Memorial Day Weekend 2009

We had a great Memorial Day weekend! I hope all of you did too!

Saturday was UFC night. We had our friends over and BBQ'd before the fights. Somehow I never end up with pictures of anyone except Carson....I must have a one-track mind! Our friends Megan and Justin gave Carson this onesie a little while ago and he is just now able to fit into it. It was very fitting for the occasion. We are all HUGE fans of The Office. Carson was interested in actually putting shoes on his feet for the first time too.



Then I realized he could totally handle corn on the cob now. It hadn't occurred to me earlier, but knowing what damage he can do with his beaver teeth, I figured he do fine. Let's just say he loved it! He has finished his own whole cob for 3 nights in a row now.


Then on Sunday we all decided to take a trip up to Georgetown in the mountains to go four-wheeling. There were 12 people and two pooches between 5 SUVs (including Justin's BMW X5...he got a few funny looks!). We met for breakfast at 7am and were up on the mountain bright and early.

This is the view of the actual little town of Georgetown on the way up to the trail. It was an old mining town in the 1800's and is so old and quaint. You definitely take a trip back in time in places like this!


The views were awesome! We went up Argentine Pass which gets up to over 13,000 feet. You can see that the weather looked the same on the way up as it did down below...



When we got up there we were up above the tree line. It was ridiculously cold! The girls didn't expect it and let's just say we weren't completely dressed to the weather. I definitely would have brought a hat and gloves for Carson too if I'd known. Carl said I should have known because the guys were talking about a snowball fight the night before, but I thought they were kidding...oh well!


These are Megan and Justin's doggies, Lola (left) and Kito (right). They are so dang cute and fun to have around. They ran so hard and for so long that they both crashed in the car afterward just like little kids. :) It always takes Carson a little while to warm up to them though. It seems like he cries every time he sees them at first and then he is okay. Kito likes to lick his face and it freaks him out, we think it's hilarious!


What wind??? Didn't you know the peacock mohawk is the new style?


This is the before shot of Carson playing with the dogs' water bowl and then their ball thrower-thingy.


This is the after, once we had to take them away.


And in true guy fashion, they had their snowboards with them just in case. Our friend Miles took two runs down this snow drift way up on the mountain. He had fun, but had to sit in wet jeans for the rest of the time. :)


Then we drove part of the way back down the trail and pulled over in a nice nook. We all brought snacks, drink and stuff for sandwiches and made a little buffet in the backs of the cars. By this time it started raining so they opened all the hatches and backed the SUVs all together. We we all in a little fort in the cars in the rain listening to reggae by request. It was so cool to just be up in the mountains with good food and your friends. We had a really good day - thanks to everyone for coming along for the ride!!! :)

Monday was really casual. Carl made me go see Terminator Salvation with him. I am so not a fan of this type of movie, but it wasn't bad. It was actually really intense. And thanks to Grandma Susan for watching Carson so we could have a little break!

Good Monday Morning!

We had a pretty relaxed weekend. We ran errands and went to lunch on Saturday then worked around the house on Sunday. And all our cabinets and drawers in the house are officially baby-proofed!!! Carson is SO mad too. He keeps yanking them like he thinks they are going to open and about falls on his back when they stop. He scatters every single thing he can pull out all around the house. I am very excited to not have to pick up jello boxes and cupcake tins off the kitchen floor and makeup and hairties from the bathroom 24/7 now.

See for yourself:


And I am more than happy to report that Carson is still sleeping really well! Lately he goes down around 8:00pm and will wake up right at 5:45am. Today I was able to lay him back down and he slept until about 7:30. He will take anywhere from a 45 minute to 2.5 hour nap in the morning now without any fight at all and still takes an afternoon nap for about an hour. I can't even describe how much easier this has made my life!

And I just wanted to share a few new pictures. We all think to take pictures when we are doing something "special", but my favorite moments are the ones we see everyday and take for granted. I take so many pictures of Carson just doing what he does. I know I will really appreciate them in the future.

I took these pictures when Carson woke up from his nap on Saturday. I love his face when he just wakes up because it still looks sleepy, his cheeks are all rosy and his hair is a sweaty mess. And I really appreciate when he wakes up happy!




He LOVES any kind of pasta, but it is such a mess! This was at the end of dinner the other night and he had devoured a whole tray. It is so much fun to clean up though! :::exit sarcasm:::

Mother's Day Weekend - Sunday

First off, HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to all our mommy and mommy-to-be family and friends!

Sunday turned out to be the rainy day of the weekend. We decided to just hang out, do some things around the house and watch movies. We were going to grill for dinner, but I was starving by 11am so I decided we were going to Red Robin for lunch too. :) We like to go there because Carson can be as loud as he wants and no one cares. Plus, they have balloons!

I had known Carson needed a haircut for awhile, but yesterday it became very obvious. His balloon wouldn't move from his head and his crazy long hair was sticking up like this the whole time. It was actually really adorable.


When we got home the rain had stopped so Carl wanted to work in the yard. I took Carson out to play and we rode around in his new Cozy Coupe. This was a birthday present from Grandma Susan and Carson loves it! It is nice to go over and get the mail in too and I don't have to drag out the stroller.




And then........haircut time. His bangs were half-way down his forehead!


This is the first time I have EVER cut someone's hair, other than buzzing Carl's. But that doesn't count. I figured I could pull it off since I couldn't look any worse than it already did, right? And do you notice the towel is already pulled off here? I wonder how that happened...


TaDa!!! I think I did a pretty good job!


So overall, we had a great Mother's Day weekend. I hope you all did too!

Mother's Day Weekend - Saturday

Last year we took a drive on Mother's Day up to Winter Park, CO. We love exploring and going on drives to see the gorgeous mountains here in Colorado. This year we decided to go to Breckenridge. At first they said it would be raining on Saturday and that was the day we really wanted to go. When we got up in the morning it looked like great weather so we hopped to it and went.

It was about 50 degrees and it felt great. There is just something about cool mountain air! We stopped in Dillon for lunch at the Dam Brewery (right at the dam at Lake Dillon) and went on to walk around Main Street at Breckenridge. We went in the shops we could, but apparently this is considered "mud season" and at least half of the businesses were closed. We got some chocolate and then stopped at this park to let Carson run around.

***And Attn Katie --- There was a Bubba Gump right on Main Street! I thought of you guys :)

This was a slide carved out of a rock.




Here is a shot of his 8 teeth. I know for a fact that he is cutting a molar on his right side too. Sunday he had drooled blood on his clothes, his cheek is really red on that side, he has a low fever, is overall pretty quickly-agitated and has been up at 3am for 3 days just SCREAMING. Poor little guy!


These big rocks had cut-outs for your face. He thought it was really funny to play peek-a-boo with them.





Carson, Mommy and Grandma Susan!


Then we went down to play by the river. They had so much snow this year that they are having huge amounts of run-off.


Then...Carson found this huge pole covered in tape. This kept him busy for at least 10 minutes. :)


On the way home we went up over Loveland Pass which is 11,990 feet. There were these HUGE snow overhangs that looked so awesome.


I just love the scenery up there. We are going to try to go exploring A LOT this summer!

New Monkey Tales

So, where do I start. Carson is pretty much a monster right now. He has figured out how to climb on the couches and gets up on the side tables. We can't leave a single drink or anything out because he goes full on tractor-beam to it. He has fallen off many times and luckily hasn't gotten hurt yet - that's a pretty far fall! At least I convinced Carl it was time to put the coffee table away for awhile. This is definitely making it pretty impossible for me to get any work done. Before this started he would have time when he would like to play by himself for awhile and I could sneak away for 5 or 10 minutes. Now I don't trust him AT ALL and I can only work during naps or while he is in the high chair. If we let him out in the main living area he literally runs around like a tornado. You can see him already thinking of what else to grab as he is pulling things down from everywhere. We got the kitchen cabinets baby-proofed, but he still can do a lot of damage in the office and pulls out garbage, etc. What.A.Handful! All we can do is laugh though.

I grabbed the camera here when I saw him climb up: (excuse the mess....I let him do what he wants in the living room and pick up at the end of the day! He also hates pillows to stay on the couches....)


And here he really tries to give me a heart attack!:


He has started to say a couple "words". He says "dadu" a lot, but we aren't sure what that one means. He says "Ought Oh!" when he drops things and "Wow!" anytime he likes something or someone else says it. But his favorite is "naner". This means food or more specifically, banana. I always call bananas "naners" to him and he will yell naner anytime he is hungry or he sees a banana. I really think he would eat a banana for every single meal if I let him. :)

Here was some naner talk from yesterday:


And we now offically have 8 teeth!!! For over a month now he has been getting in the four around the front four he had already. They seem to all be nice and grown in now though (except for maybe one that has a little more to go). You can see them in the next video posted here. Oh, and he chipped his front top tooth a few weeks ago. Nice, huh? It happened on some random fall and I noticed immediately that the bottom corner was missing.

His laugh is pretty much the cutest and most heart-melting thing I have ever heard. He has been doing a fake laugh though. If we are laughing he will imitate us and laugh out loud, but it is obviously really forced which makes us laugh that much harder.

Here is the fake laughing and his cute wave:


Here is the REAL laughing: