Nonni To The Rescue

I had high hopes for the weekend with Nonni coming to town (and even pre-planned a blog "Adventures With Nonni"). Originally we were going to head back to Kansas for our 10 year high school reunion, but at the last minute Reid and I realized how exhausted we were from traveling so much and ready for a weekend at home. Well we are so glad Nonni decided to make the visit out because the weekend was not quite what we had planned for...

On Thursday I hosted playdate for my moms group. Naturally I was frantically cleaning the house up until the first mom knocked on the door, but we had a great time on a 2.5 mile group run followed by playtime for the kiddos and refreshments. I always mean to take lots of pictures, but of course it never happens. Thankfully some moms used my camera for a few.

Later on Thursday and Friday I noticed Carson having some diarrhea but I thought it might have been from snacking a bunch at our playdate and not having any real solid foods. It continued into Friday and then that night he didn't eat dinner, which isn't totally uncommon but we had something he normally chows right down. He stirred/cried a little that night but I just let him settle down on his own because this too has been happening more frequently lately, but poor thing when I got him in the morning was covered in dried throwup. I felt so bad and even a bath wasn't enough to clean him up! All Saturday morning he continued his throwing up and we finally got him settled down for a 4 hour nap! This seemed to help his puking but not the diarrhea. We knew Nonni would be in later this day so she would have good advice on how to help!

Even with him feeling sick, he never lost his personality. So Sunday morning we decided to head to the mountains to take Nonni to see the changing trees. At this point I wasn't feeling so good, but I assumed it was some wine I had the night before. We went to Kenosha Pass and hiked along the Colorado Trail for a bit. What a madhouse this was! But thankfully the trails didn't seem too bad (aside from all the mountain bikers).

As we were getting closer to the trail head I knew something wasn't right. The whole ride back home I was so nauseous which is the worst feeling to have while being trapped in the car on a highway. But thankfully I made it back home and instantly curled up in bed. A few hours later, Reid started complaining about his stomach and before you knew it he had it worse than both Carson and I. Poor Nonni's "adventure" weekend turned into being our personal nurse as Reid and I couldn't move from our positions on the couch. She was great in entertaining Carson, making us food, finishing our laundry, running to the grocery store, you name it Nonni was probably doing it. At least she got to take Carson to the park for a little bit and have an apple picker "helper" for some homemade applesauce! Next time Nonni, we will take you to all the fun things I had planned! Thanks for taking care of us!

Carson: 16 Months

Another month has come and gone and Carson is still continuing to surprise me daily! I realize I haven't posted about his growth lately, and it's hard to judge without the doctor's appointments. 18 month shirts are almost too small so we are buying 2T shirts for the fall/winter. This kid has a long torso! He's in-between 12-18 month pants but neither one fit great. His feet are so big and wide and most of his size 5 shoes fit nice and snug and we are starting to move up a size in a couple pairs. Speaking of shoes, he loves to bring us his shoes to put on him. His new game is to find us something he can wear, put it on him, he'll take it off and then run back to us to put it back on. This game is played with shoes, socks, gloves, hats, sunglasses and the list can go on! And speaking of asking us to put things on him, he has learned to take his shirt off and we had a few nights where we found him shirtless in the morning. Silly boy!

Carson has learned a few animal noises/actions from stories we read him. He knows that a tiger "roars," a fishy says "blub blub," and that a monkey scratches at his armpits (hehe). He is getting so good at picking up concepts and can do quite a bit. He knows to kick the ball, find your shoes, look for daddy at the window when he leaves and comes home from work, tell us he wants "more" and "food" in sign language ("all done" is still bouncing up and down in his chair), and find the "doggie" for song time just to name a few. We started a new music class where they provide you with all the class materials to use at home! So every morning before nap we sing the songs of the class's theme for the month, and this month is about a dog. There is one song in particular called "Walk Along Rover" and one verse says to "sit down, lie down, roll over" and he has started to do this as we sing. It is amazing what kids can pick up on so quickly! Another song he's picked up on is from his doggie piano. One verse says, "we can do something with our hands, we can blow a kiss" and he will bring his hands to his mouth! He's learning Nonni to blow you a kiss :) He has started climbing on everything in sight and is getting good at some of the climbing structures at parks and MyGym. He also started going down slides by himself :) He still hates to be forced to do something and he is Mr. Independent for sure!!

Carson LOVES to talk! It's too bad we can't understand anything yet, so we try to talk back like we are listening/understand. On our trip to Seattle, he would wander around and as soon as he saw someone close enough he would stop and start babbling to them. He has continued that pattern back at home whenever we go out somewhere. Everyone to-date has been so nice and started up a "conversation" with him. He was quite the traveller this month as we went on a hike outside Jefferson, CO, took a trip to Washington and then camped in Aspen and went hiking in Vail. In Washington he got to take his first hike himself to a big spruce tree. His walking is getting better but it's not great yet. He still stumbles around a lot and has his hands in the air.

Hiking in Jefferson, Colorado

Giving daddy rocks in Aspen, Colorado

Walking on the beach in Washington

On a hike in Vail, Colorado

I fear Carson has dropped to one nap. It's been about a week now that he has't taken his afternoon nap even though I can tell he needs it! So now to try and figure out what schedule works best for him. But to wrap things up, Carson is such a joy and he makes Reid and I laugh daily. We are not baby people and are finally reaching a stage where we love just sitting around and playing with Carson. Can't wait to see what the next month has in store.

Fall Colors

I absolutely LOVE this time of the year! Aside from the pumpkins, scarecrows, haystacks, pumpkin flavors, apple cider, etc there is the changing of the leaves and we live in the most beautiful place to experience this! We weren't necessarily going out this weekend to experience the leaves changing, but we got a nice surprise! They seem to be changing early this year which is what surprised us the most. Everything was such a brilliant yellow/orange and we even saw patches of red. I couldn't take enough pictures!!

Our weekend adventure took us to Aspen, CO to visit our old neighbor and Reid's law school buddy from Spokane who know lives in Georgia. We couldn't pass up the opportunity when he was so close, but unfortunately we didn't get very much time as he was busy with a wedding. So we walked around Aspen a bit, ate breakfast at Aspen Over Easy which we HIGHLY reccommend if you are ever there, and spent some much needed time as a family camping. We had a little scare as our neighboring camper said a bear trashed his tent! It took a lot of guts for me to stay there Saturday night but I conquered my fear and everything was fine!

Our plan was to hike Castle and Conundrum but we woke up Sunday morning to some not-so-favorable weather and decided to head back to Denver. We made a stop in Vail on the way back and hiked the Booth Falls trail to try and get some hiking in. The trees were just as pretty in Vail too and I feel blessed to say I went to both Aspen and Vail (two "prestigious" Colorado towns) in one weekend! I guess Colorado isn't THAT bad ;)