Carter wants a cracker!

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

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

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

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

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......

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?