No More Naps?

Carson has been rebelling against naps. What has once been my reprieve during the day, time to get a few things done is being taken away from me. At first the naps went from 2 hours to an hour and a half and down to a little over an hour and now they're being resisted all together. At least most days they are. There is an occasional day that he still naps but that seems the exception rather than the norm now. In fact, check out these pictures from today. I went into his room during "nap time" to see what all the commotion was to find this mess. I guess that's the downfall of a big-boy bed. He hasn't ever gotten up before recently and now he's taking full advantage of the fact that he can!

The days are seeming to move slow and I'm counting down the days until the pools open up and we can get out of the house and go swimming or to the Y and use the splash pad. Carson asks to go swimming often and I don't love swimming at the Y because the water is so shallow that I get soooo cold sitting in the shallow end with Carson. It will nice to be able to be outside in the sun while in the shallow water. I imagine that will help keep me warm.

Carson and I walked in the March of Dimes walk on the 9th. My high school best friend had 2 preemies so it's a cause that I feel strongly about. It was a cool day but no rain and it was perfect for walking. I walked with a good friend of mine and her 2 year old. I was surprised at how many people there were.

Carson also had his first experience jumping in a 'bounce-house' he had a birthday party to go to. It was really too bad that it was a cold/rainy day. They didn't get nearly the use out of the bounce house that they could have. We had to practically drag him kicking and screaming out of there but it was so cold and it was raining so it was wet inside there. He absolutely loved it though. It makes me wish he had a summer birthday so we could have a reason to rent one. Well, in Hawaii he'll have a 'summer' birthday so I'm sure we can work that out! :)

Dave mentioned that won't have details on our actual move date until sometime in October. I know that sounds far away now but the summer is going to fly by. I'm already looking forward to the State Fair. It's nice to be home this summer and I can go with Carson during the week instead of having to go on the weekend. It's always packed but so much more so on the weekends. My girlfriend Kate already has requested her State Fair days off work so we'll take the kids and eat as much food as possible since that is always the goal of the State Fair!Well I'll leave you with a few of the bounce-house pictures and I'll be back to update you all again soon!

Happy Tuesday

I woke up today thinking it was Wednesday or Thursday. I hate that reality check...blech! At least it's nice weather out...finally. I still feel like it's spring since the weather has been so icky and rainy and cold, but in reality it's mid-June! How crazy is that?

Carson's Dr. appointment went really well on Friday. He's super healthy and growing right on track. No shots for him, actually no shots until he is 5 besides flu shots so that is good news for me...well him too! Haha. So we don't have to go back until he's 2! Wow it's crazy. The only way we could keep him occupied during the wait for the doctor was to feed him goldfish and allow him to touch and play with anything he could reach. Haha. After the appointment, we went out to Minnehaha Falls for a picnic with the Navy people that Dave works with. It was a bit too windy but still very nice out. It was the first time in a long time that I've been out there and the river was so high and the Falls were beautiful.


Sunday we went to the cabin to celebrate Father's Day. It was just a beautiful day out. We finally we got to go out on the pontoon, something I've been waiting to do for a few years. I was actually panicked! Haha, Luckily for all of us Steve is an excellent pontoon driver! Carson was a little bit tired so there was some meltdowns but he was actually really good when he could sit on Steve's lap and honk the horn. The daycare lady had picked him up a life jacket and he looked so cute!

Well that is my picture-tastic update. I have even more because I took about a bazillion pictures this weekend. I'll make sure and update again soon so that I can post some of my other ones. They turned out great.

Oh...actually speaking of pictures. I got asked today to take pictures at our company summer outing in July. I accepted and immediately thought I was going to throw up. I'm so nervous but it will be good for me. Talk to you all soon!

Loss

At my follow up ultrasound on Friday I was told that they baby's heart was no longer beating.  It had stopped a few days prior.  We're all doing ok, as I understand that these things can happen early on and usually there is a very good reason chromosomal or whatever.

Not sure what the plan is yet...at this point I'm not quite ready for a do-over.  The first few months of pregnancy are full of enough uncertainties, that I can't imagine going through that with the weight of this as well.  I will say that any future pregnancy announcement will come well beyond the danger zone of the first trimester.  So don't be surprised if one day I'm like 20 weeks pregnant and we didn't tell anyone!! Haha, we probably won't wait that long but we will definitely wait longer than we did.

I think the hardest part is telling people.  Especially because they don't know what to say.  Well, I'll let you all know, as much as it sucks and as sad as it is, I'm OK.  I'm handling it very well because I know it's nothing I did or didn't do and at this point it just wasn't meant to be.

We will add to our family when the time is right.  I'm not sure what this will mean as far as when we are supposed to leave.  We have another request in for a 12 month extension but if that does not go through then we may be leaving in December.  We will of course keep everyone updated as soon as we know anything more.

For now, I will leave you with a picture of the BEST mood lifter ever! 

Rainy Days

I'm getting sick of the rainy dreary weather.  It's good for our lawn at least!

We've been getting bombarded with every construction company within a 100 mile radius, calling, knocking on our door, leaving fliers.  It's annoying.  People are really pressuring when they stop by for you to set up an inspection immediately and get angry when you don't. I'm sorry but dude, I have ZERO idea who you are and I've never heard of your company I don't think I'm gonna set anything up with you.  This guy called the house and strictly went by Jerome...no company name or anything.  It's like seriously?  I'm not that much of a moron.

We had a great time over at Dave's mom's house on Monday.  Too bad the weather wasn't warmer.  She has a fantastic view of Lake Minnetonka and it would've been nice to be able to be outside more to enjoy it.  But it was just a bit too cold and icky.  We'll have to get over there more this summer and enjoy the lake!

Dave will be out of town next week...he'll be in Chicago for a Navy class.  My sister is coming to stay with me to help with Carson.  I have a small bleed near the baby and instead of getting better over the last week it got slightly larger so I need to avoid lifting Carson (HA!) so I will need some help with Dave being gone.  Luckily she will be able to be here almost all week.

I'll have another follow up ultrasound next week, probably Friday to check in and make sure the bleed isn't getting any bigger and hopefully I'll be able to take it easy enough that it will be resolving itself.  I had the exact same thing with Carson and it ended up being no big deal so we'll hope that we follow the same path this time around.

Talk to you all soon!

This is for Karen!

Carson got upset when he heard you were threatening a boycott of the blog. Haha, so we took pictures today especially for you. Carson wasn't thrilled about it at first but warmed up quick enough!

Carson had his 15 month check up last week. He's 24.5 lbs and FINALLY is done with shots until he is 5, with the exception of flu shots. Nice! He remembered the doctor's office and right when we got there he threw a fit. It's nice that for the next few appointments anyways he won't have to get poked at all. The doctor did most of the exam with him on my lap to keep him calm since he was pretty upset about being there. Healthy as can be though!

Work has been same-old, same-old. Very, very busy. Usually that was my update time, during the day during a down period but I don't have many of those anymore! It's nice to be kept busy but at the same time, I'm feeling neglectful of the blog. I've got to set myself some calendar reminders at work to keep up! I'll try that this week and see how it goes!

Well, we found out last week that we didn't get the extension with the Navy that we were hoping for. So, it looks like we'll be leaving Minnesota sooner than we'd hoped. We're still trying to get everything figured out as to when we'll be leaving and where we'll be going so I promise that as soon as we have more information we'll share it. I haven't told my work yet and I'd rather not get into specifics until we know for sure. It's still sinking in for me honestly.

We had Kate and Erik and kids over last weekend and I took some pictures for them with my new backdrop stuff...still trying to figure out the lighting and how to get it right. I think I did a better job with Carson this afternoon. It's funny how the things you should try come to you about an hour after you've taken the pictures and then you do the *face-palm*. I'm getting better though and I'm just leaving my stuff set up in the basement for now so that I don't have to worry about taking down and setting back up. That tends to be a deterrent because it takes so dang long. If I just leave it all set up all I have to do is insert children. Haha!

Well, tis Sunday night and I really should get headed to bed. I sure do love the later evenings with the daylight but going back to super-darkness when I wake up in the morning is rough. I have to be extra-motivated to drag myself out of bed to get to work in time.

Talk to you all soon!

Movin On

Carson went to bed tonight without a "bed-time" bottle. *GASPS* He ate a ridiculous amount of food for dinner and I gave him a sippy with milk in it after dinner and then instead of a bottle, we just read books before bed and he laid down really with way less issues than I thought he would. He was a little pissed off but once he had his pacifier he was ok. That will be the next to go, but not quite yet. I'm hoping by 18months.

Dave bought me lights for Christmas. We picked them up last night since I'm doing some family photos for my friend Kate and then a co-worker of hers. I need a little practice before I can feel confident to take them with me. It's a little harder to coordinate than I thought it would be. Using studio lighting forces you to take the camera out of any pre-set or auto modes and do everything in manual. I know what the settings do for the most part but I've never had to rely only on myself to get them right! So I'm really going to learn my camera. I'm really glad. I took some pictures of Carson in the bath tonight...just to practice some of the other settings and I'm really proud of the progress I've made. Here is an example...

Here is a few bathroom shots that I took with pre-set settings on auto-mode with flash:

Yes, the water looks super cool but Carson looks like a ghost-baby! His natural skin-tones and colors are so washed out from the flash. This was taken in August.

Here is tonight's bath:

I love the 2nd picture...he was "yelling" at me but there's so much personality in his little face! They're not perfect or anything but I'm making definite progress. I love how I can really compare the differences. By the way, anyone notice how much skinnier Carson is getting? Haha, he's losing so much of that baby weight and looking so much like a little kid.

Dave's working late tonight which is a bummer. I'll be in bed long before he gets home. Hopefully that means this weekend he'll get some time off. Who knows, his job is so up and down that it's hard to count on anything most times. I know Dave doesn't like missing being home with Carson in the evenings.

In AWESOME news, my work just figured out where our new headquarters is going to be. It's an under-construction site so we won't be able to move in until 12/2008 so a whole FULL year but it's still exciting. We out-grew our first building and my department got moved to this horrible pit of a building and just knowing there's a light at the end of the tunnel is making it all worth it! Here's a link: NEW AWESOME BUILDING

Ok, before it gets too late I've gotta get some practicing in! Have a great night everyone!

Snow Way!

I saw flurries outside today....GRRRRR! I'm so very not ready for winter. I've been in denial that it's coming up but that's not doing me much good. I now have less than a month until Carson's 1st birthday. Can anyone actually believe it? I sure can't. The year has flown by so quick. My little baby is growing up into a little boy. How scary!

Dave and I had a great weekend. We were in Iowa for an awards conference for the Navy recruiters in his District. It was a good time. I didn't work on Friday and we got on the road around 1:00ish after dropping Carson off with my parents. We got to the hotel at around 3:30-4:00ish. After we had checked in and had a quick gathering with all who were there, we were off for the night. I had a blast. I met a ton of people that Dave works with and all of their wives. Most were in the same boat we were, leaving their baby for the weekend for the first time. It was nice that everyone was kind of in the same situation.

We had a lot to do on Saturday. Dave had some trainings to attend and there were things for the wives to attend. So we didn't see much of each other until the awards and banquet on Saturday night. It was pretty low-key since most people were partied-out from the night before. After the dinner, we just went back to our room and watched some hockey and then a movie...we ordered pizza kind of late and then went to bed. We peeked out at the bar to make sure we weren't being un-social but nobody was out and about either. Everyone was laying low. Sunday morning we left around 8:00 and got back to pick Carson up from my parents around 11:30. We missed him!

Carson got two more teeth this weekend while we were gone. He only had one night of bad sleep so that was good for my parents. I would've felt terrible if he were a crabby baby all weekend. But only Friday night. He has 6 teeth now, 4 on top and 2 on the bottom. The two front teeth on top have such a big gap between them right now, it's super cute!

I think I'm coming down with a cold, I'm hoping that it's just from the long weekend. I slept so much yesterday and ended up going to bed at like 9:00PM. I had a terrible time getting up this morning and felt like I could've slept all day long. Today at work has been tough. It's hard to concentrate when I'm feeling so sleepy and icky. I don't feel as bad as I did yesterday but I sure don't feel good. Here's to hoping that tomorrow I feel better. I don't mind terribly being sick, but I just don't want Carson to get sick. And it's not like we can really avoid contact at all! If only, right!?

I know some of you know Bethany, she got a job at my company. They offered it to her on Friday. She starts on the 19th. She's super excited. It's a long, LONG back-story but her and I have quite a bit of history. Some of it is not-so-great. I've really moved past it all and I just hope that things remain good while she's working here. Bonus for me, I get a $1,500.00 referral bonus if she's here for 90 days. Dang, I could use that for sure! Well, I should get back to work, after having Friday off I'm plenty busy but just can't focus today. Hopefully I'll be feeling better by tomorrow.

Before I go, here's a picture from 10/28 at my parents. I just like the way it turned out.