Snow Fam Nov-Dec

Carson enjoying his Christmas.

Santa brought Carson a train set for Christmas. He absolutely loves it! Thanks Santa for bringing a toy that keeps Carson so self-ntertained.

Carson and I taking a break from the Holiday rush.

Carson enjoying one of his favorite Holiday activities, taste-testing cookie dough.

Although Carson was afraid of Santa at first and would not even approach him, he overcame his fears somewhat when Santa gave him a candy cane. Yes, my son will appraoch strangers if offered candy (thats a little scary).

So we went to visit Santa. Carson was at first very excited to tell Santa that he wanted cars and trains for Christmas, but when it came time to sit on the big guy's lap he got stage fright.

Nate trying to control Carson at the Christmas tree lot

Carson and Nate doing some male bonding

Carson loves to be like his Dad. He thinks daddy can fix anything (he thinks that because thats what Nate tells him). Here is Carson trying to help fix one of his toys.

In Early November I tried to potty train Carson, and was completely unsuccessful. Alas, I'm going to have two kids in diapers at the same time.

Halloween

Don’t let these pictures of Carson fool you, I know that he looks like a cute little pirate, but he actually was a little devil. I don’t know what got in to Carson today but he was completely disagreeable. Everything I suggested we do he didn’t want to do; right down to trick-or-treating. I practically begged him for 45 minutes to get into his costume so we could go to Nate’s work Halloween party. He complied and got into his costume only after I told him we weren’t going and I called Nate to tell him not to expect us. Who says reverse psychology doesn’t work? He was very pleasant once we got to Nate’s work and started trick-or-treating. We barely got Carson to say trick-or-treat the whole evening but he did say “more candy mommy?” a lot. I guess I should have been prepared for this constant begging for candy since he’s a little kid and there was candy every where. It would probably be abnormal if he didn’t beg for candy the whole evening. Although I must admit it got rather tedious telling him “no” over and over again. Not that I didn’t let him eat candy (I’m not that mean of a mom) I just didn’t let him eat every piece of candy in his pumpkin. We were so tired of the whole routine that after about an hour of enjoying Halloween festivities at Nate’s work we decided to come home and call it a night. Although Carson was not as pleasant this Halloween as I might have hoped, he did of course have his good moments and luckily I was able to capture a few of them with our camera we can always look at these pictures and remember what a cute little pirate he was. ARRRRRR.

Tough Pirate

Enjoying his spoils

Pumpkin Carving

For FHE this week we carved pumpkins with Sean and Jamie. It was a nice casual evening of pumpkin carving, football, and food. Carson thought the pumpkin guts were cool but was not interested in touching them since they were “yucky.” We are not the most artistic pumpkin carvers, but as usual my pumpkin turned out to be the best in the family.

He's a Big Boy Now

Well, our little guy is growing up. Last night he spent his first night in a real bed. Nate and I were both worried about how this transition would go since Carson loves his crib, but it went amazingly well. Our strategy was to get him a tent that sits on top of his bed to get him excited about the new big bed. This plan worked like a charm; not only were there no tears when bed time came last night but Carson was VERY excited to sleep in his new tent. He stayed in his tent till morning and woke up happy as can be. I don’t think I could have asked for a better outcome.

Pumpkin Picking

A couple weeks ago we had a fun filled FHE at a local pumpkin patch. The pumpkin patch included a myriad of fun activities like hay rides, corn & hay mazes, and of course millions of pumpkins. Unfortunately, we got there late and I didn’t bring any candy so we really didn’t get very many cute pictures of Carson at this event. Even though I don’t have any great photographic evidence, you will have to believe me when I tell you Carson had a great time. Carson showed very little interest in the pumpkin patch itself. We practically had to drag him into the field with us to pick out a pumpkin. And technically, Nate picked out Carson’s pumpkin because Carson was too busy running around the field to stop and even look at a pumpkin. Carson’s favorite part of the pumpkin farm was the hay maze. He loved to go and hide in the hay maze (despite the fact that hiding in the hay almost got him trampled on several times by herds of running children). The other big hit of the place was the barn. You couldn’t go in the barn, because the barn was actually a decoration, but Carson was constantly asking if he could go touch the barn and see the horses which he assumed lived in the barn. Since this wasn’t really a main attraction of the place we pretty much ignored his requests. We ended the night with me paying for the pumpkins and losing Carson. I about had a heart attack! It was 9pm so it was very dark at a farm with mazes, acres of pumpkins, and tractors pulling people all over the place makes a daunting place to search for a small child. Luckily just before some of the pumpkin patch employees were getting organized to help me look for him, I found him near the barn (surprise surprise). I guess he decided to go explore it himself since Nate and I had ignored his pleas to take him there.

Hay Ride

I Love Fall!

I love Fall! I like the cooler temperatures (especially while being pregnant), the fall colors, and the fun holidays. Being in the mood for fall, Carson and I have been spending a lot of time outdoors when the weather permits. I wanted to get some cute pictures of Carson at the park with all of the beautiful fall colors. This proved much harder than I anticipated since Carson would only sit still for about .5 seconds. Luckily the power of candy never fails and I managed to bribe him into sitting still long enough to get some cute shots.

Snow Family Camping Adventure

Although Labor Day is supposed to be the end of summer, our family was not ready to give up summer quite yet so we went camping last weekend. I know what you are thinking: “isn’t mid September a cold time of the year to go camping?” We thought we would be perfectly warm. When we first got to our campsite we were wearing shorts, but when the sun went down it got soooooooo cold. It was around the mid to low 20’s (we later found out that Stanley, Idaho often times has the coldest weather in the nation). And to make it worse, we couldn’t have a camp fire because of the current wildfire dangers. Needless to say, Nate and I spent a cold and miserable night in our tent. Carson however, who Nate and I fussed over all night, slept like a rock. I think he may have been the only perfectly warm person in the whole camp. Because of this cold night, a two night camping trip turned into a one night stay. We still managed to have a lot of fun the following day. We went fishing in the morning at the beautiful lake right by our campsite (Stanley Lake). Also, we went on a beautiful 7 mile roundtrip hike up into the mountains. It was a lot of fun, but it did have a couple glitches. First, since I’m pregnant we couldn’t hike quite as fast so it took longer than we thought. Second, Carson went longer than he should without a diaper change and his diaper ended up leaking all over Nate. Nate loves his son but is never too thrilled about getting peed on. After Carson had watered Nate, we had to get him out of the hiking backpack to change his diaper. Once Carson got out of the backpack and tasted the freedom of walking again, he didn’t want to get back in. SO, he threw a ferocious tantrum and screamed “GET OUT!” over and over. This episode disrupted the peacefulness of the wilderness for at least a good 20 minutes. After the hike we were all exhausted so we decided to head home. You would think this would be the end of my tale, and oh how I wish it was, but there was one more adventure yet to come. On the drive home Carson started to complain about his tummy, mouth, eye ball, arm, pants, and sock all hurting. He did this on the drive up so I just thought he was being grumpy because he was tired. We didn’t pay much attention at first and just told him to close his eyes. After this complaining continued for some time, I looked back at him just in time to see him covering his mouth and a little vomit coming out the side of his mouth. I yelled at him and told him to swallow his vomit and not get it all over our new van. Ok, just kidding. I made Nate pull over immediately and got Carson out of the car just in time to receive the full brunt of his car sickness. I had vomit EVERYWHERE. And it wasn’t just any vomit; it was bright red, Red Vine licorice vomit. This experience is a testament to motherly love. If any other human had thrown-up on me I guarantee I would have puked myself. But with Carson, I just felt terrible that he had been feeling sick for so long and I ignored him. After this we did manage to get home without any other incidents. If we can say one thing for our camping trip, it was definitely memorable.

Freezing our Buns off

Our cute little camper

Stanley Lake

Enjoying the outdoors

Our Hiking buddies