays, Dad got me a post-hole digger for my birthday. Boy did I hate that thing but I'm sure Dad just wanted to get me working alongside him. Carter showed some interest in moving leaves around so I got him this little rake. Here he is learning to dance with it.

Carter's really trying to blow bubbles now. Also, he's trying to eat the wand.

Not posted.... the snap I got where the ring was actually inside his mouth. :)

That is one happy little guy. How lucky are we? We're spending a lot more time outdoors these days, opening the garden back up.

Going for a walk, again. We walk down to the playground around 3 times a day now. Most of the time it's just a couple of runs down the slide and he says "home". Then we walk back to the house and get ready to do it all again.

We took a little stroll through our local science museum the other day. Here, Carter stares at something in wonderment.

More staring. Science is EXCITING. Or maybe hypnotic.

Also EXCITING.... Eating! This is Carter in the "snack chair", which is really just his designated chair in the breakfast nook. He can crawl into and out of it all by himself.

Great Dad, just by talking about it, you've made the snack chair uncool.

That's it for now, stay tuned for our next update which will hopefully include very exciting news!

Adventures in the life of Carter

2011-02-20T12:46:00.002-05:00

Daddy, it has been nice living with you and Mommy, but I'm going to move into this playground now. Can you have all my stuff boxed up and sent here? I'm not so much interested in the stuff as I will be in the boxes.

Carter quickly learned how to walk across this swing bridge without falling the other day... hey, maybe this is when he forgot how to walk on a flat surface! He fell forward twice today, the first time he just ate it, bounced his face off the asphalt and came up crying with little bits of road stuck to his cheek. I winced, bounding forward to scoop him up and gritting my teeth against the blood I was sure would be coming from his mouth. But no, only a few tears lost and when I asked him if he wanted to go back inside he looked at me as if I was stupid. "Walk, Daddy"

We're now members at Charlotte's Discovery Place. Most of the exhibits there are for bigger kids but Carter fell in love with this big board of plastic insertable rods that would light up as you inserted them in the holes. It really seemed like magic. If I worked at Discovery Place after hours I would get a banana clip and totally pretend to be Geordi LaForge trying to get the Dilithium crystals realigned to prevent a cascade warp reaction. I mean, I would do that if I was a total nerd or something.

Another trip to a playground. (This is a different one, we swear!) Looks like these days we only remember to pull out the camera when we're out and about tending to Carter's slide obsession. Here, he rides a big metal toucan. Is this the stork that's bringing my baby sister?

I'll take one of everything! Just put it all in a bucket.

Carter likes to eat. While feeding him I get to listen to yelled commands like "Mo' MEET" Mo-Mo-Mo KRAKAS. Mo BOCOLI!

When he was feeling sick a few weeks back we gave him orange juice. Whoa. Everything else went out the window. Carter, would you like some food? "Jus!" No, how about some food. "JOOOS! JOOOOOOOOOOS!" Carter you can't just have juice. "YAYAYA JOOOOOOOOOOOS!" Hoo boy. We've gotten him to forget about it for now but he may have to go to some meetings later in life.

We've been talking to Carter about his new baby sister who will be here in just a few weeks. He seems to know that there will soon be a new baby arriving... but what he doesn't know yet is how much his life will change because of it. Stay tuned to this space and we'll let you know how it goes!

Where does the time go?

2011-02-07T21:46:00.004-05:00

I guess we've just been having too much fun around here... it's been 3 weeks since I posted anything new about Carter! It's been sunny but cold here in Charlotte, and Carter doesn't see anything wrong with bundling up to take a trip down to our neighborhood playground. I always know when it's outside time, because he marches out into the hall and starts rummaging through our bin of cold-weather items. "Coat" he declares as he hands me his jacket. A minute later he's back. "Hat" he demands, shoving a tassle in my face. He knows to turn around and put his arms into the sleeves when I hold up the coat. "Arm" he confides. Although, he did point to his leg on the changing table yesterday and said loudly, "Arm."

"No, Carter, that is your leg. Arms have hands on the end. Legs have feet. That looks like a foot to me!"

He's having a ball on the swing, which can mean only one person is pushing him... Mommy! Whenever Daddy loads him in the swing, it's "Down, Down, Down" right away.

Look at the mess I made! Aren't you proud of me? Long days of mostly inside time lead to some crazy messes around here. If it's a cooking day, sometimes it really looks out of control. I'm always amazed at how fast I can pick it all up. Since it's the last thing I have to do before I can relax, I probably look like the Tazmainian Devil whirling through the house, plastic blocks and stuffed animals orbiting around my head on the way to their bins.

On most nights before Carter heads to bed, he helps me put away the toys in his play area. Sometimes he forgets and starts to play with them again, but as long as I can keep him focused on the goal, (he loves his bath) then he really does a great job.

Here we are reading "Mommy, Carry me Please." Probably not the best book to have around, especially now that Cierra's trying not to carry him so much. Cierra's nearly 8 months pregnant now, and getting close to the "let's hurry up and get this over with" stage. But everything is looking good and aside from a cold Carter gave everyone last week, we're all healthy and happy.

Daddy, it's outside time again! Ok, gotta go!

The Blizzard of 2011

2011-01-16T20:23:00.004-05:00

Hey everyone! My mom sent us a few more good pictures from the trip we took up to Virginia recently, so I thought we could lead off with those this week.

Aww, Grandpa. Don't you know tricks are for kids? This is my Dad's automatic response every time someone breaks out a camera.

Weeeelll, I know it's been a while and no, I really don't have much of an excuse. We haven't been doing much since we last posted. Charlotte has been going through a cold snap this past week, and we got some pretty significant (for us) snowfall a week ago that kept us from going anywhere for a few days. Carter got a little tired of spending so much time inside and got a bit fussy on us. Could be the new eyeteeth he's got coming in too.

As of yesterday our local neighborhood's playground still has a lot of ice and snow on it, so we've been walking right by in our wagon. Carter yells at us every time. "What's the matter, fools? Can't you see that playground? The one we go to EVERY DAY?" We explain the problem but he's not buying it.

The second morning the trees were still covered in ice. The moments of beauty in a snowstorm... before you have to shovel the driveway and destroy it all.

When can I get out of here?

Carter's started saying a lot more. He had been saying "moan" for a long while and we couldn't figure out what the heck he meant. Turns out it was "brown", which appears to be his new favorite color. Perhaps that's because it's also the color of "meat", which he crows enthusiastically every time I fix a steak.

Carter also went number 2 on the potty for the first time this past week! Now we know that one time does not a trend make, but the cool part was that he communicated well about it. We asked him if he needed to go, he made the potty sign, we took him in and told him what to do, and he sat on his potty, made the sign repeatedly, and got straight down to business.

We went out in the storm while it was still snowing and got some good play time in. I showed Carter the number-one thing to do with snow.... snowballs. He didn't want to throw them, but kept cheering for me to make and throw more at everything around.

Back at the playground! Sliding away until next week....

Happy New Year!

2011-01-02T21:21:00.002-05:00

We're back from Virginia and visiting my parents, and I am beyond glad to be back in my own bed. I didn't grow up being quite so wimpy, but now I've got my lil' contoured pillow... and other people's pillows just aren't cutting it anymore. Carter had a great time up in Gladstone, and yelled at us heartily when we told him it was time to say goodbye after 3 great days.

There was still a little snow unmelted here and there, which encouraged Uncle Freeman to make snowballs. Freeman and Carter got along very well, because Freeman wasn't afraid to get down on Carter's level and play with him. That, and Freeman plays guitar and sings. If you can make music, Carter's going to like you. All I have to do if I want Carter to come running is break into song. He'll be right underfoot, clapping his hands together for more.

I told Carter this clothesline was a zipline. We had great fun "sliding" back and forth between trees.

...We had to tag the tree on each end before turning around and zipping off in the other direction.

While Carter took a nap, we left Grandma in charge and took a walk down by the James River, which my childhood home overlooks. No, (newly minted) Aunt Kate and Uncle Sawyer didn't throw Freeman in the river right afterwards, because if they did, we'd have pictures of a sopping wet and enraged Uncle Freeman chasing everyone around a field.

Oh, and we're all wearing those colors because it was the last day of hunting season and every other local was out with a six-pack and a rifle trying to bag one last deer for the year.

Merry Christmas Aftermath

2010-12-28T12:39:00.003-05:00

Well folks, there hasn't been a white Christmas here in Charlotte since 1947. And it looked like the streak would remain unbroken despite what the forecasters said. But at 11:30pm on Christmas, we looked outside and the ground was sprinkled with the faintest speckle of snow. So, I'll leave it to the record makers to figure out if that resets the official counter. All I know is that unless I wake up on Christmas morning to a blanket of pristine white snow (well, pristine except for the reindeer prints on the roof), it doesn't count in my book.

But the day after Christmas we woke up to around 2 inches outside. Cierra's family was visiting and her Dad and I fashioned a makeshift sled from an old plastic tub and some rope. Problem was, I attached the rope at the top of this tall tub, not the bottom, so when it caught on a stick under the snow, the whole contraption flipped over and gave Carter a face full of snow. Not appreciated in the least!

But he calmed down and walked around the garden in this crunchy white stuff that he insisted on calling "bubbles". Well, it does kind of look like when he takes his bath.

The Baers brought some kryptonite in the form of 10 different jigsaw puzzles in one box. I cannot resist a puzzle. Here Carter attempts to help me puzzle it out.... but he's actually trying to figure out if he can eat these things.

Carter got the coolest wagon for Christmas, complete with umbrella. And good thing too, because we went for this walk in a light rain.

Another awesome present found by mommy... a ball pit! This place is starting to resemble Chuck E. Cheese's house.

Get a load of this tree! More specifically, the pile of presents underneath it. Any more gifts next year and we'll have to reinforce the floor.

Well, we had a wonderful Christmas and we hope you did too. Tomorrow we are off to visit with my family for a few days in beautiful VA.

Bundle up and Play!

2010-12-18T20:03:00.004-05:00

What's that, Dad? Too cold to go to the playground? I don't understand what that means. Now will you help me get this jacket on?

It's cold here this week... and it has sleeted on us twice... but that doesn't mean that Carter is inside 100% of the time. Pretty much anytime the rain stops and the sun comes out, the son comes out as well.

Training for a possible political career, Carter learns to sit on a fence.

Man! I can see my breath on this plastic bubble!

Carter is such a musical baby. It's incredible. I think it may be genes from my Mom's side of the family where everyone can play multiple instruments. I didn't think I got any of those musical genes, but perhaps I'm just a carrier.

No, Carter's not playing anything good yet, but he loves to strum the guitar's strings, and he demands music constantly. I've had to scold him a couple of times because our built-in radio in the kitchen sits near the oven, and he's so enthusiastic about asking for me to turn it on, I'm afraid he'll burn himself.

Carter's preparing for the arrival of his little sister by learning to push the stroller around.

Less than three months to go before I have a kid for each arm. That should be fun... and good for building muscle mass. Cierra's feeling a lot better than she once was, a whole lot less running for the bathroom going on around here, so that's good.

It just really doesn't seem like it's coming up so fast. Once the holidays are over, I'm sure it will get real very quickly. We're shifting stuff out of my old office which will be the new guest room. Carter will move to our old guest room and the new baby will get the existing nursery. We've made a lot of progress but there's plenty more to be done.

Carter playing in the dormant garden. It looks so empty in the winter months, save for the happy little garlic plants poking their way up through the mulch. I planted about a thousand of them this year, so there's a lot more out there growing then there were last winter.

I'd all but decided to not grow much more than onions and garlic this summer, but darn, Cierra got me started reading Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" and I think I'll be going hogwild with the seed catalog again. Agggh. It's disgusting how much I can't help myself.

What's really amazing is how restorative the months of November and December are for gardeners. At least in my case, by October, I don't even want to look out there. What was edible has long since been enjoyed, the bugs and the weeds are having a field day and the remains of my long days of work all year are old, half dead geezer plants begging to be carted off to the compost heap. This fall it was so hot here most of my seedlings for the autumn season just fried right in the ground. But after a month and a half of rest, here I am thinking, oooh I should really grow that. It won't be much work. Yeah, right.

Don't worry, Daddy. I'll help you out! Got any plants that need stomping?

Cierra's happy to be off work today and starting an 8 day vacation. Carter will be happy to have so much uninterrupted time with Ma-ma!

Back with more next week!

Getting colder and getting older.

2010-12-06T23:34:00.006-05:00

Big grins! He's standing on the scale in that picture so maybe he's happy because he's growing. We're keeping busy around here, trying to keep the debris that fall provides from burying what's left of the yard. The weather's getting colder, too, so that means it's harder to get in our outside time.

Daddy, let me help you put your camera back together. When you take this piece off, the top part keeps flashing light in my eyes. I need my eyes for seeing and stuff.

Yeah, on cold days Carter can get a little antsy from cabin fever. So whenever the sun comes out, out we go to play in the yard.

Time to get some digging done! Dad, you said you needed some leaves moved?

He's even cuter when you turn him upside down.

Here he looks pretty serious!

This picture is actually from a while ago. We watched Carter's friend Rowan while her parents went to the new Harry Potter movie and I got to read with 2 babies in my lap. Carter usually massages my hand while I read to him, but he caught hold of Rowan's for a little bit and was doing the same thing. So cute!

The before and after haircut shots at different playgrounds...

Whenever weather permits, we take a walk to our local playground, but sometimes we get further afield. These pictures are from when we went to Waxhaw to meet Mommy for lunch. They have an awesome playground there with 7 or 8 different slides! He LOVED it :-)

In other news, Carter is starting to string words together. When I'm feeding him it's not uncommon to hear "Mo Mo Ches Ples" Which is obviously translating to "More More Cheese Please." A sentiment we can all get behind!

Okay, it's midnight so I'd better get to bed or he'll be running laps around me tomorrow. See you next week!

Louisiana and Back Again...

2010-11-28T22:02:00.006-05:00

All right! I've finally got enough food cooked to keep Cierra happy for a couple of days. Time now to update the blog. So, earlier this month Grandpa Tabony and I babynapped Carter for a guys' road trip down to the great state of Louisiana, where my Dad was born and raised. Three generations of first born boys, two of them adults, one minivan. Who would survive?

Well, we all did, and we had lots of fun doing it. We only had one scary moment when the check engine light came on driving through Alabama. On the way down we stopped at Aunt Loni's house. Loni is Dad's youngest sister and Carter's youngest Great Aunt. But she didn't want to be called that, although she did admit that she was "great."

The next stop (after the Toyota dealership that assured us our vehicle was okay to drive) was the New Orleans area, where we saw the house and neighborhood where I spent the first few years of my life. Good thing we left while the getting was good. We drove south down the east side of the Mississip to Pointe al a Hache, where Dad was born and where Katrina hasn't left much worth looking at. The amount of effort that goes into protecting the land down there is just ridiculous. You could give every resident down there a million dollars just to get out and you'd still be saving money.... and once the levees are broken you'd actually be saving the environment too. Two tiny strips of land that are liveable on either side of the river. Wide enough for a road and houses and not much else, and protected by front and back levees. These levees keep the silt that is the lifeblood of the marshes in the riverbanks during floodtime, to be carried out and dumped into the depths of the Gulf instead of deposited where it renews the marsh.

Plaquemines Parish still operates a ferry across the river at Pointe a la Hache every hour, though at least half of the passengers on the trip we took were contractors employed either by the parish or by industry down there. Didn't really seem to be a lot of locals around to take the ferry anymore. Grandpa and Carter enjoyed some time together while we waited for the ferry to come over and pick us up.

Eventually we drove on, and our van was parked right next to the edge of the boat. I slid the door open and let Carter sit on my lap so he could look out over the water. He loved it! We spent that night with Dad's cousin Maryann, who really enjoyed watching Carter play with her grandkids' toys.

The next morning we visited the French Quarter and got some of that good New Orleans food!

Here's Carter at the restaurant. I didn't take any pictures while we were still eating because I was busy eating my giant po-boy.

Speaking of food, that night we dropped by Dad's friends the Bollines for a visit and a crab feast! Cheryl had a ball with Carter and presented him with a Little People playset that is still his favorite toy by far.

While staying with Dad's sister Nikki in Lafayette, LA we took a trip down to Avery Island where all the Tabasco sauce is bottled. It's a pretty interesting place, as it sits on top of a huge salt deposit which pokes out of the marshes. When you get to South Louisiana, you really don't expect to see hills anywhere, and yet, when you drive to Avery Island, there one is.

Several of Dad's siblings came in to memorialize Becky, Dad's sister who passed away suddenly in August. That's Douglas in back, then Sally in red. Nikki is on the other side of Dad. We all went out for dinner and fed Carter some alligator. He liked it!

There were some nice gardens on Avery Island for Carter to walk around in. Only problem... he kept looking up at the sky and he was obsessed with walking on these raised stones. So he fell down a lot.

Another shot from the same garden.

And here we are back in the French Quarter.

Here is Carter, walking the levee in our old neighborhood, right where I used to when I was his age. We pointed out a tug pushing a barge, much like the ones Dad used to drive right by us.

Meanwhile, back in North Carolina, the leaves were coming off the trees quickly. There was quite a mess by the time we were back, but that just meant Carter had an opportunity to crawl around in a big pile while Dad and I raked.

Plans came together quickly this past week to bring our family's Thanksgiving down here instead of having it at my parents' place this year. Cierra's work schedule was so busy that we would have spent more time driving up there than visiting with family. Since they had a little more time off we decided that they could come down to spend time with us!

We had a great time, and I created a real Thanksgiving feast from scratch, including pumpkin pies from a real pumpkin! Last year I cheated and got a pre-made feast from the grocery store, including a cooked bird. What a sense of accomplishment!

Unfortunately, Carter got sick at the same time, and he's probably given the cold to everyone in the family. So we continue to recover from that, but we're enjoying the time off from our busy schedule... and looking forward to being busy again come Christmas.

...and that catches you up on all the big happenings. Until next week!

Indiana Trip

2010-11-14T20:40:00.006-05:00

This blog is turning into just a shell of its former self!

So, yeah. For the last month we've been gone more than we've been home. In October we took a trip north to Indiana and attended a wedding! That was great, we had a week and a half to enjoy time with family between the ceremony and a seminar that Cierra attended at Purdue. The problem started when we got home... and my beloved computer was switched back on.

"Beep!" said my computer happily, and the boot sequence whizzed by, revealing the Windows logo complete with progress bar to give us faith that Windows is in fact loading and not just building anticipation. "Click!" said the computer dizzily, and then passed out. The screen was black. Uh-oh.

Turns out it was a fatal problem, and I am now typing this on a brand-new laptop. So with the time lost due to technology problems and all of the travel we are WAY behind. And with all of the other things going on around here, we are in serious danger of just never catching up. So here are a bunch of pictures from the Indiana trip with minimum narration. Because it's really all about how cute Carter is anyway. Here we go...

Cierra's cousin Kara got married in a beautiful ceremony on Grandview Lake. She tried to get Carter to come over for a picture but he was a little freaked out by the dress.

Time at Grandview always means one thing... BOAT RIDES!

Carter got obsessed with getting up to the upper deck. Then he got all cross because I wouldn't let him walk around up there. Gosh, Dad, you treat me like a baby or something!

Fist bump! We can thank Uncle Krin for teaching him to be cool.

Carter is loving this boat thing! He stood up at the railing and pointed at everything.

While in Columbus, we dropped by Grandpa Bardonner's house. He had a new toy for Carter, a little barn and tractor set.

When he broke out the bubbles, that's when Carter got REALLY excited.

And some cute pictures I can't quite place...

Here's Carter in his Halloween costume...

...and the same lil' gator with Aunt Alexis...

The flowers at Grandview were especially beautiful for Kara's big day...

Okay, now that I get down to the last couple of pictures I realize that I'll have to advance the story a little farther to make this make sense. So just after we'd bought the new computer but before we'd had time to make another blog post, we had to leave again, this time to go up to West Virgina for my brother Freeman's wedding. I haven't uploaded any of those pictures yet, that will be in a post very soon, but here are a couple of photos of Carter playing around my parents' place in Virginia, where we stayed for one night after the wedding.

Coming up next time... Pictures and stories from the wedding of Freeman and Kate, plus the saga of the road trip Carter, Grandpa and I took all the way down to Louisiana and back. Good times!

On the Road...

2010-10-24T10:32:00.001-04:00

We have been visiting family and travelling for the last 10 days, but will be home soon and hope to get pictures and updates posted before too long....

Oudoor Fun and Nighttime Stress

2010-10-02T22:23:00.010-04:00

What fun to have reached the time of year when temperatures are just right. Not too hot or cold, and babies can enjoy the best of life outdoors. Our whole family made a trip to Freedom Park for the Festival in the Park. Carter sat on my shoulders so he could see a children's dance troupe.

See dad? This is the kind of caution flag we need around our porch stairs! Aww, forget it, bright colors would just make me want to climb them more.

Carter had lots of fun watching other kids run up a nearby hill and then roll all the way down.

We've started making daily excursions to a nearby playground. Carter doesn't like the swings yet, but he really loves the slide. He's gotten good at going down both on his back and his belly. Most of the time we're the only ones there, but once or twice he's gotten to make a new friend at the same time.

Total comfort. That's what you get with a mommy hug. Ahhh.

Carter also continues his love of books. Here he is climbing into his book basket after he's emptied it out most of the way. Each day he has a new favorite book that we read over and over again.

Baby mohawk! I am totally rockin' this look. Don't you agree?

So we've been having really fun days, but our nights haven't been all that great this week. Our doctor told us that it's time to get Carter off his bottle and on to drinking all his milk out of sippy cups. But he's very picky about his milk consumption... it has to be at the right temperature and in the right bottle with the right nipple. The first night we went cold turkey... well, nobody got much sleep around here. It was like trying to get a junkie off of heroin or something. Lots of screaming and breaking stuff and tears. And Carter was nearly as bad. Ha ha. But seriously, don't use a bottle warmer with your baby. They do not require warm milk! But they will get hooked on it and then you will have to wait 5 minutes for the milk to warm up every night when you would rather be asleep... and you will have to bring the stupid warmer to everywhere you'd like to go for more than 4 hours. And finally, you will have an epic struggle when it comes time to change something about your baby's nighttime habits.

The first night was by far the worst. Now he's going right back to sleep after waking up once and taking a little water. But the one thing that's upsetting is that his milk intake is down to near zero! And he's a growing boy who could really use it. But he won't take it from the sippy cups warm or cold. But this morning during breakfast he took three seperate sips of cool milk from a cup so I have hope that he'll make the transition eventually. And I'd rather he just start liking cool milk now so we don't have another fight in a couple months to wean him off of that.

So in summary, bottle warmers are evil. Ta ta!

Father and Son Trip

2010-09-26T19:07:00.011-04:00

Hey, everyone! I know this entry is coming ridiculously late but I've been trying unsuccessfully to upload a super cute video that I took of Carter. Trying for days. I wanted it to be the intro to this post but oh well. Can't figure out why blogger doesn't like it, but it's just not going to work. So you'll have to be content with still pictures this time.

Carter and I took off last weekend for a quick trip up to Virginia to see some of the family who hadn't gotten to see him for months. Here's Uncle Freeman and soon to be Aunt Kate (the wedding is in just over a month!)

Freeman found himself a beautiful woman and he is really in love. It's very nice to see the two of them so happy together.

Grandma and Grandpa Tabony hanging with Carter right after one of his naps. Believe it or not, he is awake here, he's just so relaxed you can't see it at first glance. Grandma really had fun with you this weekend, Carter.

It was also an interesting trip because it was my first time driving alone with Carter for a long distance. The drive takes about 4hrs and 2o minutes, and so each time I left as close as I could to Carter's bedtime, hoping that meant he would sleep the majority of the way. On the way to VA, this backfired a bit. He drank all the warm milk we had, and then I sang to him all the way to the VA border (around 2hrs) By this time, he was starting to get a bit distressed in the backseat. I heard "Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh" over and over again. So I stopped a few times and comforted him, but all he wanted was to get out of the car. After I explained that we really couldn't stop for the night on the side of the highway, we would get moving again and he'd go back to crying. So I started reading to him from memory... his favorite book right now, called "Oliver Finds His Way." In which our hero Oliver the Bear gets lost and roars so his mom and dad will roar back enabling him to fulfill the promise of the title. Carter likes it because of all the roaring. He's very into animal sounds, and whenever I would read him this book he delightedly shouts ROAR! back as soon as I say it.

So he's crying away in the backseat and I say "Roar!" From the backseat: "rarrwrrr." (the saddest little roar you can imagine) It was so cute I could barely finish the story I was smiling so hard. After 4 tellings of this story, he was still awake and the effect was wearing off! So I offered to tell him a different story, and when he grunted yes, I made up a story about a cat and a dog who didn't get along. This one I made up on the spot, and it was about 15 minutes long and possibly the dumbest story ever told. At the end, I crossed my fingers and stopped talking.
Silence. YES!

Here, Cierra takes Carter's hand and helps him down a dirt slope just off our driveway and on the way to the nearest playground. Carter has discovered the slide! Pictures of that on the next blog post, I promise.

Carter also has a new chair! When he sits down in the middle of a room it makes the whole house seem gigantic.

TICKLE FIGHT!!! Wahahahaha!!!! Whoops. Now we have to go change Carter's diaper. See you next week!

Life is pretty good!

2010-09-09T21:44:00.008-04:00

Howdy, faithful readers! We haven't had many days since the last blog post so there haven't been too many newsworthy developments in that time...

However, we do have some news that we can finally make public. Carter is going to be a big brother! Cierra is due on March 18th.... yes, that is the same day that Carter was due. Carter may have to learn sharing... he could be sharing a birthday!

It's obviously too early to know much, but the heartbeat sounds healthy so we're keeping our fingers crossed for another sweet healthy bundle of joy come the spring. So far, this pregnancy has been a lot rougher on Cierra. So don't mention food around her and we'll be fine. But you also better make sure she doesn't run low on food, because that's bad too. Or giving her the wrong food, that can be a disaster. So, that's it, just get her the food that she wants today without mentioning food in any way and you're totally safe. Piece of cake! (Oh, sorry honey.)

Whaddya think, Carter? Can you hear the heartbeat? Does it sound like a little sister or brother?

Carter isn't sticking around to find out. Carter, come back! I said you'll have to leave the house when you're 18 YEARS old, not months.
Swing, baby, swing! Pure joy....

....is having Mommy at the playground.

That's all for this week, folks! See you next time.

Carter wants a cracker!

2010-09-05T08:28:00.015-04:00

We've got a little parrot on our hands these days! Say a word to Carter and he will attempt to say it back to you. Mostly he just smiles and thinks about it and then makes a gurgling sound. But he seems to love it, and after enough tries, he can get pretty close. "T" sounds, among others, don't really come out so well. So he says "bubble" when he means "bottle". I was up in the middle of the night about to feed him and wondering why he was talking about bubbles!

Carter and Adelaide got a chance to play last week while her parents were seeing a movie. Talk about a good person to learn vocab from! While we were reading her our "Baby Bear" book, she pointed at the mountain goat, and said "mountain goat" just as clear as day. Not just goat, mountain goat. Yeah, but do you know the genus and species in latin?

With the summer heat relenting just a bit, Carter's getting more outdoor time, which he loves. He can be in the worst mood but a trip outside is guaranteed to fix just about anything.

Hi! I'm driving my car in my pjs....

... and I like it!

Aunt Kaelie stopped by for a few days to check on Carter's progress from baby to little boy. Here she is giving him driving lessons in the front yard. They grow up so fast!

We had lots of visitors! Carter's friend Riley came over for a few hours on monday and we all got some good playtime in. Riley enjoyed emptying all the toy bins out, but she was very good about putting it all back when she was done.

What up? I'm working on my Godfather impression. What do you think?

Dad, yo, this blog is mad boring. We need to spice it up. How bout a guest star appearance by the E-trade baby? Or a new recipe for peach-flavored milk or a milk flavored peach? At the very least it needs more binky. Let me give this a try:

So here I am sitting on the edge of that high place I can't usually get to in the kitchen. Next to me is the milk lady, who is keeping me from practicing my cliff diving skills. Foiled again. I think I'll eat this red pepper. Blah blah blah. I'm boring myself and I'm just a baby. I can spend an hour staring at a butterfly, so if you're boring me, you'd better check yourself.

All right Dad, you can have another try next week. Impress me.

Back Home Again

2010-08-19T11:33:00.022-04:00

Hey everybody! Carter here! I know it's been a while since we wrote, but I've been all over the place lately. First we went up to Indiana to visit with Mom's whole family and then we rode all the way down to Atlanta to see Uncle Krin! Boy my legs are tired. Ok, so I didn't ride my new trike down there, it was in the back of the van. But it's pretty cool, huh? Now I need a sidecar so I can pick up chicks.
Uncle Krin's keeping me upright while I get my eat on. It's embarrassing, but I have been known to pass out mid-bottle and wake up in a puddle of milk.
Climbing the stairs. Up, down, up, down. I'm getting good at this! Right after we took this picture, I managed to elude Dad for a second and fall down a couple of stairs. The resulting big bump I got on my forehead is what I'll blame any bad grades on when I get to school.
Grandpa and Grandma sure do love me. Also big pink flowers. But mostly me.
Land ho! Tighten th' riggins and run out the layward reef! To the timbers, lads! Shake her! Shake her! Then bake her! Okay, so I don't remember exactly what Captain Sparrow said, but I think I got the gist of it.
This tiny chair makes me feel all grown up!
Great Grandpa Hemmerlein sure likes to bounce me on his knee! I must be good luck, because everybody just can't wait to get their hands on me.
Grandpa Baer knows just how to get me. Wahahaha!
Gramdma Baer knows it too. Wooooo!
I'm so excited I wet my shirt! Hahahaha!
Grandpa Bardonner and I decided to wear matching shirts on this day.
Great-grandparents Baer were so excited to see me, they drove three hours to get here on the same day we suggested it!

Gotta pose for the papperazzi...

Hey are you still taking pictures of me? No fair.

Here Grandpa is helping me steer the boat. I know where we need to go but my arms aren't long enough yet.

Finally, here we were at the beginning of the trip. The Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Sure is a lot of sand up here.

This is way too much sand for me to eat all at one sitting. Guess I'll just have to pick at it...

Howya doin, cousin Andrew? Would you like to be buried in the sand? Yes? Well, I can't do that myself but I could walk on your back and fall on your head. How does that sound?

Look, mommy! These cool shades give me the power to see when the blog post is done!

Hot Times

2010-07-29T20:22:00.008-04:00

Ahh, summer! It's a time of plenty... plenty of sunshine, plenty of heat. Lots of blueberries to go around too. Cierra took Carter to a babywearing field trip at a local farm. Here, Carter and his pal enjoy the fruits of her labor. Good thing Cierra's so practiced at picking blueberries... otherwise, they'd be eating them faster than she could throw them in the bucket.

Meanwhile, I got to deal with the aftermath. We use cloth diapers, and I'm pretty sure 2 of them permanently changed from white to blue the day after this picture was taken. :
Carter examines the tomato harvest. We're having a really good year at the market. We've now paid for the fence, our new fancy produce scale, and numerous other one-time expenses that come with starting up a new venture. So hopefully we'll continue to do well and be able to show a little profit by the time it's all said and done.

Walking is now an established skill for Carter... he only falls down a lot when he gets really tired. He's in control... of everything except for his drooling. Cierra got so tired of him soaking his outfits that she asked our neighbor Ruth to crochet this bib for him to absorb the slobber. So now he just looks like he's ready to tuck into a meal all day long.
Such a good baby! Carter really is quite possibly the best baby ever. He goes to the farmer's market with me and spends 5 hours helping sell veggies so patiently, then comes home and plays with me all afternoon. We like to play the BOO! game now, which involves me hiding my face in the couch and popping up to yell BOO! This causes hysterical laughter from him, and eventually he has the need to press our foreheads together and get tickled too. He squeals with glee and by the time he's finished, I'm completely spent too. Gotta get my stamina up!

Hey, Dad! How long before I can drive the swagger wagon?

That's right folks, that is me with our spankin' new 2009 Sienna. LOVE it. I'm still playing with all the buttons, and finding new ones all the time. The ride is so smooth, the power doors are awesome, and the cargo space is a dream come true. It's now so easy when we load up to go to the market, where before there was only one way I could fit everything into our Cavalier, now it's just throw it all in the back and we've still got room to spare!

That's about it, Carter just has one more thing to add... "BAH!"

Summer Fun in Charlotte

2010-07-21T20:22:00.007-04:00

Howdy from Charlotte once again. It is so hot down here right now, it's hard to go outside at all during the daylight hours. Starting with this blog post, you may notice a slight improvement in the picture quality... my birthday present from my Mom was a digital SLR camera that puts our other one to shame. These first 3 shots were snapped as I was playing with it one evening.
Carter loves it when Mama gets home early enough to play in the evening. Here he is getting ready to be flipped over in a somersault. Carter, are you EXCITED?

Looks like that's a YES!

Yet another party with all of Carter's friends over... he throws the best parties! Now if only he could stop worrying about that stain on the floor and enjoy himself.

The garden and farmer's market are still big parts of our lives... and this week when our helpers Gretchen and Nick came by, we checked out the fruit trees and found ripe apples and peaches!
Yummy! Our white peaches are especially delicious... and plentiful. If our pears end up tasting good this year, we'll really be doing well. Both our trees are loaded down!
Carter has a great kid to look up to in Campbell, Gretchen's oldest.
For my 31st birthday this Sunday, Cierra got me this great shirt from the Apple Store. It's unbelievable, a revolutionary shirt. You can even use it to watch movies! Well, by that I mean you can wear it to the movie theater, which I did when we went to see Inception. It's not often that I pay full price to see a movie, and it's very rare for me to feel like I got my money's worth and then some. Overall, a great birthday!
Carter's first word has arrived! He now says "Uh-oh", which was our word to cue him that he's doing something wrong. We may have to find a new phrase, because now he walks around the house throwing his ball and saying "Uh-oh". It's so cute that we have to laugh and say it back to him, which isn't exactly how you want the "trouble phrase" to be reinforced.

Ok, I know we've been lazy about these posts. We'll try to get another one up next Thursday. Until then, stay cool people, stay cool.

Keeping it Cool

2010-07-08T19:32:00.004-04:00

It's been SO hot in Charlotte recently... it hurts to even think about going outside in the middle of the day. So it was a great week to have a pool party! Some friends of ours were watching this ridonkulous lake house this week and they invited us over to take a dip. Here's Carter and his friend Adelaide chillin' in their pool chair...

And Carter and Adelaide both thought the built in waterfall was super-cool. Splish splash!

The mansion itself was unbelievable. Built out on a point, it had around 200 degrees of lake view. It was 10,000 square feet and felt like a slightly scaled down version of Disney's Wilderness Lodge. The place was so amazing that I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I found out that it was just these folks' lake house... they actually have another house they live at full time 15 MINUTES AWAY!!! To have all this beauty at your fingertips and then just let it sit empty a lot of the time seems like a crime. Sadness.

Earlier in the week, Adelaide came over and spent some time with us while her parents had dinner out. She and Carter played with his toy that shoots little balls around and plays music. She really liked the music, dancing and hugging Carter. Carter likes to be hugged the first five or six times, but then after that, he's just looking over at me like "Why are these girls always suffocating me?" Trust me, buddy, this will come in handy someday.

Hugs. And more hugs. Hey, would you like to dance and hug?

Life continues to speed by. Carter's walking up a storm and doesn't want anyone picking him up now without his permission. He's making progress in other areas too... mimicking sounds, throwing a ball, and tonight, a very special moment. As Cierra was taking him up to bed, I asked him for a kiss. Normally when we ask for one, he purses his lips and makes a kissing sound. This time he leaned forward very deliberately, put his lips together, closed his eyes and gave me the sweetest little peck on the cheek. I was smiling ear to ear for the next ten minutes.

Two Step, Three Step, Four......

2010-07-01T20:56:00.006-04:00

That's right... he's walking and our lives are changed forever. Carter's been on the verge for a while, we could see that he had all the skills but hadn't put them together yet. So Wednesday afternoon, I sat down with him on the floor and put him next to one piece of furniture and my iphone on another, four or five baby steps away.

"Carter", I said, "If you can walk over to get my Iphone, you can play with it." There were a couple of failed attempts, but there was no doubt that he understood the challenge. After one or two successes, then I started to move the finish line farther away. He kept making it! Then Mommy came downstairs and he really got going!

Grandparents Baer timed their trip well and got to witness the breakthrough firsthand! Deann stayed with us for four nights and Greg was here for two. Thank goodness Deann showed up because the transmission in our Mazda is finished and I needed some help getting Carter out of the house.

This boy sure knows how to work the camera. One of his "excited" poses and everyone's in stitches!

Carter posed with Mimi outside the Volkswagen Jetta where he took his first car ride sans car seat. He looked like the baby from the movie "The Hangover"! Don't worry, it was just a few feet as we figured out how to get it in reverse and got it away from the garden fence. But he was still looking over at Mimi in the driver's seat with a look that said, "Umm... I'm pretty sure that I'm not supposed to be riding shotgun."

And this shot speaks for itself... after all, what use is learning to walk if you can't splash naked through the puddles?

Beach Week

2010-06-23T15:19:00.006-04:00

Okay, so it's been a while since we've written, but give us a break... we've been on vacation! It was Carter's second trip to Chincoteague Island, VA a beautiful strip of sand on the edge of the Delmarva Peninsula. We get together with my mom's family for a week of fun and singing each year.
Carter retreats from the scary ocean, way up sand mountain.
He might not be saying much yet, but his penmanship is excellent.
Next to me is my youngest brother Sawyer, then the other two are Freeman and his fiancee Kate who are planning to marry this fall. We got to meet her for the first time this trip! Freeman got super lucky... she is going to be a great addition to the family.
The bike we rented had a Carter chariot attached. "Onward, driver! My banana yogurt awaits!"
Beach hug for daddy!
This is too much fun!

Carter was afraid of the ocean the first day, but on the second would sit and let the water wash up on him a little. He also let me take him out in my arms. The third day he wanted to crawl out into it and we had to hold him back.

Take me out there! I want to ride a porpoise!
Carter practiced his walking on a nature path. He took his first few consecutive steps this week, but still doesn't seem to be in any hurry to start walking regularly.
The Tabony Brothers Trio giving a rare concert. There's always singing at a Hunter Family Reunion but it's rare to see me up on stage.

Well that's it for the pictures. We're super busy around here now that we're back. Not helping things... the transmission in the Mazda is acting shifty (ha!) so we're looking for a good used minivan. Hopefully the car will hold together till we find one. Talk to you next week (I hope)!

On Deadline-Latest from Babyland

2010-06-03T22:39:00.006-04:00

Hey everybody! It's getting close to the middle of the night, but Cierra seems to think this thing has to go up on Thursdays or we risk losing subscribers. So we'll see what I can remember at this late hour about the last week. Also contributing to the tone of this piece... I've enjoyed a glass of wine this evening. Not just any wine, a wine I bought for less than 3 dollars. Yes, that is for a full size bottle. I'm detecting notes of huckleberry and overtones of mushrooms and worm castings. Wine this good usually comes in a box... a pine box. Ahh.... see, I'm not even sure what that means. Okay, I don't usually buy wine this cheap, but I needed some for cooking and I hate to waste good wine in the crock pot. I prefer to buy some deadly swill and see if I can ruin a bunch of expensive food with it.

On to the news of the day. A couple weeks back we had a photographer take a bunch of photos for us at a local park to mark Carter at around one year old. Here are some of the standouts!

Sadly, we didn't pay her enough so she took all the color out of this shot. We have all the pigment on layaway. Next week I should have enough for the blue.

Carter is very interested in the guitar. This may be the impetus for me to finally do something more with this thing than sit looking at it with my mouth hanging open. But if I know myself and my capacity for not doing complex tasks over long periods of time, I will probably find a way not to learn.

Carter loves to pluck at those strings, though. He'll probably learn before I do. In fact, he put more time into it today than I did. I had to cook some chicken for dinner and needed an activity to keep him happy. So I just put the guitar on the floor and listened to the music. I've labeled Carter's first composition "Dischordia". But as long as it's going on, I don't have to worry he's getting into anything too terrible.

Walking, walking, walking! Carter may be too scared to take his first steps yet, but he loves walking around with our help. He can do it for longer than our backs want to, that's for sure. So it's a good thing we've got one of those walking tools with wheels for him to lean on and push around the ground floor. Too bad our family room is three steps down. He'd avoided it for so long until today that I really thought he knew to stay away from there with his cart. Nope. I was standing in the middle of the room, trying to email Cierra a particularly cute video of Carter when all of a sudden he comes trucking into the room, pushing his cart out into midair. The cart careens down the stairs, and Carter, like any good captain, goes down with the ship, landing facedown on top of the smoldering wreckage. Okay, this is a lot of dramatic license. Actually he just sprawled across the top of the cart and didn't even bump his face, thank goodness. Of course, I rushed over and picked him up in a panic. He let me have it with one good scream and then followed it up with a very serious sounding "Eh?" It's almost like I understood he was saying "So I probably won't be doing that again."

Here's what he will be doing again... eating strawberries! That's it for this week... peace out until next time!

Working it

2010-05-28T16:20:00.003-04:00

Carter and I in the middle of a not-so-busy market day on Tuesday of last week. Cierra took some time off of work and finally came to see us! Carter remained in good spirits even though we didn't have many customers to wave and smile at. On top of that, I forgot all our baby food so we had to run home in the middle of the market to get it!
Here Carter is practicing for his Chippendales audition. Work that baby body!

Speaking of working out, Carter is getting so much stronger! His arm strength is improving daily... toys that he had to strain to operate a week ago are now involving a lot less effort. And he loves walking with our help. He just grasps one finger in each hand and cruises around the house. For us, it's kind of like operating a ouija board... you just keep your hand steady and let him guide you to the destination.
Carter and Momma, after a long day of working it. Okay, so I don't remember when I took this, but it's pretty safe to say that Cierra had just gotten off work. That's always true.

Carter after a few too many at our local western-themed bar. They really need to start checking IDs. No, actually he's trying on my new hat, a wide-brimmed garden hat Cierra got me for our 7th anniversary. It's crazy that we've been married so long! It sure doesn't feel like it. And yet I can hardly remember life without her. Shoot, I can barely remember life before Carter. Or breakfast. Shoot, did I skip breakfast again?

Baby break! I was grilling on the back porch and left the door ajar. Carter thought he was going to get away for sure this time. Silly baby! You can't run away with your pj's on!

Slackjawed Wonder

2010-05-19T22:18:00.004-04:00

Sometime in the distant past, I started opening my mouth to cue Carter to open his when I wanted to deliver a spoonful of mush to him. Now he no longer needs the cue, but I'm finding this a difficult habit to break. Thank goodness I have a wife to take embarassing pictures of me and then gently post them on the internet.

Ta-da! Carter is maturing so quickly, hardly a day goes by without some new skill. Today was the first time I saw him try to combine two hand signals, the symbol for "more" and the one for "eating"

Is this how Grandpa Baer likes to change the lightbulbs?

Aww, this is one great picture. He loves his grandpa! Carter and Cierra spent last weekend in Indiana while I stayed behind and tended the garden and attended my first farmer's market of the year. So, unlike most weeks, I wasn't there for any of the following...

Hi, Dad! We're having lots of fun up here. Too bad you had to go sell plants instead. No, I totally understand. Selling lettuce must be such a thrill.

I also love my other Grandpa, even if I look a bit surprised here. No more pictures please!

This is my Uncle Krin. Here he is matriculating and holding a baby at the same time. What a multi-tasker! I think matriculating is a big fancy word for graduating. But I guess after four more years of school people want to pretend they learned a lot of good stuff at college, thus the "matriculation".

Here I am hanging with my crew- Aunt Kaelie and Uncle Krin. Someday I'm going to grow up to be eight feet tall like Uncle Krin. Then I will legally change my name to Bigfoot.

Did somebody say YOGURT? Now I am EXCITED! I can HARDLY contain MYSELF!

Anyway, the trip is over and Carter and Cierra are back home now, and we're getting back into the swing of things. As usual, Cierra's working most days, and Carter and I spend two days a week at the farmer's market peddling whatever looks good in the garden. It's slow going in our garden until tomatoes start to ripen, and we've just started to get the little green tomatoes on our plants.

It's a good thing Carter likes to come outside with me. Most days we have at least one garden session where he hangs out in his stroller and watches me work.

What a happy little guy.

That's about it... we'll see you next week!

Weekly Blur-b

2010-05-06T22:08:00.003-04:00

Well folks, here we are on Thursday night once again. This week has flown by in a blur... Cierra's been working every single day and the days have been a blur of feeding Carter, playing on the floor with Carter, and trying to take care of the garden whenever Carter falls asleep.

One thing we can definitely tell you happened this week was just yesterday. We went over to Carter's friend Adelaide's house for our quarterly co-op meeting. That's Carter playing with Adelaide's toy guitar above. Carter wasn't singing along, but he did know how to groove to the beat!
Carter continues to be fascinated with putting things in other things and taking them out. Here he is playing with his monkey barrel.

Endless fun. I wish entertaining me was this easy.

Here we are at bathtime. I like to see what crazy hairstyles I can give him while shampooing. This is mohawk Carter. How do you like? Cierra keeps saying I should try a mohawk. I think she's hit upon one of the few ways I could look more ridiculous.

Cheeky Lad

2010-04-29T21:18:00.002-04:00

Om. Efusce mu. Yuh cut mu wf muh mawf fuh.

Ah. That's better. Dad saw how much I like eating dirt in the garden, and he brought some inside for me to eat! Just kidding, folks. That's black bean stuff. One of my favorite foods. I not only like to eat them, I like to pulp them up with my hands and wear them all over my face and hair!
Dad calls this my "hobo baby" look. Come here Dad, I want to give you a kiss.
Mom and Dad and I sure had fun on Wednesday. We dug up this old raised bed that was completely infested with weeds. Here I am helping dad put the frame back together. You can see the main garden in the background. After this, I went inside for milk and let dad plant the horseradish. He said it was too hot for me to handle. Ha! I will eat anything. Lemme at it. Anyway, I got to eat some dirt and watch dad panic and kill a snake, so it was an adventure.

Jazz Hands!

2010-04-22T21:15:00.005-04:00

Hello there! It's your old pal Carter! Why don't you come a little closer and I will attempt to eat you.

Carter continues to try new foods! In the last day he's eaten a whole can of green beans and started in on a can of peas. Bananas and broccoli are his favorites, though. Now he wants to feed himself all of the finger foods, which makes feeding him a looooooong process. Bring a magazine.

We're also learning to walk! We got this little baby-walker thing (not sure what you call it) on loan from friends and Carter is already making great use of it! He was chasing me around the room today with it... although about halfway through he decided he could just crawl around behind it and push it just as easily.
Although this really makes him look like he's got it, he has yet to take a step without holding on to someone or thing. He's just super cautious, in fact, he looks like an astronaut on a spacewalk, always making sure that if he makes one small movement he's not just going to go flying.
Here he is again inside his toy bin. Life is just about exploring things from every angle.

Black Hole Son

2010-04-15T20:48:00.005-04:00

Carter's appetite continues to increase at an exponential rate. Since he is growing but not that much, I have to assume he is getting denser. Must be taking after his daddy. I have warned him that if he compacts too much food in his belly, he may create a singularity (more popularly known as a black hole) and cause all sorts of problems. He already shares several characteristics with astronomy's big bads...

1. He freely roams the universe, leaving destruction in his wake.

2. Anything that comes close to his event horizon (i.e., mouth) is sucked in and never seen again. (Well, I wish.)

... That's all I've got so far.
Hello, I would like to eat the universe, please. Things we have eaten this week... yogurt, black beans, sausage, tuna, split pea soup, strawberries, bananas, melons, carrots, broccoli (his favorite), apples. Things we've attempted to eat... a walnut, a leaf, daddy's remote, a rock.
We've also learned to wave! Carter's putting his wave into practice all the time now. He waves at pictures of himself, at the mirror when he's in it. He's not just friendly towards himself though, he also likes to stand at the door and wave at mommy when she drives off to work. Plus, he waves at the pictures of tractors in his board book.
And he likes to clap. This is him clapping and squealing with glee. Not sure what it's about... we probably asked him if he wanted to go outside. He loves crawling around in the grass and picking apart plants. We're still working on the "look but don't eat" philosophy of outdoor exploration.

Sadly, this week has also been a bit tough because we're all sick AGAIN. So tired of this cycle! Carter got it last Saturday or Sunday and Cierra and I have both been suffering most of the week. So far the increase in "sick time" has been the hardest part of being a parent. And still worth it, but I do hate being sick. And Cierra will be the first to tell you that I'm a complete baby about it.

We'll leave you this week with some video. First, Carter and I show off our secret handshake. It's basically a slow-mo forehead bump. Plus, you get to see him enjoying some water at breakfast.

Here's one from a few days ago. Somehow he got in his own toy bin. Check out his waving skillz!

Staying Busy Outdoors....

2010-04-08T20:58:00.003-04:00

Well, it's been a busy week here at the Tabony Farm. Grandparents Tabony came for a quick 2-day visit and I put Grandpa (and his truck) to work helping me around the house. We hauled three loads of hardwood mulch over from the county yard waste processing facility. We also hung blinds, rehung a door, built sawhorses, and made a good start on fixing our riding lawn mower. Meanwhile, Grandma Tabony got to watch Carter, and she proved herself to be... the Baby Whisperer. Seriously, after 2 days, Carter was telling me, "No! If they are leaving, I want to go with Grandma!"
Carter continues to want to spend most of his time outside. In fact, if you want to listen to a tantrum, just pick him up and start to head outside, but then remember something inside you need. As you carry him away from the door, the outrage will be very apparent.

So to appease the little man we went to the Charlotte Easter Egg Hunt. Boy was that crazy! Carter was too small to participate. And it really wasn't a hunt anyway, more like a massacre. They had so many kids there's no hope of hiding enough eggs, so instead they corralled the kids by age, then just dumped a million eggs out on a soccer field and let the kids run/trample each other in their enthusiasm.

So the good news is, I finished fixing the lawn mower and mowed for the first time this year. Now we no longer have to worry about losing Carter in the front yard. But the grass clippings are sticky...

So that means it's bath time when we get inside! More next week... see you then!

Outdoor Explorer

2010-04-01T22:55:00.003-04:00

Carter's been stuck inside all winter... and after his trip to Disney a couple of weeks ago, it was even harder to keep him out of the great outdoors. Thankfully, the cool weather has vacated the area and we have a succession of warm, wonderful days lined up for as far as the forecast can see. Here's a little taste of the fun we've been having outside...

Daddy, I thought you said sunglasses would make me look cool.

Enough!

Carter loves crawling around in the grass. He'll pluck out flowers and has gotten very good at picking plants apart. Looks like this year I may have trouble letting him play in the garden!

Be vewy, vewy quiet. I'm hunting wabbits.

She loves me. She loves me. She loves me. She loves me... yeah, okay I knew it. Mommy DOES love me.

There's a playground right down the street and Carter found the swing exhilarating. I took a bunch of really bad pictures and then Cierra grabbed the camera and I pushed Carter and we got this great shot.

So if I can't swallow this bite, does that mean I'm full?

Carter has been eating SO MUCH lately. Seriously, I can spend nearly 2 hours a day feeding him. We're working on new foods all the time, and it takes him so long to chew and swallow. But it takes a lot of energy to grow... plus he is learning how to walk and is so close to stepping away from the objects that he's standing up next to. It hasn't happened yet... but watch this space.

Disney Pics

2010-03-26T19:52:00.008-04:00

We met Mickey! Hey Mick! I used to work for you!

Carter enjoyed his bath in this very large tub/ very small swimming pool.

Oh, oh, Mommy. I think you have something on your face.

Someone's been partying too hard.

Alexis and Carter had lots of quiet moments together.

Fun times at the Beach Club.

Who's that crazy leprechaun?

No, mom. That's "live long and prosper". THIS is "surf's up."

For once I'm not the Goofiest guy in the picture.

A mouse? Where, is it under the table?

Great, now a giant duck. My nightmare tonight should be interesting.

And the mouse is back again. I'm calling the health department.

Here's a pretty one.

We had a pretty hat-filled week.

Here I am back at the ol' workplace. Almost made me want to sell some ice cream....

Carter continued to be fascinated by Gary (or Opa). We think it's his goatee.

Can you see Carter's face? This is hilarious.

Piglet, Carter is intrigued.

Carter learning a new skill. How to take a hat off his head.

Carter turns 1 in the Magic Kingdom

2010-03-25T21:15:00.006-04:00

I know it's hard to believe, but yes, the cracker stayed in the mouth even after that 2nd picture.

And we're back! Sorry it's been such a long time between posts but we were gone to Disney World for Carter's 1st birthday, and then I was so sick when we got back that I couldn't do anything. It was the first time in my life that I've actually had a fever break overnight like you see in old-time period movies....

Pa: Little Jimmy's head is so hot. And he's sayin' the craziest things...

Doc: His fever has reached what we call the crisis point.

Ma: What should we do?

Doc: (head bent in sorrow) If only he had some boils I could lance. No, no, I'm afraid all we can do is wait for the fever to leave him on it's own...

Yes, I went to bed with a crazy fever and woke up near 2am in the middle of a cold puddle of sweat. So much sweat I had to change my shirt because I was getting clammy. I swear I could have even wrung water out of my pillow.

Anyway, I'm still hacking up a lung every now and then, but I'm well enough to tell you all about our trip to Disney last week and Carter's first birthday. We don't have a whole lot of pictures yet though, they are coming but just not quite here yet. Once they are here, expect another post with more of those.
Here we are at the Animal Kingdom, where Cierra scaled the wall so Carter could have an up-close experience with a gorilla. Just kidding, that's actually one of many Disney characters that Carter got to meet. It's Turk! In case you're like me and your next question is "Who's Turk?", why, it's the adorable sidekick from Tarzan, of course.

Here we are enjoying one of Disney's attractions for kids Carter's age, the Wonderful World of Grass and Bugs. Carter had a great time but he may have eaten Flik.

Carter and Mommy had a meal while they waited for me to come off of Expedition Everest. What a ride that was! It's way ahead of the Rock N' Roller Coaster if you ask me.

Thanks to the Grandparents Bardonner, we had an awesome place to stay in for our trip... the apartment had a high chair and a pack n' play for Carter, along with all the decorations you could think of for both a 1st birthday and St. Patrick's Day. They thought of everything to make Carter's birthday super special!

We were in the Magic Kingdom on the actual day, and one of the things we wanted to do was get Carter's hair cut at the barber shop on Main Street. Alas, the line was really long, we said we would come back and by the time we did they had closed. So Carter had his first haircut at Great Clips back in the real world.

He didn't seem to mind.

This first video is just a blip of Carter playing with his birthday decorations... but now, a video of him playing with a new toy on the day of his birthday. He's already figured out how it works!
Look for another post really soon with better pictures from the Bardonners' camera!

Lots of Family Time!

2010-03-11T21:44:00.004-05:00

Carter here, just color coding these floor tiles so it'll be easier to put back together next time I tear it up. Well, another week has flown by and I'm almost one year old now. It's been crazy having all these family members here! I had my Grandparents Baer here last weekend, and we had so much fun that apparently we forgot to take any pictures. What a wild time! But seriously, guys, if you have any pictures from those couple of days could you forward them to Dad for posting? Also, I'm trying to figure out where I parked my car.
I know it's around here somewhere. That is the last time I drink so much milk. I am continuing to work on the whole standing process. I've gotten to the point where I'll hold Dad's hands and stand without immediately panicking, but mostly I either want to be holding onto a piece of furniture or down on all fours. What can I say, I'm careful. You try falling on your face a couple of times and I bet you'll get overly cautious too.

We might have forgotten to take pictures of Mimi, but we took a snap of me in the swank new coat she brought me! I don't know why, but I'm feeling particularly rabbity right now. Perhaps I will have a carrot.

That's not a carrot! I have been branching out on the whole food idea though. Things I have eaten this week: Yogurt (of course), broccoli, crackers, Mexican cornbread, peas, raisins, and my own socks. Well, I couldn't quite get the socks down, but I'm working on it.

Photo credit on these last pics goes out to Great-Aunt Terri and Cousin Kara Hemmerlein, who dropped by on Sunday and Monday to keep me and Dad company while Mom worked. We had a blast! Terri thought she was going to put me down for a nap. Ha! I laugh in the face of your nap.

Kara let me try on her hair! We are definitely going to skip this nap now! Party!!!!!

Here I am crawling away from my nursery, bright eyed and bushy tailed! Can't nobody make me sleep. I am super-baby, immune to time itself!
Oh-oh. What's this outfit? It appears to be made of Kryptonite. It's a bird... no it's a fan... no it's a bedtime!!! Must fight...getting sleepy ah have to finish blog pozzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

The Carter he is a-Changing

2010-03-04T20:22:00.004-05:00

Life continues here at the Tabony Farm where Carter is fast approaching 1 year old! Less than 2 weeks left until he hits that magic number. He is changing so fast, yet is still the same sweet baby we've always known. His sixth tooth is on it's way in and will make his mouth temporarily symmetrical, with 4 on the top and 2 on the bottom. He's eating a lot more now, experimenting with fruits, veggies, and cheese, but still stuck pretty firmly on yogurt. We're actually having to curtail his enthusiasm for yogurt so he can get his other food groups in. He's also been off milk for the most part during the days... he just doesn't seem to want it so I've been teaching him to use the sippy cup.
Cierra continues to contribute to Carter's social life by organizing a ton of playdates/information sessions for mothers. Here Carter is jostling for a turn at the mirror during the monthly meeting of the Baby Wearers group Cierra founded here in Charlotte.

And here he is with his friend Adelaide at our babysitting co-op meeting. Adelaide is only 3 weeks older but so advanced. She is walking, giving hugs and kisses and says a few words too. She likes to pet Carter on his head. He takes it pretty well, but I saw a few glimpses of "What is this girl doing?" in his eyes. Gotta learn to stand up for yourself, buddy.
Carter is still very into reading his books, but lately he seems to want alone time with them. If you begin reading a book to him, 9 times out of 10 he will want a different book by the halfway point. He much prefers pointing at them. And pointing at everything else in sight too!
We're not walking yet, but we're spending time cruising around objects, hand over hand, with the feet following along. Can't be long now! He also learned to open the kitchen cabinets today, so it's off to the store tomorrow for some babyproofing supplies.

You decide, are the grapes sour or is Carter really excited about their taste?

That's it for this week... but we've got family coming in starting tonight so look for lots of pictures next time!

And We're Back!!

2010-02-20T21:03:00.006-05:00

Hi Everybody, Carter the Travel Baby here from my umbrella stroller. Just back from a whirlwind west coast tour that kept me busy for the last two weeks. I brought back lots of pictures though, so lean back with your beverage of choice and let my experience wash over you.

While in LA we stayed in a beautiful little community called Manhattan Beach. A swing set right by the ocean, now this is paradise! These babies have it made.
Here I am at the Mexican Restaurant right off the beach. Dad is feeding me cheese. This stuff is great!

And here we are hanging out in a little place called Noah's Bagels. I got up a teensy bit early around 4 am, so Mom and Dad took me out of the house to keep everyone else from being awakened. Daddy looks like a homeless person when he doesn't get his shower. Ha!
Mommy does her impression of a homeless person and I do my impression of an Ewok.

Aunt Kaelie got together with Mom and Dad and they all ditched me and went on the Price is Right. So everyone make sure to watch Price is Right on March 29th and see if you can spot Dad's big head in the center section, left side on your screen, right next to the aisle. And we'll all see if the camera really adds 10 pounds.
Here we are living the high life with Mimi. Our friend Molly, whose house we stayed at, knew some really well off folks who live in the high country just south of Manhattan beach. Their ranch is mere miles from LA, but up here you'd never know it. At least, I'd never know it, but then again I sometimes don't know it when I've pooped my pants.

Did we mention about the dogs? Molly is a dog walker and a dog sitter. We had 7 dogs in the house at one point. Dad's considering writing a movie script about the experience called "Hotel for Dogs". I don't have the heart to tell him that someone already made that one.
Okay, I've had enough of this beach stuff. Any more walks out here, I swear I'm gonna punch a dolphin.

Finally, we made it to the whole reason we came out here... to see the UCLA gymnastics meet! Aunt Kaelie is still recovering from the stress reaction in her leg, so she wasn't competing, but it was still fun to cheer her team on. Then on the beam, we had several girls fall and I got frustrated and started to cry. So Dad took me way up in the rafters and rocked me to sleep while the girls did their floor routines. I was asleep but they tell me that we had several more falls on floor and we lost the meet. Poop.
Then we went to Vegas! Here I am, crawling around in the Four Seasons Hotel at Mandalay Bay. Pretty swanky floor. It's always tricky in Vegas, but I managed to come out ahead, since I can't gamble and I was so charming while Mom and Dad were eating at the Pepper Mill that an old timer at the next table gave me a 2 dollar bill when he got up to leave. That one's going in the piggy bank!

Mom and Dad wanted to go to a Cirque show while we were in town so they arranged for me to stay with Syrine and Jafar, their old friends from Tunisia who live in Vegas now. We stayed up late and had a total baby party. I quickly found their radio and then I was the DJ... we scattered my toys all around and it was crazy. Luckily what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.
Of course, that doesn't mean there aren't consequences. Here I am totally sacked out on the plane the next day. Whew! What a ride!

Cabin Fever

2010-02-04T10:46:00.003-05:00

Greetings from the swamps of southern Charlotte! The weather has been keeping us mostly indoors this week. We got our first real blast of winter snow and ice on Friday night into Saturday, and Carter and I didn't venture out of the house until Monday or Tuesday this week! That's a whole lot of playing with the same toys and reading the same books over and over.

Fortunately, we did finally get out and went to the library together for the very first time. (Cierra usually takes him.) We sat in a comfy chair and read book after book, but Carter could hardly concentrate on the reading because there were other children around! The librarians all knew him from his previous visits and kept stopping to check him out.
"What you looking at?" Just the cutest lil' baby ever! He's like a diaper-clad Rhoomba scooting around, picking up all the dust bunnies that I've missed with the actual vaccum.
Some artistic shots from this weeks' playing...
Carter (a.k.a. Destructo Baby) towers over the metropolis of Busy Zoo as the residents flee in terror. Who might he viciously gum to death next?
Hi Daddy! It's my turn to hold the remote now!

Well, hate to blog and run but Carter has gotten into my closet and is discovering the joys of bubble wrap. That's it for this week!

Another Week in the Life of Carter

2010-01-28T18:16:00.003-05:00

Yes, another week has blurred on by and now I sit down to attempt to remember something about it. Carter continues to get stronger, faster and more talkative, although he's still just shouting random syllables. (BAH!) I keep wanting to add "Humbug!" to the end of that one.

He's putting all things in his mouth as always, but a new game has started where he tries to take something out of his mouth and put it in mine. If he succeeds, then he takes great pleasure in reclaiming whatever it is and sticking it right back where it all started. Big grins all around.
We've been going to the YMCA for several weeks now to take swim lessons, but on Wednesday Cierra took a few hours off from her 17 jobs and joined us for a family swim day. Carter showed off his moves, which mostly consist of floating around with a dazed look on his face. He is really good at crawling out of the pool if he gets close to the edge. (That is a survival skill, so yay for Carter) Reach and pull, buddy!
This is the week Carter discovered soy yogurt. Well, actually I found it at the store and figured that it couldn't hurt to try this stuff since Carter was turning his nose up at real yogurt. I tasted a little bit before giving it to him and it tasted like yogurt and whole wheat flour, with maybe a little talcum powder mixed in. Imagine my surprise when he gobbled down most of the container in one sitting! He's a hungry boy! Also on the menu this week, rice crackers. He thought it was a toy until I sat right across from him holding another one and slowly ate mine, taking tiny bites. Pretty soon he was going after it, using his new teeth to break off big chunks and then gumming them to death.
Carter's also taken to enjoying the occasional cigar, Cuban of course. Just kidding, that's a log from the back of Carter's tiny logging truck. They are excellent for chewing. And why not? Everything goes in his mouth, so everything must be for chewing.

Faster and Faster

2010-01-21T20:33:00.002-05:00

Ha! I might not be faster than you, but I can outlast you! Who has to take a nap now?

Oooo.... you've got something going on in your lower back here. I can fix all that, I just need about 21 years and 50 grand to get me through chiropractor classes.

Woo hoo, look at me, I'm king of Daddy Mountain! Who's your Daddy? Oh, that's right, you're my daddy. Hmmm. Well that might not quite work here, but you get the message... I OWNED you. Rest up, bub. Because I'm going to go find something heavy to knock over or a hard surface to topple over on.

Carter here again folks, and things in my life are happening fast and furious. Got my 4th and 5th teeth nearly through the gumline up top. Maybe someday I'll want to use them but for right now, it's all about the milk.

Went over to Riley's house for a play date this week while the parents were busy...
Hello my good man! I'll have a milk, straight, neat, warmed and shaken, not stirred. And whatever the lady would like as well. Put it on my tab.
Man, this date was going great, then she asked about my outfit and I panicked and told her I play for the Red Sox. Now I'll have to get dad to edit me into all the games this year. Or I could just explain myself. What would I do if this were a high-concept romantic comedy?

On a positive note, it's finally warmed up enough here for me to go outside again! Charlotte had a stretch of cold the last two weeks that was the worst since 1977, which is like forever ago. Maybe that was the same stretch that killed all the dinosaurs? Anyway, I'm just happy to get out of that house-prison! That's it for now... until next week!

Crunch n' Munch

2010-01-14T21:37:00.007-05:00

Hi there. I'm a mite peckish. I think I will have the bowl of strawberry yogurt, followed by 20 to 30 pieces of cereal. Then, to wash it all down, I will have all the milk in the house.

Sorry this video is so crappy, Mommy and Daddy are shooting video with their phones now, but they have trouble remembering to hold the phone sideways. I'm not really this wide. You know, the camera adds 10 pounds... that's like 50% of my body weight. Anyway, here I am stuffing my craw. At this rate, it's gonna take forever for me to get full.

Lots of stuff going on in my mouth this week. Dad's all excited because he spotted my third tooth coming in on top this morning while changing me. Well, DUH, what do you think I've been yelling at you about all week? Parents. They never listen.

Also, I got to taste something different this week when I tried out my new chewing skills on Mommy. She didn't like it too much. Parents. They never listen, plus they don't like bleeding. Sheesh.

Think I've got the hang of this thing. When can I get on the road?

Hey everybody, look at me....

I can stand up all by myself! Well, as long as I can hold on for dear life. Of course, the difficult part is getting back down. The parents keep telling me to go feet first, which is clearly stupid. I don't have eyes in my feet! At least, I don't think I have eyes in them. Better get these shoes off and check one more time.

I started swim lessons at the YMCA this week, and here I am doing my homework with Daddy. This isn't nearly as big as the Saturday pool!

I guess I'm okay with the whole water thing, as long as you keep it outta the whole face area. I don't have gills, you know! At least, I don't think so. Hmmm. I'm checking out an anatomy book next time Mom takes me to the library.

Gettin' into Trouble...

2010-01-07T20:33:00.002-05:00

Uh, hello officer. This isn't what it looks like. I'm not stealing this car, this is actually my car. License? I'm a baby. Registration? I'm sure it's right here in the glovebox... wait a minute, that's just a decal! What kinda product is Detroit putting out these days, anyway?

Yes, that's right, Carter continues to find new ways to move around and get into trouble on a minute-by-minute basis. We can't leave him alone for a second these days, and that very nearly goes for the nighttime too. As I type this, Cierra is with him in his nursery. He's so tired that he just can't sleep. As you can imagine, this is a hard problem to solve. At least, without whiskey it's a hard problem to solve. But we're not going down that road! Also all the liquor stores are closed at this hour.

Caught in my jumperoo! This is a great way for me to build my leg muscle and get a little energy out while Dad takes a breather. Try to keep up with me now, old man!!!

Be vewy, vewy quiet. I'm hunting Pogo.

Being a baby is thirsty work!

Good thing I've got my trusty canteen! Aww, man, it's empty again. Guess I'd better hike over to the kitchen and borrow some more water from Pogo.

A Very Carter Christmas!

2010-01-01T13:33:00.007-05:00

So it's been awhile since we posted any Carter news, but we've been busy seeing family and having fun over the holidays. Actual Christmas was spent at home with just our little family, but the week before we made our usual trip up to Indiana to visit the folks...

Cierra laughed at me for my awkward baby hold in this picture, but what she didn't know is that Carter wanted to show off his baby abs.

Carter looking dapper as usual. Is he looking up at mommy, or a ceiling fan? We'll never know.

Mmm. I think I'll sneak a little eggnog binky while no one's watching.

If I can turn this on, does this mean I can get milk at the drive thru?

Hey mom, look. Uncle Krin brought me flowers!

Put me down, dad! I see some trouble worth getting into.

Guess what? Reindeer butt!

I love this outfit because as Carter crawls, the little Reindeer looks like he's walking.

So yes, Carter crawls now, and he's going non-stop. We're still a lot faster than him, but he never lets up, so our distraction with other tasks around the house make watching him a very tortoise vs hare experience... we take a rest and he keeps trucking, sometimes beating us to the finish line... which is usually Pogo's water bowl.

Carter also loves springy doorstops. Boiiiing!

Finally some video: First up, Carter listens to Uncle Krin on guitar. He is a very attentive audience!

Baby jumping jacks! BOIIING! Whee....

And, I know this video doesn't prove it, but Carter is climbing small sets of stairs now, no problem. But we don't have good video of it because I always have two hands right around him, ready if he decides to topple over and try to crack his head on the tile.

In other news, he also stood up while learning to climb the stairs a few days ago. But that was an accident, and he only stood for 5 or 6 seconds. His expression during his swaying stance said everything to me.... "Oh, man! How did I do that? And how do I get down? I'm gonna fall, aren't I, and it's gonna hurt. Wahhhhh!"

Happy New Year to all.... we'll try to get back to our usual schedule starting next Thursday.