My latest photo shoot

15 months

Just a couple of pictures to add to his 15 month post. I realized that I haven't taken any pictures of him since Iowa. That is not like me! He is such a cute sleepy baby.

I think the time might be going even faster now that Carter has turned one. Here are just a few things that Carter has been up to over the last month...

He LOVES giving kisses again! When he first learned how to kiss, he did it all the time but then stopped for a while. He is back to giving them to almost anyone! He even randomly gives them without being asked. Today he just leaned over with his mouth wide open and came in for a kiss. I don't think anything has ever made my heart fuller than to see my little man coming in for a kiss that I didn't even ask for. He is also super snuggly. He is the perfect balance of energetic boy who won't sit still for anything and sweet, calm, and snuggly mama's boy that makes my heart melt. There is nothing better than a Carter snuggle!

He is really becoming independent. He loves to walk anywhere that he can. He loves it when we are going to leave the house and I let him walk out the front door and down the stairs to the car, holding my hand of course.

He is understanding SO MUCH!!! When it is time for lunch, I just say "let's go have lunch," and he stops whatever he was doing and walks right out to the kitchen and stands by his highchair. If I say "do you want a snack?" he runs right into the kitchen and stands right in front of the cupboard where his snacks are. He knows exactly what I mean by "let's go bu bye, want some milk, let's go have lunch, want a snack, want to watch Chuggington, let's go take a bath, give it to mommy, and even...it's time to go nigh night. He will sometimes walk right into his bedroom when we tell him it is time go nigh night. I love that I can actually tell him things now and he gets it! This is a very fun stage!

He is still a great sleeper and sleeps through the night. He was even an amazing sleeper while we were traveling!! He did so great in Iowa and slept all night every night and took great naps. I think he actually took better naps there than he does at home.

He loves waving bye bye to people, cars, stuffed animals, etc... He also loves blowing kisses to anyone and everyone. So sweet!

He is really good at shaking his head no and letting me know when he doesn't want something. Almost too good! I am just waiting for the word "no" to come out of his mouth and not in a nice way. He also likes to push our arm away if we are trying to give him something he doesn't want. The other night, Jay and I were eating dinner on the couch (I know, we need to start breaking that habit) and Carter was eating bites of our dinner. He was standing by me on one side of the living room eating some of my food when Jay offered him some of his. Carter shook his head no, walked all the way to the other couch (probably about eight feet) just to push Jay's hand away because he didn't want to eat his food. Then he walked right back over to me and continued to eat from my bowl. We were laughing so hard. He really went out of his way to make sure that daddy knew he didn't want his dinner, only mommy's. Silly boy!

He has gone through a phase lately where he doesn't love being left with people he doesn't know real well. He isn't a fan of the nursery for the first minute but as soon as we are gone, he does just fine. He also isn't a fan of being left with the babysitter at our Bible study, but again, once we are really gone, he usually calms down and does okay. I didn't think he was going to go through this phase since we had made it this long without dealing with it, but we are here. Thankfully, as soon as we leave, he settles in and does okay. He loves playing with people and other kids so he just needs to be distracted and then he is back to himself.

He loves to read books. He is doing great at letting us read the whole page before he turns the page. Sometimes I have to read the last few words of a sentence really fast before the page is being turned but he loves it when we read to him! He points at a lot of the pictures and says "da dah." I think that is his word for a few different things..."I want that, I like that, look mommy look," etc.

He can open the front door now if it is unlocked. So now the door needs to stay locked at all times. He loves opeing things!

He loves playing outside and could do it ALL DAY LONG!

He is really funny. He just laughs really loud for no reason at all. If we are laughing or he hears laughing somewhere, he likes to join in. He just does silly things to make us laugh and I feel like he really knows what he is doing. He has such a cute personality. Along with that cute personality, is a very stubborn little man, just like his mommy! Even his stubborness is cute though.

My 28th Birthday

My 28th birthday went a little unexpectedly. For a few days we had been feeling like I could possibly be pregnant. We had decided to wait until Friday, my birthday, to take the test to know for sure. Friday morning I woke up about 6:30, of course, on a day that I could have slept in. I finally woke Jay up at 7 so that we could take the test. No details are needed here but we took the test, sat back in bed and waited about a minute to look at it. And...it said PREGNANT. We were so excited and could hardly believe it. As soon as Carter woke up, we put him in his "big brother" shirt that we had bought months ago in preparation. We went out to breakfast for my birthday at Sassy Onion and all we could think about and talk about was the fact that we were actually going to have another beautiful baby. After we were done eating, we went over to my dad's and told him, then over to my mom's and told her and called the rest of our family that we couldn't tell in person. We sent out lots of texts of Carter in his big brother shirt and people were so excited. I even came home after that and announced it on facebook. Within an hour of putting it on facebook, the thing that you never want to happen when you are pregnant, started happening. I will not go into any details. :)

It was easy at first to talk ourselves into thinking it was normal. "Everything is fine, these things happen, it doesn't have to mean the worst..." So we went about our day and went to a bbq at Jay's work for EMS appreciation week. Jay even won a paid vacation day! Woohoo! We love extra paid vacation days. On our way home, I called my doctor to set up my eight week appointment and decided to run in and do the confirmation test in the doctor's office. Things got worse at that point and then she came out and said that the test showed that I was pregnant but it came up very slowly and faint. She asked me to go into the hospital to do the quantitative blood test right then and then again on Monday morning to see if I was miscarrying. By Saturday afternoon, reality hit that we were most likely losing our baby. I was five weeks along exactly. Monday morning, I went in for my other lab work and called the doctor a couple hours later to hear that we had lost the baby. My numbers were 55 on Friday and only 6 on Monday. Definate miscarriage. I am writing all of this because I want to put my thoughts down in writing and because I want to always remember my second pregnancy. I don't know if that is weird or not but it was a pregnancy, even though it was short lived, and I already loved that baby in just the few hours that I knew I was pregnant and the few days that I thought I was.

We were ready to be pregnant, at least in our eyes we were. We thought the timing was just perfect. Carter would be one month from his second birthday, baby would be born right after Jay's birthday in January, and we felt pure joy that we were going to get to do this all over again! Some of you may be thinking that I am being dramatic, and that is fine. This was a big moment in our lives that I will never forget. I truly believe that God was protecting us from greater heartache down the road and that our little baby, the size of a poppy seed, is in heaven right now. I really am thankful that it happened early, quickly, and without any complications. I am trusting God and his perfect timing, but not without many tears and somewhat of a broken heart.

I did enjoy parts of my birthday. I loved going out to breakfast with Jay and Carter. I loved that Jay cooked me delicious rib eye steaks for dinner. I love that he bought sparkling cider for our dinner. I love that Carter got to spend the evening at my dad's house. I love that Carter got to have a sleepover at my mom's house so that Jay and I could have a relaxing evening at home. And I loved my little date night with my husband, sleeping in the living room, watching a movie, and my cute Miche shell that Jay bought me for my birthday. I also loved getting my hair done! Thank you Jay for making my birthday special even in the midst of one of our hardest moments.

Today, I have accepted what has happened. I am sad. I have moments where I just want to lay in bed and cry. But, I am thankful for so many things and I know that each day will get a little easier. I am so thankful for my Carter man. Going through an experience like this makes me even more thankful for my beautiful boy...If it's even possible to be even more thankful for him than I already am.

Thank you everyone for your thoughts, encouraging words, and prayers. I appreciate them more than you will ever know!

Iowa 2011

We flew to Iowa last week to visit Jay's family. We had an amazing time and are so thankful for the opportunity to go and spend time with them. We hate living so far away from Jay's dad, stepmom, brother, sister, nephew, and grandma. We always have such a great time when we go though and I am thankful for that. Jay's dad is a farmer out there so we always spend lots of time in the corn fields on tractors. Carter LOVED every minute of it!!! He loves tractors and trucks and anything big like that. He even LOVED his grandpa's semi truck. Everytime we drove up to the farm and he saw that truck...he would get so excited! We had some crazy weather! We packed mostly jeans and long sleeve shirts expecting it to be in the 50's like it had been in Salem. As soon as we walked out of the airport I knew our suitcase wasn't packed correctly! It was hot and by Tuesday it hit like 97 degrees! Holy cow! By the end of the week it was stormy, rainy, and cold. We had every type of weather...but no tornadoes! Carter was an amazing traveler! He did so great on the plane on the way there. He loved the airport and all of the people watching. He loved running all over the place and checking everything out. He was great on the plane too. Thankfully two out of three of our longer flights we had all three seats to ourselves. That was such a blessing! Carter took a little nap, drew on his magna doodle, ate snacks, watched out the window, watched Chuggington on the laptop, flirted with the flight attendents, played peek a boo with the people sitting behind us, and talked to everyone. I took lots of pictures on the plane but for some reason the memory card is not working in the computer right now and neither is the cord. As soon as I figure that out I will put those pictures on here. Here is a lot of pictures to sum up our trip...

Having a chat with Great Grandma.

He loved riding on the riding lawn mower. He cried when we took him off.

He loved all the tires on the tractors and trucks.

Carter and mommy on Mother's Day.

Helping daddy drive the pickup on the farm.

Seeing Grandpa for the first time in over a year. He was planting till late the night we got into town so the next day we took Carter out to him in the field and let him ride around in the tractor while he was planting.

Helping Aunt Nicole organize her cupboard in her new house. I don't think he was a whole lot of help though.

Driving the tractor with daddy while he was field cultivating.

He was so done. He loved being on the tractor but it was now way past nap time and he didn't want to stand on the wheel.

Watching Chuggington

Grandma and Grandpa's cat, Koby. Koby wasn't too interested in Carter but Carter sure loved him!

One afternoon we went about a half hour away to do a little shopping. Carter was a little pooped when we were finished.

We went out to dinner at the saloon in town. Jay's sister's boyfriend works there and won Carter two stuffed animals out of the claw machine. Carter was soooooo excited!

He loved giving them kisses!

This is Jay's brother's son Kayden. Carter and him are cousins. He is two and a half years old.

Brothers and their boys

Grandpa's semi truck. This was Carter's obsession all week.

However...the boys did not want their picture taken on it.

Playing with Grandma

Great Grandma's neighbors had some playground toys, dogs, chickens, goats, cats, and lots of room to run and play. Carter was in heaven!

Great Grandma and her grandbabies

Planting corn with Grandpa

Aunt Nicole and Carter (Jay's sister)

Carter loved playing in this tent.

Watching daddy and grandpa work on the tractor in the field.

Everyone went out to dinner our last night there. We had a great evening. They were so nice and celebrated my birthday that night too.

We were playing pool while we were waiting for our table.

Silly Carter!

Loves for Grandpa. He was laying on his shoulder for quite a while. It was really sweet!

Four generations

Carter loved his family so much! And I think they kinda like him too! ;) We had a great trip and made so many precious memories with our family!