Crocs

Crocs

Monday, October 28, 2013

Sorry, Carter...

...Mommy just HAD to do it. 
I hope you'll understand if YOU have a baby someday.

So, I mentioned to Mike a few days ago that I think those pictures I've seen
of babies inside of pumpkins are pretty cute.  He looked at me like I had two heads.
"Are you serious?!!"
 "YES!!!  Why not?!" 
"Because they're ridiculous.  And those kids are going to be pretty ticked off when they're teenagers and they see those pictures."
 "I don't care.  I think they're adorable."
 Insert eye roll and look of complete disgust from Michael.

I hadn't even said it yet, but clearly he knew where I was headed.
 "I thought you said we were going to CARVE pumpkins this year, not put our BABY in them."
 "Don't you realize we'll have like 18 more years to carve pumpkins with him, but this is the only year he'll ever be able to fit INSIDE a pumpkin?!  At least in one that we can afford to buy?" 
"I guess you can do whatever you want.  I'm just saying, for the record, that I am against this.  And I'll make sure Carter knows when he's older that this was ALL mom."
That was all I needed.  My green light.
I had picked up a couple of really big pumpkins at a discount store for less than $4 apiece.
I thought we'd use one for Michael and one for me.  The plan was to take Carter to
one of the local pumpkin patches for HIS pumpkin, since they sell them by the
pound and the big ones would have cost three times what I paid.  I didn't even
think of putting the baby inside when I was choosing our pumpkins or I would
have bought even bigger ones.

They ARE much bigger than they look in this photo.
Unfortunately the weather has been awful the past couple of weekends,
so we never made it to the pumpkin patch for Carter's pumpkin. 
Sniff.  Sniff.
The temperature was in the thirties here last night, so I brought one of
the big pumpkins in the house to warm up overnight.
I had bought this "pumpkin" hat at a long time ago for our future daughter.
It's sized 12-18 months.  Finally Carter's 80th percentile head size
is paying off because it fits him fine at only 4 months old!

First thing this morning, I cut the top off the pumpkin and scooped out
all the guts while Carter sat on the counter and watched.
Then during his nap I cleaned, seasoned and roasted the seeds.
I managed to snap a picture while there were still a few left.
 Yum. 
While Carter was sleeping, I sized up the pumpkin.  I had been planning
on cutting leg holes in it, which in Mike's mind would have "ruined" the pumpkin.
But looking at the hollowed-out pumpkin, then at Carter, then back
at the pumpkin, it SEEMED like he might fit in it without leg holes...
If so, then we'd still be able to carve it and Michael would be happy.
Win. Win.
I covered the inside with plastic wrap and when Carter woke up,
I tried sticking him in it. 
He FIT!
(Please disregard my filthy kitchen.  I still
hadn't cleaned up from scooping pumpkin guts)

Carter was wearing a dinosaur sleeper and I didn't even notice that the color scheme
coordinated so well until he was in the pumpkin.  A happy coincidence.
There were no great indoor options for these pumpkin photos, so I stuck
him by the French doors off our kitchen and opened the door behind him.
I didn't want to take him all the way outside because it was COLD.
These were our first (spur-of-the-moment) shots:
"I'm not so sure about this, Mom."
 "Hmmm.  This isn't so bad."
"You're cracking me up, Mommy."
  
The test shots were cute, but I wasn't happy with all the light BEHIND him.
Hmmm.  How about out on the back deck?
 One of the side effects of saving for our adoption is that we've had to
delay replacing our fence and deck for a couple more years than we'd planned.
I happen to think that weathered wood is far prettier and more interesting
than brand new wood, so I'm fine with the delay.  It's great for pictures.
Most of the cute pictures I'd seen of babies in pumpkins were not only taken outdoors,
but they usually featured NAKED babies.  Not a big deal, except that earlier
this week our deck looked like THIS:
I went back and forth in my mind a few times.
It had warmed up a little, but not much.
Am I a bad mother if I take my infant, undressed, out into
50-something-degree weather just to take a picture?
How much insulation could a pumpkin provide? 
A lot, I decided.
Plus he'd be wearing a HAT!
Okay, you should know that when I undressed Carter, I put a nice clean diaper on him
and wrapped him in a warm, cozy towel.  Then I put the baby AND the warm towel
into the pumpkin while we were still in the house. 

I quickly carried the whole pumpkin outside just long enough to capture a few shots
(less than a minute), pulled Carter back out of the pumpkin, brought him in the house
 and immediately gave him a nice warm bath in case he got any pumpkin residue on him.

 If he had even STARTED to fuss at any point in the process,
 I would have aborted my mission immediately.
Luckily for me, he was happy as could be before, during and after our little session.
Here's what we got for our trouble:












Was it worth the effort?
 I think so.
And even more satisfying is that after seeing the pictures,
Michael admitted that he does, too.
I'm just praying that someday Carter's teenage self will forgive me!
That when he sees how cute he was, he understands why Mom couldn't resist.

After Carter's bath, I went back out to bring in the pumpkin and I found THIS:

Can you see it?

Three days ago, this:


And today, this:


How does THAT happen?

Maybe a special little someone was talking to me from half a world away,
saying, "Don't forget about ME.  Wasn't that supposed to be MY hat?"

Don't worry, Baby Girl.  We love you, too.
And we can't wait to have you home with us.

Thanks for the sweet little reminder, though. 
It certainly brought a smile to your mama's face.



Linking up with Sunday Snapshot at Ni Hao Y'all.

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Our Little Sweet Pea

Our second baby shower, like the first, was just beautiful.  If I ever figure
out how to load the photos from that day, I promise to share them on our blog.
For a long time I had assumed we would have a shower for our adopted daughter.
Then we found out we were expecting, and I was thrown for a bit of a loop.  So when
our shower hosts approached me about how to handle the invitation wording, I was torn. 
At Christmas we had announced our adoption to our extended family and friends,
but now there was another baby on the way.  And soon!
Showers are typically thrown for first born children, not subsequent ones, 
but in our situation, that distinction wasn't so obvious. 
Which child would we consider our first born?
 
The one who was born first? 
That would likely be our daughter. 
The first to join our family? 
Technically that would be our son, but only in the physical sense. 
See, our minds and hearts were so wrapped up in our adoption and
thoughts of our future daughter at the time of Carter's conception
that it felt like SHE was here before HE was.
Oh, how I pity those poor ladies in store checkout lines during my pregnancy
who would look at my growing belly and ask the seemingly simple question,
 "Will this be your first?"  Ha!
Rather than choosing one child over the other,
we decided to make our showers for BOTH babies.
On the invitations, I wanted to explain that we were still planning to adopt,
but we were also going to be having a biological child. 
One night I prayed about it and the next morning, before I even opened my eyes,
a little poem just came to me.  It described exactly how I felt about my
future children.  I called my girlfriend who was hosting the shower
 and she though it was perfect.
Here's what the invitation looked like:
Pretty cute, right?
So, why all this talk about showers? 
Because it explains why last month, when I was running ideas by Michael
for Carter's Halloween costume, his favorite idea was a Pea Pod. 
Not only was it cute because I'm a vegetarian and it's a vegetable,
and because Carter is our "homegrown" child, but also
because the theme of our second shower was "Two Peas in a Pod".
So a Pea Pod costume it was.
For our perfect little Sweet Pea. 
I was able to find a costume on eBay for under ten dollars.
It's in flawless condition and fits Carter perfectly.  Score! 
Add a couple tubes of faux leaves that I picked up years ago
plus one adorable baby boy,
and here you have it:
Carter's first Halloween picture!
If you look at his little right hand, you'll see
he is making the ASL sign for "I love you". 
Just a little shout-out from Carter
to his Aunt Valerie, who is profoundly deaf. 
(And adopted!)
And since I can never pick just one,
here are a few more, for good measure:



In honor of our China adoption, our dog
Molly will be sporting THIS on Halloween:

Doesn't she look thrilled?


Linking up with Sunday Snapshot at Ni Hao Y'all
and wishing you all a very Happy Halloween!






Sunday, October 20, 2013

Footprint Ghosts

There aren't many fall craft projects appropriate for a barely four-month-old,
but we wanted to give something to the grandparents to commemorate
Carter's very first Halloween.  It's Michael's second favorite holiday (after Christmas,
of course!), so it's a pretty big deal in our household.  Lots of decorations,
inside and out, lots of fall desserts being baked, "boo-ing" the neighbors with special treats,
dressing up our poor dog in ridiculous costumes and getting way more excited than we
probably should about the very few trick-or-treaters we get each year.
So we HAD to do something fun with the baby.  I looked for ideas on Pinterest and was all
set to make "handprint spiders" with black paint and wiggly eyes.  Until I discovered
that it's nearly IMPOSSIBLE to get an infant to open his hands all the way and keep
them open long enough to paint them and make two handprints on each canvas.
I contemplated doing it while he was asleep, but where's the fun in that?
I decided instead to save my beautifully painted orange canvases for our future daughter. 
She will more than likely be at least a year old and probably closer to two when we
bring her home from China.  And she should have a special project and grandparent gift
for HER very first Halloween, too, so those will be perfect.
For Carter, footprints seemed like a much better idea this year, and we chose to make
ghosts.  I covered a bouncy seat to protect it, stripped Carter down to a diaper, and
Daddy distracted him while Mommy tried her best to paint his ticklish feet and get
a few good prints on each canvas.  Then I added a moon to each one and gave the
ghosts their eyes.  I think they turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself.
I hope the grandparents will love them, too!




We took photos of him with each one. You know,
to prove authenticity when he becomes a famous artist someday...



And we added a little poem on the back.
We chose a fun series of photos for each set of grandparents...



wrapped the artwork in orange tissue, 



then in green wrapping paper.
I added an orange ribbon, a little tag and tucked the photos in
as sort of a sneak peek!



Michael's parents were here this morning and loved their gift.
Now we're off to Carrie's parents' house to deliver theirs!
Linking up again with Sunday Snapshot at Ni Hao Y'all.







Monday, October 14, 2013

4 Months Old!


Mr. Personality is four months old today.

He made this afternoon's picture-taking session extra interesting
by "talking", squealing and waving his arms almost the entire time. 
I had a hard time getting a shot with his eyes open and his mouth closed!





Is it just me, or does he already have a mischievous look in his eyes?
At FOUR MONTHS OLD!!!
I can't wait to see what the future holds.


Linking up a little late with Sunday Snapshot at Ni Hao Y'all.