Carter at 3 months

Here are a few pictures of Carter at 3 months. We had a hard time getting him to smile the day we went to take pictures with him. And an even harder time getting him and McKenna together! He is getting so big, so fast. He is rolling over form tummy to back and rolled over for the first time from back to tummy on Sunday. He weighed 14 pound 13 ounces at his 4 month appt. Just 50% for weight, but 90% for height. He already has many nicknames c bud, c buddy, brother john, brother, and buddy. What a joy he is! So much fun watching him grow, change and seeing his personality begin to show more and more.

Memorial Park in Wilsonville

Fun at Memorial Park water fountain with Joey, Andrew and Stephanie. We love this park that has swings, sand and a huge water feature for the kids to play in. Of course she had to have her goggles on and it was a struggle to get her to keep her hat on once it got wet. This time we remembered to bring a bucket, watering can, and shovels, but even still she tried to trade a broken plastic cup she found for a pink flower watering can that a little girl had. She is in to this trading thing and thinks that anytime she wants to "trade" something that the other person should automatically want to trade. She had a blast and my arms got sunburned!

Our Garden

Here are some recent pictures of our garden. Our first thing to get out of it has been radishes, which niether Brandon or I like. Not too sure why we planted them, but they are super easy and fast to grow! We have corn, squash, zuchinni, cucumbers, carrots, bannana peppers, bell peppers, peas, pole beans, canteloupe, artichoke, jalepeno, and four kinds of tomatoes. It was supposed to start out as a small garden, but anyone who knows Brandon knows he doesn't do anything "little" so we ended up with a 20 x 40 garden. It was quite the project to till, fence to keep the deer out, fertilize and plant. We grew most everything from seed in little pots inside or directly planted into the ground. We are hoping to have lots of vegetables and fruits soon! We also have some great blueberry bushes that should be ready next week.

Everything is doing great so far, excpet we have powdery mildew on our squash which we are trying to get to go away, but they are still growing great. Niether one of us have ever had a garden before so guess we will learn by trial and error. Brandon's name for our garden is little parm farm. He said he was going to put a sign up over the gate that says this and I said no way! :)

Art, Art and more Art

McKenna absolutely loves to do what she calls "art work" To her this is anything to do with paint, glue, glitter, scissors, markers or anything related. The supplies I ordered from discount school supply came last week and McKenna has been having lots of fun. From glue collages, glitter, puffy paint, spray paint, water colors McKenna has been busy "creating." Here are some pictures from our puffy paint we made yesterday and the water color spray painting we did today. She also loves to use the fuzzy pom pom balls to "cook" with in her kitchen. I have eaten my share of them lately! The water color activity turned in to a mixing colors activity, which got all over, good thing they are washable!


Her big cheese face. She always wants to say "cheese" and then see her picture in the camera, but when I say "say cheese" this isn't exactly what I have in mind :)

Figuring out the spray bottles.

Puffy paints

Equal parts water, flour, salt and water with water color added for color. Adjust for thickness if needed and put in squeeze bottles. Squeeze out on a thick surgace such as cardboard. She LOVES squeezing out the paint.

She would rather be without clothes than wear her smock!

Nenna helping mix the paints.

She chose the colors: green, pink and purple

Playing in the box that the supplies came in. She loves her "cutters" as she calls them. I had to order some no cut hair scissors that are just plastic, but will cut paper. She loves to cut everything and I am a little afraid of what she might do with scissors!

She asked me over and over what the packing peanuts were called and why, why and more whys for every answer I gave. Which is pretty typical of EVERY day! Sometimes I want to stick my fingers in my ears like she does when we are in a bathroom and she doesn't want to hear the toilet flush or when Carter's crying.

Fun, Fun, and more Fun!

We have had lots of fun this week going to the park, OMSI, more parks, and playing in the water! We are loving the dry, warm weather. McKenna has also loved helping with our garden which is finally in and growing! One of the books that we checked out at the library was Growing Vegetable Soup and she loves reading it and says we are going to make vegetable soup with our vegetables we are growing. Every week she gets favorite books and you have to read the same ones over and over and over! Mom and Dad are glad by the time she moves on to new favorites! She has started doing the hokie pokie and lots of other songs that we sing at the library and in the car, she is too cute! She has also started saying grace at dinner and it is too funny. Sometimes she starts with saying thank you for the food and then goes on and on about everything she is thankful for. She makes us make Carter put his hands together and say Amen at the end. She is too funny!


One of her favorite new sayings this week is "No Way" It was cute at first, but when she started saying it with attitue when you ask her to do something we had to have a talk :) Everyday is something new and so much fun with both of them. Carter has started chewing on his hands and loves to suck on his first two or three fingers. He won't take a pacifier, but just his fingers! I'm hoping for the pacifier rather than fingers as they are easier to take away, but we'll see. He's staying awake for longer periods of time and cooing and talking a lot, which McKenna thinks is funny and laughs when he talks. She is such a great big sister, getting things I need when I'm nursing and talking and playing with him when he gets upset. She also likes to tell me "pew-wee brother's stinky, change him."

I could go on and on! It is so awesome to be home with them and see and experience all of their new firsts and excitement in everyday life. Here are a few pictures from this week.

Water Park

We went to the Wilsonville town Center park today for the first time this year. McKenna had a blast at this park last year when she was 17 months old. She would look down the holes and then put her hands up like where'd the water go? Then she would peer down the hole and when the water would start to come up again she would squeal and laugh so hard. It was so fun to watch her experience such sheer joy over seeing something for the first time.

McKenna last August at the same park. It's amazing how much she has changed in less than a year!!

This year she was running around like a crazy girl! She had so much fun! She has got to learn to look where she is going though (the other day she ran in to a glass door at the library!) Her and another little boy collided once while they were runing through the water.

She was sad that we didn't bring our buckets, but we had some friends that were nice enough to share their buckets. She would fill them up over and over. In the beginning she tried to pour them out on other little children, so I had to let her know that wasn't okay. Even though she likes it, most kids don't like water poured on their head. Then she folled this one poor older boy around who had this huge water gun thingy that you could suck water up with and then squirt it out. She LOVED it and wanted it so bad. She would just follow him around and wanted him to squirt water in her bucket. It was too funny. That ended when she chased him up a grassy hill and then as the older boys came running down and she followed she went a little too fast and tumbled down the hill. So we took a little break and had lunch and then she was right back in the water. It was soo hard to get her to leave, but finally did it without a major fit! Carter was decked out in his swimsuit and flip flops even though the water was too cold, but he was content in the front pack sleeping and then sitting in the stroller watching the kids. He loved watching the water and the kids run around.

McKenna's first haircut

McKenna got what little hair she has cut for the first time yesterday. She was so excited about going. When we were in Texas and Grammy and Mommy got their hair cut she had to sit up in the chair and get her hair "cut" (we pretended) and then fixed. So when I told her we were going to get her hair cut she couldn't wait.

She had so much fun. While we were waiting they brought her out some apple juice and she got to sit on this pink stool like a "big girl" that she loved. She just had a little cut off he back and sides to even it out. It looks better, but is still so whispy. I'm ready for her to get some hair! She got to get her hair washed, drive a little pink car and watch elmo while they cut, dried, and braided it. She even got sparkles on it when they were done! She also got a lollipop and a ride on the horse. Fun, fun!