Various holiday stuff, weekend without TV

Doug was gone this weekend (on the other side of the planet in Singapore and now India), and weekends without him are always strange. He's gone a lot during the week, but there's something different about the way it feels to not have him here on a weekend. It's a lot more intense for me, certainly. It's harder to get basic housework and errands done when you don't have a co-parent, for one thing. I don't envy single parents at all!

But we had a fun weekend anyway. It's our last whole weekend at home before we head to NC for Christmas, so I wanted to do some Christmas-y things. Carter, of course, mostly just wanted to play. He knows Christmas is coming sort of vaguely, but because we've carefully avoided placing any emphasis on it being about him getting lots of presents (he'll figure that out soon enough), he doesn't seem to be terribly excited about it. He loves the lights and the decorations, though, and so we've had a lot of fun with that.

One thing I decided to do this weekend was to keep the TV off the entire time. It wasn't nearly as hard as I expected, and neither of us actually missed it at all. We had some Christmas music playing off and on, but for the most part it was just quiet in the house. Except for when we were doing our own hard rock version of "Jingle Bells", with Carter on the drums. Definitely not quiet then!

We did a craft project I saw either in a magazine or online: a cardboard Christmas tree. I used an old box to cut out the pieces and we painted them.





We talked about different ways of decorating the tree (Carter still wants to add lights, but I wanted something more simple) and we ended up using glitter glue to make ornaments.



The finished product is really cute!



This is a picture of Carter talking to Doug (who was in India at the time) on the phone tonight. He always likes to put the phone on speaker, for some reason.



Last night I had planned for us to go to the Wildflower Center to see their Christmas light display, which is only this weekend. Carter loves Christmas lights, and he was really excited. We had dinner first at one of our favorite restaurants and then headed down there, about a 35 miles drive from our house. The parking situation was insane, though, and I drove around for a good ten minutes trying to find a place to park. I finally looked back and saw that Carter had fallen asleep, so I decided to just drive home. It was actually nice to have a quiet evening to myself - something I hardly ever get these days!

Today we finally got our own Christmas lights up, and Carter asked if we were going to see any lights tonight. I thought it would be fun to put on our pajamas and drink hot chocolate and ride around in the car looking at lights, and he completely vetoed the pajamas idea. He was adamant that pajamas are only for sleeping in! But that was just as well, because our plans changed a little anyway.

Here he is in the car, all bundled up with hot chocolate, ready for lights-viewing.



We drove around our neighborhood for a while, and we saw some awesome light displays. It was still early, so I decided to drive down to 37th street in central Austin, where there is a street that always does an amazing light display. We found a place to park and walked around, and Carter really loved it. In fact, he spent most of the time with this expression on his face:



The displays were awesome and kitschy and so Austin. Many of the displays were interactive:



A fascinating array of objects were lit up:



This giant pterodactyl was amazing!



The owner of this house was out front flying a remote control shark balloon around in the air. Yes, a shark was swimming in the air over our heads!



I had to drag Carter away, literally, and promised we'd come back later in the week with Daddy. On the way home he said he wanted to go to the Galaxy cafe and eat dinner (though it was 8:30 pm by then and we'd already had dinner) and then go to Krispy Kreme, and then go back to look at the lights again. This kid is a total night owl! Wonder where he gets that from? ;-)

It was a fun weekend, even though we didn't do most of the stuff I'd planned. But that's how it seems to go these days, and it's all good. For example, I'd planned to go to a play this afternoon, a children's theater improv show that seemed like something Carter would like. But then the time came to leave and he was having so much fun just playing that I couldn't see the point in going somewhere else to do something completely optional that he might not enjoy as much as just playing.

Another example of fun in surprising places came when he accidentally knocked over a tub of popcorn we'd gotten as a gift from my aunt and uncle in Iowa (thanks so much, if you're reading this!). Half the popcorn, three flavors mixed together, was spread all over the hardwood floor by the Christmas tree. Carter and I just stared at it for a moment, and then I thought, well, what the hell? And I sat down and said, "I guess we'll just have to eat it off the floor, won't we?" And we sat there and ate popcorn for a while, and when we were both full of popcorn, he went and got some little diggers and dump trucks and hauled popcorn all around the room for a solid hour. He loved it! And after he went to sleep I swept it all up and threw it away, which was super easy. I would never have dumped it over on purpose, but it turned out to be something really fun, and it was so unexpected!

I guess that's one of the things I've really learned about parenthood that I didn't have a good handle on before -- how to live in the moment. There's something about having a baby that completely changes your perspective on time (or did mine, anyway), and I've been able to just stop and be in these last few years. Sometimes I just look at carter and what he's doing and think, Wow, how amazing is this? And I drop whatever I'm doing and sit down on the floor with him and play. Not as often as I wish I did, of course, and I could always be better about seeing the world from his perspective, but I try. And it gets easier all the time.

Especially now that we've hit the "why" stage full on. Tonight we came back from Christmas light viewing and he said he wanted to leave the garage door open, and I said no, we have to close it at night. So he asked why and I said that it was for safety, that we didn't want anyone to come in the middle of the night and steal things, and he said, "What would happen if they took our things?" and that started this whole conversation in which he seemed to be pushing me to talk about what would really be the worst thing that could happen if we lost some of our material possessions. He says so many things that make me stop and think, that surprise me, and I love that. I know that part is just beginning, too. :-)

NaBloPoMo 13/30: Lunch by the lake

It was utterly gorgeous here today. The temperature was in the low 80s and the sky was clear and blue. This must be what summer is like for other people! Here, we call it fall. :-)

Our favorite photographer Suzanne Reiss came by for our annual family photo shoot. We take pictures of Carter for our holiday card and family pictures to update our family portrait. Every year I have a lot of fun picking out Carter's outfit, and this year I think he looked especially adorable. I can't wait to see the proofs!

Carter really enjoyed the session this year. When Suzanne was finished, he took her by the hand and said he wanted to show her his toys. He thought she was there to play! She does a great job with little kids, so if anyone in the Austin area is looking for a photographer, I recommend her highly.

After the pictures were done we went to Ski Shores for lunch. We haven't been there since the spring, and it was a lot of fun. It's a beautiful spot for an outdoor restaurant, right on the shores of Lake Austin.







It's yet another fabulous Austin restaurant with a playground. We have at least a dozen of these that we know of, and they're so fantastic for families!



I brought a couple of digging vehicles for Carter (I remembered that the playground had pea-sized gravel) and he had fun sharing them with some other kids.



It was a great way to relax and spend part of the afternoon. There's something about being by the lake on a warm day that makes me wish we had a boat. Of course, as soon as we leave the lake, I come to my senses. ;-)



I gave a talk at St. Ed's tonight, so the rest of the afternoon was Carter and Daddy time. I think they had fun playing together while I was gone.

Tomorrow is Monday, which means it's a Carter and Mommy day, so we'll have some fun together. I asked Carter tonight what he wanted to do and he had a big list of things, so we'll see what happens!

NaBloPoMo 12/30: Saturday

Saturday mornings are always fun. Every morning Carter wakes up and asks if Daddy is downstairs, and when I say no, Daddy is at work, he's always sad. But on Saturday mornings, for the first time in a while, I get to say yes! Daddy is downstairs sitting on the couch, watching TV. (Doug is an early riser while carter and I are not.) And Carter bounds down the stairs to see Doug, and I go back to sleep for another hour. (Carter always says, "Mommy, you stay in bed," and I say, "You got it.") Apparently Doug and Carter spent that entire hour playing with the conveyer belt I posted a picture of yesterday.

We went to lunch at a new pizza place that advertised coal-fired pizza ovens. It was pretty good, and afterwards we walked around the shopping center (the Hill Country Galleria), found Carter some frozen yogurt, and then hung out in a toy store for a little while. It was a lovely day here with a high of 80 degrees. Perfect fall weather. Fall and spring are wonderful times of year here, probably like summer is in most places. It's warm but not hot, and it's so easy to be outside.

After lunch Carter and I played in the backyard for a while. Now that it's no longer so hot (and we got the fire ant problem under control) Carter has been playing in his big sandbox again.



This is what happens when I ask him to smile for a picture!



We found some scattered animal bones under the trees, including this jawbone with crazy teeth.



I did some googling and am pretty sure it's from a possum. Those teeth are crazy looking! I assume a hawk had a meal up in a tree and dropped the bones down. It was kind of cool to study them and talk to Carter about where the bones came from.

Later on we went out for cupcakes.



This is how Carter eats cupcakes:



And of course, this is the result:



Yep, there are many wipes involved when we go out for cupcakes! It's fun to be able to do things like this again, though. For a long time it was way too hot to do any of the awesome outdoor things around here.



Tomorrow we're having our annual family portrait/Christmas card photos taken. It's supposed to be even warmer, so it should be a nice morning for it. :-)

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. :-)

New camera!

I wanted to post some pictures I've taken with my new camera. (I lost the old one in Chile last week, sadly.) I'm still getting used to the features and trying to figure out how best to take pictures with it. It definitely takes high quality video, which is cool.

The camera takes panoramic shots, which is a feature I've never had on a camera. This would have been cool to have in Chile! But instead, here's a panoramic shot of the living room.



The camera has a feature called "skin softening" that is really a nice effect. It just smooths everything out! You can see it here in these pictures of Carter.



Here he is at breakfast on Sunday morning. Mmmm, waffles...



Today we went to a new spot that just opened up down the road called Jumpstreet. It's an "indoor trampoline park", and it's SO awesome! It's actually more for adults than kids, with fitness classes and all sorts of fun things involving trampolines. There is a slope where you can snowboard, even. There's a corner for kids with trampolines and an inflatable jumper, and adults can jump with kids, which isn't usually the case at the inflatable bounce houses. It cost $4 for Carter and I could jump for free in the kid area, so it was a great bargain as well. If you live in the area, I really recommend it!

Here is Carter in the kids area:



I took a lot more pictures of him jumping, but I have yet to find the right setting on my camera for action shots, so most of them were hopelessly blurry. But I did take a video while jumping, and my camera actually did a great job of keeping the picture steady. Doesn't this look like fun? :-D



So much fun! And it was good exercise too. I can't wait to go back!

Here are a couple of pictures just from my phone. I posted this one on Facebook already, but it's of Carter showing off a Yoda tattoo he got in a Happy Meal. It turns out you can apply those with a baby wipe, heh.



And I'd promised a picture of the current train setup:



It's hard to believe we've only had the playroom since January. It feels like it's been part of our home forever! We've gotten SO much use out of it!

I still need to post Chile pictures. That's coming sometime soon. :-)