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! :)

A whole lot of Firsts...

Okay wow I suck at blogging I know!!

And here I am and not a single picture to show. You have to understand I'll get on the computer at home and I'll start uploading pics and then walk a way. When I come back to the computer they aren't uploaded so I get frustrated and find something else to occupy my time, like some Mario Brothers 3! :) We are loving the old school Nitendo games at our house lately...I know what a complete waste of the few short hours I have at home each day!

Well this month has been a month of firsts around our house! It has been a lot of fun. We started out the month with Carter's first real laugh (not sure exactly what I mean by real:))

Then he his 4 month check up (a first because he has never had a 4 month check up before) and blew us away with his growth he is 26 inches long and weighed in at 14lbs.

Then we move onto his first really big chuckle, not just a small laugh but many laughs in a row, that was awesome! It is hard to get it out of him sometimes but well worth the effort once he lets go!

He had his first solid food (a piece of avacado) and then his first bowl of cereal came shortly after that.

We are rounding out the month with him being able to sit up on his own (no rolling yet, which I am so okay with!)

AND last but certainly not least are his first TEETH! (No not tooth, there are two of them). This one I am not ready for...I am just not looking forward to that FIRST BITE, if you know what I mean.

Yeah so the doctor told us a few weeks ago that his bottom 2 teeth were starting to bud, meaning they'll be coming in the next month or so. So I don't know why I was surprised when I looked in his mouth on my lunch break (because he was being abnormally fussy) and found that his two lower middle teeth had made a special appearance. I know people nurse through this and hopefully there won't be too much of an issue there, my goal is to make it another 3 or 4 months before we move to formula...but that could be a lot sooner if it becomes unpleasant for me!!

Anyway I will try to update some pictures on here soon because I really have a ton of cute ones, you maybe on over load once I start posting them!

Oh and yes there was also a first for me...or 31st that is... :)

Christmas and The New Year

Well I haven't updated since Thanksgiving...once again no time!! We had a wonderful Christmas this year. We were able to drive to Portland and spend the whole time with my family. I hope they all didn't get too sick of hanging out so often! :) We had a great time so thanks to my parents, siblings and their families for making so much time to spend with us while we were there.

We started the trip with an amazing Blazer Game thanks to Joe and Rachelle for letting us go with them to the game and sit in their awesome seats! Carter went with us as well and did great; he even slept with all that noise. The Blazers played Phoenix, it was a close game and the Blazers won...man it was so good to be back in that arena. I hardly get the chance to even see the Blazers play on TV these days, let alone in person! Afterwards we all met up with Wes at El Gaucho’s in the Benson hotel downtown. That place was great! And it happened to be that it was mine and McKay’s 4th anniversary and the Benson is where we went after the reception, so it was funny we just happened to end up there that night. Thanks again to J and R for treating us to yummy crab cocktails and bananas foster....even though mine was a bit strong! Here is Carter at his first Blazer game. I will be doing my best to insure that he is a Blazer fan NOT a Jazz fan!!



The weather in Portland was absolutely crazy, for Portland anyway. We still got around pretty good but didn't have much time to do a whole lot extra besides hang with the fam. For those reading this wondering why I wasn't able to see you while I was in town, sorry we really were just too busy! We did the Blazer game, and then went wedding dress shopping the next night for Alyssa. She found a dress, it is beautiful! I would post a pic but people will just have to wait for the actual wedding to see her in it!!! The next day was Grants B-day, then Elle's. Then we actually wanted to just relax the next day and stayed out in St. Helen's at my parents, instead of going into Portland. We were able to meet up with Lauren and Rick the next night and it was good to catch up with them. Then it was basically Christmas activities and more hanging out at Joe and Rachelle's and Grant and Erika's. Anyway the whole trip was great! I wish the weather had been a little better so that getting from point A to B wouldn't have taken so long. I may have been able to see a few more people that way. I will work on getting the pictures uploaded to share with you all, hopefully soon. Here are a few of the snow.McKay couldn't believe that nobody cleared their driveways or sidewalks. I was like you have to understand, this just doesn't happen here. Nobody has snow shovels and when it does randomly snow here and there it just melts the next day anyway, so there is no need. So here is McKay clearing all the snow at my parent's house...he did this every day we were there! Thanks McKay!!







I have many more pictures but they aren't uploaded yet. I will hopefully get those posted over the next week or so. For New Years Emily and Travis came over and we played some games and ate some food. It was good fun! They left around 10:00 because Travis had to work early. McKay also had to work early but we stayed up for a while, I think we fell asleep around 11:45 and then woke up just after midnight, laughed, turned off the TV and went right back to sleep. I think once we have kids old enough I'll get back into the whole New Years thing but for now I'll take 10 more minutes of sleep!!! :) Well hopefully I'll post again really soon!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Oh and PS...I did not have time to do Christmas Cards this year, I am so sorry!! But thank you to those that sent them our way! I promise to get them out next year, so please don't take me off your list!!! :)