The Zoo

Our Zoo is FREE. We love DC. Here are a few highlights of our day...
Carter and Wendi with the bronze Panda

The real Panda! We saw the pandas this time! They have been tricky to find for some reason, but not for the average bear.

Krista and Brooklyn with the elephants


A candid shot of everyone...Kate, Krista, Brooklyn, and Carter

The Orangutan crossing there lines. The zoo guy told us not to park under the lines when the O's are crossing. I think to avoid the void. Oops!
Sometimes Carter gets really silly and will laugh at anything. Usually it is when he is really tired. It is cute and funny.

More Carter

We are so grateful to have Carter. It is fun to walk by mirrors with little fingerprints and to hold little hands. We love all the hugs when he lays his little head on your shoulder and kissing slobbery cheeks. I like to rub his little head and do his hair with KY Jelly. It is still funny to watch streams ark onto a target, usually himself, during diaper changes. He is so precious when he sleeps and wakes up with a big smile or talking to himself. We have so much fun and have even more to be grateful for.

We checked out our first Baby Einstein movies from the Library and Carter couldn't care less. TV that even remotely holds his attention are football games and golf. It might be the green green grass and all the bright clothes or the testosterone is already expressing itself.

Carter has started eating a few foods, really only rice cereal and pears so far. His favorite thing is to drink out of cups. Sometimes it is far more effective to just have him drink his cereal out of the bowl than to feed it to him 1/2 teaspoon at a time. More definitely gets in his mouth that way. I didn't think I got him in the first video. I was holding the camera with 1 hand and doing the spoon with my other hand. Turns out we got him on both, but I didn't have a free hand to push down his hands. He won the spoon as you can see. ( Jason is talking on the phone in the background.)



First you see Carter eyeing the camera and his left hand is a little blurry due to motion. Next you see his sweet little hand on the camera. We have sweet little fingerprints there = )



Carter is looking out the window. He loves to go outside or even look outside! I think most kids do.



Aww! I heard about a study a long time ago that mothers brains were so stimulated by looking at pictures of their own children far more than random pictures of babies. I definitely have that going on.

I LOVE Consignment Sales!

Good deals are just so addicting. I went this consignment sale on Saturday right as it opened at 7:30. It was so fun! The only thing that got me out of there was that Jas had to go to a study group at 9. Well, I made him like 25 minutes late. There was a long check out line. I seriously could have stayed there for several more hours. I only really got as far as the toys and there were hoards of clothes that I missed. Next time or I could revisit some thrift stores which are also excellent. Here are some of my great finds including a scooter for $5, an exersaucer for $8, a See-N-Say, a duster/vacuum, a really cool race track with all the pieces for $4 (I think Jason liked this one. We were playing with it after he put it together. It was like Christmas! We laughed as we watched the cars go around and crash. Needless to say, Carter doesn't like it yet), some matchbox cars, a ball with a monkey, his very first computer for $2 and it has a piano on it, a pop-up toy, etc. I was and still am really excited about all of our new toys. Carter is going to be a lion for Halloween. The mane looked really cool and furry and then I washed and dried it in the dryer. It charred the fur on the mane and now it looks really matted like a real lion. Oops! Does anyone know a solution? Combing helps, but any other ideas?

HOORAY 4 HOT WATER!

Our water heater was fixed on Saturday at about 1 PM and we had hot water within like 30 minutes. Technology is so amazing these days.

I should come clean...I'm not really sick, but it was a good conclusion to all the other stuff that really happened. Carter just has that annoying dry cough, but doing super.

Murphy's Law

It all started when our water heater, which is less than a year old, died on Wednesday night. A moment of silence for the water heater. Carter was the first to take a cold shower, but the water was still a little warm since it was what was left in the tank after it stopped heating. I had the shower cranked all the way to hot and couldn't figure out why it wasn't getting hot. We are now going into our 3rd day of COLD showers, but we have spared Pooper. Here we are with no hot water. All the water heaters in our lives have been VERY taken for granted. We currently wash our clothes in cold water which isn't too big of a deal. I don't dare even run the dishwasher since cold water doesn't sound that sanitary. We have gained a few extra minutes and saved a few gallons of water as our showers are so quick. We do have a really great Lanlord. I called him Thursday morning to let him know and he was on the phone with the Sears people really fast. We got an appointment scheduled on Saturday from 8-5. Yep, THE WHOLE DAY! I love that, but we NEED our hot water back. Our Lanlord wanted to know what I heard back, so I e-mailed him about the day/time. He responded, "Glad they are able to come out so soon." That is not what I was thinking.

Next, Carter happens to catch his first virus. Not too big a deal, but it all came to a head Thursday night. He was stuffy, so I tried to help. You could try to suck his boogers out with that green sucker everyone gets from the hospital, but he is too good. His little hands can swipe that thing away with great precision, Left-right-left right. He gets both of them going one right after the other. I could "steam him" with the steam from a hot shower to help him breathe a little better. Refer back to paragraph 1 (NO HOT WATER, or even luke warm water at this point). With this little cold, he also decided he was just going to drink out of a bottle. This is usually just fine when he goes on these kicks of refusing to nurse, until we can't thaw milk. Jason had to boil a pot of water to melt the frozen milk, so the poor kid could eat. Thank goodness for the electric pump to get a little food storage and now his current food supply as he is a little nursing rebel. Thursday night he was really good at sleeping streches less than an hour in length. What fun! During one of our times together, I gave him a bottle and he just downed it. Wonderful! We love it when he drinks his milk. Then I proceeded to keep him in bed with us since it wasn't worth my time to put him back in his own bed where he was waking up so frequently. Plus, I really love sleeping with him, but I have disciplined myself and he almost always sleeps in his crib. I laid him down in bed on MY side and I hear some coughing. THEN everything and more came up. The poor kid nearly drowned in his own puke. He doesn't throw up that much anymore and NEVER in this quantity. We have a really efficient mattress protector, so there were just puddles about the size of your fist on our mattress. There's no problem, I wasn't sleeping anyways. I stripped down our little friend and he went the rest of the night just in his diaper. Usually I would bathe him after such an event, but I will refer you back to paragraph 1. I wasn't going to boil water for his bath when I had to leave for work in a few hours, so he got a baby wipe sponge bath. Poor little guy had puke all over him. I just held the little one and I think we got a few ZZZ's on the recliner. When 5 AM came, I gave in and turned the baby duty over to Jason so I could sleep for at least 2 hours straight. I just laid down a towel over his wet spot and loved every moment of sleep.

I thought to myself...At least it is just Carter that is sick. I would be a lot more tired if I had a cold......SNEEZE SNEEZE!

Happy 6 Months Birthday!

We have just eaten up every moment with the little guy. We still call him "Pooper" and sometimes that accidently slips into our prayers. Good thing God knows who we are talking about. Carter is still our little baby, just triple the size. 6 months doesn't seem that old until you call him half a year. We have his 6 month pictures coming in a few months. We jumped the gun and took them a week early. He got some solo pictures with our family ones that will be excellent to call his 6 month pictures.

Carter loves to grab at things especially when they are right in front of him. The camera was too great of a temptation. The shadows happen to be the little guy's fingers. He is still our blue eyed babe.



The National Portrait Gallery was a great museum with great security. As we were walking out the door without a ramp for the stroller, this nice black security guard informed us about the other exit and then proceeded to comment on how "JUICY" Carter is, for several minutes. We just stood by as she commented, "Look at those JUICY cheeks. He is JUICY. His arms are so JUICY. What a JUICY baby..." It was funny. We love our "juicy" baby. Turns out they have invisible laser security if you come within 3 feet of this piano. They won't let you attempt to pose like you are playing the piano from a distance without setting off alarms. Oops!

Joseph Smith and Brigham Young made it into the museum.






This is made out of tinfoil and other things.


Now you don't have to even go to the Museum.

Carter meets Brett and Carrie

Brett and Carrie, my brother and sister-in-law, came to visit from their new home in North Carolina. We went to a few places like the National Cathedral. It almost resembles the Salt Lake Temple and then there are crosses, but it is a neat architectural building. It is not very clear, but see if you can find Darth Vador.





Our Little Man
My new favorite thing is that he turns and leans with outstretched arms for whatever or whoever he wants. He loves to pick Jason. I have tried to take pictures without the flash and trying to entertain the baby which means not looking at the window. Seems that only the worried look pictures turn out, as in they aren't as blurry as the happy ones.

Our 4th Roommate

Jason's brother John has been living with us for just over 3 weeks and has just recently moved out. This is his a small glimpse of his "studio apartment" which he got for a really good price! We enjoyed having John around and are excited to see him every so often. He watched Carter for 3 hours on Friday and changed his first diaper. I changed and fed Carter right before I left thinking he wouldn't need food or a new diaper while I was gone just a buddy. And then, John said he blew it right after I left. Good initiations.




P.S. He has no idea I have these precious memories photographed.