Carter's Birthday Party

I debated about whether or not to even have a birthday party for Carter.  With Hannah and Carter's birthdays being exactly one month apart and finding a weekend that works for family, I considered just picking a weekend in the middle to do both.  But in the end I decided Carter's 1st Birthday should get its own attention, so we had at least a small party.  The Monday following his birthday just because that's the day Kevin had off, unless we waited to wait 2 more weeks.  My parents came down and Paul, Holly, and Claire came down.  We had appetizer type foods, presents, and cake, and that was that!  

Carter sat patiently watching as Kevin got his toy all untied out of the box (you know how crazy they are packaged these days!)

 cake time!

Video: Happy Carter

This is actually from October!  I meant to get this up but videos take awhile to load so I just didn't.  But before too much time passes, you must see this...

1-Year Photos, Set 2

This was after nap and bottle.  I could hardly get Carter to crack a smile at all.  But the expressions and his gorgeous gray eyes, very cute anyway!

1-Year Photos, Set 1

Alrighty, here is the first set of 1-year pictures!

oh yes, I'm taking steps!

haha, this just makes me laugh! what a cute little guy!

More pictures coming!

Happy 1st Birthday, Carter!!

I really truly cannot believe it's been 1 YEAR already {yesterday}!!  I hardly know what to say.  I'm just SO THANKFUL he's part of our family.  He makes my heart melt every single day.  I love this little boy with every ounce of my being!   

Now for updates...

* Tooth #7 is coming in.  Front bottom, joining the other bottom two.

* Cruises on things all the time.  AND can do about 3 steps on his own!  He's getting to be quite the dare-devil and will probably be walking before his next update! (video coming soon!)

* Climbs the stairs all the time now so we have to gate it off almost all the time.

* First sign! "more"  Doesn't do it consistently, but he's definitely done it!

* Says "mama" quite clearly.
* He gives kisses!  Open mouth, lean in, it's a kiss!  =)

* Loves his blankie.  Loves his particular blankie more than I realized!  We accidentally left it at a friend's house, and the next two naps were rough going down because it wasn't his right blanket! Now we know!

* Loves to play on his blankie-- if we happen to bring it downstairs with him after nap, he likes to crawl over to it and stand on his head on it, with his butt up in the air.  (so need a picture of this!)
* Has learned how to play his gumball machine toy--puts the balls in the top and pushes the lever to make the balls come out.  But mostly he likes to put the ball in the top then grab the top and tip it down to look in there.

* Celebrated his first Christmas.

* Got to meet his niece Claire!

* Was fully weaned at the early part of the month, and now drinks 3-4 bottles of milk a day.  Eats three meals a day with the family, mostly table food.

* Naps two 2-hr naps a day, goes to bed at 7:30pm and sleeps until somewhere between 7 and 8am.

Oh, sweet boy, we love you so much!  Happy birthday!!

P.S.  I have a zillion more pictures coming!  Stay tuned!

Snow!!

Did I really just write that with exclamation marks??  LOL  Snow finally came to our corner of Nebraska over the weekend.  Only about 6 inches.  But we got two snow days out of it.  No school Monday, and no MOPS Tuesday.  And finally yesterday we got the tractor running and the lane cleared.  So thankful for our 4-wheel drive vehicles!

Monday was THE perfect snow!  It surprisingly didn't feel cold and there was no wind, so we played out in the snow for an hour before we lost mittens and had to come inside.  The only downside was that the snow was too fluffy to build anything.  I was just about to try spraying water on the snow to see if that helped but then we had to come inside.  But oh, the kids had snow much fun!  

The rest of our week has been bitterly cold, as in 0.0 degrees cold plus wind, so we haven't been out again at all.  But the next decent day and we'll try out sledding!

eating the snow

snow angels

a little red in a whole field of white

pushing snow down the slide

weee!!

crawling through the snow like they're trying to survive

love his smile

seriously, in all the time we were outside, they mostly just wanted to lick the snow!

It was so fun to watch Hannah play in the snow!  She normally HATES the snow and cold and wants to like it because Eli does but usually ends up coming in crying after just a few minutes. 

so much space to play!

Tuesday that snow started to blow.  Love the swirls the wind makes in the snow.

going out for just a couple more pics before the day's end