All About Carter!!

I can hardly believe that my little guy will be starting Kindergarten in two weeks!! Aahh! (Are we really this old?) Although Carter isn't really excited about another addition to the family he really is a great big brother. He and Gage are the best of friends and Gage is really going to miss him when he's gone at school all day (I think I will too)! He is so much fun to be with. His big cheesy grin makes my day.

Last month we decided to pull the training wheels off his bike and he is doing great! Actually I guess it would be more accurate to say that he "wore" the training wheels off of his bike. His smile was so big the first time Jared let go of his bike and he realized he was riding a "2 wheeler." He was so funny to watch the second night Jared took him out to ride. He was starting to get a little cocky and would ride down the street going, "nanananana, look at me!" Sure enough he started to wobble right after that. Our street has a slight incline to it, so he does great going down because it is easy for him to get enough speed to keep his balance but he is still working on going up because he is a little bit slower and not as steady, he can do it but he's pretty wobbly (the reason we moved from the sidewalk to the road). Jared has been getting a great workout chasing him up and down the street!!

Carter just finished up his T-ball season and loved it! He was on a team of mostly 5 year old boys (there was only1 little girl). He had a blast. He is a pretty good little hitter. The best part is when they all dog pile the ball, it doesn't matter where they are in the outfield they all run for the ball. I overheard him telling someone the other day that "it isn't real T-ball though because everyone hits and they don't let you get anyone out." That's the competitive side of him shining through (he definitely gets that from his dad). He has expressed interest in playing real baseball as he prefers to have someone pitch him the ball... oh well he gets enough of that everyday out with the neighborhood kids!

On Monday night it was Carter's turn to be in charge of the lesson for family home evening. We talked about different possibilities for lesson ideas. He decided he wanted to do the lesson on manners. He got so excited about choosing the dinner menu and helping me make dinner and setting the table all by himself. We had spaghetti, one of his favorites (next to chicken parmesan and homemade chicken noodle soup) corn, garlic bread, and spinach salad (a new found favorite of his... last night he was eating the spinach plain straight from the carton.) We practiced using our best manners and then read stories that he had checked out from the library on manners. It was lots of fun and he was unusually well behaved (for the most part). I think we will have to let him be in charge more often!

Carter has also recently really picked up on his reading. He has been able to read phonetic words for some time now but he recently found a love for "I Spy" books and since I am not always in a position to tell him what to look for he decided that he was going to figure out how to read the words so that he could do them himself... hey whatever works right! So I guess I owe "I Spy" for Carter's new found love of reading. He has been begging me to take him to the library at least 3 times a week... good thing it's close and we can ride our bikes! He has been keeping track of all of the books that he has read by himself and has read 22 books in the last few weeks... he gets so excited every time he gets to add another one to the list (and we don't count I spy books, since he usually only does a page or two at a time).

That's Carter at 5! (or 5 1/2 as he would say... as he recently celebrated his half birthday.)