Summer Camp

This Saturday, we are taking our teens to summer camp, and we are SO excited! It's going to be crazy fun, and the more things that we work on nailing down, the more excited I am becoming. We're leaving Carson for the first time, and I know he'll do great. I'm nervous about it just because I've never been away from him for more than a day, HE'll do great...I'm more worried about me :) Isn't that silly???

I know it will be 4 days and 3 nights of awesome memories, and we pray that lives will be changed forever.

Mother's Day Pictures

This was such a good mother's day - my first real one. We had lunch with my mom and Cary's mom and some other family. All in all we had 20 people there. It was so fun, and lunch was SO good! :) Cary and Carson got me a really sweet mom and baby ring from James Avery that looks like a heart. I love it! :) Here are pictures from our day:

Carson stood up for the first time by himself on Mother's Day:


My handsome boys:


Carson and Aunt Stephanie:

Carson's First Birthday

Carson's birthday was so much fun! We had a great turnout, and Carson was happy and so sweet. He loved opening presents and showing off for everyone. He got SO many toys, so today we went through the house and put all of his baby toys away that he doesn't use anymore so we could make room for the new ones. He LOVED his cake, and was sad when I took it away after he had eaten most of the frosting. It was a wonderful day. Here are a lot of pictures, but we took SO many more! :)

Carson in his birthday outfit before the party:


Carson's cake (I loved it!):


Carson and Bella:


Carson and Mommy:


Carson and Auntie Kelsey:


I LOVE this picture:


Cary being silly with a few of Carson's presents:


This shirt says "If you think I'm cute, you should see my dad!"


cutie patootie:


The train we got him:


Eating cake - well, frosting really...:


Carson having fun with Aunt Stephanie and one of his toys from them:


And so appropriately, the last picture we took at the party (but not on purpose):


He's off to start another year.

Fun with family

Here are some pictures of all of us at Daniel's Park which is this beautiful park up the street from our home.

Almost done

Well, I'm almost done getting everything together for Carson's birthday and party on Saturday. I'm getting so excited! Cary get's home tonight from his business trip, and DeAnne, Steph and Emily will get here either this evening or tomorrow. I LOVE having company! :) I'm feeling so accomplished today. I finished getting everything for Carson's party except for the food. We don't really have anywhere to put it, so we're waiting until the last minute. I was determined to do a generic train theme for the party, and I was having so much trouble finding cute things to go with it - EVERYTHING is Thomas the Train. Anyway, Carson and I went to Party City and found the CUTEST 1st birthday stuff with a transportation theme, and there are trains all over it. I think it will work really well. I got the balloons and cakes ordered. The main cake is SO cute! I'll be sure to post pictures. In fact, the post for Carson's birthday will probably have a ridiculous amount of pictures, so there's your warning. :) I also got the whole house cleaned, laundry done, and Mother's Day shopping completed. Yay for me...hey...someone has to pat me on the back...right???? :)

Carson got his first hair cut the other night. Cary promised me he would edit the video, so I'll do my best to get a clip of it up here for you all. Carson was very tired, so it was a little traumatic, but fun just the same.

Have a great day everyone! :)

2 weeks in a nutshell

Well, it's been a while since I've posted because there hasn't been a whole lot to blog about. We've been really busy and have done a lot lately though, so here we go:

We were in Austin and Waco last week visiting friends while Cary had business. It was lots of fun to see everyone, and we are so thankful to Roy and Debbie who opened their home for us (Deb gave me a sweet, girly welcome to her home gift - she's so thoughtful! :)) and David, Staci and their sweet little girl Julia, who had a little get together for us while we were in Waco. It was so good to see everyone while we were there. Oh, and while we were there Roy and Debbie bought their first home - how exciting is that! We are so jealous! :)

Then when we were in Austin, our friends Joey and Natalie (Joey also works with Cary) joined us so the guys could work together, so that was so much fun. Natalie and I did some crazy shopping at the outlet mall there in Austin and got some great things! :) And Cary's Mom and step-dad Tommy came to see us while we were there. It was so great to see them and have them spend some time with us and Carson. I'm so excited that they will be out here next week for Carson's 1st birthday. I'm beginning the buying process for that... I still can't believe he is turning 1 already! :)

Cary has been traveling like crazy lately. He left Monday and got back yesterday evening, and then he leaves again on Monday :( I have lot's to do before Carson's party, so this week will be crazy busy, I'm sure, but very fun! :)

Here are some fun pictures from the last couple of weeks:

Carson playing guitar with Daddy


sharing a cracker on the plane:


and playing with Julia on the piano:

Happy Easter!

Here are some pictures from our fun day. It looks like Cary was behind the camera today. I hate that we never realize that one person takes all of the pictures until the day is gone. We'll have to work on that! :)

Here is a close up of Carson in his Easter outfit, and one of him with his Easter basket train:




Here are a few of Carson and I as we were waiting for lunch:




Here is Carson hunting for eggs:


Success!:


Hope you all had a wonderful Easter!! :)

Happy 11 Month Birthday Carson James!!!

I can't believe you will be a year in just 30 days! You are getting so big! You are doing so many things now. You love to play games, especially tag with Mommy and hide-and-seek with the doggies. You love food, especially when you can feed yourself. Your favorite food lately is scrambled eggs. You love anything that is outdoors, and love to explore everything in sight. You are full of joy and charm everyone you meet!

Fun at the park

It was such a beautiful day today that Cary and I took Carson on a little picnic at the park. It was his first experience with slides and swings, and he LOVED it!! :)

Our son the ham

Carson was being such a goofball during breakfast this morning. I just had to share:

This is what he did when I pulled out the camera: notice the cheesy sidebite:


Then he immediately did this...brainfreeze from toast???


Then he was feeling pretty proud of himself, so he started clapping and making his "yay" sound:


He is such a funny kid! :)

3 year anniversary

Our celebration was lots of fun! Cary got me a pink razr cell phone :) And I got him 5 1-hour golf lessons. He was so excited. The food was fantastic, and we had creme brule for dessert - yum!! We really had a great time.

Carson's first experience with bubbles

Update

We're home. We spent this last week house sitting for my family while they were basking in the sun in Playa del Carmen. I have to admit, I was jealous...although we've had gorgeous weather here. It's been mid 70's all week....I LOVE SPRING! :)

Carson has been napping for 3 hours now and shows no signs of stirring. I guess he is enjoying being back in his own crib. Cary and I are going out for dinner tonight to celebrate our 3 year anniversary. We're going to Carrabba's...yum! And Carson gets to spend the evening with Bella and Poppi (my mom and dad), so there will be fun had all around! I guess that's it for an update for now. I know that interesting things have happened...they've just escaped me for the moment.

We survived!

Hey everyone!! We survived our unbelievably busy weekend, and for once, I'm thankful it is Monday! :) We really did have a lot of fun at all of our activities. Cary did so good at the Amazing Race finale on Friday night - I was so proud of him. We also had a great time with our teens on Saturday night for the winners night out. And our babysitting outreach on Sunday night went really well. Carson was such a trooper throughout all of our events. He was happy as always, and I must say that he LOVED the jumphouse that we had at the babysitting outreach. :) Hope you all had a great weekend!

Busy, Busy, Busy

I feel like we are running around like chickens with our heads cut off! We've been so busy lately! This Friday marks the finale of our Amazing Race competition with our youth, so we are having a big concert at one of the high schools. Be praying for that if you think about it. Cary is going to be preaching a salvation message, and many of these kids don't know the Lord. Then Saturday we are taking the winning team out for a night on the town and an overnight hotel stay...talk about craziness! Then on Sunday, we (our youth group) are doing an outreach babysitting night for a local elementary school while the parents go to an auction. Oh, and tonight, Carson and I are going to one of our students choir concerts and Cary is going to our worship team's practice. Anyway, things are crazy here! :)





Monday marked 10 months for Carson. I can't believe it. He's into everything, mobile, and very fast. He has developed an opinion about everything and has so much personality. He is eating everything we put in front of him, and his most recent favorite is avacado. It's really fun and makes dinners a lot quieter to have him eating finger foods more now, although it does make things A LOT messier! He is such a flirt and a ham, and loves to wave, high five and do what Cary has named "the lizard." Basically, he sticks his tongue in and out really fast...it's pretty funny. He also does this "aren't I cute face" where he grins really big and then squeezes his eyes shut. It's hilarious, and our youth will do anything to try and get him to do it over and over again! :)

The sickies are better

Well, the sickies have been at our house lately. Cary got a bout of pneumonia, and Carson had a bad cold, along with teething...his 5th tooth cut through on Sunday. I have avoided the sickies for the most part. Other than that, we've been crazy busy, which is always fun. My brother had his first varsity (as a freshman!! - way to go Austin!!) lacrosse game Saturday, so we all went to that, and then the guys hung out while me, my mom, and grandma went to get a pedicure. It was lots of fun. Then we all met up and had dinner at my parents house. We grilled steaks, and it was wonderful!! :) It has been absolutely beautiful here, mid 70's today, but it looks like snow tomorrow. Crazy.

Here are my boys before the lacrosse game:


Carson and my mom made up a new game after our pedicures. My mom stuck the toe separators on her nose, and Carson just thought it was the funniest thing EVER. He kept taking it off and laughing hysterically, and then he would hand it back to her to play again. It was so funny!







He also is getting braver and braver about standing up. Every once in a while, he will forget to hold on and just stand on his own. I can't believe it! He just started pulling up a few weeks ago!



Youth is going really well. I haven't talked about it on here very much, but Cary is doing such a good job, and we have gone from 23 kids to an average of 57 kids each week, and we've had 167 or so visitors come through since January. It seems crazy, but we've given our kids incentive to invite their friends, and they have stepped up. What's more, their friends like youth, and are passing up things like sporting events and ski trips to come to youth! God is so good! If you think about it, be praying for us in this venture.

Oh! Another praise report: Cary cleaned his office...PRAISE BE TO GOD!!! :) enough said :)