Carson's First Tooth Fairy Visit

Carson's two bottom teeth have been wiggling around in there for weeks now. The one started going even more and we were ready to just have the excitement come to a head. He could only stick his tongue under it so many time a day, right?? He wouldn't let us pull it and freaked if we even looked at it wrong. We offered up some Orajel which took the edge off and then he got brave.

The video is the event as it unfolded. If you don't like blood, there is a little of it….warning.

He was SO excited to go to school today as "Toothless Joe", as Grandpa Rick likes to call him. The tooth fairy brought him a letter, a certificate and $2. Inflation these days, but the next ones won't yield quite that much.

Day 46: One year dr appt + STEPS!

Yesterday we ventured off to Max's one year check-up. He's still healthy as ever and starting to even out in his body a little. Carson had to come along for the first time, which was...frustrating. He wouldn't sit still for even a second so I could talk to the doctor. When does preschool start again?!?!?

His stats were:

Weight - 23lb 14oz, 65%

Height - 31.75 inches, 88%

He seems like such a long kid in person! His weight has slowed down since he became mobile though. The doctor put his weight on the breastfed chart and he was 85% for weight on that one still. 

He did good with shots this time and we didn't have any reactions, unlike his 4 month round. I'm still nervous after that experience. We had a good cuddle nap so he could sleep after we came home.

THEN!!!!!!!!!!!!.............

Last night I was out front with Carson while he played. Carl screamed out the door that Max was walking and I didn't believe him. Technically it was just with Mr. Lion, but he took off for the first time ever and kept going and going. By the time he was done his cheeks were bright red, he was sweaty and drank a whole sippy of water. LOL Normally he pushes it too far, won't take steps and falls over. Carl got a video before he came out to get me because he was so shocked that it happened out of nowhere.

Christmas 2011

This is going to be a reeeeeaaaaalllllllyyyyy long post. I brought my laptop along on our drive to Utah this weekend and that's the ONLY reason I have these photos to show now. Where does time go these days?!?!  

My dad got to come out for Friday to Monday which made our weekend that much better. The boys (Carson, Max and Dustin) all got beyond spoiled. We let them open a present on Christmas Eve. Carl told Dustin to open one of the ones that Jordan sent and it was a little too big to be the Christmas EVE present. He ended up getting this PS3 with two games, a Nintendo 3DS with 3 games and an iPod.

The gift Carson got to open was this horse on a stick. He tries to "giddy up" everything in our house so I ordered this thing hoping he'd use it instead. And he got it this night because I couldn't figure out how to wrap it. I just gave him the brown box. haha

We asked him what he wanted to name it and he immediately yelled, "Cowboy Balone!". I'm pretty sure this is derived from Karl Malone (pronounced the same, but with a B) which was in one of his monster truck library books. We all laughed so freaking hard.

Daddy and the boys - Carson got new Christmas PJs and Max wore the ones that Carson did on his first Christmas. :)  Yes, Max is a big boy!

Grandma Susan and the boys

On to Christmas morning.........   Carson got a ball pit and a trampoline. 

You don't jump on the trampoline like a super hero?

Me and my boys.

I was shopping at TJ Maxx and found one lonely Stinky the Garbage Truck. I knew this would be a hit so I called my dad to see if he was still looking for a gift for Carson. See, for MONTHS we had to go straight to the Stinky display in the grocery store before we did anything else to play with this thing. I was not going to shell out $60 at Target for it, but when I found it months later I knew it was a sign. He was pretty excited and surprised since he had forgotten about it by now. 

Dustin was on world 8 by the next morning on Mario. P.S. There are only 8 worlds.....

Carson got his "5 buck monster truck", aka a remote control Jeep.

Carl got me and my mom each a Snuggie. I still can't believe he actually paid money for these things. She loves hers. I already returned mine. Oops.

Aunt Christy and Max

My dad also bought Carson these Nerf guns. We ended up with a full on Nerf war in our house. Carson couldn't quite pull back the gun himself to shoot so he had Luke to help him out. We were all dying laughing at these guys.

I flipped over just in time to get this video. I love it! Watch to the very end to see Carson's sign off.

After the fun died down the boys crashed hard. Max had had enough.

I've been wanting to try shaped bokeh for a while now. I figured my tree would be the perfect place for lots of little lights. This is pretty fun and all done in-camera!

Before heading off to take Grandpa to the airport I got a couple photos. I joke to him that since I couldn't have been less athletic I had to give him boys to make up for it. We sure miss Grandpa!

No training wheels.

A few weekends ago I was in the house and the boys were outside. Luke came in announcing I had to come watch Carson. He alleged that Carson was riding his bike without the training wheels. I didn't believe him for a second (great mother I am), but grabbed the camera and ran anyway. Much to my surprise, here is Carson with no training wheels and an awesome grass dismount. Where'd my baby go??!!

Max - 2 months old

Boo. Our Mini Dude is officially 2 months old. It's like he just came into our lives and like I've known him forever. Max is still the most amazingly calm baby. He really is what I hoped he would be, but didn't think we'd be so lucky. He wakes up, wants to eat right away, spends a while playing and talking to us and goes right back to sleep. He rarely ever just cries like Carson always did. I don't think we've had even one instance where he was crying and we didn't know why or couldn't comfort him immediately. He really doesn't cry unless you take too long to feed him! I even took him to a girl's dinner downtown on Saturday night and he didn't make a peep the entire time. I sort of don't know what to do in these situations because of our normal experience with Carson, even now.

He is so much fun to have around. For as much work as it is having a second baby he has made it so easy. Three times this week he slept in his bed from 8:30pm to almost 2am! For a breastfed baby that is WAY more than I could ask for! I'll pull him into bed with me when he wakes up for the first time, he eats for a minute and then usually doesn't really wake up to eat until around 5am. I haven't even felt that tired. (Except for today because he tossed and turned last night for some reason...)

He's getting so big. I just started putting him in 3-6 month outfits and they fit! I had Carson in some newborn sized outfits until he was 3 months old!

Carson has turned into a total ham. He wants to be in every photo I take now. You can see how Max feels about that. He gets such a serious face when he sees the camera.

We started getting real big belly laughs out of Max this weekend. I was able to get some on video. I absolutely adore this boy.

Mr. Max

Here are some photos from the last few days. I love being able to take photos of Max just about every day. I'm also finding out I apparently like taking his photo when he's hanging out in his crib. He just seems so peaceful in there. He loves staring at his mobile and looking at the blinds.

(I promise he doesn't sleep in his Boppy.....that's a no-no. This is just when I'm getting ready or something and I can always see him.) :)

This video was from yesterday. You can hear Max making some of his new noises. He seriously pants like a dog too. He breaths so fast and loud sometimes! 

April Photos: Day 18

Today was pretty hectic again. Carson went to daycare because the carpet cleaners were coming this morning. I worked until they were done and then used the last two hours of that time to run to the grocery store (something that is very difficult to do with him in tow right now). I then went to pick him up, came back home to put groceries away and headed right back out. I didn't know where we were going, but knew that I didn't want to try and keep him in the kitchen and off the carpet for the entire rest of the day. I hoped he would take a nap in the car, but he was so excited that we were leaving the house again that he couldn't sleep. We drove around for a while and finally ended up at Little Monkey Bizness. It had been raining off and on so this was a nice compromise to his playground request. We were there for at least two hours and didn't get home for the day until about 4:30. It was then time for me to do some more work and the boys went to the park. It is SO bedtime now. My main computer is still not back together all the way and my camera was up in my bedroom with wet carpet in between. Today we get LMB cell phone pictures. :)

I could barely drag him away from the painting area.

Much of his time was also spent here.

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.