5 Months

So I guess I better get Carson's 5 month post up before its time for his 6 month one. No check up this month but I think he is probably still long and skinny. I hope his weight hasn't gone down because I noticed that my milk supply is lower and so he is getting bottles more often. I just hope I am finding the right balance between nursing and bottle feeding. Sometimes I'll think he's still hungry after I feed him and I'll give him a bottle and he won't drink any but then sometimes he's not acting that hungry but I'll try giving him a bottle and he'll down 4-5 ounces and then I feel horrible that he was so hungry.
So other than the milk drama, and well the daylight savings drama, his 5th month was a lot of fun. He has gotten so much more interactive and we are having so much fun with our cuddly, happy boy. That laugh continues to be the joy of our lives.

Major things this month:

Rolling over all the way.

Major obsession with his feet, grabbing them, pulling off his socks, holding on to them, its an obsession.

Sleeping more, and by more I mean taking less naps but for longer. Yea!

He's my little thumb sucker, during everything! We went through a major phase of thumb sucking while nursing.

He loves to reach out and touch our faces, especially our mouths. I was feeding Carson in our bed during his early morning feeding (which I haven't been able to get him to drop! he still wakes up around 5 to eat and then goes back to sleep for another few hours...) and I was tired and thinking in my head how do I drop this feeding...and we were laying down and I was half awake, half asleep and then all of the sudden I feel this sweet, tiny hand reach up and rest on my cheek. I look down and sweet Carson is looking up at me and holding my cheek in his tiny hand and then he just closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep. I love this boy.

He loves to play Peek A Boo, he just thinks its pretty funny.

He is playing with Josie a lot, he gets excited when she comes running in the room and he wants to reach out and touch her.

His favorite toys are his exersaucer, his Johnny Jump Up, and he is finally enjoying his swing. I wish it wasn't so cold and I would take him to the park to swing.

He still loves bathtime with his daddy, although dad wasn't home as much this month, and reading stories with us. I checked out this book from the library where this baby learns all these funny sounds and he REALLY loved that one.

November was a fun month but I can't wait for his 6 month post (hint: food, sitting up, and darling new noises)

Christmas Shots

A friend of mine is getting into photography and she offered to take some pictures of our little family for Christmas, we were so excited! Here are a few of our favorites. I had to wake Carson up from his nap to get there and so he was pretty calm the whole time but we still got a few of his smile. Now I am trying desperatley to convince Aaron to let me send out Christmas cards this year but he is being so tight! So if you think the Piersons should send out a Christmas card please leave a comment so Aaron will see how much people love getting them. :) But if I have to choose between sending out Christmas cards and being able to buy my 3 month supply of peppermint ice cream before they take it away again....I don't know what I'll do.

I looked out the window...

and saw this going on outside our house. Now I know it only lasted about 15 minutes but oh it was so beautiful while it lasted. I kept telling Carson that this might be the only time he sees snow this year. I wanted to get a picture of him in it but it was gone too fast. We were so giddy getting ready in our house that morning with thoughts of hot chocolate and burning fireplaces dancing in our heads. Now we love warm weather in this house but who doesn't dream of a little snow for Christmas???

Grateful

This Thanksgiving I am especially grateful because I have a beautiful, healthy baby boy and a fabulous husband who I love more than anything. This year has been one full of blessings, from buying our new house, to great labor and delivery, to making it through 3 rounds of lay offs, to making wonderful new friends to spend Thanksgiving with. This was our first year to do Thanksgiving with friends and we had a great time. I hope that you all had a wonderful day filled with family, food, and fun!

Advice

Now trust me, I know, when you have a baby you need to be ready to take in advice, LOTS of it. I was fully prepared for this and welcomed it since I had no idea what I was doing. I also planned ahead to just take it in stride and know that there are many different parenting styles that work well and each person probably feels their way was the best. I have many times, let the "this is how you should hold your baby", " he's hungry", "oh you should feed him like this", comments roll right off my back. I even took it from people who don't have any babies, babies younger than Carson, Aunts, men, etc. You get the idea. But now that I've got Carson on a schedule I love, he sleeps great, he's a fabulous eater, I've read tons of books, I feel more confident, kinda like I know what I'm doing a little. Don't get me wrong, I still call my Mom all the time asking questions, I worry about my milk supply, and I'm a regular looking stuff up on Google; but when I have questions I ask. So...random lady in the hospital telling me my son is so hungry, look how he's sucking on his fist so hard, you should really feed him- thanks but he sucks on his fist all the time, I know when he is hungry. And british woman in REI who told me and Aaron to take Carson's carseat off the basket this weekend- pretty sure he's safe in there buckled and latched in.

I mean geez, didn't these women see my husband? Obviously I make very good decisions. :)

I'm So Glad When...

Daddy comes home.

Both Carson and I sure get excited when Aaron gets home from work everyday. In fact we spend a lot of our evenings counting down the hours together until he is coming home. Aaron works long hours and we are so grateful for how hard he works. On the nights that he gets home in time to see Carson before he goes to sleep Aaron rushes in and plays with Carson, gives him his bath, and then gets him all ready for bed. Which is why we love the weekends so much when we get to spend every second with him. Especially weekends like this one when the weather was seriously perfect.

I sure love my boys.

Night Out

On Tuesday night Aaron and I went to the Mavericks game to see them play the Jazz. (Thanks Cory!) Its always so funny going to this game with Aaron because he cheers for the Jazz and people turn around and look at him the whole game. It was really fun and we had great seats. We actually sat in chairs and it was so nice. (Not the chairs on the floor, just to clarify) We took the train in and so we had to leave early to get back to our sweet babe but apparently the end of the 4th quarter was the greatest in Mavs history...it would be. While we were out, Carson stayed with our good friends the Madsens who had a little boy just a few days before Carson was born. Rob and Julie got some adorable pictures of the boys. It is so nice to know that your child is in such good hands. These boys are going to have so much fun growing up together. When they put the boys on the blanket together they held hands, how precious is that?!?

4 Months

Gosh I can't believe, 4 months come and gone. Carson is already in his 5th month and changing so much all the time. I already did a post with many of the major things that happened with this little cutie this month but here it all is again because this is where I keep track of everything for my scrapbook. Some day I will catch up on his scrapbook....

His stats:

Weight - 14 lb. 7oz. (50th)

Height - 26 In. (90th)

Head - 16.5In (50th)

He started to really reach out and grab things and understand that if he saw something he wanted he could reach out and get it.

He started to kicked things and try and knock them over.

He is finding his fingers more and more and of course, wants that thumb every second.

He is talking all the time. He seems to go through major phases where he is obsessed with a particular sound and then moves on a week later. This month he went through this loud ah, ah, ah phase and it was loud. He also did the sputtering with his lips for awhile. Now he does this deep breathing thing.

He rolled over and learned to roll back, making tummy time hard because he just rolls himself over to his back..

He had his first laugh. His oh so adorable laugh. I love it.

He began sleeping in his nursery.

He is putting everything in his mouth.

He loves to grab his feet.

His favorite part of the day is still his bath with his dad and he cracks up laughing every, single night when we take his clothes off to get in the tub.

Still not much hair but he is still darn cute.

He takes the bottle half the time.

And the best part is...He is starting to look more like his mama, I love it.

And me, 4 months later... well I sneezed the other day and thought.. "that didn't hurt that bad, maybe I am getting some stomach muscle back." :)

Halloween Festivities!

So first of all, I have been having so much fun looking at everyone's blogs with all the adorable Halloween pictures. Seriously, I was giddy to get on the computer this morning and check them all out. What cute kids my friends and family have.

We had a very fun Halloween, I can't believe how much more fun it is when you have a child to dress up. (Well since I can never get Aaron to dress up, Carson didn't have much of a choice) We were pretty busy the whole weekend. On Friday we went to the party at Deloitte at the downtown office. Carson is still pretty young to do much but we took fun pictures and he did take home the gold medal in the costume contest. (Which I'm a horrible mother because I wasn't even paying attention) Then we went straight to ward trunk or treat in Arlington with my parents and Tricia and Maili. We had so much fun down there seeing our friends in Arlington. Saturday we had a neighborhood party with BBQ and music. Then on Halloween night it was pretty normal. Aaron had a meeting for church and I stayed at home with Carson. We had much less trick or treaters than I had anticipated, thus we have so much leftover candy. I am planning on making candy cookies, brownies, and milkshakes until its all gone. We were totally spoiled with fabulous weather all weekend and have loved every minutes of going on walks and to the park. Here are some pictures of my little pumpkin.

Do You Ever...

Realize that you have one more week left in the month and 10 dollars left in your food budget? Then start thinking, how many meals can I make out of tuna, and peanut butter and jelly...

And then think about how you should have a better food storage but you don't...

And then you remember that its Halloween and you need to buy more candy because there are like a billion kids in your neighborhood...(This also needs to come from the food budget)

But then you realize it all doesn't matter because you don't have any gas in your car to get to the store and your gas budget is all used up too?!?

Hm...maybe its just me. :)

(OH and before you start feeling sorry for me, please note that there are 3 different kinds of Blue Bell ice cream containers in my freezer, we all choose what to spend our money on people:)

And here's a little Halloween sneak preview:

What a Week

Do you ever have times where you look at your babies and think, "You cannot possibly be growing up this fast!" I mean I know Carson is only three months old, but it is flying by. I just can't get over how big my sweet angel boy is getting. This was a BIG week for Carson.

So he has been talking so much but he gets so camera shy. So here is a video of about 5 seconds of talking and then 2 minutes of me trying, unsuccessfully, to get him to talk again.

Saturday morning I decided it was time for Carson to move to his room. So that was motivation for me to get the nursery all finished and move everything in there so then I was committed. It was hard for us to move him out of our room. We loved having him asleep right next to us and knowing he was okay but he was outgrowing his cradle and every little noise was waking me up. So he is now in his own room, Aaron wanted to sleep on the floor next to his crib the first night just to make sure he was okay.

Here are pictures of the completed nursery. I have so many people to thank for this nursery.

1- Ikea, thank you for making furniture that is cute and affordable.

2- Stranger who left this dresser on the side of the road where we could take it for free. We then refinished it, painted it, and Aaron put new knobs on it and I think it looks great.

3- The authors of so many books that I did not purchase. I would go up to Hobby Lobby read about cute ideas, like making the letters with his name, then go home and do it. Then go back to Hobby Lobby to re-read the sections when I had questions. (I live like 2 mins from Hobby Lobby)

4- The resale shop, for the changing table, laundry basket, and so many other things.

5- Ambyr Porter- for the bedding and rug under his crib. Everyone loves it. Although I don't really have his bedding set up because they say to wait on the bumper pads. Also for photographing baby Carson, that's where most of the pictures in our house came from.

6- Aaron for painting the nursery, hanging everything up in the nursery, putting up with me changing my mind a hundred times in the nursery, and well, paying for the nursery. :)

Then on Saturday afternoon while I was working in Carson's room, I turn around and there he is...rolling over!! My little baby rolling over. I just about died. I went and found the camera and sure enough he did it again for the camera. Aaron was so upset because he did something on a Saturday when Aaron was home and he had gone to the gym. But he did it again for Aaron when he got home. I know in this video I'm saying good job because that's what my book says to do, but in my heart I'm crying. I'm just not ready for my baby to get bigger.

He's finally able to find his thumb. He has been obsessed with his fist and occasionally found fingers but now he's got that thumb. He cries when he losses it. All of my efforts to make him a pacifier baby are gone. Now that he's got that thumb, the pacifier has gone from, "No thanks Mom, I'd rather not take it" to "As If".

And then my favorite of the week, I told you this has been a big week, just happened last night. some of my family has been in town and everyone came over to our house for dinner and I was saying how Carson was squealing a lot but not really laughing. So I'm cooking and my Mom is playing with him and all the sudden he starts just laughing, laughing. I couldn't believe it. He just thought she was so funny. So I grabbed the camera and got a little bit of it. Aaron was, of course, at work but he must've watched this video 25 times last night.

On The Road Again

So Carson made it through his second official road trip. The first one we went to visit my grandparents in New Mexico. (Mom, I need those pictures they are all on your camera) And we just got back from visiting Aaron's family in Arkansas. This was one of our best trips to Arkansas, we had so much fun. The weather was unbelievable. Aaron played golf with his Dad and brothers, we went to the park, went on walks, stayed up late, ate fabulous food, I got to run with my sisters in law, and just hang out. Carson was great and seemed just great in the pack-n-play.

Just a few pictures of the trip:

Carson reading and playing with his Aunt Marcie and cousin Scott

You didn't think we left Jo Jo behind, we had missed the sun shineSweet
Ana GraceLindsey and Carson, she's 20 weeks pregnant with her 6th

I'm shocked I have a picture of my mother in law since I saw her a combined total of like 45 minutes the whole week. This woman teaches more Yoga classes than you can imagine. I love this picture because Parker came running in the room, saying baby Carson, baby Carson. Scott loved holding Carson. He is a good big brother. I love this picture because doesn't it look like these two kids are Spencer and Kellie's and this is their beautiful little family? When actually its two kids from two different families...ha, ha I can't wait for you guys to have kids! I'm so happy that Carson has so many cousins that he will grow up with. I love that we both come from big families.