Christmas in NC, part 2

Happy New Year! I meant to get more of these Christmas pictures posted before New Year's day, but didn't manage it. I'll combine Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, so there will be a lot of pictures in this post. Fair warning!

We spent Christmas Eve at my Dad's and Barbara's house. My mom and Rick, Donna and her family, my step-sister Lynn and her family, and step-sister Nicci and her boyfriend and his parents were all there as well. The kids had fun playing together, and there was an impressive spread of food, as always!

Here is Emma all ready for Christmas:



Carter and Emma played some "tunes" on the piano.



All the little kids had somehow lost their pants once time to open presents came around!



It was fun to watch them all open presents and get excited about new toys.





Here is Carter with Uncle Chris, trying our a megaphone gift from Nana.



Carter opened one gift and would have been happy to stop there. It actually took a while to get him to open something else! Which says a lot, really. He wanted to open a little airplane playset while we were still at Dad's house, and we told him that we would open it when we got back to Nana's house. He fell asleep on the way back, and then slept until 9:30 on Christmas morning! When he woke up, Mom asked him if he wanted to see what Santa Claus had brought, and he said, "Did he bring my airport from Papa's house?"

Once in the living room, he completely ignored the pile of presents, went straight to the box with the airplane playset, and insisted that we open and assemble it. It was a good 15 minutes before he could be convinced to open any presents!



There were lots of toy tractors for him to unwrap:





And a big fire truck from Grandpa and Grandma Smith.



John Deere was definitely the theme of the morning!



He also enjoyed this crane from Nana.



We lounged around and had a brunch of red velvet pancakes. We headed up to Mount Airy in the early afternoon for the family gathering at my Aunt's house. My mom's parents and both her siblings and all my cousins were there. It was a big crowd, but fun as always!



We got the kids to sing a little before we started opening presents. Sort of...



Here they are waiting patiently for the gift opening to begin.



Then it was a blur of paper and boxes for a while!



After the presents were unwrapped and played with, one of the kids decided it was bathtime, and the next thing we knew they were all naked. So, into the bath they went!



After that we all just hung out and enjoyed each other's company.



Carter had a great time playing with his cousins. I have such great memories of these family get-togethers when I was a kid, and the Christmas ones were so very special to me! I can remember being so excited and everyone laughing and enjoying each other's company. I really hope Carter has similar memories of Christmases spent with family!

We lingered over conversation and full tummies, and then finally set out to go back to Greensboro to my Mom's house. I'm always sad that Christmas is over. It's a holiday I look forward to for months, and then it seems to pass by so quickly! And Mom and I realized too late that we'd forgotten to get a picture of all the kids with my grandparents, and we were both sad about that. It's so rare that ALL of us are together like that, and we definitely missed an opportunity to get a photo. :-(

The holiday wasn't over yet, though. We still had an awesome gift left: my dad and Barbara had gotten us a night at the Great Wolf Lodge in Concord as a Christmas gift! I'll write all about that in my next post.

Christmas in NC, part 1

I meant to post several times during our trip to NC, but the time just got away from me. I'll try to catch up over the next few days.

We flew to Greensboro on Sunday the 18th, arriving in the afternoon. We spent that evening hanging out at my Mom's house, and my sister and her kids came over to play. Carter had a blast running around the house and playing with them, as usual. I think this was the first time Doug's really seen him playing with his cousins and he was surprised at how excited Carter was to play with them!

Unfortunately, Doug had to go on a business trip for a good chunk of the week, so he missed out on much of what we did. Even more unfortunately, he was sick with what we'd later learn was a sinus infection, so the time we did have he didn't even get to enjoy so much.

Carter and I spent Monday afternoon at the Greensboro Science Center, and we basically spent the entire time in the kids' play areas! In fact, we went back a few days later with the intention of going to the zoo there, and he was upset because he thought we were going to spend the entire time playing again. This is a picture from the five minutes he spent in the zoo before we headed back in to play.





On Tuesday we went to the awesome Greensboro Children's Museum, where Carter had a blast playing. We had lunch with Nana and then went back to play for the rest of the afternoon. I basically had to drag Carter out of there!

On Wednesday we went to Mount Airy to visit my grandparents. We had lunch with them and then went to the John Deere toy store in downtown Mount Airy. Carter and I had been talking about going there for six months. The last time we tried to go back in October, they were closed, and Carter was devastated. This time I called ahead to check the hours first, and he was so excited! We walked in the door and he did a single lap around the store, picked out a toy, and said, "Okay, this is what I want to buy." I tried to convince him to keep looking, to check out the vast array of John Deere tractors, to just hang out a bit, but that was it. He was done. A couple of minutes later we were headed out the door again, purchase in hand. I couldn't believe it! We spent that afternoon hanging out at my grandparents' house and then had dinner downtown with my Uncle Scott and Aunt Pam before heading back to Greensboro.

On Thursday we hung out at my sister's house and played, and then we all went to see the Chipmunks movie. This was mostly a success, though Carter is still not quite ready to sit through an entire movie. Afterwards we played at Donna's house a little more, then went to the airport to pick up Doug and then on to the Greensboro Colosseum, where Donna had tickets for us all to attend a UNCG basketball game while enjoying a special lounge. We had a buffet of hot dogs and hamburgers in an area where the adults could watch the game and the kids could run around and play, and it was a lot of fun!

Friday was the first day I remembered to take pictures, somehow. It was also a dry day after several days of rain and it was even unseasonably warm, perfect for playing outside. Carter spent a lot of time playing with his cousins at Nana's house. They rode vehicles down the driveway, ran around in the grass, rode the zip line, and even found some dirt to dig in.

















All of the kids loved watching funny YouTube videos on Nana's iPad!



That takes us up to Christmas Eve, which I'll post about tomorrow. :-)

NaBloPoMo 5/30: When 3yos Skype

Yesterday was the 400th post on this blog!! How awesome is that? :-D

First, here are some pictures from last night's bath. Fun with shampoo!







Today my mom called and said Emma (Carter's same-age cousin) was over at her house and would we like to Skype? We did, and it was a lot of fun! Watching two little kids talk to each other over Skype was hilarious!



This video is a bit long at 6 minutes, but make sure you don't miss Emma burping at around 4 minutes. It was hilarious!



Doug got back into town last night late, after Carter was asleep. I had told Carter that Daddy would come home in the middle of the night, and would be here when he woke up in the morning. So when Carter woke up, the first thing he did was say, "Is Daddy downstairs?" (Doug is an early riser and Carter and I are not!) I said yes, he was, and Carter popped out of bed (NOT typical for him!) and raced downstairs to see his Daddy. So cute! He really misses Doug when he travels.

Tomorrow our plan is to go see Puss in Boots at the movie theater. Carter's only been to the movies once before, and we've never been as a family, so this should be interesting!

Visiting Grandparents in Fort Morgan, CO

We're in Colorado right now visiting Carter's Grandpa and Grandma Smith. We were looking forward to some cooler weather, though it's actually been pleasantly warm. The high yesterday was 85! But still, it's been a nice visit, and Carter has really enjoyed lots of time playing outside.

We arrived on Thursday night and drove from the Denver airport to Fort Morgan. The flight was a nonstop from Austin, which was very convenient, and Carter even slept on the plane. He was disappointed that his seat didn't go flat, though. I had to explain that seats in coach just don't do that. Heh.

It was late when we arrived, so all the fun had to wait for Friday morning. Carter was very excited to go to Grandpa's shop and help Daddy and Grandpa with the lawn mower Grandpa has been renovating.







I like this picture of Doug and his Dad.



After that Grandpa got the tractor out (this is the one being renovated) so Carter could take it for a drive. He had a blast!









Carter enjoyed playing in the yard. They have gorgeous bluegrass, the kind that just wouldn't grow where we live. It's so soft and beautiful, and Carter kept touching it and running his fingers through it!





But he's spent the vast majority of his time digging in the garden. Seriously, he's done this about 5 hours every day.



You can see that he was very dirty! I've always equated dirtiness of a child with happiness, so this is awesome. :-)



Later than evening we grilled steaks.



Here Carter is hanging out in Grandpa's recliner.



On Saturday morning, the local fire department was having an open house for kids, so we took Carter. He loved it! He's planning to be a firefighter for Halloween this year, so he enjoyed getting to see the inside of a real fire station and climb in all the fire trucks.









He got to meet the mascot and some clowns.





And try on a real firefighter helmet.



We got to ride on this old fashioned fire truck. I think I enjoyed this about as much as Carter did!





Carter went in the fire safety house, where the firefighters showed the kids how to crawl through smoke and safely escape from a burning house.





Here Grandpa is showing him around the fire station.





We had so much fun!



And then he spent the rest of the day in the garden!



He loves digging in dirt, so that was a great way for him to spend the afternoon. I got in there with him and we built roads, dug a big hole with tiny construction equipment, moved piles of dirt around, and then built a volcano. It was fun!

Doug's Aunt Elaine came over for dinner and I somehow managed not to get a picture of her with Carter. Shortly after dinner Carter decided he was ready for bed, and as soon as he had his pajamas on he crawled under the covers and told Doug he would wait there for me! I went up and laid down with him, and he went to sleep fairly quickly. I think that's the first time he's ever put himself to bed. He had a big day, apparently!

Today it's a bit cooler, but we'll still spend time outside. I'll try to post more pictures soon.