So Not Ready For This!!

This video needs no explanation. I'm so not ready to have a "big boy" yet!!

Last couple days

Carter has continued to move and move! He sure is our busy boy! He keeps pulling himself up on everything - tables, chairs, furniture, toys, our legs, etc Check out that toothy smile! Who couldn't help but melt with this face looking up at you?! Love this face! It's so funny! It also reminds me of a picture of one of our nephews (Wyatt) when he was little. Carter discovered a new toy. He was entertained for a long time just swinging this door to the entertainment set back and forth - listening to is squeak. He also learned how to push his train back and forth on the kitchen floor. He has also starting getting himself into downward dog position (for those familiar with yoga poses) and looking back between his legs. It's pretty funny but I haven't been able to get a picture of it yet.

Curtains

I got Carter's curtain's finished quite a while ago but I kept forgetting to take a picture except when I was in there putting him to sleep. They're not exactly how I envisioned they'd be but they turned out pretty cute and more importantly they're done and they serve there purpose well!

My Mother Always Taught Me

My Mother always taught me to say thank-you. I also recently heard from one of the "coupon experts" that if you write a company to say thanks, lots of time they'll send you a coupon or something. This leads to my email I sent yesterday. When Carter was a newborn he got a mean case of diaper rash. I tried all the typical diaper rash creams and none of them seemed to help. I then started using some of the different samples that we had gotten in the mail or in the hospital diaper bags. One of them happened to be a sample of this little beauty. It cleared Carter up in just a couple of days! However I had to search all over to find it and the only place that had it was Walgreens. Other things I love about it include it doesn't have a nasty diaper cream smell and it's not sticky and gross on my fingers. Oh and of course the previously mentioned that it only took a couple of days to clear him up all the way and after just putting it on once his poor little tooshy started looking better. So my tube is getting low and I figured I'd see if I could get a coupon for my next tube, so I emailed my genuine thanks. Anywho, so I emailed them my success story and I got an email back this morning saying they were going to send me a whole tube of it!!! Awesome!!! Carter thinks it's pretty awesome too!

New Fun

Carter has recently discovered the joys of full on crawling. More and more when he's on the move we see him up on his hands and knees crawling. He still goes back to army crawling when it suits him or when he gets close to his desired destination. We've decided he looks so funny and compact crawling with his big round head. We also have found him lately "walking" along with his activity table as it slides along the floor. He looks very cute although all I can think about when I see it is that I'm NOT ready for him to walk yet!! Carter's trying to make a break for it! I realized a few days ago that we didn't have any balls for Carter. He was quit entranced with one at the sitters the other morning. So this past weekend, with my mom in town for a quick visit, we picked up a few balls. Carter absolutely loves them and doesn't get tired of chasing after them (Unless he passes the refrigerator which he always stops and pulls on the plastic cover that covers the bottom vent thing or whatever is down there. I don't think he really understands "no" yet but he has some understanding that he's not suppose to be playing with it because he'll look over his shoulder at us and get a big smile on his face. He also thinks it's hilarious to try and turn over when we're trying to get his diaper on - he just laughs and laughs. Anyways....off that tangent...) When we bounce the big ball on the floor he just laughs and laughs. We think it's pretty funny! These little balls he loves hitting together or on other things. Carter loves just batting the big ball and keeps hitting it over and over when he has it in a corner (so it doesn't roll away). He also tries to use it to stand up on. Most the time he actually does a pretty good job keeping his balance on it. Sunday it was still chilly so Carter wore his cute sweater to church. I worked the night before so I stayed home a slept and tried in vain to get a picture of him before they left. Carter was more interested in crawling and playing. So dad was nice and got a picture for me when they got home....although it doesn't look like Carter was very excited about it then either. On a side note, the little dino teething rattle in his lap has always been one of his favorite toys. Not sure why but it is.

We have overselves a Pro

Here's a video of Carter standing. Another time he also tried swinging one of his legs on top of this box to crawl on top of it. Needless to say this box has now been moved from view after a couple of close calls.

Happy Day

So yesterday was an easy laid back Anniversary. I took the night off work and Lance made a yummy steak dinner! It was his year to plan this year, we switch off between Valentine's and our Anniversary every year - a great idea, in my opinion, that we stole from one of my BILs and SILs. Here's the only picture I got of us on the day (because of the part, I worked the night before and was a little sleep deprived and never got really ready for the day). So just don't look at me but we both just laughed out loud at how Carter looked in the picture. You can tell he was trying to go for the camera. It also makes his head look abnormally large compared to ours. Saturday we'll probably do a little more celebrating when I'm not a zomby and we both have the day off.

Four Years Ago

Four years have gone by. It seems longer and shorter than that all at the same time, which makes no sense but that's how it feels to me. I love you Lance! It's been a wonderful 4 years with you and I look forward to many many more!

Bit of a Shock

So I'm not sure why I was so stunned by this but I was. Sunday evening before I headed into work Carter was still fussing in his crib. Usually when he's doing this we just need to go in and straighten him back out and give him back his pacifier. Well when I opened the door Sunday I just froze, mouth gaping, and called for Lance to come and see. So Carter was standing up on the side of his crib, first time he's ever done it. The reason I shouldn't have been surprised is because Carter has become quite the pro at standing over the past weekend. He is constantly pulling himself up onto his activity table, using our hands, or his new favorite spot - our coffee table. However, the crib thing still startled me a little. I remember telling Lance, "so it begins." Hopefully it will still be quite a while before he figures out how to climb out! This picture is from this morning. Since Sunday whenever we go in to get him when he wakes up in the morning or from a nap he's standing up. We're thinking it won't be too much longer before he figures out how to walk. Our little jail bird. If you look close you can also see his first tooth which is starting to show pretty good now. We got this shirt from one of my cousins and Lance already had him all dressed and ready by the time I got home from work. What a cute boy to see first thing in the morning! He looked so handsome I wanted to get a picture when we got home....but someone wasn't cooperating. He kept crawling over to the coffee table and standing up. So these are the best I got. He also discovered the garbage can a while back and would constantly tip it over and pull stuff out. So I started keeping it up on the coffee table but it looks like we may have to find a new hiding spot soon. (You can see his tooth again in this picture) And the next morning he was back to his favorite spot. Just a cute picture. The past week and a half or so Carter has been doing much better with eating too. He still makes disgusted faces but manages to swallow most of the food now instead of pushing it out. Carter is certainly a busy BUSY boy! When it's quite he's usually managed to sneak off. This time it was over to his carseat where he was playing with the buckle.

Here comes #2

So this morning I was feeling in Carter's mouth and felt tooth #2. Looks like our kiddo will have his two center bottom teeth first. The first one we saw is still just barely visible. #2 I can't see at all but I can feel it.

Vocalization

Carter loves talking or maybe he's singing....either way he makes the funniest sounds and seems to enjoy making all kinds of vocalizations. Many of them are also a very high pitched. Here's a video of him talking. It's hard to get it on video, since he usually stops once he sees us spying on his conversation with whatever object it is he is holding at the moment. Lots of times when he wakes up from his naps he'll be in his crib talking to his binky like this. Sometime when he's doing this out in the living room Lance and I will just watch him and laugh. He just continues babbling on until he sees us staring at him. Then he looks at us with his furrowed eyebrows like, "what are you looking at?!" and then starts to laugh with us. We sure think he's a funny boy!

Standing

Carter has really started mastering the pulling himself up to standing. Especially with his little activity table. My mom managed to catch some pictures of his new skill this weekend. We loved having my mom here this weekend for Mother's Day. We sure love both our mom's and Carter's grandmas. He can pull himself up when it has all four legs on too but that's a little tougher of a fall when he takes a tumble. He gets himself up on his knees and then manages to get his feet under himself. Today he even took a few "steps" while on his knees and holding onto the table before he stood up.

Important Recall

I got an email at work about this and thought I'd pass it along for those who haven't heard. There's a recall on many of the name brand over the counter infant and children's medicine like tylenol and motrin. You can look here for full list of those involved. http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ucm210443.htm

New word/sound

Lance will be so happy to hear when he gets home that Carter said "da-da" this afternoon after he got up from his nap. Obviously he wasn't referring to the actual person but making the sounds is the first step! I'd make the sounds and he say "da-da-da" right back. Hopefully he'll show Lance when he gets home!

Our little army crawler

Here's Carter showing off his army crawl. It's amazing to watch him, we have no idea how he gets so far so fast! Even when we watch him do it!

New Tricks

This first picture isn't so fun. Sure Carter is smiling and happy - which bless his little heart (as my grandma would say) he usually is even with his yucky cold he had. If you look close around his nose you'll see some red bloody scabs. Our poor little dude caught something, we're figuring since he was working on teething, and his nose got sore from being wiped. It only bled for the one day and then scabbed over and heeled up pretty quickly once I started lathering it up with various things. Luckily the day after it bled he finally started getting over his cold. He was such a good sport even though he wasn't feeling well and only fussed when it was time to wipe the nose. On to some fun pictures from the last week or so. I went to check on Carter during a nap and found him holding his binky - barely. Most of the time after he wakes up he manages to throw them behind the crib, on the floor, and occasionally in his laundry basket where we have to try and search to where they've gone. We've started at night before we go to bed moving his binky out of his crib if he's no longer using it so he doesn't have it when he wakes up to "play" with. :) It was barely hanging on to his finger. A few minutes later I heard it drop. Crawling towards a destination with great intent in his eyes. Making it! He's loves touching Ace and watching him. He always gets so excited when Ace walks over where he can see him. Ace has continued to be a good sport and never gotten after Carter. When he gets tired of Carter's attention or pestering he just moves away to another spot. It will be interesting to see what Ace decides to do once Carter can follow him...judging from how he reacts to some of our nieces and nephews I'm guessing he'll just be on the move a lot! Our little crawler Our "up to no good" crawler Carter does great standing up with his activity table. I had to run someplace so I asked dad to sit down by him and watch him. A few minutes later Lance asked me to come see what Carter was doing - Dad likes finding new "tricks" for his boy. Standing tall He sits with such a nice straight back

8 Months Old

Our baby boy is turning into not so much of a baby. He's eight months old today! One word to describe Carter these days: MOBILE!!! I'll let the pictures of his growth since last month demonstrate: Somewhere in all that I managed to get one of him and his giraffe sitting upright. Here are his stats:

• ~17 lbs
• 27 inches
• 18 1/4 inches in the head

Carter these days:

• Army crawls all over the place, VERY quickly - he has made it clear into our kitchen (edging towards the dogs food area) and down the hall. It's time to get the baby gates up!
• Gets up on his knees and hands a lot but when he tries to move he always ends up back on his belly doing the army crawl
• Has one bottom tooth popping up
• Still rarely will eat any solids and when he does swallow something it is still accompanied by a disgusted face
• Takes 2 or 3 good naps during the day
• Is in bed by 7-7:30 and sleeps until 5 or 6, eats and goes back to bed for a couple more hours (we can't complain!)
• Says "mum or umm" and reaches out for me when he's tired, grumpy, sad or hungry
• Army crawls towards me and reaches out to grab onto my hands and then proceeds to pull himself up to standing (we're pretty impressed)
• He's also getting pretty good at standing when he has something to hold onto
• Great at sitting up and getting himself down onto his tummy when he's ready to move
• Makes friends with everyone and smiles at them all
• Loves talking, laughing, and babbling, we'll often find him in his crib "talking" to his binky or his little bear - we think it's pretty funny! How we wish we knew what he was thinking!
• Continues to be a very happy boy and gets the attention of everyone in the stores when we go out, he's made a special friend with one of the cashiers that oversees the self-checkout at Fred Meyer (this lady has remembered me from when I was pregnant)
• Some of his favorite things to spot and crawl to include Ace (our dog), power cords, shoes, dad's notebooks and school books - pretty much anything we really don't want him getting
• Loves chewing on tags on blankets and stuffed animals. We've learned to watch out for this one since a couple weeks ago he managed to rip off a small piece of a tag that was underneath our living room chair and tried to choke on it - I'm surprised I didn't get as freaked out as I thought I would, probably because he managed to cough it far enough forward so I could grab it out. I promptly cut off all remaining tags.
• Loves hitting his toys together and on things.
• We can sometimes get him to wave hi/bye back to us

We sure love our busy boy!!!