More Birthday Celebrations!

Now that we are in Kansas City, Matt's hometown, there is more Carter celebrating to do. My parents sent a package here and Matt's parents had some birthday gifts for the little man too. This post is mainly for them (ie my parents because they were not here to see Carter open his gifts).

Here is Carter opening his present:





Thanks Mom & Dad I think it is pretty obvious that Carter loves his books. I will also get a Science Center/ Children's Museum pass with the rest of his present, that's a huge thanks from the both of us!





Carter's thinking that he needs another place to store these pull outs.



Carter is about to open the presents from his Aunt Whit. They are good pals as you can see. Also, this picture deserves a shout out to his buddy Tyler Thalgott for the awesome John Deere cell that "the Nielsen boy" is holding.



"I Still Live with my Parents."



Thanks Aunt Whit for the awesome T-shirt and soccer ball and Grandpa Jay and Grandma Bon for the Choo Choo.

Here are some fun videos that I thought I would plug in here:



Watch out Uncle Timmy here comes your competition. We tossed Carter his soccer ball thinking he would just start pushing it around with his hands like he does with all the rest of his balls, but instead he went right up to it and started dribbling.



Carter's favorite activity to do at Gma and Gpa Nielsen's house is to climb the stairs. Here is his favorite spot:

Happy Birthday Carter!!

For Carter's birthday celebration we had some friend's over that evening once all the dad's got home from work for some cake and opening presents. The Childs, McAffees, and the Hixs came. Because we were leaving the next day to go home I wanted to keep things pretty simple because there was already a lot on our plate. I am really glad I did because it wasn't too overwhelming for anyone. Carter was in little boy heaven with his big kid friends over playing with him and his toys. He was especially delighted to have his good buddy Carter Child there. "Big" Carter is almost exactly a year older than "little" Carter but the two of them play so cute together. "Little" Carter (these nicknames are funny because the two of them weigh about the same and at one point "little" Carter weighed more than "big" Carter) but anyway, "little" Carter tries to act like he's the same age as "big" Carter and the other big boys and I love watching him try to keep up.



This is our Carter, Carter Child, and in the top part of the picture is Linus McAffee by his dad's knee Richie McAffee (long time friend of my oldest brother Chris.)



Here we are singing Happy Birthday to our boy:



I love how when the bigger boys are laughing you hear Carter try to make a similar noise because he wants to be just like the big boys.

Carter was not sure about eating the cupcake. He is used to me giving him bite-size pieces of food and was a little overwhelmed by this mass of cake in front of him. He did like the frosting, though.





After I broke apart the cupcake, you can see Carter went to town on it. Yum, Yum!

A Year in Pictures

Carter at One Month.

Carter at Two Months on Valentine's Day.

Carter taking over Grandpa's chair at 4 months.

Carter at 6 months.

8 Month old Carter with Daddy.

10 Months

11 Months

It's fun to see how how he's grown.

Exactly One Year Ago!!

Exactly one year ago today, the most miraculous thing happened to our little family: Carter Matthew Nielsen was born at 4:06 pm weighing in at 7 lbs 7 oz and measuring at 22 inches long.
Looking at his birth pictures brings on such an array of thoughts and emotions. I remember thinking that it was incomprehensible for me to think that someday he would be one year old. And now look what's happened! It's amazing how they grow and develop in a year. But yet at the same time, Matt and I saw so many of Carter's defining traits right from the beginning. They definitely come to us from Heavenly Father with a sense of who they are. Most of all on this day, I am feeling gratitude to my Heavenly Father for giving us this little Miracle baby.

First Time on Santa's Lap.

This week at a Mom's Club get together I'm in, Santa dropped by for a visit. Matt and I thought for sure that Carter was not going to cry on Santa's lap. We thought he would be the kid to pull off Santa's beard instead (Carter likes to get his hands on everything). Boy, were we wrong! I don't think Carter even took time to notice there was a beard to pull. This first video is rather short and you will know why once you look at the pictures underneath it.









The picture above definetly deserves the phrase, "A picture worth a thousand words." I am sure after several years of therapy he will recover from this tramatic experience,

Nonetheless, the Santa Escapade ended well seeing as Santa gave Carter a present(a book bought by mom in advance).



Thanks Santa for the memory!

OOLALA ! Videos of Carter!

I was going through some of the short videos I took of Carter in November and thought I should post them especially for the grandmothers so hopefully I can get it to work!!

Here is Carter doing some more of that walking thing. Carter still prefers crawling since it is still a more reliable and faster way to get around and Carter definitely has a need for speed.

r

This was the night that we were setting up our tree and Christmas decorations. Carter had a whole new world open up to him since he has never seen this stuff before. We've already had two casualties and of course he chose the messiest things he could find: snowglobes (including the one displayed in this video, sorry Grandma Yvonne). And in case any of you ever wondered what the liquid was in side of those things, I don't know exactly what it is but I can tell you it is defintely not water the smell was too foul.



This next video is a frequent occurance in our household. Matt and Carter love to play together and Matt always gets good laughs out of Carter.



And now time for my favorite video of the post. One of Carter's favorite things is to pull all the things out of the toy basket just to play with none of it.



This post is brought to you by Joseph Edward Lowry II for showing me how to post YouTube videos on my blog. THANKS JOE!!

Open Wide!

Matt and I got a big kick out of how wide Carter was opening his mouth to eat applesauce the other day. So Matt kept loading up the spoon with a mound of applesauce to see how big Carter's mouth could get. Poor Carter, when he came into our family I don't think he planned on being the family play toy. He's just so much fun.

GO COUGS!!

I know this post is a little late due to our shotty internet, but I couldn't not post about the awesome win from our BYU Cougars!! Carter's little T-Shirt says, "Victory Party at my Crib" and so we did. Here's a few pictures from our party to watch the game:
Complete with blue tablecloth, blue plates and cups, white napkins, and blue and white streamers.


And of course, Matt made these nifty little signs that we put all over our fence, just in case any Utes came along. Sorry Marie. It was another great white nuckle game at the end with a fabulous ending and win by the Cougs! Rah, Rah, Rah, Rah, Rah Go Cougars!!

We Make Them Extra Sloppy For Ya!

Wednesday night we had sloppy joes, and let me tell you what, they were sloppy!!

It was kind of sad, because Matt and I were so busy taking pictures and laughing that we didn't wipe him up very fast so he ended up getting food chunks in his eyes and was very upset about that! Poor Guy!

Also, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. We hope you all had a great holiday. Matt, Carter, and I went to our friend's house down the street and had our feast. Thanks Lamberts! It was a great day though it was weird not being with family. It was our first big holiday being without family.

Outer Banks: Been There, Done That, Dang it we forgot the T-shirt!

November 15, 2007

Hello Family and Friends,

Matt, Carter, and I (Amber) are currently driving in the car on our way home from The Outer Banks in North Carolina. I know some of you are thinking, “What, what, what . . . what the heck are you doing in North Carolina?!?” And to that I say, “Settle down I will tell you.” We have known for a couple weeks now that Matt was going to have this week off, because as I have stated before Matt only has to work 12 shifts this month while on ER. What we did not know was if my work schedule would allow us to go anywhere. Well, as luck would have it we found out last Saturday morning I only had to drop the kids to school Monday morning and Friday morning. So within a few hours Saturday morning I had a trip planned and reservations made to the Outer Banks, and I must add because we were going off season we got a kicking deal. So here is a little, or not so little travelogue for ya’ll (after all we were in the south):

Monday after dropping the kids we took off and made it as far as Williamsburg, VA where our friends Ryan, Leah, and Jack Miller live. They graciously after short notice let us stay the night with them. It is so awesome to see friends again. Thanks guys for welcoming us!!

Then after chatting a little Tuesday morning we were off again and made it to the Outer Banks a little before noon. On this first day we went up north to the Currituck Lighthouse and water life and waterfowl reserve.
The Outer Banks is a huge waterfowl hunting area and is where the area first began to receive most of their tourists. A huge portion of waterfowl congregate in this area before heading further south for the winter. The Currituck Lighthouse is the only one you could climb up. Carter loved hearing his echo and the bounciness of the climb as we headed up to the top. The view was also quite enjoyable. Later on that night we went swimming in the indoor pool and Carter couldn’t have been happier.

Thanks to our sweet boy who doesn’t know how to sleep in we were up bright and early Wednesday morning to walk the beach as the sun was rising. What a cool experience that was for everyone. There is something magical about the beach. Also, coming in the off season was really cool because we practically had the whole beach to ourselves. By the way, this beach was right out the door from our oceanfront hotel.

Our next adventure for Wednesday was heading south making our way down the coast. There was Bodie Island Lighthouse (we didn’t get a picture because Carter was sleeping and we didn’t stop in fear of waking him) and then the Hatteras Cape Lighthouse. This particular lighthouse has been named America’s Lighthouse because it is photographed so much. Then we got on a ferry and crossed over to Ocracoke Island. Matt loved the ferry and was giddy like a schoolboy. I am sure that is difficult for you guys to imagine. It was awesome to be in between the sound and the ocean and to see the vastness of both.

(This was our ferry ride back during sunset.)

Once on the island we saw the Ocracoke Lighthouse and stopped at the beach voted best beach of 2007. We haven’t been to a lot of beaches, but we thought this one was fantastic. It had a great mixture of extremely soft sand and great sandcastle building sand and none of the rough rocky stuff. This was the first time Carter got down to play in the sand and with the water and he was in little boy heaven. He LOVED the sand!!! He was absolutely covered in it from the very top of his head to the very tip of his toes and every centimeter in between. What was hysterical is that Carter had a really runny nose and the sand kept on getting stuck to it so he would have this long, stringy sand slime hanging off of his face. He crawled, ate, and dug in the sand as fast as his little baby body would let him, and of course laughing the whole time. The water was pretty chilly so we only waded in it and Carter thought that was pretty cool, but his true enjoyment came from the sand. While we were at the beach there was a cool fisherman there (this is a huge fishing area, I mean hardcore fishing). He

caught two sting rays and one little shark. He couldn’t keep them, but kept them long enough so we, especially Carter, could check them out and oooh and awe over them. Then he would literally kick them back out into the ocean. Another cool thing that happened while we were there, we had two different schools of dolphins swim by about a 100 yards out from the beach. One of the schools had to have at least 20 dolphins. It was remarkable to experience Mother Nature that up close and personal. As with the beach before, we were there almost by ourselves.

Thursday morning (which is today) we packed up and left the hotel. For our last fun adventure we went to the Wilbur and Orville Wright National Memorial. The Outer Banks is where they took their first flight. It was remarkable to hear their story and all that went into their aviation quest and to now look at where that has brought us. We got to walk on the grounds where it all happened.

Now we are on the road making the long, dreaded nine hour drive back home to Pittsburgh. Because Carter is napping I figured I better get this all written down before I loose the time and or memory to do it with. It is so fun to have a family of my own that can vacation together and start to build memories together. What a blast we had!! Can’t wait to do it again!

Love you all,
Amber

P.S. Not only are we in the ninth hour of our drive with two hours left because we decided to take a new way, and not only are we in the middle of a blizzard through numerous West Virginia mountain passes, and not only has Carter thrown up SEVEN times in the car, and not only did he have a big blow out going all down his leg, and not only did he pee all over the car when we were cleaning/ changing him because it was too cold to take him out of the car, and not only did he have his biggest throw up right after we changed him into his fresh, clean pajamas, but also as crazy as it sounds this was all worth our totally awesome trip!!

P.P.S. I put on a lot of great videos from the trip and in the description section I let you know where we are at, etc. Check them out, some are pretty fun.

www.youtube.com/aynielsen