The last 11 months cont...again...

Carson turned 2 on January 3rd. Before introducing Carson to Sesame Street, I never really understood the craze about Elmo! There was never an Elmo's World when I was growing up, nor a lot of the things that are on that show now (personally I don't even care for the new groove to the opening music). After having it on a few times in the morning I noticed that he would never stick around for very long watching, that is....until Elmo came on! All this said, I never imagined I would be throwing an Elmo bday party. But it did happen. Carson drug that Elmo balloon around our house for two months afterwards until it was a sad, shriveled up glob of blue and red foil.

My attempt at a cake.
This February our friends The Stevulaks came for their second annual trip to the exciting town of Rocklin. If it weren't for them, we would probably never go to San Francisco because it is so far away. :) But I'm not opposed to a little Ghiradelli square. We had to take a picture in the same spot as last years'.
...which is this one.

Baby #2

Yes that's right, Carson is going to be a big brother probably sooner than he wants to be. I kind of made an announcement on facebook already, so now that I have some time I thought I would put it on our blog. I am 17 weeks today and feel as big as I did when I was 25 weeks with Carson. Oh well. For all of you who may soon start asking what we are having, well you will have to wait because this one is going to a surprise. I know, kinda scary since I only have boy stuff. I figure my sister's will let me borrow some stuff for a while if it's a girl. Right girls?
So far the pregnancy has gone well. I was training for another half marathon when I became pregnant and was able to keep training until I was about 7 weeks along and then all of a sudden I lost all my energy and couldn't even run down the street one morning. So I got to go be a cheerleader for Cindy when she ran the race. It was fun being a spectator, which I have never done before in all the racing I have done, surprisingly enough. Yet it was also a bittersweet moment because I love racing so much.
The due date is October 27, which I'm sure will come creeping up on us.
Oh, and Happy late Mother's Day to everyone!

Carson's birthday

Obviously I have a lot of blogging to catch up on. I can't believe that three months have gone by since I have done anything with my blog. My apologies go out to everyone for my lack of comments on your blogs also. That is going to change soon and I'm excited to read them.

I've decided to post the most recent happenings first and work my way back as to keep it less confusing.

First of all Carson turned 1 on January 3rd! I know everyone always says, "I can't believe my baby is one!" But really, I can't believe my baby is one! The year has gone by fast and at least I can say he isn't growing too fast. He seems to never change in my eyes until I look back at pictures and see how short his hair used to be. (It really is growing like a weed and I don't know what to do with it.) Carson is just starting to take some steps on his own but he still loves to crawl. Most people who have seen him crawl will agree when I say that he has invented about ten different styles of crawling. He uses each one at different times depending on how fast he wants to get somewhere. I really should record them all, its hilarious. Since he's been on his feet walking more the latest crawl has been on two hands and two feet. He knows he should be using those feet someway or another!

He's not much for words so we are working on baby signing right now. It's fun to see how much he knows what I am saying also. After we are done with dinner Jeff gives him a bath almost every night and so I tell him, "You wanna take a bath? Go take a bath." And he crawls upstairs and heads into his bathroom. When it's time for a nap and I have him up on the changing table (which is right under the window) and say, "Okay its time for a nap." He will stand up and close the shutters in his room. And one more thing I think is too cute is that he reaches for the garage door opener to close the garage while I am carrying him inside from being gone.

I know he is going to be a kid that I can't hide anything from because he notices everything. That saying out of sight, out of mind does not work with Carson. He remembers and will not stop until he finds what he is after.

Anyways back to the party... to keep it simple I decorated with 'C's that I cut out from cute pieces of paper. I made him a little cake and put a paper 'c' on top.

Here's all the pictures of him digging in.

All the in-town cousins came to celebrate with us. Here's grandpa Bundy holding Tessa, Kate and Carson.

Christmas

We were able to host the Christmas festivities at our house this year. We had Jeff's parents, my parents, and my sisters Stefanie and Cindy and their families. So it made for a big crowd of 8 kids opening presents on Christmas morning.

We used this little wooden rocker from Jeff's childhood to capture the first pictures of Carson in front of the Christmas tree. He definitely felt like the center of attention during this photo shoot!

On Christmas eve the grand kids acted out the nativity scene. Carson was the star, George and Anna were Joseph and Mary, Kate was baby Jesus, Jack was the cutest donkey I've ever seen, Daniel was the shepherd, and Francis was the wise man.Carson discovering a truck in his stocking.Carson was taking a nap during all the present opening chaos so he opened his later on by himself. Obviously he didn't know what was going on.Cindy made these really cute ornaments for my mom out of blocks and put pictures of all the grandchildren on each one. My mom loved them and what a great and thoughtful gift she gave her. She also made me a Christmas count-down (wish I had a picture) out of four bigger size blocks.The view of the mess (after some clean-up) from above.

Christmas card pictures

My sister Cindy was kind enough to take some pictures of our family for our Christmas cards. We sent out as many as we could and some were returned with wrong addresses (which I haven't resent) so I apologize if you did not personally receive one.

I found this perfect picture spot earlier in the year while running along a trail near our house. Here are some of the pictures that didn't make it onto the card.

Carson's first pumpkin pics

Last week me and my sisters Cindy and Jackie went to Bishop's Pumpkin Farm in Wheatland which my hairdresser told me about. It was a really cute farm with an animal petting zoo, line railroad, tree house slide and some things we didn't do like the corn maze and hay wagon ride. We wish our husbands could have been with us but then again are grateful that they are busy with their professions.
I'm surprised Carson stood still long enough for me to take so many pictures of him with the one pumpkin. It may have been that he was distracted with the large piece of pretzel that I didn't realize he had in his mouth until he choked on it and threw it up along with the rest of his lunch.

Of course we all had to pile on the train together.

Eight is great!

Today marks 8 months for our sweet little boy. It seems like yesterday that I was looking down at his sprawled-out toes and perfect little nose in the hospital room... okay not really. Anyhow, Carson is such a happy and VERY active baby. He has been crawling since the end of his sixth month and now follows me everywhere around the house. His favorite thing to do is stand up wherever he is, of course holding onto whatever he can. This makes for many bumps and bangs throughout the day. It is almost impossible to bathe him now because he will not sit still for any length of time. (I don't know why I made it a nightly habit before bedtime because now I'm stuck). At night he sleeps like an angel, averaging 11-12 hours, however naps are a different story. We're lucky if he gets past thirty minutes at a time. He loves swimming with us in the pool and also watching his cousins play. His big blue eyes stop all the passers' by, as well as the big toothy grin he gives them. A few weeks ago he started shaking his head in a 'no' motion which cracks me up because I never taught him how to do it. What is funny is that he does it a lot when I'm putting him to bed. (It brings to mind a comment my oldest sister always says, that they are smarter than we think). Although he grew so fast out of the 0-3 month clothes which made me very sad, now he is still wearing some 3-6 month sizes. We know the day of January three is rolling around fast, and we hope we can just enjoy the daily surprises he brings to our lives before he is not a baby anymore.