Memorial Day Weekend

We spent Memorial Day weekend here in Atlanta and it was nice to be in town without many plans. On Saturday, we just took it easy around the house. We got Harrison a little kiddie pool to play in, and he had the best time "swimming" in the water that afternoon, and playing with the hose and sprinkler.







He got a big kick out of Daddy splashing him!



Wearing his new choo choo hat! Doesn't he look pleased?



On Sunday morning we went to play at the Almstedts' house. Here's Avery with Anna, and meeting Sally (Anna's "Mimi") for the first time. Mimi has the true grandma touch, and Avery slept in her arms almost the whole time!



On Sunday afternoon, we went over to our cousins' house for some pool time and some barbeque. Bryant and Sarah were in town, and we had fun being entertained by the masters themselves, Ken, Caroline and Cameron.



Chillin in the hot tub with the cousins!



"Drinking" out of the hot tub water fountain. The pool and hot tub are so neat, the water is all natural and uses and ionizer to keep it clean, so no irritating chlorine!



I'll leave you with another picture of the sweet, bright eyed little girl. Here she is trying the bouncy seat for the first time. She enjoyed about 10-15 minutes of it before getting restless. Avery was 4 weeks old yesterday, I can't believe how fast the time is flying by!

The Next Two Weeks at Home

We were very lucky to have Nana and Papa Carter come stay with us for 10 days to help out with Harrison and Avery. We had so much fun together, and we can't thank them enough for everything they did for us! Here is our sweet girl with her little hand underneath her chin, just too cute!



She really enjoyed snuggling with Nana and Papa!



Papa helped trim the limbs on some of our trees, and Harrison had a great time watching and "helping" (i.e. playing with all the sticks that fell). The dogs had fun too, they are enjoying their new invisible fence and playing outside with the rest of us.



Taking a nap with Da Da.



We had more visitors to see Avery! Mister Rob came over one night to say hi.



The Family Almstedt came over on the weekend to visit as well.



Be careful Jeff, it looks like Avery is hungry!



The day before the Carters left, Papa took Harrison to get his hair cut. We had been talking about getting him a buzz cut for the summer since it would probably be much cooler for him. Here is a before shot of Harrison's mop, right before they left.



And here's the big boy playing outside with his new buzz cut! We couldn't get over how cute he looks, and how much older he seems!



Here's a real bright eyed little girl wearing her pretty nightgown with her name on it.



Both of our kids in their PJs, saying night night to each other!

First Week at Home

Today, Avery has officially been home for a week. Car Car Eschen was staying with us the whole week and had to go home yesterday, we miss her so much! We had a great week together. It was also nice to be able to spend the morning of Mother's Day together. Thanks for everything Car Car! Here's Car Car and Avery below, rocking in the sunroom. Avery likes all of the light in there.



Nana and Papa Carter are now staying with us for a week and came in last night. They have already been such a help! Papa took us to Avery's doctor appointment this morning. She's gained a few ounces back, and is picture perfect healthy which is great.

Here are some cute pictures of Jason, Harrison and Avery together. Harrison is still very interested in "Baby" (as he calls her), but we still have to constantly remind him to be gentle with her, he gets so excited and just wants to squeeze her! He is very sweet though, always wants to kiss her bye-bye and offers her drinks of his milk and bites of his snacks.





Miss Christine came to visit us on Saturday! It was great to see her. We're looking forward to Avery meeting Rob and Lauren too.



First bath! Isn't this picture so funny? She doesn't even know what's about happen......



.......and, yeah......she didn't like it too much!



Will and Megan came by to visit and have dinner before Car Car had to go home.



Whew, that was a busy week!

Avery Gwendolyn Carter

Sorry it took so long to update the blog with baby news, my free time seems to have been obliterated lately!

Avery Gwendolyn Carter was born on Thursday, May 1st at 10:23 AM. She was 8 pounds even and 21 3/4 inches long. We had such a good experience with the birth this time around, knowing what to expect. We are so pleased and pleasantly surprised that Harrison is doing so well with the new "bay-bee" around the house. He offers her kisses without been prompted, and even offered her a bite of his cracker yesterday! A couple of times, out of the blue, he's clapped his hands and said, "Yay Baby!" which really made us laugh. He hasn't really been jealous of me holding her and feeding her which has definitely been a surprise.

Right now, my mom is staying with us for the week helping out, and then the Carters will come next week to do the same. We are SO very blessed and thankful to have all the help and support of our family and friends! Thanks to all of you for everything!

We took this belly picture right before we left for the hospital.



One last picture of the three-member Carter family!



She's here! All cleaned up after her first bath.



This is the first time Harrison came to the hospital to see her. She didn't hold his interest for very long though, unless she was making noise!



Miss Bright Eyed and Bushy Tailed!



Holding her paci in all by herself - already an overachiever.



All dressed up in her "going home" outfit!



Heading out to the car where Papa Carter is waiting for us.



It's funny how the car seat makes her look so small. She slept the whole way home.




Relaxing at home. More pictures to come!