What the What?

How is it February? Well - let me tell you about Christmas...I know you have all been awaiting this blog post with as much anticipation as Christmas itself.

My family came into town for Christmas - YEAH! We got to take them to fun Arizona things. We went and saw the temple lights one night and then hit up Organ Stop Pizza. When the stage starts rising, and the organ player is playing "Under the Sea", and bubbles start falling from the ceiling (and I'm eating pizza)...It's Magical.

We were all trying to finish up our Christmas shopping and relax too. So there was a lot of hanging out and catching up...and laughing as always. It is always fun to have all four sisters together. I also always love Christmas time because that means I can pull out my Jim Hensen and the Muppets CD. We all grew up with this being the go to Christmas CD. Nothing beats the Muppets singing Little St. Nick, 12 Days of Christmas, or We Wish You a Merry Christmas.

Carson loved every second of the holiday. His Christmas vocabulary grew exponentially. He loved the song Jingle Bells to death (literally...that song must die). He loved the Christmas lights and any spotting of Santa on some one's lawn (you know, the big blow up thingys). For Christmas, we just got him some books and toys. I think his favorite was the Star Wars figurines his dad got him. He loves playing with his "Chewbacca" and "Storm Trooper". Karl was very excited that Carson took to Star Wars so well.

Here is my little fella in his handsome Christmas outfit (pulling a Cheese face). Below is him enjoying one of his new Christmas presents.

My little sister tried to teach Carson the Kit Kat bar song over Christmas break. He would sing "Give me a blake, give me a blake, blake me off...(mumbles)...kif kaf kar." That song never failed to make me smile.

Karl's family has a tradition of making "Christmas Canes" on Christmas morning. Since Christmas was with my family this year, I thought I would make some Christmas Canes for Karl. We did it on Christmas Eve morning though as my family also has a Christmas breakfast tradition (Eggs Benedict...YUMM!). Anyway, I followed the recipe and as I was folding the dough in thirds and starting to cut, I was just thinking "these look huge...but that's what the recipe says." Well, they were huge. I wasn't imagining it. Karl's mom's canes are usually 6 inches or so. Mine were like a foot and a half. It was really funny as I placed them on the pan. So instead of having 3 or 4 like we usually do, we all just got one. They still tasted delicious.

But Christmas came and went as fast as it always does. Carson sang Jingle Bells for awhile after...he has since retired it though.

For New Year's Day, we went sledding in Flagstaff. Carson mainly just liked throwing snow "balls" (I use that term very loosely...much like the nature of his snow balls). He lasted about an hour and a half though - pretty impressive.

Well - that is the extent of our Christmas break. Hope yours was great too!

My Little He-man

That was "I HAVE THE POWER!" for those of you that don't speak two year old. Carson's Aunt Kim and Uncle HL babysat for us the other night. We came home and were pleased to find that, overall, it had been quite an educational night. They taught Carson all sorts of new phrases. My favorite was the He-man impression. When I did the He-man impression for Carson, he informed me that "No, you don't have the power mommy. I have the power." Apparently there is only room for one powerful person in this household.

Hey-O

Big news my friends...I just received news from a very reliable source (hint - the Arizona State Board of Accountancy) that I am officially a CPA!! I am very excited to have my license. It has been hard work to pass the exams, get my experience, and get my documents together. It feels really good to be done (let's not think about the 2 year renewals and peer reviews). The hardest part is definitely complete. Anyway, just thought I would share the good news.

Getting my Pre on

For those of you that aren't avid runners like I am, "Pre" is short for Prefontaine. Us runners just call him Pre these days. And if you don't know who Prefontaine is, well...then you shouldn't even be reading this blog.

In real life, I ran my first 5k Thanksgiving morning. And the only reason I know about Prefontaine is because I grew up in the Pacific Northwest (give it up for the PNW) and I knew a few people on the cross country team. But I decided I needed to start signing up for races to motivate myself to workout. So I signed up for a Turkey Trot and then forced a bunch of Karl's family to do it with me. I am really proud to say that I didn't miss a single work out in the two months leading up to the race. Also, I finished the race slightly faster than my goal and never walked - which really made me proud. I've decided to do another 5K in January and then who knows what I'll do next. Signing up for the race really helped my motivation. I've never run this much in my life. I've also never been able to run three miles straight in my life. Anyway, yeah for exercise. It was a great way to prep for the million calories I consumed over the rest of the weekend.


Here is an action shot of me before the race...ignore Karl's creepy face and just focus on the determination on my face. Also, a pic of everyone that did the race (the prego one and her husband did the 1 mile walk...I just didn't want comments on how I shouldn't have forced a pregnant woman to run a 5k).

Speaking of Thanksgiving, we had a great time at Karl's parent's house. The whole fam damily was there, which is always fun and crazy. There was great food and good times for all. My sisters-in-law and I headed up to Anthem at 10 pm Thanksgiving night to do some shopping. I never really do Black Friday shopping so I was surprised at the crazy crowds (and crazy drivers). We got some great deals though. If you can get someone to wait in line while the rest of you shop...I'd say it is worth it. Below is a pic of the family.

That's pretty much all we've been up to. Carson loves everything to do with Christmas so far - snowmen, santa, wrapping paper, bows, ribbon, Christmas trees, ornaments, lights, etc, etc. He also has a Fischer Price nativity set my parents bought him 2 years ago that he plays with all day.

Coming Soon

I have fun posts coming about Thanksgiving - but I'm too tired tonight. I just wanted to move my Halloween post down since I changed my background to Christmas. Yeah Christmas! I've already decorated the house (it took 5 minutes). Carson is very excited about "Chriscas."

Happy Ween

We had a great Halloween weekend. We headed out to Schnepf farms for train rides, pumpkin patches, carnival rides, chili, corn mazes, pig races, etc. Carson had a blast. I would recommend not eating dinner there though - way over priced for the quality of food. Re-admission is no problem so if we go again we'll just pack some sandwiches or something and go eat in our car. Carson loved the carnival rides and we ran around crazy in the corn maze for awhile. Unfortunately the pumpkin patch was all picked through and the ones left were starting to go bad. That's what we get for not going until the 30th. Overall, a really fun night. Below is a video of Carson at the pig races. All the other children had been called up to help cheer on their pig. We figured it wouldn't be the end of the world if we just let Carson hang out up there too. But then the guy gave Carson a prize - I felt a little guilty, but it was cute...so, oh well.

Halloween was great. Carson was the cutest little pirate. His "Arrrgh" and "Walk the Plank" were in rare form. He thought it was hilarious when I drew the mustache on his face. He kept smiling and then relaxing, so it was a little hard to draw it straight. He was very polite as we went trick or treating - always saying thank you. There were a few houses that scared him a little, but knowing there was candy through the fog always gave him courage. We trick or treated for over an hour. I was shocked Carson didn't poop out. Below is a video of Carson trick or treating at his great grandma's house.

Also - who is this cute big boy? How is my little baby this big?

As for me, I've joined a new club. The nerds. I've always prided myself on perfect vision, ever since I was 7 and my Grandma told me I had "sharp eyes" when I helped her find her medication pill that had dropped onto the carpet. I had an eye exam a few weeks ago and my vision was not perfect. I now have reading glasses. The doctor said staring at a computer screen and/or staring at tiny numbers on a piece of paper all day for work has started to ruin my eyes. The first time I wore my glasses at work, I felt so uncomfortable. I just knew everyone was staring at me. I thought I might take the Stephanie Tanner route...you know...from Full House. When she had to get glasses so she decided to make everyone laugh first by wearing lots of silly glasses. That way no one would make fun of her for wearing her real glasses later. I'm sure wearing eyeball glasses to work would have made the whole situation a lot better. Well, if I learned anything from that episode, it's that....mmmmm...nevermind.


Also - I have to report a travesty. I went to Target and Walmart to buy some Thanksgiving decorations. I literally found zero. All they had were some turkey paper plates and a pilgrim greeting card - both of which wouldn't look good on my shelf. I was shocked. But, they had a 15 person team setting up all the Christmas isles. What happened to Thanksgiving? I know the stores like to cash in on Christmas as much as possible, but at least give Thanksgiving one measly isle...or even a half. I guess I'll have to go to Michaels or something...but this situation is very upsetting.

Looking forward to Thanksgiving - this is the best time of year. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas...one right after the other!

Funny Monsters

Costco is like a wonderland. They have all their products out and displayed. They carry different yet awesome stuff all the time. But the last two trips to Costco (often a family event to cure boredom) have resulted in the “end of the world” for Carson. They have a big horse/pony that children can sit on. Each time, Karl and I try to run past that area in hopes that Carson won’t see it…and each time he does and then tells us he wants to ride it. Now, other children are sitting on the pony and laughing and being the happiest little children in the world. I can see the lure. But putting Carson on that pony, and then taking it away would result in an even bigger melt down. Anyway – thanks to Costco’s pony display we have had to do our Costco wandering with a crying little boy in our cart. He eventually gets distracted by something else – the snowman display, the Handy Manny toy, etc. But it’s put a definite kink in our Costco trips.

I love life's little mess ups...they usually make me laugh pretty hard. The other day, Karl worked really hard to make this chili. He was up cutting vegetables for a very long time (while I got Carson ready for bed, etc). He was really proud of himself for doing it the night before so dinner the next day would be easy. Unfortunately, he didn’t read how many servings the recipe made. So we have 24 servings of chili in our fridge. I went on all night making jokes about what we could do with it – I thought it was hilarious. Luckily Karl is a good sport. Karl filled eight Tupperware bowls and had them all lined up on the counter. So if you like chili…

We got Carson some spider gel clings for his bathroom mirror (for Halloween). Normally when Carson is learning a new word, we’ll say it and then he says it back to us in the form of a question. Then we’ll usually say it again and he feels more confident in his pronunciation. So when we put them up and he said “What’s that?” we told him they were spiders. But every time he repeats the word back to us, he says “Spidersaur?” It makes me laugh, so yes…we have several “spidersaurs” on his mirror. The little ones he calls baby spidersaurs.

I read on a website that when you’re taking professional pictures, you shouldn’t have your child say cheese because they usually end up not looking like they are smiling. Instead, it suggested you ask them to say their name as most children naturally smile when saying their own name. I did a test. The first picture below was Carson saying cheese and the second was him saying his own name. (Oh, and he likes to put on swim goggles and pretend he is swimming all over the house...which is also hillarious). The third I asked him to say hi (and yes, he looked very stylish in my necklace and sunglasses). Looks like cheese is not a good face for Carson (although still adorable).

I got Carson some Halloween jammies. With his fear of “scaries,” he saw them and started saying “Scary monsters.” I was not about to have wasted my money, so I told him they were funny monsters. That’s all it took. He wanted to wear his jammies immediately after dinner and was very upset when we had to take them off in the morning. He ran around, pointing at his pants, saying “funny monsters.” Here is a video of him demonstrating his jammies. He is too cute.

Note: my ringtone for Karl is the song “I Believe in Miracles” and so it is often stuck in my head. Carson copied me singing it one day and it made me laugh. Now I make him sing that line every once in awhile because I think it is funny. That’s why I ask him to sing it at the end.

Here is a pic of me choosing my battles. He was really excited about his new shoes and didn't want to take them off. So after he fell asleep, I went in, took this pic, and then took the shoes off. In the morning, the first thing he asked was "where's my shoes?" (He had just rolled over, hence the one very pink cheek)