Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve, we started a tradition last year of heading Uptown ("to the big buildings" according to Avery), to watch the singing bears and to have lunch.

 Avery has been so excited about Christmas she has been wearing a Christmas outfit almost every day.

My two girls.

 Carter enjoyed the show (and all the people too).  This is his new face that he makes when he things something is funny.

 Making his scrunchy face at lunch.

 Eating some pizza bones after his baby food.  Now that he has the taste of real food, it is getting harder and harder to feed him baby food.

When we got home from lunch, we all hung out on the couch and watched "Elf."  After bathtime, we decided to let the kids open presents from each other and from us before Santa came.

 Avery opening her present from Carter.

 It was a necklace with her name from Disney!

 Carter loved the rabbit that Avery made for her.  It even has her voice and says "I love you Carter!"

He was most excited about all the wrapping paper that was used.

 These two kids...

NEW NC STATE SHIRTS!!!!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to All!  If you haven't received a Christmas card from us by now, wait until the mail comes.  If it still hasn't come your address is trapped on the paperweight formerly known as Laura's laptop and let us know.  We had a photoshoot after Thanksgiving in order to make a Christmas card and catch up from Carter's newborn pictures.  Thanks to Kelli at yah Photography for taking some great pictures.  Here is a small sampling of my favorites, but there are a lot of good ones.  We own the digital pictures so if you want a copy of any of them, let me know.   Here is a link to the full gallery.

Dance Class

On the way back from the mountains, Mimi took Avery and Jude to an all day dance camp.  The kids did several dance classes and learned a performance that they put on at the end of the day.  I didn't get a ton of great pictures, but I got some videos of the performance.  Avery was with the little kids that she didn't know and did a great job having fun.  Thanks to Mimi for taking her.

Avery after the show.

Avery and Jude after a great performance.

First up, Jude's hip hop performance.


Jude's ballet performance.


Avery's ballet performance.  If you notice at the end of the video, I am asked to join her and dance in front of everyone with her.  When I asked her what her favorite part of the day was she said "The Daddy Dance."

Christmas #1

The first Christmas of the year was with the Gibson family in the mountains.  The family rented a house and packed in around 20 people for a weekend of fun and eating.  The kids had a great time laughing, crawling, and being spoiled by their cousins, aunts, uncles, and Grammie.

The sunset and the view from the house was pretty awesome.

Mount Christmas.

Avery was pretty excited to get to opening presents.

Finally getting to open some presents after having to look at them under the tree all day.

Even Carter got in on the action.  He wasn't so much interested in the presents, but REALLY loved the wrapping paper.

 I have never heard him laugh so much or so long as he did when he was pulling on wrapping paper.  Avery would take pieces and tear them apart and he would laugh at the top of his lungs every time.

 Soooooo many laughs.

Party at Monkey Joe's

Last Saturday, one member of Avery's trio had a birthday party.  I took Avery to Monkey Joe's while Daddy and Carter stayed home.  He tried some climbing around of his own so he will be ready for these bouncy house parties soon!

We signed in, got our bracelets, and Avery took off.  She was breaking a sweat about 15 minutes in.  The girls would run to one bouncy thing, jump for about 45 seconds and run to another, go down the slide, and run back to the first one, go back to the slide, and repeat for 2 hours.

The BFF trio did take a photo with this guy for a second.

Avery and Abby going down the slide together.

Sat still for a few minutes for pizza and cupcakes.

Avery and the birthday girl, Hunter.

Eating With Carter

Carter is a pretty good eater, although he recently has discovered self feeding (Thanks Daycare!) and is hooked on snack foods that have to go along with his normal assorted veggie mushes.

He is pretty cute in his high chair.

Avery loves to feed Carter, but doesn't always have the patience to wait for him to finish his bottle.  It is always a great help when she takes care of breakfast for both herself and Carter.  In a few more months, she should be able to change diapers and we won't have to get up at all on the weekends.

Trying to feed himself a few puffs while Laura sneaks in carrots between bites.

 Trying to feed himself Avacados was a very hands on experience.

 Hands are a less than effective tool for eating baby foods, but Carter is still developing his reasoning skills.  Here he is sticking his tongue out at me when I try to explain why it isn't going to work.

 Luckily Charger is ok with cleaning up carrots, so all we have to do is put Carter down on the ground and we are going to save a fortune on laundry costs.

8 Months Old

Carter turned 8 months old a few days ago, so we got some good pictures of him in his room.  This month's new skills is all about crawling.  He went from getting up on all fours last month to moving around the room to you can't turn your head for a second.  Once he was able to move over to a piece of furniture he immediately is trying to pull up on something.  He has only been able to pull himself up a couple of times at school on the crib, but he is desperate to start walking.  We can lead him around the room holding his hands and he will try to walk, but isn't really close with the mechanics of it.

This shot was achieved by putting him on one side of the room and running to the other side, while frantically snapping pictures as he sprinted across the room towards me.

He is a pretty good sitter, but really isn't interested in sitting still for very long as there is so much to explore.

 Sitting in his rocking chair was a nervous experience.  He is very much unlike his sister in that he has literally no fear.  He is not afraid to crawl right off the side of the bed or take a jump from the couch.

  

So I put together a little progression of Carter learning how to crawl.

Game #6

So Thanksgiving weekend was also the last home game of the year.  Avery skipped game number 5 so that she could go to the museum with Gigi and Ru, but since the weather was going to be really nice and the kick off was at 3:30, I wanted her to come to this game.

First up as usual was watching the band and cheerleaders lead the team into the stadium before the game.  If you ask her what instrument she wants to play in the band, this week it was "DRUMS!"

 On Daddy's shoulders cheering the football team into the stadium.

 Of course Uncle David was there for some laughs!

 Stephanie, Joe, and Jude came to the game with us as well.

 Avery was pumped up for the entire game.

 At some point, Avery got a hold of Laura's phone and started snapping some pictures.  First up, Drew, Ashley, and Silly Graydon.

 One of Mommy and Daddy!

 Who can forget the bench?

 A selfie with Mommy and Daddy in the background.

 Avery and her football best friends, Morgan and Macey.

 The gang at the end of the game except for Uncle David.

Avery, Mommy, and Aunt Stephanie waiting on the band to start playing on the way out of the stadium.

 Of course we had to watch the band walk out of the stadium on the way out.