Christmas with the Holleboom Family

On Friday, we went over to Kevin's parents' house to celebrate Christmas with the Holleboom family. We got to spend some more time with Mary, Justin, and Rebecca - whom we rarely see since we live two hours apart. It was great to have some extra time with them. It was fun to have the four Holleboom grandchildren together - they all love to play with each other so much. All four grandchildren were quite spoiled with gifts from everyone this year - they all got lots of nice stuff. Carson got more new toys, books, and clothes. He's been having lots of fun with everything here at home.

Christmas Day with the Van Heukelum Family

Another tradition of ours has been to spend Christmas Day with Kevin's extended family in Grand Rapids. So we made our trip out to Kevin's grandparents' farm on the afternoon of Christmas Day. We enjoyed a yummy roast beef dinner that Grandma and Grandpa Van made, with all sorts of sides and desserts brought by the rest of us. It was great to see everyone - we just don't see that side of the family often enough since we live two hours away. The kids all had fun playing together, as you'll see in the pictures in our photo albums. We're always sad to cut our family gatherings off since its so rare that we're all together. But we're hoping to make some trips to Grand Rapids quite regularly in the new year, so hopefully we'll be able to see more of our Grand Rapids family than we did this year.

Christmas Eve with the Burge Family

As is tradition, we celebrated Christmas Eve with Sara's Mom's family in Fenton. Carson came down with a cold virus on Tuesday, but by the time we got to the party on Wednesday night, his fever was gone and he was starting to act more like himself. He enjoyed the party much more than we thought he would, for which we are thankful. He was a little shy at first, waking up from a nap in the car, and just wanting to cuddle with his Mama, but he perked up quickly and was soon walking around and visiting with everyone.

We all had fun at the party. It was great to see everyone and we were able to take lots of great pictures. The jokes and laughter are never lacking with Sara's family, and we always leave with sore abdominal muscles from laughing so much. Carson got lots of nice gifts - lots of fun toys to play with, a chair his size for the living room (which we just left at home since it was quite large to lug around), and some new clothes, too. We'll have lots of fun in the coming days, weeks, and months playing with all the new toys... and yes I say we because Kevin and I will have almost as much fun as Carson has playing with the new stuff. :)

Be sure to check out all of our pictures from the Burge family party in our family photo albums at the link in the sidebar to the right. Also, for those that have been to my Aunt Sharon's house before - notice in the pictures that she's had a complete home makeover on the first floor. She's recently had every single room re-done and re-furnished by Ethan Allen. Doesn't it look awesome!?!

Merry Christmas!

We wish you all a safe, happy, and healthy holiday! And may you have a wonderfully blessed year in 2009!! We hope you all have been/will be enjoying your Christmas celebrations and are enjoying the time with family and friends. We are savoring every bit of it this year, making the most of it that we can. We've learned only too well in the past year that life can change so quickly, so we are enjoying just living in the moment, making as many memories, and taking as many pictures as possible.

And because I haven't posted any yet, here's a look at our Christmas tree this year. We're lacking a good majority of our ornaments since we only put the non-breakable ornaments up this year, but it turned out pretty well even with way fewer ornaments... at least we think so. :)

Christmas with the Moore Family

On Sunday, we had our first Christmas celebration with the Moore family. We went over to Sara's parents house and celebrated with Grandpa and Grandma, Great Grandma, Aunt Lindsay, and Lindsay's boyfriend, Jordan. Carson wasn't too excited about the gift opening - but then again he was super tired, too. Overall, he did okay. He's definitely been enjoying his new toys, books, and table and chairs here at home. Here are just a couple pictures. There are more in our family photo albums (link to the right).

Best Friends

Aside from his blankie, I think that Jet will end up being Carson's best friend. Lately, Carson has been trying to give Jet (and other dogs, too (Shelbi, Sammy, and probably Winston once he sees him again)) kisses whenever he can. He'll walk up to Jet, or sit down next to him on the floor, and lean into him with his mouth wide open to give him a kiss. It's so cute! Jet, of course, takes full advantage and licks him to pieces. :) Too bad Carson doesn't give out his kisses to others as freely. He's very stingy with his kisses lately.

Carson tries to do everything Jet does... and doesn't always understand why he can't always do what Jet does. For instance, chewing on Jet's toys and looking out the back windows in our dining room. Carson wants to look out them with Jet so badly that he tries to climb the wall... guess he's our little monkey, too. :)

Our Little Bam-Bam

Yesterday we had our first Christmas celebration with Grandma and Grandpa Moore, Aunt Lindsay and her boyfriend Jordan, and Great Grandma Moore. Carson wasn't too interested in opening his gifts, but he is enjoying playing with them today. So far, his favorite part of a gift is this baseball bat. He just walks all over carrying it and swinging it around, jabbering the entire time. Luckily he hasn't realized how fun it would be to bang it on everything... yet.

This is how its supposed to be used...

New Bed

Kevin and I finally got a new bed for our bedroom. It was our Christmas gift to each other this year. We've been sleeping on my old bed that I grew up with... that I actually inherited from my Aunt Jeri, who inherited it from my Great Grandma... it was a full sized bed (which is now in our 3rd bedroom so we have a guest room now). We upgraded to a king size - what a difference! We have so much room now, its amazing! I'm sure it'll come in handy once Carson is a little older and has a bad dream or something and wants to crawl into bed with us. So far, we've been able to keep Jet sleeping on his bed on the floor in our room. Denver usually ends up in the smack-dab middle of the bed somewhere, just sprawled out. Anyway, there's a picture of the new bed and bedding. Hopefully in the next week or so I'll be posting our next project... converting the breezeway from a storage area to a family room.

Carson - Age 10 Months

I realized this morning after I read my niece's 8-month update that I never did a 10-month update for Carson. Oops. Last week was just a crazy week with Carson being sick with the flu. Then I caught the bug and was down for a couple days. And the weekend was just plain busy. So I guess it just totally slipped my mind. Hard to believe he's 10 months old already - and that he'll be a year old in only 2 more months! EEK!

Carson is just a little bundle of energy. He's so much fun! Last night he probably walked a good mile non-stop around our house. His little legs finally got tired after about a half-hour of constant walking around and around and back and forth. He is definitely mastering this walking thing pretty fast. Now we really can't turn away for a second, otherwise he's gone. He loves to chase after Jet and steal Jet's toys... and proceed to chew on them like he's sees Jet doing. Yuck! But I guess its not much worse than Jet licking him in the face and on the mouth - same germs. And they say that kids that are exposed to animals have less of a chance of having allergies... so hopefully he won't have any allergies when he's older with all the pet germs he ingests! :)

Carson definitely is understanding the meaning behind our words more and more now. He knows what "no" means... and surprisingly usually listens and moves on to something else, though sometimes it does take a few times before he'll move on. He knows what we're talking about when we're talking about everyday things - like Jet, Daddy, Mama, Cheerios (O's), muffins or cake or cookies (his favorites!), balls, toys, Jet's toys, different rooms and objects, etc. He is using his "words" for different things that we are learning, too. He still uses the German version of No (sounds like "nine") when he's over it or ready for something else or doesn't want to do something. Different tonations of different words mean different things, too. We're trying to work with him on learning a little sign language, but he hasn't tried the signs himself yet. Well other than waving bye-bye. We'll have to get his baby-sitters involved in the signing in order for him to really catch on, I think. Maybe after the new year.

We are very much looking forward to celebrating Carson's first Christmas in the coming weeks. We'll have lots of parties and get-togethers, so we hope he enjoys them. And we hope we're able to keep him entertained long enough for all of the gift opening and not have him running out of the room every couple seconds. :) We're excited to see lots of family and friends in the next couple of weeks and taking lots of pictures to capture all the special moments. And we're excited to see how Carson and his cousins play and interact together. Its always fun to see how much they've all changed and grown since the last time we'd seen them.

Sick Little Man

Our little man is finally sick. He seems to have caught a bit of a flu bug, which he came down with yesterday morning shortly after being dropped off at Kevin's parents' house for the day. I left work and came home to be with him, the poor little guy. It is just heart-breaking to see such a little guy struggling with being sick. He's too young to know what to do, so he tries to hold it in and swallow it all. He doesn't understand that if he'd let it all out, he'd start to feel better. Poor guy. I had called our pediatrician when he vomited a green phlegm (sorry that's gross) and he wanted to see Carson since there are some nasty things going around right now. Dr. Akrawi did not hear any fluid in his lungs and his throat swab came back negative for bacteria (Carson has little red and white bumps on his tonsils), so it looks to be just a virus, as I'd assumed. Thankfully the vomiting ceased yesterday afternoon, otherwise Dr. Akrawi wanted us to go to the hospital for tests for pneumonia and other things. I stayed home again today since Carson still felt quite warm this morning and didn't seem quite his self, but he seems to be doing better now, but still not quite his normal self. Little bugger probably understood me last night when I told him I'd stay home with him in the morning if he didn't feel well still. :-P Carson will be 10 months old at the end of the week and this is the first time he's been sick, not even any colds - and for that we are grateful.

Lookout World!

Here comes Carson... and another of his "Cheese! Take a Picture! smiles! :) Carson began taking some steps on his own this past week. The first time he did was last Tuesday, then he was pretty careful all week. Till Saturday evening, he started walking between people when you'd put your arms out for him. Today he's been taking off on his own to get someplace he wants to go - like to the Christmas tree or after Jet. He's still only probably taken about 10 steps at a time before he either plops or crashes down (he's got another bump on his head). I'm guessing he'll be practicing all week and will be cruising around here pretty well by next weekend. From what I hear it happens pretty quickly.

He's also been practicing his vocal sounds a lot this week, too. He now says "Ga-Ma." Actually, its more like "gum-uh." I think it makes his Grandmas feel pretty special. :)

Deck the Halls...

Kevin and I put up the Christmas tree on Friday evening after Carson had gone to bed. We didn't put any ornaments on it, just left it plain with the lights on it so we can see how Carson will do with it. On Saturday morning, Carson was so excited when he saw the tree - he kept exclaiming "OH" "OH" OH" and looking at the tree then to us and smiling. He has gone up to feel the tree a few times, but doesn't really do much else. He's not crazy about the way it feels and whenever he goes up to it I usually will tell him "no no, its pokey." He's pretty good when you tell him no and goes off to find something else to do.

Carson knows what the camera is now. When he sees me with the camera, he knows he should smile for the picture and so he's now giving me these over-exaggerated smiles. Its so cute, but I do like his normal, natural smiles best. :) I had Carson help me put his ornament on the tree on Saturday afternoon - he thought he was a big shot and still likes to look at his ornament hanging there.

On Saturday evening, we took a trip down to Rochester Hills to have dinner with our friends Ben and Kati. We went to dinner at Bravo! which, as always, was delicious. Carson enjoyed their awesome mac and cheese (and Kevin and I have enjoyed the leftovers:). After dinner, we went back to Ben and Kati's house where Carson got to meet their dog, Enzo, and their cats, Chino and Alfonso. He had fun playing with them - and with the extra remote that Ben gave him to play with!






And just for kicks, here's another of his "smile for the camera" smiles...


Also, be sure to check out our photo albums (link to the right) for lots of pictures from November and Thanksgiving. They'll all be up soon.

A Belated Happy Thanksgiving!

Kevin and I were so excited to celebrate our first Thanksgiving with Carson. We spent the day with my family in Fenton (Kevin's family was in Grand Rapids) and enjoyed a day full of visiting, laughing, crying, cooking, tasting, and of course eating. Carson loved his first Thanksgiving feast! He enjoyed a meal of turkey, stuffing, baked sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes (which he doesn't care for, he didn't even care for them with a little gravy on them), cornbread, crescent rolls, apple pie, and pumpkin pie. He's also been enjoying the leftovers we've been eating at home and the shepherd's pie I made with some of the leftovers.

We are so very thankful to have such a wonderful son, family, and friends. 2008 has been a very tough year for us with so many awful things happening, but we have received some great blessings this year, too. Most notably Carson and our niece Rebecca, but we have also had some very good times that we've shared with family and friends this past year that we should reflect on moreso than we often do. It is very difficult to get over the rough times, but we are trying to focus on the positives. We do look forward to 2009 and hope that it brings more joy and blessings - and less sadness and difficult times.

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.