Pumpkin Carving Time

Before I show you the highlights of our pumpkin carving, I want to take a minute to say how proud and thankful I am for my husband. The past couple of weeks he has been up past midnight multiple times working late (thankfully from home) yet he still does his best to leave the office everyday around 5:30 to come home for dinner and for some playtime with Carter. He is such a hard worker yet he puts his family first which I am so grateful for and you can tell Carter is too by the way his face lights up when his "da-da" gets home. So, thanks Adam, for working hard and for playing hard.

Now - on to the pumpkin carving. I bought one of those cheap pumpkin carving kits from the grocery store - those things are worth every penny - even if they only last a couple of years. They saw through the pumpkins with ease and make me much less nervous than our kitchen knives. (Some of you know that our kitchen knives caused me to get a few stitches a few years ago and I am still skiddish around them.)

We were excited to let Carter help dig out all of the seeds, but he wasn't too sure about it. That surprised me. He never hesitates to dig in dirt or splash in water, so I felt sure he would have pumpkin seed gooo up to his elbows if we let him.



He did enjoy taking the lids off of the pumpkins and putting them back on...



We do cheat a bit when it comes to the carving process. We usually find some designs on the internet, print them out, tape them to the pumpkin and then start carving. But, hey, I want good looking pumpkins in the end, not some scribble we come up with.



This might be the best shot we get of our finished pumpkins because the squirrels have eaten some of our eyes and teeth this week.



But it was a fun afternoon and we have 3 little jack-o-lanterns to welcome all of the little trick-or-treaters tonight.

Oh - and one more little tidbit about Adam - he is currently out running 10 miles getting ready for a half-marathon in a few weeks!

Family Photos

We took a trip to Baltimore last weekend to visit some friends and for a family photo shoot. Our friends Nick and Janelle got married back in August and we got to chat with their photographers a bit. Then, when we saw a few of the pictures they captured from the wedding on their blog, we knew we wanted to have a family photo session with them.

Their style is casual and laid back but they seem to capture the sweetest and most natural moments. For our shoot we ended up in a big open field just north of Balitmore with lots of beautiful fall trees in the background. We just played with Carter and they became the paparazzi. I am pretty sure Carter was posing for them a couple of times. He did not seem to mind the close up cameras in his face. I guess we have taken so many pictures of him that he has just given up fighting it.

Anyhow, they posted a sneak peak of some of their favorite shots from the shoot on their blog last night. Enjoy.

Carter Mountain

Mimi, Carter and I took a trip last Monday to Carter Mountain - yes there is a mountain named after our little Carter. Or so we like to think. :)

I had grand intentions of writing a detailed update of what we have been up to the past few weeks, but I am taking the easy road by just posting pictures of our trip to the pumpkin patch. I think most of my "readers" enjoy the pictures most anyhow - so here you go.




Can you find Carter?



There he is...



Carter was all smiles and really enjoyed picking hugging and patting all of the pumpkins.



Pictures of the carving process to come next - that is if the squirrels don't eat them all while we are away this weekend. I noticed some nibble marks Friday - not very nice. So I added some red pepper flakes to the spots that had been chewed - also not very nice. But I don't want all of our hard work to be chewed down to nothing - so hopefully this will discourage the chewing and we will have glowing jack-o-lanterns next weekend.

And we're back.

You probably didn't even know we were gone. But we have been without internet for several days which has been tougher than I expected. I wanted to go research this or look up that - but all I got was a blank page over and over again. Thankfully everything is back up and running. I have lots of pictures and stories from a weekend get away, a trip to the pumpkin patch, and pumpkin carving, but for now I will just leave you with this.

Who knew diaper boxes could be so much fun?

Introducing...

...a new blog. Well, sort of. It is really my new store, but I am using blogger (which is free) to do it. Here is the link: http://www.littlebittledesigns.blogspot.com/

After a 3 week hold on orders my order list is down to 8 so I am now officially taking orders again!

I hope you enjoy looking around. Please let me know what you think. I value all kinds of feedback, so if something doesn't work for you, I would really like to know so I can make the site user friendly. There are some things I have discovered that I would like to change, but I am either not HTML savvy enough or the free blogger template won't allow it.

Mr. Mom

Some of you very dedicated readers may have noticed the lack of Granddaddy comments lately. Granddaddy (my dad) was in the hospital for a week and is now at home temporarily recovering. I say temporarily because he meets with his doctors next Monday to discuss/schedule a triple bypass operation. We would appreciate your prayers during this time - for my dad's health, for his peace and clarity through these difficult decisions, for his wife who is taking care of him during his recovery, and for his doctors. I will keep you updated as we know more.

I took a quick solo trip to visit my dad this weekend and Adam played Mr. Mom. He and Carter had a blast...I think Adam was pretty bummed to have to go back to work yesterday.

While I was gone Adam did some yard work and apparently enlisted some Carter help in laying some straw in our front yard.



Adam worked hard a few weeks ago while Carter and I were out of town aerating, de-thatching, and seeding the front and back yards. However, a big downpour washed some of the seed away so this weekend Adam tried to fill in a few bare patches and this time he covered the area with straw to try to prevent the seed from washing away again. We have some leftover straw left, which I am looking forward to using on our front porch for some Halloween decorations.

They also visited a park down the road that was full of excitement because they were dredging the pond with 3 really big and really cool tractors. According to Adam, Carter was mesmerized...



Does he look like a little boy in this picture or what?



As they were headed back to the car, Adam said Carter would take 2 steps and then stop and wave at the tractors...2 steps and wave...2 steps and wave. Something tells me we will be returning to the park very soon.

Lesson Learned

If Carter and I are outside when Daddy gets home, Carter rushes over to the car, Daddy rolls down the passenger window, and I put Carter in the passenger seat via the window. He loves it.

The other day we did things a little bit differently. We met Daddy at his door and Carter got to "drive" in Daddy's seat. He explored all kinds of buttons, knobs, and switches.

The next morning, when Daddy's car wouldn't start, we learned a valuable lesson: Always make sure all buttons, knobs, and switches are in their "off" positions after all Carter driving sessions.

Happy October!

Here are a couple of pictures of my little bittle wearing little bittle designs. :)





Amazing to think about how much he has changed in a year...

cold + shots + teeth =

several sleepless nights.

What a treat to hear Carter stir just a few minutes ago and actually put himself back to sleep.

He had a runny nose for about a week, which caused some middle of the night suctioning and tears.

Then his 15 month check-up shots gave him a 102 degree fever for 48 hours.

Once that broke, he had some serious teething pain and chowed down on any paci or teething toy we could find.

What's next? Hopefully he can catch up on some of that missed sleep! And so can we!

Happy Game Day

Before Carter and I left for our trip, we made a trip down to the James River to explore a bit. I think Adam just wanted to check out the rapids to see if it was kayak worthy, but he claimed he wanted Carter to see the river.



Anyhow, Carter saw the river and Adam drooled over the white water.



Carter walked all over the place - up and down the bridge. Then we explored a big open grassy spot that had lots of flag markers all over it. I think Carter inspected each and every flag. He definitely covered some ground.



At the end of his exploration he was definitely ready for his stroller.



(I am experimenting with a new photo sharing site, so bear with me if things look a little different. You can click on any of the above pictures to see more pictures from our outing to the river.)

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.