We sure have come a long way since last Mother's Day!


On a more serious note, I love mother's day. Being a mom is the greatest things in my life. It is amazing that no matter what kind of day I have had, a hug from Carter just erases everything. Before I had him, I wouldn't have believed anyone who would have told me being a mom would be this wonderful and I could love another person as much as I do. Sure, my life has changed, I don't have much time for myself, and I can never seem to catch up, but it is SOOO worth it. Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful mothers I know!

To a wonderful mom on Mother's Day,
Dear Mom,
You have always been so thoughtful. You would never let a birthday or holiday go by without thinking of your love ones. We are truly sorry your family is not as good as you are. In fact, we are really really crappy! We did not make sure you had a Mother's Day card today. We do not know where we came from or who taught us not to care. Happy Mother's Day from your horrible family!

We have had a great weekend. Yesterday morning, I ran my first race. It was a 5K, and I ran it in just under 27 minutes. I really enjoyed it. (Well, the hill that started in the loose sand sucked big time!) I was hoping Kevin and Carter would meet me at the finish line, but Carter slept until 10:00! Kevin had baseball practice yesterday afternoon. That left Carter and me to go shopping and take a nap. After his nap, he performed his new trick....diving head first into a basket of clothes, reaching for the cabinet, and hanging from the pulls. Did I ever tell you how talented he is? Here are some pictures:



Today, Kevin's parents came to visit. We had a good day with them.

I truly hate Sunday nights. The work week is just looming. Not much school left!

Friday was the day Carter FINALLY got tubes. We got to the surgery center at 6:45, and they took us back rather quickly. I was worried Carter would turn into Cranky McGee, but he did great! He had a blast playing on the gurney. A nurse even brought him a fun toy to play with. The doctor was about 30 minutes late, but all went well. The doc said a lot of fluid came out when he put the tubes in. Carter was rather upset when he woke up, but he fell asleep on the way home. Once home, he had some milk and fell asleep for 4 hours. He woke up like nothing had ever happened:

Carter has crazy hair when he wakes up. I finally documented it:

(Notice, we make the poor child get up before the sun!)

Sorry, no pictures this week. I hope you got your fill last week.

We got a call from daycare on Tuesday to let us know Carter had fever. I wasn't too surprised. When he went for his 1 year check up, the doctor warned me his previous ear infection didn't seem to be clearing up. I brought Carter to the doctor on Wednesday. Sure enough, one bulging ear drum and another infected ear. He got antibiotic shorts and started oral antibiotics the following day. The doctor told me he should be fine to go to daycare on Thursday. Thursday afternoon, I got another call to let me know Carter had fever. We had our ENT appointment on Friday, so I stayed home again. We are getting tubes this Friday. I'm hoping it helps Carter as much as tubes helped me.

We went to a fair on Saturday where my school had a display I had to man. It's a country fair, so Carter got to pet a rabbit and look at all sorts of animals.

That's about all that's going on around here.

This week, I was busy making these burp cloths for my friend Nina's baby shower. I finally finished Friday night. I added them to a basket of useful baby items and was very proud of myself. Carter and I got up at 6:00 to go to Charleston for the day. The other guests at the shower were impressed with my work. I couldn't make them believe I am not good at sewing, and that's one of the few things I can do. It was great to spend time with Nina. We just hung out and talked until Carter busted his lip on her coffee table. This was after he tried to eat dog food.

Our trip home was long and exhausting. When we got to the gigantic Lafayette airport for our 5:05 pm flight, we checked in. The friendly man behind the counter did the infamous Saturday Night Live scene of typing on his computer without giving us any answers as we asked questions. All he said was our flight was delayed, so he was changing our flight. Come to find out, we were put on the 1:30 pm flight that was leaving at 5:00. When we finally got on the plane, Carter decided to finally go to the bathroom and refuse to keep still. We got to Houston, and our flight to Columbia changed departure times continuously. We walked around and let Carter get his energy out.


He really wanted to ride on a cart. We finally corralled him in a row of chairs where he decided to crawl across the arm rests to bother a man who was trying to relax. Before our flight left, we put Carter in his pj's in the hopes he would sleep on the plane. We finally left Houston around 9:00 and landed in Columbia around midnight. Carter finally went to sleep on the plane after an hour of fighting with him. We got home about 1:00, went to bed at 1:30, and got up at 5:30 to start our busy week.

The Easter Bunny was very good to the kids.

He even signed the note Zach left him in chalk on the driveway. Zach couldn't wait to tell anyone who woke up. Zoe dug right into her loot:

At first, Carter wasn't too sure of what to think of it all:

He really liked his rubber duck:

Even better was when Mom gave him his first M&M.

After such a long day, we were all ready to relax:

Saturday afternoon, some family friends had an Easter Egg hunt. It was really cool to see former neighbors and classmates with their kids.

Carter got to meet Uncle Adam with Aunt Beth:

Yearn for bunnies:

Fish in a swimming pool:


Have his first Easter Egg hunt:

Look through a giant Easter egg:

Watch the grandparents do the hokie pokie:

And meet the Easter Bunny:

We thought it would be great to get portraits of the 3 cousins, so we made an appointment for 10:00 Saturday morning. We got there on time, and had to wait 45 minutes with half the kids from Lafayette. When we were finally called, the babies were exhausted and cranky. First, Zoe was only interested in the bear:

So, Zach got into place and posed:

We placed Carter in the picture, but the 2 babies were going every different direction. The adults were laughing so hard, we thought we were never going to get a good picgture. We decided Zach should hold the babies, so they would keep still:
That option wasn't any better, so the moms got in the picture. Zoe was only interested in a feather boa.

Carter wanted to tackle Zach:

We finally got a decent one at the very second Carter learned to pick his own nose:

Carter also experienced his first crawfish boil on Saturday.

First, he helped Poppa dump the sack of crawfish:

Second, he helped Zach clean the crawfish:

Third, he helped Poppa drain them:
Unfortunately, Carter was too sleepy to wait for them to be ready, and ate his dinner:

He sure doesn't know what he missed:

On Friday, Carter was excited to have Dad and his cousins there. He got to try his first Meche's donut. He and Zoe didn't exactly get along. Carter wanted whatever she was playing with and tried to scratch her face. They didn't have much to do with each other after that. Zach did enjoy playing with Carter and even offered to trade Zoe for him.

On Wednesday and Thursday, Carter was busy digging in Gammy's house. He also had to go shopping with Gammy and me. We took Carter to take his one year old pictures on Wednesday. It went very well, and we got some great ones.