Summer Time Happenings

This summer has been busy and fun filled!  It's been nice having Chris home from work earlier in the evenings so we can spend the rest of the night together doing something fun as a family!  Lately we've been enjoying birthday celebrations (Carter's big 1st birthday), spending time in the mountains cooking tin foil dinners and s'mores, and trying to make the most of these last few weeks of summer before Chris' last semester for his Bachelor's begins!

Opening gifts, he got spoiled! 

Barely diving into his cupcake... it took him a minute before he really dove in and made a mess!

YAY! 

Little does he know now... that was our big announcement due to arrive March 2013 (so we think!)

 More pictures to come of our fun filled summer activities soon!

Much Needed Vacation

With Chris' busy coming to an end and him wrapping up a few bigger projects at work, I decided it would be fun to surprise him with a trip somewhere.  I decided on Las Vegas and within the next month, we were off!  My family watched Carter while we were gone and no doubt that he had a good time!

We stayed at the Excalibur Hotel.  Besides seeing all of the crazies walking around the casino, it was a fun place to stay!

Chris and I got conned into going to listen to a sales pitch about time shares in exchange for two free exhibits and $50 towards dinner.  The shows and exhibits can be a bit pricey so we decided that we could spare the 2-3 hrs that they said it would take for that free stuff.  WOW! 4 hours later, we were finally on the shuttle back to our hotel with our exhibit vouchers and $50 towards food in hand, as promised, but man alive, you can't make it out of those time share speeches without 4 different people trying to convince you to buy into it.  We definitely would be interested further down the road, but with a baby, we kept telling them we don't plan on doing enough traveling to pay for how much the time shares cost.  Long story short, we chose to go to the Bodies exhibit and the Shark Reef exhibit.

I booked a couple other shows while we were there, the Variety Show and Mystere, by Cirque du Soleil.  Both were really fun!  We really enjoyed every minute of the Cirque du Soleil show and would have been okay without a couple things from the Variety show, but all in all, some amazing acrobatics, juggling, roller skating, and comedy.

We had a blast, but were anxious to see Carter man when we flew home!  He did so good while we were away and we were so thankful for my family being so willing to watch him!  He's our good helper, always doing something fun and crazy with his dad!

Thought this was pretty cute... Carter man helping us while we took the scouts on their service project

Ready, Set, Go!

Here's the latest.  If Carter isn't up walking about 3/4 of the day, we're in trouble!  He likes to go, go, go!  We've come to love going to the gym at the church for a couple reasons.  One, we get to spend quality time together as a family, get some good exercise in, and finally, we put Carter in his walker and he goes to town making lap after lap in the gym!

Check out the wheels on our lil' maniac!

Here's Carter cruising with his Lightning McQueen Car.  It won't be long until he's taking off on his own.  Luckily he still waits for my fingers or something to hold onto before he jets off and face plants... it's bound to happen, but I'm okay with preventing it as much as possible while I still can!

Easter 


We had a fun Easter holiday this year.  We saw my sister and her family for about an hour Easter morning then spent the day enjoying the sunshine.  Sunday was spent with Chris' family for a yummy dinner and fun Easter egg hunt.  This year Tina hid the "golden" egg for everyone to find.  It had $50, so everyone was antsy to be the first to find it.  Lucky us, Chris was the one to score and find it!  He was pretty excited!  It was fun walking around with Carter picking up Easter eggs!  We are excited when he actually comprehends what's going on during the holidays, but are having a blast with him either way!

ZOO Time!


We decided that it would be fun to go to the zoo for family home evening, let Carter look at all the animals they had.  He got a kick out of watching the peacocks and listening to all of the birds!  We love anything outside!

We're loving life and enjoying watching Carter grow! It's amazing how much your life changes with such a little body joining the family!  We love having him in our family; he makes us laugh and smile everyday!

Bring on the Sun

We've really been enjoying the warmer weather we've been having these past few days!  It's only March, but we've been dying for it to warm up so we can take Carter outside and do a bit more with him, give him a change of scenery for a while! So far, he's loved every minute we've played outside!  

We've taken him to a few nearby parks to try out the slides, play in the sand, etc.  It's been eye opening watching Chris and myself try to maneuver ourselves in and out of slides... it sure isn't as easy now as it was when we were little, that's for sure!  

We have gone on a ton of walks outside... we love walking down the road, around the corner of our house and looking at the horses, trying to get them to come to the fence so we can get a good look at them.  Carter loves seeing the horses, he starts kicking his feet like crazy as soon as they start walking closer to them!

Hands down, this has to be Carter's favorite thing to do outside so far!  He goes nuts when Chris takes him for a moped ride!  It's hilarious to watch them drive down the street, mac turtle speed, and honking the little horn every 5 seconds!  Carter starts giggling like crazy when he honks!  Needless to say, summer can't get here soon enough!  We plan on playing outside all day, everyday! 

The Latest

Chris started another semester and it may pan out to be a busy one with 17 credits, but we'll see how things go.  It was fun having him home during the holidays!  He has a ton of work lined up so between family, school, and work, he's got his hands full!  Carter and I have had plenty of opportunities to play during the day.  He lights up when his dad comes home from school or work, I'm pretty sure he likes seeing a new face by the end of the day!

Carter had his 6 month check up a few days ago.  He's plugging right along with his growth and development.  He's in the 75% for his height and 55% for his weight, and 10% for his head circumference... Apparently he has a big body and a small head!  He's sitting up on his own now, which has been nice as he can entertain himself for a few minutes!  

Here's a few pictures of a few of his favorite toys!  It's amazing that out of all the toys you r kids, their favorite ones are the most inexpensive, non-toy items that amuse them for hours! 

Loves his jumper!  He's hilarious when he really gets into it! 

Who knew? Nerf bullet... LOVES it.

Our trip to Idaho

We went to visit Britni, Jared, and Anessa a couple weekends ago.  We had Britni get out a few of Anessa's old baby toys to give Carter something new to play with... Also, it we had their names for Christmas and decided to get them a dancing game for the xbox.  We picked out a "sweet" dance outfit for Anessa to wear while she dances... unfortunately Carter got to it before she did... here's a few pictures from our trip to Pocatello:  

You can thank his dad for this one... poor guy

wh So there's a story behind the girly shoes I had him wear.  We put him in this walker so he could scoot all over the kitchen floor.  The only trouble, however, was that his jammies were too slippery for him to get any kind of traction to scoot so we had to borrow Anessa's old shoes to help us out since I didn't have any of his shoes w/ me.  He was a good sport about it all!  

What do you do on Sunday afternoon? 

Sundays can get a little bit long, so what better than to kick back, relax, and enjoy some juice!  That's what we did right after church on Sunday.  We love going on walks when it's warm and enjoyed listening to dad play the banjo!

All geared up for a walk

We've had a lot of fun watching Carter grow and change so quick!  We're so grateful we were blessed with such a happy baby who is always smiling!