Carson's New Toy

As everyone knows, all Carson wants to do is go, go. go. It's hard to hold him because he squirms so much. I always call him my "squirm worm". Well, I decided I can't sit down with him on the couch because he tries to climb over me to get his "toy" that is he so fascinated with...yep, it's the lightswitch on the wall. It's so funny. He wants to grab it and play with it. So, for his enjoyment I boost him up there and let him flick the light off and on a few times. A few times is not enough though. When I get tired and sit back down, he starts climbing and going nuts! We enjoy the little things that Carson gets excited over.

Six Months Old Today

Here is Carson at 6 months, 3 months and a few minutes old.

I can't believe how fast time has gone. I want it to stop! Carson is now six months old today. People weren't kidding about how fast time goes and that you need to enjoy every minute of it. I totally am, but the minutes pass too fast when you're having fun. It's been hard going back to work and missing out on some of Carson's life, but I am happy to be supporting him and supporting Dave while he is in his last semester of school. I don't want to work forever! Again, I can't believe how fast time is going and how fast Carson is growing. He can sit up on his own now and he can "inch-worm" himself to a toy. Carson gets lots of spurts of excitement and it's so fun to watch. Saturday he discovered he had an ear on the right side of his head. He keeps reaching for it. He loves to climb. Right now he is on my lap on the floor and I am sitting at the coffee table. He is putting his hands on the edge of the coffee table trying to pull himself up so he can get to the computer. I am a bad parent. He has been sitting beside me most of the time playing with his toys. It seems they learn something new each day without us knowing about it.

These last 6 months have been an adventure. Dave and I didn't know we could love something so much. We can't even remember not having Carson in our lives. It has gone by slow because we have gone through so much with Carson like the bottle feeding fiasco, but yet here he is today at 6 months old and we wonder where the time has gone.

Valentine's Day Cookies

Today Carson and I were fortunate enough to get to go up to Doug and Kirstin's to decorate Valentine's Day cookies. Carson played in the exersaucer while I decorated some cookies for the family. It was so nice to have the opportunity to get out of the house and do something fun. Carson and I stay in a lot because of the weather and it's hard sometimes for the both of us. There is only so much we can do.

Jackson's cookies were so awesome! They had lots and lots of sprinkles and that's what makes cookies so yummy! I am a sprinkles girl! The twins were fun to watch because they liked eating the sprinkles more than the cookie. They ate Nana's chocolate sprinkles.

It was a lot of fun and we hope that we can do something again soon! Let me know if you want me to make the cookies next time Kirstin! :)

Scooter

Today while Dave and I were at work, my mom sent me a text message with a picture of Carson on his tummy. It was a picture of him scooting forward to get to his toy. That's right! Carson has learned how to scoot forward. He was scooting backward just a little bit for a while. He still needs to work on both directions of coarse, but we are so proud of him. I told Dave that going to work would be hard because I feel like I would miss things, but my mom and sister are really good at keeping me informed with what he does. I call home at least twice a day.

Carson is sitting up really well. We can leave him sitting on the floor playing with some toys for a long period of time. Just a couple of weeks ago, he still needed the Boppy to help him sit up. His strength is getting better. I keep telling Dave that he needs to stop growing and be a baby forever.

Thanks to Kirstin's advice, I have cut his evening nap out of the picture. He now sleeps 10 hour nights with one interuption to eat...that is about 6 hours into that. He drinks his 6 ounces and goes right back to sleep. It is getting happier around here now because mom and dad are getting some sleep. I am happy he is over his sickness and he is eating and sleeping again.

Dealing

For the Parks, change has come our way even if we like it or not. You all know that Dave is in his last semester of school. It is going pretty well for him. He has school every day, which is hard on both of us, but he, as always, is dealing really well with it. Men deal, women deal to an extent. It gets lonely because he has school Monday and Wednesday nights until 8 and I get pretty lonely those days. I try to get out, but because of the snow, Carson and I have stayed more indoors.

I am starting to like my job a little better. The girls are extremely nice, but I felt like I didn't get a chance at first, but I am really shy and so it's probably my shy impression that gives them the wrong idea. I am starting to warm up and say hi to everyone. There is a doctor that I have been working with the last two Thursdays. He is an old, fussy fart...I think those were his exact words when he introduced himself. He went to my boss and said he liked me and wanted me to work with him. I thought that was a nice compliment. They asked me if I could start working Tuesdays and Fridays now. So, I probably don't ever get to work with him now. I am not to happy about it, but it seems to work better for my mom so that she can go to Institute on Thursday. It also works better for Dave because he goes and plays basketball on Wednesday nights, so when he gets home at 11:30 pm I won't get as mad. I like going to bed early on the nights before I have to go to work. I am sure everyone is the same way.

I went to President Hinckley's viewing. I went with my friend Cindy. I am so happy she went with me to help me with the Carson. The whole adventure took 5 hours and I think I told Cindy sorry about 40 times. She had plans with her boyfriend and I made her late. Thursday was the better way to go, but unfortunately I had to work. I thought it would take less time. It was fun to take Carson though. I will always tell him that he went with me. Carson looked at him and I told him who he was. Carson did so well. He is such a good baby. He was quiet the whole time. I am so happy to have such a great baby. My next one will be horrific. I can't be this lucky.

Dave and I are moving the end of March. I am not very happy about it, but I am happy that I won't be sharing a room with the baby anymore once we move. We don't know where we are going to move, but we will figure it out soon, I hope. The place we want to move has no vacancies so we are trying to figure it out. The Lord will lead us where we need to go. Dave and I are dealing with the changes as they come. We have so many other things in life that we are extremely happy about. Namely Carson. He keeps us laughing with his facial expressions, his talking and his fun little personality.

Fisherprice.com

I thought it would be fun to tell everyone that I sent a lot of pictures of Carson into Fisher Price's website and these two were selected for January 2008. They are on page 20. It was fun to check and see if one of the pictures I submitted actually got on the photo gallery for the month and these two were both on there. I actually thought that the other pictures I sent to them were a lot cuter than these, but it was cool to see them up on the website for the month of January.

One Of My Heros

Sunday night as Dave and I were headed home from Granny's house, Dave received a text message from Noel stating that the Prophet had passed away. I started to think how sad I was because I would miss him and I started to cry. Dave was a little choked up. Yet, we both had a little warmth in our hearts to think of the welcoming he got as he returned to his Father in Heaven.

I would have to say that President Gordon B. Hinckley has got to be one of my all time heros in my life. I remember when I was nine years old, after President Hunter passed away, they called President Hinckley to be the next Prophet. I loved him immediately. I wanted to follow everything he said to do. I wanted to try to be like him and make sure I was doing the right things in my life. That impression stayed with me as I grew up. I listened to him in junior high and high school and I continued to try to be the best I could be because I loved him. I knew he was truly a prophet and follower of Christ.

He is the prophet I grew up with. He helped me to know what I wanted in my life. A temple marriage, a family and to be a good member of the church. His outlook on life was awesome. He didn't preach...he taught. Other religions respected him because of that. He didn't judge anyone and he just told people to "stand a little taller". No matter what religion, that is good advice to take. We can all better our lives in some way so that we can make a greater impact on other people's lives.

I know that President Monson is going to be a great prophet because I know that this church is true, but nothing can replace Pres. Hinckley and the impact he has made in my life. I am grateful where my life has gone to because of him. I could've been a lot worse, and trust me, there were temptations in my life during my teen years that could've been destructive. The world could've had an easy grasp on me, but Hinckley's words and testimony kept me on my feet.

I am grateful to know that he is with his wife. He has lived a good life and he returned with honor!

Tags

Here is a story about toys. You spend a lot of time looking for the right ones, a lot of money because batteries are not included, and you spend a lot of time wondering if it will help them to learn when they play with it. Well, in this house, toys are not as fun as the tags that come on them. I don't know what it is , but Carson loves the tags on anything that contains them. The past few days I have been watching to see what kind of things he grabs or plays with to prove my point.

Here is Carson playing with his little lion that came with the Bright Stars Arch toy he has...of coarse he goes for the tag.

Here is Carson after feeding him some sweet potatoes. The washcloth even has tags. He loved that!

And here is Carson again. He loves his exersaucer. He has lots of fun pictures of him smiling and being happy in it. If you don't believe me, go to my myspace page. Mostly all of the pictures I have on the little picture video is Carson in his exersaucer....pretty sad. Well, this is he favorite toy to play with. You can guess, it's because it has a tag on it.

Our Baby Boy...5 Months Ago

My Favorite

A Thing Of The Past

For the past 5 and a half months of Carson's life....okay his whole life, he has loved to be swaddled. It has been nice because it would help him fall asleep pretty quick, as long as he was rocked to sleep. That is another subject that needs to be fixed. But the past few days, Carson has been throwing a fit when we start wrapping him up in his swaddle blanket. I just thought that maybe he is just having a harder time wanting to go to sleep. Who wants to take naps? Wait, a sec...I do! I love naps. Anyways, Carson was screaming today when I swaddled him and I went in, unwrapped him, and walked back out. The screaming stopped immediately and his eyes shut before I could walk out of the room again. I picked him up and he slept on my shoulder for a minute, which is not like him. He is so squirmy when he's awake and he doesn't really want to cuddle. He wants to go, go , go. I let him fall deeper asleep and then I lied him down and tucked a blanket around him. I am glad that he is starting to wing off the swaddle blanket because it was getting too small for him and he couldn't stick his legs straight out. It's just something else to make his mommy sad because he is growing up too fast.

The Dreaded RSV

Dave and I have had a hard week...whatever! Carson is the one who has had a hard week. Monday he started to get a really wet cough, so I was concerned. I called Dave at work and told him I was going to take Carson to the doctor because I have never heard that cough come from him before. He has been sick with a cold and runny noses before, but this was totally different. The doctor told us it may be RSV and that he may get worse. It definitely got worse. Wednesday night he started to get his fever. It was really high. He started to cry. It took me about 45 minutes to get him calmed down. Every time we would move him the crying would start all over again. That night he would not even let us put him down. We both took turns holding him and getting him when he cried. One of use would finally get him to sleep and we would lay him down in his crib. Seven minutes later, he was crying again. I even held him in my arms and lied down in bed for a while to see if he would sleep. It worked for about 30 minutes, but that was it. I feel bad because we should've changed his pajamas because he was wearing fleece. We should've put him in something to cool him down. I kept thinking how you get the chills and kind of cold when you have a fever, so I was concerned about that. Dave and I both stayed home from work. I felt bad considering it was my fourth day, but I am sure they understood. That morning around 8 I told Dave I was extremely tired and needed to lie down for a while. He woke me up at 8:30 and said "is it bad that his temperature is at 103?" That's when I called the doctor and then Kirstin. She told me about the life saver....Motrin. The doctor told us how much we could take. He also gave us an antibiotic in case he had either a sinus infection or something else. It's the pink bubble gum antibiotic that I used to take when I was a kid. I still think it tastes yummy to this day. He is doing better. He still has his nasty cough and runny nose, but the fever is under control. We are blessed to have so many people help us during this time.

It was a tough little bend in the road this week. Dave and I are exhausted, but we have a baby that is almost back to normal...well he still isn't eating very well and he's still got his RSV, but he is smiling again, which is normal. It's amazing to think how my parents did the same for me. You don't realize how much they do for you until you actually becoome a parent. Dave and I love Carson so much and we are so happy to be his parents.

The Teeth

Now that Carson has his two teeth, he is starting to slobber, chomp and suck really hard on anything he can get his hands on. So, I think pretty soon his top two teeth will be coming in. Although it's hard when they are fussy, it is well worth it to see the character those teeth really bring to a baby. When he smiles, those two teeth poke out on that little baby smile and it's so fun to see.

Dave started school this week. He has two classes on Monday and Wednesday and one class on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. So he has school every day. It's hard for him considering he comes home late on Monday and Wednesdays and then on the other days he has to stay later at work to catch up on the time he has missed.

I started my new job yesterday. It was hard! I was so nervous. They weren't extremely friendly, but with me being so shy that doesn't help either. It goes both ways. It was so different from what I am used to, but soon I will get the hang of it. Tomorrow I work with a doctor that I already worked with at Jordan Valley so it will be easier I think.

Like I said, change is hard, but we all need to go through it so life can get better.

Priceless

The Baby: 13,000 Dollars

The Hat: 9.99 Including Matching Outfit

The Two Combined: Priceless

When The Lord Closes A Door...

I wanted to write a blog about the family. There have been a couple of changes, but none too drastic. I am starting my new job on January 8, which is this coming Tuesday at Utah Surgical Center. I am really excited, nervous and sad. I am excited to start a new job and meet new people. I am nervous to learn everything all over again when I just left something that I was very comfortable with...and meeting new people. It is nerve racking to learn all new doctors and remember everything they want for surgeries. I am sad because I am going to miss all the other people I worked with at the hospital and Dr. Slawson, who was my favorite surgeon to work with. I promised him I would come back to Jordan Valley, but going to this surgery center works better for me as a mom. I am really sad to leave Carson. I know that he will be with people we love and he is going to be well looked after. I wrote a 2 page schedule and instruction "manual" for my mom and sister. My mom probably would've done the same if she had to go back to work and I can see Gina doing it when she becomes a mommy. I am trying to keep him on a schedule so on my days off he isn't all confused. Kirstin and Angela may have an opportunity to take part in that "manual". :)

My job is going to be great! Not only does it pay better than Jordan Valley, I get more breaks, they have profit sharing (bonuses) every 3 months, and free lunches everyday! You can't go wrong with that! It's weird because I have to sign up for a couple of days a month where I have to worry about lunch, I buy it or make and then they reimburse me. I get a Christmas Savings Plan or Vacation Savings plan that pays me 5% interest. They take what I want out of each paycheck. I signed up for the Christmas savings plan and they give me the check the 31st of October. If I dip into it before then, they won't pay me the 5% interest. I will get all of my money back anyway, so it's nice to have that money I won't see in my checking account. I won't be tempted to spend it either. Last but not least, there is no call!! No 2 a.m. surgeries. They are all so nice. I went in to get my paperwork done and they all were so friendly and eager to meet me.

Dave didn't get his job in the marketing department at Usana. He feels okay about it considering he has some other opportunities in the legal department. I hope he doesn't mind me telling everyone. We know that when the Lord closes a door, he opens a window. Things happen for a reason and when he graduates in May, we will see other windows, maybe even doors of opportunity open for him. He has to take 2 Spanish classes and his Advanced Mangament class and he will get his Bachelor Degree in May from the U. We are really looking forward to that moment. With school and work, Dave is really good at helping me with Carson. He is a good dad. He can make Carson laugh a lot more than I can. He's very helpful and Carson loves his daddy! We are proud of him for trying for that job.

As for Carson, he is still growing. We are trying to get him to fall asleep on his own instead of rocking him to sleep. It's hard, but we are still picking him up if he wakes up to calm him down. I would be scared too if I was a baby and woke up and it was all dark. Sharing a room with him is hard, but it's only temporary. I will be more grateful for a 2 bedroom apartment or a house when we get one. Carson can sit up on his own pretty well, with a few wobbles. He is eating rice and oatmeal cereal and occasionally some sweet potatoes, squash and today my parents fed him a little bit of banana. I am now regretting taking back my diaper genie. Just kidding. We have a little trash on our patio that works just fine.

I know that if we have the faith and pray to Heavenly Father for things we need and want in life, He will make it possible. Life is good. Change is hard, but life is good.

Happy New Year

Dave, Carson and I had a very fun new years eve. It was really nice to spend some time with his family. In order to keep Carson on his schedule, we had to leave before midnight. He didn't sleep on the way home, but when we got home, we made him a little bit of cereal and put him in his exersaucer and got to celebrate the coming of 2008 with us. We gave him lots of hugs and kisses and sent him to bed. Dave and I followed. I guess that once you have kids, the partying stops. Well, I have really never partied on New Year's Eve. Here are some pictures I took right at midnight. I was saying "happy new year, Carson" to him while taking some pictures. I got some cute ones. Dave and I were talking about new year resolutions. Of coarse there is the typical one about losing weight and exercising everyday. Then by January 14, the resolutions are long gone. I hope that everyone can make some sort of change in their life for the better. That is the only type of resolution that I believe in. We hope all of our friends and family have a happy new year.