Beer with Green Olives and other thoughts

Some people think it's gross, but to me on a summer night (after a very long day) there is nothing better.
A few updates. My mom is healing fairly well. She got fitted for her prothesis today. It's looking like at this point she won't need any chemo or radiation. She is so lucky to have caught the cancer early. (Memo for all of you out there- stay up on your routine dr. visits and get a mamogram.)
Carter took his first steps on his own about a week ago. He is becoming more and more brave. I don't know if I would consider him walking yet since he doesn't really take more than 8-10 steps at a time, but he's getting their. His climbing skills have also improved. Things that formerly were safe on kitchen and bathroom counters are now fair game. On his tippy toes, he is almost tall enough to reach the door handles at my parents house.
His most adorable new habit is sharing. He loves to share his blankie and food with everyone. (He does also feel that everyone should share with him also. This sometimes is more of an issue in public. One example is when he thought a little girl we didn't know at a local fair should share her corn dog with him.)
The less adorable habit he has developped lately is throwing food off his tray. We have started to take his tray away every time we catch him throwing food on the floor on purpose. He gets a second chance after one minute. If we catch him doing it again, the meal is over. He's been much better about it the last couple days because we have been very consistent on how we react to his behavior.
Not a whole lot to update about me. I'm doing my first quilt exchange on flickr. I am in awe of all the talent in the group of 200 or so quilters. I am still just a beginner, but I am so inspired to try new thing because of all of the beautiful work I've seen in the past week.
I'm am also reaching a point in the job searching where I don't know where to go from here. I have the possible option of doing daycare for a 4 month old starting in the end of August. I've been praying about this alot because I'm not sure if this is the right move for me or not. On one hand, it would be nice to be able to make some money and still not have to put Carter in daycare. On the otherhand, doing daycare will not make a ton of money, and I'm not sure I'll be able to do the same things with Carter and a baby as I would with Carter alone. Tim thinks I should say yes and continue to job hunt. I don't feel like I can make the commitment to watch this baby and potentially take a job. Anyone have any thoughts for me on the subject? Either way I decide, I need to be making some moeny soon. But would it be better for my family for me to get a part time job?
Tim has been super busy with work and trying to get a handyman business started. I think he could potentially make this into something full time if the economy turns around anytime soon.

Quilt swap

I'm doing my first quilt swap through a group on flickr. http://www.flickr.com/groups/dollquiltswap/ I'm really excited/ nervous by all of the beautiful work that people have made in past exchanges. Hopefully mine will be up to snuff. Sometime today I will be finding out who I will be making mine for. I have so many ideas in my head and I can't wait to find out more about this person, to know what they like as far as style and color.
So if ther person who is making the doll quilt for me is reading this here are a few hints on what I like. I love bright,modern prints. I'm addicted to buying any fabric with fruit on it, even if I have no plans for it. I love polka dots. I just painted my sewing desk turquoise. I have a one year old little boy named Carter.

Carter's birthday party pictures

I'm finally starting to catch up in uploading my pictures. I didn't take nearly the amount of birthday pictures that I thought I had. Hopefully everyone else got some good ones too.

Milk

The important thing is not that we can live on hope alone, but that life is not worth living without it. - Harvey Milk

I guess the history I learned in school was missing some major gaps because I can say I know very little about GLBT history, or pretty much anything more than a couple paragraphs on any minority group. So I really can't tell you how historically correct the movie was. I found the movie very powerful. It made me want to try to fill in those gaps of history that I never learned.
I highly recommend it.

The other inspirational movie that I watched last night was "The Pursuit of Happiness". I had heard this one was good, and it lived up to the reviews. Being another true story, I think I'd like to find more about how things actually happened.

It's been great to see some truely inspiring movies that aren't sappy.

I am amazingly lucky. . . .

to have such good friends. The past couple weeks have been hard because my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. I am so grateful to have the support of my friends during these rough times. Their thoughts and prayers, help with childcare, and offers of meals are more helpful than they even know. I know I can survive the worst of times with them. (And hope that we get to celebrate some happier times soon!)

Has it really been a year already?

I woke up this morning at 6am, somewhat like last year. Only last year I was exactly 38 weeks pregnant and my water broke. (Much to my surprise since we had a scheduled C-section for a week later since Carter was breech.) We did some quick packing for the hospital and were there by 7am. The confirmed that my water had indeed broke and that I was having contractions. Since C appeared to still be doing fine, they told us they would contact our clinic and that the c-section would probably happen sometime that afternoon. We flipped on the tv to relax since we had no idea how long we would be waiting. Around 8:30 the nurse rushed in to tell us that the doctor had decided that since I had eaten anything yet that we could do a 9 am surgery. Things got rolling and at 9:30am, Carter Thomas was born. 7lbs, 9oz, 19 inches of beautiful baby.
It's hard to believe that beautiful baby has already grown into a hansome little boy.
Happy Birthday Carter!

The kind of day I needed. . .

The 4Th of July definitely the kind of day I needed after last week. Tim worked an overnight shift(and needed to sleep), so Carter and I decided to go to the St. Paul farmer's market with my parents. Carter loved seeing all of the people. We picked up some fresh broccoli, zucchini, green onions, and red potatoes.
After that I took Carter home to take a good nap. As soon as he woke up, we had a quick lunch and headed over to my aunt's house to catch the boat parade on Turtle Lake. It started to sprinkle when we were watching the parade and then it started to pour. 30 minutes later the weather became beautiful again.
Carter wasn't a fan of his first pontoon ride because he hated wearing his life jacket. He loved playing in the sand and swimming with his daddy.
We headed home around 8:30 because Carter was exhausted. It was really nice to spend a relaxing day with my family.

July already?!?!

What happened to June? It's hard to believe that Carter will be one in 5 more days. It's also hard to believe this time last year I was hugely pregnant. I hopefully won't ever be 38 weeks pregnant again in July.

Otherwise not too much too update at this point. We're planning on celebrating the 4at the lake at my aunt's house.