Growing up

I just love this kid! He is such a sweet baby and so happy. He is a little mover and shaker and loves to kick and move his hands like crazy. I am so grateful that I get to stay at home and be with him every day to see him grow and change. There is no other place that I'd rather be! It's amazing how much he has changed and grown in the past 2 1/2 months! I love you Carson bug!

Chad took this pictures on Sunday while I was at meetings. This is a 3-6 month outfit so it is a bit too big for him, but he looks so darn cute in it! Love it!



He makes this face all the time and it's one of my favorites! Love it!


He's so serious in this picture. I think he's wondering why his parents are taking his picture all the time.

Lawn Mower Racing

This is another rare post from Chad...

For a long time when I would have to introduce myself in a group, you know... say your name and some interesting fact about you... I would say that I have a racing lawn mower that goes 40 MPH. It is kind of a random fact but would usually lead a few people to ask a little more about it, so I would talk about how we tuned up the engine, added a gas pedal, swapped pulleys, and a whole list of other things and that it was so powerful it would pop the front wheels up off the ground and bark both back tires at the same time. For all the times when words just didn't do the lawn mower justice, here is the video! Thanks to the Petersens for posting it!

We started working on the mower at the beginning of the summer, but we had a few weeks of working on it every day late into the night to get it ready for this race. The video was our first official race... we were in the 12hp and under class. Our mower was a John Deere roughly 25 years old when we raced it with a single 399cc cylinder. The race was held in Picher, Oklahoma which no longer exists because the town was condemned due to the high led concentration in the soil. Trevor is driving. It was an awesome summer! Thanks Trevor, Josh, Brevin, Justin, and everyone else that helped!

2 months!

Carson turned 2 months old on the 16th of January. It's crazy to think that he is already 2 months! Although the nights have gone slow getting to this point, the days seem to fly by and he continues to change every day. He had his 2 month check up the other day and I hated to see him have to get all those shots! He cried, then I cried...it was no fun. But the good thing was that the doctor said that Carson is doing great and growing like a champ! Here are his 2 month stats:

Weight: 11 lbs 5oz : 50th percentile

Length: 23": 50th percentile (He's already grown 4 inches since he was born!)

Head: 14 1/2": 25th percentile

Here are a few things about Carson:

-He is such an easy going baby. He comes to the gym with me every day and is content just to sit in his carseat and be lulled to sleep by the sound of me running on the treadmill next to him.

- He is becoming more social now and loves to smile at you when you talk to him. He loves being talked to and looks intently at the person talking to him like his is listening so carefully to everything you say.

- One of his favorite songs is "Twinkle, Twinkle little star." Whenever I sing it to him he calms right down.

- This week he has started to stand up on his legs on my lap and look around. His favorite things to look at are the big mirror and clock in our living room.

-Another big accomplishment of his is that he now only wakes up ONCE during the middle of the night to eat!-I am loving the fact that I get more sleep! It's so great!

-One of my favorite things as a mom is going to get Carson out of his crib in the morning to feed him and having him look up and smile at me when he hears my voice. It just melts my heart!

- And last, but not least, Carson is a big time Daddy's boy. He loves being held by his daddy and nobody can get his burps out like he can. :)

Carson's photo shoot

These pictures were taken when Carson was about 3 weeks old by a friend of ours. He is so little in these pictures and has changed so much already! I was impressed how many great shots she was able to get of Carson despite how much he was moving. She did an amazing job! I just love these pictures! You can check out her photography blog at http://bandersonphotography.blogspot.com/. Here are just a few of my favorites.

You can really tell in this picture that I only got about 2 hours of sleep that night! Glad those long nights are finally over!

I love how completely relaxed he is just chillin' on Chad's arm.

Gingerbread Houses and Christmas Socks

Our Christmas in Missouri was fabulous! The Burgin family has lots of fun traditions that we were able to participate in and I absolutely loved it! One of the traditions is making gingerbread houses. We had such a great time creating our houses and decorating them.

Here is our little family with our completed house.

Mark made his house look like it had been hit by a severe snow storm...it was great!

On Christmas day all the couples received knee socks from Mark. We had a great time putting them on and sporting them around the house making our own fashion statements. Thanks Mark!

Here are a few more pictures from Christmas morning. The pile behind us is all our gifts...we were way too spoiled!
Chad even got a much needed coat and a jacket to survive the Nebraska winters. He wears both of them pretty much every day now since it has been so cold here.
Teri made me this cute holiday table runners that I just love! She is so talented! This year I even got a little sewing kit for Christmas! I've never been into sewing, but I figure that now I'm not working anymore I will have some time to learn how to do a few things. I know you are all shocked. Hopefully my sewing will turn out better than my 7th grade sewing projects did. I believe I sewed a part on completely backwards and my friend had to basically finish the rest of my poor pathetic project. When I finish my first project I will be sure to post about it.