Go Green!

We've all been cheering on the Spartans through their March Madness victories and are soooo excited they're going to be playing in the Final Four in Detroit!! To all you people that didn't have faith - poo on you! We've - well at least I've - Kevin didn't believe they'd do it either - always had faith in them! :) Carson has kept the faith, too. Check out his new MSU basketball hoop, which was an awesome birthday gift from Kevin's good friend, Jeff. Carson loves it! We have it hanging over a door right now, so he has to be lifted up to play, but he loves it all the same. Here he is shooting some celebratory hoops after the Spartans' win this weekend. I just love his face as he's dunking the ball - that's total enjoyment there with the eyes closed and mouth wide open... he does that every time he dunks it. So cute! And here he is after his game with Kevin, all tuckered out on a pillow on the floor.

Carson, a.k.a. Dare Devil

Can you see the mischief in his eyes? :-P You wouldn't think by looking at that sweet little face, he'd be so full of it, would you? Well, trust me, he IS! :) Carson is quite the little dare devil these days - and quite the climber! Last week, he figured out how to climb into the front window... standing on the little 3 inch ledge... IN the big picture window! He pushed the glider ottoman over to the window, up against his pack 'n play. And notice I said GLIDER ottoman? Yeah, that thing moves back and forth so bad when he climbs on it (its now put away in a closet), so I'm not quite sure how he managed this. But he did. Anyway, he pushed the ottoman over, climbed up on it. Grabbed the window frame with is right hand and the pack 'n play with his left hand, then put both feet onto the window ledge and stood there watching for Kevin to come home, giggling the entire time because he knew he was doing something dangerous. Silly little guy! It totally freaked me out - but does make me laugh, too! :)

Carson also finally decided he'd feed himself with a fork last week. Yeah!! Now he's all about feeding himself with his fork. I was beginning to worry I'd be feeding him till he was 25 or something. :) Now if we can just get him to hold his own bottle... Anyway, he loves to eat just about everything he can off his forks. Except for strawberries. I gave him a small taste of one last week and he didn't care for it at all - made himself gag on it. They were super sweet ones, too. I'm sure he'll develop a taste for them eventually, just was a totally different texture maybe. We'll try them again this summer. He's still a great eater. He did go through a phase for a couple weeks where he wouldn't eat his veggies, but that is over. And he now loves green beans - finally!! :) He devours them. He also love, love, loves his Great Grandma Burge's bean soup.

This is the before picture - the get ready Mama, I'm gonna do some tricks! look. Carson has decided that he can't ride his four-wheeler like a normal person, sitting there nicely like he is in this picture. He'll sit on it normally and bounce around making his "brrrroooom brrrrrooooom" sounds, pushing and pulling the handle bars back and forth... but he will not push the button to go when he's sitting nice and normal. If he is going to actually push the button and ride it, he thinks he either needs to be standing, kneeling, or hanging off the side of the thing. We guess he's just already practicing his freestyling... or something. :)

Butterflies & Children's Garden

Today we took a trip out to Michigan State. We met up with Grandma and Grandpa Moore and headed to MSU to check out the butterfly house, children's gardens, and the annual home and garden show at the Pavillion. Today was Grandma Moore's birthday, so this was our celebration with her. Carson had so much fun! I think all of us did! The weather was a bit on the chilly side, but the sun was out and Carson got a good nap in on the way there, so he was full of energy. We started out visiting the butterflies. It's still a bit early in the exhibit, so probably only about a quarter of the butterflies had emerged from their cocoons so far, but we did get to see some pretty ones. Carson wasn't too interested in the butterflies, he just wanted to run around, walk on the paths, climb on the bridges and benches, and get in the ponds. He had a lot of fun, all the same.

After the butterfly house, we took a stroll through the children's gardens on campus. Granted, they're not really much for gardens right now since its so early in the spring, but there are still lots of fun things to explore and play on. Carson had a ball! He got to walk across a big (to him) bridge, play on a wooden choo-choo train, climb into a playhouse, find his way through a maze, and climb up and into a gazebo. We'll definitely be making a trip back to the gardens this summer when everything is in bloom and is beautiful!

After the gardens, we headed over to the MSU Pavillion to the annual Home and Garden Show. We spent a few hours there, just walking around, looking at exhibits and talking to vendors. Carson rode in the BOB most of the time, but he did get out to run around for a bit. He met a new friend at a chiropractic booth - a little guy just about his age. They were both so excited to meet - until Carson found something to climb on. Then he kind of forgot about his friend. :) After the show, we headed over to Bennigan's for dinner where Carson continued to have even more fun. He had such a great day!

Getting out today has really given us all a serious case of spring fever. We're looking forward to many more outings together this spring and summer. Carson is at such a fun age right now. We're looking forward to a trip to Chicago at the end of April, a trip to Grand Rapids in early May for Sara's friend Sara's wedding (we'll be staying out there for a few days), a trip to Tulip Time in Holland while we're out in GR for the wedding, and I'm sure many more fun trips yet to be planned. We'll be going to some festivals this summer - one in June down in Howell with hot air balloons and one in Owosso in July with steam engines (trains) - those ones for sure, the others are TBD at this point. If anyone is interested in going to see the hot air balloons or steam engines, let us know! We'd love to go together!

Anyway, be sure to check out all the pictures from our trip to MSU in our photo albums - link is on the right.

Oh and by the way, Carson is almost there on the "Go Green!" :) Its closer than it has been, anyway... now its more of a "guh gee." We'll keep working on it.

13 Months Old

Carson turned 13 months old this past Friday. He's growing up so quickly. He's becoming very independent. Well about most things. He still doesn't want anything to do with holding his bottle, or using a fork/spoon to feed himself. But when it comes to walking from the house to the car, and then from the car to the house, that's another story. That he wants to do on his own. Just holding your hand going up and down the stairs in the garage. He's very good about sticking close by and not wandering off so far - I hope that continues, especially with the busy road that we live on. Carson is loving that the weather is warming up. He loves going outside to explore. We were out exploring the property this afternoon with him. With the ground being quite saturated and uneven still, he is still cautious while he's walking across the grass... always looking down watching where he's walking. Although, now with the warming weather, he's not able to tell us its cold outside as often. But he still gets the opportunity to say "Brrr!" when you take his diaper off or are changing his clothes. :) He's trying to say so many things right now. His latest words have been banana ("ah-na-na"), apple ("ap-puh"), great grandma ("ga-ama"), hi ("haa-ee"), and nite-nite ("ni-ni"). We've been trying to get him to say Go Green!, but he's having a hard time with that one. He still says that one in Carsonese. :)

Carson has a new baby cousin on Sara's side of the family now. Mackenzey Abigail Hope Rhodes was born this past Friday morning. She is the daughter of Sara's cousin, Jorie, and her husband Greg. We're looking very forward to meeting Mackenzey and can't wait till she is old enough to play with Carson. It will be nice to have another little one around on that side of the family.

He's gonna be a ball-ah... the game shot call-ah

I picked up a used basketball hoop from Craigslist (only $8 - woohoo!) last week for Carson. What a great buy! Its in very good shape and Carson loves it! Its adjustable, so it'll grow with him - to a point at least. We had a lot of fun over the weekend playing basketball with him. He knew what to do with it as soon as he saw it. As soon as we showed it to him, he immediately picked up his MSU basketball and put it through the hoop. He's got mad skillz! :-P (But I guess it also helps that he's had a mini basketball hoop for about six months now :) We'll have lots of fun playing with this both inside and outside this summer. And I think Kevin and I have had as much fun with it as Carson has. :) Hopefully Carson will develop a love for basketball just like Kevin.

Spring is in the Air!

Well it was today at least. Tomorrow will be another story as the cold front moves through. But today we made the best of this beautiful weather and had some fun outside. Carson loved being outside! Its a little different walking on the uneven ground and in the grass than it is in the house, but he's getting the hang of it very quickly. He had fun playing with his big bouncy balls, riding his four-wheeler, just walking around exploring, climbing up and down the steps, and watching the cars and motorcycles go by (all the while saying "broom-broom" (i.e. vroom-vroom)). He's going to have so much fun this summer! We can't wait!

New Car

We finally broke down and bought a new car. The Trailblazer is no more. I'm going to miss it terribly. :( But it was time. It had 111,000 miles on it and things were starting to wear out. Tuesday last week, I got stranded at Meijer in Davison on my lunch hour - the starter died. No warnings, it just went out. So I had it towed to Al Serra and we paid the $600 to get it fixed. They then tell us that the a/c compressor is about to die, which if it does and seizes, it'll break some belt and I'd be stranded again. Or we could pay $1,300 to get it fixed. On top of that, we've known for awhile now that a front wheel bearing was going bad - that's another $500 fix, possibly double if both front bearings were bad (which we suspect). Yes, Kevin could do both the compressor and bearings way cheaper, but we just plain don't have the time for it. So Kevin found this car on AutoTrader on Friday morning and we met at the dealership (in Southfield, down by Detroit) on my way home from Canada... and we bought it. (Excuse the bad picture, I took it through the front window from inside the house.) Its a 2006 Pontiac Grand Prix GT, pretty much loaded with leather heated seats, Monsoon sound system, 6-disc CD changer, moonroof, premium wheels, etc. I've wanted a Grand Prix for a few years now, so I do really like the car. Its just a big change from the Trailblazer - I like sitting up high, having the towing capability (which we will really miss!), and having 4x4. But, with the mileage we put on cars, we probably will be cycling through vehicles every 2-3 years anyway, so we'll most likely get an SUV again next time around. For now, I have a fairly fast car with a supercharged engine. :)