Where did he come from?

 Carter Jameson is one amazing little boy.  He tries my patience, makes me laugh, makes me cry, melts my heart, touches my spirit, and makes me better!  He brings out so many good and bad things in me that I never knew were there!  The good things get better and the I am working on the bad things! 

Here are some new things going on with C-Man...

Being dirty is the thing to do...He loves just getting dirty.  This was was him on vacation in Ohio at the beach on Lake Erie.  He just wanted to be filthy! 

 He has gotten into fishing and bugs.  He loved fishing this summer with his dad.  He is also very excited about finding any bugs and or worms.

 He loves his cousins.  He is lucky enough to live close to several cousins.  Whenever he talks about his "friends" and when we ask who they are he always says the names of his cousins.  (Lillia and Carter had a great time on vacation in August...they just chased each other around and laughed at each other!)

 Carter is trying to kick his daily nap.  Which would be OK with me except he can't make it to 7 pm quite yet.  If we do anything in the afternoon he falls FAST asleep only moments after getting in the car.  You can tickle him, talk to him, yell at him and the kid will NOT stay awake!  So then he ends up falling asleep at 3 or 4pm messing the whole night routine up by staying up till 9 am...  we are working on this.  He still naps about 4-5 days a week.  But the days he doesn't we all pay!

 No more high chair.  He finally got advanced from the high chair to his big boy chair once Eli started eating solids.  If it weren't for Eli he would still be in the high chair.  He gets up and down from his chair during his meals countless times.  It makes meal time so much more stressful.  But I guess he needs to learn how to stay in his seat.

 He wrestles everyone...loves to tackle and pretends he is playing football and tackling others all the time! 

Loves to be a BIG brother.  He worries about his brother, tells me when he wakes up, tells me when he pukes, and helps me feed Eli.  He is a big helper in this department.

 Carter loves to read the scriptures every night.  Most of the time we read from the Art Media Guide.  We hold up a picture and he tells us what the story is about.  He also has all 24 modern day prophets memorized.  We say the name and he points to their picture or he can also say the name of the picture we point to.  He loves doing this!

Carter has been talking for a LONG time now.  He amazes us daily on the words he uses and the things he says.  Here are just some that I can think of...

-"Mom I deserve this..." (as I handed him cut up apples and peanut butter for an afternoon snack) I respond why, "Because I took a good nap!"

-"Mom, can I have a horse?  A little tiny one...I will take good care of it, I will rock it, and feed it cereal, and he can sleep in my bed, and I will put jammies on him!"

-"I am going on my mission to mania!" (Romania)

-"Coach Dantonio is in the hospital, he had a heart attack!"

-"Grandpa, I want to live in a castle some day and I am going to be the queen and mom is going to be the princess!"

-"I don't want to listen to the primary songs..." (we play the primary song CD when he goes to sleep at night), Chris responded, "Why not?"  Carter explained, "They make me sleepy!!!"

-"I need to wear my goggles (swimming goggles) in the rain to tect (protect) me!" (And he did just that, wore his goggles and jumped in EVERY puddle from the car to the post office entrance soaking my pants and his pants clear through...it was fun but his eyes were protected and steamy by the end of it!)

-"I starving mom!" (h said to us at bed time after refusing to eat his dinner) and I replied, "Sorry the kitchen is closed!" and he matter of factly said,"No It's not mom, Look it's open...see!"
  
-Carter was up in his bed trying to take his nap when I hear from his room, "Ouch, my nose hurts!!!" When I came in to investigate and I asked him what happened he said, "I was trying to put this quarter up my nose!!!" Gosh, what was he thinking? He quickly learned NEVER to do that again! Good thing he has small nostrils, huh?!

-When telling Carter the story of David and Goliath tonight before bed he said, "I want a sling-shot too" and I replied, NO he was using it in battle or war. Carter replied, "I want to go to war so I can have a sling-shot!" Gosh, why can't we get the significance out of the story instead of the "WEAPON"

-"Mom, I am the boss!  I am the man of the house..."  when I replied "No, I don't think so" he responded, "Can I be the boss of Eli?  Who can I be the boss of?"...first child = bossy!!!

-The nursery leader was talking about prayer and Carter yells out, "JOSEPH SMITH SAID A PRAYER, and he saw Jesus and Heavenly Father!"  The teacher said, "I feel bad I call on Carter all the time because he is so easy to understand!!!" (He calls his leader Sister Gines- - -Sister Giants:))


-"Mom, I want to return to live with Jesus again!" (My personal favorite)

He is so special!!! we just love this little boy and we know he has so much that lies a head of him!  We just hope that we can harness all his energy and strong will for good!

Another Fabric lover...

 We got in several large fabric orders this last week and Eli discovered fabric for the first time!  He had fun laying on the bolts (wrapped in plastic of course) and playing with them a bit.  No drooling on them of course.  My boys are going to hate that their mom takes pictures of them with fabric bolts when they get bigger!  Oh well!  We have fun in our fabric shop together for now!  I am going to enjoy it while it lasts!

Carter's Curls

 So we got lazy and didn't get Carter's hair cut when we should have to keep it trim.  Then all the sudden it started to curl in the back and on the sides.  So we decided to let it grow a little.  These pics are not great, but the boy has some body!

I have learned what it is like to have a girl though.  We have to do our hair every day...or else it looks BAD!  So the rule is...let me do your hair or you MUST wear a hat!  Last Sunday Carter went to his nursery class and said to his teacher..."I have gel in my hair!"  I think it is cute for now...I will get some better pics so you can see better!

ARE THEY TWINS 33 MONTHS APART????

OK, so the older that Eli gets and the more I look at pictures of Eli with pictures of Carter they look very similar.  if not the same!  What do you think?  This is a picture of the boys both at ~6 months of age.

Who is who?

6 months Old...

 On September 13th Eli Douglas turned 6 months old.  He no longer just sits there while I put the paper reading "I'm 6 months old".  Now he grabs it, chews and drools on it, and crunches it!  So these are the pictures we got. 

 Eli weighed in at 17lbs 8 ounces and 27-3/4" long.  He is in the 47th percentile of weight for age and 76th percentile in height for age.  He is growing like a weed, but not as quickly as previously.  Eli   is so similar to his brother Carter is so many ways but so different is so many others.  Eli had a runny nose and was drooling like crazy so I expected teething but I was waiting for a burning temp, diarrhea and a wicked diaper rash accompanied by a FUSSY boy!  Fortunately for us Eli only had the runny nose and drool.  No temp, no diarrhea, no rash and same old pleasant boy...then out popped 2 bottom teeth.  Just a week before he turned 6 months old.  He has 4 more teeth on top trying to make their appearance known.  His gums are so swollen!

 Eli is rolling all over the house and getting where he needs to go by rolling, bumping into something and rolling again.  He has discovered any speck that we miss on the carpet so we are vacuuming more frequently.  He is sitting up and enjoying all the new views.  He is occassionally getting up on his knees and wants to get moving so I think it is only a matter of weeks before he is mobile!  He is starting to make noises like , "Da" and blows raspberries.  We started eating food about 6 weeks ago and he loves his foods.  To date he is eating, rice cereral, oatmeal cereal, avocado, bananas, pears, prunes, peas, green beans, sweet potatoes, and apples.  So far he eats everything...I did try whole milk plain yogurt which he loved but he spit it up all day so we are holding off on the dairy a little longer!

Eli was also tested for food allergies.  Good news...no food allergies!!!  I was so excited to see that he had no allergic reaction when he was skin tested 2 weeks ago.  That same day we found out some more great news...Carter's food allergy is improving as well.  They think with our strict avoidance combined with him likely outgrowing the allergy he is improving.  So the next step is a Food Challenge.  Which means I make up a batch of scrambled eggs and we go to the allergist office and they give him the test in small doses gradually increasing over the course of 2 hours and watching for any reactions.  The Dr is 85-95% confident that Carter will tolerate the egg and we are in high hopes that we can move past this one!  We will keep you posted on this one.

Back to Eli...

He is just a joy..happy most all of the time...yells out at times just to remind you he is there!  He has to yell since his brother is so loud and distracting!  He loves his momma and is starting to get a little clingy! We are so happy we get the opportunity to raise this special boy in our family!