September

Lots of pictures from late August and all of September here. The last month went by so quickly! It was crazy hot, so we spent most of our time inside. We frequented the indoor playgrounds of fast food restaurants for HOURS at a time, made good use of the playroom, and visited lots of the great indoor places to play around Austin.

He we are at Jumpstreet, a trampoline park.



Carter is still enjoying his classes at The Little Gym. He loves his dance class!





The Children's Museum has had some really fun exhibits this summer.



The digging spots are classics, as always.





As is the huge train table.



We discovered that a booster seat fits in the tiny back seat of the Porsche, and so Carter can ride in the back!



Michelle and I have both tried to do more crafts with Carter. He seems to have a short attention span for crafts, though he really enjoyed working with glitter.



The result:



On Labor Day weekend we decided to go to one of the area BBQ restaurants that is rated one of the best in the country. It was crazy hot, and we waited in line an hour. In my humble opinion, no food is worth waiting an hour for in 105 degree heat! :-P Carter was stunningly patient though.



A slightly cooler outing was a visit to Inner Space Caverns in Georgetown. Carter liked riding the cable car down into the cave.



It was cool and really beautiful down in the cave.





Toward the end of September the heat finally broke and our highs have since been in the low 90s. We've been able to spend more time outside as a result. We go to the park, hang out in the driveway in the evenigns, and even go do outdoor things around town. Here we are at Kiddie Acres, an amusement park for preschoolers here in Austin. Carter LOVED it!



This airplane ride was his favorite.





There was a little train. He looks so big in this picture!



I'm not sure how much he really liked the Ferris Wheel.



These cars were a hit too.





He asked to ride the pony! I think this is actually the first time he's actually ridden a horse, despite having multiple opportunities to do so previously. He seemed like he liked it!



Happily it looks like the cooler weather is here to stay. We've even had some rain in the last two days, for the first time in a year. It's been fun to be able to play outside again after being cooped up inside all summer.

Carter's definitely been a lot more social lately, and in the last month or so loves playing with other kids. This is a relatively new development for him. Until recently he only wanted to play with adults and really had no interest in other kids. Now he runs up to other kids on the playground and asks them to play with him. It's such a change! I'm even starting to think he might be ready for preschool two days a week. I've been looking at some play-based ones around the area that he might like. I'm definitely not interested in anything that's overly academic -- he's really not ready for that. He can read a little and his math skills are pretty good, and he's actually becoming a very good little problem-solver, but I want to keep all of that learning informal for as long as possible.

I have a lot more to say and even more pictures to post, so I'll try to post again soon. I'd like to be caught up before we got to Colorado next weekend to visit Doug's parents. :-)