Family Time

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

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!

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

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.