Tuesday, December 28, 2010

After Christmas post

We're home now, and I thought I'd try to post another update before we get busy again. First, here are some other pictures from the weekend in Colorado.

Here's one from the plane on the way out. I have no idea how many flights Carter has been on now. I stopped counting at 100, and that was more than a year ago.

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When we got to Doug's parents' house, there were a ton of packages waiting for me to wrap -- most for Carter, of course! Heh, we overdid it this year.

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This was a gift Carter received from his Grandpa on Christmas Eve. They're signs Grandpa made by hand with a router, and they're really nice. When Carter pulled the first one out of the box, I asked him what it said, and he said "It says Carter." I was pleased, because we've worked on getting him to be able to read his own name. Then he pulled out the next sign and said, "These letters say Daddy." And they did! Then he pulled out the third and said, "These letters say Mommy." We were stunned! Those are words he's seen a lot, obviously, but we haven't really pushed them much. And he can read them! I guess it's time to start working on reading in earnest, since he seems to be ready.

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Something else he's been doing in the last few weeks is a lot of pretend play. He'll act out little scenes with his cars and have them talk to each other, and he'll line them up in front of a book or his video player, saying they want to watch too. Here he was playing with this "bunny family", as he called them, and having them talk to each other. It was really sweet -- he was having the baby bunny give kisses to the mommy and daddy bunnies and telling them "Merry Christmas Mommy!" Then the Mommy rabbit would kiss the baby and say, "Merry Christmas, sweet pea!" He had them hop around the yard and eat grass, and then take a nap all snuggled together. It was so adorable!

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He's also been engaging me in play by assigning each of us a character to be. On that same afternoon, we spent about an hour playing "racecars" in the yard. He gave each of us a name from the Cars movie and we had to pretend to be that character and race around. It was fun! At bedtime that night I asked him if he was tired, and he said no. Then I asked if DJ was tired (the car he was playing), and he said, "Yes, DJ wants to go upstairs and snuggle with Boost" (whom I was playing). And that's how we did bedtime that night!

The day after Christmas we went to a park to play. It was cold, in the high 40s, but not too bad. Here are some pictures.

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This was the tallest playground slide I think I've ever seen!

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The next day we got to see Rob and Jon, Carter's cousins from Wyoming. They were stopping by on the way to the airpport; Rob is a marine and his brother was driving him to Denver to catch his flight back to work, so they stopped by on the way. I meant to get pictures of Carter with them, but Carter's cough acted up that day and he ended up sleeping through most of their visit.

Today it was finally time to go home. Here is a cute shot of Carter helping Doug with the luggage.

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Then we hung out in the Admiral's Club at DIA. Happily, most clubs now have a kids' area, and many of them have toys. It's so nice to have a place to hang out like this while you're waiting for your flight!

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The flight home was uneventful. Carter watched a video most of the way, and really impressed the woman sitting next to us, who swore she'd never seen a child so well-behaved on a flight. I didn't bother telling her that he has indeed had his moments on airplanes! Fortunately the bad flights are rare. ;-)

I found a blue dum-dum lollipop in the bag and gave it to him to eat while we were waiting for our luggage. To my surprise, it turned his lips completely blue! I had to take a picture:

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And that's it for now. We're home, and Christmas is done for another year. Of course, there are a few presents we have yet to open up and put together, and when we get the boxes we shipped from Colorado and open them, it will probably feel like Christmas all over again! And the tree and lights are still up for now. So maybe Christmas isn't over just yet. ;-)

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