UTAH

We are HOME and glad to be here. Here's some random pics of Mr Carter this past week.

Back in St Louis I was trying to get rid of our food, trying to cook only with what I had, and that was quite a challenge- poor Aaron had to eat the strange recipes I came up with! Glad I don't have a picky husband! (only a picky toddler... he won't pass up cookie dough though)

 Some family-related news: My stepmom had a baby! Here she is with little Lilly. So Carter has yet another aunt.. who is younger than him. And I now have another baby sister.

 Carter playing while I was packing

 This was shot on the day of Aaron's last work day out there! He went out selling though here in Utah the day we drove in.. Very committed, this man is. Today is his LAST DAY however for a while. Hernia surgery is next Tuesday =( Wish him luck!

 There was a helicopter outside the hotel we stayed at during our trip (somewhere in Colorado).

 I think Carter had missed all his toys we left behind.

 Getting very smart. How did he know that you need a screwdriver to fix the bunny?!

Adios ST LOUIS

Well we're not gone yet, BUT we are taking off this next Sunday, driving back to Utah.

We're supposed to be here 2 more weeks, but Aaron has a hernia! He has to get surgery but can't get seen by the doc for another week, so he's waiting it out, still working out here in St Louis for as long as he can. The hernia is getting worse every day and it's very worrisome to me, but Aaron has crazy good work ethic, so he's still out there knocking doors, trying to solidify our summer. Good husband. Poor husband. Crazy husband?

I'll be packing and cleaning and loading up the truck all by myself this weekend, so wish me luck!

Anyways, this past Sunday was our last one in St Louis so we tried to do the things we still wanted to, but nothing panned out. Our plan was to go up INSIDE the arch, but it was so crowded we gave up. We also wanted to see the Botanical Gardens but decided to let Carter run around a park and splash pad instead, but oh well, it was still a very fun day. =)

P.S. I'm kinda hooked on the instagram app.. too much fun!

Arizona trip

Carter and I took a little break from St Louis to visit Grandma Belinda and Grandpa Steve in Fountain Hills, AZ (outside of Scottsdale). We just got back a few nights ago, and had the funnest time!

We hit up the park while we were there and Grandpa Steve had a blast taking Carter on the playground toys.

Carter says "raaaarrr" when he sees a dinosaur, or tiger, or something of the like =)

Grandma with Carter in his car

He is saying "weeeeeeeee" all the way down =)

Big turtle

We went to the Train Park, as is becoming our tradition down there. Carter just calls train "choo choo" and it was really cute to watch him ride one!

They had a new museum with model trains that they're building, Carter was fascinated by them!

Then they had a little caboose they could actually play on, this was his favorite =)

There was small model train going around up above, he loved that too

Love this cute face!! Grandma Belinda has decided Carter looks most like my brother, Craig. I can totally see it

Oh this was so cute, Carter eating an ice cream cone, for the first time I believe.. He was distracted by yet another train going around the ceiling. =)

Back at Grandma's house, Carter ended up getting all his toys outside

Carter got into EVERYTHING possible.. he found a ladder in the pantry

Carter's great great Grandpa Jay chatting with Grandma Belinda outside their pool while Steve takes Carter for a swim

Carter was a gem on the plane and we are happy to be back with Aaron!!

Love this man!!

Ohhh Carter!

Carter has been very silly lately.
We went to get sushi downtown the other day and we walked around to look at shops for a bit, and ran into this fountain:

Needless to say, Carter really loves water

And I just love this pic

 We have a ritual every morning of getting Carter a cup of milk when he wakes up and turn on cartoons (because we're not awake enough to do anything else.. don't judge us!) I had gotten back from running and Carter decided he was obsessed with shoes, kept saying "shoes" over and over and wanted to wear his with his jammies. This is what he picked out. A croc, and a Church shoe, both for the left foot.

 And then he insisted on ME wearing shoes, so he helped me put them back on. Halfway, and on the wrong foot. lol I love it

 Yesterday, kinda on a whim, I decided it would be fun to attempt to take Carter to his first movie. Cars 2 has been out for a while, so I was hoping that an odd hour for a showing would mean we'd be the only ones there, which we were for a bit. Carter seemed very excited to be in a theater, but then the show started, more people showed up, and then Carter discovered the lighted stairs. And it was history. We left 40 min into the show, and I wasted $5 plus the ripoff for his hot dog! But at least I know he's not ready for this! We'll give it another 6 months =)

And tomorrow we are OFF to Arizona!! Visiting grandma Belinda, and prepping ourselves for the 115 degree weather ahhhh! We're excited, though for a fun little break from here. =)

panda

I'm finding that Carter is very much capable of saying a lot more words than he actually does. He likes Kung Fu Panda, but has never said "panda" til the other day. And he hasn't said it since, he won't do it! He calls everything "bees" for some reason... whether it sounds like bees or not. He brought me a rock today and said, "bees." What the heck?!

Freak OUT

Well I have a story or two...
As a mom I realize I totally freak out and panic over things I never thought I would.
For example, since Carter was a newborn, I've had major anxiety about him sleeping soundly through the night. SIDS has terrified me, and even more so since a friend of mine had her child die in her sleep during an afternoon nap, when she was Carter's age now. This is my absolute biggest FEAR.
Carter rarely slept in our bed with us and if he ever did, I would wake up and panic that he was suffocating, not breathing, and I'd yell at Aaron and just go crazy, scared to death. Carter's always been just fine, but for some reason in my subconscious brain, I'll reach out for him while he's sleeping and the connection that he is still, and warm, and kinda "swollen," means that he is lifeless. MORBID huh! I ended up shaking Carter awake, in panic, way too many times, the poor baby.
The other night Carter was asleep in his pack 'n play in the other room just like every other night and in my sleep I reached over and felt Aaron's face, thinking it was Carter and I bolted up, panicking because it felt swollen and lifeless (like you do when you're asleep) but I just have these nightmares that it's Carter and he can't breathe!! Is this normal?!!! Poor poor Aaron got woken up to me hitting his face in the middle of the night, saying "oh my gosh, he's not breathing!" He wasn't all that surprised, this has happened many times in the past 20 months.

Story #2
This happy fellow is the cause of yet another panic attack on my part. At the waterpark yesterday.

This waterpark in Chesterfield, MO is really cool, with splash pads, water slides, lazy river, the works. There's this big playground for little kids in the water, and Carter's been gathering up his courage to wander up even though there's water splashing down on him everywhere.
There's a big-kid slide at the top that Carter has been inching towards but still looks scared, so I just stand up top with him while he plays around.
K so there's this little kid who's probably 6 or something who's going down the big slide and says, "I'll take him down the slide with me!" (Mind you- adults are too big to go down the slide apparently, the Nazi lifeguard blows her whistle at you if you try.) I'm not gonna let some random kid take my kid down this slide because it's rushing water, and then another splash of water when you get out of it, so he'd have to really keep Carter's head above it.. and I just don't trust him.
But the kid comes up and down the slide several times, and keeps asking to hold Carter, and Carter looks like he wants to so I relent. I give the kid specific instructions, make sure he's sitting on your lap, keep his head above water, blah blah blah. Kid says, OK! And goes to sit down in the slide. I bend down to hand him Carter, and the kid all of a sudden starts sliding down!!! And he's holding onto Carter's LEG while Carter is on his belly, face down in the water!! (alright I'm being slightly dramatic about this, the water wasn't very deep even at the end of the slide but I still panicked).
So I wonder if anyone saw my next move... it was a good one, and probably quite hilarious. I drop to my knees, sliding onto my stomach, reaching for Carter through the dark, watery abyss of the waterslide, grab his arm just barely before he fell in forever, and pulled the drenched little guy back out of the top of the slide! (insert victory music here).
Never mind that this was totally unnecessary, Carter would have been fine going down the slide even by himself, but I had a panicky mom moment, and freaked out. But alas...

Here are my battle wounds.

What's that you say? Mom Award of the week? Psshht that's silly, no need.  Buuuuut I accept ;)

On a sweeter note, we went to a cupcake shop today!! Jilly's Cupcakes as featured on Cupcake Wars on the Food Network. Tasty..

Me and Carter with our cupcake. He's kinda pissed cuz I wouldn't let him have any til he ate some of his sandwich.. which he didn't. 

 Us girlies.. Malia, Paityn, and me. I loving having fun girls out here

My summer VAY-CAY

Well I had a fantastic last 10 days or so, up in the PNW.. Portland, OR, Yakima and Ellensburg, WA. 

Here's Carter on the plane, playing with his noisy puzzle. He did okay on the way there but on the way back, he was an angel baby, not even kidding. Love this kid!

 Grandma Cherie's house (my mom). Carter really liked the piano.. We need to get one asap.

 This is how Carter spent the mornings lol... lounging about on my mom's bed... And notice that it's under construction- we are redecorating it and it's gonna look so good!!

 Thought it would be fun to play in the tub.. with this clothes on. As you can see, he's very fascinated with the faucet =)

 Happy boy in the car

So this is Julie, my best friend from high school, and this shot obviously was from back in the day.. before my mission, before we got married, but after high school. Now she lives in Corvallis, OR, is married and has 2 kids so I got to see em all while I was there!

We met halfway in Salem to take our kiddos to this:

It was cute, not extraordinarily entertaining for the kids but it was fun anyways. Here's me, with Carter hiding behind me, and Julie's son Caden on the train =) Apparently I am enjoying more than anyone lol

Is Oregon gorgeous or what? Little trail through the theme park

Me and Mr Carter

Carter and Caden being silly, and being boys. All you need is water to have a party..

And here we are! Me and Carter and Julie with Caden and her newborn Hunter. So cute. I wish we lived closer to them =(

 Sooo after OR, we headed up to Washington to my hometown, Yakima to my parents house. And almost immediately headed up to Ellensburg for our PACKARD family reunion, yippee!

We stayed in a nice cabin (I hear the rest of the family got shafted in bug-infested pee-smelling cabins). Needless to say I was very grateful for where we stayed! Carter playing with his Auntie Alice, and Uncle Joseph =)

 4th of July- we went out to Zillah cuz it's on the Indian reservation and fireworks are legal. Perhaps they shouldn't be... this is what happened because of some idiots that night....

But the firemen came, put it out, and we had a fun night, Carter loved the fireworks =)

 Back in Yakima, here's cute lil Ali

 Me and the 2 youngest

 So we drove back to Portland, where Carter resumed his spot on my mom's bed once again...

 My mom works in downtown Portland in the city courthouse so we got to go see it. Plus my mom wanted to show Carter off to everyone. Carter was most interested in pounding her keyboard..

 Carter and grandma Cherie =)

 While downtown, we took advantage of the fun shops and cute restaurants. I told my mom that is my ideal vacation- I love being in big cities, eating at cute cafes, and shopping in cute shops. =) Stuff Aaron has no interest in any of that, go figure. That's why you go on vacay without em!

Love my family, love vacations

And back in St Louis for 2 more months...... Bleeeeeeeeeeeeh