July Catch-Up

This Catch-Up post is becoming a regular thing for me. It has now happened for three months in a row. Since this blog is also partly my journal for family memories I have a hard time leaving anything out.

Carter's Obsession

Carter is obsessed with watching "Choo" aka Thomas the Train. Here he is watching choo while holding onto his own choo. All the facial expressions except for the first one are all "action shots" while he is watching his choo. As you will see Carter is a very serious watcher and really gets into his Choo. (Sorry the pictures are blurry I must have been extra shaky that day.)

Pittsburgh's Vintage Grand Prix

Some of our good friends out here told us about this car show and race that was going on and we went not thinking much of it, but as soon as we got there Matt became as giddy as a school girl. He pretty much had drool coming down his chin the whole time and here is why:

First of all there were some awesome old cars like this one above. This car is completely original and in mint condition. There are only four of these cars left in the world. This is a 1934 Packard with only 44,000 miles on it.

This was my favorite of the old cars.
Matt couldn't believe all the Lamborghinis that were around. I think there were close to 50 Ferrari's, a dozen Lamborghinis, a handful of Bentleys, and crazy enough Matt's favorite part was all the BMWs. Even with all the fancy-pancy cars around Matt stayed true to his love of BMWs. Plus, the rest of the area was littered with other Luxury cars, trucks, and unique European models.
This car is my personal favorite.

Bike Riding

Earlier this spring I found a bike trailer at a garage sale which Matt and I were stoked about. There is just one problem: Carter hates his helmet. As you can see this helmet just didn't fit right so since then I have gotten him another one, but he still hates it.

He skipped his nap this bike riding day and at one point we looked back at him to see how he was doing and his helmet was down covering his face, but he wasn't complaining at all. Sure enough he had fallen asleep. He was so exhausted that we were able to strip him down and put his PJs on without him waking up.

Sprinkler Fun

We absolutely love having our backyard to play in. Carter is anxious to get out there everyday. This particular day we tried the sprinkler for the first time. He doesn't look too thrilled in the pictures, but he liked it quite a bit.

We had such a fun July in all our many activities and are so grateful that we have amazing friends and loved ones surrounding us that made it even more fun and survivable for me.

Our Little Talker

Carter has hit that phase of life where it seems every day he says a new word. He picks up things so fast. For instance, the other day we were singing "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" and he started saying knees. It is so fun to see what he comes up with. The following videos we took at the beginning of the month and show him saying many of his favorite words. Since then he has said quite a few more but many of these still remain to be his favorites. Can you tell we are proud parents? Oh well, it's our blog. :)

Lake Powell, Oh how We Love Thee!!

Utah Trip August 9-17 2008

Matt, Carter, and I just took a trip out to Utah and had a blast. We couldn't have asked for a better time. Carter has flown several times now and continues to do fairly well. The older he gets the harder it gets, but he still does a pretty good job. Here is a video of him trying to find "choos" at the airport. He thinks the luggage carriers are "choos."

The first Sunday we were there we headed up to Logan and had dinner with Matt's brother Kurt and his wife Meagan and then headed over to Grandpa and Grandma Nielsen's for a long time family tradition of going over to their house to chat and have Grandpa scoop you up an ice cream cone. This family is quite big and I am always amazed at how warm and welcoming they are. The crowd you see down below doesn't even scratch the surface of the size of this family.

Carter enjoying his ice cream cone.

Lake Powell

Big Timmay throwing huge moves on the wakeboard (as well in the next two pictures). And yes ladies he is single.

There's me attempting to get "air" on the wakeboard.

Matt lookin good out on the water.

Matt and my brother Timmy are best buddies and loved getting tossed around together on the two man bumper tube.

Timmy, Me, Carter, my sis Stacey and one of her twins (Ashlyn) under the blanket (which is how all the babies slept) out on the boat.

My big brother and the eldest Chris with his little girl Emily on the left and Kaylee (Stacey's) on the right. I have such adorable nieces.

I loved this hat on Carter (and Bonnie I am sure you are thrilled to see that I found it). It covered his face so well and by some miracle he actually wore it quite a bit.

Bradley (Stacey's husband) and his daughter Kaylee. We call her "KK" and Carter was so fond of his cousin KK. He even called her KK which was so stinkin cute. Carter was not loving his life jacket and KK let him wear the one she was wearing which was a much more comfortable one and he put it right on with no complaints because his big cousin was wearing it. Thanks Kaylee for your help.

My Big Thirsty Boy.

We had an awesome beach right in front of where we were staying. Carter loved waking up every morning and looking out our tent window and seeing that we were still at the lake. He got so excited every morning. He had to get right up and dressed so he could go play with all the toys (esp the trucks) and play in the shallow park of the lake.

Originally we were planning on going on Chris's in-laws houseboat but that didn't pan out so we decided to camp it on the beach and this was great. As you can see we had our own little spot with plenty of great beach and water to play in. Carter is really into buses, choos, and trucks. He kept calling my mom's trailer and Chris's motor home a bus. I think from now on they will be known as buses.

Me waterskiing.

My brother Chris in these two pictures totally showing me up. He is amazing out there the way he can cut and throw out his rooster tail. I have extremely athletic brothers not to mention my father who is still out there cutting it up in his late fifties.

Stacey and her family except for the twins.

Chris's wife Kari, Emily, Me, and Carter on the bumper tube. Carter actually got quite the ride going out of the wake and over some good size bumps. He seemed to enjoy it well enough but was not a fan of the water splashing in his eyes.

Beautiful Lake Powell.

The Twins

This seemed to be the best place to feed Ashlyn (left) and Kyle (right) which is in the back of their mini-van. It was so funny to see them back there shoveling it down. Believe it or not but they are about to turn one in just a few days.

Kyle enjoying all the dirt his little heart desires.

We had such a great time with all of our family and feel so blessed to be surrounded my so many great people who like to have as much fun as we do and who are just all around great people. Thanks for the memories!

The Time Has Come...

I just found my first gray hair!! I really am not trying to be melodramatic about this but part of me seriously wants to cry and the other part of me just wants to laugh. I have been teasing Matt for years now about his gray hairs I guess it is about time that I get my own. In the words of little Carter, "Oh man!"