Happy Mother's Day to Me

Happy Mother's Day to everyone. For my mother's day present I am off to Mexico with this little guy and mi madre. We leave tomorrow morning, and although we are going to miss Daddy like crazy, we are so excited to see Aunt Kimberly! Not to mention this horrible weather we're having today is helping me to anticipate the warm sun. I hope everyone had a fabulous day.

10 Big Ones

My little man is ten whole months old. It just goes by so quickly. I know I saw this every month but I can hardly believe it. This was such a fun month, Carson is changing so much. Some days I miss my tiny baby but I am having a lot of fun with my little man giving me kisses and clapping when he's happy. I have a really hard time saying he's ten months old now and its been a week! Some fun happenings for this month were:

He got a walker and it was the best thing ever. Grandma and Grandpa bought Carson a fancy walker that we use every day. We take it outside and walk up and down the sidewalks and he moves all around the bottom floor of our house. It was the greatest gift ever.

He started saying ta ta, ya ya, babbling a lot, making all kinds of noises.

Chewing on his crib like crazy!! That crib is going to fall apart, I keep looking for a crib cover. This is one of those times I really wish i could sew.

He started clapping, he gets so excited!

He found his thumb again, not sure what happened but its back.

Still no stranger anxiety. People come up to me all the time saying oh my gosh your baby is reaching out for me, or your baby is waving at me/smiling at me/clapping for me. Yes, he likes people.

He gives kisses, I would say, "can mommy have a kiss?" And then it would come, mouth wide open of course.

I can't believe I forgot this last month but Carson drinks out of my water bottle all the time. He mastered the straw really early and then figured out my bite and suck water bottle. I thought he was just chewing on it until I realized he was drinking out of it. So we share a water bottle.

All the real food, so much food!

He is waving more, he seems to think it means something but I'm not sure what. Sometimes he does a come here wave when he wants me to come to him.

He finally started feeding Josie, which they both love. I'll tell Josie no and she'll move somewhere else and Carson will crawl right over to her and stuff it in her mouth. I have a feeling this isn't going to stop.

His Grandpa in Arkansas taught him to shake his head and he thinks it is so funny. Its the first trick he performs for new people in lines and at stores.

He has a constant whining sound. Some evenings it goes on for forever and drives me crazy!! I'm not sure what is so hard about life but he wants me to be entertaining him constantly.

His first trip to the zoo:

He gives high 5s.

He has his favorite 5 or 6 books and if you try to read him a different one he immediately closes the book.

He is weaning me. He has no interest in nursing most days so most days we don't. He has better things to do, better places to be. Needless to say, this kid does not sit still.

He still looks skinny to us but we can't get over how adorable this little guy is. Every night we just stare at him in our crib and can't believe we made this beautiful baby.

Trip to Arkansas=end of busy season!!

Finally, Aaron has come back to us. We missed him so much. As soon as Aaron could manage a day off work we headed straight for Arkansas. So one of our main purposes for our trip to Arkansas this time was to see sweet baby Joseph, our newest nephew, but we ended up leaving without a single picture of him! Although I did try and hold him whenever I could. I just couldn't get over how tiny he was, babies are just so small, somehow you forget so quickly. Not to mention that I had to share this little guy with is 5 older siblings who are all, amazingly enough, totally into babies. We had a great time visiting with Aaron's family and enjoying the beautiful weather. Life is always busy in Arkansas but we always love every minute of it. We also finally got to see my sis-n-law's belly and we can't wait for their little baby to be here soon. Aaron is never ready to leave, he always wishes we could stay one more day. Some fun things we did this trip were:

Go on a hike. Arkansas (for those of you who have never been) is so beautiful. We picked the perfect day, barely squeezed baby Carson in the Bjorn, and we all head up. We had so much fun. Carson loved it, he was kicking and squealing the whole time. Josie loved hiking too, she smoked us all, as she is in the best shape.

We also went to a festival or small carnival where we watched the kids ride fun rides.

The kids got in the pool, I still think it was way too cold for that.

And Carson spent lots of time playing with his cousins.

It was just so nice for me and Carson to spend so much time with Aaron, we had really missed him and I was very quick to let Aaron take care of Carson, change Carson, wake up with Carson, etc. :)

With Age Comes Mess???

Well I suppose the older Carson gets the messier he will become but this month he took a huge jump. It is so easy to keep things clean with a sweet tiny baby who isn't constantly pulling everything off your shelves, pushing toys around your house, and eating real food. But I tell you what, we sure are having fun every mess he makes. Now our little boy has 8 teeth, that's a mouthful for a 9 month old boy and since he has so many teeth he gets to eat just about everything we eat. He is definitely enjoying big people food but it just makes him look so darn big to me. But I was very ready to be over and done with baby food, it is so darn expensive. My first attempt at making a dish just for Carson was a failure, he wouldn't take a bite but now that I just give him whatever we're eating he loves it. The only bad thing about this is sharing with him when we go out to eat, I try and think of things that he can eat too. I've captured just a few of his eating firsts and you probably won't believe this due to the volume of photos but I didn't put lots up.

Mango was a huge hit!

One of his favorite things to do is play in Josie's water bowl. The first time I thought it was so cute, now I keep it up on the counter.

I had some friends over for lunch and I made pizza and Carson wasn't so interested until his sweet friend, Lucy, was sitting next to him at the table and he reached over and grabbed her whole piece and stuffed it in his mouth. He would go on to eat 3 whole pieces of pizza.

Spaghetti was also a huge hit.

And he loves apples, he just reaches over and grabs them and starts chomping away. He tries to do the same with oranges but can't figure out why it doesn't taste as good. :)

After meals sometimes I have to throw him in the sink to get him clean because he has made such a mess. :)

Easter

It is so funny to me how much Easter changes when you have a little baby to celebrate it with. Last year for Easter I got Aaron a cute basket and filled it with fun stuff for him and it had this sweet card, it was all very romantic. This year it was all about Carson, poor Aaron, not even a basket; but we had so much fun. We made a big Easter breakfast and then looked for eggs. I thought Carson would have fun walking around and picking up the eggs but after he got one he just wanted to keep it, shake it, or suck on it. So it mostly ended up being Aaron finding all the eggs. And well, let's be honest, who gets to eat the candy inside... well, mostly me, but I make Aaron take some to work everyday.

Then we went to my parents house in the afternoon to spend time with my brother Christopher and his sweet Mia and Tricia and Maili were also there for awhile.

And then we celebrated Mia's birthday a little early.

This is as close as poor Carson got to the cake. He snatched up one of the carrot cupcake wrappers....it's a rough life. :)

Then we quickly had a melt down of the children.... just a little proof.

Funny Moments

So we had a few funny moments with Carson this past week that I just happened to be lucky enough to catch on camera. This little guy sure cracks us up and Aaron cracks me up too.

Story #1: That I have self entitled The Strawberry Limeade

So Aaron never lets me give Carson sweets. I always want to give him little bites of ice cream or pudding and Aaron always says no. He always says we need to be giving him healthy foods, blah, blah, etc. So last Saturday Aaron ran to Sonic to get us Strawberry Limeades and after he got back I jumped in the shower. Well I come out of the shower only to find Carson with his mouth wide open and Aaron feeding him strawberry limeade slush!! I said, "Aaron I thought you said we couldn't give Carson stuff like that." His reply, "babe it has strawberries in it." Well I guess since I justified eating these daily while I was pregnant with the fruit excuse I'll let this one slide.

Story #2: My sweet naked boy

So later that week we had just walked in the door from giving Josie a walk when I realize Carson has had a blowout, major one. So I rush into his room, get all his clothes off, and put him straight in the tub. After we got out and went back in his room, it stunk and his clothes were a mess and so I just wrapped Carson up in his towel and put him on the floor. I gave him this bottle that he always wants to play with but I never let him to entertain him while I took care of cleaning up his room. Then I decided these clothes needed to be taken care of right away and so I left the room and went to the laundry room to work on it. Well I kinda forgot that I had just left Carson in his room hanging out in his towel. So I am heading back to his room and I hear loud laughing and excited movement and I turn around the corner to find my naked boy making his way back out to the hallway to find me. I hope you can see the pure joy on his face to be crawling around naked.

9 Months

March has come and gone and my baby is 9 whole months old. I had a moment last week when I realized that I do not write down enough all the cute things this boy is doing. I am not doing a good job of keeping track of all the things I want to remember about him and I'm starting to get afraid that I'll forget. I woke up one night and just started writing down things that I wanted to remember about him and here are some of them:

9 month stats

Height: 28.5 In. (50th)

Weight: 18 lb. 13 oz. (20th)

Head: 18 In. (60th)

I just hate seeing his weight percentage continually go down. This kid eats a ton! We have yet to find a fruit, vegetable, cereal, yogurt, you name it, that this kid won't eat. He loves it all, even all the meat. I started giving him table food this month and he loves that too. Now I've struggled with my milk supply since I started training for my marathon but I started supplementing back in November so I don't think that's it (especially since I worked so hard to get it back up)...My doctor says not to worry that he just burns his calories off because he's so active but I still think about it all the time.

He started pulling up on the couch, us, tables, etc.

He started being able to push himself to sit up. This one took me by surprise because I didn't see it coming and of everything he has learned to do he picked this one up the fastest. He did it once and then he had it down and started doing it all the time. It just made him seem so big to me.

Saying Da Da, that was for sure the word of the month. Everyone is da da.

Waving bye bye, he loves this one. Sometimes when we walk outside he stops at every, single thing on the ground, gives it a good look, waves bye bye and then we continue on.

He is really into looking under everything to find toys or to see what is there. I always find him looking under our bed.

We have broken out backs walking around the house with him.

He loves to play peek a boo with this plant on our kitchen table.

He stands alone for a few seconds.

He got an activity table that he loves to stand and play with.

He loves water! He always wants his sippy cup. He has loved water since 4 months old. I was shocked he took to the sippy cup so well since he didn't the bottle.

He has crawled just a tad but still just does the army crawling all over the house. He is turning into quite the mover.

He got 2 new teeth. We didn't even notice them, a friend pointed them out at church.

He pulls the blanket over his head to play peek a boo and then drops it.

He really stopped sucking his thumb. I am thinking he bit it at some point.

He still cries when he goes down for his naps sometimes.

He loves to run his hand through my hair, especially when he is nursing.

He is giving lots of kisses. One night when he didn't want to go to sleep he was in a rare cuddly mood so we just laid in bed together and he kept giving me kisses and smiling. Ahh, it was a good night.

I started pinching him when he would bite me while nursing and one time he bit me hard and I pinched him hard back and he started crying, I felt horrible but he has never done it since.

He started making a clicking noise with his tounge.

We keep saying this has been the most fun month by far, but I guess we'll say that forever.