One Today!

One year ago:


And today:


Dear Carlisle,
It is hard to believe that it has been one year since you entered our family. We could not have been more blessed. You are an amazing little boy who makes us so incredibly happy. Here is a little bit about your first year:
1. You are very laid back. You take everything in stride and adapt to any situation very easily.
2. You are an excellent sleeper.
2. Your favorite books are Goodnight Moon, That's Not My Monster and your new favorite- Pat the Bunny.
3. Your favorite foods are blueberries, green beans, and yo baby yogurt. You are a good eater, but do not really like meat yet. You also really liked baby food and we just recently were able to wean you off of it.
4. Your favorite activity is to chase Raleigh around the house.
5. You do not like being on your stomach. Thus, you really don't crawl. You scoot.
6. You want to walk but are nervous to let go of our hands. You push your toys around the house, and can walk holding onto one hand, but you are not quite ready to take off.
7. You love a camera. You will stop whatever you are doing when you see the camera and give a huge smile.
8. You love to be outside and watch all the birds and squirrels.
9. You talk all day long. You seem to have your own language. The words we can make out are: babba (bottle); daaaag (dog); mama; dadda, baawl (ball) and hi.
10. You love to clap and have just started to wave bye bye.
11. You have had some health issues- ear infections, RSV, reflux, gotten tubes, had a stomach bug and had hand/foot/mouth. However, even with these issues, you didn't let it dampen your spirits.
12. You seem to favor your left hand.
13. Your favorite song is if your happy and you know it clap your hands. Even if you are upset and I start singing that song, you will immediately start smiling.
14. You love your bath.
15. You are currently obsessed with Raleigh's food and water dish, the refrigerator, and the cabinet doors.
16. You hate to wear shoes.
17. You no longer like to sit still to get your diaper changed or get dressed.
18. You love to hang out with your cousins DJ and Tony, and your friends Henry and Ward, and all of your friends from school. You also had a blast with your cousins Finley and Roan while at the beach.
19. Your current favorite trick is to take a bite of your food and then "share" a piece with Raleigh. You will even pretend to put the food in your mouth and then when you think we are not looking, you will toss it to Raleigh.
20. You love strings and cords and mom's necklaces.
21. Your absolute favorite "toy" is your Yanni's David Yurman bracelet- no other bracelet holds your attention like her Yurman! Your other favorite "toys" include all electronics- laptop, cellphone, blackberry, cordless phone, remote control, etc...
22. You have your top 2 and bottom 2 teeth and you have 4 more coming in.
23. You like to brush your teeth as long as mom sings the tooth brush song.
24. You like to ride in your stroller and love to stroll in a buggy through Target.
25. You love to pull hair and take off people's hats.
26. You are very quick with a smile.
27. You are a good napper at home (twice a day), but at school, you have started taking one long nap a day.
28. You like to bang your head into things- leaving nice bruises on your forehead.
29. Your favorite restaurant is Casa Linda. They are very nice to you and bring the food quickly so you don't have to wait too long to eat. And you really like their chips.

You are amazing to watch and you constantly change and grow each day. We love you so very much and thank God every day for you.

Love,
Mom and Dad

The Scoot.

Here it is. This was taken about a week and a half ago. He'd much rather walk these days, but needs someone to hold his hands while he walks, so when no one is avaialbe to hold his hand, he goes back to scooting. This video was taken when we were vacuuming. He loves to chase the vacuum.

11 Months, beach vacation, and other happenings

How is Carlisle going to be 1 in just a few short weeks??? It is just unbelievable to me. He is doing really well and is "scooting" all over the place. Scooting is where he is sitting up and uses his legs to scoot on his bottom. It is pretty funny to watch. I am trying to get it on video but as soon as he sees me taping, he stops and stares at the camera. He has gotten very quick and scoots all over the house. Carlisle also loves to walk- he isn't stable but wants to hold your hands and walk around. He can also use his push toy to walk and push behind it. He still has no fear and will just fall back straight without warning. Carlisle is doing better eating "real" food. We have been trying to wean him off the jar baby food, but its been hard. However, the last couple of days he has been doing great eating "real food". Just this week he has finally started to eat some fruit- watermelon and blueberries are his current fruits of choice.

We went to the beach with Vance's family last week. It was wonderful. Carlisle went to the pool, played in the ocean, went on strolls with his grandparents, and went out to dinner twice! Carlisle had a great time and got to play with some of his second cousins- Finley (1 year old) and Roan (18 months). Carlisle liked the sand and ocean, but especially enjoyed the pool. Vacationing with an 11 month old is exhausting! Thank goodness for Yanni, Granddad and Uncle Josh for all their help! Here are some pictures (I still need to take 11 month pictures with his bear...).


Carlisle's second cousins: Finley and Roan.



All three of the kids. It was nearly impossible to get them all in the shot.



Relaxing in his float next to Finley.

Carlisle and Finley out to dinner.

10 Months...

I am way late with this post. Carlisle was 10 months old on May 27th. We have had a busy couple of weeks. Vance was out of town for a week and unfortunately Carlisle had hand/foot/mouth disease the same week. It was a tough week, but we survived. Carlisle is feeling much better, although is cutting his top two teeth so we are dealing with that.
Carlisle is starting to move all over the place. He is not doing a traditional crawl, but more of any army crawl and he scoots. He prefers to stand up and check everything out, but he is not stable at all. He can stand up about 3 seconds and then he crashes.
He is eating very well and loves waffles, pears, toast, crackers, and gold fish. He loves vegetables- put prefers them pureed rather than in bite sized pieces.
His absolute favorite new toy is his laptop which he got for Christmas. He loves it. He also loves our laptop, really anything electronic.Carlisle is a big talker. He talks all day long. He says "mom", "mama", "da" (dad), and "dada". He also says "dag" (for dog).

Here are some pictures:

Carlisle and his bear:




Carlisle standing up in his crib:


Carlisle crawling towards his laptop:



Carlisle and Raleigh. That's about the distance Raleigh likes to keep:

Carlisle stretching for Raleigh:

Carlisle desperately trying to reach our laptop:

Playing Outside

Carlisle is enjoying the outdoors more and more. I think his favorite thing to do is to eat the grass.

Beach Trip

On Saturday, Vance, Carlisle and I headed down to visit our friends Sarah and John and their 6 month old son Oliver. We had a great time and Carlisle enjoyed the beach alot- especially the sand! All he wanted to do what eat fist fulls of it, so we spent a lot of time in the tent. Here are some pictures:









Here are the boys playing in the tent:






This is Oliver, he is precious!!! Carlisle is very jealous of all of his hair!

9 Month Stats

We went to the doctor last week for his 9 month check up and these were his stats:

Weight: 19 lbs 8 oz. (25th percentile)

Height: 28 3/4 inches (75th percentile)

Head circumference: 17 3/4 (50th percentile)

In other news, Carlisle has started to move more and more and is scooting backwards in a more traditional crawl.

Carlisle played in his first baby pool over at his friend Henry's house and enjoyed playing on Henry's new swing set. He had a blast. Here are a couple of pictures: