Our New Adventures

With Carson always on the move we are definitely having some new adventures. Our living room no longer resembles a living room. It looks like a war bunker. We move all the chairs from our dining room table along one open side and then we place his saucer in front of all the wires. The room becomes a fortress to hold a little somone in. And still half the time he magically shows up at my feet in the kitchen. He is constantly trying to stand and getting braver. I've seen him remove his hands from the coffee table and turn his upper body completely around to the chair behind him (while standing). Every once and a while he'll let go and try to play with his toy standing but falls pretty fast. Also, new development as of tonight, he can climb stairs. So I came home to a living room that looked even more ridiculous because Karl had moved the coffee table in front of the stairs. Carson climbed up a couple steps to the first landing. We are going to need to figure something out to let him roam free but not make an obstacle course for us all day. Here's just a picture of Carson checking the computer wires for me to make sure they're all connected right.

Church is an adventure all on its own. We are at the 9 to noon slot and Carson likes a 10 am nap so that is awful. He won't fall asleep in our arms anymore (which is actually our doing since we worked really hard for him to put himself to sleep in his crib) and we don't have a mobile car seat anymore for him to sleep in. So we carry him around and keep him up until he's basically falling over. He also eats cereal at 11 am so we do that real quick in between Sunday School and RS/PH. But that only takes 5 minutes so we're not late to our classes. But the poor thing's schedule is so haywire on Sundays. Getting Carson to sit on a lap for 3 hours is impossible. He just arches his back and squirms and screams till you put him down. I watched a 1 year old play at her mother's feet with a few toys for the entire hour of Relief Society. When I tried that with Carson it was a disaster. He explored every inch of that room with in a few minutes, tipping everything over possible, ripping some ladies papers before I could get them, etc, etc. So Sundays aren't fun. He'll usually make it through sacrament meeting happy, but then it's usually one of us sitting in the lobby while he crawls around. We take turns. I don't understand how other kids just sit on their parents lap with a toy...Carson wants none of that. He wants to explore.

This Sunday, Karl and I had a particular moment that was just a glimpse of life to come and we both had a good laugh. (It's probably not that funny, but I laughed). Karl and I are running around Sunday morning trying to get ready. Whoever gets ready first will usually just start on Carson and then the other joins in when they're done. Karl was done first and I showed Karl what outfit to put Carson in. He got him ready and I joined in just to get his bag together and throw everything in the car. We made it to church right on time and sat down. Carson was standing on the seat backwards basically screaming with glee at the people behind us. It was about half way through the meeting when I looked at Carson's outfit a little closer and noticed that his pants were on backwards. They were cotton (so no zipper) but pockets and a little fake fly. I just started laughing, knowing that it will probably happen several more times in our life.

Karl had President's Day off so we took advantage and drove down to Tucson to see these caves Karl heards about. Kimberly orignally had class so we stopped by just to see her. Then as we were leaving she called and told us she decided to skip so she came with us. The caves were in Colossal Cave Mountain Park. The caves were pretty cool. Lots of stalagmites and tites. Carson did pretty good but seemed to whine whenever the guide stopped to talk for a bit. There were also a few times he decided he was really happy and just shouted "da da" for 5 minutes. Hope the other tourists enjoyed our sound effects. Karl and I decided we probably wouldn't go back though...we've seen cooler caves. But definitely somthing fun if you're bored in Tucson. We packed a little picnic and ate afterwards and then drove home in time for me to go to my class that night. So pretty fun day.

Well, that's all for now. Any suggestions on how to make it through 3 hours of church with an 8 month old would be helpful.

Love Kasey

Other Updates

I was so consumed with the family health right now I forgot to mention other Carson updates. While being sick, he had a new tooth come in. (I can't remember if I mentioned he got his first tooth over Christmas break). Anyway, he now has his two bottom teeth. He likes to pull on them with his fingers. It looks quite painful to me. It's hard to describe - it's like a snap but with a finger and tooth instead of two fingers. He also like to chew on everything to hear the sound his two little teeth make. He can pull himself up to standing now. This means everything goes up two more feet and the crib goes down a level. He can now reach real hard and get everything on top of the coffee table. The gnawing + pulling himself up = little teeth marks all over the inside of the top rung of his crib. Very classy! He's become really interested in books lately. He used to just like them because he could slap them and make noise. But now big picture books he'll just stare at and make excited noises. So we're taking advantage of that and trying to read to him a lot. Although he's not really into word books yet, just pictures. I think he gets bored. If he's tired, he'll sit through a short word book with me. With him being sick, his appetite went way down, but it's starting to come back. We've started him on some little cracker stick thingys thanks to Karl's mom (I think they call them biter biscuits). He absolutely loves them and will sit in this high chair for a good 20 minutes working on that thing - which is great for me when I want to clean the kitchen. He's been making the "da" sound for awhile but is recently obsessed. He'll say "da, da, da" for an hour while playing. We're trying to associate it with Karl but he thinks we're just funny. Oh, he's also developed this little sense of humor with in the last few weeks. When we play or do something silly he'll give us a little laugh. Or he does it randomly and who knows what he's laughing at. With in the last two weeks there's been a lot of development. It's like nothing for a month and then all the sudden he's doing a ton of new things. This second picture is just an example of how he climbs on absolutely everything.

A Little Better

Hey All - things here are going a little better. Carson isn't nearly as stuffy and Karl's feeling well enough to start helping out again. Unfortunately Karl missed a whole week of work so he's bummed about that. While Carson was sick I kind of spoiled him in that I rocked him to sleep each time because I didn't want him to cry and get more stuffed. So now we're reaping those rewards. And by rewards I mean punishments. He's also such a momma's boy now (hopefully it will go away soon). He's fine when I'm not in the room but when I come in and he realizes I'm not holding him, he immediately crawls to my feet and just cries and pulls on my pants till I pick him up. In the night, he wakes up and then won't go back to sleep unless I sit in his room till he is completely out. The minute I leave, he screams. So last night we let him cry it out. He screamed for 30 minutes without slowing down at all. After 2 hours of Karl trying, me trying, holding him, letting him scream, I just brought him into our bed because I was way too tired - it was 4 am and I don't function at my best then. So I think he's well enough to break this habit but it is not going to be fun.

I went to a "Meet the Firms" night at ASU. A lot of the large accounting firms come and recruit. I was a little nervous to go because the career fairs at BYU were just out of control - way too many people competing for attention, shoving resumes in the recruiters faces. But this was much better. First of all, it was just accounting firms so not as big. I was also there early so the crowd wasn't huge. So I just made my way around and it wasn't that bad. I also met some firms I really liked (and some I think really liked me). So now I have to submit a bunch of applications and they also took my resume so we'll see. I'm not quite sure what size of firm I'd like to get my experience at - but I think I'll apply everywhere and then see what my options are. A bigger firm is going to have more prestige, a smaller firm would probably have a more flexible schedule for me though. We'll just see.

Our ward is taken over by babies right now. We had 5 baby blessings today. Then sacrament took extra long because of all the people visiting. By testimony time there was only 10 minutes left. Crazy.

Oh - my blog is different because I tried to change it and then I lost everything. Anyway, I got it back but lost a few things. So then I just changed it to one of the templates they have available.

Kasey

Oh What a Night(s)

Well - our house is cursed. Karl and I were both sick over Christmas. Then two weeks ago I got sick again. A few days after I got sick, Carson had a fever and was congested. A week and a half later, Carson's congestion got worse. That night, his fever came back. The congestion was so bad that he couldn't sleep. So every few hours he was waking up and I was holding him/sitting in the steam room (bathroom with shower running)/etc/etc. That same night Karl woke up with a fever and chills, etc, etc. So the next day the whole family went to the doctor. Luckily, Karl's is just a cold, not the flu, so he's just taking over the counter stuff and feeling completely miserable. Carson, they said had been sick too long and the return of the fever wasn't good. So they gave Carson an antibiotic (the chalky pink amoxicillin we all remember as kids). The last three nights have been awful with Carson not being able to breathe (last night being the worst). Getting Carson to sleep without a pacifier (since he needs his mouth to breathe) is quite the feat. So this tired, sick, pitiful family is cursed. Hopefully Karl and Carson start feeling better soon. And hopefully I can sleep soon - maybe I should be doing that right now instead of this. Taking care of two boys is work. Well - I'll post again when I'm alive.

Kasey

Not Much To Report

Well it's been nice to have a break from school and life - but there's really nothing going on to blog about. So here's our exciting life, but that's why I haven't blogged for awhile. Since Christmas we've just been hanging out in Arizona. Karl went back to work obviously. I've started teaching tap again so that's fun. And school for both of us starts today! But at least this is my last semester. Then I just have the ominous CPA exam. I've been working on my application and I hope to take the first section in April.

Vickie and Josh were down in Arizona for the holidays so when we got back from Utah we got to see them a few times. Karl and I had Vickie, Josh, Kari, and Garrett over for New Year's Eve. It was fun. Sad - but it was the first "real" party we've thrown. So...I got kind of into it. We had a ton of food (Vickie and Kari both brought some over too) and way too much sparkling cider. Karl went to Costco and got kind of excited about the cider. But we had fun. And us old farts were tired by midnight. We hung out a little after and then we called it a night.

Vickie, Josh, his parents, Carson, and I also spent one day at a little zoo by their house. Here's a picture of Josh feeding a monkey. Carson loved the ducks at the beginning and then just stared into space. After a half hour he feel asleep. That's what I figured he would do but it was still fun. And I actually enjoyed it a lot. I haven't been to a zoo in a long time. Because he loved the ducks so much I took him to this man-made lake by our house the other day. I figured there would be ducks so I brought some bread. When we got there I saw only one duck though. I got out the bread and started feeding him. Carson was fascinated. With in ten minutes we had forty ducks around us. I could see them swimming towards us from all directions. Carson loved it. He just stared and talked to them. It was cute.

Carson is all about exploring right now. He army crawls all over the house. Sometimes he tries so hard to crawl for real and other days he's perfectly happen sliding around on the ground. He's new favorite game is peek-a-boo. It makes him laugh and laugh. He's also kind of stopped sleeping through the night. As long as Karl or I go in and put his pacifier in 4 times a night - he'll sleep. But it's gotten ridiculous. So we're trying to get him to go to sleep without it so that he can soothe himself in the middle of the night. We'll see how this goes though. Supposedly - the baby should be able to self soothe within a few days. Hmmmm. I also I'm not quite sure if we're never supposed to give a pacifier or just at night. We'll just have to play it by ear and decide what works for Carson....and us.

That's about all we've done. Sorry it's so boring. Hope things are going well. Hopefully something exciting happens!

Kasey

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas Everyone! I hope you had a great holiday season. Karl, Carson, and I just got back from Utah - spending Christmas with my family. We had a great time. I was getting over a cold/cough so that wasn't fun. But everything else was great. We were able to relax, hang out, see family, and catch up. Karl enjoyed playing Halo 2 and we all had a great time playing X Box Karaoke (even Mom and Dad got in on it). The drive up and back really wasn't bad - just long with the breaks we had to take for Carson. Here's a pic of one of our breaks. Carson was helping Karl drive (parked in St George).

Carson's first Christmas was fun. He obviously didn't get excited over the gifts but he liked playing with the ribbon on his wrapped presents. Half way through presents he got tired though and took a nap while we all finished up. Next year's Christmas will probably be a lot more eventful for Carson. We took a few pics but there were too many distractions to get a great one. We also celebrated Christmas with Karl's parents the Thursday before. Overall - Carson got a lot of cute books (which is great), clothes, a Fisher Price nativity set, music, BYU football jersey (picture to come soon), and toys. He is a very excited young man.

While we were in Utah, Karl and I took a morning to go roam around BYU. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. We just walked around and talked about old memories. It was also fun to see the new changes that have happened on campus. We took a lot of pictures and got one of the three of us by the Brigham Young statue. The only downer was that it was Christmas Eve so all the buildings were locked, but we still had fun. We also drove by all the places we lived. It was nice and chilly. But later that day it got real cold and dumped quite a bit of snow on us. It was fun to have a real white Christmas and the mountains were beautiful.

Carson is doing much better with the foods. It isn't completely frustrating now. Oh - he had his 6 month appointment. He weighs 20 lbs 6 oz and is 29 inches long. His old car seat is for up to 29 inches so we've switched to the new one Karl's parents bought him for Christmas. He is one big boy. He has also started scooting. He'll do one crawl motion (a leg or an arm) and then drops to his belly and does an army crawl. He sits up now too. I'll have to upload some video. My Dad also got us a web cam for Christmas - so we'll have to play with that and see what we can do.

Love Kasey

Pre-Christmas Update

Hey all -

Well we are getting excited for Christmas. We'll be driving up to Utah to stay with my sister and see most of the family. Vickie and Josh will be coming to Arizona - but we'll overlap a little bit. If you'd like to see us as elves - follow this link http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1381015856
We haven't really even had a chance to think about Christmas yet. We've had finals this past week and Karl's been sick...not a good combo. So we're just now catching up on everything else we need to do and I'm starting to think about Christmas shopping.

Carson never took to cereal so we've skipped it and moved to veggies. So far he's tried carrots, sweet potatoes, and squash. He's pretty much liked all three. Tonight I mixed some cereal in with his squash and he wouldn't eat it. I tested it and it tasted like squash to me so this kid is just too smart. He's sleeping longer through the night now but he still hasn't gotten back to sleeping all the way through. Once he likes to eat, it will be so much nicer. He's sitting up on his own now (as long as there isn't a really interesting toy just out of arms reach). He has an appointment next week so I'll let you know how big he's gotten.

Here's some more cute pics.
Here's Carson practicing to play Playstation with Dad.And this is first thing in the morning. He sits in his crib and plays after he wakes up. He's such a cutie!

Love you all - Merry Christmas!!
Kasey