Are your kids obsessed with Clifford like Carter is?

Carter's new favorite thing for March is to watch Clifford. He also loves Sesame Street and other fun kid shows, but we checked out a Clifford DVD from the library and he is hooked! He could watch the same DVD 10 times a day, or all day for that matter. He almost always has to be seating on his chair ON TOP of the couch to watch his shows. The best is when something funny happens on Clifford and gets off his throne to come get us in the other room while he's still laughing about it.
Maybe he watches too much tv, but we're not worried about that now since it's always good shows. It's fun to see something capture his attention span for longer than five minutes, and to realize that he really gets what is going on in the shows. He's just so smart!

Hopefully you don't mind all the videos as of late, but Carter has been doing some fun stuff that we want to capture and remember forever. He loves to do whatever Mike teaches him, and their new thing is gurgling with water. It's become part of the nighttime ritual where Mike gurgles and Carter laughs. Good times!


In this video Carter tries to gurgle at the end, but you probably have to turn up your volume to hear.

The other super cute thing that he does is feel his throat as he swallows...he even makes the gulping/swallowing noise! It's fun that Mike teaches him all these random things.

Tonight we had spaghetti and Carter loves noodles. He was actually eating pretty well so we had to capture his ever increasing skill of using a fork. Granted, with his face you can tell that fingers are still his preferred method. :-)

Carter also loves to eat apples, and we caught him trying to get some on his own since we were apparently taking too long. At the end we try to get him to say "apple" but he didn't quite do it...he watches Sesame Street, and Cookie Monster taught him to say apple like "a a a apple". In the video you at least get the first couple "a".

Carter is always finding new ways to make us laugh, and these videos are no exception. He found a couple new ways to walk...

This video was from a couple of weeks ago, but it still makes us laugh. While Mike was getting ready after Carter had a bath he came back to the room to find the following...what a mischievous and proud little boy we have!

Finally, the sun came out this weekend! While Mike was working hard helping his brother with his brakes and then going to school to work on the Baja, Carter and Christina enjoyed the sunshine outside. Carter LOVES the outdoors, and just had a blast exploring the yard, throwing dirt, and watering the flowers. This first video is of him throwing a frisbee for the first time, and he's actually pretty good at it.

Then of course we had to run through the leaves. It was such a wonderful day to have some one-on-one time with our growing boy.

While Christina went off to the Ward Council Meeting this morning, the boys stayed home and cooked breakfast. Carter loves to help in the kitchen, and it's even more fun for us when he actually is a help instead of just a mess. :-) Man, do they grow up fast!

Hawaii, here we come!!!

It's official! We bought tickets yesterday to Maui! We are going as a graduation trip for Mike and our good friends James & Kelly are going as well since James is also graduating. We are so proud of our guys and we can't wait for the next 6 weeks to fly by so we can sit on the beach and finally relax after 5+ years of schooling! J&K can stay longer that we can since we have to be back for Mike to compete his senior design project of a mini Baja in WA. So we are flying out on Sunday, May 9th and coming back by Sunday, May 16th. We ARE going to leave Carter which will be hard, but we pray that he'll do well with his grandmas.

Because of J&K we actually have really nice FREE lodging so we just have to pay for flight, car, and food. Since tickets are expensive anyway, we wouldn't be able to make this trip without J&K, plus, they also went to Maui on their honeymoon so they already know all the great places. This is a pretty big trip for us, especially leaving Carter so we'll see how it goes. We are thinking of getting a web cam so we can see him and talk to him, but maybe that will make it worse? Does anyone have any experience or advice about leaving your kid(s) for a trip?

Happy Birthday Cheri!!!

Today is Cheri's birthday, but with everyone's work and school schedule we decided to celebrate it yesterday at our house. We actually started off the morning extra special because Andy received the Melchizedek Priesthood!! We are SO proud of him! He's planning on going on a mission by August so this was an exciting step. Unfortunately we forgot to snatch a picture of him, but we did get one of the boys with their matching ties...we bought the ties a long time ago, but Carter finally grew into it. :-)

After the setting apart, everyone came to our house for dinner, presents, and dessert. Everything tasted wonderful, and it was so fun to be together as a family. Cheri is such a wonderful mom, grandma, and friend and we loved celebrating this day with her. Carter enjoyed helping Grandma open her presents, especially when he found the candy bars.

Cheri loves custard pie so Christina kept up the tradition from last year and made a custard pie from scratch. Steve also LOVES custard so they were both super happy. The rest of the group enjoyed a fantastic strawberry angel food cake that Angela "made". It was divine! Besides Carter being super cranky since he didn't want to take a nap in fear that he would miss something, the day was perfect. The sun even came out after a previous day of lots of rain and snow. We are so blessed and it's times like this that help remind us of our loving Heavenly Father.

Guess what??!!

Baby 2 is on their way!

We found out for sure a month ago on Thursday morning, February 11th. We basically knew since Christina was late, but it's nice to know for sure. The funny thing is that she was pretty sure around the 4th because she's always at the very beginning of the month so she thought she could just take a $1 store test to confirm her suspicions. Well that test came out negative. Then by Monday the 8th we were even more sure so we tried another $1 test and it came out negative again! So on Wednesday when we picked up Carter from Dan & Analise we told them that we probably were, but that we needed to get a good test to give us an official answer and put us at ease. They just happened to have an extra one from when they found out they were months ago. Finally, a positive answer! We're both super excited and scared to have another kid. We feel like our hands and hearts are full with Carter, but we're ready for the next step and feel that it is the right time for our family. We also think Carter will be a great big brother. If all goes well, Baby 2 will be here around October 9th!

**We wanted to shout it form the roof tops when we found out, but things were extra crazy at the time. We don't believe in waiting to tell everyone because we're too excited to keep it quiet. With Carter we made an extra effort to call and tell everyone since it was our first, but this month has been a bit busy so sorry if this is the first you're hearing about it. We love you all and we'll you keep you updated on the progress. :-)