Just because he is so cute!

Finally...I know I know!

We are here and alive! :) I know I don't update this, but our computer went on the fritz and then when we got it fixed I couldn't find the camera until yesterday. So I have been at home full time now for just over 2 months. So far it is going great! McKay was pretty busy and not around very much the first month and a half or so. But things have calmed for him lately and we have been able to do a lot of hanging out. A Firefighters life really is great...well I guess if you can handle the lower income, which has actually be very easy to adjust to. We love the spare time he has for us to do things together!

Carter update...he now has 6 teeth and is working on a couple more as we speak. He is growing a lot and finally started crawling on Fathers Day. He already pulled himself up and walked along furniture but just didn't crawl...I don't think walking is too far off, maybe just another month or two. He is tons of fun right now but definitely starting to develop his own ideas on what he wants to do, not what mom wants him to do. It is fun to watch him grow and to be able to be home with him so that I don't miss a thing! We all LOVE it!

So I took a couple of pics of Carter this afternoon outside and shirtless so we could post something that was actually up to date of him.







Last month we decided to go hike the "Y", if you don't know what that is it is a huge letter Y on the mountain behind BYU. Anyway I have lived here for 7 years and I had never done it. It is pretty steep but not too horrible of a hike. Here are a couple of pictures from the top.





We are looking forward to hopefully doing some more fun things throughout the summer and we are especially looking forward to my little sisters wedding at the end of the summer! We hope all is well and maybe now that I found the camera I'll start taking more pics and posting more often!

I thought I would finally update...

It has been such a long time since I have updated our blog.  It was just too hard with work, life and crappy internet to get this together.  We just switched internet providers so it is a lot faster to upload and post.  So maybe I'll do a little better at keeping this up to date.  I am going to start back in March when we went to California with the Wad Squad aka the Wadleys.  We had a great time at Disneyland, Laguna Beach and California Adventure.  Below are pictures from the trip in no particular order.

Carter hanging under his umbrella on Laguna Beach.

The whole Stan and Debbie Wadley family with Grandpa Baldwin as well.

McKay showing off his muscles while building a sand castle. :)

Carter and Me back at the hotel pool, this is Carter's first swim.  I think he might like it!

This is the three of us on Dumbo at Disneyland.  We were actually surprised at how many rides we could take Carter on.  It was a lot of fun, not that he'll ever remember.

Carter and McKay taking themselves a nap on the beach...Carter is under that umbrella if you couldn't see him.  

Carter and I on the beach.

Carter is checking out the waves.

Check out that nice gut!

This is Carter after a long day at Disneyland, he was a champ!  He did so great all day and this was bed time and he laid right down and didn't take long to fall asleep and then go back to the hotel with his grandma and grandpa so that McKay and I could have some fun on the bigger rides before the park closed.

Here we are at Toontown, it is kind of hard to tell but we are sitting on a fire engine.

So the trip was so much fun!  And at the end of the trip Carter and I last minute flew to Portand for my mom's 60th birthday.  It was a surprise and SO much fun.  The only people that knew we were coming were Joe, Rachelle and my dad.  We got to surprise everyone else, which is always great!  We had a big surprise party that saturday and got my mom again.  She had NO clue it was great.  I didn't take good pics of the party so I didn't post any of them.  Maybe later today I'll get the rest of this up to date since I am headed to Portland tomorrow for a week I wanted to get caught up before then.

March...already

Here we are already into March by a week!  I feel like the next month or two is already over.  We have a few events coming up which always makes the time fly by!  We were lucky enough to have my sister Rachelle and her husband Joe down last weekend.  It was a lot of fun to be able to spend time with them!  So Thank YOU both for coming down!!!  My old roomie and good friend Lora and her little fam are coming to town in a week and a half!  I haven't seen her in a year and a half so we are excited to see her, meet her new little boy Parker and see how big Ellie has gotten!  Then the week after that we are off to California with McKay's family, we are so excited for a little Vacation time together.  Then it is end of year at work for me which is always super busy.  Then my parents are coming in mid April.  

It should be pretty crazy but it is all fun things coming up so I am pretty excited!  Plus we've had our first taste of Spring around here and that always gets me excited for what's to come.  I can even handle the snow and cold we have blow through between the nice days.  It is just wonderful to have a few nice days here and there around this time of year!

As always we have a few pics of Carter and none of us! :)  Maybe we'll actually get in front of the camera while in Cali.  Carter is doing well.  He had his 6 month check up this week and came out pretty well.  He grew an inch so he is now 27 inches but only gained 1/2lb. which means he is only 14.4 lbs.  We are stuffing him full of food so he can put on a little weight...although the doc said it wasn't a big deal.  He took his shots like a man and slept if off through out the day.

McKay is doing great.  He is excited for our upcoming trip and people that are coming in and out of town as well.  He is also doing a 100 mile bike ride with some of his Fire buddies the first Saturday in April in Moab.  He is always looking for something to challenge himself with physically...I need to get a little more of that going on with myself!  He is doing great with the part time stay at home dad gig.  He is SO great with Carter!  I am one lucky girl!

Oh yeah onto our pics for the month....

Carter fresh out of the bath all wrapped up in the Lion towl that The Evans got for him.  I love these hooded theme towls, they are too cute!

McKay took these shots the other day while I was at work.  We have been trying to get Carter to spend more time on his belly...he is actually enjoying it for a few minutes for once! :)

What a cutie!

And here he is just being a sweetheart!  He really is such a joy!  Lately he has been sleeping better...or wait maybe I am just sleeping harder.  McKay says he got up with him a few times last night, and I didn't hear a thing....Oops...more sleep isn't bad at all!  Go McKay.

The days are just flying by!

So I cannot beleive that there are just 10 days left in February!! And just 9 more days until our little Carter is already 6 months old! Where does the time go?

We are doing great, just busy working away. We had a busy but nice Valentines/Presidents Day weekend. We celebrated Valentines Day with dinner and a special treat, the Monster Truck Jam. Yep you read that correctly, what a wonderful Red Neck celebration of Love! :) It was actually a lot of fun and of course great people watching!! I told McKay if I am ever feeling down about myself he just needs to bring me to another Monster Truck show, or equally as good red neck event, and I'll feel a whole LOT better! On Presidents Day we made it to a movie as well, I know out twice in one weekend!!! That is a first in a long, long time. It was really nice!

So Carter is doing great! He just keeps growing, he is just about out of all of his 3-6 month clothes, but his 6-9 month clothes that fit him in length don't fit around him that well. He needs to pack on a little more weight! Those two teeth of his are all the way in and looking pretty nice, too bad I don't have a single picture where you can actually see them sticking up. But here are a bunch that I took a little over a week ago. I made him sit through a short photo session with me and our not even close to professional camera, but they'll work for now. And yes I am officially one of those moms that just can't post enough pictures of my kid. Sorry if you think there are too many...I guess you don't have to keep scrolling if that is the case! :) Much Love denene



Just a cute pic...not a part of the official photo shoot! :)

Yes that is a Blazer T-Shirt he has on!

Nothing new to report here...just a few pictures of Carter for your enjoyment. Oh and these were all taken on different days. For some reason it seems I only pull out the camera when he is wearing this stripped shirt.


Here is Carter showing off his new love for sitting up.


Hey Dad how about you get that finger out of my mouth! :)


The cool kid.


This is Carter playing in his Christmas present, his exersaucer.


And for a different view.

Playing Catch up...Christmas pics

I know, I know...most people haven't even had a chance to read my below post and here I am with some pictures already/finally. Anyway not much write since I updated earlier today. These pics are all from Christmas in Portland. I know it was a month ago but at least I am finally getting around to it!!


Here is Carter in his AWESOME cowboy hat that my sister Erika got for him! Can't wait to show it off at the Strawberry Days Rodeo this year!!!


My sister Erika and her family got 2 dogs in October. They are the same bread as Griffin and Miles, so now between the two of us we have every type of Cavalier Kings Charles Spaniel. Hers are too cute! Finn (black) and Fiona (Ruby), they are brother and sister.


For those of you that don't know my little sister Alyssa is engaged, here is a picture of her with her fiance Fred. They are a cute couple and Fred is a great guy, we already love him like family!


While in Portland it was Elle's 5th birthday and for that Erika made enough ginger bread for us to make houses. I have never done a house, except for the ones out the box where I just copy the picture. This was a lot more fun to actually be a little creative. We all had a great time making these! Thanks tah tah.


This is my nephew Jace holding Carter. He was so cute, he wanted to make sure he got to hold him everytime we all hung out.


Here is Carter with my Grandma, his Great Grandma Tolman


And here he is with his Great Grandpa Tolman. It was great to be able to visit with my grandparents while we were there. We always make sure we stop by to see them.


This is an awesome pic! This is my dad with Carter. One minute I looked over and my dad was holding Carter and Carter had just fallin asleep, the next time I look over and see that my dad has joined Carter for a little snooze as well.


Not the best pic but the only one I had with my parents in it as well. Here we are, these are my sisters and my parents...these pictures never feel quite right. All the pictures I have that we took that night, I keep looking at them thinking we were missing someone and we are and always will be. You'd just think over time that the feeling would be somewhat less but it isn't. We will always be missing Adam.


Here is a picture of all the kids. Man it is hard to get a decent picture when you have 11 kids in the same photo. They are in order of age, from top to bottom, left to right we have Riley, Austin, Macey, Olivia, Ashlyn, Jace, Ethan, Taylor, Josie, Elle and baby Carter.

I have more to come...I am really going to try to get this totally caught up so I can disappear for another month! :)