Friday, May 29, 2009

Our Garden

This past Saturday, our very hunky gardener finished planting everything in our garden. He spent a lot of time planning out what he wanted and where he wanted it.

This will be the third year that our gardener attempts to plant things. The first year for the garden, some pesky rabbits enjoyed more of it than we did - thus the fence! Then last year we had a terrible storm that came through and tore up our back yard, along with the garden. However, this year the gardener promises to put more time and energy into his garden and thinks we are going to have a good crop!

In our six boxes we have lettuce, spinach, chives, basil, cilantro, jalapeno peppers, sweet red peppers, yellow squash, and a ton of tomatoes. Let the growing begin!

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Playing Downstairs

We rarely take Karter downstairs, because he likes to bang on the big screen TV and that scares daddy! However, there are some days when we need to go down there to get things done. Last week while helping mommy do laundry, Karter found fun new place to play. He discovered that he can fit between the couch and wall.

He thought it was hilarious to crawl behind there and then come back. I do have to admit, the first time he did it I had no clue where he was, until I heard him giggling! It was a little scary!

He was laughing the whole time, and wanted mommy to chase him. Sorry honey, but I'm pretty sure mama isn't going to fit back there!

Yes, that is Rascal's ball that he is playing with!

As soon as he would make it to one side....

...he would turn around and do it again. This continued for about 20 minutes!!

Ok, this picture has nothing to do with crawling behind the couch....I just thought it was cute!

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Memorial Weekend Camping Trip

Last Sunday morning, we packed up our Tracker and headed down to Whitewater State Park. We were so excited for this camping trip, because we weren't able to go camping at all last year since Karter was a newborn. Now that he is older, we were crossing our fingers and hoping he would like it! Turns out, he loves it! He has always enjoyed being outside and he thought it was pretty cool to be able to be outside all day and night!

We arrived at the park early Saturday morning and we were ready to hike!

Our first trail was a little more than we thought it would be...it was pretty much a straight up climb, what a way to ease into hiking for the day. It was really pretty view and a nice (pregnant) lady offered to take our picture.

After recovering from our first trail, we just walked along the river and Rascal wasted no time jumping into the river to have a drink. He loves to get in the water and cool down.

The area around the state park experienced a lot of flooding last year, and as a result many of the bridges were washed away leaving no access to some of the trails. So after lunch, we headed out on one of the only other trails we had access to, but didn't see this sign until AFTER the hike!

The trail started off pretty easy, but then it turned into another straight uphill hike.

After yelling in Kristoffer's ear for about 30 minutes, Karter finally fell asleep!

Sometimes the signs weren't very helpful.

The hike turned out to be worth it! The view from the top was amazing.

Right below us on the cliff were about 5-6 vultures. Kind of neat to be at their level.

This is the view on the way down.

After an afternoon of hiking, it was time to set up camp.

Our site was really neat, because it was right on the river. We had some pretty cool views from our tent.

Dana and Rascal playing in the water.

Kristoffer and Karter enjoying the view.

Karter was a great camper! It got pretty cold during the night, but he was all bundled up and didn't notice. He still doesn't know how to keep his blankets on him very well, so we let him snuggle with us halfway through the night.

He thought it was so much fun crawling laps around the tent.

While we were packing up, we had to put him in the pack n play to keep him from getting into everything. He doesn't look too happy!

After a good breakfast, made by daddy, we were all ready to pack up and head home. We are ready for our next adventure in a couple of weeks. If you want to see more pictures from out trip, click here.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Clapping Boy


Karter absolutely loves to clap. He has been clapping for probably 7 months, but lately he has learned to actually clap putting his palms together. He doesn't make much sound with his hands when he claps, but he sure is proud of himself!

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Birthday Invitations

When plans started to come together for Karter's Big Birthday Bash, I knew I was going to make his invitations and had the perfect vision of what they would look like in my head. I always do that to myself, make a perfect vision and then have a hard time finding EXACTLY what I need to make that vision come true. Anyway, I knew I wanted a picture of Karter holding a number one and smiling. Sounds simple right!? Not so much when you have a very active, wants to destroy everything he gets his hands on and doesn't smile on demand baby boy! We tried on many different occasions to get him in this exact pose and ended up with a lot of very cute pictures. Then we came upon another problem...we have an extremely cute kid and it is hard to choose just one picture of him! We had to come back to the original idea, of him holding the number and smiling, and ended up choosing the picture above. The next few, or thirteen, pictures are some of the honorable mentions. All EXTREMELY cute....










Look...he knows he's going to be 1!!




Monday, May 18, 2009

Happy 11 Months!

Karter turned 11 months on Saturday...only one more month until his big party and only one more month until I stop referring to his age in months! He is such a happy baby and is a true joy to be around. Here are a few (ok, probably a lot!) of things that he is up to lately...
  • He talks jibberish ALL day long. His mouth is always making some sort of noise. They only real word he has been able to put together is da-da, and we are working on associating the meaning to that word.
  • Teething - He now has one tooth on the bottom with one more on the way and two teeth on top with two more on the way. He is handling it really well, but has a pretty runny nose when they are coming in.
  • He loves to wave. He will wave at anyone and is quite the flirt when we are at Target waving at the cashiers.
  • He is also very into clapping. He will clap his hands and say yay! SO cute! His favorite show to watch is Jeopardy, and he will clap whenever he hears them clapping on TV.
  • He pulls himself up on anything and is really good at cruising around...walking is just around the corner! For now he is pretty happy with just crawling and he is super fast.
  • Climbing the stairs is his new obsession, it is impossible to be downstairs with him, because he just wants to climb the stairs. He is really good at going up, but doesn't know how to get back down.
  • He hates having his diaper/clothes changed. You practically have to hold him down or follow him around the room to get it done.
  • He points at everything and wants to touch everything. He is getting really good at telling us what he wants....and doesn't want!
  • He is getting pretty clingy to mama. Making dinner has become almost impossible. He starts to get cranky and clingy around 5:30 and it lasts until daddy comes home. Whenever I am in the kitchen he crawls up to me and pulls himself up with my pants and demands that he be picked up. Nothing seems to distract him!!
  • He is a great eater. He has now completely transitioned to table food and cows milk. He eats three good meals and two snacks a day with a sippy cup of milk at each sitting, and then at bed he gets a bottle of milk. Come of his favorite foods are...grapes, fruit strips, pasta, cream of wheat with blueberries, hamburger, cheese, hummus, guacamole, soup and ice cream.
  • He is still a great sleeper. Goes to bed around 8:15 and will sleep until 6:30. On Saturday, he slept until 8:15 and it was fantastic to be able to sleep in!! He also takes 2 great naps during the day.
  • Bath time is still one of his favorite times of the day. He loves to splash and swim laps in the tub! It gets kind of scary sometimes because he also loves to stand up in the tub!
  • He wears all 12-18 month clothes now. We squeezed him into some 9 month pants for church yesterday and they were high-waters on him all day, poor babe! He wears size 4 diapers, but we started putting size 5 on him at night because he was leaking through every night.
  • He loves to explore our faces and poke his finger into our mouths, ears and noses. He also likes to play with my earrings and thankfully he doesn't pull on them.
  • He loves to be outside. He will stare out the window and bang on it when he really wants to go outside. We go for walks 2-3 times a day and play at the park everyday.

If you are still reading this post, you deserve another picture of our little guy! Look closely and you can see his 3 little teeth! Happy 11 months, Karter....we love you!

Friday, May 15, 2009

Date Night!

Last night we hired Karter's favorite (and only) babysitter, Martha, and went out on a date to celebrate our anniversary. I met Kristoffer downtown and we went to one of our favorite places...

The Oceanaire is a rare treat for us and it was great to get dressed up for dinner.

Dinner started off with THE BEST crab cake ever.

Of course for our main dish, Kristoffer had to order something different...marlin. Kristoffer is always adventurous when we go to dinner.

What's a night out without dessert!? Our two desserts did not disappoint. Kristoffer enjoyed a pecan ball...

...and I had raspberry bread pudding. Mmmmm

After our delicious and fun evening out, it was time to go pick Karter up. Although, I'm not sure he was ready to go...or Martha was ready to let him go! He loves spending time (and cuddling) with Martha!