Buddies, Boulder and Beer

What a fun Saturday we had as a family. Our friend Josh came to town for a friend's wedding and he decided to stay with us the night before. It's always fun when good friends come visit and even bring new friends for us to meet. Naturally we decided to take them out on a hike and we decided to go to Boulder to hike the flat irons. The weather was pretty perfect and for being such a popular spot it didn't seem too crowded. It was a steep hike up and almost didn't seem rewarding at the top. There were definitely better views on the way up I thought. But in the end it was a great workout which was rewarded with a happy hour drink and appetizer at T|ACO in Boulder.

But our fun weekend is quickly coming to and end and we went out with a bang by making stout floats! Tomorrow Reid and I are starting our P90X meal plan and I'll be doing the P90X/Insanity Hybrid workout plan. My body will hate me after one week but love me after twelve! Wish us luck :)

Carson: 11 Months

Can you believe it?! Only one more month and our little guy will be a year old...that is so hard to believe. But we aren't there yet, so time to fill you in on what Carson has been up to. Well I mentioned before that I saw him stand on his own. Well, that was about all the excitement I got. He has only done it one other time since. He continues to babble and mostly says baba, yaya, dada (though not really DaDa) yet. He is getting very good at pulling up on his walker and cruising around the house (until he runs in to something). The other day I found a recorder I have laying around and I got it out for him to play with. To my surprise he knew how to blow in it. It was too cute!!

Nothing is new in the food department really. He tried some of our pizza we had and some watermelon. I don't think this kid has a favorite food, he just likes anything we put on his highchair tray. His third tooth hasn't fully poked through yet but it should be soon. He has always gotten a horrible rash just before a tooth comes through, and we had that last week. Poor guy!

In other news Snyder had his 5th birthday yesterday. His leg is still going ok, not any worse but not any better. Since the weather has been nice I've been able to take him and Carson on walks at lunch. I think it's helping when we are able to get out. Snyder celebrated his birthday with some doggie cookies and a trip to the dog park.

Hoppy Easter

Happy Easter from the Jennings family. We were pretty boring this year and didn't do an Easter egg hunt, visit the Easter bunny or make an Easter basket, but we figured we could start all that next year with Carson man. Instead we went to church where they had a petting zoo for the kids. Carson loved the goats, and even pet them...the the llama snuck up behind me and scared me quite a bit. Later that afternoon we went to Ft Collins to have Easter dinner with Reid's cousins. It was nice to spend time with family.

Saturday, Reid and I spent all afternoon doing yard work. We raked up all the dead grass and re-seeded. Hopefully all our hard work will pay off and we will have a nice green yard in a few weeks. And lastly Reid and I were recently approved to go house shopping! Now we only hope we can find something that fits our needs for the next few years.

It's About Time...

It seems like things have been uneventful regarding Carson but I finally have some new things to report. This last week he has been a babble monster. He also has started to not sleep as well. In the past, he goes through into a poor sleep habit when he learns something new and/or is teething. Well this morning I finally felt another tooth poking through! All I have to say it, it's about time :)

He is all boy these days and loves banging his hands on the ground (or splashing in the water). Now he's started doing it in his highchair and food goes everywhere. I'm sure Snyder doesn't care. One of his favorite things now is riding on Reid's shoulders. No matter how grumpy he might be, once he is up there he gets the biggest smile on his face. It's so hard to believe he is almost 11 months old. I've started thinking about his birthday and even have the invitations made. Can't wait!!

----------UPDATE-----------

I was getting Carson's bath ready tonight and he was standing next to me. I dropped a cup on the ground and he bent down to pick it up stood up and next thing I know he is standing all by himself!! Of course I didn't have my phone the two times he did it so hopefully he'll work on his new trick this week!

Carson: 10 Months

And now for what Carson has been up to this past month. Actually it seems more accurate to say what hasn't he been up to! This kid has quite the personality these days!! He is ALWAYS on the move and needs your constant eye so he doesn't do anything too crazy. The other day I took a picture because he was actually playing with his toys, rather than dumping the bin to make a mess, then crawling to do something else. So I mentioned in my last post he fell down the stairs...well let's just say our baby gates are getting good use now. Since he has now mastered going up stairs, he thinks it's time to start learning to go down them. Well I unfortunately forgot to close the gate to the downstairs while I washed some dishes the other day. I heard him "talking" and thought to myself, hmmm that sounds like an area of the house he shouldn't be in. I go to check on him and see he made it down 3 stairs all by himself. Just as I went to reach for him, that's when he toppled and rolled down the remaining 4. Oops!

But as much work as he is, it is wonderful that he has such a bright personality and is always in a smiley mood. My favorite is when we get him to do good "belly laughs." So what is Mr. C doing now. Well we are eating some sort of finger food at almost every meal. We do pasta, cheese, peas, blueberries, cheerios and clementines mostly. I judge how good he is getting by how much food ends up in the highchair after, lol. He can give high-fives and also recently started to wave. According to Nonni, it looks like the pageant wave! He can now give kisses (when he wants to sit still long enough with you :)) He is very good at mocking noises you make. Right now he loves to make a trumpet noise by vibrating his lips together. He still is nowhere near close to walking and seems very unsure of his balance. So we'll keep the raw, red knees for a while! But I think it's safe to say his all time favorite thing to do is bounce. He jumps up and down in the crib when we go in to get him (and when we put him down for naps), if you play music, he gets on all fours then puts his butt in the air and bounces by bending his knees. He loves to crawl up you, stand on your lap and laugh and bounce. Happy 10 months my crazy little man!!

Mommy & Carson's Weekend Get Away

I'm a little late on our 10 month post because Carson celebrated it while we were in Chicago, so I'll get to that in a bit. Last weekend I braved the flight by myself with little guy so we could go shower Baby O who will be here very soon! So here is how my flight went... I first booked the flights to coincide with when my sister-in-law was getting in and leaving. It also happened to fall right about the time we normally take naps, so I thought there was some hope. Our first flight I had a window seat. I wasn't sure how that was going to work with Mr. Squirmy. The guy "stuck" next to me was very nice. When I first sat down he asked who the little guy was! He somehow even managed to take a nap on the flight :) Thankfully he was amused by the window and kept banging on it for a while. I think my main problem with this flight was trying to force a nap. He has never been a great napper anyways as he loves to just squirm himself down. So naturally as I try to get him calm for a nap, he is a screaming maniac. Also the stinker, in between his "fits" would stop and smile at the guy next to me. "See I'm a cute monster!" But after what felt like an hour of fighting him, he finally napped for me!

Now time for a weekend filled with Nonni and aunties (and Uncle Mark). Saturday we drove to Granger, IN for Lauren's baby shower. Carson did so good at the restaurant (better than I could have ever imagined)! He also did pretty good sleeping in a strange place. Probably because the pack n play was tall enough he couldn't throw binkies over the sides, haha! He even got to work on his piano skills.

The flight home went much better than the first one. Unfortunately I woke up Saturday not feeling well, so I was not anticipating dealing with this guys craziness on the plane while feeling under the weather. But my plan for this flight was to not fight him and let him be (and hope he wears himself out soo much that he drifts off). Well that sorta worked. He was all over the place, well as much as you can be while confined in an airplane seat. Climbing up me pulling my air, messing up my hair, bouncing up and down, sitting and playing drums on the arm rest, dropping binkies on the floor and toys on the floor, playing drums on the seat back tray, petting the ladies jeans who was sitting next to us, climbing up me to peer to the seats behind us. While I was exhausted from him, he sure was charming everyone else on the plane! And just as he was getting restless, fussy, again and I was crossing my fingers he would fall asleep, he did not :( I think it was because he had a small dirty diaper (which I couldn't smell from my nose being stuffy). So that got changed about 40m before landing. Then 30m before landing I decided to give him his afternoon bottle since our plane had been delayed and I didn't want to wait around the Denver airport to feed him. Well that magic bottle put him right to sleep! Finally some peace!!

When we finally made it home, Reid had the house all clean, dinner made and said he got about 8hrs of work in over the weekend. He then gave me permission to travel for a day and a half every other weekend. Guess he loved how "easy" it was to clean and get things done without a crazy baby making a mess everywhere and needing your constant eye so he doesn't fall down the stairs (yes that happened before we left!)