Utah Summer Trip 2009 Part 1

August 22- 25

Wheeler Farm

At Hoogle Zoo with all our Herzog cousins except Sawyer, Lexi, and Emi.

Me at around 19 weeks I think. Though I don't look too big, I was still able to sit a cup on the tummy. We'll see if we can ever fit a bowl.

Ohiopyle State Park

August 14th and 15th

We have a state park a little over an hour away from our house called Ohiopyle State Park. This may sound familiar to some of you since we went to this same place last year. I have never been to another state park that I have enjoyed more. It was really fun going this year because Carter was a year older and able to do more, including wading in the water better.

Carter LOVED helping Daddy with the fire and Daddy loves building and "maintaining" fires so much that we had to do one Friday night and Saturday morning.

My Two Pyros.

Carter loves to sing and he entertained us with one of his original singles "The Waterfall Song." He couldn't wait to get to the waterfall!

Carter loved walking around in the water even though it was a little cold. We had a fun time sending things down the river and watching them tumble over the waterfall.

I get such joy out of sitting back and watching my two boys play together. With my pregnancy a lot of times me sitting in the background is more out of necessity than anything. I am excited about having this baby, but I will be just fine when I can be done being pregnant. For those keeping track I am 24 1/2 weeks along.

For "big" people they have a natural water slide at this "natural water park" that is really fast and fun to go down. Matt went down it last year, but seeing as he had just passed 3 kidney stones and has 2 more stones just sitting in his kidney waiting to be knocked down, he decided to skip the water slide. But not our little boy he still wanted all the fun and adventure so he scouted out his own sized natural water slide.

And then a little added bonus: Here's Carter singing some Doo, Doo, Dah's.

Kansas City Trip

August 1-9, 2009

The first week of August Carter and I flew out to August and Matt joined us later on so that he could finalize his contract with a group of doctors out in Kansas City, Mo. So it is official in June 2010 we will officially be Kansas Citians. We are pretty excited for it and just want that time to be here NOW! I will not shed a single tear over being done with residency. So on to the trip:

Here Carter is playing in the fountains at Crown Center with his Aunt Whitney whom he loves dearly!!



Whitney is great at playing and wrestling with Carter.

Here Carter is getting artistic with Grandma Bon at Kaleidoscope which is a Hallmark place where kids go for free and color and paint and create like crazy.

This is Carter's necklace that he painted all on his own.

The C-Man always enjoys a vanilla "white" ice cream cone.

We tried out having Carter sleep in a "big boy bed" while sleeping at Grandma's house. He had the choice between the "little bed" aka the pack and play or the "big boy bed." I was surprised that most nights he chose the "little bed," but I thought he looked adorable in the big bed.

Grandma Bon pulled out Matt's old hoppity horse that Matt had at Carter's age and Carter loved it. Things were definitely made better back then because the air in that thing is original to Matt's day.

My Dad, Mom, little brother Timmy and little sister Nicki drove through KC while we were out there on their way to dropping Timmy off in Arkansas to play soccer at Central Arkansas University. We hit a bunch of church sites, here we are at Liberty Jail, a BBQ joint and hanging out on the Nielsen's back porch roasting some mellows.

Carter looks up to both of his Grandpas very much, so he wanted to spend some time walking in Grandpa Jay's shoes.

Scooter Mania

One of Carter's favorite things to do now-a-days is in the evening he puts on his helmet and gets on his wheels, his scooter wheels that is, and rides around the neighborhood with Mom and Dad. And of course, Mom and Dad think Carter is pretty stinkin cute on that scooter so I wanted to share a video and few pictures with you all.








I thought I would slip this video in here. Carter has given up in his naps for the past few months. Every once in a while around 4:00pm he gets really tired. This particular day he wanted me to hold him so he could sleep, but a few days prior he fell asleep around 4:00pm and we paid the price by him not going to sleep until 11:00pm. So I put him on the kitchen chair thinking it would be pretty uncomfortable, and I was still able to make dinner. I know it looks a little mean, but you have to admit, it's kinda funny, too. Poor Carter to have to put up with me as a Momma. :)

Playground Project

July 7,8, and 9th 2009

Addision Terrace Playground Project

In our church one of my volunteer jobs is the Public Affairs Director for our geographical area. This usually consists of me putting together service projects in our community helping out other community members or groups. This particular project our church was in charge of manning the food tent that fed all the volunteers for three days while they built a playground for an under-served housing project in the Hill District of Pittsburgh. On the third day which was the main building day, some of our church members, including 17 missionaries (our whole zone), even helped to build the playground. Below are pictures of this great day!

Part of the project was to paint a mural on one of the walls and two of our missionaries got involved. The Mormon church forever left their imprint I suppose. :)

Even my sister Stacey got to come and help out. She came into town because of her husband Brad's job with Children Miracle Network, but it was awesome she was able to be there to participate and see what I do with some of my time.

Later that evening, Matt, Carter, Stac, Brad and I went to the top of Mount Washington so we could show off our city's skyline.

Brad and Stacey even got to leave their five children at home. And come out solo... WOOWOO!! What a cute couple.

And the Baby is...

a Girl!!

Time for Cute and Frilly I suppose. Holy smokes do I have A LOT to learn!!!

Finishing up June

Yes folks, that's right JUNE!!! That is how far behind I am on my blogging. I even skipped over some happenings in May like going to Kennywood, which is the big amusement park here in Pittsburgh and is something Pittburghers view as a MUST DO if you are to live here in the Steel City. But let's just skip right over that and touch on a few small events from June.


I turned 27 on the 23rd. In celebration my friends and Matt threw me a DELICIOUS birthday lunch complete with my mom's Terriakyi Chicken and my traditional Crazy Chocolate Cake. I also had a little birthday miracle: this was the first time I ate a meal in pregnancy and the food tasted really good and I even had seconds and it all stayed in my stomach. That was maybe the best part of my day.

Another great part of my day was being surrounded by my husband, son, and several of my friends that I love so much. Here Heather is helping me out so I don't have a big black thing in my teeth for all my pictures, what a buddy!!

Later that evening, our wonderful friend who we love so much and has sadly just passed away, came over and watched Carter for us so Matt could take me out for a surprise 7 year Anniversary Dinner. He took me up to Mount Washington where you can look down onto the city and see all the lights. We had this great table right by the window. He also wanted to do it specifically on this night so that he could time it so that we would finish dinner right when the Pirate's baseball game ended and they were having fireworks afterward. So after a delicious dinner and dessert we topped it off with a beautiful firework display. Woo woo Matt!!


One of Matt's favorite Pittsburgh things to do is go to a Pirate's game. Their stadium is awesome and you can't beat $4/ticket night either.


We thought since this was Carter's first "real" time at a baseball game we would spoil him a little. So here he is his with his HUMONGOUS drink. I guess at the ball park you go big or go home. Then he got cotton candy for the first time, too. He wasn't so sure of it and did not want to even try it. Everyone around us got a good chuckle out of this little boy that refused to eat cotton candy. Finally, I got him to lick some and he decided it was all right but he wasn't in love with it.

Mr. Tough Guy! He loves to wear mine and Daddy's hats lately.

The Pirate's stadium looks right down into the beautiful part of the city.

The following videos show some other popular things that have been going on around here not just in June but all summer long:


Carter can not get enough of singing this song. Each time it is a little different but always is sung with lots of Gusto!!

We have also been doing lots of waterplay this summer as well. Here we are at Richy and Marie's. When Richy came home from work he couldn't handle watching the kids have all the fun. So we had a slide off between Richy and Carter. I kind of think Carter won because he went down face first and would slide into the water like a sea lion, Richy didn't even attempt that.

My Train Boy

Choo Choo! Carter wanted all of his trains set up this day. So we spread them out and had "All Aboard" heaven for a morning.

Slip N' Slide

I am desperately needing to get caught up on my blog, so this post is going back to the end of May for the combined birthday party of Carter's friends Oliver and Allie. Oliver received a Slip N' Slide for his birthday so we decided to put it straight to use. The kids were really funny at first and just wanted to run down it or along the side of it. But once they got the hang of it, it was a huge blast. Carter really got into it and couldn't get his legs to run fast enough to get back to the front of the line. I say front of the line because he refused to wait behind anyone, he was next no matter what. I don't know if it is a good or bad thing that his friends allow Carter to get away with so much.

Carter's tongue is hanging out, just like his Daddy.

What was hilarious is when the Dad's felt they had to get involved and see who could throw their kid down the hardest and make them go the farthest. So we had kids flying out of the end pool and skidding across the grass. But none of the kids who did it seemed to mind.

This was pretty funny. As you can the Oliver's house is on a corner lot and the front of their yard in on a "busier" street. Some driver came by and yelled out his window that there was a naked child in the front. Yeah, that was my kid and not only that but when I got closer I saw that he had taken off his poopy diaper and had sat in some grass. You can't really see the poop and grass in this picture, but Heather said it Carter gave a whole knew meaning to "gracias" / "Grassy- A.." I thought it was pretty funny anyways.

Our Religious Harmonica Player

For Carter's birthday, the family I nanny for gave him lots of musical instruments. By far his favorite is the harmonica. He loves to play it and plays it often.

In our church, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints," every Monday night is dedicated to Family Home Evening. Family Home Evening consists of a time you get together as a family and have a spiritual lesson, play games, and/ or have a treat together. It isn't always all three but it is usually a mixture of. We have found a lot of joy out of having "FHE" in our family. Sometimes they can be quite successful thanks to the new Nursery Manuals and other times they can go like this (or worse):

One last thing. Carter is starting to get to that age where we are having those "kids say the darnedest things" moments. The other night went like this:

Matt puts Carter to bed every night that he is home. Right as he is laying him in his crib Matt usually says things like this,

"Carter you are so wonderful. You are my angel. I love you so much."

Last night Matt added to his repertoire, "Carter, you are my treasure."

To which Carter quickly turned and said, "No Daddy, treasure is for pirates."

"I'm Gonna be a ..."

That's right, Carter is going to be a Big Brother. I am due January 12, 2010. And to answer some questions proactively:

1. I am 12 weeks along as of yesterday.
2. Yes, I have been quite sick. Not to the extreme that I've needed to be drugged up like I was with Carter, but having the "flu" 24/7 is NO FUN!! And gets quite tiring.
3. We tried for about 1 1/2 years and did end up using a fertility drug, Fermera. It was a miracle worker and was successful the first month. Thank Heavens for modern day medicine. And even though it took us a while to get pregnant, as with Carter I am so glad that it didn't happen until now. The timing will be great in that we will only have a few months left living in Pennsylvania before we move to KC and live close to family.

We are thrilled to have this next little one come into our family. I am nervous about having two and trying to work around two schedules, but I keep telling myself millions of women do this everyday so I will be able to as well.