Carter's First Christmas

Christmas was so much fun with Carter! If it was this fun with him this year, I can't even imagine the years to come! Below is a crazy amount of pictures, which normally, I would not bother with posting, but I figure it will be easier to share our Christmas story with pictures/captions rather than writing a paragraph...

The day before Christmas Eve (Christmas Eve Eve if you will), making cookies for Santa!

Concentrating so hard.

Christmas Eve with Chad's side of the family, and our first Christmas family photo. I have decided that it is now impossible to get Carter to look at the camera and smile along with us, so I don't even try to get him to look anymore, just as long as he's in it!

Enjoying his lawn mower Mom and Pop got him. He will be helping Daddy before you know it.

My little present :)

Christmas Eve and cookies and milk for Santa

After Santa had come. We asked Santa to only bring a modest amount of gifts since we knew the amount of presents Carter would be receiving within the next day...

Christmas morning, Carter actually going for all of his presents, this was so fun!

Fridge Farm, which he is now obsessed with, good job Santa.

So excited.

Daddy showing Carter how his tools work.

The mess

Look, Santa ate my cookies!

Carter and Pop at breakfast on Christmas morning. We were at Chad's Uncle and Aunt's house.

Another family picture.

Opening presents at my parent's house Christmas afternoon/night. We also spent the night here Christmas day night. Carter is loving his buggy that he opened in the picture above!

Last picture! I love his expression! Carter did wonderful all day with minimal amount of sleep, I was so surprised. I think he knew it was a special day, he just acted like he was having so much fun!

I hope everyone has a great 2010!

Please stop getting big!

I will have a 1 year old in 2 weeks. He still feels so new, you know? I feel like I just had him and I was just pregnant. Anyways, we all know how quickly time flies, but it seems to fly faster when you have a little one. I have been sad about him turning 1 here and there, but mostly I have really enjoyed and savored every stage he has been in, he is getting so fun. He is crawling now and into everything, pulling up, and it seems like he does something new everyday.

I haven't had much time to do anything on my blog because for the past 2 months we have been battling ear infections. We are on antibiotic #4. He is not sleeping well, including naps, so my 'break time' gets interrupted quite often. Carter is pretty needy when his ears are bothering him, so he has been spending a lot of time just sitting in my lap.

In preparation for Christmas we have cleaned out Carter's toy box. Let me tell you, he is in desperate need of some new toys. He is still playing with rattles and 3-6 month toys. So I know he will be excited to get some new toys in his toy basket.
Hopefully I will be able to do an after Christmas blog so I can share some new pictures :)

Oh the difference a year can make!

This time last year...
This year...



This time last year...
This year...



This time last year...

This year...

What sweet blessings the Lord has given us all! Praise Him!

Happy Birthday Avery!

Avery is 1!
My niece had her first birthday party this past Saturday, and it was so fun! Elizabeth did a great job with the food and decorations, everything was perfect. Carter was a trooper and had fun playing on the gift Grandma and Grandpa gave Avery. She was sweet to share :)
Here are some pictures of the party!

P.S. Kevin and Elizabeth are expecting again in April and we just found out it is going to be another girl! Yay!

First Halloween

Fall Festival


Chad and Kevin with their babies.

Logan and Carter, birthdays are 4 days apart :)

The first Halloween activity began on Wednesday night at our church's Fall Festival. Carter has 2 Halloween costumes this year. One that his Grandmom picked out for him and bought (Tigger), and the other is one my neighbor gave me (Spider), so our Halloween costumes were free...fine by me! He wore Tigger to the Fall Festival because he would be seeing Mom and Pop there (Chad's Mom and Dad) and the Spider to go Trick or Treating with Avery on Halloween night. The Fall Festival went GREAT. He loved looking around at all the people and didn't seem to mind the costume one bit. We socialized with friends and family and Carter got some pictures with his buddies. All in all, it was a fun night and we had a great turn out!

Trick or Treat!

Grandma bought me a Halloween gift!

He likes the card the best

"If you take a Mouse to the Movies" book.

A Ladybug and Spider

The melt down begins.

I hate that this picture is blurry...riding in Avery's wagon in the neighborhood.

Thursday, Carter woke up with a nice fever of 101.3. This week he had been on an antibiotic for an ear infection, but apparently that wasn't cutting it. So we went back to the Doctor on Halloween Eve and received a 2nd antibiotic to try. I really didn't even think that this would put a damper on the Halloween plans, but come to find out I was terribly wrong! As the afternoon went on yesterday, Carter got more and more snotty...and more and more fussy. Probably the fussiest he has EVER been. Basically he was just irritated at all the mucus in his nose and just felt terrible.
Well, when Carter woke up from his nap today at 4:00 (3 hour nap mind you), he looked terrible...watery eyes, snot pouring, fussy, you name it, that was him. Despite the cold, we decided to venture out into the Halloween night....
The plans for Halloween included going to Cousin Avery's house and Trick or Treating in her neighborhood. It was a big deal and we ordered pizza and all the parents and KK came over to take pictures and experience the first trick or treat for both babies. After we ate, got them dressed, and took a few pictures it was time to trick or treat....and Carter lasted all of about 1 house. That's it. One Milky Way and Snickers later he was done....and when I say done I mean SCREAMING. So we loaded him up, waved bye, and went home to a warm bath and bed. So that was exciting. Not quite what I expected, maybe next year will be more fun! My poor baby, he tried, but just felt too bad. Colds aren't fun when you don't know how to blow your nose.
Hope everyone else had a Happy Halloween! Now, on to Thanksgiving.

Oh my.

As of yesterday, Carter had not yet found his knees. Meaning, when I would put him on his belly or he would roll over onto his belly, he would stay flat. Not one bit interested in crawling. Well I have noticed that he would get very fidgety on his stomach and move his legs back and forth, so the other day I actually moved his knees up under him and held him there for a minute...you know just so he could get the gist of it. I know I'm a terrible Mother for forcing him to reach a milestone, but I was just so curious to see what he would do! Well, tonight when I put him in the floor he immediately pulled his knees up under him as I set him on the ground and started rocking back and forth!!! For the longest time I was just so sure he was not going to crawl and just go straight to walking (just like his Daddy did), but now I'm not so sure anymore! Above, there are pictures of Carter finding his knees :)

NEW POST below...

Rewind...

Just for a sec, I am rewinding about 9 months and 3 weeks....when sweet Carter was born. This is not going to be a long post, but quickly, if you followed my blog back in January, you know that I had a very difficult birth experience. Traumatic and not being at all what I expected, I found myself really grieving my birth experience. I thought I was absolutely crazy for being so upset about it when I had a perfectly healthy little baby to show for it, and a healthy Mommy. But, apparently I'm not crazy and what I am/was feeling is perfectly normal. I received this link from Baby Center by email and I found it very interesting!
So if you are a new Mommy and your birth experience was not what you expected and you find yourself pretty emotional about the whole thing, this link might make you feel better, it did me. I'm not crazy, whew!

Click HERE to read...