Carter's 3rd Birthday Party!

For months whenever I or someone else would ask Carter what he wanted on his Birthday Cake it was always, Trucks!! It was so fun to plan Carter's birthday party this year because Carter was very specific about what was important to him and what he wanted. He wanted a truck on his birthday cake, candles, balloons, and birthday hats. That isn't very hard to do. I couldn't decide where to do it at, but then Matt and I thought with it being the Holidays people would probably rather just take it easy than drive across town to Chuck E Cheese's or something of the like. And I am so glad that we did. It was a very simple party, but the adults seemed to have a good time with lots of laughs and the kids played great together just playing with Carter's toys.

The Table

Carter loved having Happy Birthday banners around the house. It made him feel so special. We had another banner with balloons in the family room.

A birthday hat and cheese pizza, what more could a kid ask for?!?

I was SOOO pleased with the way this cake turned out! With giving birth right around the corner I didn't want to put a lot of work on me so I decided to order a cake from Costco. When we went to Costco they didn't have the option of putting a truck on the cake so I asked the decorating lady what we could do and she said she would put a construction site on the top and then I sprinkled some crunched up graham crackers and put matchbox Tonka trucks on. It looked awesome! Also, when we were picking out the cake Carter made all the decisions. He wanted white cake, chocolate pudding filling, and white frosting. There was no thinking about it, that was exactly what he wanted (after I gave him the different choices that Costco offered). It turned out Super YUMMY!!

My FAVORITE picture of the whole night!!! Carter's face CRACKS ME UP!!!

Carter's buddies: (L) Linus, Oliver, Carter, Claire, and Issac. Thanks for coming guys! And what a good sport Claire was being the only girl at a truck birthday party.

Cheese!!

You can't tell so much in this picture, but Matt was dishing out these Humongous pieces of cake. It was a little ridiculous. The sad thing is, I ate my whole piece, but I am eating for two, right?

Yum, Yum. I'm full! As you can see, Carter isn't a huge cake fan. He ate his ice cream (Neapolitan, his favorite) and the icing off the top of the cake.

Present time! He got Moon Sand from Oliver that comes with a cement truck that you can make bricks from.

A cool flashing star ball from Claire. Issac thinks that looks pretty sweet.

Color Wonder finger paints from Issac. Gotta love Color Wonder!!

Linus gave Carter two Mighty Machines DVDs (which he has already watched and loved), a "Once Upon a Potty" book (also a gift to Mom and Dad), and a monster truck.

And Dad was pretty set on getting him yet another Geo Trax train set, the Timbertown Railway set. It was pretty cute and Carter had a good time playing with it. Plus, you can't beat the quality of Geo Trax.

Dad likes playing with it, too!

Grandma Karen and Grandpa Craig gave him two story books and a check for his savings account.

Grandma Bon and Grandpa Jay gave him race tracks for matchbox cars and he has loved them. The two videos below are us playing with them.

Also, Granparent's if you are wanting to see your "bribed" conversations with Carter go to our youtube page and you can see them there. They are kind of long and would be most enjoyed by you. http://www.youtube.com/user/aynielsen

Happy 3rd Birthday, Carter!!

Thanks Carter for coming to our family 3 years ago and bringing us JOY that we never knew existed! A quote I read recently sums it up for Matt and I, "Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body."

I know I use this picture every year, but Matt's face says it all!!!

At Three Carter:

1. Loves trains, cars, trucks, balls, and friends. He loves to ride his cars along the edge of the table and have them crash off the side into a big pile of toys that have already crashed.

2. Has had a semester of pre-school and is thriving in his class.

3. He still has one of the most determined little personalities I have ever known. But I knew he was going to be that way even when he was in the womb.

4. He is mellowing out some, at least when it comes to playing with buddies. He isn't as aggressive and is working on using words when it comes to sharing toys instead of his "brute strength."

5. He is extremely verbal and a great talker. I love to have conversations with him.

6. He is now saying things all the time that CRACK Matt and I up.

7. He loves nursery at church and gets VERY upset if he can't go. I am interested in seeing how sunbeams goes in a couple weeks.

8. He is really into his 3 blankies and we are often toting them with us everywhere we go. (But the rule is they have to stay in the car.)

9. He has a very strong personality and Matt and I just hope to help guide him to make that a strong asset in his life. We both feel that he has such potential to go far and are excited to see what the future holds for him. (Not too excited that we want it to come too soon.)

10. Is very excited to become a big brother in the near future. He is already very concerned about baby sister. He always makes sure he doesn't smoosh her when he sits on my lap. He was concerned about her sleeping arrangements and decided on his own that he better get a big boy bed so that she could sleep in his crib. He says when she cries that he is going to get in her bed and help her. We advised him that he should only do this if Mom or Dad is in the room and we say it is okay.

We love you so much little guy and are SOOOO grateful to have you!!!!

Carter's First Pre-School Christmas Pageant

I have been anxiously awaiting this day ever since I learned Carter's pre-school was going to have a pageant. My son in his very first pageant!!! Last night I could hardly sleep because I was so excited. Honestly, I know I was a little overboard with my enthusiasm, but I just couldn't help myself.

Here Carter is with his classmates, waiting to line up to go into the church's Sanctuary.



This is their first song the Snowflake Song:





Then Twinkle, Twinkle Christmas Star: Carter gets a little distracted in this one.



At the very end Santa came and once the kids left the Sanctuary they were able to go sit on his lap. Here is my precious boy looking so handsome in his Christmas clothes. I am so proud of you buddy!!

Oh What Fun!!

Last week was a CRAZY work week for Foot and Ankle Residents here in town so Thursday night we had our good friends Heather and Oliver over for a bowl of potato soup and to play. After we had dinner, the boys ran off to the other room and Heather and I cleaned up dinner and chatted in the kitchen for a while. The boys were playing awesome and didn't even disturb us once for around 40 minutes or so. Finally, we decided that we better go see what was up because that wasn't like my child to play so "nicely" for so long with another child. And lo and behold this is what we found:

We couldn't help but break down laughing! Of course they had been so quiet, duh!! They had pulled out EVERY toy that Carter has on that level of our house and dumped it into this huge pile. They had quite the system going. Oliver was in Carter's room getting the toy and putting it in the doorway. Then Carter would take the toy run it down along the TV table and off the edge into this big pile. But the even more amazing thing to me was how fast we were able to get it cleaned up. Carter took some coaxing, but the two boys seemed to enjoy the clean up part pretty well, too. So even though you think after such a mess Carter might be on the naughty list, it ended up being pretty funny and positive in the long run so he stayed off the list after this event. Notice I said, he is off for this one, but I think he still might be on the list for other stunts that he has tried to pull. :) We'll have to see how much of a softy Santa is come Christmas morning.

Finishing up October

When Carter was born our really great friends from Iowa the Nelsons gave Carter this super soft, plump, bath towel. But that is not what makes this towel so great. It is what is shown below that make it so awesome:
It is the BYU patch that Kim put on there! The Nelsons are big Iowa State Fans and so they understand Matt's passion for BYU football as well. Tom is great to call Matt and talk football with him. So in October, we packed away some of the smaller bath towels we had for Carter and was finally able to pull out the beloved BYU towel. It is perfect for him!! Just a little on the big side where I can wrap him up in it and have him completely snuggled.

Story Time at the Library

Story time is one of Carter's favorite things to do. This was the week of Halloween so each of the kids could wear their costumes. Also, each week we talk about a letter and this week was the letter "G" so Carter brought his Giraffe. Williamson's do you recognize that stuffed animal? That is what you gave us before we parted ways and I was just barely pregnant.

The kids got to go trick or treating at the library. Carter is on his way to get a treat.

Lunch Time

I don't know about you, but doesn't strawberry milk and apple juice just sound terrific together?!? It is a favorite thing to do at our house. And each item has to be in it's specific sippy.



For some reason I really love lunch time. It is one part of our day where it is just Carter and I sitting together. Neither one of us is distracted by anything else and we can just talk. I am always amazed at what goes through this kid's head. I think often I need to record more of these conversations.

DC Temple Trip

We caravaned to DC with the McAffees for a stake temple trip so that we could trade kids off while we attended the temple. While Matt and I were in the temple the McAffees took the boys for a joy ride. These two boys love trains and anything that is BIG and MOVES. So they were like two kids in a candy shop riding the metro. Thanks to the McAffees for supplying the pics.

Isn't it amazing as a parent when you see other people love your kid, too!?!

What brave, tough boys!!



This was our lovely view on our way home from DC.

The Simple Things in Life

Sometimes I get so focused on the big things in life that I forget about how happy the little things can make me. Carter loves this certain mall park and I get a kick out of watching all the different ways he chooses to go down this slide.

Big Timmay Comes Out for Thanksgiving

My little brother Timmy, which I learned this visit that he doesn't care to go by Timmy rather by Tim, but to me he is Timmy, Big Timmay, Tdog, Timmer, etc. Sometimes I call him by boring old Tim. But that is what he prefers... Anyway, we had lots of fun plans and a ton of food to prepare and eat because he has been living off cafeteria food in Arkansas where he plays Soccer for The University of Central Arkansas. Well, hardly any of this was to be accomplished because of a lovely little stomach bug that decided to grace our household. I was sick on Thanksgiving but didn't realize that it was a bug and not just pregnancy until I sat down to our Thanksgiving feast at the McAffees took three bites and high-tailed by back side up the stairs to totally annihilate their toliet. At that point I grabbed the keys and put myself in bed for the next 12 hours. Meanwhile, my three boys stuck around and devoured Richy's amazing smoked turkey and all the delicious trimmings. Afterwards, Richy was kind enough to let them play with his Wii. And guess who's a natural at Wii Boxing???

Must get it from these guys:

So then Friday, Matt ended up working a good portion of the day when he didn't think he was going to have to work at all. BUMMER!! Timmy and I did a little Black Friday shopping and mostly chilled at home. Then by the time Matt got home and we ate some dinner it wasn't too far from Carter's bed time so we stuck around and watched football. Matt wasn't too disappointed about that. I was okay with how the day went because I knew that Saturday we had lots of SUPER FUN plans to fill our day and make memories. Oh no, we made memories in other ways. Around 1 am Timmy woke up and took his turn totally demolishing our toliet downstairs and let me tell you, he put a major hurt on it. Yeah, no worries Tim, I made Matt clean that bad boy up. And Matt started his joy ride around 3 am. Needless to say, the boys were worthless the next day and our fun plans were cancelled. We were supposed to have a big party for the BYU vs Utah game but after sending out a "Come at Your own Risk" email and phone calls we only had one couple venture forth. And to my knowledge the both of them are still healthy and well. But we did get some pics of us dresssed in our gear and watching the game.

So Sunday after attending church we decided our "Ox was in the Mire" and since all the downtown Holiday events were going to be Free that day we were in the clear, right?

This awesome thing above is called the Holly Trolley which we absolutely love. During the Holiday Season they shuttle people around for free to all the different Holiday locations downtown and give you a little city tour while you're at it. Last year Carter thought he had died and gone to heaven and kept saying to himself, "Trolley Bus, Trolley Bus, Trolley Bus..." He still thought it was pretty cool this year.



Our lovely Tour Elf, Kristy Kringle.

While taking our tour we found out about another cool thing, the Ice Skating Rink at PPG Place was having free ice skating and hot chocolate that day, SCORE!!!! So we were off to give Carter his first ice skating experience.





Though it was a little frustrating Carter really enjoyed his first experience. As any soon to be 3 yr old (16 days away) he wished he could have done more "all by myself," but he was good at accepting the help.

I got such a JOY!!! at watching these three boys that I LOVE so much skate together and help each other out. These boys fill my cup to overflowing!!!!







And these two boys fill each other's cups. There is quite the love affair between them and that is another reason why I thank my lucky stars everyday that Matt married me. I love the way he fits into my family, especially the relationship he has with Big Timmay.

Also, at PPG Place they have a Wintergarden that they fill with gingerbread houses. There is also a train that runs through these houses and that is Carter's favorite part. I took pictures of some of my favorite gingerbread creations.

PPG Place

The White House

Candyland - Carter's new favorite game. We play it just about every day now.

The Duquense Incline - a famous Pittsburgh thing.

For those of you who grew up in Utah, you are probably familiar with the ZCMI windows all decorated at Chrismastime. I remember going to see those just about every year the same night we would go to the lights at Temple Square. So it was really fun for me that they do the same thing here at the Macey's Windows. They had a number of them decorated with a storyline about what happens to the letters we mail to Santa.

And of course, the last window Santa gets all the letters form Children around the World.

Here is the HUGE nativity scene they have downtown.

Thanks Timmy for coming out and being with us. We love you man!!!!!