Just in case you were wondering.....

Carter LOVES: pizza, his "blues" (blankets), cookies, any toy that is supposed to be Avery's and FROZEN green beans. Yes, I said frozen.

Carter HATES: cooked green beans, five hour car drives, peas and when his sister touches him.

Carter's new skill

Carter learned a new skill today! And this was the aftermath:


Did he learn to leave random scraps of paper littered around the house? No, he's a pro at that skill.

He learned to use scissors! Today was the first day I let him use scissors. Without any help. And yes I was totally holding my breath the entire time. But no blood was drawn and several stars were snipped beyond recognition.

Don't you love Ava's little Halloween sleeper? It says "I take after my mummy." Because you know, she does.

With her striking dark hair she could definetely be her mama's mini me. It is beyond amazing having a daughter. I highly recommend it. In fact, we may need to have ten more daughters! Don't worry Mike, I'm just kidding.

Daddy's little helper

This morning our sink needed a little attention. The garbage disposal was getting very rusty and a seal had slipped in the sink. Mike spent a little time under the sink derusting and manipulating seals. Of course, Daddy's little helper was hot on his heels. During this time period, I had slipped upstairs to put baby A down for a nap. When I returned downstairs, Mike said to me "Unfortunately Carter learned a new word." Oh yeah, what was it. As the little imitator was within ear shot Mike said "Oh my G - U - D."

Orange you glad I didn't say pumpkin

Today was pumpking carving day, the moment we've all been waiting for!

Carter enjoyed seeing the pumpkin "guts." He also made up his own little chant: WE ARE PUMPKIN! (This was after many attempts of getting him to say "WE ARE PENN STATE.")

Here Daddy I'll carve the pumpkin without cutting my fingers off. In case you don't know the legend, a young and curious Michael Shadle may or may not have injured two of his fingers that had to be surgically reattached. There may have also been a large butcher knife involved in this debacle.

Ewww, squishy.

Spooky.

I love my pumpkin guys!

Water World

I still can't believe this happened. I CAN'T BELIEVE IT. Sorry for yelling, but I don't know what else to do.

This morning I left Carter alone for maybe seven minutes. Eight minutes tops. I had to change the baby's diaper and put a coat on her so we could leave to go to our Mom's club meeting. Surely he could behave and play with his toys for eight stinking little minutes, right?

WRONG.

As I walk down the stairs I see a puddle of water in the middle of the floor about the size of Lake Superior (yes, I'm exaggerating but it was BIG). I think I may have sighed but then I look to my right into the kitchen and there are puddles of water EVERYWHERE! With little tiny footprints running around between the puddles. Then I look into the toy room. Carter is sitting with a cup of water in his hand and dumps it into his (pretend) sink. "Water mommy" he tells me. There is water dumped into his big bin of cars, puddle after puddle on the floor, his puzzles are covered in water, his train set is covered in water and there is even water splashed on the wall. I think at this point I may have been saying a Hail Mary in my head so that I didn't lose it completely. It's still pretty fuzzy but I do think I may have said something like "What were you doing?" Apparently Carter thought it would be fun to get water out of refrigerator and dump it everywhere.

Ok, how am I going to toddler proof that? Oh, I know, get one of those nice padded rooms. Nah, he'd still end up eating the padding off the wall or at least ripping it into a thousand little pieces.

So from now on, when I take care of his sister I'll have to just drag them both up the stairs. Maybe I'll lose a little weight with all this exercise.

Well, needless to say we were late for the meeting and I didn't finish cleaning everything up yet. His cars are still stewing in an ocean of (soon to be) rusted metal and peeling paper labels. Good times.

Six Month Check-up

Today was Avaroo's six month check up. Here are the official stats:

Height: 27 inches

Weight: 17 pounds and 9 ounces

If you care to compare (which I do) Carter weighed 21 pounds and was 27 and three quarters inches long at his six month check up.

Wowza, even though Avaroo is a big girl (90 percentile for height and 75th percentile for weight) she can't even hold a candle to her big brother.

I was fully prepared for dual meltdowns from babies pumped with shots and came to the doctors office armed with dum-dums and a paci (don't worry they weren't for me). But I was given a brief reprieve, as my doctor didn't want to give either of them flu shots or any other kind of shot because they are both sick. So we'll have to go back later when they are feeling better for our flu shot.

Jam with Elmo

I will apologize in advance because I filmed this video vertically instead of horizontally.

I won't do it again.

And don't worry, he did not walk out of the house this morning with jeans and a Santa pajama top on. Although he did walk out of the house in a sweatshirt, jeans, and bright green rain boots. It's all about compromises. He is very proud of his boots and had to show them to EVERYONE at Mighty Max, even though they are two sizes too small for his feet. Fashion before pain.

Six Months Old

Happy six month birthday, beautiful girl. You will forever be our giggly, silly, singing, amazing little girl.

Now just stop growing.

Fall has arrived!

Saturday was pumpkin patch time.

Loving on my Uncle Jason.

Feeding goats. It's not just for farmers anymore. Carter thoroughly enjoyed all aspects of this experience including: letting goats lick his fingers until they were sticky, stepping in lots of mud (I hope that's what it was), and wiping goat food dust all over his brand new sweater.

Just like Dad

Yesterday after dinner Mike joined Carter on the coach. After he sat down, Carter positioned himself to be Just like Dad. How cute!

Pumpkin Twins

Guess what A is going to be for Halloween?

A pumpkin! Does this bring back any memories for anyone? Of course it does!

Here's Carter pumpkin (he was only about two months old).

Gymnastics

Today Daddy joined us for gymnastics class, so I was able to take some pictures. Here is Daddy and Carter rolling like a caterpillar:


Momma and Carter walking across the balance beam:

Hanging on the bar:

Doing a somersault:

Crawling through the tunnel:

For some reason halfway through the tunnel he gave up and decided to take a nap:

And Avery just chills in the stroller. We've tried childwatch over and over again with no luck. But hey, she looks perfectly happy in the stroller watching her big brother.

Story Time!

Caught in the act! After dinner Carter got on the floor to read a story to his sister. I love moments like this.

A Sesame kind of day!

Today was our big Sesame Street Live Day! Avery enjoyed her Meme and Bob-Bob's undivided attention, while Carter enjoyed ELMO!!!!!!




I couldn't use the good camera at the arena, so I had to use the old camera. So the pictures didn't turn out so great, but you get the idea.

Sitting on Daddy's lap, entranced.

Look at all the action!

Then we got to eat at Quaker Steak with everyone. And his mac and cheese came in a car! Wow, I don't think this day could have got any better.

And he even got to sit on a motorcycle! Wow, what a day.

Picture Day

Today we went to Rentschler to spend some outdoor time at the park. I wanted to get some pictures of the kids together, but that proved to be harder than initially anticipated.


At first we got some pictures like this. Carter complaining and running away. So we did what any self-respecting parent would do, bribed him with a sucker.

Then we got some pictures like this. Ok, well they are both sitting. But they kind of look like mug shots. Carter looks pretty guilty. Or bored. Not quite the photographic magic I was hoping for.

Finally!!!! After about 60 shots give or take (no I'm not kidding) we got this one. Mike was singing and dancing behind me, playing with my ponytail and putting his hat on my head. And finally we got a cute shot. I love how Avery's little hand is in Carter's lap and we captured a classic Carter smirk. Although moments later Carter realized that A touched him and he was out of there. Thank goodness for digital photography, or else I would have had to develop all 60 of those shots to get one good one. I hope you enjoyed this fall day as much as we did.

And tomorrow night I will be sure to post some pictures of our big day. We are going to go back and visit Wright State, where we met and then take Carter to Sesame Street Live at the Nutter Center.

Fuzzy Wuzzy

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear

Fuzzy Wuzzy has LOTS of hair

Fuzzy wuzzy WAS very fuzzy, wasn't she?

I couldn't resist a little play on this old mother goose rhyme because we've been calling A fuzzy wuzzy lately. I just realized that my kids have LOTS of nicknames.

Also, fuzzy wuzzy better stop popping her elbow out of joint. Mama's getting really sick of that.

Carter's favorite new word: honey. And not as in the sweet yellow liquid (although he does like that very much too) but as in the term of endearment. As in: "honey jooooos" which can be translated to mama I want juice. I wonder who he got that from? (from me. yup I've called Mike honey one too many times. And Carter realizes that you call someone honey when you want something. so I guess I've brought that on myself. Wow, that's a lot of sentence fragments.) Anyhoo, just realize that if he calls you honey he's out for something.