Grandpa's Birthday Party!

Last Saturday, we took a trip to Grand Rapids to celebrate Grandpa Holleboom's birthday. The entire Holleboom family met up at the Calvin College vs. Trine basketball game on Calvin's campus. All five of the grandchildren were fully decked out in Calvin gear/colors. We all had a lot of fun at the game. Carson was fascinated by all the lights and sounds and actually enjoyed watching the game for a bit. After the game, we all went back to Aunt Mary's and Uncle Justin's house for a taco/nacho bar, gifts, cake and ice cream, and visiting. The kids all had so much fun playing together! They were sure cooking up one heck of a pretend feast! They all really enjoyed checking out all of Rebecca's super fun toys!

It was a great time had by all! Happy Birthday, Grandpa!

Grand Rapids Childrens Museum

I'm playing catch-up here still... so bear with me. :)

Back on Saturday, January 9th, we continued our monthly tour of childrens' museums around the state with our friends, the Chapmans. We visited the Grand Rapids Childrens Museum in January. What a great place! It has a nice balance of pretend play, activities, and science. And its a great place for toddlers - and kids of all ages, really! We hope to make another trip back there sometime - and maybe we can figure out a day/time that works well for Aunt Mary, Uncle Justin, and Rebecca to join us next time, too!

Carson and Vayla had a blast, as usual. They had tons of fun cooking, having pretend snacks, playing with the foam blocks - building things and jumping into them, playing musical instruments, and most of all playing with bubbles! Here are just a few pictures from our fun day. Be sure to check out the rest in our Shutterfly albums!

It's a Whole New World!

I'm very behind in posting, so I thought I'd just post a quick update of what Carson has been up to lately...

We switched Carson to forward facing in his car seat this past weekend. I had vowed to keep him extended rear facing until he was 2, but we decided to switch him a couple of weeks early since we doubt we'll have time to mess with it in the next 3 or 4 weeks. He wasn't sure about it at first and asked to "please turn around" and he wasn't sure he liked his feet dangling, but he got used to it very quickly. He couldn't believe how many garage doors you see while driving. During his first ride forward facing, he kept exclaiming "Wow, so many garage doors!" (He has a strange obsession with garage doors.). He also loved calling out the colors of the traffic signal lights and the number of each at the intersection - "two geen lights" or "tree red lights." He is also fascinated with the street signs and will ask what the yellow signs and green signs mean, as well as the yellow and white stripes on the roadway. This has opened up an entirely new view on the world for our little man!

One of Carson's favorite things is to "get naked and do running"... he LOVES to run as fast as he can around the house... fully naked. :) He loves to run, regardless of what he's wearing, though. He likes to put his winter boots, rain boots, or random shoes on and "deddy, deddy, deddy, het, GO!" (ready, set, go) around the house... racing as fast as he can, giggling the entire way.

Carson and Jet are still the best of friends. Though, Denver is a very close second these days. Carson will drag Denver around like a rag doll, tackle him on the floor, and lie with his head on Denver's belly while he watches tv... and Denver takes it all... and actually really enjoys it. :) Jet is starting to listen to and mind Carson now, too. Carson will get frustrated with Jet sometimes, if he's running around and knocking his blocks over. Carson will go to the playroom door and point while saying "Jet get in there now, please!" Jet will go in and Carson slams the door, saying "you stay in there, Jet!"

Carson is a very demanding customer at restaurants these days, too. If we just mention something we need - say a fork falls on the floor. Carson will stand up and say, quite loudly, "fork, please!" Luckily everyone has thought it was pretty cute and funny so far, while we work to teach him his restaurant manners. :)

We call Carson our little "divo" (instead of diva). He is very particular about his shoes and clothes, but especially his shoes. We can usually convince him to wear his clothes, but if he does not like his shoes, he will not wear them. Period. He has to be with us when we shop for shoes now, or else I make many trips back and forth to the store returning the shoes he doesn't like. We went through four pairs of winter boots this year, before I found some that he will wear.

We celebrated Carson's 2nd birthday with Great Apple and Great Poppy on Sunday since they can't come to his party. Carson had a lot of fun being Great Apple's doctor with his new doctor kit from them - giving her shots, checking her blood pressure, and listening to her heart. He is loving his alphabet apple from them, as well. He loves learning his letters and has been having a lot of fun with his new toys from them. Thank you, Great Apple and Great Poppy!!

We are now in the countdown to Carson's birthday weekend. We'll be having two parties this year - one with each side of the family. We're looking forward to seeing everyone! Although, Carson says he doesn't want to be 2... he wants to stay 1. :)

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!! :)

Chillin' at the Holiday Inn

We still had one more night to use up before they expired, so we decided to have a hotel party on Saturday night at the Holiday Inn Express in Grand Blanc. Aunt Julie, Uncle Jason, Anna, Joel, and Jonah all came up to join us! We spent some time swimming in the pool and then ordered some Rocco's pizza to eat in the hotel room. We all had a lot of fun - the kids had an absolute blast!!

Merry Christmas!!

We hope everyone had a wonderfully blessed Christmas and are getting ready for a fantastic New Year!! We know we have and are! We had such a great time, seeing all of our relatives, having some good laughs, and just fully enjoying our time spent together. We all received so many great gifts! Everyone was so extremely generous!!

We celebrated with Sara's immediate family and Grandma Jackie on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. Nana, Papa, and Grandma Jackie came over to our house to open gifts and spend some time playing. Carson was SO excited to get his train table and wooden train tracks, trains, and accessories! He also received a travel-size Doodle Pro, a wooden puzzle, an orange Shake 'n Go race car, a savings bond, a police cruiser that lights up and makes sounds, and some books.



We then headed to Aunt Sharon's house to celebrate Christmas Eve with Sara's extended family. We had a delicious ham dinner with lots of sides and desserts and enjoyed some good laughs and stories with the family. Carson got so many awesome gifts at that party, too.... a Lightning McQueen Shake 'n Go racecar, some books, some clothes and PJs, a Snake Bite monster truck that drives and makes sounds, a Grave Digger monster truck with ramp to jump through a ring of fire, Little People fire house and helicopter.




Carson had this thing with trying to hide the card up his shirt during our white elephant gift exchange... I think he thought he was putting it in his pocket or something... it was hilarious!



Carson and Mackenzey had fun playing together!



We celebrated Christmas morning together as a family of three. We had a nice breakfast and read some of Carson's books about the Christmas Story. We opened more gifts and Carson was so excited by the gifts and stocking full of fun things from Santa.... a Little People Spin 'n Crash Race Track and his stocking was filled with plastic dinosaurs, some wooden ABC blocks, and a drum. And from Mama and Daddy... a wooden puzzle, a Melissa & Doug Cutting Food set, a set of instruments (maracas, triangle, shakers, tamborine, clappers, sticks, cymbals, and another drum), a rolling suitcase, some books, a Play-Doh play set, games (Alphablocks, Chutes N Ladders, Candyland, and Memory), Mr. Potato Head, an MSU football, and a light-up moon for his room.



We headed over to Aunt Julie's house in the afternoon to celebrate Christmas with Kevin's extended family. We had another delicious ham dinner with lots of great sides and desserts. We had fun catching up with the relatives from the west side of the state that we don't get to see too often. And Carson had tons of fun playing with his cousins!



We celebrated Christmas with Kevin's immediate family on Saturday morning over at Grandpa and Grandma's house. We had a fantastic brunch with lots of tasty dishes and then opened more gifts. Carson was spoiled again... he received such awesome gifts from everyone!! A Mickey Mouse Clubhouse play tent, a wooden puzzle, a wooden learning clock set, Discovery Toys build a vehicle set with a racecar, motorcycle, and airplane, Home Depot tool set and truck, Playmobil 1-2-3 motorcycle, racecar, and airplane playsets, Little People dump truck, paint with water book, some clothes, and some books. After gifts, the kids got a little more playtime in together and we were able to get the first pictures of the 5 cousins together!