Carson's 3rd Birthday...at home

On Carson's actual birthday, we had our little family party for him. I tried my hand at making him a Mickey Mouse cake, which he recognized as Mickey Mouse, which is all that matters!

And blowing out all 3 candles, which he wanted to do over and over again...

We bought him a gumball machine because he always asks for gum. Since you can hardly find gum with plain, old sugar in it anymore (they all have aspartame in them now), I figured a gumball machine with the old fashioned gumballs would solve the problem. It requires a coin and he is allowed 1 coin per day, to be used at his choice during the day.

And showing off his new Mickey Mouse watch, complete with interchangeable bands. (thanks Nana and Papa)

Showing off one of his new Mickey Mouse movies.

Then we took him to Chuck E Cheese to play some games.

Uncle Matt helping him shoot down the helicopter.

Caleb was too little for most of the games, but he enjoyed running around, checking it all out. By the end of the night though, he was content to be held by my mom.

Carson really seemed to turn into a little boy this week. He's not really a toddler anymore and certainly not my little baby, but it's been so fun watching you grow into a little boy:) We love you!

Carson's 3rd Birthday in Louisville

So, I've been sorry about updating lately. And since Christmas was sooo long ago, I'll just skip that altogether and jump to Carson's birthday (which was last week). We were in Louisville the week-end before his birthday visiting new baby Olivia. Aunt Heather and Aunt La-La were sweet to throw Carson a little party while we were there.

He got his first Mickey Mouse stuffed animal.

And a Mickey Mouse doctor's kit, from Aunt Heather.

Eating the yummy birthday cake!

And here's Aunt La-La holding her new baby girl.

Two Little Monkeys

For Halloween this year, I decided to have both boys go as monkeys. Seemed fitting since they both have a little monkey they sleep with at night. Friday night we attended the Fall Festival at our church. Carson was still a little young for some of the games, but he tried anyway. After playing the game, the kids can pick out candy from the bucket - Carson chose suckers every time.


Caleb in his costume - he even wore the hood!
Every time I ask Carson to stand still for a picture, he gives me this very serious face. You would think from this picture that he wasn't enjoying wearing his costume, but in fact, he LOVED it! He wanted to wear the hood and the little mittens that went over his hands the entire night.

Sunday night we pulled the boys in their wagon for a night of trick-or-treating. Caleb was content to ride in the wagon, but I did take him up to most of the houses. Carson thoroughly enjoyed going to each door, saying Trick-or-Treat, and picking out a piece of candy, although this night he was more fond of Tootsie Rolls. Here they are with their giant pixie sticks (at least that's what I think they are...I haven't let them open those yet!)
Two worn out little monkeys!

Ring Farm

Last week-end we made the annual trip to Ring Farm with my parents, Matt, Katie, and Lucas.


Carson proudly showing us his age, along with his height.
Caleb isn't as excited about getting measured for his height. Not enough action, I guess.
There were these 2 tractors that the boys loved to sit on and pretend they were driving.

We hadn't been there long when Caleb took a tumble from one of the tractor tires that were stacked on each other and scraped up his face. Although it doesn't look too bad in the picture, it was bruised for a few days.

Caleb flexing his muscles by attempting to pick up this pumpkin.


Duke and Carson...such a sweet picture.
Carson could have gone down the slide all day. It was a pretty steep slide if you can't tell from the pictures. I wasn't sure if they would do it by themselves, but they did...over and over again....


Caleb had no fear going down the slide by himself either. Feet first, head first, it didn't matter.

If you noticed, the boys are in different clothes in some of these pictures. The guys (meaning my dad, Shea, and Matt) had a tee time, so we had to cut the outing a little short. We went home to change clothes (because by now it was almost 80 degrees) and my mom and I brought the boys back to ride the slide a few more times and take the hay ride (well, it was really just a tractor ride, because there wasn't alot of hay!)



Getting tired.... time to go home for a nap...

Funny Pictures of Caleb

This one is more sweet than funny, but it is one of my favorites.

Caleb makes this face all the time. Certainly not the cutest, but it has become his signature.

For the most part, he is a happy baby. He particularly likes to laugh at his big brother. Everything Carson does, Caleb thinks is hilarious.

I don't know what he is doing here. He and Carson were chasing each other in the play room one night and somehow this was captured. You would think we were playing some loud rock music in the background!
A rare photo of him being this still. I think he was trying to look at me through the lens.
As you can tell, he is quite a messy eater. Usually he wears a bib, but if the dinner contains a tomato sauce, we strip him down to his diaper and give him a bath afterwards. Much easier than trying to get stains out of his clothes!

At the park with dad

One night last month, I went to dinner with a group of girlfriends, so Shea took the boys to the park. I was so impressed that he not only took the camera, but took some cute pictures too!

Caleb isn't afraid of going head-first down anything
A rare photo of them on the same toy!

Birthday Boy

Caleb turned 1 today! Aunt La-La and Kackie got us a zoo membership for a year so we took Kackie along with us for our first visit. Caleb looks ready to go!Carson couldn't spend a day outside without his shades.
It became obvious that we've spent a bit too much time on farm animals, because Carson kept wanting to call every animal he saw a cow, especially the elephants.
You can't tell, but those are giraffes in the background.
Riding the carousel with Kackie. He really wanted to ride the monkey (which is right in front of his leopard) but another little girl (who happens to go to our church) got to it before him. Maybe next time! Once the carousel started, he forgot all about it and waved to every person has he went past.
The playground provided all kinds of excitement, especially the slides.
Ok, so we actually went to the zoo on Friday and Caleb's birthday is on Saturday. We made it a week-end of festivities:) Now, on to the cake pictures! We were all expecting Caleb to dig into the cake immediately, but he was definitely hesitant. Here he's just checking out the icing to make sure it's worth it.
And it didn't take long for him to decide that it was!
"Victory! I just about finished off that enormous piece that mom gave me!" The pictures don't do it justice, but that was a rather large piece of cake. It was definitely big enough for 2 adults, and he easily finished off half of it.

Aunt La La saw these rain boots when she was shopping for Caleb's present and couldn't resist getting them for Carson, under the condition that we got a picture of him wearing them in his underwear, and nothing else! So I obliged, but only because she's family:)


The future Calvin Klein underwear model