The Hatz Family: Carter Tom Tom

I have a lot of nick names for my kids that come and go...remember 'Schmook' for Isla?! I never use that now but there was a time where it was in heavy rotation. For my Carter? Well, right now he is my Carter Tom or my Carter Tom Tom. I have no idea when this started and I usually don't even know I use it often until someone {read: Matt} finally calls me on it. He does not really like that I call him this and

There really isn't a point to this story except that I wanted to capture this somewhere. And apparently there is no better place than my blog...sorry for any readers out there :). So this is what my Carter Tom Tom has been up to lately:

He seems so grown up lately complete with grown up attitude sometimes. He just started preschool and will go 4 days a week in the mornings. It is really hard to believe the next year he will head off to kindergarten! But I don't want to get ahead of myself ;).

With Mr. Pig & Rochelle ~ of course!

He is obsessed with sharks...even more so recently. My mom bought him a couple of shark shirts and the boy is in love. He was so excited to watch 'Shark Week' with his daddy and he even kicked me out of the living room one night because only boys could watch the shark show that was on :).

He loves the new house and all of the friends he has in our neighborhood. Or as Carter calls it 'our town' Our neighborhood does kinda sit out in the middle of nowhere with not much around it and it doesn't connect to any other streets yet so I guess he is right...sometimes it does feel like our little town. He got a fun new toy! We were walking around our neighborhood one night and it happened to be big garbage pickup the next day so a lot of random things were out in front of the houses when we passed by a house that was getting rid of a Jeep big wheel!! Not just a jeep either a Fire rescue jeep! We decided to give it a shot and when Matt went back to pick it up he ran into the neighbor who said it worked...but when he went to show Matt how to charge it they noticed that someone had taken the charger and the battery :(. So we did end up spending a little money on a battery to get the thing to work. But it was a lot less, obviously, then buying a new one. Also, Carter is just having the best time with it. He even will drive Isla around...it is so cute!

Addison rides too!

Carter is in LOVE with the new Planes movie! He saw it a couple weekends ago with Matt and Papa Dave and will be seeing it again at the Drive-In this Friday! He had been waiting all summer for the movie to come out and has been getting his fix by reading the book Grandma Judy bought him and playing with the planes toys we could find. He even talked me into buying him some Planes crocs at Von Maur the other day. They were way more expensive then I generally ever spend on his shoes but I cracked under his pure excitement about them. :)

Planes!

Carter wants everyone to play Planes with him and all he really wants is the 'Pink Airplane' so I can play with him. Does anyone want to guess what airplane has been the hardest to find?! I was buying Gus’ birthday gift from the Disney store and had to spend $75 to get free shipping. Luckily, both Rochelle and Ishani were in stock so I purchased them, along with Zed, to get free shipping. I gave Carter Rochelle for his ‘first day of school’ gift. I had Ishani and Zed and plan will either give them to him for Christmas or a just a fun ‘out of the blue’ surprise :).

He is still a swimmer boy and has figured out how to get his goggles on without hurting himself so he LOVES swimming underwater with those. In fact, he won't swim underwater anymore unless he has his goggles on. He does still get frustrated with them at times when they aren't tight enough and let water in or the other day he freaked out because he tried to get them on with his hair dry, which pulled his hair and he was in tears about it. ::sigh:: He is going off the diving board like a champ and can swim the practically the length of the deep end! He swims about half way, turns around and swims back. I plan to put him in swimming lessons this fall so he doesn’t lose any of the skills he has learned over the summer.

Shark Goggles!

Carter is also starting soccer this fall!! This will be the first time Carter is in an ‘organized’ sport. I only use quotes around ‘organized’ because let’s face it, soccer at this age is mostly herd ball and far from organized. But I am excited for him to be on a team and he is excited that his shirt colors are blue and orange. Just like Dusty!

He is still a milk freak and continues to ask for 'my milk and my show' every morning. His hair is getting long and blonde! Not blonde all over but just by his temples and along his forehead. This is why it is so long I don’t want to cut it off! He is also so very tan! It is crazy to see him and Addison stand next to each other because they have had the exact same amount of sunscreen applied to them and Carter is easier a couple shades darker than she is. Our neighbors call it a ‘Baywatch tan’ :)

He can be so sweet and such a stinker! There were days this summer I wondered how I raised such a snotty boy with all his back talk but then he would have a day where he was just a sweet as could be so I know that sweet little man is still in there :). I am certainly sad that summer has come to an end but I look forward to Carter getting into more of a routine (including an earlier bedtime!) and I think that will help curb some of his attitude.
This also still happens:

He swore he wasn't tired!

The things he says:

"My birthday is after Easter, Valentine's Day AND Christmas!’

Me: 'You are very observant.'

Carter: 'That's cause I'm a special kid!'

Me: 'You start school soon! You are going to learn to write and read…’

Carter: 'And create!'

Carter: 'Hey mom, you're the best mom ever!'
Me: ‘Why do you say that?’ I figured he wanted something…
Carter: 'Because I love you!'

'Princesses toot too...sometimes.'

'I liked the baby sea lion. But the mama sea lion came up from the water and startled me!' It cracked me up that he used the world ‘startled vs. scared’

“I don’t want to marry Isla! I want to marry Callie. Addison’s girl cousin!”

We were hanging out before heading over to my parents for dinner and the TV was on in the background. Carter was watching it for a bit and said, “Do they live in our world? Or did they live a long time ago?’ I said they live in our world and he responded, ‘we should meet them!’

“I am looking for dad but he is nowhere to be seen!” (He actually said this in a VERY whiny voice one morning when he went downstairs. Matt usually gets his ‘milk and his show’ for him but had left early for work)

I was going upstairs to put laundry away after I got home from work. I walk into our bedroom and hear the shower running. Huh... I thought everyone was outside. So I go into the bathroom and pull back the shower curtain and Carter is in there showering. Since it was around 5:30 I asked him why he was showering and he replied, 'I want to smell good.' Okay then!

Carter's best buddy, Gav, just had a baby sister join his family. {Congrats Graham Family on Baby Nora!!!} Anyway, so now Carter has baby fever again and was talking about me having another baby. We have had this conversation before and he was pretty clear that he wanted a brother so I told him that it wasn't up to us to decide ~ that God decides who gets to join our family. So I thought it was so cute when we were talking about babies the other night on the way home and Carter said, "I wonder what God will pick for us" (I am not currently pregnant but I wonder that too ;) ).

We love you Carter Tom!! Try not to grow up too fast :).