Lotsa Pictures!!!

Austin finally has enough hair to play with and so we had a little fun with it!!


Austin and Mommy having fun. If you look closely, you can see his single upper tooth on the left side of his mouth. He looks totally snaggle-toothed!


Whatcha got there mom??


Here is sleepy baby boy early one morning before going to Miss Karie's house. He looked so cute and snuggly warm in his car seat that we had to take a picture. Notice the cute hat on his head - this winter hat is a size 2-5T. Yes, that's generally for TODDLERS. He has a LARGE head!!



A couple of weekends ago, Grandma Short (aka GG to her great grandkids) came to Sarasota with Aunt Sandy to meet Austin for the first time. We had a great visit!


Tiger decided that it would be fun to see what the pack-n-play is like.


My two favorite Gator boys. Austin has finally learned to hold his own bottle.


Here are a couple of my favorites from our attempts at a Christmas picture.
These two definitely look like they will be getting into trouble together soon!!

This picture cracks me up every time I see it.

Thank Heavens for Good Sleepers!!

I recently discovered how much I take for granted the fact that Austin is a GREAT sleeper. Austin typically sleeps about 10 hours a night during the week and anywhere from 10-12 hours a night on the weekends. Straight through. It's wonderful!!
Until he got his first cold. He and I both had a cold two weeks before Christmas. I am not sure if I gave it to him or he gave it to me. At any rate, the poor thing was quite congested at night and began waking up about every two hours. He would then be awake for a half hour to an hour. It was AWFUL! I felt like a walking zombie during the day from feeling miserable myself and then not getting any sleep. (Luckily Nathan stayed well through the whole ordeal and he was a champ taking care of both of us.) We finally called the doctor when Austin's congestion didn't go away during the day and he stopped wanting to eat. Turns out he had a minor ear infection. We got some medicine and within 2 days or so, everyone was feeling better.

At the risk of sounding insensitive, I must give kuddos to my friend Allison, who spent all of Thanksgiving at the hospital with her little boy, Caden, who is 2 weeks younger than Austin. She was sick at the time as well, but their ordeal was much worse than the cold/ear infection we had. So to keep things in perspective, I suppose it can always be worse. But I'm very very glad that everyone in the Carr house is sleeping peacefully again.

Other exciting things in the Carr household include table food, teeth and house projects:
Table food - Austin has started eating some table food. He is turning into quite the little meat eater (wonder where he gets that from?!?) both in table food and baby food. This week he has starting eating like crazy, so I think we are entering another growth spurt.

Teeth - Overnight on the night before New Year's eve, his third tooth broke through. He has about five teeth that he has been working on for awhile, but the first of these finally came in. He is going to be very snaggle-toothed though, because the one that broke through is on the top, to the left of center. This one came in with surprisingly little fanfare (hooray!), so we didn't even realize it was there until Karie called me at work and told me it had come in! I will try to get some pictures of it but Austin is rather protective of it at this point in time.

House projects - Over the holidays, Nathan got a wild hair and pulled the carpet out of our bedroom. We were planning on pulling it out and putting down wood, so its nice to get the project started. Once he pulled the carpet out, he realized that we still needed to paint the walls before putting down the new flooring. So this past weekend he painted. Let me interject to say that I did, in fact, offer to help several times but was rejected. I think he does not believe that I have any painting skills. I am not too terribly upset by this rejection as I was able to take a nap on Sunday while the painting was in progress! We are very excited about this because our bedroom is starting to look more grown up (It was blazing yellow with teal carpet before. Icky. Believe me.) and is now going to look really really nice when the flooring is all done. I will post pictures as soon as it is finished.

That's about all the new news from the Carr house. I know the real reason you read my posts is for the pictures, so I will get some up soon, I promise.
Ta ta for now!

Lowry Park Zoo

Last weekend, instead of doing the crazy black friday shopping thing, we decided to take a trip to Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa. It was so much fun! Austin was genuinely curious and looked at all the animals. We had a great time talking about the animals with him.

Here are some pictures for your enjoyment.
Probably my favorite part was getting to see these two baby white tigers. They were eight weeks old and the zookeeper said that this was the first day they were out for the public to see.


There was a touch tank with sting rays, so of course we had to touch the rays!!





Washing our hands after touching the rays.


Excited to be at the zoo!


Where should we go first??


Only after taking this cool picture did I notice that the zebra is such a happy little critter....


Watching the penguins.






Here are a couple of other recent pictures.
Ready for a run in the cold!


The toy basket was empty so Tiger decided she should get in the toy basket.


Playing with my toys! Sitting like a big boy!

Just being cute!

Achievement!!

This week is about achievements - achievements of all shapes and sizes.

Achievement 1: Austin is finally able to sit up by himself. It is amusing to watch because he is still a little wobbly, but last night he was able to sit up by himself and play for about 20 minutes and only fell over three times! Watching him play by himself is funny too. I put his basket of toys next to him and he takes out a toy at a time and inspects it or waves it around or tries to eat it and then moves on to the next toy. He has a couple of favorites that he will return to multiple times. When he did fall over, it was always to the side - if he falls too far forward, he is able to get back to the upright position all by himself! Pictures of the sitting to come!

Achievement 2: I have started running again! I use the term running very loosely because I run very very slowly! I've gone running several times in the past week. Each time I strap Boo into the jogging stroller (Thanks, Leslie!), put the dog on the short leash, and off we go. I am sure it is rather comical to see the three of us, but we get the job done. Austin loves it - he doesn't make a peep when we are out and it's good for Daja too. She isn't fat by any means, but she has put on a few pounds since the baby due to a lack of exercise. So she and I huff and puff like crazy on our runs. The only difference between us is that I don't have a giant tongue hanging out of my mouth like she does!

Achievement 3: I was able to thoroughly clean the high chair. This might seem like an insignificant action, but it is a major feat for us. We somehow managed to register for a high chair that has a cover that cannot be machine washed. WHY, I ask forcefully, WOULD YOU EVER EVEN CONSIDER MAKING A HIGH CHAIR SEAT THAT CANNOT BE MACHINE WASHED? IT IS ONE OF THE MESSIEST PIECES OF EQUIPMENT PARENTS OF A BABY OWN!! In addition, the straps of the chair require the intelligence of a rocket scientist to remove them for cleaning. (Luckily Nathan was smart enough to get them off and back on again. I would not have been successful in this endeavor.

Between Austin sneezing in the middle of a bite, which results in flying baby food, and Austin wanting to chew on the straps of the high chair, it was a disgusting mess. I had already spot cleaned it several times, but then Monday night he had a poop explosion following his dinner which necessitated a more thorough cleaning of the high chair. The cover survived the cleaning and looks fantastic!

Achievement 4: The final achievement of this week is that Nathan has been cleared for exercise again. He has taken a bike ride and has gone for a couple of very short, gentle runs. The doctor said at the last appt that he would likely have a short run of physical therapy after the next appointment, so Nathan is determined to beat the system and be in good enough shape that he doesn't have to attend therapy.

Two other notes -
Austin is working on getting teeth numbers 3 through 9 in. It seems to be a process that is dragging on and on, but I suppose they will make it through eventually and he will have 8 total chompers.

Congratulations to Yen and Mike!!! The ninja twins made their appearance last night. Yen and Mike are now the proud parents of identical twin girls. Both babies weighed in at about 3.5 pounds and are doing well!