The Hatz Family: Carter Update!

My Carter Thomas:

Carter is really into dinosaurs lately. He and his preschool friend Aidan played them almost daily at school and he continues to show interest in them. He came home one day talking about an edmontonia dinosaur and I thought he was making it up. Totally googled it and apparently it is a a dinosaur ;). Sharks and snow leopards are also topics of conversations. He watched How to Train your Dragon before the sequel comes out and now loves to play "Toothless" as well. He is loving the outdoor pool. He is really confident in the water, which is nice but also a little bit scary. He loves to swim in the deep end and see how far he can go. He can swim from the short side of the pool all the way to the rope that separates the deep end from the diving board. This makes me nervous only because I worry he is going to get tired and struggle. I am always there to watch him of course but not always very close.

Carter with his graduation present...a snow leopard from the zoo!

Carter loves playing with the neighbor kids down the street. It is great having kids around his age for him to play with. The only thing that can get a little difficult is that most of the kids are older and have different rules than Carter does. The biggest rule is that Carter cannot play/ride his scooter in the street. And he cannot cross the street by himself. This has become a bigger deal since he came back from Tierney's house where they had to play in the street (they live on a court) because they don't have sidewalks. We have this conversation a lot and Carter even told me he is going to let his kids do whatever they want! I always tell him that he is the only Carter Thomas I have and that he is irreplaceable so I don't care if he doesn't like it those are the rules and they are meant to keep him safe :).

Carter had his first sleepover/camp out at the Meyer's house! We aren't big campers at the Hatz household so Carter jumped at the invitation from Aunt Katie and Uncle Ryan to sleep over! In a tent! In the backyard! He had a great time and when Uncle Ryan brought out his computer so the kids could wind down while watching a movie in the tent, Carter said, 'Uncle Ryan, you have the best ideas!'

All ready to go!

So excited!

Carter also had his first trip away from home!! My dad had a board meeting in Minneapolis and my mom decided to join him since the Mark and fam lives up there. She then asked Katie and I if Carter and Addison would want to join them. So they made it a big kids trip up to Minnesota. We hyped up the trip weeks before and the kids were so excited. Then when it was time to leave I was giving Carter a hug and kiss good bye and he LOST it! He was sobbing, 'I am going to miss my mom!' But climbed in the van still wanting to go. Break my heart why don't you! We Facetimed him another night and got the same reaction along with a 'I want to go home!' So I decided to just let him be up there and didn't try to contact him again. Despite missing his family, he really had a great time!! They went to a really cool park near Mark and Grete's house, went to the zoo and got to see the Polar bear and ride on some rides. It rained over the weekend, so they went to the local community center to swim and they had a couple huge slides Carter got to go down!! And he got to ride his scooter on the street :).

Carter is taking golf lesson at the Club and it seems to be going well. We bought him a beginner set of clubs and hopefully he will get to go out to the driving range with Papa Tom some Sundays. He has completely taken over a spare bedroom, which had miscellaneous paper/coloring products stored up there from his birthday party when I packed them up just to get them out of the way. He calls it his office and goes up there to 'do work.' He is a able to get out his milk cup and pour himself milk in the morning as long as the gallon isn't super full. He loves the independence and we love it as well!

He is also getting a bit of an attitude! Not loving this part of growing up and I love it even less knowing that it will probably get a little worse when he starts school. He just is at a point where he wants to do what he wants to do and sometimes just doesn't care what I think about it. He has deliberately disobeyed me because he didn't like my answer when he asked me something. This is generally been about food and snacks...eating something after I told him he couldn't. Needless to say this has not been the most fun. His listening and following directions could use some work as well. Just some growing pains going on.

We have had some serious storms this summer. Including one evening/early morning when the tornado sirens went off and we had to wake the kids up and go into the basement...at 3 am. I thought Carter would be a little nervous but he was fine. He actually told me the next day that he hoped it would happen again that night...it was fun going into the basement. Definitely fun when there isn't a tornado threatening. The kids also had fun during a storm one evening when we let them build a fort in the corner of the family room. They would both stand my the window and when the thunder crack they would both scream and run to their fort while Carter yelled, 'retreat, retreat!'

He is still obsessed with all of his loveys. Seriously, I have never seen a kid actually play with stuffed animals more than he does. He chooses one (or two) for grandma's house everyday. Mr. Pig is still number one of course but stays at home. He also doesn't talk about Mr. Pig that much anymore :(. I never thought I would miss his stories of Mr. Pig's adventures.

Carter Quotables:

You know Mr. Pig's middle name? Pink. Mr. Pig Pink Hatz. Hmm....seems appropriate.

Nothing is going right for me today!

Carter was punching the air and said, this is coyote class!

I asked Carter why he loved his loveys so much and he replied, they're soft and cuddly and they are so friendly.

Well, that was easy wasn't it.

Addison was right, they did cancel...what a smart cousin.

Apparently, there was a day that I didn't lay out any underwear for Carter to wear in the morning so he went sans undies to school.
Grandma Judy: Mom didn't give you any underwear!? You didn't tell anyone at school did you?
Carter: Well, Grace didn't have any underwear on either

Carter was building a fort down in the basement and wanted help to put the roof. I was cooking dinner and couldn't assist. He came up and excitedly said, I did it! When I was working on the top of my fort I believed in myself.

He gave Isla a jelly bean for tinkling on the potty and said, You earned it Isla!.

Addison we see each other everyday...can't change that!

We passed a cemetery while driving and Carter told my mom, When you get very, very, very, very, very old you will go in there.

Me: Are you going to be a good boy today?
Carter: Uh...we'll see

During a storm:
I'm going to protect my sister. I love her so much I don't want to lose her!
It's okay Isla....it's just mother nature