Fitness Room Sneak Peek

Here's a sneak peek of the fitness room we've been working on in the basement for the last six weeks. I'll load some pics of the room with the equipment moved in at the end of the week after the new treadmill arrives.

23 months old!

One more month and our little man will be two! Can you believe it? We certainly can't! :)

Carson has continued to learn many new things each and every day this past month. He is speaking more and more clearly all the time. And he has been making some complete sentences... not all the time, but there are certain things he always says in a complete sentence now. His manners are great - he almost always says please and thank you without being reminded. And he is really getting better at pretend play. His latest thing is pretending that he is a frog - he squats down and hops around saying "ribbit, ribbit." He also quite often pretends he is a dog or cat or parrot.

Carson is still such a sweetheart. He tells us he loves us and misses us quite often these days... much more than he has in the past. Just out of the blue, he'll come over saying "hug you, mom-mom (or daddy)..... (we give him a hug).. love you so much, mom-mom (or daddy)." It just melts our hearts every time he does that. If we've been out of the room or something, he'll sometimes run over to you saying "hug you mom-mom (or daddy)... (we give him a hug)... Carson missed you, mom-mom (or daddy)."

Carson continues to progress physically, as well. Our latest house project has been remodeling part of the basement to make a fitness room. We wanted to have some "equipment" in there for Carson, so we bought him his own stationary bike. Kevin didn't think he would be able to pedal it, but Carson hopped right on as soon as it was assembled and started pedaling. Within two days, he was already pedaling it while standing up and riding! He definitely loves to push his limits and master new skills! Carson thinks its a lot of fun to workout with us. He does pullups with Kevin. He attempts to copy my yoga moves (and then knocks me over), marches around the room to some of the walking videos, kicks and punches to Tae-Bo, punches the punching bag, and tries to use my 10-pound kettlebell. He is loving the fitness room, too. I think his favorite part is the wall of mirrors, though... he loves watching himself run around. We catch him making faces and practicing his "I don't know" shrug in the mirrors, as well. :) We really hope Carson continues to have fun with exercise and enjoy it as he grows! We're thinking about signing him up for the Toddler Trot Crim event this year, especially if I end up running in the Crim... but that will be decided in the coming months.

We won't be doing swim classes this semester. Sadly, they changed the times and we can't make it to the weekly classes. We're considering signing up for Kindermusik classes, though. We looked into them a year ago, and after hearing about all the fun Aunt Mary and Rebecca had at their Kindermusik classes last semester, it has sparked our interest in them even more. Now that I'm only off of work every other Friday, though, we'll just be doing the class half-time... every other week. Our first class will be February 5th, assuming we do sign up. It should be fun! We're also considering doing some Little Learners classes at Impression 5, but we're not sure how that will work out with our schedule yet. As well as a Messy Art class that is offered locally. And, of course, we'll continue to do regular toddler story times at the library and other fun things to enhance Carson's interaction with other kids his age.

An Addition To Our Dining Room

We finally got our hutches in our dining room, so this room is almost complete... we still need to hang a few more things on the walls, replace the light fixture, and add a few other finishing touches. But what an improvement the hutches make!! And its so nice to have a place to keep our china, crystal, real silver, and other random serving pieces.

A New Year, A New Decade

Happy New Year everyone! I truly hope you all make this next year and decade everything you want it to be! I am still amazed by the number of posts on facebook that refer to what a bad year 2009 was... I guess I just don't get that. There are ups and there are downs each and every year - and, in my opinion, the downs are only as bad as you make them.

Anyway, I feel like we had a pretty good 2009! Kevin and I have had so much fun watching our little man grow up, learning new things constantly, and developing such a strong little personality. Carson is such a joy in our lives! We're really looking forward to watching him grow and develop even more this year... celebrating his 2nd birthday in about six weeks, being potty-trained, learning even more fun things, developing his language skills (he's improving every day still... he can now finally make the "J" sounds just this week... now we're working on "L" sounds.), and just having tons of fun!

We've done so many super fun things this past year... we saw our little man turn 1... gained a couple new cousins (Mackenzey and Jonah)... saw many of our friends get married and Aunt Lindsay graduate from high school and also said farewell to some great friends and family that moved out of state... went to a Calvin basketball game, the MSU Butterfly House and Children's Gardens, Silver Lake Ski Club ski shows, the JAM and other ski tournaments, Potter Park Zoo, a rodeo, Crossroads Village, and several childrens' museums around the state... spent many days playing at the park, swimming at the lake, and going to toddler storytime at the library... and spent lots of great times with so many of our friends and family, building great memories!

We've taken some fun vacations this past year - to Chicago, to Baldwin/Ludington/Traverse City, and we spent a weekend in Grand Rapids for Sara's and Adam's wedding, as well as a couple random daily and overnight getaways here and there... to Saugatuck, Holland, Grandville, Hudsonville, GR, Ann Arbor, GB. We're hoping to take some more really fun vacations in 2010... possibly Boston in April for a work conference (if my travel is approved); definitely Denver in July/August using our free airline tickets; hopefully taking a road-trip to either Tennessee/Mississippi in July or Destin, FL in October; and we're still hoping we can figure out a time to go to Phoenix since our plans to go MLK weekend didn't end up working out. We also really want to take Carson to whatever the Sea World in Ohio has become... is it Six Flags or something? We'd also like to do some overnight/weekend getaways to different cities in Michigan... we feel the need to explore our state a little more than we have so far!

All in all, we just want to build tons of great memories again this year!! Here's to a fantastic 2010 for everyone!! :)