Movin' and Grovin'

When we're at G-pa's and Lita's house, Carson loves to get this toy and press the button over and over and over...lol.  He kept dancing to it and clapping at the end.  He is so funny. 

Labor Day - Aquatic Center

On Labor Day we went to Mesquite Groves Aquatic Center.  Carson really enjoyed himself! We played in the toddler play area and sat near the giant bucket that dumps water.  Carson would shreek when the water dumped.  It was so cute seeing him get so excited.  We also went in their lazy river in a double tube and Carson took turns laying on Travis and myself as we looped around the lazy river.  He loved when water would fall on us.  He also loved the mist area as you can see in the video below.  Hope everyone else enjoyed their holiday...we did!

On the phone

Carson loves getting on the phone and to push buttons.  Here he is talking to someone...oops!

Sweet Laughs

Here is Carson watching the tv show Super Why.  I was able to catch him on camera laughing at a part of the show.  So cute!  

Fry's/Kroger's shoppers...you can help

Friends and Family,

Do you ever shop at a Fry's or a Kroger's?  If so, you can help out my school.  Print this page with the barcode below and take it with you to a Fry's or a Kroger's.  Do all your normal shopping.  Go to the checkout and hand the page your printed to the cashier.  Ask them to link your Fry's/Kroger's card to my school.  You only have to do this one time a school year.  It's very simple and now every time you shop at Fry's/Kroger's, you are helping us earn money.  Thank you so much for helping out my school if you're able to.

 

Hectic Times

Life has become very busy for me again.  School is back in session and I now have 33 students...the most I've ever had! My day is crazy with trying to teach the kids while trying to manage their classroom behavior.  It's definately more crowd control than anything.  I'd like to think I'm still doing a pretty good job of teaching them...I just hope I can reach all students.  I have 4 gifted students in my class that I'm hopefully challenging and then I have a lot of low kids too.  I'm needing to modify their work and coming up with interventions for them.  Whew...I'm very tired at the end of the school day and then I come home and have to find some energy somewhere in me to cook dinner before daddy gets home and play with Carson.


So let's move on to talking about Carson.  He is still such a handsome boy and growing so fast! He had his 18 month check up this past Friday and is doing well.  This weekend Travis and I took his pacifer away and had him quit cold turkey.  My poor boy has been having a hard time not having it.  He did well when we were at my parents, but when we came back home he was wanting it at night time.  He's getting better overall with not crying so much for it, but he still has his moments.  *sigh*  It's been really hard on Travis and I too with having to see him so sad.  We know we're doing the right thing though and Carson will soon forget all about it.  Since he hasn't had it, he's been taking longer to fall asleep at night.  The other night I heard him having a conversation with himself through the monitor.  Below is a video clip of what I was able to get of his conversation. 

Carson is talking a lot more but not speaking clearly to where someone else would understand what he is trying to say.  Travis and I can pretty much understand what he tries to tell us.  He loves going on walks in the evening with us and loves to run.  He enjoys throwing any type of ball and has gotten really good at throwing.  We have to remind him not to throw his toys though and only a ball.  He can point to his body parts when we ask him to and he loves naming things.  He will point everywhere and in his own way ask us what is it.  He can now get off our couch the correct way without hurting himself.  He is doing better at feeding himself but still gets messy.  His favorite meal (from what I can tell) is when we have Skyline Chili.  Travis' mom sends us Skyline Chili (yay!) and he loves it just as much and Travis and I do.  He has gotten attached to the movie Nemo and sounds so cute when he says, "mo."  He wants to watch it ALL the time!  Carson is also quite the dancer.  Anytime he hears music his body starts to move and groove.  I enjoy him everyday and look forward to his hugs and kisses.
    

Background

I'm going to have a plain background for awhile until the website where I found the background I like fixes their code.  I'm hoping it won't take too long. 

Yummy Foods

So I'm not the greatest cook and I'm terrible at making a variety of dinners.  It seems like we eat the same stuff over and over.  Well, I came across this website called Picky Palate.  She has so many recipes and they all look so good! You can't help but get hungry when looking through her recipes! So I added her grab button on my blog so you can check it out too if you're looking to add some different recipes.

Why am I up this late??? I'm addicted to making blog backgrounds and playing around with photoshop. Crazy me!
Mary :-)

Testing

Summer Quickly Ending

I can't believe I only have 2 1/2 weeks left of summer vacation! It has gone by quickly.  I've been keeping busy with Carson and enjoying it.  Right now we have been taking parent child swim lessons.  He likes playing in the pool but doesn't like his swim lessons.  There are different things the instructor has us do to get our kids use to the water and to be safe.  This week she really wants us to get them under water a lot more.  He screams and cries when he gets out from being under water.  He definately doesn't like it.  She also has us try to get them to get use to being on their back to learn to float...another thing he doesn't like.  He likes the songs we sing while in the water though.  I've also been taking him to his new babysitter.  He enjoys going over there and playing with her daughters.  One is 3 years old and the other is 17 months old just like Carson.  Everytime I go to pick him up he shows me what he has been playing with and starts to act silly...showing off to mommy...lol.  Carson is also doing a lot better at feeding himself.  It's so cute watching him and how he is growing.  He also loves talking to himself in the mirror.  After his bath and changing him into his PJ's, I put him close to the mirror in our bathroom and he starts the conversation.  It is very cute to watch.  We're still trying hard to get him to say actual words.  He is interested in knowing what things around him are called, but hasn't really succeeded in saying the words correctly.  It's fun watching him try though.  Here are some recent pics.

 

Summer Vacation Part 2

Here are some pictures from the splash pad. I wanted to get some pics of him splashing in the water but I had to have both of my hands available. It was slippery and we found that out the hard way. Carson started running and as I was trying to get him before he slipped, he fell. It was a HARD fall too.

Trying to tell me something...he is so darn cute!

He uses his hands to try to explain things.

"I'm going to play peek-a-boo with you mommy!"

Here we are at the play area.  There were no kids around his age so he watched the older kids play a lot.  He would pretend to play with them too.

"The party can now begin!"

For some reason he bends his back like this when he is trying to impress people....I have no clue why...lol

Here is Carson with friends from our church.  He enjoys getting together with his friends.

 

Carson's babysitter this past year had her baby.  Since she already told us she won't be able to watch Carson this next year, we're on the search for a new babysitter.  We have a meeting setup for tomorrow.  We'll see how it goes. 

Summer Vacation Part 1

We started off our summer vacation by taking a trip to Laguna Beach, California for Memorial Weekend (also our anniversary). We played on the beach by letting the waves splash us and played in the sand. Carson really enjoyed the water. He would only play in the sand for a little while then we were off to the ocean again. We also walked around Laguna Beach and saw all the shops. Since we didn't want to swim in the ocean we did some swimming at the hotel pool. It was a nice trip and wish we could have stayed a little longer. Here are some pictures from our trip.

Carson and I have been going to the library a lot.  There is a baby area in the library that he plays with other kids and they also have baby time once a week.  There is a retired preschool teacher that reads them stories, does finger plays and sing songs.  Carson really enjoyed it.  Since it's the start of summer, they decided to do a water fun day too.  They had different buckets of water and the kids could explore with the toys that were in the bucket.  They also had a mat with shaving creme.  Even with all the neat stuff around for Carson to explore, he decided to play with BALLS! Here are some pictures from the water fun day.

We went to checkout the Sealife Aquarium in Tempe.  It was alright...definately not worth $18.  We were lucky to get tickets for $6! Thanks Cristi! Carson did enjoy it though.  He kept pointing to the fish and trying to tell us something about it...lol...can't understand him though.  He also touched a starfish.  He liked looking at the starfish when they were pushed up again the wall and he could see underneath them.