Wicked/Surgery

The past few weeks have been really busy for us! A couple weeks ago Tyler and I went to see Wicked for our 4 year anniversary (a little late...). It was soooooo good!!!! The entire date was fantastic. My Aunt Sherie was super nice and watched Carter for us while we went and had dinner at Anthony's on the Seattle waterfront, and then went to the Paramount Theater to see Wicked. It was the best anniversary celebration to date, in my opinion. I'd recommend to anyone to go see Wicked. It was a pretty perfect night.

The next week I went in for a PET scan for my heart, which is basically a new test that looks specifically at your coronary arteries, and they found a decrease in blood flow. On Wednesday night my doctor called and told me the results and that they wanted to do an angiogram, and then Thursday morning I found out they wanted it done on Friday! It was all rather quick. My Aunt Sherie again was super nice and watched Carter for us while I went in for angiogram #15. Anyone that knows me knows how much I HATE angiograms, so it was probably pretty good that we didn't have much time to anticipate it. The surgery went well and was actually the easiest one I've ever had. They said my left coronary artery anatomy was abnormal (which we already knew) but that they couldn't find any blockages, so I was just fine. After lying still for 6 hours we were allowed to go home. Unfortunately, part of the recovery requires that the patient not lift over 5-10 pounds for a week, and since Carter weighs 14 lbs now, we were presented with quite a predicament. Luckily, my parents offered to fly my mom out and she's been helping with Carter this week.

Carter is getting bigger every day. He loves to talk and stand up. We also got out a playmat for him and he loves to swat at the toys that hang down! It's funny to watch him get both his arms and legs going hitting all 4 toys at once. Here are a few pictures from the last couple of weeks.

Carter has recently discovered his feet! He loves to grab onto them now.

He also loves grabbing and chewing on his burp cloths.

Playing with his playmat.

Asleep in his car seat after a fun day at Alki Beach.

Grabbing his feet with one hand and his links with the other.

This is how he "sucks" his thumb...or, rather, chews on his thumb.

Nap time with Daddy.

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.