The Carter Family: February 2010

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Little Explorer

My parents still live in the house that I grew-up in, it is surrounded by a lot of land that is so fun to explore. Some of the my best memories are of the hours that Zane and I spent playing in the fields and creeks around the house. Now, Harper gets to enjoy all of this as well. She loves bundling up and exploring with Nana. She stomps through the muddy field with her green rain boots on the search for "treasures". We never know what exactly Harper will find as her treasure...but rest assured she will bring it back home with her! On this particular trip she found little pieces of old pottery and some pretty rocks in the creek (she was so excited that she could walk in the water). She then pointed to EVERY spot of green moss, and when you're in the woods that's a alot ! We all had fun "treasure hunting" with Harper, I'm so glad I can share this with my daughter!

Splish Splash!

Monday, February 8, 2010

Summer Fun in December

We decided to extend Christmas a little this year and visit family. After Christmas at our house, we visited my parents in Talladega and had Christmas with them, my sister and her boyfriend, and my brother and his family. We all had a great time, Harper loves playing with Zane's girls!

Opening presents at Nana's

Zane, Anslea, and Adyson

We then headed to Atlanta to see Nanny and Grandad and Gigi. We don't see them often enough and it was great for Harper to spend some time with her Great Grandparents. We then continued our trek south to Naples. It was so nice to have a break from the cold and enjoy a little Florida sun in the middle of winter. Harper absolutely loves seeing Sambo and Grammie! She gets so spoiled with gifts and love that it's hard to bring her back to reality when we get home. It was a wonderful relaxing (despite all the travel) week. Hopefully, we'll be able to make this another little family tradition!

Harper and Daddy in the hottub...our little fish would live in here!

Hard to believe it's December in this picture...gotta love South Florida.

Christmas

We love Christmas! We love to decorate the house, give and receive presents, enjoy great food, and spend time with family and friends. Christmas has always been a special time for Michael and I, but with Harper it's even more precious. She really was fun this year! She finally understood who and what Santa Claus is, which made it more fun for us. Santa brought her all of the things she asked for, which really wasn't all that much (thankfully!). Michael and I really expected her to come out on Christmas Morning and get so excited about her gifts. She had just the opposite reaction! I was so disappointed...does she even care about her gifts that "Santa" drove all over Birmingham to find??? After some prodding she finally says, "Daddy, Santa forgot your tiger." Apparently when she found her huge lion, Michael said that maybe Santa could bring him the huge tiger...well she didn't forget! How sweet was it that her first thought was not of herself and all of her toys, but of another and what they didn't get? We quickly explained that Daddy was okay not getting the tiger and that she should go look at her presents. She finally began to explore her loot. She got tons of stuff for her new babies, a huge lion, several movies, and some games. This was a wonderful Christmas for us all!

Harper opening up some of her many gifts.

Santa's gifts

The huge lion goes against everything I've said...I'm not a fan of stuffed animals...but what do you do when your child loves them? Give-in!!

Our beautiful Christmas Tree

I love our house at Christmas, it's so pretty!

Santa's milk and cookies

Harper and Nana made the cookies. Harper drew a smiley face on the cup.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Christmas Traditions

We are beginning to establish our own Christmas traditions, which is really fun and special. Every year Santa rides through our neighborhood on a fire truck. This is really neat, all of the families in the neighborhood are out in their yards waving at Santa. Harper thought this was great but was worried how Santa was going to make it to all the houses on Christmas Eve...so cute! This is a great tradition, that's unique to our city, we're so glad they do this for the kids.

I love to bake! Fortunately Harper loves to bake with me, this is something special that we do together. Because I've been teaching this year, I was able to really have the time to bake and enjoy all the things I love about Christmas, it was so nice. Harper and I made muffins to take to the grandparents and great grandparents, we both had a lot of fun. From the looks of these pictures, I think Harper ate more than she helped!

Trick or Treat

This year Halloween was so much fun! Harper was able to pick out what she wanted to be and really understood what was going on. She decided she wanted to be Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. We're not really sure where she got this idea because she had never seen the movie, but she was dead set on being Dorothy. She was so cute with her pigtails and "ruby slippers". Grammie and Nanny got her The Wizard of Oz movie and it has now become one of her favorites. Riley, Stacie and Randy came and trick-or-treated with us around our neighborhood. It was a fun night for us all.

Dorothy and the mouse trick or treating.

Checking out the loot.

Randy, Stacie and Riley

Harper's Three Year Pictures

We only have professional family pictures made once a year, and we usually try to get them done around Harper's birthday. The past couple of years we've used Lauren Tuggle, a wonderful local photographer. She has an amazing eye and is incredibly patient with our less than cooperative daughter. If your in need of a great photographer in the Birmingham area, I would highly recommend her! We decided to have the pictures made downtown on Morris Avenue, let us know what you think! I'm going to apologize in advance for the crazy amount of pictures I've posted, they were just so good I couldn't decided which ones to post!

Harper's Three Year Pictures

Harper's Third Birthday

Harper is three! We can't believe how fast these past few years have flown by! It seems like only yesterday we brought this tiny baby girl home and now look at her! Harper has really grown into a smart, sweet, loving child. She's moved from being a baby to becoming a little girl. Each day brings us new changes and fun experiences with her, we are loving every minute (well almost...she is three!).

To celebrate Harper's birthday we had a small party at our house. We all had so much fun! Grammie and Nanny made the trip from Naples and Atlanta, Dat-Dat, Dylan, Nana, Pop, Anslea, and Adyson all came from Talladega, Andy, Erin and Luke came up from Auburn, we also had our friends Casey, Jason and Connor and Amy with baby Delaney and Madison come to help us celebrate this exciting milestone. It was so nice to have all of our family and friends here.
Harper got tons of wonderful gifts and had so much fun playing with all of the other kids. Thanks guys for making her third birthday so special.

These past few years have been so wonderful. Each day is a new adventure. Michael and I can't wait for what the next year brings us! Happy Birthday Harper! We love you!!