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So far, the gingerbread house is holding up. It is now missing the front two gum drops (Kyla admitted to eating those). It's probably a good thing we are keeping it just out of reach of this little monster. It wouldn't stand a chance against Hurricane Carter.

He seems pretty pleased with himself. Maybe because he's standing on a stool, with a view he rarely gets to see. Carter is funny. He gets scared really easily. His latest fear is Damon's whoopee cushion. Damon thinks it's hilarious to expel all the air right next to Carter. Carter thinks it's terrifying. He's also super scared to come down the stairs, even when I am right with him, showing him how he can come down without falling. He's just not a fan.


It could be because his sisters won't leave him alone. This mark on his forehead is compliments of Kyla. I'm not sure exactly what happened, just that they were at the top of the stairs and "he fell." I suspect that she was carrying him and she was the one that fell, propelling him into the stair rail, but we'll never know for sure. Carter isn't talking. Right now he also has two wounds on the back of his head. One of which happened when he pulled the iron off the ironing board, right on to his noggin (it could have been SO much worse) and the other from falling off the couch and hitting his head on the coffee table. I guess now that I think about it, you can't blame the little guy for being scared. He's pretty banged up.

This is our Christmas ornament for this year, in honor of Carter. I have been calling him my little puppy dog for a while. He is just like a puppy. He crawls around, eating scraps off the floor and begging, he whines, he drools, he won't hold still for anything...yep, I love this ornament and hopefully it will help us all remember this stage of Carter's life.


I love this picture. If there is a toothbrush, a pencil or a crayon anywhere within reach, Carter will find it. He has his radar set for those objects.

I had to get new stockings this year, as our old ones are permanent residents of the Esplin Some-are-home. Eventually, I want to get nicer ones with our names on them, but I'm still too cheap to bite the bullet. Plus, I'd like to know the names of everyone in the family before we commit to something long term. These stockings were $3.25 each online, and they aren't bad quality. Allie bugged me for days and days to put our names on them, and I had to get creative.



I didn't want to spend any more money, especially since I don't see these as a long term solution for our stockings, so I had to improvise. I had a couple iron on transfers left, but I couldn't iron them right on the stockings. And I needed a fabric that was heavy enough to hold its own. Enter an old pair of jean shorts I had lying around. I ironed the names on the denim, cut them out, and stitched them on the stockings. Definitely not a look I would have chosen (the Americana theme), and definitely not a professional job, but it will do. And it appeased the children, which was the goal to begin with.

Time for a post, huh?

So, for starters, we now have a 10-month old. I'm not sure how that happened. I'm not anxious for him to grow up, but celebrating his birthday will mark the passing of winter, which I am always happy to see gone.

You can sort of tell from this picture above that Carter has top teeth. No bottom teeth, because he just doesn't see the need for those yet. But his two top teeth serve him well. I've never seen a kid able to eat more with two teeth than Carter can. He hardly ever chokes on anything, and has been known to demolish a cheese stick or a full piece of toast with no problems whatsoever. I believe he could probably handle a steak if we sent one his way. And he'd love every second of it.

If you are my friend on Facebook, you probably already saw this little clip. But I still enjoy watching it. Carter LOVES food. It doesn't matter what it is (I think it was nasty baby food in this clip), he gets so excited when he sees food. Downright giddy, in fact. I love it.



I was trying to get a better view of those top two teeth, and Kyla was more than willing to help me out. I'm thinking we have a future Ortho assistant on our hands here. She was a pro!

You can see here that Carter found someone's pizza and he proceeded to gum the whole thing down. He looks pretty dang pleased with himself.

His new trick this month is crawling all the way up the stairs. Usually someone is with him, but occasionally he gets up there by himself. He's pretty good not to fall, but has had a few tumbles. The one we like to remember went a little like this. BOOM, BOOM, "AHHH!" BOOM, BOOM, "WAAA!" The first scream was out of fear, the second out of pain. But Kyla will tell it just like the Black Eyed Peas, "Boom, Boom, Ahh! Boom, Boom, Ahh!" We'll try to limit his falls so as to prevent any possible brain damage.

Carter has also been sick this week. The winter has caught up with him and he has been wheezy and croupy all week, and I don't think it's going away anytime soon. Looks like he will probably have asthma when he's old enough to be diagnosed (5 or 6 I think). I told Jeff we shouldn't be surprised. We did name him after his Grandpa Trapnell, after all, a big time asthmatic.

Okay, for the rest of us...

Jeff went to Arizona last weekend to visit his friends (a Manstravaganza, it was called), and we had a movie night. How to Train Your Dragon. Good flick. Not much at all like the book, but I liked it. The kids liked watching from the air mattress and eating our cookies from Papa Murphy's (they got free cookie dough for signing up for a reading program. Sweet!)

You can see our tree hanging out in the corner. I really let them decorate it this year, and it shows. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

We also decorated our gingerbread house last night with our friends, the Farley's. Too bad we didn't get any pictures of them, it was a fun night. I learned a few things that will make gingerbread house making a little easier in the future:

1. Put the gingerbread houses together the day before and let them harden. I found this out in time and assembled them on Sunday.

2. When making the icing to hold the houses together, let it dry out a little bit. The house sticks together so much better.

3. When the walls collapse, as they tend to do, hot glue works great (my mom's trick!).

4. Use regular frosting to decorate with. Not only does it taste a lot better, it doesn't harden so fast and the decorating can continue for quite a while.

5. Make gingerbread cookies with the extra dough and let the kids decorate them. This prevented a LOT of fighting over decorating the house, and they didn't try to eat so many of the decorations.

We have the finished house sitting on a table in the piano room, and the kids know they aren't supposed to eat it until after Christmas. And the one wall that is held together with hot glue won't be eaten at all, if I can stop them. I'll keep an eye on it and see how much candy disappears before Christmas. Chances are Kyla won't be able to participate in the post-Christmas eating. She isn't the best when it comes to self control.

Phew, I think that's enough for now. December is busy!