Weekend Wrap-Up

On Friday while Carter and I were feeding the giraffes at the zoo we missed a call from my brother, Thomas.  When I called him back he shared the news that he had just adopted a dog at the animal shelter.  I was excited and also a little disappointed.  I had asked him to take me with him when he picked out my new niece or nephew and reminded him that I got to go with Jeremy when he picked out his cat.  Unfortunately he thought I was kidding.  That may have been for the best as I always end up wanting another pet when I'm around all the adorable animals in need of a home.  Harper and Skippy have both made it very clear that they prefer to be a one dog/one cat family so not being at the animal shelter was for the best.  He got a sweet little lab mix and named her Quinn after a defensive end on the St. Louis Rams.  When I heard the name I thought she must've already had a name because I instantly thought of the character, Quinn, from Glee.  Thomas said she was originally named Prada and he re-named her so then I knew her name must've been for a football player. 

Quinn and Thomas in the car.  Isn't she pretty?!!?

Thomas has been doing some half-hearted house searching in our area and he wanted us to meet Quinn so he and my parents decided to come on Saturday.  Carter and I were taking Harper on a walk when I received the text that they were headed our way.  Sweet Harper has gained a whopping 4 pounds, nearly 15% of her body weight, since Carter started feeding himself/her.  I was not at all surprised when we weighed her although I was disgusted and disappointed in myself as a dog owner.  So I've made it a priority to take her on a run or walk every day.  One day last week she ran in the morning and took a walk in the afternoon, she was tired!  Carter has been enjoying the walks as well.  Sometimes I take him in the wagon and other times I let him walk.  He cracks me up on our walks and actually loves it, the walk just takes much longer with him on foot, so when we're pressed for time he goes in the wagon or stroller.

When Thomas and my parents arrived on Saturday we headed straight to an open house and then checked out another house on the list which we all loved, but found out talking to a neighbor that they had just sold it the night before.  So not much happened on the house front, but we all enjoyed meeting Quinn, especially Carter.  At one point we were outside and I was chasing Harper around the yard trying to get her to play chase with Quinn, but Quinn was not interested.  The whole time I was chasing Harper, Carter was chasing me.  Then he would switch to following Quinn around.  It was hilarious.  The best part was listening to him laugh as he went.  We all enjoyed going out for dinner and ice cream and on the way home Thomas made silly faces to get Carter to laugh.  Then Carter started imitating Thomas' faces, his favorite being the squinted eyes face.  They all went to look at a few more houses while I put Carter down for bed.  I tried laying him down before everybody left, but he kept reaching for the door and crying, so I let him go out to see everyone off.  We followed them outside and he got to wave good bye.  Once he was able to do that, he was content to rock for a bit and then go down for bed.

Silly faces in the car.

The squinty face

 

Sunday morning we woke up to rain so I went for a quick run without the stroller while Ty watched Carter.  Then we played and got ready for Ty's company picnic.  Ty knew the picnic was supposed to be outside so he wasn't sure what they would do since it was raining.  We arrived and they still had all the blow ups and carnival games set up (the picnic is really more for the kids).  The food and carnival games were both under tents.  We went up to the tables to sign in and were given a bath toy for Carter and backpack coolers for us.  We ate first although Carter wasn't interested in anything on his plate, just the chips he had noticed me sneak a few of.  So our lunch didn't last long and then it was off to play. 

Ty thought Carter might enjoy going on a blow up slide and asked if I could go along with him (after I went through it I understood why Ty suggested I be the one to go with him) the workers said I could, but we had to take our shoes off.  Ever since high school cross country meets in the rain I've discovered I can handle being wet, I just hate having wet shoes and socks for an extended period of time because I really don't like my feet being cold.  I took my shoes off and got my socks wet in the process.  Then I stepped into the blow up and instantly had water half-way up the leg of my jeans.  I thought about turning around and getting out, but figured I was already wet, might as well let Carter enjoy the slide.  Carter was not interested in me putting him down to climb up on his own so I ended up carrying him in one arm and using my other arm to climb up.  Thankfully Carter did enjoy going down the slide and laughed because by the time I got off the blow up the whole back side of my jeans were soaked along with the bottom half of my shirt.  Hearing Carter laugh as we went down the slide made it worth walking around soaking wet for the remainder of the picnic.  Had we stayed much longer, we may have surpassed the point of it being worth it. 

They had a photo booth, cotton candy, snow cones, a hair spray booth, and candle making.  Carter had a blast making his candle and wanted to make more.  We did the photo booth twice because the first time we didn't notice there were curtains to close and our pictures were really washed out.  We got a sno cone and offered Carter a bite.  Once he noticed how cold it was he quickly turned his head away.  We got cotton candy and offered Carter a bite.  He grabbed some in his hand and disliked the texture, trying to get it off his fingers and slapping the cotton candy away.  Later he saw me lean in and take a bite straight off the stick so he tried it and discovered he liked cotton candy quite a bit.  Ty had to quickly eat it because Carter started chowing down on it.  Once we polished off the cotton candy we headed to carnival games.  Carter tried each one and enjoyed them all.  His favorite was the duck pond.  The ducks were floating in a circle and would go underneath a bridge with a hole in it.  Carter would grab a duck and throw it into the hole.  When he finally held onto one, it had a star on the bottom so he got an inflatable alien as a prize.  They also had a game where you tossed a ping pong ball.  Carter loved that one and surprised us all by making one of his balls into a floating fish bowl.  That earned him a back scratcher.  The last game was throwing a hula hoop and trying to ring it around a toy on the ground.  It was too difficult for Carter, but he enjoyed letting go of the hula hoop and watching it bounce on the ground. 

Our fist strip of washed out pictures.

Our strip of pictures once we realized we needed to close the curtains.

Watch out, now he's got a hold of it!

Grabbing for a duck.

Throwing a ping pong ball.

Ty's impressed face after Carter made it in the floating fish bowl!

Making a candle.

He loved it!

We left the picnic a little after 12:00 and Carter was sleepy so I sat in the back to keep him awake.  I blew up his alien and played with him with it.  He stayed awake the whole ride and then went down for his nap when we got home.  I wanted to scrub the kitchen floor while Carter was napping and was afraid I wouldn't have time to get it done, but he napped for 3 and a half hours (pretty much unheard of these days) so I was able to get that done and more!  We played for a while when he woke up and then went out for dinner and did a little grocery shopping afterward.  Since Carter had slept so long we didn't have time to take Harper on a walk before dinner.  I decided to take her on a walk in the neighborhood before bedtime.  I let Carter walk up our street even though there's no sidewalk because we don't get much traffic and he walked on the inside of me and Harper.  Once we got to where we turned off our street I carried him and decided to run for a bit which he thought was hysterical.  I let him walk again when we got to the school's sidewalk and we played on the playground for a while before heading home.  Of course he found some stairs and had to venture up and down them numerous times which Harper gladly did right beside him.  Our short little walk was the perfect end to a wonderful weekend!

Playing with Abe the Alien in the car.

 

Going up the stairs on our walk.

Reading himself a bedtime story.