Comedian, gardener, traveler, sweetheart

Carson sure keeps up laughing. The things he says sometimes just crack us up. Here are a few examples...

- A few weeks ago, I was working in the kitchen and Kevin was outside. Carson had gone with Denver (our cat) into the 3rd bedroom and had partially shut the door. They were being pretty quiet in there. So I went and peeked in the door. Carson was lying on his stomach in front of Denver with his chin in his hands whispering to him. When they saw me at the door, they both jumped up, startled. Carson then says to Denver "kitty, don't tell Mama!" It was too cute!

- Last weekend, I was wearing some flannel leopard print pants as PJs that I rarely wear. When Carson saw my pants that morning, he immediately came running up to me while exclaiming, "Mama, those are NICE pants!" He was being serious, too. :)

- He quite often will come up to you, out of the blue, wanting to shake your hand. As he's shaking your hand, he'll then say "Nice to meet you, Mama."

- Last week, I picked up some cereal at the health food store and brought it home. We've been out of cereal for a couple of months now and I just haven't bought anymore. Carson has been asking for it the last couple of weeks, so I figured I'd go pick up some organic corn flakes for him. When we got home, I told him I had bought him some cereal and showed it to him. He then put his hands up to his cheeks and exclaimed, "Oh my word, Mama, you're AMAZING!"

Carson has already been helping us a lot in the garden and orchard. He is so interested in it and just loves to help. He has helped Sara plant raspberry and blueberry bushes, lettuce, spinach, rainbow chard, and asparagus, and helped hold the new fruit trees straight in the hole while we filled them in with dirt. He loves to take the vegetable seeds and put them in the planting row that Sara has prepared and he is actually quite helpful in helping to cover the seeds with dirt. He's very careful and precise about it. And he asks so many questions about everything. He's trying to figure out how the seeds are going to turn into the vegetables that he loves to eat. He also loves to see how much the berry bushes have grown and is already looking for berries. :) We keep trying to explain to him that we probably won't see berries on our new plants this year. We have some mature raspberries growing in another part of the yard that he'll see berries on this year, which he thinks is pretty neat, but he still wants the bushes that he helped to plant to grow berries. :) We think it is so fun to see his innocence and joy from watching things grow and are so glad he is so interested in it.

Carson is still a great eater and loves to eat healthy things. A couple of weeks ago, we had asparagus for the first time this year. Carson hasn't had it since last spring/early summer. He loved it then and he still loves it now! He devoured it! Although he doesn't like the tips (which I think is the best part!), he prefers the stems. He ate 12 spears with his dinner that night. He kept asking for more and more and more. We finally just had to cut him off! He also is loving the fresh baby spinach that Sara has been getting at the farmers' market in Lansing. He likes salads with fruit and cheese on them - without any dressing. He LOVES fresh fruit. We always have to make sure we have lots of fruit variety in the fridge to choose from. Carson definitely gets all of his fruit servings in each day. Of course, he likes plenty of junk food, as well - chips and chocolate especially. But he will quite often choose fresh fruit over the junk food, so that is definitely a great thing!

We have some fun things coming up this summer that we're really looking forward to! We're hoping to get away for at least one weekend each month. We did Cleveland in April. In May, we're headed to P.J. Hoffmaster State Park in Muskegon for a weekend of camping with our friends Ben and Kati. We're still working on our plans for the following months, but we're looking at either going camping in Boyne City or South Haven for a weekend in June, to Colorado for a week in July, camping in the thumb for a weekend and also a weekend in Baldwin/Big Star Lake in August, and to taking a vacation with Sara's extended family in September (location TBD). We'll see how everything plays out, but we're looking forward to having lots of fun outdoors this summer! We'll be doing lots of day trips around the state, as well. We're looking forward to taking our bikes for some day trips to some of the Metroparks and up to Midland this summer. Carson absolutely loves to ride in the bike trailer and go for rides. He thinks its so fun to load up his "trunk" in the back of the trailer with snacks, drinks, and toys and then hop in for a ride.