Christmas in Cinci

We went to Cincinnati for a winter holiday and Christmas with family - Aunt Lynn's house with the Ochs', Thomas' and even Marnie made an appearance!

We did some walking (not as much as we should have!) and Carter played in the street for the first time (not the last - we do live in suburbia)

We hung out with family and had some laughs...

Carter spent a bunch of QT with Marnie...

And Poppy...

And the ladies...

He couldn't get enough of his pretty cousins!

Hanging out with Uncle Jason...

who taught Carter some things about blocks.

And jammies ing with Aunt Lynn on the piano.

Everybody seemed to have a great time with minimal fussing, although Christmas morning was a little overwhelming for the little guy.  He did fine, but just needed a little quiet time in the next room from present-opening activities.  Totally understandable.  

But then goodbyes needed to be said...

Marnie didn't want to leave to go back to Illinois.

Then Poppy left, and then:

Crash-o bang-o.

We got to spend an extra day with just Aunt Lynn, Jack (who's now on record as Carter's best friend besides Linda), Katie, Liz, and Grammy TT (does anybody have a picture of C and TT together!!??!?).

Then we got in the car...

For a long trip home...

(I wish I could say that this picture is representative of the car trip, but I'm afraid that's not the case...)

We will be posting a couple of videos soon - just didn't want to make this picture-heavy post any heavier...

And Now for Something Completely Random

Going through pictures from the last year or so, I found a bunch of cute pics that didn't (I don't think) make it to the blog.  So if you're one of the folks that needs a little shot of Carter-ness today (I know I do), here's a whole whack of randomness:

Apologies for the lack of theme, mood, or inspiration.  It's crazy pie around here these days.  We've all had various colds now for going on 2 months, so we're run down and sleepy all the time.

In Carter news: he is walking (as you already knew) a bit.  He gets a little timid after taking a few steps and if things aren't exactly as he likes, he'll crawl after about 4 steps.  He's starting to do it more and more on his own, though.  I think he says "agua" - hard to tell, but he will make sounds like that reaching for his water, so I'm hoping he's actually picking up some Spanish from his daycare provider.  He will periodically say "Da, da, dad-dee" and he might actually mean it, again, we're not quite sure.  And one day when no one was around, he said "Ma-ma!" looking at me with a big old smile.  :)  I haven't gotten him to do it since then, and no one else can confirm it, so I guess it doesn't count yet, but I'm sticking with my story, dang it.

He's Going For Distance...

Carter has been getting more serious about walking.
Just today he figured out that he can make it more than a few steps...



Well, maybe he has a little more work to do, but he's getting there.

Walkies!

Herein lies our demise:

Carter's decided that walking might be a worthwhile endeavor after all and he's now much more interested in trying.  He takes a few steps like in the video by himself, but a LOT of the time now he wants to hold onto a hand or two and cruise (instead of holding on to furniture).  

The last few weeks have been busier than usual around here: Marnie had her hip replaced on Halloween and she's been here recovering for several weeks.  In all this time, I couldn't seem to get any decent pictures of Carter and Marnie together, but they've been inseparable.  Marnie's doing so well after her surgery that she's been doing a little babysitting for us and Brian and I got to workout a few times and even go to a concert.  

Overall, Carter's developed so much over the last few months - he's getting more and more fun to be around.   He wants to share food all the time (as you can see in the picture with Marnie).  I've finally weaned him completely from nursing, and he's a little more fussy around me than other people, which is a little frustrating after work when I want to just hang out with him a little and he's needy.  But he's been spending much more time outside at home and at daycare that it's getting a little easier to redirect him by taking it to the yard.  Oh, and food always helps to diffuse things a bit:

He's getting cuter and cuter by the day (not biased.  At all.) and he is of course, expressing more personal preferences.  For instance, he's a meat guy.  Through and through.  He used to eat just about anything we put in front of him, but he's started shunning the greens and chowing the protein.  He also likes to bang on the drum all day and wrestle at night - I think he's gonna be trouble in college...

Getting Ready to Walk

Carter has started taking a few tentative steps.  As we tried (and failed) to capture those steps on video we realized we don't have many of him crawling either.  So here's one we shot today.


He can only manage a few steps on his own, but holding a hand or two he can really cruise.


But it doesn't always go so well...

Thomas' Come to Town

Last weekend, the Thomas' (even Uncle Jason!) came for a visit.  We filled up the weekend with Fall activities and lots of play time.  

They came bearing birthday blocks and a super cool train.  

There was pumpkin picking...

... and pumpkin carving.

There was Papi time...

and even a little Dad time.

Fistfuls of Cake

ONE!

We spent Carter's birthday weekend at the River - there was much rejoicing:

A few nice hikes in his backpack (just like Aunt Jenn of old!)

He's big enough to practice driving the Old Town

Dock time aaannndd....

More dock time!

The poor little guy still has little splinters all up and down his legs and feet, but they didn't stop him from crawling laps and laps on the dock.  He's a salty little dude.  :)

His birthday celebration came around and the whole Dundon/Jordan side of the family gathered 'round for ...

Cake!

Presents!

The pinnacle of the day!

Nom nom nom nom nom

This is some gooooooood stuff!

He liked the cake part a lot.  Probably more than the presents part.  But he did have a good time with the rest of the family over the course of the weekend:

Hanging with Grammy and Dondie 

Granddad was the new favorite of the weekend

All in all, we had a great time.  Carter even got to eat some of Grandad's spaghetti and meatballs - the same meal that ushered Carter into the world a year ago!  (At least there was no garlic bread this time!)

I think Carter's teething again, and he was a little fussy over the weekend, but he didn't let that stop him from partying!  He was a sweetheart the whole weekend and cheerfully got passed around to the whole family - Aunt Sarah, Grammy, Gram, and Aunt Jenn especially spent a ton of time with him!  Thanks ladies!  Brian and I took the opportunity to do a little running and kayaking on our own.  Special thanks to Sarah and Jenn for taking some awesome pics during the party!

Happy Birthday Carter!

p.s. it has come to our attention that some readers might not know that you can click on the pictures to enlarge...