April Photos: Day 3

On our way home today from running errands Carl stopped to get a Jamba Juice. Logical since yesterday we were grilling with 80 degree weather and today it is snowing! I didn't think I wanted one at the time so I didn't get one. Big mistake! Carson loved it too so I made us a batch when we got home for a snack. I've been craving fruit like crazy lately, especially melons and citrus. Carson sat down with his, but decided that Teddy needed the first taste. I love that he has finally started to play with his stuffed animals and role play with toys.

April Photos: Day 2

Today we had our hospital pre-registration and tour so Carson got to stay home for lunch and a nap with Grandma. We switched insurance since having Carson so I wanted to go check out where we'd be going this time. I came home and decided the photos I wanted for today would be of little man's tiny fingers and long piggies. He's playing outside in this 80 degree weather and we're grilling! Ahhhh, spring.

We left the hospital and were planning on just heading home. Then I spotted a sign that said "desserts". I looked closer and saw it was D-Bar Desserts so we flipped around and decided to stop. The only reason I knew what D-Bar was is that it is owned by Keegan Gerhard from Food Network Challenge. I figured it was worth a trip in. Carl got a brownie sundae and I got a fancy banana split.

April Photos: Day 1

It is a gorgeous afternoon! Yesterday it was so windy that Carson could hardly stand to be out back (and that's saying a lot). Although, he has sternly reminded me that we need new sand for the sandbox. We'll be getting the backyard going again next week. I have a feeling we'll be spending a lot of time out there very soon!

The view from above:

A little catch up...

So we went on vacation, I posted when we came back and then I fell off the planet. Let's just say the last two weeks for me have been difficult. We came back from Carmel that Sunday night and I casually went through my photos for the next couple days expecting to post them by that Friday. No big deal, right? 

Wednesday night it was about 10:30 and we were already in bed. I realized I was dying of thirst all of a sudden so I came downstairs for some water. I noticed Sophie, my cat, pacing at the back door. I went over and turned the patio light on and there was another cat sitting out there. Sophie's tail was puffed up, but she was meowing with her playful meow so I thought nothing of picking her up. After about 10 seconds I went to pet her head and as my hand got in front of her face she snapped and bit me. For real. Let me tell you, I've had cat bites before, but I knew instantly that this one was different. I ran upstairs to see the damage and was shocked to see two gaping wounds. One tooth went right in the meat of my palm and the other went in my wrist under my thumb. The one under my thumb was so deep it was just purple and didn't even bleed. Being the smart girl I am I consulted with Dr. Google. "Wash the wound and bandage." I did exactly that and figured I'd just see what it looked like in the morning.

By 1:30am I was wide awake and in agony. Oh, did I also mention this was my RIGHT hand?? I tried to go back to sleep, but that wasn't happening so I ended up on the couch with it elevated. When I got up that morning and took the bandages off (and felt the extreme pain and swelling) I knew I should probably call the doctor. They didn't hesitate and wanted me to come in immediately. The doctor started looking at it and pretty much gave me the third degree about not immediately going to the ER when it happened. Apparently it was more serious than I expected. She wanted to clean the two wounds out which didn't sound like a ton of fun. Annnnnd it wasn't. The numbing shots at each spot were so painful. She then dug the wounds out and they had to irrigate them with a TON of solution and a big pointy syringe. There was already a fairly large purple section growing up my arm so within 12 hours it was for sure infected. She made me come back the next morning with a promise that if it felt any worse over night I would go to the ER. The next morning she did think it looked a little better, but wanted to go through the entire cleaning process again. Man, that hurt so bad and keep in mind I can only take one 500mg Tylenol every 4-6 hours right now!

So now it has been 16 days and I'm still only about 90% better. I had to keep my hand elevated 24/7 with a brace on it for 10 days alone. The pain that I felt was as bad if not worse than when I broke both of my wrists. For days I couldn't do anything! I couldn't get Carson strapped in the car seat, couldn't do sippy cups, couldn't even dry my own hair! I couldn't put any pressure at all on any of my fingers so I quickly found out how hard it is to just have one hand. My wrist still feels bruised, the wounds haven't even healed yet and my thumb gets really achy by the end of the day. 

Needless to say, I haven't been on the computer much at all for two weeks! Oh, and I couldn't even look at my poor camera. Thank goodness I had my iPhone so I wasn't totally out of the loop. I'm just now getting back into the swing of things. I'll hopefully have vacation photos ready to post soon. Here are a couple cell pics for the time being:

Sleepy dude

SpaghettiOs!

LOL - See my arm up in the air in the corner? haha

____________________________________________________________________________

Okay, the other thing is that today is April 1. Somehow that means this is the month that my little baby is turning 3. I've also had some serious camera withdrawl so I have decided to do a little photo project. I am going to take a photo of him every day in the month of April to post, aside from any other stuff I would shoot or post regularly. (Honestly I want it to force me back on the blog-wagon too!) I'm not making any promises that I won't mess up, but I'm really really going to try.

Today is also the last regular day of Carson going to daycare. He'll still go there when needed, but we've had a good 6 month run and I'm ready for him to be home with me. This is good timing with the weather getting nicer, getting serious about being totally potty trained and not being tied to a schedule right now. I am excited to spend the next three months just with my little man before the inside baby decides to come out and play. Yesterday was 28 weeks so I literally only have three months to go!

Double digits!

I looked at my pregnancy app yesterday and saw the statement "100 days left" staring back at me. It feels like I've been pregnant forever, but seeing my ticker today say 99 days is sort of frightening and exhilarating. I made a list of the things I need (want) to do and get before the little guy comes along and I still have some work to do. It is a great feeling to not have a stressful pregnancy this time though. The first time is so nerve-wracking. You worry about every little thing that happens, or doesn't happen, and it can be hard to enjoy at times. I don't do well with the unknown and that was what the first time felt like to me. This time I feel like I can take on any of it and I'm not worried at all. If anything I worry about dealing with Carson after his birth more than anything to do with the actual birth or new baby.

We had an absolutely awesome time this weekend at the beach for four days. I'll have lots of pics to share very soon and all the fun details. For now, here is a quick 25 week photo from Carl's phone. He gave me crap all weekend about my stripes accenting the belly. I can't help it if they love to design maternity T's with stripes!! :)

24 week update

Yesterday was my 24 week appointment. I was freaking out a little about the weigh-in because last time she lectured me for only gaining 5 pounds and I knew I had gained plenty this time. Luckily I came in right where I am supposed to be so it wasn't a big deal. I need to stay off my home scale!

The baby was kicking away and had a heartbeat of 140, which is the same as Carson always had. All our genetic testing and ultrasound results came back totally normal. That's always good to hear even if it isn't foolproof. The baby is so low again too! When the doctor was trying to find the heartbeat yesterday she was looking around my bellybutton. I told her to try lower, which she reluctantly did, and then was really surprised how she got the resutls. I measured right at 24 weeks and the baby measured one day ahead of the due date at the ultrasound. Everything is good so far!

I have had some really intense pains this time around still, but everyone assures me it's "normal". Maybe so, but it is annoying nonetheless. The new fun thing is that for a couple weeks my left leg and ankle have been going numb. It seems to be getting more frequent and lasting longer too. Obviously the doc said something is being pinched in my lower back, but didn't have any real advice. She said I might be able to try physical therapy which I hadn't though of. The back of my thigh goes totally numb and then my ankle feels like when your foot falls asleep and is coming out of it. It hurts and tingles at the same time. I've tried exercise, stretching, walking etc. and nothing has seemed to help. At least it's just an annoyance right now and nothing that is threatening to the pregnancy. My back hasn't been too bad so far so I'm trying to stay positive.

I keep forgetting to have Carl take my picture so a couple times I've tried to do it myself. Better than nothing, right? I'm pretty sure he is popping out a little more in the last week or so because the upper part is starting to catch up. I had to go grab a few maternity t-shirts the other day because my normal shirts were too short all of a sudden! I think I might have to shelve this dress for now.....the buttons won't be laying flat for much longer.

23 weeks

A masterpiece, right?!?! hehe

24 weeks

My crafting bug is really kicking in now. Since now I have a real reason to make some stuff I've been having fun. With Carson I didn't have to buy hardly any clothes for him in the first 4-6 months. My friend Jeanette gave me an enormous bag of clothes that were awesome and then we got a lot as gifts. This time around I went through everything and picked out what I'd want to reuse since it's kind of a different experience. I'm amazed at how small everything seems when my baby is so big now. I can't wait to put the new baby in Carson's old outfits and do the comparison shots. :)  I have bought a few things that I really wanted and then I am making some other stuff. Once we have a name picked out I'll be personalizing some things waiting in the wings. 

I had a few of these onesies that were in really good shape so I'm doing something different on each one. I made this yesterday. I'm really over the "cutesie" graphics in the stores so I'm just going to do my own thing. I've notice almost everything I bought or made new has been gray so far...

My dad gets to come out on Sunday and then we go to Carmel next weekend. Yippee!

Stop. Blogger time.

We've had a lot of randomness going on...nothing too exciting to write home about. On Saturday it was a gorgeous day (65 degrees!) so we decided to take a last minute drive up to Evergreen. We have only driven through this little town on our way to our pals' wedding and I have wanted to come back. It is actually one of the closest mountain towns to go to so it was an easy drive. Man do I love being up there! Carson's joy came in the form of a nice day and a playground. The snow is finally melted off of everything so he was going crazy. He threw quite the protest when we actually had to get back in the car and leave. Give him a slide and he's content for hours!

On a side note......I have been wanting to paint him a shirt for a few weeks. I asked him what he wanted on it and his response was "a hammer!". There was only one way to go (and it turned out pretty cute if I do say so myself). Don't forget about the end of THIS post!

Other than that, just more of the same. 

Here is a cute video of Carson playing Wii with Dustin. This incredibly annoying game Dustin is stuck on works for Carson because he just has to push every button and his character jumps all around (not that he watches the screen much). He thinks he wins EVERY game he plays, but it's cute to see him so excited.

A couple weekends ago the Jazz were in town to play the Thuggets. Ugh, I do not like that team. I cannot wait to plan a trip out to Utah and take our boys to a game in Salt Lake. The energy was so lame at the Pepsi Center. Anyways, at the last minute we decided to find some tickets since it was on a Friday night so Carl, myself and our date-buddy Luke went to the game. I can call Luke that because the three of us have been on so many "dates" in the last seven+ years that I can't even count. haha Plus it was Luke's first pro sporting event ever! We also ended up getting to see Sloan's second-to-last win as Jazz head coach. That's just bittersweet. At the game we were saying there is no way he's ever going out unless it's from a stroke right there on the court.

We did get a single cell phone pic!

Now we have a trip to Carmel in three weeks to look forward to. I am counting hours, not days at this point! The baby is getting more active every day. I have had a little bit of an issue with my lower back already and lots of really low pains/pressure. This weekend I felt real kicks on the upper and outside parts of my belly instead of only internal and low parts. Carl got to feel a kick of the first time the other night too. I hope I can hang for four days of walking around! Luckily we'll have a car so I can guilt the boys into driving everywhere. :)  The worst part is that last year my favorite things were the espresso machine at the house and the local cheese shop. I won't be able to do either of these! Boo.

It's a boy!

Luckily we didn't have any closures or anything to deal with yesterday and made it to the appt just fine. It was definitely one of the best days I've had in a while. The good part is even if it isn't your first child, seeing them in their glory never ever gets old.

When we had Carson's ultrasound at this point he literally slept through the whole thing. The tech kept shaking my stomach trying to get him to move and she had a hard time seeing everything. Well, this guy, not him. He looked like it was Dance Party USA up in there. He was rolling and stretching and it looked like he was trying to jump somehow. This in turn made it look like my stomach was jumping. That was the cool part since it was our first real outside movements and Carl got to see and feel them. I thought that I'd be able to feel movement much sooner this time around and was wondering why I hadn't. I got the answer....I have an anterior placenta again which means my placenta is attached right in the front and blocks the small movements that normally I'd already feel if it were in a different place. 

Anyway, everyone (including Carl) thought this one would be a girl. I had been leaning more towards boy, but really didn't care either way. I was just so happy to be there to see that everything was ship shape. Once again like with Carson the tech put the first view right on the bum and I yelled, "it's a boy!". Carl looked at me like "WHAT?" and the tech was really hesitant to agree. She moved it over a little and sure enough said I was right in what I saw. I'm so excited to have two little boys. At first I thought I might be disappointed or sad either way it turned out, but I'm not at all. I thought I'd bawl my way through the appointment and instead I couldn't stop smiling. There isn't a better sight to see!

I snapped a few shot of the print outs with my phone to share (the prints weren't nearly as clear as seeing it on the screen).

This is the profile with his fist in front of his mouth:

The little tootsies:

And the money shot: :)

In the afternoon I actually got to take a nap with Carson. Heavenly at this point! Then to make it even better Carl brought home something from my 3 boys:

For ten years now I've told Carl I love flowers, but would rather not have them at all if they only come at Valentine's Day or Mother's Day. I don't want flowers because someone else tells him it's time. They mean so much more if they come out of the blue and just because he wanted me to have them. These were such a welcome surprise. I think I'll keep him.

And no, we have zero names picked out. I didn't even want to think about it until I knew if it was a boy or a girl. Now the work begins!

19 weeks, 2 days. It's coming.

Well, I think the baby is finally making its appearance. In the last week I've started to feel something more than possible flutters and my belly is all of a sudden there. Everyone is convinced we're having a girl, I guess just because we already have a boy, but I'm not so sure. I'm carrying exactly the same (LOWWWW, aka I carry a football instead of a basketball), have felt just about the same and still just crave Mexican food. The only difference has been that I was more sick in the first trimester. I think that was exacerbated by the fact that I had a munchkin that didn't let me rest when I needed to like the first time.

Either way, tomorrow morning is the big ultrasound. That is, as long as it doesn't get thwarted by this storm. Let's think happy thoughts, alrighty?

On our way out on Saturday my belly seemed to really feel hard and out there so I asked Carl to take a quick photo. When I was pregnant with Carson I took a couple along the way of myself in the mirror and they look horrible. I basically have no record of that nine months at all. Hopefully I'll be up for taking them regularly this time around. Welcome to 19w2d pregnant.

Yep.

Cartoons and Apples

I blogged this over at my business blog too, but I just don't feel like retyping anything. Yay for copy and paste!

One of my goals (NOT resolutions) is to get back on the bandwagon of everyday photos of my babe. For almost three years now I have taken photo after photo, trying to capture the little details of his daily life. Lately with the new pregnancy my personal photos have gone down the tubes! I see something happening in our daily lives that make me take pause and my lack of energy wins out. But now I have this fear, irrational or not, that when June comes around with a new baby, my old baby is going to get left in the dust. All of a sudden I want to snap shots of Carson all day long and make sure he knows that the new baby isn't more important. Being an only child has given me such a weird perspective on siblings. I am truly worried that I won't love my second child as much as Carson.....or that somehow I'd love it more. How stupid is that??? Then I stop and know that my love will just double and I start crying for ever feeling like my love for them would be lessened. Ugh, these hormones are lame.

Anyway, I just grabbed a few shots of Carson doing his thing that I wanted to share. A cartoon and an apple makes Mommy turn invisible. The more I tried to get in front of him the more he unconsciously looked around me. I love the puffy space-face though!

I always laugh at this face he makes. He totally has the same pointy eyebrows as me and my dad.

OH! And I finally was able to get an appt scheduled for our ultrasound. We go in on February 1 and hopefully this monster will be as cooperative as Carson was at his.

Oops.

So......I'm totally a bad blogger. This is the longest stretch I've gone since starting the blog without a post. Man, life has really caught up with me though! Between the holidays, the monster, the new monster, my business and my real job I haven't had a second to even think about the blog. Honestly, part of the problem is that I have been working on photos so much for the business that it sort of replaced working on our personal ones. Oops. Not anymore though! I'm not making a resolution, but I will slowly be getting everything up from the holidays that I want here. If I keep putting it off though I will miss other stuff in the meantime! I figure I'll start posting again as of now and that stuff can fill in the gaps...

Yesterday we had a snow day. They said we'd get snow, but we don't trust "them" anymore at all. Well, we actually woke up to snow and it kept coming all day long. It was nice that we didn't have anywhere to be and so we relaxed at home. To say we were all tired is an understatement too. Carson has been up by 6:20 EVERY day for weeks now. Carl and I are seriously contemplating going to a hotel for a night just so we can sleep in. That is so sad, right?!?! I've seriously been so pooped with being busy (and pregnant) that I just got our tree down yesterday. Oops.

Anyway, yesterday morning Carson did his normal thing of stripping down butt naked and playing in the bathroom. I've been letting him do this as much as he wants because I figure he'd have to actually pee sometime. Yesterday after breakfast he comes running out yelling about going pee-pee. We go in there and sure enough, it looks like he had gone. We celebrated and cheered and he finally got that coveted sticker that's been dangling in his face with all the potty talk. We put his big boy underwear on him and he refused to put any other clothes on. During lunch we are sitting at the table and Carson jumps down to go play. Next thing I know he is back under the table grunting. Under the table is one of his coveted "poop spots" where he goes to do his business and freaks if you look at him in the process. This time we grabbed him and told him to try and go on the potty. After a few minutes he opens the door and yells for me. I go in and see that he had gone poop, even if it was on the toilet seat. That meant he really tried and seemed to grasp what we were saying. 

Fast forward a while to nap time. I lay down with him on the couch to try and sleep which goes beautifully. We wake up two hours later and I realize I hadn't put him in a diaper beforehand. Oops. We were both covered in pee and there was a pee puddle on the couch. Yay for leather! haha  I didn't get mad at all and tried to change him into new undies. He seemed really upset by it, but went along. About 30 minutes later he was standing in the front window watching Carl shovel. Next thing I know I hear a dripping sound. He is staring at me while peeing straight down into a heat vent. Luckily it was closed, but there was pee all over. Again, yay for wood floors! After this he demanded his diaper and was done with the potty. I guess there's always another day. It at least gave me some hope that it shouldn't be too much longer.

And I have a single photo to post in closing. This is Carson working feverishly to figure out how to hack into his grandma's laptop. He likes to do it while wearing her "sunglasses". 

 

The clan is growing....

I just fell asleep at the keyboard.

Oh, Carson, Carson, Carson. He obviously hates us. And by hates us I mean loves us so much he can't be without us. About 4 weeks ago on a random Monday I was totally exhausted, it was raining and I wanted a nap. I suckered him into coming and laying down in bed with me for his nap so I could get a snuggle moment. This particular nap only lasted about 30 minutes and we went on with our life. About a week later, out of no where, he started saying he didn't want to nap because there was a monster in his room. This quickly turned into, "I want to sleep in Mommy's bed!" Now it has been 3 straight weeks of UFC 222 when sleep is mentioned. We are at our wits end and literally don't know what to do. He cries forever when we put him down at night, finally crashes and wakes back up by 2am wanting to come to our bed. Of course, it's kind of hard to fight at that hour. He sleeps great with us, but this just can't keep happening. He hasn't taken a nap in his crib for three weeks either. He cries until he throws up (just after I finally leave the room) and then crashes on the couch at 3:30. This leads to him not being tired at night making the problem worse.

We didn't think it could get much worse, until yesterday. We've watched him randomly swing his leg over the crib and jump out, but it's like he never noticed. We knew that day would come and it did. Yesterday he was screaming at me for so long that I just left the room. I walked downstairs, went to the kitchen and heard a really loud noise. I came back over to see him in the hall looking down at me through the railing. All I could do was laugh. It's ridiculous at this point. This in turn made him think he was so smart and awesome which led to him coming downstairs stating, "Mommy, I did it! I'm not taking a nappie! I'm coming downstairs all by myself!" At around 5pm he was on my lap on the couch and all of a sudden he was asleep in a ball. I grabbed him to wake him up, but that just made him grumpier. Then we went to the grocery store and had to keep the back car lights on so he would stay awake. It's not like he really is ready to drop his naps. I have no idea what to do. At 1:15 this morning I heard the sound machine on the monitor turn off. I ran out into the hall and he's standing there. 

Basically I'm just using this as my forum to complain. I want to sleep.

We will be taking off for Utah late Wednesday night, barring the snow doesn't get way too bad. Luckily the storm is only supposed to bring 8-12 inches! ::eye roll::  I am beyond excited to squeeze my grandma and Thanksgiving dinner that she cooks. I haven't had that meal for 5 years!! I'm also excited for Carson to get it for the first time. It's like sharing the taste of my childhood. Yummy yum yum.

For a few photos.......On Saturday we took Carson down to ride on lightrail. Carl had the brilliant idea last weekend to go since Carson is a train freak right now. They went while I was out on a long event shoot so I missed out. The train takes you right to the big mall here so we rode and shopped and rode some more. He calls it the "Spencer Train" because Spencer is his bullet Thomas train. 

 It's here!!!!!! 

(We can't find his sunglasses so he's wearing my old and WAY too small Oakleys. They fit him, which is funny, but Carl says he is a woman from the 50's. Don't ask why I thought they looked good in 2003.)

So content after demanding to ride backwards.

Like a cat and a mirror

I have kind of been avoiding taking Carson's photos lately because he flat out ignores me. I know this is totally normal, I'm his mother, but still. I had a location I wanted to go test shoot so I figured he'd be isolated and we'd make it work. I even brought along my mom to try and keep his attention, but it was much easier said than done. He looked at me a few times, but spent most of the time running away while giving me the "I know what you're trying to do" side-eye. Here are a few I did get though.

 

Tanks for coming! Halloween 2010

We talked about what we wanted to do for Halloween for weeks beforehand. But somehow all our ideas just never came to fruition. We ended up going to Target the weekend before and randomly wandering down the costume aisle. Of course, Mr. Carson sees a Thomas costume and it's game over. He didn't want anything to do with any other one I showed him. I kind of just gave up and didn't want to think about it anymore. Thomas it was! And a very lame one at that. The only good part about it was we could dress him warm underneath.

It was really weird having it on a Sunday this year though. Our Sundays all look very similar. 

First, Daddy makes us all pancakes. Carson has totally aborted the highchair and thinks he is big enough to join us at the table now. 

Then there is a ton of football watching, a nap and a trip to the park. We forgot to put Carson's jersey back on after nap time. He wasn't very happy about that... He's really figuring out the Jeep steering though.

We went to grab some dinner and told Carson it was almost time to go trick-or-treating. For 20 minutes straight on the way home he told us he didn't want to go home because it was time for "tritt-or-tweating"! He said he was excited to put on his costume, but then refused to let me get a good picture. He looked so unhappy! haha

I think he just didn't really know what we were talking about so it took a few houses to really sink in. We had been practicing what to say all month and after two or three times he got it down. He would knock, open his bag and say trick-or-treat really softly. He loves being outside with the big kids. He looked like such a little boy out there. No more baby for sure!

At one of the last houses our neighbor asked him if he was Thomas the Tank Engine. Carson said yes and James said, "Well, tanks for coming!" I'm a sucker for a bad pun. It was awesome.

Hopefully we'll do a little better in the costume dept. next year.

Chuck E. Cheese!!!!

On Friday night we went to a birthday party for my pal Jamie's son . I was excited because it was at Chuck E. Cheese's and I've never been. I knew Carson would love it so we just went and played and played. It was a little overstimulating for me, but a great time. Carson even dared to give Mr. Cheese a high-five.

Carson saw other kids getting in this booth where the air blows tickets all over and you try to catch them. He insisted that he get in it, but as soon as it turned on he totally freaked out. It was one of those sad and funny moments. haha  I yelled at Carl, "Let me get a picture before you turn it off!!!" I'm so mean. :)

 

Happy Half-Birthday, Carson

I looked at the calendar and realized that Carson is officially 2 1/2 today. People always ask me how old he is and I never know if I should say 2 or 2 1/2. That's so stupid. It's not like it really matters, but now I'll say 2 1/2 for sure. haha

Here are just a couple quick shots from playing in the backyard yesterday. He loves to play baseball, leave his tongue sticking out and climb on anything he can get his hands on.

We still haven't decided on Halloween costumes either......should probably get on that.

Mommy, watch out!

The monster is on day 3 of his new daycare. So far, so good! I've actually been productive too. :) He goes from 8am-1pm then comes right home for a nap so it's working out great so far. 

This was last night at Lowe's while waiting for Daddy. He thinks he's a battering ram.

Baby blues