Happy Labor Day

Carter has made a lot of developmental strides in the last week and we've been such proud parents! He's now pretty consistently rolling over. He hates being on his tummy, so he's discovered that as soon as I put him down for tummy time he can flop himself onto his back! Apparently it's the little victories in life...but then he gets mad when I flip him over again.

He can also now grab onto his toys. He just started grabbing at things a few weeks ago, but can now coordinate his movements enough that he can focus on something and then purposely grab it. This has been helpful as we're a little suspicious that he's teething early, so he can now grab his toys and gum them to his heart's content.

Carter's also starting to really laugh. It's still a pretty rare occurrence but he mostly laughs when we undress him...he loves having his arms pulled through his clothes!! It's a little weird...sometimes we can get him to laugh when we play pattycake, too, although this isn't the best example.

He can hold his head up at a 90 degree angle when on his tummy now, too.



Carter is also starting to love standing up! He can hold a lot of his weight. He's also "talking" like crazy, especially to the fish on his swing ( I have a video of this, too, but it wouldn't upload for some reason...). It's so cute, though, when he just looks at you and tells you all the stories of his day, which inevitably include some high pitched squeals.



Carter has also started to make some funny faces! He's discovered his tongue, and will stick it in and out, in and out. He also likes to make a pouty face, too, sticking out his bottom lip.

We really enjoyed celebrating Labor Day yesterday. It's a rare occurrence when Tyler gets the day off work and it was even more special because we met 6 years ago on Labor Day. We're pretty bummed that we can no longer have our annual Labor Day BBQ since we no longer have a yard (we really miss our Provo house!!), but instead we went out to dinner. I also recently found out that my credit card number had been stolen! Luckily the bank was on top of things and discovered it before much could be done. Overall things are going great for us!

Here's some more pictures of our beautiful blue-eyed little boy:

The Baby in the Mirror

Not too much to report today. I've been lucky enough to get a 2nd manuscript to evaluate for work and Tyler is busy with work and Young Men's. He got to go for the last day of High Adventure last weekend, which he'd spent countless hours planning. I've also gotten together a couple of times with other stay-at-home moms from church for playgroups. Even though Carter's not exactly old enough to play much with other kids, they still welcome me, and I've been grateful to get out of the house and have some adult conversation.

Carter is doing great. He's grabbing everything now and has started actually getting interested in his toys and mobiles. He has also made good friends with the "baby in the mirror", smiling at him and touching his hand to it. It's really fun to watch!! He's also going through a phase where he won't go to sleep for naps during the day unless he's got a bottle in his mouth or sometimes when his daddy is holding him, making things pretty difficult for me. I know I should be getting him on some sort of schedule or routine by now, but he's making that a little difficult, so right now he's running the show. That's all for now, here's some recent pictures:

See the button imprint on his forehead?? He fell asleep on Tyler's chest, apparently on the button on his shirt, and had this imprint for almost an hour afterward! Poor guy...he'd just woken up when I took this, hence the half-asleep face.

Here's a video of Carter playing with his toy. He's just started getting interested in it and even bats at it with his hand. We thought it was really cute!! But we are first-time parents, and it's all exciting for us.

I tried uploading 2 other videos but they wouldn't load for some reason, so this is all you get. They really weren't that interesting anyways...Carter was really excited and smiling, kicking, and talking a lot but as soon as I got the camera out he stopped. So really, you aren't missing much.

4th Anniversary/Carter's Latest Habits

On August 6th Tyler and I celebrated our 4 year wedding anniversary! We had a great time and carted Carter out to dinner with us at Claim Jumper. He was very appeasing and slept the whole time so we could enjoy each other's company. Tyler also told me he got us tickets to see Wicked! I was soooooo excited. I have wanted to see it for a very long time. I can hardly believe we've been married for 4 years. In some ways it seems like we've always been in each other's lives...I can't even imagine not being married to Tyler! In other ways, though, it has gone by fast. I'm so excited that this year we can say we have a baby, too. I love Tyler so much and am so lucky to have been married to him for 4 wonderful years.
Carter has been doing great! Here's how he's been spending his time:

Taking naps with Daddy,

Hanging out with Mommy,

Being patient while Mommy uses the self-timer to take lots of pictures...

or takes bad self-pictures,

Swinging in his swing,

Playing in his bouncer,

Flailing his arms around,

Looking around and taking in the world,

Taking baths (the red spot on his stomach isn't blood, it's a spot of bumpy burst blood vessels, kind of like a birth mark...the doctor said it should go away by the time he's 5. He also has one of those hernia things in his belly button like my nephew Cohen has where there's a hole in the muscle and the intestines poke through a bit...it sounds worse than it is. Basically it just makes his belly button stick out, and should also go away in the next year or 2.),

And having tummy time (during which he mostly just chews on his hand...).
He also loves when Mommy flails his arms around and plays patty-cake with him...these are his favorite games! One of these days I'll get a video of this...he's almost laughed a few times when we do that.

Carter has also developed some new habits! He loves to coo now and interacts a lot with whoever happens to be with him at the time. He also has started to learn how to grab onto things...mostly Mommy's hair and Mommy's face, but also his blankets and socks! I'm not sure yet that he is doing it on purpose, but it sure is happening more and more often...I'm starting to get sore!

He is also always attempting to try and shove his entire fist in his mouth (he's no longer content with just sucking his thumb...)

Carter has also recently discovered his hair, and in the process, his ear. Consequently, whenever he eats he's either stroking his hair or playing with his ear with his right hand.

Carter also likes to sit up and look around! He's getting pretty good at holding his own head up now, but needs a little help with the sitting part.

We've also been told to do this whenever Carter's hanging out. His head is flat on one side of the back of his head but very rounded on the other side, since he is constantly looking just one way. It's very uneven, so the doctor told us to prop something behind the one side so he lays more on the other side to flatten it out, too! I'm not very good at doing it very often, but need to get better because if his head stays this way when he's older he'll need to get a helmet!

Carter has also been smiling a lot more, and I've been trying to catch them on camera. I've made many attempts, and have gotten pretty close with some of them:

Until next time!!!

Shots...Ouch!!

Carter turned 2 months old yesterday!!! It's crazy how fast the time has gone. Today he had his 2 month checkup and passed with flying colors. He now weighs 10 lb 15 oz (35%), is 23 in long (50%), and his head circumference is 40 cm (50%). I can't believe how big he's gotten!! He's really gained weight quickly since he was born and is catching up great! He's grown out of almost all his newborn outfits, but still doesn't quite fit into some of the 0-3 month ones. Unfortunately he also had to get his 2 month vaccines today and did not like them one bit. He was already cranky this morning and didn't sleep well last night, so of course the shots just made things much worse. He's either been sleeping or screaming all day (or vomiting this morning!). It hasn't been a fun day for any of us. I'm dreading going through this again in another 2 months but know how important vaccines are.

It's FINALLY cooled down here. I didn't write about it in my past posts, but it's been insanely hot here. In fact, the other day we had the hottest day in Seattle history at 103 degrees! And did I mention the humidity? We don't have A/C, and being on the top floor we were literally baking...so we're very grateful for the cool-down. Otherwise Tyler has been busy with work and Young Men's stuff (they've been going canoeing a lot lately in anticipation of High Adventure), and I finally got another job so I've been working on that while Carter naps. I took a few more pictures just for this post...I knew people would complain if I wrote and didn't add any pictures of Carter! So here are some for today:

Sleeping in his car seat after getting his shots.

Sleeping

Stretching...I was trying to wake him up but it didn't work.

Daddy came home and took a turn with him...and of course he was happy.

During the 5 minutes or so that he was happy

Playing with Daddy

Asleep again.

Rollin Rollin Rollin...

I've been scolded by many people for not posting blogs and pictures as often so...here is yet another post! Biggest news for this post: Carter rolled over! He rolled over for the first time yesterday (only 8 weeks old!) and Mom was soooo proud and SOOO upset she didn't have the camera with her! But there it is. I don't think he did it on purpose. I put him down for tummy time and he somehow got his opposite arm underneath him to suck on his fist (his favorite thing to do during tummy time). So anyways somehow in trying to get it at a better angle he rolled onto his side (which he has, by the way, done before), but then amazingly he kicked his way over onto his back! I was so impressed! I clapped and praised him and I'm sure for the life of him he couldn't have figured out what he had done to deserve such an honor. He's also started growing in some new hair! There's a semi-circle of little tiny baby hairs growing in around his forehead and right now they look pretty darn blonde. I guess we'll see if he keeps his red hair or not. Yesterday we also went outlet shopping after waiting all day for the cable guy to come and fix our cable (a rat chewed through the line...seriously?!). I decided it's much better to shop for a baby than to shop for myself, and bought him 4 onesies for $5 and 2 sunhats! I also discovered the $3.99 clearance section at the Carter's outlet but discovered it after they were already closed and I was the last person in the store...so I left and let the clearance rack wait for another day. I can't wait to go back! Tyler and I discussed how our baby will only ever be wearing clearance clothes, but that's basically all we wear too and I think we're pretty well dressed, just dressed on a bargain :) Anyways, here are some more baby boy pictures. Enjoy!