Carson's 1 year Appointment and some tidbits

We had Carson's 1 year well-check appointment yesterday.  He is a big, healthy, happy boy!

Weight: 24 pounds (70%)

Height: 30.75 inches (80%)

Head Circumference: 19.25 inches (95% or higher)

I've had a few people express confusion with the percentiles.  Here's the basic idea.  They take the general population of kids that age and have all the statistics about their height, weight, etc.  (No I do not know how current these statistics are, I heard somewhere once that they're from the 1980's)  Anyway, they have all the statistics and they compare where your child sits compared to those statistics so when they say Carson is in the 70th percentile for weight that means that 70% of the one year olds weighed less than he does.  Or he is in the "top 30% for weight".  Whichever way you would like to look at it.  So as you would expect if a child were 50% that would mean they were exactly in the middle. 

Back to my kiddos now.  Carson had to get a finger poke to check his iron levels (which are good) and 4 vaccinations!!!  Ouch!  Well-check appointments are NOT fun for children but I think the temporary pain is worth the immunity.  He got over it pretty quickly and was having a great time with the doctor.  Meanwhile Kayda and Dillon were swimming with Grandma H at her neighbor's pool.  They were still in there when we got back so Carson got to go swimming too.  He sat on the edge of the pool and actually lunged out to Grandma!  Everytime Grandma would set him up out of the pool he would walk off for a minute and then come back to the edge, turn onto his tummy and start to climb in.  He LOVES all things water...hoses, pools, buckets, showers, tubs, sinks, toilets (eww... my first toilet baby), the source does NOT matter to him.  He just wants to play with water. 

Now a few random photos!!!  They're my favorite part!

 Carson has REALLY started to enjoy books.  He's the first baby we've had that has wanted to look at them.  He picks them up and brings them to us, course he flips the pages so fast you can't really read anything but it's good that he's interested!

 Daddy had a great time planning family home evening.  We're just starting to do them and haven't quite gotten into the routine of it yet but you could tell Daddy had fun with this one!  He made clues and taped them up all over the place and had the kids and I walk around the yard and around the loop.  It was based on the liahona.  We then came inside "heaven" because, you know, home can be a heaven on Earth, and got our reward.  He found cookies that came with markers that had edible ink.  So Daddy, Kayda, Dillon and I had a great time coloring our suns.  The cookies by the way were about the grossest cookies I have ever tasted.  Daddy thought they tasted something like black licorice... NOT a black licorce fan... especially in a cookie. But hey, at least they looked pretty!

 Meanwhile Carson was making art of his own with the oreos.  All over himself ... his highchair tray was COVERED.  This little dude LOVES all things chocolate and oreos seem to be pretty high on that list.  Daddy made the observation that he looks like has has a beard. 

Dillon wanted a picture and we took it right as Kayda passed a marker to Daddy to open.  I tried to snap a shot of Kayda but she was NOT interested!

Carson's FIRST Birthday!!!

You have GOT to be kidding me!!! My sweet little baby is ONE?!?!  I can hardly believe it, this year has gone far too fast.  Carson is quite the little character, he LOVES people, doesn't matter who, he wants to be around you.  He wants to explore EVERYTHING, climb, crawl through, dig in... he'll do anything.  He loves big people food and he works the crowd.  He can walk, crawl, climb (out of his crib even), he understands things like "go outside" and "want to go night night?" he actually follows the directions.  He is not a big fan of the car if he has to be in it for very long, he claps, plays peek-a-boo and plays chase.  He doesn't really talk yet, he makes a lot of sounds "ba", "ma", "da", "ya" but he hasn't said his first words.  He waves hello, points and does the "come here" motion when he wants something.  He also goes up AND down the stairs.  That's all I can think of at the moment but he is quite the little boy!

For his birthday I decided to have a little lunch BBQ.  This seems to be the week everybody is travelling, they're either going somewhere or someone is in town visiting so we got to hang out with Kathleen and her kiddos: Isaac, Charlotte, Nicole, Ila and Thomas.  A little later in the day Aunt Sarah was able to make it over with Aileena, Ella and Chase. 

 Here is 2.5 year old Ila teaching Carson how to play basketball.  Check out the size difference...  That is a BIG boy!

 Don't ask me what this face is about but check out THAT outfit.

 The kids had a great time with the squirt guns, here's Kayda and Isaac.

What did he find? oh grapes!  That makes me a little nervous, he didn't get to keep those for very long.

 Carson was pretty unhappy whenever someone was in his way.  In this case he wanted in the sled with Nicole.

 Boys club!  No girls allowed!  If you try we'll squirt you!

 I scream you scream we all scream for ice cream!

 Here's the crew, Carson was down for a nap at this point.  Isaac, Aileena and Ella are in the back, then Dillon, Nicole, Kayda and Chase and in front Thomas, Charlotte and Ila.

 We ended up at Red Robin.  We didn't get done with our "lunch" until 5 so I did NOT want to cook.   Pictures courtesy of Kayda. 

 Picture courtesy of Dillon.

 They love him SOOOO much that they almost pulled him off the table trying to hug him.

 Carson did NOT like how Dillon was holding on to him.  After Red Robin we grabbed a cake from Dairy Queen because I ran out of time to make cupcakes and you HAVE to have a cake... oh and he loves ice cream.  Then we headed to Grandma and Papa H's with Baba.

 What's this?  It looks interesting...  Soon there after I had to pull him off the counter because he got his fingers in it a bit.

 Yes Carson, there is something INSIDE the blue stuff.

 Carson looked kind of terrified the whole time the candle was near him.  We think it's because we spent the whole camping trip all of 4 days ago going "Hot. NO NO" and it looked awfully similar.

 First bite.  It took him a little while to get the initiative to feed himself but he got there slowly.

 He did this and actually made a "Yay!" sound.  So I repeated it and he did it again...

 Some of the new clothes Grandma and Papa H gave him.  Isn't he a little stud!

 He was enamored with Baba tonight, he wanted to show her his toys and talk about them with her.

I don't have his one year stats yet because his pediatrician is currently out of town so I won't get those until the 20th.  Boo.  Oh well, our pediatrician is totally worth the inconvenience of NOT get immediate one year stats.  At least that means he gets to have his shots a little late too!  WE LOVE THIS BABY.  (Our other two also but this post is for THIS guy)

Random fun

Sometimes you just want to take pictures.  Yesterday ended up being one of those days, didn't start that way but it became one.  And lucky for you I don't filter my pictures very well, the kids are so cute that I couldn't possibly NOT post them!!!  Course, this is mostly my family's little journal so it's technically for me anyway right?  So I can do whatever I want?  I'll just go with that and continue to flood the blog with pictures!

 We were having ice cream (obviously) and Carson had been following me around everywhere so I handed him the mostly empty tub and let him carry it.  He loved it.  He carried it all the way into the kitchen.  I don't think he realized what was in it or he probably would've been trying to get it open instead of carrying it.

 Yesteday started out cloudy and chilly, much like today is thus far, but turned into a beautiful day.  The kids decided they wanted a bath (are you kidding it's goregous outside!?!?) so they wanted to play with the water.  Well guess what...  our pool is in storage and I really didn't want to mess with going to get it and set it up so I looked for some wading pools we used to have around the house.  No luck we must've gotten rid of all of them.  Then I noticed hey the sleds are kind of little REALLY shallow wading pools... So we filled them up, filled up a bucket, got out some paper cups and bottles and that was our water play.  When they first got full Dillon hustled up to one and hopped in and promptly slipped with his feet up in the air and landed on his back with a splash, how I would've loved to catch that on camera!  He was very careful about getting into them after that (he didn't get hurt fortunately).  Saddly enough I don't know that these sleds have ever actually been used in the snow but they've now seen water!

 Carson was hanging out next to sister when Dillon decided he wanted to sit there.  So he squeezed in behind Carson...

 And then he slowly pushed Carson forward with his feet...

 Until he could fit comfortably in the sled with Carson.

 I am SO glad my kids don't have problems with ear infections or have tubes or anything because these cups had water in them as they plastered the cups over their ears and then let the water drain!

 Dillon was working so hard, use the cup fill up bottle #1...

 Use bottle #1 and fill up bottle #2...

 And then Carson came and snatched the now full bottle #2!

 "Horses" were pulling them.  Maybe I should get them started with water skiing or something!

 Carson loved the hose!!!

 Who needs a lounge chair when you have a sled?

 We were having so much fun with this water bottle cap.  First we lost eyes, then teeth and noses, and eventually I showed them how to shoot it out of their mouth so it would go flying... they didn't really get that part, it more saddly dropped out...

 AAAAHHHH SO CUTE!!!!  I can hardly stand it!

 Kayda and Dillon got pretty good at shooting an empty bottle though, of course they used their whole body to do it.

 Look at that bottle go!

 Carson thought it was HILARIOUS but he was too busy chewing on the hammer so he laughed AROUND the hammer.

 Then he lost his balance and when he got up he was laughing too hard to get the hammer back in so I got a good picture of him laughing!

I thought it was so funny when he lost his balance and ended up sitting perfectly on the little red bucket.  It was 100% an accident but then he decided he liked it and sat there for a minute or two.

Sometimes it is just so much fun being silly with the kids!