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!

Some Favorite Pictures

I finally got around to uploading some pictures from my camera. It's been almost a month since I've pulled any off. I think that's officially the longest I've gone! Here are a few of my favorites:

Dude I'm excited

My class at National Camera was FANTASTIC! It went over some pretty basic stuff which I already knew and really only touched on some of the more basic functions of the camera but those things I did NOT know and I feel like I've gained so much knowledge already! I have the more advanced class next week and I just can't wait now!

Here is my example of what I learned! I give you, my messy bathroom:There is plenty of light in the bathroom where you don't need to use a flash. Everything is in focus and nice and crisp. HOWEVER it's soooo yellow. I had this trouble when trying to take pictures of Carson in the bathtub. I didn't want to use flash because it washes his facial tones out so much but if I didn't, then everything looked so yellow. Ok, here's what I learned in class...a minor adjustment to the camera and:

Look at the difference!!! I'm standing in the same spot, it's the same stuff I just made an adjustment and look how much more "normal" and less yellow/orange it looks. The colors are truer to what they should be. Dang, now I'm excited to take pictures of Carson in the bath and see how those turn out!

Carson had his 1 year check up at the doctor yesterday. He's weighing in at 24lbs and he's 30 inches long. He's in the 50% percentile for both head circumference and for height. He's in the 70% percentile for weight. He's finally "evening" out. Haha, he's always been at about 50% for head and height but usually about 95% for weight. Now that he's moving around so much more, he's slimming out a bit. They say babies will triple their birth weight by their first birthday which he did exactly!

I took him to my work to visit after the doctors office. I was debating if I even should since he had FOUR shots and a finger prick. Poor baby. But he was a perfect little ham for everyone. He was smiling and flirting with all the ladies I work with. You gotta love that!

I read this review yesterday and now I'm even more excited for the movie Juno. One of these days, Dave and I will go see a movie in the theater! The problem is, we have very different ideas of what we should go see lately. Dave wanted to see Beowulf and I wanted to see Lars and the Real Girl. Not that either movie is superior to the other, it's just that we have very different taste and I sure as heck don't want to pay money, find a babysitter, and drag him to a movie that he doesn't really want to see in the first place. And vice versa.

We've recently re-started up our netflix membership. That way the movies come right here, granted we have to wait a little bit longer to see them, but oh well. At least we don't have to find a babysitter!

Well, Carson and I are going to see Santa today I think. Dave is working today. I will put up some pictures later!

Welcome to my Cube

Tee hee! A candid look at me at work! Haha, I found this on our "intranet". It was the day we had a carnival in our conference room...I was working instead of carnivaling it up. So here is a tour of half my desk. Yes, I have two computer monitors. It is wonderful and if they ever try and take the second one away it will be a sad, sad day. The black binders on the shelf are files for each of my doctors, basically their whole professional life is in the binder. There are 6 in the picture but I have since been handed one more. And yes, my desk is always this clean...I'm soooo not a fan of clutter!

This will probably be a short update...sorry I don't have a ton to say today! I have a camera class tonight at National Camera Exchange. I'm excited! It's an introduction to DSLRs (Digital SLR camera is what I have the SLR stands for single lens relfex(I think hahahah!)) Anyways, I'm taking a class tonight and then one next week, next week is supposed to be a little more advanced and into the technical settings I can make use of on the camera. I'm excited about that.

Dave and I were supposed to go to the Wild game last night. I haven't been feeling well all week so Dave took my sister instead. I haven't talked to her yet today but I think she had a good time...well I mean, how could you NOT enjoy it? It's a blast watching hockey at the Xcel. I went to bed early and today I'm finally feeling better. I have my voice back for the most part which is good...it's no fun when people can't understand you!

Carson has his one year check up tomorrow at the doctor. I know there will be shots on the agenda :( poor baby! I hate having him get shots. Hopefully it won't be bad. I'll have to ask the doctor about turning the car-seat around to face forward. I know you're supposed to wait a year but *should* you wait longer? Like just to be safe? I feel like I'll have such a big kid when he faces forward in the car. *tears*

Ok, I gotta get Carson fed before Dave comes home because I have to get going to the class right after that! Talk to you all soon and hopefully I will have some more updated photos soon!

Happy Birthday Carson!

Wow, can you believe it? Carson is a year old today. In one year from this:To this:It's crazy! Carson's party went better than I thought it would. We only had about 1/2 the turn out because of the weather but what can you do? Carson still had a great time. The stupid grocery store made us the wrong cake. It was supposed to be Baby Einstein but ended up being a generic birthday cake. I got it for 1/2 off but I still cried the whole way home. Then, once I got home and was unloading the car...I accidentally spilled the cake onto the garage floor. Luckily there was very minor damage otherwise I probably would've cancelled the whole day! :) I realize now that the cake wasn't as big of a deal as I made it out to be originally but I still think it was important. I will be speaking with the manager at the grocery store some time this week. The nice thing was, we got a free mini-cake for Carson to dig into. He had a extremely messy blast!

On Sunday, we had our family Christmas party. Carson was so tired from the night before...so he was kind of antsy and irritable and we didn't end up staying too long. Carson got to see Santa for the first time. It was funny because there was an 11 month old that sat on Santa's lap before Carson and he cried and cried so I thought Carson would have a similar reaction...but no! I guess my kid just has no fear of strangers at this point. I guess that's a good thing for now. He was smiling while sitting there! Super cute. We didn't get too many good pictures because I didn't set the camera right for Dave to take pictures...dang. Oh well, I might just have to take him to see a mall Santa to get a good picture.

After the family party, we went to my parents house for another MN sports day. We watched both the Vikings and the Wild win again! Yay! It was a good time. As the day went on though, I started losing my voice. I've been feeling under the weather and my throat has been sore but now my voice is completely gone. I took the afternoon off from work and came home and slept for a few hours before I had to pick Carson up from daycare. He got sent home with some great new toys from the daycare lady and then the mom of the little girl that goes there. I love that it's such a small daycare, I really feel like Carson is loved by everyone there.

Dave and I are supposed to go to the Wild game on Wednesday night. I hope that I'm feeling better by then. Otherwise I might have to send him onto the game with my sister or something. I can't imagine going with no voice. It would be the most frustrating thing EVER. It would be like getting to order any dessert you'd ever want but not being able to eat them. Haha.

We got some good video from Carson's party of him devouring his cake. I'll post that as soon as I get it uploaded to the computer. Probably sometime tomorrow night. I'm sooo tired and we're totally going to bed early tonight. Dave has got the sore throat too but he's still got his voice. Carson is the one that got us sickly but he seems to be feeling better for the most part.

See ya later! Can you believe how big he looks?!

DANG!

DANG! I was really hoping that November would be my month to break out of the "8 entries-per-month" funk. I was so on the right track too! I haven't had much extra time lately. We've all been a bit under the weather at the Walgrave home. Carson is finally pulling out of it, I don't have to wipe his nose every 30 seconds anymore. Thank Goodness too! He sure hates that. I've been falling asleep on the couch after Carson goes to bed until Dave gets home when we eat, clean up and then go straight back to sleep. Haha, no time to get on an update. I actually have about 50 pictures on my camera that I haven't taken off yet either. I shot them in RAW so I can only pull them off with a certain program. I downloaded a free 30 day trial to see if I want to buy it...not sure yet. I haven't had any time really to play with it.

Our Thanksgiving was wonderful! Nice and low-key. We swang by the Walgrave's on the way to the Theisen's and even got in a few naps during the day! We had gone to the Wild/Canucks game the night before so we were exhausted. We had a great time at the game, even though we lost. We have another game coming up on 12/5 and hopefully we'll win that one! We can't go to 2 losing games...that's just depressing!

As most of you know, we're having Carson's 1st Birthday Party this weekend. I can't believe I just typed that out! I ordered him a cake yesterday. It just blows my mind how fast the time has gone. It's ridiculous! We're keeping the celebrations low-key...there's no need at his age to go over the top. We'll just do a small family get together and leave it at that.

Work has been swamped beyond belief. Everything is a *RUSH* right now. Serious, just like that. 3 out of every 5 emails I get during the day the last 2 weeks have *RUSH* in the subject line. I'm getting very sick of the word! I guess it's a good thing, job security. My friend Kate's co-worker asked if I would take their family pictures. It makes me so nervous I want to throw up, but at the same time I'm super excited.

Well, I do actually have to finish working today. I'm gonna do my best to get my pictures off my camera and break the 8 per month streak!! :) Talk to you all soon

Monday Funday

So far so good peeps! My car has been running, I'm feeling better...things seem to be looking up for the time being! *knocks on wood*

We didn't have a terribly eventful weekend. Saturday Dave had to work so it was a Carson/Momma bonding day. We hung out pretty much all day and just took it easy. Sunday we went to my parents house for pretty much the whole day. The Vikings played at 12:00 and the Wild played at 5:00 so it was a sports marathon and we saw 2 wins for Minnesota so it was an extraordinary day! Carson was well behaved and Steve cooked us an awesome dinner. It was a good day!

Carson let me rock him to sleep today. He doesn't let that happen too often these days. I soaked up the cuddling and put him down after about 20 minutes of just hanging out. I can't believe how quickly he's growing. I mailed out his 1st birthday invitations today. We're keeping the gathering small and simple because what's the point of getting all ridiculous with it at this point? You only have to get bigger and better right?! Haha, might as well start as simple as possible. Plus, it's not like he'll remember this one. I'm still trying to figure out what to have for a meal...I can't decide.

I bought some lights for the outside of the house today. We didn't decorate big last year since I was huge pregnant when we started decorating and then had a newborn for the end of decorating. It didn't go so well last year. We kept it simple but I'm just DYING to put lights up outside this year! Hopefully it turns out as good as what I have in my mind!

Dave and I are going to the Wild game on Wednesday night! WOOT! I can't wait. We're playing Vancouver, we played them on Friday at Vancouver and there were quite a few fights...it will be a fun game to watch for sure! I'm excited to go. It's been quite a while since we've been to a game.

We'll be at my parents for Thanksgiving or at least for some of it. I'm sure we'll bounce around a bit as well. At least most of the fam is all in the same neighborhood! Talk to everyone soon! Enjoy the short week!

Doing Better

I'm happy to report that things are looking better!! My arm is doing so much better than before. I still have to keep following up with the doctor until it's all gone but for the most part I can use it normally and it's only just a little bit tender now, not painful so I can sleep comfortably again! My car is running good as well! WOOT! I'm crossing my fingers that it keeps running and not breaking!
Carson is doing really well. He's pulling up everywhere all the time. He will let go quite a bit and stand on his own before falling on his hindie. He thinks it's just hysterical to fall on his patootie so that's good I guess. This walking thing sure won't come without a few falls and I guess it's best that he thinks it's funny for now!

He needed a bath tonight after dinner since he kept putting food in his hair. He absolutely threw a fit when I took him out of the bath. It's so hard to hang onto a wet 25lb baby who is thrashing around throwing a fit...lol I felt like I was going to drop him a few times.

My company officially went public today. Good things all around on that one. I'm really bummed we didn't get the chance to invest because of the sucky timing on my car breaking down. But oh well, guess it wasn't meant to be at this point in time. You could tell those who did end up going in as you could hear them talking today about the price at the close of the market today. Haha.

Work has been going really well. I'm so lucky that they've been so flexible with me being in and out this week due to being sick. I put my first full day in this week today. Gah, I feel terrible about it and spent almost all day playing catch-up but most of it's done and tomorrow will be focusing on some of my more current stuff and not feeling like I'm so far behind.

The proofs are up online for Carson's most recent pictures. They turned out really cute. There aren't as many super cute ones to choose from because it was really tough this time to get him to smile. But I do love quite a few of them. If anyone wants to see them, please let me know and I'll forward the gallery...they're password protected otherwise and in the world of Internet, I know I shouldn't leave the password here!

Well, I'm off to get some dinner made for Dave and I...he'll be home shortly. Talk to you all soon!

Out of Commission

Sorry my peeps...I was trying to be better and update more often but I've been out of commission since Friday. Carson and I had half of the day off for pictures and a doctor's visit. Carson got the 2nd half of his flu shot and my doctor suggested a pneumonia vaccine for my recently diagnosed asthma. After we got home on Friday night, I could tell something just didn't feel right in my arm. I mean, I've had tetanus shots before...I know how sore your arm can get after a vaccine but I didn't expect this one to hurt this bad. I even laughed with Dave on Friday night about what a wuss I was being!

Saturday morning Carson and I went to run some errands only to find that my car wouldn't start. I drove Dave's car to the new auto place down the road to ask if they were a full service mechanic and if they could get my car there for me. They were and they could. But they couldn't look at my car until Monday. So getting to work on Monday would require some creativity on our part.

By mid-afternoon, my arm was hurting way worse than I thought it should. I could hardly raise it up and could just tell this wasn't right. I called my dr's office and my actual physician was the weekend on-call doctor so she called me back and said that without seeing it, she couldn't really tell what was going on. Only the injection site was actually red so she told me to ice it and load up on the advil and see urgent care if it didn't improve.

We had Erica, Brent, Gabriella, Kate, Austin and Lydia over on Saturday night for lasagna. We had a full house!! It was fun to compare Gabs and Lydia since they are just 2 days apart. Carson ate for about 3 hours straight between his dinner and ours. Haha, he also got to stay up late and play with Austin which was fun for him.

By Sunday my red around the injection site had gone away but turned into two small splotches. I thought it was improving but the pain was still quite severe. By this point I could hardly move my arm at all, let alone put on or take off a shirt without help, or do my hair and even holding Carson was a tough skill. Not only did it hurt to use my arm but it hurt to touch it as well. Carson happens to hold on when you're carrying him and he holds on right where it hurt the most. I slept almost all day and just generally didn't feel very well. I ended up going into urgent care on Sunday evening.

Urgent care thought that it was an infection. All of the pharmacies were closed so I was sent home with samples and instructions to follow up with my doctor on Monday. Monday morning I also found out that my fuel pump went out on my car with an estimate of $750.00 plus the cost to tow *cue tears*.

So fast forward to this evening, 1 blood draw, 2 additional vaccinations, 2 fingerpricks, 3 prescriptions and $806.00 later...I find my car says it's overheating on my way home *cue scream* I was so over all of this by now. I had to bring my car BACK into the shop because apparently the thermometer was bad and needed to be replaced. Ok, whatever. At least this one only cost me $115.00. So much for wanting to invest money in our company's upcoming IPO. Hahaha.

I've had a rough couple of days. Expect some pictures and an actual Carson update tomorrow. Sneak Preview: He's so cute, so fun and perfect like usual! Talk to you all soon, and I'll leave you with a picture of my arm. The top part looks less red, but it used to look like the rest. You can see all the pen marks from my 7,000 doctors visits in the last few days! :) Plus, I get to go back tomorrow! Squeeeeee!

Rawr!

Ok, I tried to write below the video and for some reason it kept screwing the whole entry up so I'll write above!! Anyways, I'm so excited I caught Carson standing this afternoon and that he repeated it for the camera! SQUEEE! I do love how he's randomly hitting the wall entertaining himself...yes that is my bizarre kid!

Carson is having a tough time with they daylight savings adjustment. I really didn't realize how much an hour could make a difference. He's on a pretty solid schedule for the most part though so shifting an hour has proved a little difficult. Last night he was in bed, out cold no questions by 5:30!! Eeeep! So instead of waking up at 7:15-7:30 he was up at about 6:15. Still not bad because he's getting his solid nights sleep but it's just different than usual. I kept him awake until 6:15 tonight but man, he was a CRABBY baby. He was out before his bed-time bottle was done and I have yet to hear a peep out of him!

I'm feeling better today...I was asleep last night by 8:00PM!! Crazy I know but I totally needed it. Today was a much better day at work. I had such a hard time focusing yesterday. Well, Dave will be home shortly and I want to get some dinner started but I wanted to make sure and share the video. Talk to you all soon!