Babysitters and More!

It is official....Carter likes babysitters! I was starting to get worried that he was becoming a "Mama's Boy." After being home with him all summer, Carter started crying when I would leave the room and wanted me to hold him all of the time. Well on Saturday, Cary and I went to Lake Panorama with our friends, Josh and Lauren, and left Carter with Mom and Dad. I just wasn't sure how that was going to go. I know that he recognizes my parents and so I thought he would be fine, but I just was worried for their sake. It's no fun to watch a baby that cries and whines the whole time. To our pleasant surprise, he was a champ with my parents. When we got home at 9:00 he was already sound asleep. It was a really fun afternoon and evening for Cary and I and we definitely enjoyed ourselves!

On Tuesday, we had a 40th birthday party for Cary's cousin and so my wonderful friend, Alicia, stayed with Carter. Again, I started to worry that he would be crabby for her and then she'd never want to watch him again. He was asleep when Alicia showed up and so I debated which was worse: waking him up so he'd be awake when he saw her, yet possibly crabby because he's still tired, OR letting him wake up naturally to find someone other than his Mommy or Daddy in the house. We opted for option 2 and it worked out great. He was in a great mood with Alicia and was all smiles when we got home. That actually is one of my favorite moments of the week... more on that later.

Tuesday morning was also our family picture session with a friend of Holly's. It's so hard to plan these things in advance...I thought Carter would take a nap from 9:00 - 11:00 as normal, and then be bright and smiley for pictures at 11:30. Nope. He woke up and hour earlier than normal, napped an hour earlier than normal, and was wide awake at 9:30. By the time we got started at 11:30, he was getting sleepy again. The photographer showed us some of the pictures and we got a few smiles...but man did we have to work for those! We were singing, bouncing him up and down, and tickling him just to get him to crack a smile. We'll see how they turn out.

I bought Carter an activity table this week which he LOVES. My parents have one at their house and he loves standing next to it and playing with all of the buttons and toys. He's seeming so old to me now that he likes to stand. His crawling is getting faster too...the other morning he even tried to climb up the step into the kitchen. Here are some pictures of him being such a big boy!

So I was thinking that maybe I should post a favorite moment of the week each week. And this week I have two favorite moments.

1. Carter had been napping for two hours and so I quietly peeked in his room to see if he was waking up. When I opened the door, I saw him up on his knees, hanging onto the crib, looking toward the door smiling the biggest smile. He just seemed so big in that crib!

2. After being at the birthday party, Cary and I got home around 9:00. Alicia was sitting on the couch and Carter was on the couch next to her, up on his knees, holding a pillow and smiling so brightly. He just exuded happiness and was almost laughing at the fact that we were home. He was in such a great mood and it was way past his bedtime (although he'd taken a late nap so we expected as much). Just being gone for a few hours made coming home to see him so wonderful!