Another Crazy Week

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

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!

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

Thanks Jenine - we love them!

A quick trip to IN.

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.