Merry Christmas!

How awesome is it that Carter's very Christmas turned out to be a White Christmas! Actually, a blizzardly-Christmas, but a wonderful one at any rate!

We started our Christmas celebrations by getting together with Brent's mom & dad & brother last Sunday. Carter got tons of awesome stuff, including an awesome John Deere 4-Wheeler!

On Christmas Eve, the weather starting getting pretty bad. We even got let out of work at 1:00 b/c the roads were getting so slick. We were supposed to go to my mom & dad's house that night for the Granger Christmas, but we didn't know if we'd be able to make it home. So we just decided to take all of Carter's presents for Christmas morning and stay the night at the farm and not even risk trying to make it home. Everyone was able to make it out (barely!) and we had a great Christmas Eve!

It was a great Christmas morning and Santa was very good to Carter! It was nice to be able to share the morning with my parents too! We were finally able to make it home Saturday afternoon, just in time to put away the new toys, take baths, and leave again for Aunt Diane's house to go celebrate Christmas w/ the Bryson's. Luckily Aunt Diane only lives about 5 minutes away from our house!

It was definitely a busy Christmas, but it was great to be able to spend it with all of our families. We were sad that we had to cancel our plans to go see Brent's grandma in Osage at noon yesterday, but she understood. We are looking forward to going to see her soon so Carter can give her her gifts!

So Carter made out like a bandit, and now we have all these toys and no place to put them! I guess we should have gotten him a toy box for Christmas! And with his birthday in only about a month and a half, we're definitely going to need one. So I've been surfing the net today, looking for a cool toy box, and I found an awesome John Deere one, but of course it's out of stock everywhere!

Brent had to work today (boo). I was actually hoping he wouldn't be able to get to work and he could just stay home with us! Now I'm worried about him getting home tonight. It's been snowing off & on and it just keeps blowing all over the road. Hopefully the state trucks will be out cleaning the highways and he can make it home safe!!

Since we have so many pictures from Christmas, I'm only putting a few on the blog, but click here to see more on Facebook. I should have more to post next week too, just need to get them off my mom's camera.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and has a happy new year!!

Mid-Week Updates

Hello friends! Can you believe we only have 9 more days until Christmas is here???? I'm so excited! I love Christmas! This weekend, Brent and I plan on making Christmas candy & cookies that we can share with our family on Christmas Eve & Christmas Day.

I wish I could say Carter is excited for Christmas, but unfortunately he has no idea what it is yet! Although, he is fascinated with the Christmas tree & all the presents underneath it. He totally ignored the tree & left it alone until we put presents under it! Now, he's always yanking on ornaments & trying to rip open presents!

We got our first taste of "bad behavior" a couple nights ago. We gave Carter one of my old cell phones to play with b/c he LOVES phones. Well, he and Brent were playing on the floor and Carter had the phone and he kept putting it in his mouth. Brent kept telling him no, and after 3 times of doing it, Brent had enough. He sternly told him no, and Carter threw the phone across the floor and took off! He crawled really fast, like he was trying to get away from Brent! At first I thought it might have just been coincidental, but when Carter got a ornery little grin on his face afterward, I knew he knew exactly what he was doing. Boy are we in for some fun!

In other Carter news, he's pulling up to EVERYTHING now, and starting to cruise around things. He's also gotten to where he gives great big bear hugs and open-mouth kisses, it's so funny!

This Friday will be his last day going to daycare at Amy's house. We're very sad that Amy's hanging up her "daycare shoes" and we'll miss her lots! But we're also excited that Brent's mom is going to retire and begin watching Carter! Starting next week, he'll be going to G-ma Gibby's every day, except Wednesdays, when he'll be going to Meema Bryson's house. I'm very excited that Carter will get to spend so much time with both sets of grandparents. What a lucky boy he is! (Hopefully he doesn't get TOO spoiled!)

10 Months Old & Snow!

Our little man turned 10 months old yesterday and got to experience the first snow of the year! And lucky for me, we got enough snow/ice that the gov closed all of the State offices in Topeka, so Carter and I get a snow day today! Unfortunately Brent still had to go to work :-(

I think we'll wrap some Christmas presents today, bake some cookies, and make something yummy for supper! I can't wait until Carter's big enough to play in the snow, but that will definitely have to wait until next year!

Hope everyone stays nice & warm today!

Santa Claus

Yesterday, I went to visit Santa Claus.

Things started out ok....he had a very interesting beard and shiny glasses that kept slipping down his nose.

He also had shiny bells on his wrist that jingled when he moved.

But......after a couple minutes, I'd had enough, I was ready to get down!

Hopefully I'll like Santa a little more next year....or I might be like my Mommy was and be scared of him until I'm 7 years old!

Love, Carter

Mama!

When I walked into Amy's house this afternoon to pick Carter up, he looked at me, smiled real big, and said "Ma ma!" It was the cutest thing ever! I wish I'd had a video camera!

Carter's fever came back Sunday evening, so I took him to the doctor yesterday and it turns out he has an ear infection. I'm so ticked b/c at his 9 month check-up, his doctor told me that babies seldom get ear infections anymore b/c they get a vaccination for it. WRONG! Poor guy... So she put him on some Amoxicillin, which happens to be an antibiotic that I am HIGHLY allergic too. I told Dr. Heeb this, and she said the allergic reaction could be hereditary but we won't know until he tries it. So I'm hoping & praying that he doesn't have an allergic reaction. I guess we'll know if he breaks out in a rash all over his body!

Something I forgot to mention in the last post is that Carter now brushes his teeth! (well, the 2 little teeth that he has) We got him a little baby toothbrush and he LOVES it! He even knows which one to grab out of the toothbrush holder. We help him brush his teeth & gums and then let him hold the toothbrush by himself for a little while. I'm hoping he will continue this love of brushing his teeth b/c most kids HATE brushing!

Standing up!

Check out Little Man finally pulling up! (And please ignore my stupid voice)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We sure did! We went to my mom & dad's house last Sunday for the Granger side, where Carter enjoyed his first Thanksgiving feast, complete with turkey, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes & gravy, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. He thoroughly enjoyed it :-) We went to my Grandma Bryson's on Thanksgiving day and Carter got to pig out again! It was sure was nice to see all the family on Sunday & Thursday!!

And of course one of the best things about Thanksgiving is BLACK FRIDAY! Our family has always been avid Black Friday shoppers. Last year was the first Black Friday I've missed and that was only b/c I was 8 months pregnant and didn't want to take any chances on getting trampled! We even talked Brent into going with us this year (I think it's only b/c he was excited to get presents for Carter!) Carter got to stay the night with G-ma & G-pa Gibby Thursday night so we could get up BRIGHT & EARLY Friday morning (and I do mean bright & early!) Mom was at our house about 3:15 am and we were to Wal-Mart at 4:00 am. The sales didn't start until 5:00 am, so we had some time to wait, but it was sure worth it. Mom got two 19-inch flat screen TV's for $128 each and an awesome Kodak digital camera very cheap, we got two Leap Frog musical activity tables for Carter for only $19 each (usually $40), and we got some other toys really cheap, and I got stuff to make Christmas presents for all the grandma's. Stay tuned...it's going to be an awesome gift (at least I think so!) We hit some other places like Kohls, Target, Toys R Us, and the mall and found lots of good deals. It feels to good to pretty much be done w/ Christmas shopping and it's not even December yet!

We got our Christmas tree & all of our decorations put up last weekend. I'll put a picture up of our tree soon, but I want to wait until we get all the stockings put up as well. We would like to put lights on our house, but unfortunately we don't have any outside plug-ins. So, we're probably going to have to wait until next year.

As for Carter updates, he's doing very well! He's just getting over a cold right now. He ran a fever all day Friday & part of yesterday, but we think that may be due to teething. He seems to be feeling great today and ornery as ever! I'm telling you what, that little guy is into EVERYTHING! He's all over the house now, and is finally crawling on his knees. He's discovered that if he wants to get somewhere quick, he can get their faster on his belly. But for the most part he's crawling on his knees. He's trying his hardest to pull up to everything and with a little help he can easily stand holding on to something. He reminds me of a little monkey, the way he crawls all over me & Brent! He's babbling more & more each day and he's finally saying MAMA!! He's so much fun at this stage!

Hope everyone enjoys their week! It's going the be the first full week of work for me for a while...ugghh!

Jumpin on the Couch

It gets really good about 30 seconds in!

Climbin on the Couch

Babbling Boy

9 Month Check-Up

C-man had his 9-month check up yesterday. Everything went really well! He is 20.5 lbs & 29 inches long!! He's in the 75th percentile for height and Dr. Heeb predicts he is going to be a tall, skinny boy! Brent and I were a little concerned that he was underweight, especially since he's only gained 2 lbs in 2 months, but he's in the 50th percentile for weight so I guess he's just fine! She said his head is really looking a lot better and commended us on our decision to not go with the helmet. I voiced concern over him not crawling on his knees and she said not to fret; not all babies crawl on their needs and there has been an interesting study conducted that shows kids who army crawled became excellent readers later in life. The reason being b/c when they're crawling that low to the ground, they have to use their peripheral vision more and apparently this enhances their ability to read. I sure hope so! He also got his flu shot, which didn't make him very happy! We have to go back in one month to get the booster. I'd like to get him the H1N1 vaccine, but I'm not too keen on standing in line for 2 hrs at the Expocentre!

Well, we got our computer back last week and thanks to our friend Steve and it seems to be working great! Which means I finally got all the latest pics uploaded so we can share with everyone!

We don't have much planned for this weekend. Brent is working and I'm being lazy today (b/c I got most of my cleaning & laundry done when I was off work Wednesday!) And we'll of course watch the Chiefs get spanked tomorrow! Hope everyone enjoys their weekend!

A quick hi from the little cutie pie himself!

I took this pic on my phone Saturday so at least I have one picture to share!

9 Months Old and Updates!

Our little man turned 9 MONTHS OLD on Sunday! I just can't believe he's only 3 months away from being a year old...and that he's been in this world as long as he was in my belly! Funny how when I was pregnant with him, the 9 months took FOREVER, but these past 9 months have just flown by so quickly!

We have some great pics of Carter playing in the leaves this past weekend and the weekend before, but our computer has been on the fritz and I haven't been able to get the pics up. I discovered on Sunday that we have two really bad viruses on the computer, so it's getting fixed this week. I hope I discovered the problem before it did much damage!

Carter's doing really well these days. He's such a smart little boy! He can give high-fives and kisses and babbles on and on all day long. It's so funny to watch him "talk" to Maggie! He still can't seem to master saying Mama but we still catch him saying Dada sometimes, and he ALWAYS says Bob! We have no idea who "Bob" is, but he sure talks about him a lot! It's hilarious, he yells "Bob!" "Bob!" "Bob bob bob bob bob!"

One of Carter's favorite things to do these days is eat. That kid will eat just about anything you put in front of him! He loves jello, fruit, yogurt, cottage cheese, and turkey, but Gerber cheese poofs and toast still seems to be his absolute favorites. And he especially loves popsicles....which he doesn't get very often! I can't believe how much he even likes the nasty jarred meat! The only thing that doesn't seem to interest him anymore is the baby cereal. But he's getting plenty of nutrition in other foods, so I'm not too concerned if he doesn't eat much cereal anymore. He's finally mastered holding his own bottle, which can be very convenient for Mommy & Daddy at times!

We still can't seem to get Bubba to crawl on this knees! We know he can do it, b/c we've caught him taking a few strides like a "normal" crawler, but apparently he just prefers to Army crawl! Don't get me wrong, he gets where he's going, and he gets there fast, but it's just frustrating that he won't crawl on this knees! I'm also frustrated b/c he really won't pull himself up to stand. Everyone's telling me not to rush it but I just want him to be able to do everything! If we help him into a standing position, he can easily stand by himself for a little while and he is starting to actually try to pull up to stuff but I just thought he'd be so much closer to walking by now. Maybe it's b/c his mommy walked before 8 months old!

I'm very happy to have tomorrow off in celebration of Veteran's Day. Although I'm sure my day off will be spent cleaning house and doing laundry which is really my own fault b/c I slacked off last weekend! But it was much too beautiful outside to be stuck in the house doing chores!

Hope everyone has a great week and hopefully we'll have our computer back by the weekend so I can get some pics up!

More Halloween Pics

Click here to see more pics from Halloween......

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2067128&id=62904693&l=cbee1ae800

Happy Halloween!

Although our little biker man didn't seem too enthused with his costume, Carter's first Halloween turned out great! Brent brought him up to my office on Friday so everyone could see him in his costume. Then I took off early and we met up with Amanda & Hallie and visited some old co-workers at KSDE. It was great to see friends that I haven't seen in forever! And Carter had a great time playing with Hallie! Last night we went trick-or-treating with the gang in Osage. Little Man fell asleep not long after we started, but it was still a good time! I'm sure next year will be more fun when Carter actually has a little more idea of what's going on! All the kids were soooo cute in their costumes!

Carter, Noah, Kaleigh, Dakota, Ivy, Julian


Let's get some candy!!

My Harley's parked outside....

Carter and his Tinkerbell girlfriend Hallie