Choo Choo Carter's Two!!

A few days before his birthday, we threw a (very small) birthday party for Carter. Since it was right before Christmas, and since I am pregnant and really didn't have the energy to do anything too extravagant, we just had our immediate families there!

Hey! It's my party!

Enjoying his birthday lunch of homemade chicken noodle soup (which he didn't touch) and grilled cheese.

Carter had a blast opening his presents this year. The funny thing is that once one gift was opened, he wanted to get it out of the box and play with it, completely ignoring the fact that he had MANY more to open.

He was SO SPOILED with gifts it was ridiculous. We are seriously considering only getting him one gift next year. He would never know the difference.

Baylie was a great helper with the present opening!

Carter picked out his birthday theme. I took him to Party City with me one day and he had his choice of several. He didn't even hesitate, though, Thomas it was!! I can't even begin to describe the love that our little boy has for those trains.

Here's a little video of us singing Happy Birthday to the birthday boy! Notice the arm flaps make a small appearance. Haha! (random aside: Carter loves the Happy Birthday song. He will randomly make me sing it to him or randomly tell me - "Happy Birthday, Mommy!" So funny!)

Happy Birthday! from Megan Crittenden on Vimeo.

The cake and ice cream was a hit too, of course!
Carter insisted that most of his new toys were assembled...so the men of the family obliged. This race track was a definite hit with the toddlers!They are so cute playing together!!I really cannot believe that I am a mommy of a two year old! These two years have definitely flown by. I must say that Carter is the most amazing little two year old on the planet and I feel so blessed that he is mine.

Baby Pool!

You might have noticed a link to our baby pool to the right! I did this with Carter and thought it would be fun to do it again.

Feel free to make your guesses as to how big Mr. Levi will be and when he will get here!

34 weeks!

I don't know if I ever officially introduced the newest member of our family on here! This is Carter's little brother, Levi. Or, "wee-vi" as Carter says.

He is a sweet little thing who has given his mommy QUITE a time in this pregnancy. I guess I shouldn't complain. Being pregnant with Carter was a BREEZE. Rarely had any complaints whatsoever. But this little guy, well, let's just say he is allowing me to empathize with all of my friends who had those "typical" pregnancy symptoms that I never did.We even had an interesting scare about a month ago when I passed out on the bathroom floor after some bad abdominal pain. After a trip to the ER and being admitted into Labor and Delivery, we discovered that I had a kidney stone, which caused me to start contracting a little bit. So after some drugs to stop the contractions (it was WAY too early for Levi to make an appearance!) and some other interesting tests I was able to go home. Thankfully, things have been non-eventful since then.

How Far Along: 34 Weeks! 6 more to go at the most! Crazy!

Size of Baby: My little website thing says 4 3/4 pounds and 18 inches. I find this a bit hard to believe seeing as Carter was 18 inches at birth, but, we'll see!

Total Weight Gain/Loss: The "loss" aspect of this question makes me laugh. I am not friends with that person who loses weight during pregnancy. And I am not one of those people. Obviously.

Maternity Clothes: Oh, I am so sick of wearing them!

Gender: Still a boy!

Movement: My doctor warned me that his movements might slow down now that he is running out of space. Yeah, still waiting on THAT to happen. He moves all. the. time. And it hurts.

Sleep: I'll remember what that is again in about 4 months or so!

What I miss: Oh, you know, the whole not being pregnant thing! But I know I'll miss it when I'm done!

Cravings: None, really.

Symptoms: I started to swell this week. Just my left ankle, which is sorta weird.

Best Moment This Week: Went through all of Carter's baby clothes in preparation to wash them for Levi's use. I cannot believe how TINY he was. I just hope that Levi gets to use a lot of the clothes! I know for a fact there are some outfits that Carter only wore once or twice!

Sweet little singer!

Carter LOVES to sing. He knows the words to so many songs, and is still singing the new ones he learned at Christmas time (Away in a Manger is a favorite).

I couldn't NOT share this video of little man singing probably his favorite song, Amazing Grace. This was several months ago, so the words are a lot clearer now, but I still thing it is the cutest thing ever.

Amazing Grace from Megan Crittenden on Vimeo.

Trimming the Tree

I apparently didn't take any pictures at Thanksgiving. It really was a lot easier to take pictures all the time when my main subject (Carter) stood still for longer periods of time. Most of the pictures I take of him are blurry and end up being deleted.


Anyway...


I DID take a couple of pictures of our decorating the Christmas Tree. This is the first year that Carter could really be "helpful". He definitely enjoyed it, and we only walked away with one casualty.

He would take the ornaments we gave him (non-breakable, non-sentimental) and hang them on the EXACT same limb every time. It was so funny. Here is a (bad) picture of his favorite place to hang ornaments!

This might be the cutest video ever. We let Carter have the honor of putting the star at the top of the tree. He was quite proud of himself. Notice the flapping of the arms - that is what he does when he is excited. We saw a lot of arm flapping this time of year!

Untitled from Megan Crittenden on Vimeo.

You might notice the end credits to The Polar Express on the TV. Carter watched that for the first time and ate cookies while we were decorating. I'm hoping that will be a new tradition!