Christmas Decorations

I'm slowly starting to collect more Christmas decorations. I refuse to spend full price though on decorations and still go out the morning after Christmas to Target to get the stuff I want at half price. I know, I'm cheap.

Here are a few pictures of some of inside decorations this year.

Our tree ...


The mantle with stockings for Brian, me, Carter, and Charlotte ...


A little tree in the kitchen ...


There's a few other sporadic decorations around the house but I'm looking forward to getting more this year!

Carter is not really into stuffed animals yet. He might pick one up for a second, but then it's put right back down. Today he pulled his iguana out of his basket of stuffed animals and kept carrying it around. It was really odd. I wonder if he'll be interested in it tomorrow at all???

Eating

After eating hardly anything the week that he and I were sick, Carter has been eating and eating and eating the last couple of weeks. I have no idea where he fits all that food in his tiny little tummy. When he's done with a meal, his belly is so huge and hard. Maybe he'll start catching up a little on the growth charts?

Carter is still not eating what we eat. We try, but he won't eat whatever we're having for lunch or dinner.

For breakfast he usually eats half a plain waffle, a mushed up banana or some other pureed fruit, and some cheerios to fill him up. Lunch lately has been yogurt, deli ham, cheese, and some sort of bread. Dinner is a little more random - usually a pureed vegetable or two and then something like a cheese quesadilla. Snacks are things like cheerios, a pureed fruit, or a granola bar.

Carter used to try just about anything. Now he's a lot pickier. Most new things may go in his mouth once, then get spit out with a funny face being made (Carter squenches up his nose and makes an "eewww" look). Usually though he shakes his head no at me before he opens up his mouth.

I'm not too worried because Carter still eats healthy foods but I really can't wait until he'll eat what we eat!

Look what we woke up to ...

And it's still coming down!

Another Molar

I finally figured out why Carter has been such a handful the last few days - his other bottom first molar is coming in. I first noticed it tonight and it's already almost in. At least he should be happier again soon!

I finally finished our Christmas decorations yesterday. It took me all week. Carter even tried to help ...



I'll try to post some pictures of the decorations tomorrow. I worked all day on trying to get Carter to sit in front of the Christmas tree so I could get a picture for our Christmas card. I took a few hundred pictures and still don't have a worthy picture. Maybe tomorrow will go better!

Socks and Shoes

I cannot keep socks and shoes on Carter. He takes socks off immediately and can usually get his shoes off pretty quickly too. If he really needs to wear them, I'll put them on right before we get out of the car. If there is enough stuff going on and he's walking around some, he might leave them on for a little while, but there's no guarantee.

However, today he loved getting into Brian's shoes!

Big Announcement

Carter has something he'd like to say to everyone out there ...


Hint: Check out his shirt.

We had our first OB appointment today. I had an ultrasound first. Everything looked great. There is (thank God) only one baby in there. He or she was bouncing all around. In the 3-D ultrasound you could already see some facial features, as well as arms and legs. The heartbeat was 176 bpm and sounded strong. He or she measured 2.3 cm (if I remember correctly) which calculated to 9 weeks, 5 days though we think we're closer to 9 weeks, 2 days. That gives us a due date of July 5, 2010.



I met with my doctor after the ultrasound for just a couple of minutes for questions. My only concern is my hip pain that has already started. With Carter, I would wake up all night with the hip I was laying on hurting really, really bad. It was like it was on fire with sharp pains going through it. I would have to keep turning over all night long. Well, that's started already. It's happened a few times at night but what is really bugging me is the constant tingling I'm feeling in my right hip all day long. I didn't have that last time. And if I lean anything into my hip, it gets a lot worse. My doctor basically said, "Welcome to a second pregnancy." Apparently your pelvic bones start spreading a lot earlier the second time around and that's what's causing the pain.

I've been feeling okay so far. I'm having morning sickness all the time like I did with Carter, but it's not nearly as bad as it was with him. I'm usually able to eat something at least, if not my entire meal. I'm taking medicine for the nausea in the morning and occasionally in the evening to take the edge off and it's helping a lot more this time than it did with Carter. I did have an AWFUL week the week we got back from Raleigh the first time. I thought at the time it was just terrible morning sickness, but now I think I had the flu or some other stomach bug. I couldn't eat a thing that week. I was really weak and could barely take care of Carter. I lost about 4-5 pounds (which I've now gained back). I'm at about 119 now - it's been a long time since I've been that small. Too bad I'll be growing out of all my non-maternity clothes soon enough. I'm already showing some.

Now I just have to keep this little guy from jumping on me so much and putting his feet into the new baby!

Throwing Tantrums

Carter has started throwing tantrums.

He already mastered the arching back a couple of months ago when you pick him up and he doesn't want to be picked up or when putting him in his carseat and he doesn't want to go it.

Now when he doesn't get his way, he'll flop down on his butt, slap his head forward into the floor (usually leaving a huge red spot on his forehead), and then roll over to his back as he screams. It's not a lot of fun. Especially when I keep worrying about him hurting his little head!

We went to Baby Bookworms at the library last week and he threw 2 tantrums during the songs because he didn't want to sit on my lap. He used to be so perfect during the class. Last week he didn't want to participate at all and as soon as I'd try to sit him in front of me or on my lap, he'd arch his back and slither to the ground. He just didn't want to sit still. Maybe if we get into the routine of going every week again, he'll get better. Or not.

Also, Carter has started getting frustrated when he can't do things. The other day he got really frustrated when he couldn't carry all the pens he'd taken out of my drawer in one hand and then ended up throwing them all around and screaming. He's done this a few other times in the last week when he couldn't do want he wanted.

Thanksgiving

So we took almost no photos during our trip to Raleigh. We must have been too busy eating, and eating, and eating! I need to get better about getting my camera out when we are around family!

We drove to NC on Wednesday evening after Brian got off work. Amazingly we didn't hit any bad traffic and got to Raleigh around 11 pm. Carter had a rough time getting to sleep, but after much screaming and us singing, he passed out for the second half of the drive.

When we got to Brian's parents' house, my mom, Brian's grandmother, and Brian's uncle, Dale, were already there so Carter was unfortunately woken up quite a bit even though he was VERY clingy to Brian and me. We didn't get him to sleep until after 1 am. We tried letting him cry it out a few times but it wasn't working. And, of course, he was up around 5:30 am.

My sister, Karey, and her boyfriend, Mike, along with their dog, Bella, arrived around noon. We took Charlotte and Bella to a dog park right away so they could meet without tearing up Brian's parents' house. They did fine with each other both days Karey was there and it was Charlotte that was always bugging Bella to play. Charlotte would bark and play bow at Bella and Bella would ignore Charlotte until she got annoyed and would bark back at Charlotte and scare her. It was entertaining to watch.

We had a very good Thanksgiving meal in the late afternoon. We fried a turkey as we've done for the last few years and it was very yummy.

Carter didn't do too well with naps while we were in Raleigh and there was usually a lot of crying it out. Poor kid just didn't like something about his play yard or the room he was in or something.

On Friday we hung around the house again and played lots of games. My favorite was Pictionary Man. We got Cinda that game for her birthday and it was a lot of fun to play with our large group. Brian's grandmother and Dale headed home in the morning. We were really glad that there were able to come down though and get to see Carter again. He's changed a lot since they saw him last in June at the beach house. Karey, Mike, and Bella also left in the afternoon to head over to Wilmington to visit with our dad.

Brian and I left Carter home with the grandparents that evening and got to go out to dinner on our own. It was really nice to have a relaxing meal where we're not trying to feed Carter and keep him happy the entire time!

On Saturday we went to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. It's a newer museum in downtown Raleigh and it's FREE! It's already a pretty cool museum, but I love that it's free. There aren't many free museums outside of DC that I know of. Carter seemed to like it, as much as he likes any museum at this point.

Carter checking out one of his favorite things, fish ...


Checking out the whale skeleton ...


Brian and Carter ...


Carter and me inside a giant (fake) tree ...


Carter and my mom with an acrocanthosaurus skeleton ...


When we got home, we watched the rest of the NC State vs Carolina football game. Amazing, State pulled off the win (by one point)! We picked the wrong game to get tickets to!

We headed out Sunday morning and got on the road around 8 am. Luckily we only ran into one accident on the drive that delayed us about 30 minutes. It was a good trip back to NC, but we are definitely happy to be home. Carter really needed to get back into his routine after all the traveling we've done this month.

Back Home

We are back home after spending Thanksgiving in Raleigh. We don't have any plans to travel for the rest of the year and I think Carter is thrilled about that! He's very happy to be sleeping in his own crib again!

I have lots and lots to post about and hope to get caught up over the next few days. Here are a couple of cute pictures from last week before we left for Raleigh ...

Carter was so happy after his bath one night! He usually is a handful between the time we get him out of the bath and get him dressed. Maybe he's just cold?


Carter loves the fridge and if I don't get the door closed fast enough after getting something out, this is what he does ...

Raleigh Trip

I'm really behind on posting about this last trip, but it's better late than never!

So, we got back from Milwaukee on Thursday, November 12th and left for Raleigh the next evening. We had tickets for the NCSU vs Clemson football game on Saturday.

The drive was pretty much uneventful. I was worn out from just getting back from Milwaukee and slept for a little bit of it but was able to wake myself up to keep Brian company and make sure he didn't get too tired. We got in to Brian's parents' house around 11:45 pm. Carter woke up and got to hang out with Brian's parents for a little bit while I set up his room and then we got him off to sleep pretty easily.

The football game was at noon so we got going pretty early. We met our friends Johnny and Anakah at our other friends' (Cass and Jeremy's) house at 9 am. Carter took a really short (5 minute) nap on the way there so he missed his morning nap. We all headed over to the stadium together to tailgate before the game.


It was a little chilly and overcast but not too bad for November. It warmed up a lot for the game though and the sun even came out some. It was fun getting to hang out with everyone and catch up for a bit. Carter fell asleep on Brian but we had to wake him up after about 20 minutes because it was time to head in for the game.

We didn't have great seats, but we were generally able to see everything.


Cute kid waiting for the game to start ...


Carter did well during the game, though he did get a little fussy about staying in one place so much. Luckily there was no one sitting next to Brian so we were able to spread out a little. We had to keep passing Carter back and forth and try to pacify him with food, but we didn't seem to bother the people around us too much.


State didn't do too well ...


We met our friends in the parking lot during halftime for some drinks to try to numb the pain a little bit.


We made it until about midway through the 4th quarter before we couldn't watch anymore. We headed back to Brian's parents' house to hang out for the rest of the day. My mom drove up from Wilmington to hang out with us and help celebrate Carter's birthday.

Sunday was Carter's birthday so we had a little party for him with our family. My dad and Jan also drove up Sunday morning to help celebrate.

Carter got LOTS of presents. We still haven't gotten half of them out of the boxes. I can't believe Christmas is so close and he's going to be getting more stuff!





I decorated the kitchen on Saturday night. Here's a really bad picture of the decorations ...


Cinda put together a great brunch for everyone and then we had cupcakes afterward. Carter LOVED everyone singing Happy Birthday to him. He was all smiles.



Being forced to try a cupcake was another story. He was not thrilled about it and ended up crying.



Carter really liked playing with one of the horns I got. He would pretend to blow through it and make a noise himself trying to imitate the noise we made when we blew through it.


The birthday boy with all his grandparents ...




We headed out around 1:15 pm, just in time for Carter to take an afternoon nap. Carter did pretty well on the drive home. He got a little fussy about midway through but few asleep with a couple of hours left in the drive and slept the rest of the way home (as did I)! It was a good trip back to NC, but a little rough having just gotten back from Milwaukee.