Day 162: Harvest fun

10.29.2012

Carson's out of preschool this week so again I'm back to finding ways to be productive while keeping them entertained. Today we headed to a kids fair thing at a local garden center. The boys had an absolute blast. Carson got to go on a train and Max spent the entire time in a "sandbox", but with dried corn kernels instead of sand. I didn't have a desire to drive all the way out to the pumpkin patch again this year so it was a good substitute. Before that I had some killer savings at Target (I love saving money!) and we got lunch and a movie. Granted now I'll be staying up tonight to work, but I would be an idiot to complain. 

AND.....today is Max's 1 1/3 birthday. Screw half-birthdays.
Max is 16 months old. :(

He kept trying to pick these up and never attempted the small ones right behind him. Got to give him credit for ambition!



And I must say I was a tad shocked when I came across this photo. In intense light like this I love shooting with it spilling into the frame. The boys usually don't cooperate though. I die over how big and handsome Carson looks here. He is turning into such a smart and lovable little man.

Day 161

10.28.2012

I don't have any photos for yesterday. It was a good day though! My mom "forced" me to go get a massage since I haven't for over 2 years. It was really nice to get out. I even got to go grocery shopping alone afterward! haha  Then we did some cleaning and watched football with the fam. But alas, no photos.

Day 160

10.27.2012

Friday was a rough night again so we were way sleepy on Saturday. Carl had to work again and we went out for a little shopping with Grandma. While I got ready Max didn't have the energy to do anything but this. He really was tired.

Day 159: Cleaning house

10.26.2012

Well, Friday I spent the day cleaning out our bedroom and bathroom. This was the only photo from the day. Must have been an interesting one!

Max found a binky somewhere while I was cleaning stuff out and ran around like this for a while. I have to admit it was adorable! It made him look like a baby again. I can appreciate it since he didn't really take binkies to begin with.

Day 158: Book Worm

10.25.2012

Max has opened his eyes to the world of books.....and you'd better watch out. Whether you like it or not, you'll be reading and pointing out everything for as long as you can stand while he squeals, "whaaaaadat?"  Carson had a big board book of 100 first words at this same age and wore. it. out. Like, pages were all torn to shreds and we eventually had to throw it away. We couldn't remember what it was called and I randomly stumbled on it in the back of a stack at the store a few weeks ago. Sure enough, it is a huge hit for Max too. He opens the first page and immediately points to the picture of a motorcycle and says, "Ba!" for bike. He does the same thing every time we walk in the garage and he sees the motorcycle.

Thursday was a big snow day. Blah. I am not a fan.

Dropping the monster off and waiting for the doors to open.

When we get home Max gets some quiet time to play by himself. 

He loves to put on the fireman hat and cape and run. We have to yell "Super Max!" when he does it. :)

And of course, the remotes are always being hunted.

And then a snuggly nap.


On the way home from picking Carson up we had to stop for literally at least 50+ deer to cross a main road. It was fascinating to watch them all panic and follow each other right out across a big bend. Luckily everyone saw them and stopped on our side and no one came around the blind bend going the other way. Carson thought it was awesome to see a handful of them that morning, but this took the cake.

Day 157: Grateful

10.24.2012

Grateful. Not.
Well, at least one of them is.

Day 154, 155, 156

10.21,10.22, 10.23.2012

Our weekend flew by and now we are just going with life. I have been struggling to work in between entertaining Max and remember this being a really challenging time with Carson too. Taking him to and from preschool has really screwed up Max's naps, which isn't helping anything, and I'm lucky to get one work break during the day while he sleeps at home. Granted all my work can be done at any time of the day, but it is sooooooo hard to stay up and work at night. Right now that seems like the best option since that's when it is quiet and I can focus.

I'm trying to stay positive, especially on an extreme lack of sleep. Max wasn't sleeping at all for the entire last week so hopefully we're on the up swing. But who are we kidding? I haven't slept a full night in WELL over a year. 

Sunrise from my window.

Day 153: Our turn

10.20.2012

Saturday was time for our family photos. I thought (way too optimistically) that the boys would be cooperative. Max is easy going and Carson understands he needs to behave to get the things he wants. Well, Max went nuts out in a new place and Carson was off in his own world. They both wanted nothing to do with it, but we managed. Everyone thinks it's just their kids at sessions when I'm shooting, but it is EVERY kid, I swear.

Day 152

10.19.2012

STILL a sick little baby. This has been 5 straight days with no relief. :(

Today was parent's day at preschool. I had a split second to take a couple quick pics and didn't even look where I was shooting. We had to make these neighborhoods and had paint EVERYWHERE. I brought my real camera, but didn't dare touch anything because it was such a mess!! That's our house in the middle and his buddies on the sides. We even had to draw the Jeep in the driveway.

Day 151

10.18.2012

Max was still sick. We still didn't sleep. The end.

Day 150: Belly!

10.17.2012

Last night was ROUGH. We put Max down at 7:00 since he was sick all day, didn't nap more than an hour total and was crashing in the highchair at dinner. When we came in for bed at 8:30 he woke up and was burning up with a fever. I decided to undress him and let him sleep with me, hoping he'd cool down and sleep. Not so much. He was so insanely hot and uncomfortable and we literally didn't sleep a wink until I put him back in the crib right at midnight. He slept for 45 minutes and woke up in a cold sweat since his fever finally broke. We did one more round of 45 minutes and by about 3:00 I just brought him downstairs to rock. He was keeping Carl up and wouldn't calm down at all when he tried. I hadn't slept at all so I figured I could at least watch TV. We ended up sleeping on the couch from 3:30-6:30 and I don't know how I'm functioning right now after the last two nights. I had a mini-meltdown on my mom last night because I felt sick from the lack of sleep!

He isn't back to normal today, has no appetite still and felt like he had a fever again a while ago. Ughhhhhhh!

We went back to the hospital today and Carson got his cast off for good. He still has to wear a splint for at least 6 more weeks, but it had made a lot more progress than I expected. I'm definitely paranoid though.....he has a legit broken arm and no cast on it.

These photos were all taken right after we sat down for a nap and Max proceeded to barf allllllll over both of us. Yummy. That's why he isn't wearing a shirt and why he looked so camera-worthy. I don't ever just let him roam around naked, only because it doesn't occur to me, but he is so dang cute naked!
 He's so congested that he's gagging constantly and it finally got the best of him. This is when I love having Carson at this age because he jumped right up to get me paper towels. Well, I asked for paper towels and he got a roll of toilet paper in his panic. LOL
Max loves to torment Carson when he lays down and they were laughing so hard at each other today. (Carson's under that blanket.)

Post-blanket hair:


Devastation face



We're deep in the "everything is a phone" phase.

Day 149: We'll sleep someday.

10.16.2012

These kids are seriously sick again. Carson started coughing overnight Friday and was bad through Tuesday morning. He seems to be on the upswing while Max went downhill yesterday morning. 

It took everything I had to get him to nap yesterday after a night of next-to-no sleep. I tried to get him down in his crib which worked for a minute when his eyes popped open and he got a second wind. Sigh.

And one of me and the goofball at bedtime Monday night. He is way into Spiderman all of a sudden so he loves his "new Spiderman spinny toothbrush".

Days 134-148: The big catch up

10.1.2012 - 10.15.2012

I am over two weeks behind on this so I'm going to do a big photo dump and hopefully get back on track! These may not be totally in order, but are all from the last two weeks.

Carson had his very first official school picture day. We didn't have a single shirt other than a t-shirt though. I grabbed this shirt over the weekend and about died at how cute he looked that day. I'm dying to see the actual final photo!

This is my "baby"...... :(


Max got a taste of his first Jamba Juice and I had to pry it away from him after he drank half of it. That straw didn't budge for at least 20 minutes straight!


One glove. LOL


Busted.

Max thinks it's hilarious to give kisses and then yell, "BLAH!" This was a dinner time catch when he was being funny.

Attack kisses.

Playing in the car while waiting for Daddy. CHEESE!!!!!!

I think he was tired.

Max got Daddy all to himself when Carl had Friday off and Carson went to preschool.

1.5-handed claw.

Playing at the mall, library and Little Monkey Bizness.

Up at the butt crack of dawn to go to a photo shoot yesterday. At least it was a gorgeous day!

Helping Daddy pick up all the apples our tree dropped in an instant.

Daddy pile!

Sick boys AGAIN.
 

And a crazy-cute shot from one of my two photos shoots yesterday!