Visit to Oklahoma - Part 1 (Eastern)

The Greenies took a little time off for the Independence Day holiday and went to eastern Oklahoma to visit Matt's sister (Becky) and niece (Nicole). Since we drove overnight, Carter slept most of the 11 hours and was ready to play when we got there at 4AM (make that 5AM CST)...

Here are a few shots of Becky and Nicole with Carter:

On Saturday night, we took everyone out for an Italian dinner at Pete's Place (which is actually in Krebs, OK) and had some tasty Choc Beer (I had the peach beer which was T.A.S.T.Y.!!!). It's a cute little restaurant that is set up like "home," and we got to sit in a little room all by ourselves. Which was nice, as Carter wasn't as distracted as he usually gets in a busy restaurant!

Matt's buddy Wes also made the 2-hour trek (thanks Wes!!) to visit with us for dinner and then we all went back to Beck's for some conversation. Here's a shot of the boys:
We didn't actually light any fireworks on the 4th, but we DID have a little excitement as we went for a walk around the ranch. As we were pushing Carter's stroller, one of the cows started following us. I was starting to freak out a little (remember, I grew up in the city...), as Mr. Cow was about 3 feet behind me! And he was licking his lips and staring at me like I would make a good lunch!

When I turned around, there were 3 MORE rogue cows following us! Then I was REALLY freaking and Matt kept saying everything was going to be ok. And THEN, the ENTIRE HERD was following us (so that's like 10 cows!)! They must have thought that we were pushing some kind of "cow food" in our stroller and were eager to be fed (and here I thought cows were herbivores...NOT meat eaters!)!

Beck and Nicole were watching us out the windows and Beck drove up quickly to "rescue" us. She put the cows in the pen and we were able to continue on our walk. (And later, both her and Nicole said that they'd never seen anything like that before! Lucky us!!)

For fun, here's a shot of the rogue cattle being herded by Becky:
And here they are safely tucked in the pen:
Carter really enjoyed being on the ranch and got a kick out of seeing the cows, horses (and even a baby foal...that would spread it's front legs out to bend down to eat grass....oh so cute!), kitties, and Red, the shaggy red dog that would pretty much eat anything! While inside the house, Matt and I would point outside and say, "Look at that!" and Carter would come running and want to be held up so he could see too! The cows and horses typically would just run free and would often be just right outside the window, much to the delight of Carter.

Anyway, back to the 4th walk... Here're a few shots from our trek:
A shot looking up at the house (which sits atop a mountain and was made by hand by Beck's family):
And the house (we call it the "Log Mansion"instead of the Log Cabin...because it's HUGE!):
And finally, coming in from the humidity and heat:
Just check out that sweat on Carter's forehead! I tell ya, we sure don't miss the humidity in Albuquerque!!!
And finally, a quick little video of Beck and Nicole dancing with Carter to the "Happy" song. It's a cheesy little song that Matt and I made up and it puts a smile on Carter's face EVERY time we sing it. Pretty simple and YOU can sing it too (we just sing faster and faster as the song goes along):

"I'm H-A-P-P-Y!
I'm H-A-P-P-Y!
I'm H-A-P-P
H-A-P-P
H-A-P-P-YYYYYYY!!"




It was a great trip and it was nice to just chill out and relax for an entire day! However, on Monday morning, we packed up and hit the road to see our pals in the Oklahoma City area. More on that in the next post.

Beck, Nicole - thank you for a wonderful time!
~kerrie

Tea Time!

I think I'll begin today's blogging marathon with a few photos from the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Central New Mexico annual banquet. You see, at the end of each fiscal year (June), the gals gather to thank all of the officers for their hard work, induct the new officers, honor the science fair winners, and well, catch up on some girl talk.

For the last 5 or so years, the annual banquet has been held at the St. James Tea Room and we have a tasty, tasty "full English tea." I won't lie, the first year I went for tea, I was a little skeptical. Ok, make that COMPLETELY skeptical! But now, I look forward to it, as the food is AMAZING, the tea is terrific, and the conversation is wonderful. One of these days, I hope to take my mom there, as I know she'd love it!

Well, this year, the SWE gals had a "hat contest" to spice up the banquet. I bought a few flowers and ribbons and such and was just going to hot-glue everything to a wide-brimmed hat. Well, when Matt saw what I was about to do, he immediately said that I was missing the most important item of all...!!!! So off we went to Hobby Lobby to buy it!

Matt was a great sport and helped (ok, he did ALL the work...) make me a terrific hat. See:
And just what WAS that "most important item of all"? A BIRD!
Apparently, in Matt's mind, all ladies that drink tea have fake birds stuck to their hats. We got a great laugh out of it and it was fun dressing up for the tea party.

And speaking of laughs... Carter has started with this hilarious laugh that is a cross between Fat Albert and well, the Devil. We tried to capture it on video and here's what we got - the wacky laugh is toward the end of these 6 seconds:



It cracks us up pretty much every time!

Up next, a few blogs about our vacation to Oklahoma!
~kerrie

Work, Work, Work

Been a while since I had time to sit down and type in a few blogs. I've been a busy worker bee, Matt's been a busy worker bee, and Carter, well, he just been a big help!

If I bring home stacks of paper, he is very proficient at filing:
Sorting:
And even running out to make copies:

I kid, I kid... :)

He is getting pretty good with his OWN work and has brought home some pretty cute schoolwork. Here's a good coloring of a ball (and I might add that he's a BIG FAN of crayons and we think he might have consumed an entire blue crayon...or so the contents of his diaper alluded to...):
One of my favorites from last week - this is Carter's "hair" (which I recently tried to cut all on my own...let's just say that from now on we'll be paying the salon for each trim...):

Carter has been quite the good student at school (on the days when he isn't the class "biter"...*eyeroll* Guess pretty much ALL of the one-year-olds are biting, hitting, or kicking their classmates. Fun times!). Anyway, he's a good eater, a good napper, and plays well with others. They've even started having "pool time" (as in the aquatic type, not the ball and cue type...) on Mondays. And his teachers are fantastic and we're still VERY happy with our daycare! Yay!

His school is very accommodating, as recently we had to switch to soy milk. It seems our boy is allergic to cow's milk. Luckily, soy milk is just as readily available as cow's milk, so it's really not a hassle to buy. It's also curbed the super-toxic-butt-burning poo situation, so pheww, thankfully we found the culprit! And trust me, when Carter is screaming bloody murder during a diaper change,we'll try ANYTHING to help him feel better. Luckily all it took was a switch to soy milk!

Moving on to something less, er, gross...

Previous post mentioned how helpful Carter was with housework and mopping. Well, he's also QUITE the laundry helper. Anytime I need a fresh hanger, he's on it:Might be a tad tangled, but it's an easy fix to separate them:
He'll even help ball up the socks (MY least favorite laundry chore..):
Although we typically take the laundry upstairs, it can also be done right in the kitchen (and the uber paleness is due to the slathering of sunscreen on his face...that stuff is THICK!):
And a couple of my favorite photos - our little laundry helper carting off the t-shirts to be hung up:
For some reason, he's taken to piling everything up on his walker so he can transport EVERYTHING all at once (toys, cup of water, you name it...):
I told Matt that he sort of looks like a bag lady, er, bag boy. Hehehe!

Anywho, that's it for tonight. Before I sign off, I did want to say HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to the most amazing father ever - Matt! We couldn't ask for a better Daddy around this place and it'd take me all day to type up just how wonderful he is. We love you, honey, more than this silly 'ol blog can say!

And an extra big HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to my father (the infamous "Grandpa C"), too! I can't even begin to express how wonderful it is to have him in our lives! We love you and can't wait to see you in October!

Hope you're all having a great week and keeping cool! It's the beginning of monsoon season here, so the evenings are cooling off and we're getting some sprinkles in the late afternoon. Yay!!!
~kerrie

The Dancing King

This is a VERY, VERY random post that ends with a funny little video! So keep reading!

We'll start with Carter's first popsicle (and to stay in the ranks of "good parenting," it was made with 100% fruit juice and was sugar free...really, it was!).

First assessment, AWESOME:
First taste, AWESOME:First notice that it drips sticky juice, AWESOME:
First taste of the stick, AWESOME:
First realization that it's really cold in his hands, NOT SO AWESOME:
And actually, he pretty much ate the whole thing... And we've tried again with other flavors and now that he's got the hang of it, he's a big fan!

So let's move on to topic number 2 - gardening...

We bought Carter some mini gardening tools to play with in the backyard (so he won't steal Daddy's tools...). We've found that pretty much ANYTHING that can be scooted along the floor like a broom is fantastic. These garden tools pretty much qualify for fantastic! See:There are three of them (a shovel, a rake, and a hoe) and he constantly tries to carry around all three at once:
And then he'll prop them all up in the corner all nice and neat. It's actually pretty endearing that he tries to "clean up" and keep Mommy from stepping on them barefoot (OUCH!):

And my final completely random topic for this post is dancing. You see, Carter LOVES music. He'll dance around pretty much EVERY time he hears a song, a toy makes noise, or when Matt and I sing silly songs to him. First he'll swing his arms around from side-to-side, then he'll clap his hands. Then he'll spin around in a little pirouette, and then he'll bend up and down at the knees (which is REALLY cute!!!).

Well, we downloaded some horrendous kids tunes to play in the living room for him. Needless to say, he's a fan and will do his goofy dance pretty much every time!

I wasn't able to capture the entire dance "routine" to embarrass him, but I caught this short clip (~15 seconds) of the arms a-swingin' (and ignore the "trance" at the beginning - I was clicking around on the TV and since we don't typically watch the tube, he pretty much zones right in on the screen any time it is lit up...). Here goes:



As soon as I get the camera batteries charged back up, I'll get some videos of the entire routine. Adorable, I say!
~kerrie

Games & Grub with the Greenies

Matt and I decided at the 11th hour to have a little backyard fun with some friends. We enticed them to join us with our gourmet food (hotdogs...), the terrific weather (50+ mph winds...), and our awesome backyard games (old limbo set, deflated beach balls, and other random crap...)!

Took a few shots of the gang as the day went on (we ended up taking down the gazebo, as we were afraid we would end up KILLING our friends as it launched across the backyard in the hurricane-force winds...). Anyway, Carter and Avery still had fun throwing random lawn games at everyone:
Madison (Avery's big sis) even taught Carter how to use his swing (before then, Carter was quite terrified of it...). However, he only wanted to climb up in it backwards and be pushed by Mommy:
Oh well, it was still a hoot!
Tyson and Jennifer enjoying the awesome food:
David and Avery playing modified jai alai (they used bean bags instead of a ball):
Brett wasn't able to play with the correct basket thingy, so he used a kid-sized shovel:

Carter was ready to limbo, but ended up impaling himself on the pole...so mean 'ol Mommy took it down:
Mary Beth and Dan just watched from the sidelines (and Mary Beth is pregnant with Baby Luke - doesn't she look AMAZING!?!?!):
All in all, it was STILL a good time! We didn't capture all of our friends on camera, as Carter was a royal terror and was cranky, cranky, cranky! Oh well, next time we'll halt the winds and have a jolly time in the backyard with all of our pals (and we'll make sure Carter gets a nap beforehand!)! Thanks to everyone that came out!
~kerrie

Missed a Spot

Before this month is over, you'll be seeing a few photos from our diligent cleaning crew. Well, the one boy crew - Carter. You see, he has REALLY taken a love to the mop, the broom, and the vacuum. So we bought him his very own housekeeping set! And then the camera battery died... So I'll post some photos of the kid-sized sweeper and such later this month!

In the meantime, here are a few shots of our mopper kid, workin' the swiffer like a pro:
He even got the hard-to-reach spots up under the kitchen table:
And for fun, here's a quick (~19 seconds) video of our little mopper:



Now I guess I should go help Matt with a little of the house work, eh?

Happy First Day of Summer!
~kerrie

Congrats to Wes and Oshani!

Just a quick little post for our pals Wes and Oshani....

Starting with a big....
Their little boy, Ryan, has arrived! Can't wait to meet the lil' guy in person - hopefully around the July 4th holiday! And after seeing a few photos on Facebook, he is ADORABLE! A big congrats to Wes and Oshani and here's a quick shot of the happy parents (wrapped up in the superhero quilt I made for him):
Heartfelt congratulations from the Greenies and here's to a few rest-filled nights!
~kerrie (& matt & carter)

Box Boy

And my final post of the afternoon...

Being that it's a zillion degrees out today, we're letting Carter run around with minimal clothing. He decided that he'd make a little nest in the box lid this morning and stuffed in a fleece blanket just in case the weather decided to turn chilly (don't we wish...).

Thought he was goofy enough to get the camera out, so here are a few shots of our Box Boy:
Never knew it could be so much fun to play in a box lid, eh?
Hope you're staying cool and enjoying your weekend! I think it's now time to set up the kiddie pool and chill out a bit!
~kerrie

Fish Fry

While in Portland, we picked up a set of tiny pots and pans at Ikea for Carter to play with in the kitchen (figured it was better than him playing with my All-clad gear...). Well, he chose the skillet to bang around before school on Friday, so I snapped a few photos of him in his "Catch of the Day" outfit:
Pretty happy boy we have here, eh?
Happy fish frying!
~kerrie

Denim Dude

My next few blogs with be short and sweet! This is a simple silly post to show off Carter's new "jeans" diapers! Huggies is making them as a limited edition product, so of course, I just HAD to buy a box because they are just too adorable!

Here's our naked little guy running around in his demin drawers:
And if you click on the next photo, you can see that they have POCKETS on the back (ok, not real, actual pockets, but a pocket print). Awwwww!
He wouldn't stand still for a front shot - but in the next photo you can barely see the zipper on the front of the diaper if you click on it:And of course, the jeans "label" on the back. Totally adorable!
Ok, that's all for this post. I just had to buy them (and they're only like twice as much as regular diapers, so it's not like I broke the bank...excuses, excuses, excuses...) and I had to show them off!
~kerrie