Sleeping Beauty

Lately, when Carter is put in his bed for naptime or bedtime, he doesn't seem to end up sleeping there. Usually however, I find him on the floor next to his bed, or on the floor right by the door. Today however, when I went to check on him during naptime I found him in a rather unusual place...the closet!! I'm not really sure why, but I guess it looked like a comfy place for him...

Here is my little boy sound asleep in the corner of the closet in hsi room...and if you notice, he is clutching a hanger...and yes "Bob" his blanket...can't forget about Bob!

Just another shot of him crashed out on the floor...I guess maybe his bed isn't as comfortable as the floor....hmmmmm.....

What a sweetheart!!!

Visit from friends

On Monday and Tuesday of this week, my good friend from college, Mary, stopped for a visit with her 2 boys. Peyton is a few months older than Kayla and Micah is about 6 months older than Carter. The kids had so much fun playing together!!

We took them all to the waterpark in town for some swimming, in hopes that we would wear them down a bit for the evening. Here are Peyton, Carter and Kayla waiting for their pizza for dinner.

Micah decided to get out of the pool and join the wait...

Carter had so much fun with Mary! He is such a flirt with older women :)

Micah was not a big fan however, of all of the splashing water, and the huge bucket that would dump water on you every few minutes. If they had the same haircolor, he and Carter look alot alike actually.

Time for Kayla and Peyton to do a crab walk in the pool...I am pretty sure that Kayla developed a crush on Peyton while he was visiting!

Here are the boys playing in the backyard waiting for some smores..and yep, Carter's blanket is nearby!

Time for the older kids to enjoy their smores....Kayla was very excited too that Peyton was going to sleep in her room..too bad they goofed off to much for that to happen!

Micah was not a huge fan of the smores...a few bites was enough for him!

Here is how Carter spent the evening while we all ate smores...what a lazy butt!

Time to play in the backyard a bit before they had to head out.

It was so good to get to see Mary again..the Air Force has kept us apart for just over 4 years, but once we got back together, it was just like old times again!!

Excitement

I just had to share with you all that I am very excited because one of my very dear friends from college, Mary, is coming to visit tomorrow with her 2 kids!! I have not seen Mary since spring 2004 before either of us had kids. She now has 2 kids that are close in age to my rugrats, so it will be alot of fun to have her here for a day. I will definitely have lots of photos to share after she leaves!

Moving

I haven't blogged much lately because I have been preoccupied. The kids and I will be moving this coming weekend up to Monona to live with Adam's parents. I love my sister and brother-in-law, but we have all realized that we have very different ways of raising our kids and running our households, and so before we end up not liking each other anymore, the kids and I are going to head out.

We will still come down to Burlington each month for about a week to visit everyone, and will spend Christmas here as well. So all in all, it's for the best, so I can continue having a good relationship with Jackie. I am very thankful that they invited us to live with them these last 3 months and for all of the help they have given me.

Cute Photo

I just had to share this photo with everyone because it is one of the cutest photos I have taken of him!! He had so much fun driving his little tractor around the lawn!

I still can't believe though how big my little boy is getting! In a few months he will be 2 already!

Pancakes and Planes

After much anticipation, Carter's big day arrived! Pacakes at the airport!!!!! He was so excited that day when he woke up and realized that he was going to see airplanes and eat pancakes (have I ever mentioned that those are his 2 favorite things in life...well behind his mommy and daddy of course!)

We made them eat before we started looking at planes...the breakfast was delicious! We had pancakes, sausage, eggs and applesauce. What a good start to the day! Not to mention that the weather was gorgeous!

Once breakfast was finished, it was time to start checking out the airplanes...there were about 15 planes on display and at various times they would take off or land for you to watch.

He had so much fun just walking around and looking, although I dont think he knew what to do with himself!

Since it is a small rural airport, you could stand along the grass runway as the planes took off and landed...Carter couldn't believe the planes were flying right over his head.

Time to watch one land..

Here are Carter, Grandma Lange and Great Grandma Lange waving goodbye to the motorized glider...can you believe how big Carter is getting!?!?!

Flower Children

We spent some time out at Great Grandma and Grandpa Larson's house in the country. The kids love to roam around her flower beds, smelling all of the different flowers.

They both were amazed at the huge Hibiscus flowers she had blooming. There were white ones and dark pink ones. They were beautiful!

I think that that bloom is bigger than her face!

Of course, as always, you can't leave Carter out of anything!

Time to see if we can get the flower to stay in her hair...too bad it never worked!

Here is their solution for how to keep the flowers in their hair...he looks like a little pixie!

She looks so adorable with it on her head like a hat!

On the farm again

As you all know, the kids and I were back up in Monona for the past week and a half...we took the kids out to the farm for an afternoon to roam around. It's a little different for them now, with Grammy and Papa living in town and driving out to the farm for chores etc. Either way though, as long as they both get to see cows they are happy!

My future Olympian's hard at work practicing their fencing skills on one another!

Kayla was very happy that Orange Boy came up to her as soon as she got out of the van.

Carter has zero fear on the farm..he will crawl right in the huts and pull a calf out if he wants to play with her.

Just sitting down for a rest while Sis bosses him around..I guess since she is older, she is the expert on farming...

Carter treated this calf like she was a pet dog!

What a cutey :)

You can't tell here, but he spent alot of time chasing the ducks and geese around the yard yelling "QUACK QUACK QUACK" at them...I am pretty sure they were happy to see him go later on!

Time for more terrorizing!

They both got to take Gator rides around the farm while we were there.

All done and time to head back to town.

Big Sis to the Rescue!

This morning as I was updating the blog, Carter got very impatient about getting dressed...so Kayla decided to take matters into her own hands and attempt to get him dressed. She's such a good big sister!

Time to take off the pull-up which she was not so excited about when she realized it was wet!

Here she is attempting to put a new one on...I had to intervene eventually and help with this part.

Time to get his shirt off of him...he is so cooperative!

Next up come the pants..he even knows to hold on to her to steady himself.

Finally, it's time for the shirt! You know, in all the craziness of our lives, I am so glad that the 2 of them generally get along very well, and are very helpful to each other!!

Watching airplanes

For any of you unfamiliar with Carter, his obsession right now (and I mean OBSESSION!!) is airplanes. He carries one around with him all the time and everytime he hears a noise outside he looks up to the sky to find the airplane. The other day, they were cropdusting around the area, so there were a few planes flying around. He was so excited to go outside a sit in a big yard to watch them!

Here they are sitting on the grass talking about airplanes. After that afternoon, Carter now wants to spend everyday outside sitting in the yard watching for airplanes..he even drags his beanbag outside to sit on. He will look at you and say "Mommy sit here watch airplane me" It's so cute!
Oh and if you look close at the top of the photo you can see the plane..

Have I mentioned that I love my in-laws huge yard! This is just part of the front yard even!

Kayla is trying to block the sun from her face so she can see...notice how serious Carter is...

Trying to explain to Grandma what airplanes say..

This Sunday the small rural airport here in town is having a pancake breakfast that we are taking the kids to. In one sitting, Carter will get his 2 favorite things in life..pancakes and airplanes!! I think he may be in heaven. As a side note, as I type this, he just heard and airplane flying outside and made a bee-line for the windows!

Mardi Gras in August???

As you saw in an earlier post, the kids got an entire shoebox full of necklaces from their Great Grandma and Grandpa Larson the other day. They seem to be the popular toy now as well!

The favorite activity is to see how many of them you can pile on to yourself before the weight causes you to fall over. For those of you that have never tried to hold a bunch of them at once, they are actually really heavy!!

Carter's turn! Here he is before...

And here he is after!! This cracked me up because he couldn't figure out how to get them off after this!

Still trying to free himself...

Finally Kayla got her turn to try...definitely not the most flattering photo ever taken of her!