Merry Christmas

We had such a fun, little Christmas this year at our house. My parents went to Mexico this year for Christmas so my family didn't get together until the 28th, leaving the 24th and 25th just to us. For Christmas Eve we had steak and french fries and played games until bed time. For dessert I made strawberry shortcakes and Carson was pretty much in heaven.

Then we got Carson all ready for bed in his Christmas pajamas and he was out.

He seemed excited this year (much more than last :) but not sure why.... He didn't show any interest in the tree and didn't try and open any presents ahead of time. We decided, at the last minute, to have a big yummy breakfast and made a late run to Walmart. Well apparently we weren't the only ones with this idea because all the cinnamon rolls were gone, eggs out, biscuits, you name it, even bacon. So I made cinnamon rolls from scratch (they of course didn't turn out), we got turkey bacon, and luckily we had eggs and hashbrowns. Who knew it was everyone's plan to make a big breakfast???

Well we must have really worn the Car Car man out because he slept in Christmas morning until after 9 AM!! I was all done making breakfast and told Aaron that we had to wake this boy up, I couldn't take it anymore!! He finally rolled out of bed and was very excited to see his toy car all set up under the tree. We had a big breakfast and then opened presents. Carson loved everything he got but really wanted to open everything in his car. (Which by the way was a b-day present from grandparents that we saved for Christmas. One of these days we will have to start buying Carson presents ourselves :)

Josie anxiously awaiting her presents.

Then for Christmas dinner we got together with friends for a feast of ham, funeral potatoes, asparagus, fruit salad, rolls, corn casserole, green beans, cakes, ice cream, pies, jello pretzel salad, beans and so much more. It was a fun way to finish the day, completely full!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

We seriously love Christmas around this house, everyone is happy and giddy and I can't stop singing Christmas songs. Carson is in love with Rudolph this year. He wants me to sing it to him all the time and he claps and claps when I finish. He loves for me to touch his nose. Which has led to him loving the book, "That's Not My Reindeer." He doesn't seem to notice that things are very different and he hasn't shown much interest in the tree but he loves all the fun things we are doing. We were lucky enough to have Aaron's little brother and his family come and visit for a few days before Christmas and we loved it. While they were here we went to look at the lights along a lake down here and they were beautiful.

It was very cold, but very fun to drive around in the trailer and watch the lights. Carson was very in love with his little cousin, Hallie.

Hallie is exactly one year younger than Carson and it was so fun to see how much Carson has grown. We had so much fun spending time with them and I am pretty sure they were the easiest guests ever.

This kicked off Aaron's 2 weeks, yes 2 weeks, of vacation for Christmas. We were so busy getting everything ready and Carson could not get enough of his Daddy since we hadn't seen him for the whole month of December. We were lucky enough to have a couple of days of perfect weather and went to the park.

Carson also sustained a few falls over the break trying to run around the park and refusing help on steps, slides, etc. :)

This newfound independence has also carried over into his eating where he does not need help with certain foods either.

What is he allergic too???

So I have posted a few times about our allergy problems with Carson. After a few trips to the doctor we decided that it was best to go ahead and go to an allergist. I had been against it but the bottom line is, if he is allergic to peanuts we need to have an epipen for emergencies. So the same allergist my pediatrician goes to is the one a friend recommended so I decided to go to him. Well I call and appointments are three months out! Are you freaking kidding me? But a partner in his office could see me in two months. So I make an appointment with the other doctor and wait. Well that was a little over two months ago, no major rashes but we are giving him Benadryl pretty much every night. The long awaited appointment arrives and I go to the doctor and I wait....and wait....and wait. Now I have waited at the OB trust me, for a long time, but Carson's pediatrician NEVER makes us wait. Finally after an hour and half I get into a room and then I wait for 30 more minutes people. If you have husbands in medical school, tell them to get into children's allergies. Finally the doctor comes in (no apologies of course) - oh and have I mentioned yet that you can not eat ANY food in the entire office, poor Carson is starving by this point as we are now into lunch time- and he talks to me for a few minutes, makes some notes, and that's it. He tells me to come back in one week for testing. What??? Well apparently Carson needed to be off Benadryl for one week before testing, didn't we get the info packet in the mail?No we did not. Aaron is irate calling the office telling them we aren't paying to come back...which we do end up paying. Finally they run tests which are really hard. My sweet boy had to lay on his stomach, without moving, for 20 mins and he did so good. My biggest fear in going to an allergist was that they would say he is allergic to like 10 things (which is common when you test this young) we had the exact opposite. His tests came back negative for everything we tested. I guess we'll never know what he's allergic to....sigh...because I don't think we'll be going back any time soon.

But the good part is that we haven't seen any major rashes in a couple of months and last week I found Carson sitting in his cousin's car seat reading the Ensign. :)

Eclipse

So I finally watched Eclipse this weekend. I know what you are thinking: what! how could you wait that long, didn't you love the books??? Well as you know Aaron and I are very cheap. Pretty sure we haven't paid full price to see a movie since the last Bourne movie, the summer of '07, and that is fact. Yes I did love the books but the movies have been a huge disappointment for me. I fell asleep during the second one and don't even get me started on the first. I admit that they are getting progressively better but I had such high hopes for these movies. While this one was the best so far, I cannot get over the horrible acting. I mean seriously, I swear Bella intentionally tries to act bad in these movies. Like she's too good for them and wants everyone to know it and Edward (who I think was very good looking in Harry Potter) just doesn't do it for me. Aaron thinks Jacob is the worst actor but I say at least he actually seems like he tries.... So I have decided to re-cast the movie.

Edward: Zac Efron - now say what you will about him but no one can deny that he is one beautiful guy. When me and Aaron watched 17 Again, Aaron said, "I'm sorry but that guy is so pretty, its sick." Of course a River Runs Through It Brad Pitt would have been my first choice.

Bella- Jessica Alba - now I know she's not the best actress in the world, but so beautiful and could pull off a teenager with the right make up. Also she could pull off a more simple teenager and then made more beautiful.

Jacob: This is a hard one. So I must go back in time to a younger Daniel Day-Lewis. Have you seen the scene in Last of the Mohicans where they come and get him out of bed to take him to prison? He isn't as native american looking as Jacob but he could pull it off.

Those are the main ones that bother me, but I would like to change Rosalie... I'm just not sure to who.... I know I'm a total dork but imagine the possibilities if these movies had good acting in them. I guess I just built up the characters too much in my head.

Christmas Cards

Now some of you may remember how Christmas Cards were a debate in our house last year. I wanted them, Aaron didn't. Well we did end up sending them out last year and loved all the cards we got but this year I said, hm... maybe not, but Aaron really wanted to. So Aaron found this awesome deal on Shutterfly where you can get 50 FREE Christmas cards. Well that sold me. They have so many cute options that seriously it is so hard to choose which one is my favorite. I love so many of them I thought about sending out 2. :) Maybe I could send out a photo card and a regular card. Here are a few of my favorites:

I like this one because I love brown and it is simple and clean.

I also like the font on this one and that is one of my favorite Christmas songs. Perhaps you are starting to wonder if I just like the picture of this girl. While she is very cute, it is just a coincidence.

I love the black and white in this picture. (Again the same girl, I know) The blue over the black and white looks great too.

So it should be one of these three. As many of you know, I have no artistic talent and could never design my own cards so I am happy that there are so many talented people out there to do it for me! I can't wait to get mine.

My Little Helper

So Carson is really into helping me lately, with everything. He wants to do everything himself, but not me, I must need help with everything I do. His main obsession is to help me with Josie. He wants to help me walk her, feed her, put on her leash, brush her, pet her, everything. He even sits next to her while she eats and puts the food in her mouth. I have to admit that it is pretty darn adorable. At night when it is time to feed Josie, he goes and gets her bowl and walks to the pantry where we keep the food and starts dishing it up. Everyone always says that having kids help you takes longer but is way more fun, well I disagree with that for the most part, but with Josie it is way more fun. :)

How does this thing work?

Now where did that dog run off to??

I will go and put her leash back on.

She must be hungry now, I will feed her.

High School Football in Texas

So football here in Texas is a big deal. So some of you know that my brother Cory and his wife, Delaney, moved to Fort Worth this year because Cory got a job as a math teacher and assistant football coach for North Crowley High School. Well it has been so fun to have them here, even though they are pretty far away and we don't get to see them as much as we would like. As it turns out they are in the district of the high school that we all went to and so last Friday night we went to Arlington to watch Cory coach on the big stage. As a big sister, I thought he looked adorable in his coaching gear. His team is, well to put it nicely, having a rebuilding year so they got smoked but we still had fun. Carson had the time of his life. He danced to the band and walked around the stands, his Grandpa following him everywhere he went. He got to stay up way past his bed time and could sit and watch the cheerleaders for hours. Aaron is still adjusting to high school football here in Texas. He can't believe Cory is the Assistant Receiver's Coach. At his high school they had 2 coaches for the football team, who also did basketball and baseball. Different worlds I tell you.

Halloween Week

We had such a fun Halloween week with Carson. I didn't realize that people buy costumes like super early so when I went two weeks ahead of time I thought I would be just fine. I was sorely disappointed to find all the costumes completely picked over...everywhere. I was just trying to find something in his size. Finally I found a cute, little bumblebee and called it good. Last weekend we went to a party at our church and had a lot of fun. Carson stuck to the cake walk, again and again and again, which was just great with me because he then had no interest in his cupcake and they were amazing.

Then we decided to make sugar cookies to decorate and I let Carson eat he beater when I was done, he was so addicted. He cleaned that thing off and then the next day when I was loading the dishwasher he found it and pulled it out and started trying to eat it again. It was so funny. It was the cutest thing in the world to watch my boy eating cookie dough and dancing with me to Taylor Swift while we made cookies.

We had a fun, little Halloween party for the kids that I teach at church. I team teach with a good friend of mine the 3 and 4 year olds and they got all dressed up and we played games and such at her house.

Then on Halloween we stayed at home with friends and watched the Rangers...lose...so sad. When my Mom found out Carson was a bee for Halloween she got him a bear dressed up like a bee. Carson carries it around the house, giving it hugs, of course.

Halloween like tripled in fun this year with Carson, next year, when he can say trick-or-treat, I can only imagine how much fun he will have.

Hugs All Around

Carson is going through a major hug phase. He wants to give hugs to us all the time. And its not just us, he gives hugs to kids when he sees them, really whenever he is happy. We are pretty sure that this is just about the cutest phase he will ever go though. Now not everyone receives these hugs as happily as Aaron and I do. Just this week I was keeping our friend's little girl, Julia, and we went on a walk. On our walks, we often stop and have hug breaks or Carson just hugs my leg. Well Carson wanted to hug Julia today and she looked at me and said, "tell Carson no hugging me." Carson also really wants to give Josie hugs and she is not so interested in his attention so I have to make her sit. That's okay because it just means more for me. :) We will be so sad when this stops, I hope it never does.

Congrats Dick Pierson!

Last week we made a trip to Arkansas to see Aaron's Dad receive a really important, fancy award (that I can't remember the name of) from the Arkansas Hospital Board. We are all very proud of him and happy that we could barely make it in time for the Awards Ceremony and dinner. All of Aaron's siblings came (except his brother in Utah who had a six day old baby...) and it was so fun to see everyone. Aaron had to work that morning so we were hauling to get there, no stops along the way. Then we threw our screaming baby at the baby sitter and took off. Pretty sure she earned her wages that night. After that we spent the weekend in Arkansas, enjoying beautiful weather and watching soccer and baseball games.

Google This:

Texas Rat Snake

This is what we found in our back yard on Sunday night. It was pretty much the scariest thing ever! After Aaron tried to cut its head off and missed it coiled up and hisses at us, I was freaking out! It was huge, it says they can be up to 6 feet but I would say this one was about 4. Aaron went next door to borrow a hoe from our neighbor and I refused to stay alone in the backyard with it to keep an eye on it and while we were gone, it got away. To where??? Who knows but I send Josie out to do an inspection before we go outside since she found it in the first place. Seriously snakes are scary.

15 Months

My little man had his 15 Month check up last week. While there he got 3 shots, yuck! His official stats are:

Height: 32" (75th)

Weight: 23LBS. (30th)

Head: 18.5" (50th)

I was happy to see his weight go up some but I don't stress out about it at all because he continues to be a fabulous eater. We are loving this age more than we knew possible. It is so fun to see him copying sounds and dancing and doing hand motions to songs. We could watch this kid play for hours. He is really good about playing with his toys but his mega obsession is still books. He wants to read all day long...it really wears on me some days. A girl can only read these books so much! I get new ones at the library but we read so much I am worn out on them a few days later. And he follows me around the house with a book until I stop and sometimes he grabs my hand and opens it and puts a book inside, how old are kids when they can read on their own? :) Oh well, there could be worse things I suppose. Carson loves to take showers, he is such a funny kid if I try to shower without him he starts banging on the shower door and taking off his clothes...hard to resist. He is into everything and loving every minute of it. He can throw a tantrum already if he doesn't get his way or if I stop reading before he is ready but overall he is a happy kid. We still aren't sure what he is allergic too but we will keep trying to figure it out! He is down to one nap a day and sleeps about 11 hours at night. He loves for me to chase him around the house and he love to take walks, barefoot of course because we can't convince this kid to wear shoes for anything. He is a very curious boy and he could spend hours in my Mom's classroom at her school, pulling things out, stacking things, and reading books. He is turning into such a sweet and cuddly boy and he even gives "Sam" his hand puppet dog friend hugs and kisses. He hates to brush his teeth at night and doesn't enjoy reading scriptures at night...he tries to pull the book out of my hand and replace it with one he would rather read. Also as soon as he sees me pull out his medicine he tries to run away from me. He does the same when I change his diaper, he thinks it is a fabulous game.

We sure have a lot of fun with this sweet boy!

The return of wheat

As soon as I could bring back one of the forbidden foods, wheat made a return in all its cookie, rolls, waffle, and sandwich glory. We really missed it and so far (fingers crossed) no rash has shown up so I am hoping this is not the culprit. Thank you so much for all of your comments and helpful advice with the rash, I used the advice and his rash has cleared up and he feels much better. In fact here he is on day 7 of his diet, all cleared up.

(Don't judge the pink Dora sippy, we use any and all hand-me-downs people throw our way)

And in other news, beautiful Texas fall has officially begun and it is not disappointing. The weather is amazing and I feel like we could live outside. Only bad news is my bike is in the shop and it is taking forever to fix. I am so upset without it since the weather is so amazing. Today we went to the zoo and had so much fun, Carson loved it much more this time around. Pretty sure he spent about 5 minutes of it in his stroller, the rest of the time he wanted to walk or push the stroller. Then at the end we went to the park and it was empty and what started out as fun on the slides ended up like this:

Needless to say my little man was worn out and took a very long nap, skipping lunch, after we got home.