Bahamas pictures :)

Hey everyone! We're home, and we had so much fun! Here are tons of pics...

Carson and I at the beach the first day:










Checking out our hotel, the ocean, and waiting for dinner:












Carson sleeping after 2 long days:


The gorgeous views from our hotel balcony :):






Enjoying the beach and the local fish fry:




Thanks for looking everyone! :P We had such a wonderful time in the sun! :)

Bahamas, Monday & Tuesday

Hey everyone! We have internet in our room, so I'm able to update. :)

We've been having so much fun here and we've spent lots of time in the pool and on the beach. Carson loves the pool and the sand, but is scared to death of the waves. :) I keep trying to take him just to the ocean's edge, but he is just so scared, it's really funny! He watches the waves as they go out and come in, but as soon as they get close to us, he turns away, hugs my neck really tightly and wimpers. :) It's really sweet. Today, I carried him out into the ocean before he realized what we were doing, and once he got used to the waters' temparature, he seemed to like it quite a bit. He hasn't tried to eat the sand too much, thankfully. We've also had some really good food thanks to the suggestions of the people Cary is working with. Last night we had a seafood feast at this restaurant called The Stone Crab. It's on the beach and we ate outside on the patio, and the food was SO good! Our feast had lobster, shrimp scampi, crab legs, conch bites, and potatoes. YUM! And then tonight we went to this fish fry that was right in the sand. Oh! And for lunch yesterday I had fried conch, which is really good - kind of like lobster meat, so if you like lobster and you ever get a chance to try it...DO! :) Anyway, we've been having a great time enjoying the sun and the oh so good food! :) I have lots of pictures to show you all, but I forgot to bring the adapter so that I could upload them. Oh well, I'll have to have a Bahamas picture post when I get back! :)

Bahamas here we come!!!

So excited!! We are leaving early tomorrow morning!! I'll take tons of pictures and post some of them as soon as I get back! :) Nothing more to say! :)

Have a great week everyone! :)

Carson's Curls

This just in...

A tooth!


This morning on the way to church, I noticed a tiny dot of blood on Carson's lip. I couldn't figure out how he had hurt himself and couldn't find the source of the blood. Then a few minutes after we got to church it donned on me that he's been working on his top teeth for a while. I felt his top gums, and sure enough! His first top front tooth has popped through! Yay for Carson! I'm sure the next one isn't far behind. I'll post pictures as soon as there is more than a white line to see! :)

8 Months Old

Happy 8 months, Carson James!! You are getting so big!

He's learned all sorts of new things lately, and is now a pro at the army crawl. He still gets up and rocks back and forth, but that tends to send him backwards instead of forwards. He's also trying to pull himself up on the furniture, and is about half-way successful before he gets too frustrated. But if we prop him up, he'll stand there for several minutes.


He LOVES fruit baby food, and is still eating like a champ. He's also discovered that the bumper pad of his crib moves and there are slats behind it! Every morning when he hears me come in his room, he pulls down the pad and looks through the bars and gets SO excited.



He had his first taste of twizzlers - thanks to daddy - and my parents dog, Kai, had a taste too - gross!




He's also taken a ride down his very first slide with Poppi (my dad) at Trail Dust the other night - it didn't even phase him. He's such a stud! :)


These are the excitement of our days lately, and he is doing so much to make us laugh. Oh, his hair is also getting curly in the back, so I'll post pictures of that soon.

I just can't get enough of this kid! :)

Fun Website

Go here


You upload a photo and it measures your features to tell you which celebs you resemble. It's fun! I uploaded a few different ones and it says that I look 70ish% like Jennifer Aniston, Shania Twain, Courtney Cox, and Penelope Cruz. Cary looks 60% like Michael J. Fox and George W. Let me know who you all look like :)

1 week, 3 days and counting

Needless to say, I am still very excited about our upcoming trip. I want to start packing now! :)

In all of my excitement, I have been pulling out all of my summer clothes from several years ago, and to my amazement, very few things don't fit, and some are even too big! Woo-hoo! And although, I may not look as good as I used to, and although my skin is not nearly as tight and smooth as it once was, I am feeling suprisingly comfortable in my own skin. I've never really delt with major body issues, and I've always been thankful for that, but I am really surprised that after having a baby, I feel even better about myself now than I did before. Maybe things are just in a better perspective for me, or maybe after being hugely pregnant anything smaller is good, but whatever the case, this is most definitely a nice post-side-effect of pregnancy.

WOO-HOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Cary has to go to Freeport, Bahamas for business in a few weeks, and Carson and I get to go with him!!!!!!!!!! Oh my gosh! I am so excited I can hardly stand it!!! We will be there for 5 days and 4 nights! We are staying right on the beach and right by the duty-free market! SO EXCITING!! So while Cary is working, Carson and I will be hanging out at the market and on the beach, and then when he gets done at 4 or so, we can check out the sites of the town. How fun is that!! AND, we're using airline miles to get Carson and I there, so we only had to pay the taxes portion of my ticket! WOOOOOOO-----HOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Oh, and on a even brighter note, the shorts that I wore on our honeymoon......they FIT!!!! What a fantastic day!

Professional Christmas Pictures

Okay :) Here they are! :) Thanks for letting me share them!!

Christmas Recapped

Hey everyone! Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and that you are all ready for the new year....2006! Can you believe it!!??

Our Christmas was so much fun! We had a great time with Carson, my family and our youth. It feels like we've been going non-stop! :) Carson did great during Christmas. He was a sport, even with the late nights and lots of time in his carseat. Speaking of which, he got a new one for Christmas from my parents, and it is AWESOME!! He loves it too. We strapped him in and he just talked and played for 15 minutes in our living room. We'll be installing it soon. Unfortunately, he can't face forward until he gains 2 more pounds. Oh well. He also got lots of fun toys and clothes. Of course, Cary and I unwrapped most of it, but he LOVED the bows and wrapping. It was lots of fun for sure! :) Here are some pictures for your enjoyment. The first is his carseat - he was grinning so big his eyes were closed!. The second is of him in his Christmas outfit. I'll be posting his professional Christmas pictures as soon as I can get them uploaded. They were great - even the ones with Cary and I in them! :)





Happy New Year everyone!!!

Merry Christmas!!!!

Hope you are all having a wonderful Christmas with friends and family!! We love you all!!!!

Cary, Melissa and Carson

5 days and counting!!!

Carson's getting ready...are you???

Look at the tapestry I made for our home! :)

Carson's 7-month stats

Carson's 6th month check-up went well. We like his new pediatrician, and I'm relieved. I was really nervous about having to switch since I liked his other pediatrician so well. Carson was a trooper and flirted with the nurses. He even did well during his shots, and only cried for a minute. Poor guy...

So, here are his stats for those of you who are interested. He weighs 18 pounds and 12 ounces and is 26 3/4" long. His head is 17 1/2", and his percentiles are 53%, 38% and 55% respectively. He's our little chunker, and seems even more so because he's not very long...I guess daddy's dreams of him being CJ the pro basketball player aren't very likely. :) But thankfully, since he's not very long right now, he fits in his clothes a little longer, and I get to tickle his chunky legs! :)

Pictures from Carson's first Christmas celebration:

These next 2 are from the next day, but they're fun too! :)

Pictures from Carson's first play date

Hey everyone! Here are some of the pictures I promised a few days ago. Carson's little friend, Jacob, is Cary's boss' son. He and Carson had so much fun together!!









Carson the evangelist:

Dear Santa

Dear Santa,

I have been a good girl.

It really wasn't my fault what happened at Cary's Christmas party. It was Natalie who spiked the punch with too much tea. I can't help it if I drank 5 glasses. It was so good---smelled and tasted just like dirty diapers.

I thought it was funny when I put Lindsay's shirt on my head and danced the macarena on the sofa while singing `I'll Be Home for Christmas'. I didn't mean to break Cary's TV and don't know why Cary would sue me for stealing.

I don't remember calling BJ's wife a beautiful chicken---even though she looked like one with green eye shadow and pink lipstick!

And when I threw up on Debbie's husband's arm, it was only because I ate too much of that macaroni and cheese.

After all that fun, I admit I was a little tired. So I fell asleep on my way home and drove my Honda Accord through my neighbor's living room. I don't think that was any reason for my neighbor to call me a funny yorkie and have me arrested for cruelty to animals!

So, Santa...here I sit in my jail cell on Christmas Eve, all gross and smelly. And I'm really not to blame for any of this ugly stuff. Please bring me what I want the most---bail money!

Sincerely and unfortunately yours,
Melissa (Really a nice girl!)

P.S. It's only 12 bucks!

Click here to create your own Dear Santa letter!

Thanks Lindsay! This was fun :)!!!


On a side note: I'm DONE!!!! with my Christmas shopping!! :O) Woo-Hoo for me!!! I can't wait for Christmas!! 10 more days!! :)

Holy Smokes!!

13 days until Christmas! I had better get to shopping! Thankfully I'm 70% done, but still...lots to do! :)

Poor Carson is going to the doctor's on Thursday for his 6 month check-up and shots. Yes, he does turn 7 months tomorrow, but we had to wait for our insurance to change over before we could take him. Oh well... And then on Saturday the three of us are going to get family pictures and Carson's Christmas pictures taken. So fun! I hope they turn out well.

Christmas has officially begun for us. We had so much fun in California for Cary's work Christmas party. Carson had his first play date with a baby his own age, and he and Jacob made great friends. I'll have to post some cute pictures from their play soon. Then last night, we celebrated Christmas with my mom's parents and siblings. It was so fun, and really made Christmas seem like it was here. We had fondue...Cary's first time with that, and it was a hit! :)

Hope you are all enjoying the holidays so far!

Long time no blogging, lots to say

Well, maybe not a lot to say, but we've had a lot of things happen. So, I'm going to try and go one by one and post pictures as necessary :)

We are doing well here in the Yocum household. Thanksgiving was wonderful - don't remember if I talked about that in my last posts - oh well. Carson enjoyed a lovely jar of squash as he shared in his first Thanksgiving :). The next day, Cary and I braved the crowds and went to Hobby Lobby - yes, Hobby Lobby :) to get Christmas decorations. It was so much fun! I was so excited that I put our tree up at 10 p.m. that same night! Carson LOVES our tree, especially the lights! Every time I turn it on, he just stares and stares!



We've been really busy with youth and church and my siblings games and concerts and such. Just today, we helped my sister move into her own apartment - so fun for her! and my brother had a basketball game. We have had three concerts and four athletic events since Saturday - it really is a little ridiculous, but it's lots of fun. Anyway, now to the point of my story, we have had a lot of snow in this last week, and with snow comes melting and freezing, and ice. My sister had a recital on Saturday, and as we were walking to the car, I fell.....while holding Carson!!!! Talk about a scary moment. He cried so hard!! Thankfully, neither of us were hurt, but it could have been so bad! Here is Carson during one of our busy days this week in the hat that Poppi (David, my dad) bought him:


Since we have had all of this snow, and Christmas is coming up, I decided that this would be a perfect time to take a picture for our Christmas cards. So, I dressed Carson all up in this great little outfit, and put a blanket out on the snow and sat him on it. He was so excited and started to play with the snow. I went to turn my camera on, and all of the sudden he starts SCREAMING like crazy! The only thing I can figure out is that the cold snow hurt his hands, but it was SO sad. Anyway, I took a picture because it was so perfect, and I wanted to have something to remember the moment, and then we rushed inside and got him warm again, he fell asleep in the process and all is well, but it was really sad and funny all at the same time. I suppose I'm going to have to come up with something else for our cards, but wouldn't this have been perfect if he wasn't crying:


Oh well! :)

Tomorrow, we are getting on a plane and heading for Cali for Cary's work Christmas party. His work is sending all of the wives to a day spa before dinner. Carson is coming along with us and is going to get to play with other kiddos his age. And, our good friends Natalie and Joey are going to be there too since Joey works with Cary. I can't wait to see them! It is going to be so much fun!! :) Hope you guys have a great weekend! :)

Milestones

Hi everyone! Sorry I haven't posted in a while. Cary was in Michigan on business all week, and our home computer was at the Dell repair center. Oddly enough, I had been feeling like I had nothing to post about, but when I was without a computer, I had all sorts of things to say. Isn't that how it always goes...

So Carson has learned many new things all of a sudden. He rolled over from his back to his stomach for the first time, so now we are turning circles. He is now a pro sitter-upper. I sat him down on the floor last Tuesday like I always do. Usually he teeters for a bit and falls over before 2 minutes have passed. On this day however, and every day since, he just sat there. In fact, he sat up straight and looked at me, then grabbed a toy and stuck it in his mouth in one foul swoop. I am so proud of him! Now, he prefers sitting to laying, and gets frustrated if I am not quick enough to set him up after he falls over. So funny! We also started a new veggie - sweet potatoes, and he LOVES them!! He went from eating 1/3 of a jar to a whole jar like it was nothing. He's such a good boy!! :)

We've been really busy too. Cary was gone all week, and I had stuff going on every night, which was nice because it made our time apart pass quickly. Then the day he was coming home, he had flowers sent to me. So nice! :) Just because flowers are the best!!! Saturday, we had a hayride party with our church. It was so much fun!! We had hotdogs and chilli and a hoedown band with banjo and washtub, spoons and guitars - too funny. And then we square danced - yeah you should have seen us - and made s'mores. It was so much fun!! Anyway, that is the short version of my weekless posting. Here are some pictures - since Cary was gone, I've been taking pictures like there was no tomorrow! :)



I know his eyes are closed on this one, but he was laughing so hard, I couldn't pass it up!


He was so funny sitting up for the first time in the tub. He just kept splashing the water with all of his might and then he would stare at the splashing like "How did that happen???"




This one is definitely one of my recent faves. He did this over and over again...too funny! :)

We have a biter

CAUTION....this may get graphic, so if you are male, or faint at heart....please come back in a day or two for my next post....




Carson bit me....on my boob....three separate times....I screamed and then nearly cried, and quickly smooshed his face into my boob so that he would let go. Don't worry, he was not in danger of suffication, I just had to get him to open his mouth. We're going to see if we can't nip this in the bud, but we may be speeding up this whole food introduction thing. Nipple piercing is NOT something I am interested in, and definitely not by way of small, sharp baby teeth!!! Oh, and the funniest part about it, is that every time he would finally let go, he would grin up at me with those two pearly whites like he had just done something SO funny!! It's a good thing he's cute!!! :)

Happenings

Hi everyone! Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I haven't had much to say, I guess, but I have loved reading everyone elses blogs. We've been keeping busy with youth and church and such. We've also been going to my brother Austin's games, which has been fun. He's quarterback on the football team, and indoor lacrosse just started. I'm sure Carson will become a quick fan when he realizes what it is we've been dragging him too. :) Our youth games went really well the other day. We had so much fun! My grandparents were up this weekend too. It was so great to see them. Seeing my family so often is definitely one of the benefits of moving here. Carson is doing well, and growing by leaps and bounds it seems. Cary has closed several more deals with his work lately, which is fantastic, although I'm afraid it means quite a bit of travel in the next few weeks. I don't mind him traveling so much, I just hate it when it's a lot close together or long trips. Oh well... We're hoping that one of his trips will bring him close to his sister so that he can see her while he's away on business....Hi Aunt Em!!! We miss you!!! Well, I suppose that's the gist of our happenings, sorry...this probably isn't of much interest to you all, but here are some pictures to give some oomph to this post :) I know that's why most of you check back here anyway!! :)

Here are some pictures from lunch right before my brother's football game last weekend: