birthday party

On Thursday night, we had a family birthday celebration for Carter. Grandad & Grandma Nancy drove in all the way from Lawrence! Aunt Debbie, Uncle Scot, cousin Kelsie, and our good friend Mike Reed came over to help us celebrate our little boy. We had a pizza party and yummy cupcakes. The only thing I actually prepared myself was a salad!

Elmo birthday cake, Carter's favorite!

Scot, Grandad, Grandma Nancy & Aunt Debbie

Sean, Kelsie & Mike

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you...

Daddy helping Carter blow out the candles

Grandad helping Carter reading his new book

Grandad couldn't open the tool kit fast enough...

Cool screwdriver!

Check out my new hammer!

Carter got a lot of nice gifts for his birthday. Thank you Grandma Nancy & Grandad for the cozy PJ's (and matching set & onesie for baby brother), tool kit & new book!

Thank you Mimi & Grampy for the cute Halloween stuff & new Thomas toys for my train table! How cool!

Thank you Grandma Pat & Grandpa Dan for the great outfit & CD with music especially made for me!! What a unique gift!

This CD has songs with Carter's name used in them. Carter thinks that is pretty cool!

Thanks to everyone for the wonderful gifts & for helping us celebrate with Carter.

We love you all!

2-year well child check

We went for Carter's 2-year check on Tuesday. Aside from the fact that we waited 1 1/2 hours to see the doctor, everything went great! He is at or above-target for his development for which we feel so blessed. Carter held still while the doctor listened to his heart and lungs and looked in his ears. He even stuck out his tongue to say "ahhh" when she asked him to. No tears until it was time for his flu shot. We were happy to hear that they should have the H1N1 vaccine by the end of the month. As of today, the hospital where I work (and will deliver) is imposing a no-visitation policy for ANYONE under the age of 18, so that means Carter couldn't visit me after I deliver. I'm hoping that we can pull some strings to get him in there if we can show that he has been vaccinated. It would be hard to be away from him for three days.



Carter's 2-year stats:
Weight-26.4 lbs (35%ile)
Height-34.75 in (70%ile)
Head Circumference- 20 in (90%ile)
And yes, he is right on-track, following the growth chart. No need to worry about his weight she said.

out with the old...

Yesterday we picked up our new car! We have been car shopping for a couple of months now and finally found just what we were looking for (aside from the fact that it is not a hybrid). We used an auto broker which made the process so much easier for Sean & me. We decided to trade the Honda in rather than hassle with selling it ourselves.

Me with the Civic for the last time. I was surprised that I shed a few tears as I was driving it to be dropped off (maybe it's the hormones). I was thinking back to all that has changed in the 9 1/2 years that I have owned that car and remembering how excited I was the day I bought it...it only had 34 miles on the odometer! I have pictures of me with the car when it was brand new, so we thought it would be fitting to take one yesterday.

Our new car! It's a Mazda CX-9 and has tons of features that will make driving two small boys a lot more convenient & comfortable. Not to mention safer!! Carter's favorite part of the new car is the fact that he can watch Elmo DVD's from the back seat. We certainly could never do that in the Civic.

steam train

Sean reminded me that I never posted pics of their trip out to Golden to ride the steam train last weekend. As you can tell it was a COLD day! Sean said the train was really cool and Carter loved it.

Two colors of smoke...one from the steam & one from the coal (can you tell we watch a lot of Thomas the Tank Engine?).

Birthday Boy!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Carter! Here are just a couple of photos of the birthday boy. We really didn't do much to celebrate today since I'm working all weekend. We are planning a small family party next week so I will post pics of that later. I cannot believe how big he is getting and how quickly the time flies by. We love you, Carter!

Happy Birthday, dear Carter, Happy Birthday to you!

Carter turned around to give me a kiss. He was saying "Oh, Mommy!"...how I love that sweet boy!

Family pic before mommy left for work.

Say "cheese"!

Daddy with the birthday boy. Aren't they handsome?!

train table

Carter got a train table for his birthday & I'm not sure who was more excited...Carter, or us! We had gotten the table several weeks ago & had the train accessories in boxes in the spare bedroom. Sean & I were both dying to set up the table and see Carter's reaction to it. He loves trains and we were pretty sure this would be a hit.

Daddy working hard to get everything just right!

Harold the Helicopter

checking out the mine shaft

Just discovered that the signal change lights up and makes noise!

Pretty cool!

Playing with Daddy.

Sean reconfiguring the track for a third time. :-)

a work in progress...

Cranky the Crane

Thank you Mimi & Grampy for your contributions to the train collection! Carter loves all of it! I know our boys (and Sean) will get many years of fun out of this table.

32 weeks

Today's visit was very uneventful. We are about 32 1/2 weeks and things continue to go smoothly for this pregnancy. I only gained 2 lbs in the past two weeks--yippee! Baby boy is still breech and his heart rate sounds good.
We feel so fortunate to be having an easy/healthy pregnancy and I keep trying to remind myself that it is a blessing I can still work...so many of the patients I work with would love to trade places with me. I will keep telling myself that at 3AM during my third night at work when all I can think of is putting my feet up and laying my head on a pillow!
We have less than 7 weeks to go now. Guess we'd better decide on this little boy's name!

news

Carter slept in his big boy bed last night!!! Kudos to Daddy for encouraging him...he slept in there until 6:15 this morning (his normal wake-up time). Way to go, Carter!!! We are so proud of you.

Miller Farm

Carter & I drove up to Platteville this afternoon to visit Miller Farm. It is a working farm that caters to families...there is a petting zoo, hayride, jumping pit, pumpkin patch and lots and lots of tractors (and other farm equipment). The main attraction is that you can ride out into the fields and pick all the veggies you can haul for $15. We decided to pass on that since I already had my hands full chasing after a toddler with my preggo belly. But, we had a lot of fun anyway!! Carter loved exploring the farm.

Picking out the perfect pumpkin.

This one looks good!

Whoa, this is heavy!

Look at all these pumpkins!

Our pilot

Ready for take-off...

The Sheriff from Cars

Mater from Cars

Riding the barrel train...yippee!

Let's get this show on the road

Check out this huge tire!

Taking our haul of pumpkins to the car.

Headed home!