Smart Kid

Spent my Sunday morning and afternoon in a couple different meetings for the Society of Women Engineers. Figured since I was off to meet with a bunch of "smart" women, my boy should be decked out in his "smart" gear, too. So here he is, sporting his favorite Albert Einstein shirt:
Playing with some Tupperware and running around the kitchen:
And say it with me now, "Ahhhh, ain't he cute?!"
Hope you all have a fantastic week!
~kerrie

We're Off To See The Wizard!

Yesterday Matt and I had the pleasure of sneaking off for a "date" while Eileen minded Carter while we caught dinner and a show! And the best part of all, we went to see a stage production of The Wizard of Oz (link takes you to the official tour site)!

But backing up a little, let's see how Carter started the day...

First, he let us sleep in until nearly 9:00AM. AMAZING to get so much sleep on a Saturday morning! And it must have done him well, as he was a happy camper when he woke up:
And I think he stood still for about 30 seconds and then started his play time for the morning:
Then he realized that he should probably eat a little breakfast before he got too crazy playing:
But he saved a big smile for me before he covered himself in cinnamon rolls and veggie sausages:
After we returned from dinner, we picked Carter up from Eileen's house. Walking into her house, she started with this: "Carter has been such a ......" And I interrupted her to say, "Oh no! The entire experience hinges on your very next word!"

Well, she finished up by saying that Carter was TERRIFIC and that they had a WONDERFUL time! Yay!!!!! We are just so thankful to have wonderful friends that will watch Carter for us and allow Matt and I to have a "date night" here and there! So thank you again, Eileen!

To finish up this post, I'll include a few photos from the unpacking-debacle after Carter's afternoon out (it's just amazing how much crap we hauled over to Eileen's!). He snatched up our lunchboxes and took off across the room:
Thought he looked pretty cute amongst the toy mess with his dual lunchboxes. Looks like he's ready to head off to work:
Hope you enjoyed your Saturday and had as much fun as the Greenies!
~kerrie

Happy 60th Birthday to SWE

Those that know me well know that I am VERY involved in the Society of Women Engineers (or SWE). Well, SWE recently celebrated it's 60th birthday! Such amazing strides have been made in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematical (STEM) fields as they relate to women in the workforce over the last 60 years! I, personally, am very proud to be an engineer and am very proud to be a part of an organization that supports women in engineering!

Thought I'd include a quick photo of the tasty, tasty cake that the Central New Mexico Section (my local section) had during last week's "Founder's Day" celebration/happy hour:
Hopefully the next 60 years will be exciting for SWE and I hope that I can continue to be involved and support women in the STEM fields. I also hope I'll be able to continue to be an inspiration to the young men and women that I try to impact during my outreach events for SWE!

Gooooooo SWE!
~kerrie

Happy 4th Anniversary!

Well it's been FOUR years since Matt and I tied the knot in front of our family and friends in a little wedding chapel inside the Imperial Palace in the party capital of the world - Las Vegas, Nevada! Here's wishing us both a very, veryThought I'd type up a little re-cap for those readers that missed out on the fun (and trust me, our wedding and reception was a BLAST!). Here's a shot of the happy couple at the ceremony:
And at this point (below), we were officially, Mr. and Mrs. Greenfelder (and if you click on the photo, you can just barely see my FANTASTIC sparkly red shoes! I'm from Kansas, ya know...):
Our bestest pals, Renae (Matron of Honor) and Chris (Best Man) - don't they look amazing?!
My VERY happy parents (and doesn't my mom just look gorgeous!? She's SO photogenic!): Matt's happy siblings:
And then we were off to the reception (also in the hotel)...

If you'll let me back up slightly, BEFORE the whole wedding event, I decided (yes, I'm taking that blame...) that we needed to send "announcements" to about 50 of our closest friends and family members. Sure, they were kinda "invitations," but never in a million years did I expect anyone to make the trek out to Vegas to watch lil' ol' Matt and Kerrie get married.... Come to find out, I was wrong... We had about FORTY people at our wedding (most made a long, fun-filled weekend out of it) and it was one of the VERY BEST times I've ever had! Bonus, too, as I came home married to my true love, Matt!

And now that I'm done with the sappy stuff, let's move back to the reception...

We had the entire reception catered, complete with wedding cake and fully open bar. We'll get to the bar part in a second... We had some tasty, tasty wedding cake:
Since we only had about 40 people at the party, we had no problems chatting it up with all of our guests and thanked them all for coming out. Of course, Matt and I were just beaming the entire time:
My folks, too, were beaming throughout the entire weekend:
Some of that beaming just MIGHT have been attributed to the flow of liquor... While we had to meet a minimum ($300) for the bar bill (regardless of it we drank that much or not), we certainly didn't have any troubles meeting it (if I remember right, the bill was in the thousands of dollars...just for liquor...YAY!).

Of course, the bartender let me "help" make a few of the drinks:
Of course, our friends also "helped" by downing a few shots:
By the end of the party, it was indeed an event to remember! One last shot of the happy couple:
Woke up the next day with a killer headache and realized that we'd misplaced the wedding certificate. Until that little piece of paper was sent in, we really weren't married! We tore through our hotel room - no luck finding it. We then called (at a very early hour, too...) all of our guests to see if they picked it up accidentally - no luck. We then went back down to the reception room - locked, no luck. I then opened every single door and closet on the 4th floor of the Imperial Palace until I FINALLY found it. Pheww... That wouldn't have been a good way to start off our marriage! :)

At the end of the weekend, Matt and I took off for a week's stay at an all-inclusive resort in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. The sun was warm, the water was fine, and the drinks continued to flow. It was one of the most relaxing weeks of my life and it was a FINE way to start off our marriage! Here are a few shots from the resort - daytime:
And nighttime:
Finally, for our pals that didn't make the trek out to Vegas, we held a big 'ol BBQ/reception back in Albuquerque to celebrate our wedding with our co-workers and friends. Again, beautiful weather for the day and I think everyone had a great time hanging out with the Greenfelders! A few parting shots of the bride and groom:
With that, Happy Anniversary No. 4 to my soul-mate and love of my life, Matt. May the next 40 years be as wonderful as these first four!

I love you,
~kerrie

Sittin' At The Bar

After leaving the zoo, we headed straight to Toys R Us to pick up a kiddie table-and-chairs set for Carter. He's been doing a lot of "work" at the table at school, so we thought we'd encourage the studious behavior with a similar setup at home. Also, the teachers won't let the kiddos have any snacks unless they're sitting in their seats, so we thought that was another behavior we should mimic at home (besides, running + chomping on snacks = bad news...).

Watching Carter get up in the chairs is about the CUTEST THING EVER because even though they're only about a foot tall, he can't just plop his behind in them. Instead, he has to crawl up on it and try to turn himself around...all without letting the chair tip over. ENTIRELY cute!

Anyway, I snapped a few quick photos of him eating a snack at his new table (and I was kind enough to help get him seated and pushed in correctly) - Matt says it looks like he's sitting at the "bar"...hahaha!:
Of course, the table can be used for toy storage, too:
Such a proper young man, eh?
Always on the look-out for a snack-thief:
If you click on this next one, you can see his expression...which basically says: "Stay away from my snacks, buster!" (Or as Matt says, this expression is "Yeah, I got woman problems, ya know what I mean?" - again, like he's sitting at the bar...)
And one more shot - showing off the chair in the background. Carter had a blast pushing the table and chairs all around the living room. More push toys, yay! (And also, you can see the big pile of books in the background...his new thing is to take EVERYTHING out of the storage basket/bin/etc. and put it on the floor. Hopefully soon we'll learn how to put things back IN the storage baskets/bins/etc...)
Hope you're having a fantastic week! Tomorrow we're going to work on some coloring! Got a new table, some new crayons, so why not?!
~kerrie

Lovely Day For A Picnic

The beautiful weather from Saturday continued on into Sunday when we met some pals at the zoo for picnic. Carter ate a quick bite before he said "goodbye" to Mommy and ran around the huge lawn in the middle of the zoo:
Since we have astro-turf at our house, it seems Carter can't get enough of running around on the grass when he gets the chance. Unlike the astro-turf, the lawn was all bumpy and uneven, so he spent a fair amount of time picking himself back up. Didn't seem to bring down his spirits though:
Inspecting out the grass. Check.
Running away from Daddy. Check.
A nice view under the giant cottonwood trees:
And then we were off to see the exhibits. Must have been a full moon or something, as pretty much ALL of the animals were lively and putting their best feet forward. Got a rare opportunity to be about 3 feet away from this guy - can you see him amongst the trees? (Click to enlarge if you need to.)
Did you guess it right? It was a giraffe! He (or maybe I she...I didn't check...) was eating the leaves off of the tree right in front of us. Really cool! Carter kept pointing to it and was completely excited!
Even the rhinos were having fun pacing around their umbrella:
Matt was on stroller duty for most of the day and Carter was having a blast checking everything out:
Went underground to see the seals (or maybe their sea lions, I don't remember how to tell them apart...) and thought Carter looked cute in this photo (*ahhhh scary green baby!*) as he was watching them swim right in front of us:
Typically the polar bears are just pacing back and forth (no doubt waiting on lunch...). Well, on Sunday one was playing in the water with a "iceberg" (ok, it was a big piece of plastic), but it was neat to see him/her rolling around with it in the water:
Carter was equally intrigued, but pretty much zonked from a fun day at the zoo:
Thanks to Brian and Lis (and totally adorable Wyatt!) for including us in the picnic fun!
~kerrie