A Year & a Half!

I can't believe it, but it's here - Carter is 18 months old! That's a year and a half (which sounds really old if you happen to be me)! For future reference for my mommy brain, this post is simply an update on what all our little man is doing at this age!

CARTER'S 18 MONTH MILESTONES:

- He weighs 31 lbs. 7 oz. (95th) and is 34.25" tall (+97th) - that's only 3/4" away from being 3 feet tall! Where did my baby go?

- He has all of his teeth up to the 1st year molars - his daddy looked in his mouth the other day and said, "Dude, when did you get all those teeth?" (Where was he during teething?!?!?)

- He loves to "Doe" which means "Go." I will say, "Carter, it's time to go." and he squeals and runs to the door. Now, if only he would be that pleasant the whole time we are out and about :-) The other day, I put my fleece on in the house because I was cold; he ran to the door and said "Doe?, Doe?, Doe?"

- He is starting to say "MEEL" (milk).

- He tries to say a lot of random words that we say. After we say a sentence, he will usually pick out one word and try it....sometimes he gets pretty close....sometimes not so much :-)

- He loves to climb/stand/sit on his Daddy's stomach and back - though he doesn't hold on yet, so "horsey rides" aren't possible quite yet. Jumping off is pretty fun though!

- He is napping for about 1-2 hours in the morning, 2-4 hours in the afternoon, and sleeping 11-12 hours a night!

- When he gets really tired at night, (sometimes) he will start cleaning up his toys and go stand at the stairs. His main incentive for doing this is most likely that he loves bubble baths before bed! If you try to give him a bath without bubbles, he will point to them and ask for "bubbls." He has tried to eat the bubbles - they were not good.

- He loves "sorting" things (passing things out & gathering them back). Packaged peppermints, pens/pencils, small bean bags, etc...

- He knows what these animals say: cow (moo), horse (naaaaay), monkey (oh oh ah ah), snake (shhhhh), sheep (ba ba), and elephant (blows his lips together).

- He loves to look in a Picture Dictionary book that we have. He especially loves the farm themed page. I was teaching him a few of the things on those pages. His favorite is the "taater" (tractor), and he also likes to wave (hello) and say "Haaaay" to the picture of the hay - gotta love a good ole' southern boy!!! :-)

- His favorite songs are "Ba, Ba, Black Sheep" and "The Itsy Bitsy Spider."

- He can play a complete game of Patty Cake now (all the motions - clapping, rolling, and throwing)

- He "blows" kisses. But sometimes his hand doesn't leave his face...

- He loves to skype with his aunts & uncles! I think it's mostly because he can see himself in the small screen, but he talks/laughs/and acts like a complete "ham" the whole time.

- He can follow fairly complicated directions.

- When we tell him "No" he sometimes points at us and says "No, No!" (and then he gets punished for this).

- He has started testing boundaries a lot more to see what he can get away with. Mommy has gotten out her book "Dare to Discipline" by Dr. Dobson and is reading up because the time has come :-)

- He likes to make direct eye contact. If you are working on something, he will sometimes come stick his face directly in your face. He also will look at you and smack your cheek when you are reading him a book to get you to look at him instead of the book.

- He says and does the sign for "PEES" (please).

- He can do the big kid slide in our neighborhood all by himself now. All I do is walk beside him on the ground to "spot" him on the stairs.

- He LOVES to be outside (we are ready for warm weather already).

- His vocabulary is ever growing and changing. I've included some of the new things he's saying in the points above.

I can't believe it's been a year and a half already! I'm now realizing why so many people have told me that 18 months was one of their favorite ages though! He's a blast, and it is so fun to watch all the things he's learning.

Catching Up!

I'm determined to be better at blogging regularly :-) Here's a few of the fun things we've been up to on these cold winter days!

Making faces, and documenting it.

Changing light bulbs & climbing ladders. Carter liked to jump/fall off when he got to the top. Such a little boy.

Taking lots of warm bubble baths! They are a favorite around our house :-)

Toys, Toys Everywhere!

All of you with children out there know the headache that toys and more toys and more toys can bring on. I came up with an idea for a storage system for our playroom to try to get the toymania under control! I was tired of toy lined walls... My wonderful husband did a BEAUTIFUL job creating what has now become my very favorite piece of furniture in the whole house :-)

I got the baskets at Target and sewed felt to the bottom to keep scratching to a minimum. The bottom bins are larger "vegetable bin" style. The labels on the front are small chalkboards.

The right side is a large chalkboard.

The left side is magnetic!

Thanks, to my hubby for making all my "do you think you could do this..." comments become reality :-)

Baby #2 Update

I have done a terrible job with documenting this pregnancy.

This picture was taken at either 21 or 22 weeks. I honestly cannot remember...maybe Kevin will remember :-) Ha! The reason I never take pictures of myself? Well, that's simple - I never wear "real" clothes anymore except for (MAYBE) 2-3 days a week. We hang around the house in sweats & PJ's for the most part around here, and we're totally cool with that!

The pregnancy is going great, and we are gearing up for another precious little boy. My mother was here for a few days last week, and we did a lot of organizing and cleaning out of closets/under beds. By the time she left, we organized every single closet in the house, cleaned out under every bed, broken down our twin bed guest room, and moved our queen bed guest room into the twin bedroom. Carter's big boy room will be the old queen bedroom, so it is now (basically) empty and waiting for the big boy room to start coming together - that's the fun part (to me!). His room will remain sports themed.

The new baby's nursery's theme is yet to be decided, but I'm inspired by this artwork I found on Etsy (I think I may try to make something like this for above his crib!).

A New Year's Eve Wedding

Kevin's Cousin Abby got married on New Year's Eve. We had so much fun celebrating her big day and ringing in the New Year with family!

Carter and his cousins dressed in their best!

The ceremony was beautiful!

We clean up well!

The Watts Boys & Their Families

We danced the night away!

Happy New Year!

Congratulations, Sam & Abby!

Getting Ready for a New Year

Well, as usual, we are busy bees around here. We've finished up all our Christmas parties, visits, etc... as you have seen in the previous post, and we've taken all the Christmas decorations down (insert sigh of relief that this chore is done).

Kevin's cousin is getting married this weekend - yay! We are headed to B'ham for a New Year's Eve Wedding celebration! I have to go shopping to get a nice dress that will fit my 20 week pregnant body, and I'm thinking about getting Carter his first tie for the event (I don't think I will be able to resist :-) He got a haircut today in preparation for the big day, and such a big (looking) boy probably should wear a tie. Needless to say, we are looking forward to it!

NOTE: I went shopping shortly after writing this post...WORST. TRIP. EVER. Carter did not get a tie, and I did not get a dress. We both go frustrated - REALLY frustrated. He tried to escape multiple dressing rooms (while I had no clothes on - of course). He went down for a nap the SECOND we got back to the house, and I ate chocolate and drank diet coke the rest of the day to try to recover. I don't know what we will wear- I may try again later. Probably not. Honestly, there will be a beautiful bride distracting everyone's attentions anyway. Thank you, Abby!

I'm also looking forward to a new year. This year is going to bring some exciting changes to our family, and we are excited! I love starting a new year with a new, BLANK calendar! I found that VistaPring is offering FREE calendars!!! I spent some time inserting some of my favorite pictures from this year, added Bible Verse captions - to keep me focused on God's Word this year as I am planning my activities, and inserted all our family Birthdays/Holidays/Due Dates.... I can't wait for it to come in!!! I opted for the "slow" shipping, so it'll be a while before I get my hands on it (mid-Jan), but I only paid $5.67 (shipping) - only $1 more than Wal-Mart calendars - and soooooo much better!!!

(PS. Yes, that smiley face is my Due Date:-)

Christmas Came

We had a wonderful Christmas...all over the state of Alabama :-) We started out celebrating the season with our Sunday School Class. So fun to see all the kiddos starting to really play together at our socials! Also fun to get to spend time with the babies :-)

Next, we headed to Wedowee, AL where we celebrated Christmas with Kevin's extended family. We started out at Mawmaw & Pawpaw's (AKA: the Farm).

Dustin donned his Christmas Sweater t-shirt :-)

Carter got some snuggle time with Nana.

We opened lots of presents - Carter was totally spoiled by everyone involved!

This is the BEST picture I got of his Christmas outfit that I made for him.

He got a Stuffed Santa - he likes this Santa MUCH more than the real thing :-)

Peek-a-boo, Papa J!

Next we headed over to Gran & DaddyBob's (AKA: the Lake). Carter was the only Grandchild there, so the spoiling continued (who could resist?)

Playing with Daddy.

Carter is drawn to piles of presents - what can I say - who isn't?

Playing with DaddyBob.

After our wonderful weekend in Wedowee, we headed back to Huntsville. My sweet mother-in-law has been giving me Christmas dishes since we got married (for every birthday/Christmas). This Christmas, I got my 12th place setting - a complete set - woohoo!!! Soooo, I thought I'd have a 12 person dinner party. We had 5 other couples over, and had a fantastic evening with our "Huntsville Family." I cooked ham, green bean casserole, maccaroni & cheese, corn casserole, rolls, and apple pie - everything was yummy!!! Here was my table...

So pretty, thanks, Mrs. Claire!

For those wondering: the plates are scooted up so no little hands pulled them off the table!

We didn't forget about the kiddos...they had their table too!

Note: This didn't last long...

They were done and back to playing/watching cartoons in about 5 minutes flat :-)

At least they are now able to occupy each other while we eat and visit!

Over the next few days, we had fun dancing to Christmas music and checking out presents under the tree. Sorry about the non-quality of these photos - they were too cute not to share!

Pharaoh, Pharaoh?

Next, we headed down to Auburn, AL to celebrate Christmas there with our immediate families. We have never been away from home on Christmas Eve/Christmas Day, but we decided to be in Auburn this year. It was a special time with both families, and we got to spend more time than usual with both sides - a Christmas present in itself. We started at Kevin's parents' house.

Carter and his cousins are all old enough to play together now, and they have a BLAST!

Every doll house needs a boy's touch :-)

We opened gifts.

This one was a hit...

Yee-Haw!!!

Every time Carter rides his horsey, he says "NAY NAY" in his most Southern voice - melts my heart. :-)

The girls got their rides in too!

It was pretty warm, so the boys played outside.

Here are some shots Nana took, and I doctored up. They are precious!

Next we headed over to my family's home in Waverly, AL. We donned our animal hats from long, long, ago and loaded up in the back of the truck, of course, and headed over to the Tinsley's Christmas Light Extravaganza. It is in the MIDDLE. OF. NOWHERE. However, it is a Christmas Family Tradition, and it is spectacular :-)

(Note - for those of you who want to call child services: Carter rode in his carseat until we got there...)

Carter passed out Grandmama's peppermints to everyone - over and over and over again. This was literally all he wanted to do.

On Christmas morning, we opened presents. Yet again - there was no shortage of spoiling C-man. He caught on to the whole unwrapping presents this year.

Santa brought him a John Deere lawn mower.

Grandmama & Granddaddy gave him a Tonka Dump Truck - just what every little boy needs.

Again, it was warm enough for the boys to get some outside time - Waverly-Style :-)

It was a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!