Workin'

My family has been extraordinarily helpful over the last couple of months as we have been moving in and putting together our new house. My dad is a pro house painter, and graciously gave us a housewarming gift of painting our rooms for us. My mom is a great seamstress and has been sewing valances for windows, etc. My sister is my chief interior design consultant and has spent many of her summer vacation days over here helping me with projects. And my brother has helped Mark move tons of furniture up multiple flights of steps! So Carlton has gotten very used to them coming around and "working" at the house, and loves to help out whenever possible. He helps Poppy round up all his paint supplies, wash his brushes, etc. Some of his earliest words were "paint" and "tool," in fact. Here they are on a Saturday morning when Dad came to paint, sharing what is becoming a grandfather tradition - a donut hole from Dunkin Donuts. Carlton even gets his own (empty) cup to mimic my dad's coffee cup....oh yes, another of his earliest words, thanks to Poppy, was "coffee."

And here he is with Kristin, working on one of our interior design projects, the recovering of some old worn-out gray chairs we have. This fun pattern is for Carlton's room, and he was eager to help her out, you see.

Ready to use that tape measure on his own!

July outings

We recently had another pool date and cookout with our good friends, the Grosses. Emily captured a few sweet photos of Carlton LOVING some pool play. Ready to jump....

Initially catching his breath post-jump....

and the true reaction!

On a separate note, Mark and I made an outing to Chattanooga this past weekend for a little belated anniversary celebration (which occurred during our move in May)/babymoon getaway before baby girl makes her appearance in a few weeks. Carlton stayed with my parents, so that made everyone happy. It was a perfect weekend - fun and refreshing. We packed so much into our weekend, from touring the downtown, enjoying farmers' markets and parks, taking a riverboat tour, catching a minor league baseball game, eating delicious food, staying out late for dessert, and even sleeping in! We were terrible about taking photos until our last stop on the trip, when we headed up Lookout Mountain to tour the Covenant College campus. So these couple of shots are from the top of the mountain. I'm mostly including them because one of them is a good preggo pic (nearly 36 weeks), which I haven't snapped many of this time around :)

Fourth of July

Our family had a wonderful and relaxing Fourth of July. Unfortunately, Mark was a bit under the weather, but he made it through the mid-day neighborhood festivities like a trooper. It all started with a parade of the littlest residents of the neighborhood, making their way down our street toward the pool. Each kid was supposed to decorate their "wheels" in honor of the day, so we decked out Carlton's stroller using our best patriotic spirit.

He enjoyed waving his flag and reveling in the general excitement of the day.

The parade ended with a neighborhood pool party and cookout, which was a lot of fun.

Late in the afternoon, we headed over to my parents' house for a cookout, and the festivities continued with parade #2 of the day. Carlton absolutely loves playing this particular game with his Meme and Poppy....circles and more circles around their house.

After all that marching, a water break was needed. Perfect that he had just received his very own canteen as a souvenir from my parents' recent trip to Colorado! Here we are working on drinking from it.