Non-Stop Energy

Don't you wish you could just bottle it up sometimes?

9 months old!

Carson was nine months old yesterday and went in for his checkup today. He weighs 19 pounds, 1 ounce and is still in the 25th percentile for his age. He is 29 inches tall, which was on the high end between the 50th and 75th percentiles. The doctor declared him a healthy little man. He does want us to increase his solid food intake though... basically add meat since I haven't been giving Carson much meat yet. So we'll have to work on that. I'm not a fan of those pureed baby food meats... so we'll see how it goes with some softer meats. I've smooshed some chicken up a few weeks ago to try and he ate that well, so I'll have to do that again. Now hopefully the 9-month blood work for lead and anemia return with good results.

Carson is such an active little guy. He is going non-stop. Still not walking on his own yet, but I honestly think he could if he'd try. He stands on his own and has quite good balance, but doesn't try to take many steps yet. He cruises around holding on to things all the time, though. His new favorite thing is his walk-behind toy that he takes all over the place. He has five teeth now - two on the bottom and three on the top - with a sixth tooth (on top) that looks like it'll break through very soon. He's such a sweet little man - he loves to cuddle and is starting to play the I'm shy game when he meets new people.

As we move into the upcoming holiday season, we're looking forward to celebrating our first Thanksgiving and Christmas with our little man. We are so very thankful for having him in our lives and bringing us such great joy every day.

A Trip to Grand Rapids

Yesterday, we took a trip out west to the Grand Rapids area to visit Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Van Heukelum and Uncle Justin, Aunt Mary, and cousin Rebecca. Carson had a great nap on the drive out there, so he was in great spirits at Great Grandma and Great Grandpa's farm. He enjoyed cuddling with Great Grandma, exploring their house, and playing with Great Grandpa's favorite toy from his childhood. He also had his first taste of cake and declared that Great Grandma makes a fabulous cake... he LOVED it!

After our visit to the farm, we headed over to Uncle Justin and Aunt Mary's house. We all went on a walk around their neighborhood, then returned for some play time with Rebecca and to eat dinner. It was great to have some time for Carson and Rebecca to play together and interact. Carson took along some of his toys that Rebecca had fun playing with and Carson enjoyed playing with some of Rebecca's toys. We got to see Rebecca eating some oatmeal and prunes - she's a great eater, too. Carson ate a huge dinner - we didn't think he'd stop!

It was a great trip and was wonderful to see some of our family that we so rarely see. It makes us wish we could see them more often. We'll have to make some more trips out there regularly from now on. We're realizing how important it is to just live life... rather than always working on things around the house or trying to accomplish different tasks... spending times with the ones we love is what is most important... and providing opportunities for Carson to grow his relationships with them.

Carson's 1st Swim Class

This morning was Carson's first swimming class at the Swartz Creek Middle School. Auntie Jaime provided us this opportunity as part of her gift to Sara for being her Matron of Honor in her wedding in August. She didn't even know we were thinking of putting Carson in the AquaTot class, so it was the perfect gift for us... and another opportunity to spend time together doing new things as a family. Carson has six weeks of classes on Saturday mornings. Unfortunately, the timing falls right during his normal morning nap time, so I have a feeling its going to be a little rough. They've just recently (like this week) turned the temperature down in the pool, too, as the swim teams have started practice. Carson wasn't too thrilled about the chilly water and he had some melt downs, but he also had some enjoyable moments, too. We think its good for him to be exposed to the water as much as possible. He loved swimming in the lake this past summer and absolutely loves his baths, so this will be something he'll get used to, I'm sure. Be sure to check out our photo albums for the pics from this first AquaTot class.

Do you wanna ride in my mercedes?

Errr... Little Tykes car?? Sara's mom found this car at a garage sale for $5 and couldn't pass it up. This will be great to have next summer since its a little advanced for Carson right now. But he has fun sitting in it and being pushed around. The minute he got into the car, he grabbed onto the steering wheel, turning it left and right as fast and hard as he could... he's definitely Kevin's son! :)

Porter's Orchard

On Saturday we made a trip to Porter's Orchard in Goodrich with Kevin's family. It was the perfect day for the orchard - such beautiful fall weather! And it was great to get the whole family together since it happens so rarely. We were able to get lots of cute pictures (check out the photo albums - they'll be up soon!). After the orchard, we went back to Kevin's parents' house for a family dinner in celebration of Kevin's parents' 35th wedding anniversary and Danny's 26th birthday. It was great to spend some time together, though it went by so quickly! Before we knew it, it was bedtime for the little ones.

The cousins all had fun playing together and enjoyed being outdoors. Rebecca and Carson had some small interactions, but Carson is such a busy-body that he wasn't paying much attention to her. I'm sure by Christmas, they'll be quite the little pair getting themselves into trouble. Although with these two innocent faces, what sort of trouble could the really get themselves into?? :)

8 Months Already??

Today Carson is 8 months old - so hard to believe! He is so much fun right now - we are just loving it! He is quite the curious little man right now, wanting to explore everything and definitely not wanting to miss out on the action. He's getting into lots of stuff - which has taught me that I need to do even more baby-proofing. :) He's crawling every where and I really don't think it'll be long before he starts walking. He literally runs around the house while he's holding your fingers for support - with a huge cheesy grin and giggling the entire time! He thinks he can walk on his own, too. He'll pull himself up - in his crib especially - and will let go and try to take off... only he crashes and usually ends up with a bruise some place. Right now he has three different bruises on his head... on the right side of his forehead, on his left cheek, and next to his right eye. He'll wake up and pull himself up immediately, then crashes before we can get in there to get him up. He generally doesn't freak out when that happens, either, he'll get right back up and do it again. Crazy boy!

Carson is such a jabber-mouth, too. He's trying out all sorts of sounds right now. He says "Da-da," "Ma-ma," "Na-na," "ba-ba," "cha-cha," "pa-pa," and all sorts of other sounds. He does seem to be figuring out who da-da and ma-ma actually are, but he says it for other things, too. He still likes to scream while he's playing and he loves to jabber while he's eating his Cheerios. He can be quiet as a mouse, then you give him a Cheerio and he's talking non-stop. He doesn't understand the no talking with your mouth full yet. :)

Carson is still just infatuated with Jet (the dog). He's starting to chase Jet around the house. Jet is a good sport about it, though - I think he enjoys it right now actually.

The New Blog

So what do you think of the new blog design?? Isn't it awesome? This was designed by Kevin's cousin's wife, Melissa (thank you so much again!!). She is incredibly talented and runs her own home business doing graphic design. She just recently added blog designs and I was lucky enough to be one of the guinea pigs! If you love the blog layout, be sure to check out Color Me Happy to see Melissa's wide array of photo cards and blog designs.

Get Down and Give Me 20!

This is our way of keeping Carson in line. ;-P JUST kidding, by the way! Carson's been doing push-ups while he's been trying to figure out the mobility thing and I am finally getting around to posting a picture of one. Carson's still crawling slowly (which I'm not complaining about!!) and I think last night he finally figured out that he was moving while he was crawling. He crawled all the way across his bedroom to get to Jet. He wouldn't crawl on the wood floor in the hallway outside his room, though... we'll see how long that lasts, I guess. :)

We're Mobile!

Carson finally started crawling today! He's been working on it for over a month now and has been so close for weeks. He finally wanted his little piano bad enough this evening to crawl to it. Still going very slow and he doesn't get too far before he decides to lie down, but I'm sure it won't be long and he'll be cruising around everywhere making me lose my mind! :-P He also finally figured out how to drink from a straw today, too! Guess it was a big day for him - haha! I've been trying for a month now to get him to drink from a sippy cup, but he hasn't really liked it much. So I picked up some straw cups to try, but he's resisted them the last couple weeks, too. He just wanted to drink like a big boy, straight from the cup. But finally today he started drinking his apple juice from the straw for my Aunt Jeri. He was so proud of himself... and Kevin and I are, too! :-P

Spicer's Orchard & Fencing

This past Saturday we took a trip to Spicer's Orchard just south of Fenton. We met up with Grandpa and Grandma Holleboom, Aunt Julie, and cousins Anna and Joel. It was a nice, hot day and the orchard was very busy, but we all managed to have a good time. Carson was a trooper, running on no afternoon nap, and was in good spirits until about 10 minutes before we decided to leave but then he fell asleep in the stroller so we had a bit more time to look around. Anna and Joel had fun playing on all the kids' stuff around the place. We picked up some apples to make applesauce sometime this week and just enjoyed a nice afternoon out together as a family.

Traveling for Kevin and I seems to be done for a while. These past few weeks have been chaotic, with Kevin gone to Indiana one week, me in Texas the next week, and Kevin in Tennessee and Virginia last week. Now we're back to "normal" and we're all glad to have the family back together again.

Sara's dad came over on Saturday morning and then again on Sunday afternoon this past weekend to help Kevin work on the fence. They were able to get fencing down the north side of the property, got the gates on the back chainlink fencing, and got the lines marked out on the south side. We seem to be in a bit of disagreement with the crabby old lady neighbor to our south on the property lines. The things she says always contradict themselves, making no sense on what she thinks is going on. The house to the north of us is a newer one (built in 2001 or 2002) and has the property lines staked out. We took the information from the township and on our taxes, which says we have 165 feet of frontage on Linden Road. So we measured out from the property stake on the north side 165 feet south. It ends up being a good two feet or so further than the crabby old lady to the south believes it should be. She just about lost it last night when she got home and saw where we'd measured it to be, threatening to take us to small claims court and all sorts of nonsense. So I'm calling today to get a land surveyor out there to see where the lines actually are, this is just getting so ridiculous. The crabby old lady isn't happy we're putting up a fence and has been causing us headaches ever since we started. So hopefully we'll get a surveyor out there this week so we can get all this drama settled.

Welcome to Lake Holleboom!

This is what our front yard looked like yesterday with all the downpouring of rain we had. I still can't believe we got so much rain so quickly. The ditches couldn't keep up and so all the low-lying yards just flooded. We're about two feet below our neighbors to the south (the crabby old lady), so we pretty much got all of their water. And we're about even with our neighbors to the north (the young couple with the 1-year old son), so their yard was flooding pretty badly, too. I was glad to see the water levels had gone down a lot overnight. That was a relief!

Just some pictures

A few posts back, I mentioned we got a fancy new outdoor swing from my parents as an early Christmas gift. I hadn't uploaded the pics at that point yet, so here it is... Carson loves it (which is why my parents actually wanted to get it for us as part of our Christmas).


And here is the bistro set and loveseat that Kevin and I bought (on major clearance at Home Depot, you wouldn't believe the deal we got!). And hopefully next year we'll get an outdoor table set... and build ourselves a deck or patio.


And because I'm in a picture mood, here are some recent ones of Carson these last two weeks...

This one you can see his two teeth on the bottom... this was just after they came through, though. You can see them really well right now, I'll have to take some more pics.

"Peas" don't make me eat these...

Tonight we gave Carson his first organic peas. He wasn't too crazy about them, as you can see from the pictures. I think he might end up liking them after a few tastes over the next couple of days, but we'll see. He didn't have as strong of an "eww factor" as he has when we give him green beans. Once he knows we have just plain green beans, he refuses to open his mouth, he just doesn't like them at all. So I mix them with sweet potatoes and he'll eat them. I'm hoping he'll eat peas by themselves. I think they actually taste pretty good - way better than the beans. So we'll see.

Carson got a little frustrated with me tonight and was throwing small fits. I kept tricking him, giving him a few bites of sweet potatoes, then slipping in a bite of peas, then a few bites of sweet potatoes, then bananas, and so on. He's not crazy about bananas yet, either. It takes him a little while before he begins to like some foods... like bananas, applesauce, green beans. He now loves applesauce and tolerates bananas, still hates the green beans. He still loves his carrots and pears - still probably his two favorites. And he really enjoys his sweet potatoes, blueberries and peaches. And I hope to add peas to that list in the next few days. I guess we'll see...

Labor Day Weekend

Labor Day weekend this year for us was known as Jaime's Wedding Weekend. One of Sara's best friends, Jaime, married Jeff on Sunday, August 31st. Sara was her Matron of Honor. The weekend began on Saturday with manicures, pedicures, and lunch with all the bridesmaids and mothers. Saturday evening was the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner at Italia Gardens. Then Sunday was the big day. Everything was absolutely perfect! Jaime looked gorgeous, Jeff looked handsome, and everyone had a fun time. Carson got to spend some extra time with Grandma and Papa Moore on Saturday during the rehearsal and dinner and then with Grandma and Grandpa Holleboom on Sunday during the wedding and reception. Monday morning, the three of us headed over to Jaime's mom's house for a brunch and to watch Jaime and Jeff open their gifts. Today Jaime and Jeff are headed to San Francisco for their honeymoon. It was a very busy, very fun weekend and Sara was honored to be a part of it. There are tons of pictures in the Shutterfly albums if you'd like to check them out (link to the right).

After the brunch, we headed out to Flushing for an organic farm tour of Whetham Organic Farm, after which we stopped at Almar Orchards, an organic apple orchard. After that, we met Sara's parents up at Home Depot to check out a fancy swing for the backyard that Sara's parents found for a potential Christmas gift for us. We ended up getting the swing, plus a brown polyresin loveseat, so we finally have someplace to sit in the backyard. We put the swing up last night and tried it out - very comfy and its very cute! Carson is going to love having it. I'll update with some pics once I upload them from the camera.

Future MSU Basketball Star in the Making

The title says it all... :)

Carson's Baptism

On Sunday, August 24th, we had Carson baptized at Faith Lutheran Church in Grand Blanc. Thankfully, Carson made it through the service and baptism fairly well. He did fuss a little during the baptism, but he did much better than I'd expected... I'd worried he'd be screaming during the baptism. We had all of our close relatives and a few close friends join us for the occasion - we had forty people overall! We asked Uncle Danny and Auntie Jaime to be Carson's Godparents. Godparents today don't serve the same purpose as they did traditionally, now they are more of a christian mentor rather than more of a guardian as they used to be.

After church, we all came back to our house for a BBQ and to visit. The weather was perfect, not too hot, not too cold, and it was great to see everyone. Carson was slightly out of sorts, with his eating and napping routine messed up, but he did pretty well overall. We were able to get some updated pictures of the four Holleboom grandchildren and the four of them were able to get some good playtime in together.

I'll be uploading lots of pics of the baptism in our Shutterfly albums soon (link to right), so check them out in a bit.

Carson, age 6 months

Its hard to believe that we've had the joy of having Carson in our lives for six months now. But then again, its hard to believe its only been six months since I don't remember life before his arrival. :) Each day seems to bring something new, it is just so fun to watch him develop right before our eyes. He is getting so big and strong, he'll be crawling and walking before we know it, I'm sure. Right now, we're good with just the independent sitting, for I'm afraid he's going to be quite the energetic little handful once he gets completely mobile. He does roll all over the floor to get where he wants to go, but that is tame compared to how it'll be once he's crawling, I'm sure. :)

Carson is loving his solid foods. He is so funny. He definitely has inherited his Mama's impatience. :) He gets very impatient if you're not feeding him quick enough and demands you to hurry it up. We're still taking it very slow with introducing the solids. So far he has had rice cereal which we switched over to oatmeal, which seems to help with the constipation. He's had organic prunes, sweet potatoes, pears, green beans, carrots, and now peaches. He doesn't care for green beans much, but I mix them with sweet potatoes and he'll eat them. He needs the green beans to keep his system moving. :) His favorites right now are probably carrots and pears. We'll probably try applesauce next, but I'm a little cautious about apples and bananas, too, since they cause constipation. So we'll definitely limit those two fruits.

Carson's language is growing everyday. He tries out all kinds of new sounds and it is so cool to listen to him. My favorite thing is probably listening to him in his crib when he wakes up cooing and babbling, or when he's playing and "talking" to his toys or to Jet. It is just so cute. Speaking of Jet, I think Carson and Jet are going to be best buds. Carson just adores Jet and Jet is quite fond of Carson, too. Carson will giggle and laugh and talk to Jet all the time. He thinks its hysterical when Jet just looks at him or yawns or sneezes. Jet tolerates Carson very well and I hope that continues to go over so well once Carson is mobile. Carson has surprised Jet a few times, tugging and yanking on his lip or on his hair, which has startled Jet, but he's not shown a hint of animosity towards Carson for it, which is very good. Jet loves to give Carson "kisses" - or rather probably just licking up his spit and food leftovers he may have on him. Carson loves it, too, even though Kevin and I try to keep Jet from licking him so much.

The strength that Carson has just amazes us, too. You can tell he wants to walk so badly. If you hold his fingers, he will take steps with you to get where he wants to go, its so cute. He loves his exersaucer because he can stand on his own, too. He just has the best time in that thing. Carson still loves anything musical and is very curious to check everything out, touching it and putting it in his mouth if he can get it there. I don't think it'll be too long before he learns to crawl, either. He'll get his knees fully underneath him now, but won't take his fist out of his mouth, so hasn't realized he should put his arms out and push up with his knees under him. Instead, he'll push off as hard as he can with his feet and flop across the floor. He also scoots himself backwards quite often now, too. And he's rough, totally all boy, and looks like he'll definitely be his father's son from what I've heard of Kevin's energy levels as a child. :)

6-Month Check-up

Carson went for his 6-month well-baby check-up this afternoon. He's meeting and surpassing all of his milestones and Dr. Akrawi said he is a very healthy boy. He weighed in at 16 pounds, 13 ounces, which put him in the 25th percentile for weight. He is 27 inches tall, which puts him in the 75th percentile for height. And his head was 17.5 inches in circumference, which I think they said was between the 50th and 75th percentiles. Carson got his third round of all the shots and he hated it again. We'll have to see how he deals with them this time. I hope he does even better than he did at four months. I'll post more later on what he's been up to and some pictures.

Meeting More Family

Sara's Uncle Mike, Aunt Mary Ann, and cousins Shannon and Shane came to visit this past weekend, so Carson got to meet even more family! They live in Collierville (near Memphis), Tennessee and it had been quite a while since any of us had seen them. 8 years since we've seen Aunt Mary Ann and Shannon, probably 4 years since we'd seen Shane, and 2 years since we'd seen Uncle Mike. So it was great to see them and spend some time with them. Shannon and Shane have grown up so much since we've seen them last. Shannon is just such a beautiful woman now - she graduated from the University of Tennessee last year and is working at International Paper in Memphis in the logistics field. Shane is still as sweet as can be and you can't help but love him to pieces. He just loved Carson so much, well I think they all did, but Shane was just so sweet with Carson. I wish Carson wouldn't have been so over-stimulated and would have enjoyed Shane a little more.

So we had a weekend filled with family get togethers at my parents house mostly. Its always good to see family and it was a lot of fun. We finally got a picture with Sara's Grandma and all of her grandchildren (minus Carson since he was napping). I don't even know when the last time we were all together was... probably at least 16 years. Once Carson woke from his nap, we got a quick picture of all the grandkids and great-grandkids (there are two, Macie and Carson). These will be great pictures to have and I'm glad we were able to all get-together to take them.


I wish we'd have had more time with them all, but Uncle Mike and Shannon had to get back to work this week. Hopefully we'll be seeing a little more of them now that Sara's Grandma Moore lives up in Michigan and hopefully we'll be able to make a family trip down to Tennessee in the next year or two. The last time we were there was in 2000 and we had such a great time and have wanted to go back ever since.

There are lots of pictures from the time with our family in our albums (link at the right), as well as the July photos. Enjoy!