A chicken, a caterpillar and a cat.

Today was a daycare day so I could finish up a project. Carl didn't have to be to jury duty until 9:30 this morning so he wanted to grab breakfast. We figured we'd go to Chick-fil-A since it's by where we were going. On the way down I was asking Carson if he wanted to have chicken nuggets for breakfast, just to tease him. He thinks the only place to have go for breakfast is McDonald's so he told me he was going to go play at "BicDonald's" and have apples and fries. Then, after more explanation, he started saying he was going to "Chicken Play". Close...Playing at Chick-fil-A. He realized that's also somewhere we play and so that's what he came up with. It was cute. :)

Here were the boys at breakfast. Carl's head isn't really shaped like that. Great iPhone pic.

When I picked Carson up at daycare he had a present for me. He had made his very first craft to bring home and it almost made me cry. He's only ever colored/painted pictures so this was so cool. I absolutely loved it. His teacher said he was adimant that the paint only goes on the very tops and had a lot of fun making it. I could tell when we got home and saw he had blue paint all over his shirt and in his hair. This is definitely documentable. Not a word, I know.

 And just to share my old girl... I was taking that picture and turned to see her baking in the front window. She is so old, but she is still truckin'. We are pretty sure she's 14 now, but she ages very well! She is constantly cold because she weighs next to nothing. She often can be seen laying on her own heating pad, laying on the heating vents and curled up inside blankets. She will attack your lap just to soak up every bit of warmth possible. It's no surprise she was loving the sun.

Who likes to rock the potty?

Not my son!

That is the ring tone that has been playing this morning every time the "potty alarm" goes off. That one seemed appropriate since it always makes Carson dance and I then realized I could change party to potty in the words. I was planning on waiting a little longer to start potty training again, but yesterday made me change my mind.

We spent the day at our friends' house (aka my friend and her two sons). Her oldest son is 3 1/2 and I'm pretty sure Carson saw him using the potty. The boys were all over the house while the mommies were doing their thing in the living room. At one point I hadn't seen Carson for a while so I went looking. You know, the "it's a little too quiet" moment... I found him in the bathroom with his pants around his ankles, diaper on the ground and both toilet lids up. He may or may not have actually peed while there, but I was pretty excited to see he just took the initiative himself. Then in the afternoon the exact same thing happened in a different bathroom.

I told him today would be potty day, but it hasn't worked at all. He loves talking about the potty, but doing is a different story. I figured if I stick to diapers for the first while and try the timer then it should work like it does for everyone else. Now the alarm goes off, he yells "rock the potty!", I say it's time to go to the potty and he yells NO. Actually his last response was, "I thought I said no potty time! I'm playing Thomas game." And then he makes a face like you told him Santa died. I guess we'll just keep going, fight and all. I've even very clearly let him know that when he really does go potty in the toilet he'll get to pick out a sticker from the special sheet and get an Oreo. He just tells me he wants an Oreo anyways. I asked Christy this morning if I could just hire some magic person to come do this for me. She politely told me no.

And I'd also like to publicly apologize to my dear friend Jamie. Yesterday Carson also managed to find a black marker and write ALL OVER in her son's room. I'm talking on the window, the lamp shade, the night stand, some book covers and the top of the nice Thomas train table. I seriously feel horrible. I know boys will be boys, but man. That was a bad one. Luckily she's pretty awesome so I don't think she'll kill us this time. :)

At our house the crayons, markers, chalk etc. are kept under lock and key. They only come out with direct supervision because I know that's exactly what he does when he gets a chance. We are pretty good artists though! Be jealous.

Naughty Pants Magoo

The last two weeks here have been fun and a bit crazy. Our house is definitely full now, but it's great having family around. Carl's sister Christy, her fiance Andy and Carl's little brother Dustin are all with us for now! Dustin got to start school here in our neighborhood and Christy and Andy are on the job hunt. Carson loves having new faces to look at. Every time one of them comes in the room he says, "Oh, hi ______!" like it's the first time he's ever seen them. 

Then we got kind of bomb dropped on us in the last two days. Carl got called for jury duty and he just had to show up yesterday as one of about 200 people. After all was said and done he was chosen for the 14-person jury and it is a murder trial that could last up to two weeks. Everyone was telling him to say everything outrageous to get out of it, but he said there was really no way to lie since you didn't know what the right answers really even are. Normally that wouldn't be a big deal, but he is about 2 weeks short of his 90 days at work so his benefits to pay for this haven't kicked in yet. His boss fought for him, but corporate won't pay. It's pretty lame to just miss an entire pay period out of no where! Sucky suck suck.

Grandpa Rick came to visit again this week too. He slept in the recliner. :)  We've been doing a lot of playing outside, going on playdates and working in between. Carson is always obsessed with our neighbors' Razor Scooters. He has never been able to ride them on his own, but he tries all the time. I have to drag him home after he plays with them. Well, Dustin shows up and guess what he has.....a Razor Scooter. Carson quickly claimed it as his own and has been attempting to master it ever since. On Wednesday night Carl was trying to teach him how to balance on one foot and push off with the other. He showed him twice and all of a sudden Carson just took off! Every time before this he would try to put both feet on and obviously just fell right over. Once he figured out what he was supposed to do you couldn't stop him. The funniest part (which I didn't get on video) was him trying to copy Carl and do a 360.

Other than all that, I just have some random photos to share that I've snapped over the last while. ***Disclaimer: He got a haircut last night. It wasn't by my choice that he looked like a poor homeless child with twangers galore.

One day last week we went out for the day and we didn't get home in time for Carson's nap. He was fine, but when we got back we tried to get him to lay down with us on the floor on his couch. We watched a movie and he ran around for over an hour. At one point it got really quiet and this was why:

Then he eventually came to lay by me and crashed out of no where. We rarely ever get to see him sleep so we basically just sat there and stared at him. Apparently he sleeps with his eyes open sometimes. And my arms go to sleep incredibly easy.

He loves helping Daddy make pancakes every weekend. He's finally figuring out how to stir without flipping the whole bowl out onto the counter. 

We've been out playing in the backyard a lot during the days. I don't know what he'll do when it gets cold. It already is starting to feel chilly and I'm not ready for it at all!

Since he got his Jeep, the Cozy Coupe lives in the back. He goes "four-wheeling" in the grass and rides it all over out there. Lately Elmo has been coming along for rides too. "Mommy, Elmo NEEDS to come with me."

We can't even believe how well he is talking still. He can put sentences together that I had no idea he would be able to at this point. Last weekend we told him we'd try to go to the park, but it got too late and we had to run other errands. When we pulled into Target he screamed from the backseat, "I thought I said no Target!" We just looked at each other like, uh, he really said that.

Yesterday he wasn't feeling well and threw up on the way to daycare. He seemed fine last night, but I was still watching him. When I got him up this morning I asked him how he was feeling and he said, "Grumpy". I didn't even know how to respond. It is so amazing that at this age they can 100% comprehend what we are saying and answer with the right words

At my office we just signed for a third arm of the study we've been doing for a while now. That one looks like it will go until 2013 which is GREAT news!! My boss is already talking about planning our February trip to Carmel again. I don't know if that's really awesome or really mean since it's still 5 months away! :)

And in case you're wondering, Naughty Pants Magoo is one of the many nicknames I have for Carson. I have no idea why, but most of them end in Magoo or Magee.

Mt. RushMORE!

Carl has been mentioning that he wants to go see Mt. Rushmore ever since we've been in Colorado. Last week he decided that it was our last chance if we were going to go camping at all this year and begged me to check into it. I looked around at the KOAs there and they actually looked promising. I say this because I don't camp. Want me to say it more clearly? I. Don't. Camp. My family was never an outdoorsy one and I am a city girl because of it. I gave in though and agreed since the KOA had a lot to do along with real bathrooms and showers. I'm okay with tents, just not tents while you are covered in filth for days at a time.

We took off early on Saturday, excited to go somewhere completely new to both of us. We told Carson about it a few days before so he talked about sleeping in a tent constantly. Luckily he loves car rides too so we just set off without worrying about time or anything. 

To start I will say.......how in the world does anyone live in the state of Wyoming??????

We decided that you could basically keep Jackson Hole, Yellowstone and mayyyyyyybe Cheyenne and give the rest to the aliens. I'm sorry to say it, but that is mostly a useless state. We stopped at this rest stop at a main turning point and saw a playground which we thought would be great. But it was so stinky and dirty with a broken playground. We couldn't wait to get out of there.

See the beautiful Wyoming backdrop? By the way, Carson is in love with his "Stoy Story" pajamas. I bought him Toy Story which he has watched once and wasn't even interested in, but he loves the PJ's for whatever reason. He wanted to keep them on for the trip; at least he was comfortable, but it looks funny!

Next we stopped in Torrington to eat lunch at a real park. Carson was thrilled to see real playground equipment. This was the kind of place where you can feel that everyone is watching everyone. You know, in that creepy small town kind of way.

Amazingly, about 20 miles into South Dakota it turned absolutely beautiful! It was interesting to be in the mountains, but it was different than the mountains we are used to. The rock, trees and overall look was just different. It was pretty funny going into the lobby of the KOA. We had to "check in" like at a hotel and it was nicer than some actual hotel lobbies we've been to! They had coffee shops, a wine and chocolate store, a pizza and ice cream shop, two swimming pools, water slides, miniature golf, a theater and on and on. It was about the most spoiled camping we could have possibly done.

The boys went to work right away on our tent and camp site. We were up on the top of a hill and pretty secluded (except for the obnoxious jerks in that cabin you see behind us that were up being so loud until 2am...). Carson loved every minute of it!

After it was all set up we went down to find all the fun stuff to do. We were hoping to swim, but it was 5:00 by this time and the clouds were rolling in. Carl wanted to cook hot dogs, but Carson and I were starving and I wasn't going to wait for it to get dark to start a fire. We went to the pizza shop instead, then headed over to the playground area.

They seriously had all their bases covered and couldn't have been more family friendly. This was an entire hill of sand covered in Tonka trucks. Carson=happy.

The playground was enormous. Carson goes straight for the slides right now. He's getting to be pretty fearless!

Next he wanted to get on this huge balloon that was buried underground for you to jump on. I was terrified that my little baby was going to get trampled. Nope. He totally held his own and squealed as he bounced back and forth. 

My guys after a round of mini-golf.

It was getting late so we headed back to our site. Just as Carl got the fire going it started to rain. And then started to rain really hard. While we were down at the gift shop we found a Thomas watercolor book. Carson has been painting a lot at daycare and I didn't have any for home so I wanted to get it. Luckily we did because I was able to grab the crayons and we colored in the tent while it was raining. I think this was my favorite time of the trip. It was so peaceful and fun to be out exploring with my family. I can't get enough of seeing Carson discover new things and just be a kid having fun. I was able to really take it all in while sitting there watching him in this moment.

The rain eventually let up and we all sat by the fire. Carl made us smores and Carson discovered his new love for marshmallows.

The next morning came way too early, but that was only because Carson slept great and was bright eyed at 6am. I hardly slept at all because of the aforementioned jerks in the spot above us. Well, that and the 30lb. sack of potatoes I had attached to my side all night. :) Luckily I had a hot shower and we went to have $2 all you can eat pancakes. 

We were only a few miles down the hill from the actual Mt. Rushmore monument. The way it's positioned is up at the peak of the mountain facing the backside so you actually have to go up there to see it. We both thought it was really surreal to see it in person since it's an image you grow up with and know, but it was really neat in person. You were able to get a lot closer than I thought you would be able to. They have a large area in front to look right up at it and then you can take a walkway down and get even closer. Carson kept telling us he could see the faces. 

I was FREEZING when we left camp so I stayed in my warm camping clothes. Luckily the sun is 100 degrees hotter up top so I was dying of heat. When we left I had to do an impromptu wardrobe change on the side of the road. Oops!

It wasn't anything new or unexpected, but I'm really glad to say that we have seen it in person. It would have been cool to see a real person up there for some scale because it is even bigger than you think it is going to be.

On our way down we stopped at a small lake (you know, where I had to change clothes...haha). There were quite a few fish in this area that you could easily see so Carson parked here for a while.

The amazingly great put-the-camera-on-a-bench-at-an-angle and set the timer shot. I really need some more timer practice. :)

The last stop on the way out was to see Crazy Horse. It was $10 to park at Mt. Rushmore which was worth it so we figured this would be the same. Umm, no, it was $28 just to drive in! No thanks. We pulled into the information lot way at the bottom and I grabbed this picture. I had to crop it way down to see it even like this, but it's pretty cool too. Apparently it isn't even close to being done and the rock under him will be his horse and much more of his body.

So.......that was our quick 2-day trip! I'd highly recommend going if you are thinking about it!