Tuesday, December 16, 2008

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!















Last night we took Carter to see Santa! We knew it would not go as well and as quietly as it did last year, but we did it anyway! We waited for about 30 minutes and it was finally our turn to visit! As we got closer to him, I felt the hold get tighter and by the time we were upon him, I was being choked! She got a bit upset with me when I put her in his lap and looked at us like we were absolutely crazy! It was that silent cry for about 5 seconds, where you know the next noise is going to break some windows when it finally gets out! We got the picture and she is all better now! We got home and let her open her gifts from mommy and daddy! All 2 of them! She was so excited to rip the paper! She got a Noah's Ark Little People set with all of the animals.
We leave on Thursday night at midnight to fly home for Christmas for 13 days! Wish us luck with the all night flight! MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!!!

Thursday, December 11, 2008

San Francisco Treat!































We visited San Francisco last week! It was a blast! We got there on Thursday and stayed our first night at the Ritz Carlton Hotel on Half Moon Bay, about 30 minutes from the city. Our room faced the ocean with a fire pit on the patio of our room. The hotel sat on a huge cliff that dropped into the ocean. It was super cool, but a bit fancy for us! And we felt a little out of place with a 16 month old running in circles around us! Carter got to run on the beach and play! It was her first trip to the beach ever! She was a bit intimidated for about the first 5 seconds, then she was ready to dive in! On Friday we drove to San Francisco and stayed at Fisherman's Warf. We had our first cable car ride that night!! Carter held on tight like she was a pro at cable cars! Brad had a conference to go to a couple of days, so Carter and I shopped til we dropped! And what a place to shop--6 story Macy's and 8 story malls! It was pretty cool shopping! We took Carter to visit the Macy's holiday window a few times! They had small houses set up with cats and dogs for adoption in the windows! She LOVED it! She would shout "DOG! DOG!" when she saw them. On Sunday we saw Ghirardelli Square! mmmmmm...and had a big butterscotch and caramel sundae. On Monday we (well it was kinda my idea that I regret now!) went to the Haight and Ashbury area. It is where the hippie movement began! My guess is that it hasn't changed much since the 60's! It was quite frightening for my southern sheltered self! We quickly boarded a bus soon after arriving there and headed back to "our part of the town!" We went to Pier 39 and had lunch and got a ticket for the boat ride under the Golden Gate Bridge and around the island of Alcatraz! That was really fun to see the bridge that close and go under it. We saw the sea lions at the pier and Carter learned what a sea lion says! "Arrr, Arrr!" We rode the cable car again that night to eat and on the way back to the hotel, Carter was yelling at people walking across the street "HEY! HEY! HIEEE!" It was pretty funny! We really had a good time there, but I am sure glad we don't live there!

Monday, December 1, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving!

















We spent the Thanksgiving weekend in Breckenridge with most of Brad's family (14 of them). We rented a big log cabin close to the base of the ski slopes. Carter sledded for the first time (she laughed the whole time!) and Brad and I went skiing! We got about 10 inches of snow in 2 days. It was pretty fun, until the drive home! It is about 76 miles to Breckenridge, but it took 6 hours to get back to Denver. 3 hours into the trip home, we had made it about 8 miles! The snow was blowing and traffic was at a stand still. We sat outside of the Eisenhower tunnel (about 11,000 ft) for about 2 hours waiting to get through! We were oxygen deprived and feeling a bit nauseated! But it was a pretty fun time!
The cabin had a juke box! Carter LOVED it!! We turned it on and she danced like a wild woman! Her favorite song was Bob Marley's "Buffalo Soldier!" She now goes around saying "ay ay ay, ay yayaya!" It is pretty funny!

Monday, November 17, 2008

Carter laughing with her daddy!

Saturday, November 1, 2008

TREAT....TREAT



We went trick or treating! We planned to be gone about 45 minutes....but Carter really got the hang of the game and we were gone about 2 hours!! We had been trying all week to teach her to say "trick or treat," But she never got it. But about the 5th house we went to she started saying "treat, treat." She started running from door step to door step collecting her candy, putting it in her bucket, and telling everyine "Hi-eee!" She especially loved the houses that had dogs! We had to tell them "Hi-eee!" too before we could leave!
One of the last houses we visited, she went to the door and Brad knocked for her and no one came. Their door was all glasss so we could see in and see people. So someone realized we were there and 2 ladies came to the door. Carter immediately started saying "Hi-eeee!" and they fell in love with her! She got a piece of candy and we thought we would be on our way. But Carter stepped in the door and while they were going on about how cute and aadorable she was, Carter bolted down the hall in their house, right in to their party in the kitchen! Imagine a random 15 month old pumpkin just running in to your party! We felt bad, but they laughed and laughed! So we had to chase her down in the house. By the time we caught her she was going upstairs! The funny thing is I got it all on video!
We had so much fun trick or treating with her! We can't wait for next year!



Wednesday, October 29, 2008

"DOG!"





Carter is learning new animal sounds everyday!! Brad has made a powerpoint presentation for her to look at every day with animals (17 to be exact). She knows most of the animals and what noise they make. She knows the sign for them too. Elephant has got to be her favorite one! But anything with 4 legs is usually a "DOG!" first. She is learning to say her name too!! We come down the stairs every morning and there is a picture of her at the bottom. She starts pointing to herself and saying "Car-ka, Car-ka!" It is pretty cute.
We are getting excited about Halloween!! Carter is going to be a pumpkin! (unless I can find a "DOG!" costume before Friday) We are going trick or treating on Friday morning with our playgroup at a nursing home! That should be fun! I have decided I am going to give out toys when kids come to our house trick or treating. HAHAHA! Just kidding. I am giving out toothbrushes and I am going to tell scary stories of my root canals! MuHahahahaha!
Well, more to come later!! I am sure we will have a load of pictures after Friday!

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Pumpkin Pumpkin







Today we took Carter to the Pumpkin Patch! It was a Fall Festival and Pumpkin Patch, complete with homemade root beer! She was quite shy in the pumpkins but warmed up after we gave her a little pumpkin to call her own. It got many hugs and a few licks!


She has developed a cute little, often difficult to deal with, personality. She has learned to point to things and say "DAT!" She woke up this morning and greeted Brad by saying "Dada Dada, Mama Mama Mama, Dada!" She babbles non stop and if she ever decides to use real words, we will have to start actually paying attention! It is easy to tune out these days! Dancing has become her favorite past time! Sometime she picks up on music playing that I don't realize is there until she starts dancing.
We decorated some pumpkins this weekend and put them on our front porch. She likes to pick her poor little pumpkin up and roll it down the steps! We have a feeling her pumpkin may have some internal damage right now!

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Carter's First Birthday









So....Carter turned one on Wednesday July 23rd. We had a little celebration with friends and fam in a little park close to the house. The grandparents were here from the South. The G-Dads helped cook hotdogs and hamburgers. It was a particularly stressful day because the sky was cloudy and the winds were 20-40 mph. It started raining 2 hours prior to the party and Mandy was ready to cancel the outdoor party and move it indoors. But since it has only rained 3 inches here since January 1, we figured the rain wouldn't last. It didn't and actually is was a very nice day.


Carter had a cupcake table (see pictures) that the other kids enjoyed seeing. When I asked one of her friends, Paige, which cupcake she wanted, she said, "OOOOOOhhhhhh, the big one!" That was Carter's birthday cake. When Carter finally got to eat it, she started by picking off the green polka dots. The she took off the top of the cake and next thing you know the cake looked like sand.


Carter got many nice gifts. We got her a bike (with training wheels). Given that her birthday is during the Tour de France, she needs a bike. She was good at pushing the bike around, and even rolled it over -- she ended up under the bike -- HER FIRST BIKE WRECK! We now let her ride it supervised on the carpet, wrapped in bubble wrap.


Her evening was spent dancing to bluegrass music. She has mastered this, what Mandy calls "the white kid dance" (I was pretty good at that in my day). Check out the dance videos.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Baptism and the Eve of the Birthday





We have had quite an exciting week! Carter was baptized on Sunday. It was a very special service and meant so much to us. She gave the church congregation quite a laugh when she tried to jump in the baptism water and go for a swim. The preacher was having a time holding on to her at the end of it all!


Well, Carter turns ONE tomorrow! Brad's parents are here in Denver and my parents get here in about 1 hour!! We are having a party for her tomorrow at the park. We had a cupcake-a-thon today! Dee (Brad's mom ) and I started making cupcakes today about 10am, and we finished them about 630pm. We also made Carter's birthday cake! It is a huge cupcake, pink with green polkadots! I will post pics soon of the big party in the next few days!!


Thursday, July 3, 2008

DENTIST VISIT!!



I think Carter will grow up to be a dentist! She is always sticking her hand in other people's mouths and grabbing their teeth. Carter went to the dentist for the first time today! She has 8 teeth and 2 molars are making their appearance soon! She did great, never even cried! Her Mommy cries more at the dentist than she did today! (But Carter has never had a root canal either!) Her favorite part was the mirror he used to look in her mouth! As the dentist was looking in her mouth, out comes Daddy with a camera ! Carter will hate us one day for taking pictures of every minute of her life....but oh well! It makes for a great scrapbook!

Thursday, June 19, 2008


10 months old and Carter is walking now! She has been taking steps for about 3-4 weeks now, but she has gotten very good in the last few days! She has also developed this attitude. I am not real sure where it came from, but we are trying to make it go away. If she doesn't want to do something,or if you take something away from her, she acts a complete fool! I am not ready for this kind of excitement and DRAMA!
Carter is taking swim classes this week! That has been lots of fun, and has set us up for some really great naps! WAHOO!!
Here are some of our newest pics!

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Mother's Day Weekend



HAPPY MOM'S DAY TO ALL!!

This is my second Mother's Day--technically. Carter was still in the womb last year, but I needed an excuse to get that really cool Lounge Lizard Chair I wanted so badly, so I played the Mother's Day card!
Well this year Brad did a great job with a Mother's Day gift! He got me a membership to a spa here in Denver and I get to go once a month for a massage! WAAAHHOOO!!! I went Saturday for my first massage! She told me I need to come about every other day for the next 3 weeks to get all of the muscles working again in my back...just to let you know the extent of my stress! Although I am not sure why I am stressed.
So Carter had some huge milestones yesterday ! I am sure Friday will have it's own page in the scrapbook..."May 9th!" Let's see, she began the day by discovering a new sound "ddd" and "ggg". Before it had only been "ahh hah!", which now we can get her to do on command. So all day she was saying "day day day gay gay agy ady" And then it changed to "gay day" which we interpreted as "Happy Day". I think she was trying to tell me Happy Mother's Day but just couldn't say "Mother" yet!! When Brad got home from work we were practicing walking as we always do in the afternoon and she took a step without us holding on to her. She fell immediately after her foot hit, but we called it a step! When I was cooking dinner she decided to come help and proceeded to pull the pots out of the cabinet. Her favorite thing in the kitchen now is the colander (hmmm...not sure about spelling, but you know the thing with the holes in it!) We now have installed baby stopper thingys on our cabinets!
We went to the Denver Zoo today for the first time! It was super nice weather here today(although is is going to snow Tuesday =( yuck)! Carter had fun, Brad and I might have had more fun though! We bought a zoo membership, which means Carter and I may go every week this summer!
Here are some pictures from our Mother's Day weekend and last weekend at the Rockies baseball game!

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Ahhh...Traveling Adventures With The Ball's

Anyone who knows us already knows that we cannot take a trip ANYWHERE that doesn't involve complications. It may be a blizzard 3 days before Christmas that cancels our entire trip home, OR when we do get a flight out from the blizzard, we get stuck in Dallas in tornadoes, airport closed and we have to rent a car to drive 6 more hours to Mississippi, OR a crying 5 month old Carter who is teething, 2 howling beagles in the back, and blowing snow/ snowpacked roads on a 26 hour cross country car trip! Nothing is simple when we plan a trip. I mean, on our honeymoon, we missed or flight to St Lucia due to "sunny weather delays!" It was OK...we just spent the first day in Six Flags and went the next day! (Six Flags was all that was open on Easter Sunday in Atlanta!) Well, yesterday Carter and I were to leave at 6AM for Mobile for a trip home. I awoke about 3am after 3 hours of sleep, feeling a bit nauseated with a ridiculous headache (AKA... Migraine) I started vomiting and knew the trip wasn't going to happen...at least not at 6AM anyway! Brad called to cancel the departing flight and we were to call later in the day to reschedule. After vomiting for a while, I went to the doctor and got some IV fluids and nausea medicine and after a couple doses of Morphine for the headache, and I was ready to fly! (Or I thought I was anyway!) Carter and I got booked on the 5PM flight. (We either had to take that flight or it would be $900 more to leave another day...I don't understand airline thought!) So we left.
We had a 3 hour flight to Atlanta, and a 40 minute layover in ATL. But, we left Denver 30 minutes late because it had started snowing and we had to de-ice the plane. Ok, so that left me 10 minutes in ATL to got to my next flight! Nothing can be done in 10 minutes in ATL. I thought! My headache got worse thinking about it. The Morphine was definitely wearing off and the hangover headache from it was settling in! Carter was in the "I want to stand up the entire flight and jump like a mad woman mood!" I was hoping the breastfeeding before the flight would have just enough Morphine in it to calm Carter down and make her want to sleep for a bit on the plane! (hmmm...is that child abuse??) Luckily, I had a super nice 8 months pregnant lady sitting next to me who seemed to notice the greenish tint to my face and she offered to hold Carter for the entire flight! I felt so bad for her, but was so blessed to have her there! We arrived in ATL, and I had 6 minutes to get to the next flight! Sorry Carter, no new diaper for you! Be strong, I told her! Brad was watching all of this (the late departure from Denver, the 6 minute layover in ATL) at home from the computer. He had already called my parents and told them I probably would not be at the airport, becuase there was no way I could have made the flight. But I did!
We arrived in Pensacola about 1030pm. Ahhhh, 15 minutes early! Carter did great and slept most of the 2nd flight. I was asleep in the car before we got out of the airport parkinglot, I think!
I don't have many days that involve that much vomiting, Morphine AND a plane flight! It was definitely an adventure and I never ever want to experience it again! Luckily, Brad will be flying into town next Wednesday and we will be traveling back together!

COURAGE CLASSIC!

Mandy just flew home for the weekend -- I will join her there in a week. The flight home is another story to add to our lists of complicated trips home. That post will be the next one. For now, I would like to share that we are both training for the Courage Classic -- a fund-raiser bike ride in the Mountains around Copper Mountain. For those interested in donating, I have put the link to Mandy's donation site here. The raised funds go to The Children's Hospital of Colorado. If we can raise enough, we can earmark the funds to go to the Department of Oncology. Even if you can't donate -- check out the site. (the site is at the top of my blog) Thanks.

Monday, April 14, 2008

OH WHAT A NIGHT!!!

Tonight was memorably messy. Our 2nd anniversary is tomorrow and we decided after we had our pictures taken for the church directory we would go out to eat. We went to a place called Pappadeaux's Seafood, it is the closest thing we can get to decent seafood in this landlocked state of Colorado! Pictures went well, Carter was a ham as usual and they turned out great...no real disasters there (except the camera lady took a nasty fall while taking our pictures, but she was ok!) We got to Pappadeaux's, and as we were trying to feed Carter her Chicken and Rice baby food (which by the way smells like poo!), she is munching on a cracker and sticks it halfway down her esophagus and gags and vomits everything. "Ok, we can handle this", we thought. My white pants were still white, her super cute outfit her Grammy bought her was still pink and the bib and her socks caught most of the yuckiness. We were OK. We got our food...mmmmm...red beans and grilled tilapia for me and raw oysters for Brad. Carter is quietly playing with a toy, grunting like she often does during mealtime. (mealtime is also poo time for her!) She had thrown a leg up over the side of the highchair and looked comfortable until I looked in the highchair seat only to find a big pile of POO under her right leg! AHHHH! I wondered if she even had a diaper on! We had just been talking about how we thought she needed more prunes in her diet to help her poo. AHHH!! "What do we do", we kind of sat and looked at each other for a minute or two and then Brad reached for the baby wipes in the diaper bag. Oh no...we were OUT! I had used the last of them at the church for what I thought was the "poo of the night". Boy, was I wrong. Her pink outfit and both legs were covered in poo too! I went to the car, got her other outfit I had for backup in times like this, and luckily I had a box of wipes in there. I also disposed of the vomit filled socks and shoes while I was there. I came back in and Brad had cleaned the chair as best he could, but they has sat another couple right next to us. He looked like he was about to vomit from the smell! I got her to the bathroom as quickly as I could without being too obvious and trying not to get poo all over me! She got a wipe bath and we were back to the table like nothing ever happened. Except now she was super fussy because we had passed that critical time of 8pm when she either melts down or goes to sleep. She melted down. When we finally finished dinner, we were suprised to find that the bill did not include the hazardous waste removal fee that we expected! We are all good now, Carter had a bath and is sleeping well! (And my pants are still white!) We are happy to report we do not have any pictures to post from tonight's events!

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Snow day!











It snowed here today, so Carter and I were stuck in the house all day. We have tons of pictures from our snow day! Bath time was especially cute!

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

8 Months Old!


Carter is now 8 months old! She is getting so big so quickly! She started crawling about 3 weeks ago and has not stopped since. She is pulling up in her crib to stand. It will not be long and she will probably be walking. We have had some good days in Denver lately. The weather is nice about 4 days of the week, it is freezing the other 3 days! On the nice days we go to the park and swing for a while. Carter LOVES the swings! While she swings, she claps her hands and is so proud of herself. We are looking forward to going home to Alabama and Mississippi next week for a much needed family visit! Brad and I hope to take Carter to the beach for her very first time! We have a swimsuit and hat all ready to go!
The Carter Crawl