Turkey Day Travel Plans

It's really mind-boggling the amount of stuff a baby requires when you travel with him. The packing list for him is longer than my own! Tomorrow we leave for Arkansas for Thanksgiving. I can't tell you how excited we are for a delicious home-cooked meal! It will be Carter's first trip into another state! We've packed the appropriate Razorback gear so he'll be sure to fit right in. The drive will be long but we're hoping that since we're driving at night, Carter will sleep for most of it.

New pictures and videos on Flickr!

Family Weekend

Ways in which you know you've become a parent:

1. You discover spit-up on your shirt and you aren't exactly sure when that happened.


2. You catch yourself licking your thumb and using it to wipe something off your kid's face after you swore you would never do that whenever your own mother did it.


3. Wearing any pair of pants that require buttoning and zippering feels like "dressing up".


4. You look forward to a shower like it was a visit to an expensive spa.


5. You prioritize tasks you can accomplish during naptimes.

Becca's sister, nephew, grandmother, and mother all can to visit last weekend. It was a miracle that this trip took place with travel costs, work schedules, and grandma's fear of flying. But it was totally worth it for everyone to meet Carter. Dalton (Becca's nephew) was really excited to tickle Carter and hold him in his lap. So cute! We painted some Christmas ornaments complete with Carter's footprint to commemorate his first holiday. Overall, a really great weekend!

Carter is unfortunately what we call "in between hairstyles" right now. He's starting to lose the hair he was born with and new hair is growing in, but the two events aren't happening in the same spots on his head. He looks like he's experiencing a grown man's balding, like George Kastanza from Seinfeld. Poor guy.

Mike's been doing some duck hunting on the weekends, but without much success. :-( He's a little more limited in the amount of time he can put into it and so he's been trying to hunt closer to home. Maybe next year he'll stock up our new freezer with lots of duck.

Naked Trees and Halloween

One windy day was enough to completely strip all the trees of their beautiful leaves. Now our yard looks like a carpet of reds, yellows, oranges, and browns. I want to rake them into a huge pile and jump in them.

Halloween was pretty uneventful here. I didn't dress up like I usually do and Carter is really too small to have a costume. We did dress him up in a pumpkin shirt for the evening though. Maybe next year we'll go all out with family costumes. Carter could be Yoda, I could be Princess Leia, and Mike even agreed he would be Darth Vader.

Carter is really starting to smile a lot now. New pics on Flickr and a video of his silly grins if you are interested.

Mike and I made time to vote on Tuesday. Hope you all got a chance to vote too! I wonder if they will ever sort out the final vote count for Missouri.

Big weekend coming up! Carter's Grandma, Great-Grandma Lily, Auntie Karen, and his cousin Dalton are coming to visit. We're really excited for them to see Carter. I'm sure we'll have tons of new pictures to post after the weekend is over.