according to amy

Hi Grammy & Papa!

Cat & Eric's Grammy & Papa are on vacation in Florida, so here's an update for them:


Hi!


Classic Cat:
 

The last video won't embed for me, so here's a link.

Cat takes the reins.

Me no want Dumbledore!

Dan has been listening to the Harry Potter audio books and often lays with Cat before bed and listens to "Daddy's book".  I don't think she's getting much of what is going on in the stories, but she has picked up some of the names, and will cheerfully identify "Harry Potter!" (occasionally Pobbins--we've watched Mary Poppins lately) and "Dumbledore!"  This morning Dan put the audio book on in the living room and she started yelling "Me no want Dumbledore!!!"..."No Daddy's book!"..."No Dumbledore!"

Ultimately she picked up The Monster at the End of This Book and started reading to herself--lots of literary action in the Carpenter house this morning.

my family

Here is my ridiculously cute family:

Even in a crummy, washed out picture, I still think they're pretty adorable!

Swimming!!!

We spent several warm afternoons swimming at our Aunt Kim's house this summer.  She had a nice little aboveground pool and Cat really loved swimming there.  Kim seemed happy to hang out with Cat and Cat loved hanging out with Kim.  Sometimes little Kayla came swimming with us too and PeaPod was thrilled with that!  She was really starting to get paddle, paddle, kick, kick down by the end of the summer.  We may look into swimming lessons a little later this year.

A trip to the fair

Cat and I went to the Washington County Fair this year with my mom & dad.  Dan doesn't care for the fair, especially the animals, so he stayed home.  Cat loves the fair, especially the animals, and was happy to go back this year.  We spent a lot of time in the barns and saw lots of animals.  This cow really liked my mom (it licked her boob!) and Cat thought that was hysterical.  She also really liked the sheep, pigs and goats.  The poultry/rabbit building was really loud, but she liked the bunnies too.  We also went on two rides, the carousel and the ferris wheel ($20! for two rides!), both of which freaked Cat out a little.  The carousel went really, really fast, and she was ready to get off about 1/4 of the way through the ride.  The ferris wheel was too tall for her.  Maybe she'll enjoy the rides more next year.  Here's a picture of our trip to the fair last year--what a change!

Cat nods!

Now it might not seem all that exciting that Cat nodded today, but she's been shaking her head no for some time now and we are excited that she indicated "yes" today.  We're still in Illinois and we had a busy day.  We had a quiet morning, eating breakfast and lunch and hanging around until the babies finished their first naps, then we headed out to the mall to play in the very cool soft play area and do a little shopping.  We forgot to pack PeaPod's pajamas, so we thought we'd take a look and see if we could find any on sale.  No luck, except for icky polyester ones, so she'll keep sleeping in her soft knit pants and shirts until we get home.  After the mall, we came home and let the kids play together for awhile.  Cat likes to play with both Jana and Dimitri, though not at the same time.     When it was time for Cat to go to bed tonight (early, on account of the facts that she doesn't recognize Central time and that she skipped Second Nap), Silvana asked her if she was going "noni-noni" and Cat nodded!  Yay Cat!  Cat's Gramama arrives tomorrow and we head home on Friday.  I'm hoping to get to Ikea on the way home.  We'll see...

More new pictures start here.

Miss Pea Pod travels the world…

…or at least the country.  We are spending the week visiting some of my family in Illinois.  My Gram usually stays at my Uncle Eric’s house in Illinois but has been visiting us in New York for the past few months.  Her car needed to be driven back to Illinois and we hadn’t visited Eric and his family for a while and I happened to be off this week, so after work on Sunday we piled in Gram’s Kia and drove the 16 hours to Illinois.  Cat was fantastic in the car.  We left around 8pm and drove all night, so she actually slept most of the way.  When I say we drove all night, what I mean is that I drove for the first few hours, then Dan drove from about 11pm until 7:30am, then I drove for an hour, stopped for breakfast, then drove for a few more hours.  Dan drove the last couple and we got here around 1:30pm or so.  We’ve had a great time so far, meeting my new cousin Jana (Cat’s first cousin once removed) and catching up with Eric, Silvana and Dimitri.  Eric actually had to leave to go to Florida this morning for Bike Week to provide tattoos and body piercing and whatnot to bikers in need, but we were glad to see him before he left.

This afternoon we packed up the babies and Dimitri and headed out to the Rockford Discovery Center Museum.  I have a particular affinity for children's museums as I worked in one in Saratoga for about three years.  The Discovery Center is very cool and everyone had a great time!  More pictures start here.

   

We're still here...

So, we haven’t actually dropped off the face of the earth, though I suppose we have been doing a fairly convincing invitation.  I have been busy at work and with the holidays, Cat has been busy getting to be a big girl and Dan has been busy getting the whole stay-at-home-Dad thing down to a science.

The holidays were good, and kept us busy.  We traveled to see Dan’s family in

Ithaca

for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, though we spent Christmas Day at home.  It took all day for PeaPod to open her gifts on Christmas, not because there were so many, but because she was more interested in the paper and playing with those that were already open.  She took a break midway for a nap as well.

I’ll try to update a bit more regularly.

Here’s a few pictures of what Cat’s been up to…

Hanging out with Mama and Daddy at Tosha & Robyn's wedding...

Charming everyone at Oma Joyce's Thanksgiving dinner...

All that charm is exhausting!

catching up...

We've been busy lately and I haven't had much of a chance to update.  A little over a week ago I came home to find Dan's car gone and Melissa's car outside the house.  I stopped by downstairs to ask my dad if he'd seen Pea Pod or Dan and he hadn't in a while.  I headed upstairs and heard Cat and Melissa (Sissa) playing.  Apparently Cat is completely over her "stranger" anxiety--they were having a great time! Thanks for watching Cat while her Daddy went out, Sissa!

Last week we went to cousin Kayla's birthday dinner party.   The party was fun and the food was quite yummy!  Cat got all dressed up and had a great time.  Little Kayla is fifteen now!  I suppose someday soon she won't be little anymore.  For now though...

In other news, Cat got her first haircut on Tuesday!  Her hair was getting really long and was often in her eyes.  We tried barrettes and hairbands, which were cute and worked okay but weren't practical for all the time.  I needed a haircut too, so I called our hairdresser, Katrina, and set up an appointment.  Here's what Cat looked like before her trim:

I was also getting my hair trimmed, so I asked my mom to come along to hold Cat during my cut.  At the last minute, Dan decided to come along too, as his hair is getting a little out of hand and he thought Katrina might be able to rein it in a bit.  Just before we left, I took a couple of quick before pictures, then we all trooped off to Katrina's to get our hairs cut (except Mom, who still came, mostly because she wanted to see Cat's first hair cut).  About five minutes into the trip I realized that I left the digital camera at home.  When we got there, I sent Mom back out and she picked a disposable.  I went first and Katrina did a great job, as always, with my request to do whatever she wants, keeping in mind that I won't spend more than 2 minutes on my hair (five if I wash it)  and view using "products" to mean that I'll use both a comb and a brush.  After I was done, Cat sat on my lap and looked at her Daddy while Katrina cut her hair.  Katrina is awesome!  She does a great job, doesn't charge much and as a bonus, has a daughter a couple of months older than Cat, so she had no problem with a squirmy eight-month old.  She also made sure to save Cat's hair in an envelope for her baby book.  Cat looks like such a big girl after her trim!  The during pictures mostly came out crappy (Dan didn't use the flash!), but I'm happy to have them anyway.  While Dan got his wild tangle of hair tamed, I got some good after pictures of Cat playing with her Granma.

football is fun!

Cat and Dan and I went to watch my cousin Domanic play football today.  He is on a 3rd-4th grade team, so they tackle and what-not, but still play in a cute sort of way and have lots of parents cheering them on.  Today they played the team from the next town down the river   (the district that I work at), so I had to visit both sides of the field.  The kids from my school were really happy to see me at the game (and I didn't see any other teachers...) and Domanic seemed glad to have us (especially Cat!) at the game.   We had a good time and Cat enjoyed most of the game, though the screaming, cowbell shaking parents startled her a time or two. 

I finished putting Cat's crib together today and ironed the dust ruffle (remember this later, baby Cat...I HATE to iron!) and put it all together.  We decided not to use the bumpers because Cat is all about pulling herself up on whatever she can and I think she'd just use them as a ladder to higher, more interesting things.   Conversely, we are probably going to use the quilt because she is so mobile that I don't foresee it being a problem.  I may use the bumpers to make curtains.   In hindsight, I think we could have saved quite a bit by buying the crib set in pieces and only getting what we needed.  My overactive pregnant mind didn't see it this way though, so we'll store that little info up as data for next time (if there is a next time--the debate rages on).  We will be making the transition from the hammock to the crib soon, probably within a week or two.  I'm thinking we may start with naps and work our way up to bedtime.  I'll post pictures of her room when it is all done.  I still have move all Cat's clothes into her dresser and closets (yup, the baby has two closets!), put her books on the bookshelves that are already up, get Dan to fix (saw the bottom off) the bookshelf that still needs to be attached to the wall and attach it and move most of her toys in.  I think we'll also bring the rocking chair up from upstairs unless we can find a different one.  Cat and her Granma love to use the rocker for rock-a-bye and I don't want to take it from them.  I don't think they'd use it upstairs, but I'd like to have a rocker up there.  Hmmm...we'll figure something out.

Cat's eight month letter is beginning to form itself in my brain and may even be posted a day or two early, as I have tomorrow off and a load of new pictures to share!