Carson is 4 months old!

Um, my baby is 4 months old? Whoa, that flew by! I can say that now but it didn't feel like it was flying by the first couple months!! I am so happy to report this month that we have ourselves a pretty happy and content little man. No, he still doesn't like to sleep a ton, but he is happy! I will take it!! 

Oh Carson...where do I start? He is teaching me SO much these days and I am loving having a baby in our home again. He has become a very smiley little man and will sit on your lap and coo with you all day if you want to. He "talks" a lot and loves to be on my shoulder watching what is happening around him. He recognizes all of us too and it is so fun to see his face light up when we give him some attention. He loves to lay on my lap and have me read board books to him, play on his floor mat and started to grab the little animals, giggle when you squeeze his chunky spots in his legs or under his arm pits, loves his bath usually, and likes to cuddle. He's just started to get in the bumbo chair and jumpy thing and the verdict is still out for how much he enjoys those.  He also rolled over for the first time last week. His cloth diapers give him such a bubble butt though that he can only roll without it on :)

Sleeping wise- again, he is a "routine baby" I'd say. Wake up, nurse, awake time, nap, and that same routine all over again about 3-4 times a day. He takes anywhere from 30 min- 1.5 hr naps and I am slowly learning how to adapt to a babe who is unpredictable in how long he will sleep. The days I plan to accomplish something like laundry he naps for 30 minutes. The days I plan nothing and start nothing because I am sure he will wake up any minute he sleeps 2 hours and I could have cleaned my whole house in that time. (It's amazing how fast you learn to get things done when given very short amounts of time to accomplish anything or vise versa... how little you get done when you have a baby who never sleeps... I about died when my friend, Natalie, saw my laundry pile, er I mean mountain, this week!! :-) He is pretty happy in between these mini naps though and I am grateful for his happy temperament. He has also finally relaxed a bit with his eating schedule. He nurses about every 3 hours during the day and at night will go down usually between 7:30-8:30 and nurse once before he wakes between 7-8am. The last week he has been up a bit more at night, but I think he is having a little growth spurt...I hope!

He got his shots today and weighed in at 16 pounds and 24 1/4 in long. Supposedly, that is 80% and 15%. All in all, we are blessed beyond words with a very healthy baby boy and we have come to just love what he brings to our home! Happy 4 months sweet baby boy!

 Thanks to big brother Jaxon he had a painted blue nose one night... I found him like this while making dinner. Oops, Carson was not impressed and it did not come off for a couple days. Kind of funny looking down at your baby with a blue nose!

 Carson LOVES being outside.... oh, how we miss the warm fall days!

 Our little rolling boy...

 He is so sweet to watch sleeping.... yes, he is a tummy sleeper and loves his binkie and blankie tucked under his arm :)

 Our chunky monkey!!

 4 months old!

Lets see how fast he fills up my basket :)

g

caught ya!

Barely got my camera out in time to catch these two just hamming it up the other day! They were smiling up a storm at each other, clearly impressed with each others view :)

And he might kill me some day for this picture, but how "Austin-ish" is this? :) Caught him!

Yup, clearly have no clue who wrote this on my window frame.... unless you know any kids in my house who can read and write and get the lids off of the markers... oh, wait, that leaves me with just one boy in mind???  :)

And lastly, I caught my little man with two favorite fingers in his mouth... just like his daddy did as a boy :) Like father, like son already!

turkeys and snowen

The first snow has come... and gone! I don't know what it is, but I just can't wrap my head around the fact that the holiday season is here!! We still have bright yellow leaves falling, bikes in our garage being rid, and football games happening in the backyard. The first snow surprised my boys as they awoke one day last week and they were dressed and out the door by 7:30am building their first snowman. Two days later, I was making hand turkeys with the little guys. Oh, Iowa weather... you never surprise me!

 A bunch of turkeys...

How funny does this snow guy look with green grass under him and fall leaves behind him?

Trick or Treat

My boys love Halloween! We do everything pumpkiny, sweet, simple, with friends, and just have fun. We use pumpkin carving as a perfect time to share the idea that God cleans us out and uses us to shine for Him. I have some great childrens books that really help teach this image to our kids. The last handful of years we have done a little party at our house for anyone with young kids who want to come over for chili, kid food, and fun before trick or treating. It's become a really fun tradition we all look forward to. I love seeing the kids get all dressed up playing all over our house and yard. I really enjoy feeding people, even if it's basic chili and pigs in a blanket :) We had a beautiful day for the party this year, followed by a perfect night for trick or treating. I'm not going to lie, it was a busy few hours... but worth every barfed on shoe I had, spray painted head I saw, apple cider on my floor, and counter full of dishes left at the end of the night!!!  

 We started the afternoon fun by heading to school to see Jaxon in his costume parade.

 There's Jaxon this year... a ninja :)  His choice of costume this year, whatever it is they do!

 Let the party begin... lots of cute kids to be found, but I was terrible at getting pictures this year!! Too much going on!

 Our home was filled to the brim... and I loved every second of it!

 Babies were EVERYWHERE!! I think I counted 9 new babies that were not here last year at this time! How crazy is that? God has been good to so many of us!!

 I got nervous the food would run out. Some how the "real" food was all gone and I was left with pans full of pumpkin bars... how did that happen?

 Getting ready to head out with Dad for trick or treating... a different year for us with Carson. I needed to nurse him so I stayed back and caught up to them at our friends home later. I hear the boys made out very well thanks to Dad's work crew :)

 Ah, boys... what else can I say? This involved my son, his best friend, and a can of black spray paint. Need I say more?

 Carson was a bear this year and he played the part well about 30 minutes after I put this on him.

Okay, so I never actually found a time to snap a pic of all 3 boys on Halloween... so a few days later counts too, right?

fall favorites...

The days are shorter and the mornings so chilly you can't help but want that cup of hot tea to start your day. I down-loaded my camera and realized I had tons of fall pictures I never blogged. Here are a few of our favorite fall moments at our house. 

Pumpkin carving with little friends!

Painting pumpkin faces with some of my daycare crew!

Our yard gets TONS of leaves every year. While it is work, I love it. And so do our boys :)

A lazy Sunday fall afternoon.... we have a picture of Dave as a kid on this same bridge outside of town. We drove out to check it and the river out.

It was a little high for me, so I hung out at the end and held on tight while snapping pictures :)

Halloween cookies, of course!! I had two great helpers for this project.

And they did a great job!

Little buddies finding their smiles at the same time... too precious!

This fall Austin has just clicked with putting puzzles together. He does all kinds and ones I would think to be too hard for him. He spends long stretches doing this, it's so fun to watch him.

More leaves and more leaves and more leaves...

Jaxon has mastered tree climbing and I have to tell him to come back down from WAY too high of places! Ah, boys!

And more leaves :)

And more leaves and more cute boys :)

What a beautiful time of year to be outside.

something new

Attempting something new! Check out my "tasty food" tab at the top of this blog :)

marrying

I love creating an atmosphere at our dining room table that provides space for good conversations... honest ones, humorous ones, simple ones, deep ones, everyday ones, real ones. As the boys and I ate our turkey sandwiches and munched on Austin's choice of cheese balls and apple slices we some how got to the topic of "marrying". Austin informed me, like he usually does with this topic, that he was going to marry Natalie someday. When I told him that I really liked the qualities Natalie had and I would love for him to marry a gal like her some day, I thought she was maybe a bit too old? (She is 21 today, he is 3 :) He just laughed and said he'd marry Eisley instead. :)
I then asked Jaxon what kind of girl he wanted to marry some day and he was very quick to ask "you don't have to get married do you?" Of course I told him no he didn't HAVE to, but what if he did... what would he like his wife to be like, IF he did marry someday? The answer he gave me in .5 seconds.... "she has to be really good at sports and a killer football player!" I look forward to meeting this killer athlete someday :)