Carson's 2nd Birthday Party

We started off Carson's birthday with an early morning trip to the zoo!  We figured that the best place to celebrate was Carson's favorite place on earth.  It was so fun to celebrate with my mom and sister who were in town for the weekend.

First stop, giraffes.

 

Second stop, carousel.  We always have to be on the giraffe.  I dread the day when there is another kid riding on the giraffe.

Next stop, splash pad.  I didn't bring a swimsuit, whoops!

Later that afternoon we went swimming and took showers to get ready for dinner.  We went to a nice Mexican restaurant and this picture shows how much Carson could have cared less where we went.  As long as he had his trains and a place to drive them.

We celebrated that night at home and facetimed during the party with Steve's mom.

Happy second birthday Carson!  Love you so much!

Carson is 2!

Some fun facts about the birthday boy:

Carson weighs 27.8 pounds (70%) and is 35.5 inches tall (89%) (these stats are a couple months old).  He has 16 teeth and is in 2T clothes.

He is obsessed with trains, trains, and more trains.  Oh my goodness, he could seriously play all day long.  His favorite are the different "Thomas the Train" trains that you can drive on the wooden railways.

He is talking more and more each day.  He is finally at the stage where he is starting to say a few new words each day.  This is serious progress, people.  A few new words/phrases are "it's hot!", "I two (while holding up two fingers), "my daddy and my mama", cupcake, bubbles, bug (that shows you how much we have to talk about bugs every day), monkey, "I stuck", and pool.

Carson is our sweet boy.  He is not confrontational with other kids, even when they are mean to him.  I hope this sticks! He is very easy going and usually doesn't mind sharing his toys.  When someone takes something from him or hits him, he usually just shrugs his shoulders and moves on.  I think it's obvious which parent he takes after in this regard (not me).

He loves animals so much.  He has an animal noise for almost every animal, including ones that don't talk, like crocodiles and giraffes.

His favorite foods are milk, chicken nuggets, bananas, yogurt, peanut butter sandwiches, and any kind of treat. He loves milk so much (must be the Winder in him).  If he could have it his way, he would go back to being an infant and have milk as the only thing he eats.

Some other things he loves are reading books, going to the zoo as much as possible, swimming in the pool, getting in the car to go places, getting his picture taken, and following me around like we are glued together.

Carson has hit the "terrible twos" hard.  He has gone through a phase the past couple of months where we can't get him to do anything we want to, ie. get in his car seat, put his shoes on, put his clothes on, change his diaper, put him in his highchair, put him to bed, brush his teeth.  Basically anything that we need to get him to do, he will not cooperate.  It makes life interesting.

Carson, we love you so much and are so grateful to have such a sweet boy as part of our family! Can't believe you have only been in our lives for two short years.

June in Pictures

June was such a great month.  Steve didn't start work until July 1, and we arrived in Houston around June 4, so we had the whole month to play and get used to our new city.

"hangin out" in Ikea

Farmer's market for a yummy breakfast

Sooo many trips to the zoo.  Carson talks about it every day and always wants to go see the giraffes and elephants.

Hermann Park

 

Children's museum

We have been to the beach a couple times now.  It is about an hour away from our apartment.  We found this fun beach that you can drive right onto!

 

 Carson fell asleep on the way back from the beach with his hand in the air.

When my friend went into labor, we watched her oldest, Sophia.  Carson and Sophia had such a fun time sharing a stroller and playing at the splash pad.

 

 A peek at our new apartment

We are loving the hot weather and being able to swim at our community pool all the time!

Well, so far we are really loving Houston and having fun exploring.  We are so excited about this chapter of our lives!

On Our Way to Houston

Well, we have finally made it!  After about 20 hours alone in the car with Carson, I am ready to never get in a car with him again.  He did pretty good though, and he is eager as ever to go on more car trips.  Lucky for us, he has an obsession with cars right now.

This was my view for the 3 whole days we spent driving: the back of Steve's car.  Not pictured: Carson in my back seat making a ruckus. 

First stop: Kansas City!  Carson was so happy to get out of the car and play the night we got there.

Drove through Crowder, Oklahoma (my maiden name)

Next stop:  Dallas!  As soon as we drove into Texas, we saw an In N Out.  Best news of the day.  We stopped and Carson had his very first In N Out burger (well it was technically just grilled cheese).

We spent 2 days in Dallas to recuperate from the 2 days of driving before, so of course we had to take some time to find a delicious Mexican restaurant. It was amazing, and even Carson ate almost all of his taco.

Final stop: Houston!  This is one of the first views we had of the city and the loads of traffic.

One of the best parts of this move is finding out that me and a friend that just moved here from Minneapolis are in the same ward!  The boundaries of our ward just changed a few weeks ago and we are so happy to know someone already!

And I will leave you with some recent videos of Carson in our new place.  The first is his obsession with animal noises and the second is his attempt at talking.