Back again, for the very _____ time

Here's the deal, Carter turns 1 next week, and I'm trying to do a little repenting. Since I haven't been keeping a journal in a really long time, so this really is the closest thing to knowing what she's been up to besides her Mama's regular E-mails, which are not to be shared in this forum. Anyhoozle, without further ado, Carter's latest =

This is what I know, "Peanut" weighs 20 lbs. & 15 oz's per a Dr. visit yesterday evening (ear infection - almost made it an entire yr. without one). She's 30 1/2" or 2.5 ft. as her Father enjoys saying. The little lady has a several words she is able to pronouce with clarity, and has learned three sign language motions. The words are: "up", "uh-oh", Dad-dah", "duh" (for down), "baby", "peek-oh" (peek-a-boo), "yeah", "meh" (mom), "bah" (ball), "bye-bye" and perhaps others but we're drawing a blank. The motions are "more", "kiss" & "bye-bye".

What you see here is her favorite play-place. Save your money, go to Costco and pick-up cardboard boxes, it's wonderful hours of entertainment. She will place several toys in her box, climb in, and then proceed to eject them very emphatically. Occasionally she will even go in there to "do her business".

Just about every day we find her quietly sitting in her alcove by her bookshelf, with many books about her reading, and you better believe she babbles while flipping pages. Today I realized that she even knows which direction the books should be when peering at images and text. Quite frankly, she doesn't enjoy being disturbed when she's reading by herself. It's her quiet time.

Moving on, her absolute favorite activity is bathing. In fact, she's so fascinated with the tub that she prefers to join anyone doing their own "business" so that she may clang any semi-blunt object on the rim of the tub.

As most kids her age, she does a slight jig when she hears a tune she enjoys. Much to the opposite of our projections, she will not be walking by her 1st birthday. She does have a speedy crawl and will pull herself up on anything that is of interest.

As you will notice below, she will locate any object to inspect, investigate and move around.

Thing is, sometimes she can't exactly get herself out of some of those locations. Especially in undiscovered territory.

She really enjoys climbing into the dishwasher, and following her Mama' vacuuming. Of course, she's just like any other wanna-be-toddler, she plays with her alphabet blocks to learn new "nouns", and very much enjoys plugging away at the psuedo - piano play-circle she has, and clanging pots and pans on the kitchen floor. Stairs are a quick conquer these days and rarely ventures fast enough to be worrisome.

Every now-and-again she watches Baby Einstein, but that's not a regular since we'd rather have her watching the best kind of reality television that exists = Sports. Yes, she's a Redskin fan, and yes, she too is disappointed in the firing of Eddie Jordan after he was asked to win with a basketball team without the two players it was built around (injured Brendan Haywood & Gilbert Arenas), and oh yeah, leading the team to three consecutive playoffs for the first time in two decades.

Well, since the little lady's father hasn't been diligent in updating this little blog here, I'll close with our respective Halloween costumes:

1.) Daddy as Frank Castle aka "The Punisher" (see Dec. 5th, 2008 Punisher: War Zone)

2.) Carter as "Thumper" from Bambi.

3.) Lauren as "Little Red Riding Hood" (which is a tough costume to locate that isn't quite risque, so she used various items to arrange the costume.)

Enjoy as it may be a while before there are further updates.