Tuck, Tuck . . . (Truck)

Carter has a new favorite book . . . All about Trucks . . . he very quickly learned a new word. Now when we are driving down the road he points to trucks and yells

"TUCK, TUCK!"

Fun Art Fair and Stupid Chair

Today Jeff worked on a side job all day . . . trying to get done before baby comes . . . so Carter and I joined Shanda, Jess, Shannon and Bree for the Summerlin Art Festival.

Bree had Elmo painted on her arm.

Elmo is very serious business.
Very serious I tell you.Carter and Bree kept trying to run off. I don't run much these days so luckily Shanda came to the rescue.

"Hey kids, where ya going?"

"Awwww nuts, Auntie Shanda caught us" - Bree and Carter - partners in crime.
Juice break - It was a perfect day, weather wise, not to hot lately.
Then we went to have dinner with Shanda, no pics of that, but right after she left Carter was pushing the chair around like he does sometimes and I don't know what happened but . . .

. . . the chair definitely won . . .

(notice the nasty bump on his head and the medicine dispenser with no medicine in it.)

Carter now has a HUGE welt on his head from the chair hitting him as it fell over, funny just giving him an empty medicine dispenser cheered him right up.

Sorry Cubby, mommy will put the chair on time out for attacking you.

Welcome New Baby Shepherd . . . .

HA! Got ya! Welcome is what I'd like to say. But for now it's actually WAITING for new baby. No change, stuck at only being dilated to 3. Found out Wednesday his hand was stuck in front of his head so every time I'd have a contraction it wouldn't do anything because his hand was blocking his head from pushing down. They tried to move his hand, I don't know if anyone has experienced that before but I do not recommend it. I might as well have been in labor, delivering sextuplets . . . no epidural, in a cotton field somewhere, in the middle of August. . . and everything else uncomfortable you can think of.

I am scheduled to be induced on Thursday 10/04/07 at 7:30am and they switched dates and hospitals on me due to how busy the St. Rose Siena Campus is. Good thing is if I go into labor on my own, they will take me at the closer hospital. If I am induced we have to drive a bit to the other one, but that's the newest hospital and very nice I hear.

I will post some good ultrasound pictures soon from yesterday.

Bubble head

Carter has been enjoying bubbles in his bath recently . . . Nice Bubble Mohawk!

Handful of bubbles
Big smiles

Just FYI

For those who are wondering, no baby yet.

I have been going to the Dr. several times over the last week and had a bunch of monitoring done. I am slowly progressing with some contractions but nothing big.

Thursday the Dr. said they will induce me no later than 10/03/07 as baby is measuring 7 pounds now. So only 11 days to go at most.

I have another several appointments next week too, they said at my last appointment if I am dilated to a 4 they will have to admit me to the hospital . . . I am a 3 as of Thursday night. I really don't want to sit around the hospital, so lets hope that over the next week or so I either go into labor and baby comes fast OR I am not dilated to a 4 when I see the Dr. next.

On Top of the World

Carter likes to sit on top of Jeff's shoulders. He thinks it's so fun to be so tall. Plus, we get a good look at all 7 of his teeth.

Date Night

Since we have the best babysitter in the world, Jeff and I got to go out for a date night on Saturday. Carter thought he was going to come with us but he had Shanda to play with all night so he didn't miss us when we bolted out the door.

Thank you, Thank you . . . Keep em coming

So many good suggestions for baby names. About 95% of them are on my list.

YES ERIN, I know HUDSON is your pick. Over and over again . . . :) Nothing new from you, ever.

Paula, if this was a girl, we were considering the name Charlotte and calling her Charlie. Funny you mentioned it.

Landon and Brayden were a couple of the names we thought of for Cubby.

Elaine and Karen, we love Trey and Caleb! Hadn't thought of them before now!

Deanna, my Mom likes Colin too. She was going to name me Jeffrey Colin if I was a boy.

Sorry Marshall, I'm sure your Grandpa was a super guy but Eldred isn't on the list.

Keep them coming . . . . .

The Name Game

Well, it won't be long before there is a new addition to our family.

Sad thing is we don't really have a name picked out for him.

We have some ideas but aren't set yet.

His middle name will be Brown after Jeff's Grandpa and Grandma Brown, but as far as first names go we need some help.

________ Brown Shepherd

Help us out, Fill in the blank!

First Haircut

Not that he was growing an afro or anything but Cubby's hair was getting a bit fly away and out of control. I decided to try to get his hair trimmed today. Shanda and I took him to KOOL KIDZ KUTZ and he did very well.

He stood while driving his TAXI car and Miss Effy trimmed his hair.
Then he decided to sit and drive and she continued to trim away.

We originally tried to put a cape on him but he didn't like it so much cause his arms were trapped and he couldn't drive his TAXI car.

She kept tickling his ears.
I will get an end result picture posted soon, somehow I was just so happy he didn't freak out at the buzz trimmer I forgot to capture the finished product!

Belly Shots

Went to the Dr. today for a normal check up, all looks good.

Baby weighs at least 6 pounds already, I am having some contractions and so I the Dr. checked and I am making slight progress in the "ready to deliver stage"

Don't freak out Mom, I'm not having the baby tomorrow! I was at this stage for 4 weeks with Cubby and nothing happened. Dr. said today, if no baby by 10/10/2007 I will be induced again. Fine with me, I am getting ready to be finished being pregnant.

For Grampy and Grammy

I love my baseball beanbag chair. . . . it's perfect for reading time after I take my bath.

Glad it's vinyl too since I wasn't wearing a diaper!
Here's my new dresser (minus the top that UPS is shipping today) and best of all my cute naked butt.

Micheal-Ryan Pattison : A Cure is Coming . . .

For those of you who follow the progress of Michael-Ryan Pattison, he has a new website I have linked to the right. Check it out. Also, if anyone has anything to donate for his auction on October 8th, 2007 in Washington it would be greatly appreciated.

Playtime with Dane

Saturday night we spent some time over at Mikey and Amanda's house for dinner. The boys had their usual fun and us adults had a good time chatting.

Go to "Anderson Antics" to check out some good pics of the boys.

(One picture of the boys and their sippy cups in combination with my last post makes Carter sound like a floooozy . . . really all he drinks is water and milk.)

Random Pics . . .

Matt, Erin, Carter and I went to California Pizza Kitchen one day for lunch. We were all looking at the menu and Carter wanted mine. I gave him the extra one on the table, it happened to be the drink menu.

He said, "OH WOW" and pointed to a nice tall glass of beer. . . . Hmmmm . . .
Then he decided he would have a couple margaritas.

Really, I promise, this is not due to our influence.

Missing you . . . .

Auntie Erin and Matthew came to visit for a couple days, I miss them already.

It was too short of a trip and so Mommy didn't get many pictures. This is about it.

Old MacDonald . . .

Carter's favorite song that I sing to him is "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" I have been singing it to him since he was born with little reaction except a smile.

The other day I caught him singing the chorus all by himself. Please excuse my HORRIBLE singing, but you can't get ANY better than this little E-I-E-I-O.

Sheeewwschs. . .

I promised some video to my parents of Carter and his increasing vocabulary.

Before daycare on Friday, I told Carter we had to get his shoes on to leave the house. We walked to the stairs where his shoes were waiting. Then all of a sudden, as I was putting his little feet into his tennis shoes, he said "sheeewwschs."

Then Saturday, I said to him lets get your shoes and go outside, he ran to the stairs and sat down, ready for his shoes. Then I caught the following video.

Sounds like his Auntie Erin has rubbed off on him. . .

Another new word . . .

Who knew a calculator could be so "WOW, WOW, WOW."

Of all the toys . . .

Carter insists on playing with the sliding glass door stopper and a rock he found in one of my plants. "Go ahead, spend $$$$$ on toys Mom" - says Carter. Toys that promote so called educational learning, teach him to have hand eye coordination etc . . . but he'd rather just have some lame stick and a rock found laying around the house.

Ultrasounds

Here are some of the latest ultrasounds of our little Tater Tot. His whole body used to fit in one scan, now we just get his face. He looks just like Carter did. This one is from 8-9-2007.
This one was during my weekly monitoring appointment on Thursday. He was looking all around blinking and sticking his tongue out. You can see his right eye in the image above and part of his little face.

Then all of a sudden he pulled his hands up to his face, and closed his eyes. He didn't wake up for the rest of the scan. Hard work being looked at for an hour at a time.

Help

I need a pedicure, but I can't find my feet. Have you seen them?

Duh!

He's faking happy in this picture . . . trust me.

For those of you who think Carter is HAPPY all the time, you won't believe this, but for the realists out there this is for you. The past week or longer Carter has been cranky.... and I mean CRANKY . . . Like throw yourself down on the floor, kick and scream, cry alligator tears, throw toys, hit Mommy, Bite Mommy, Cranky. I thought maybe we were entering a stage of testing us. What do you do? ignore tantrums, timeout, Jeff and I were/are lost. However, last night as he was screaming at me, I noticed a new tooth, almost in on the bottom.

DUH Mommy!

Carter feeding himself . . . sort of.

Almost as cute as Cubby . . .

Can you believe this baby's laugh ? . .

Kitty Chasing

Carter has a new fascination with dragging things behind him as he walks around the house, the cats seem to be enjoying the playtime.

Kool Kawasaki Kid

All Clean . . .

Tonight, Carter decided he'd rather have a shower than a bath. Captured a couple cute pictures of the boys getting . . . "all clean"

I just feel LUCKY . . .

Last night as I was going to bed, I could hear Carter and his little snore over the monitor. I knew he was sleeping peacefully, all tucked into his crib with Snoopy, Leo, Curious George and his baseball jammies on. Smelling like lavender bubble bath, content because Daddy just read him "Goodnight Moon" and "Are you my Mother" - his favorite books right now. Happily dreaming of Legos, Cheerios, watermelon, trucks and cars.

Jeff was snuggled in beside me after a long day at work, exhausted I'm sure, but still with that cute content smile on his face, dreaming away already. Probably smiling because he knows Carter and I adore him and isn't that all we really need in life?

I cuddled in too, baby kicking at my ribs, having to go to the bathroom again but not wanting to haul my ever expanding body out of bed and smiled as I drifted off to sleep, because I realized I am the luckiest woman in the world.

Money - who cares, Fame - why bother. Smiles on the faces of the ones I love at the end of the day. . . . that's priceless.

Party Time

We threw Carter a little baseball party for his birthday. Family and some of Carters little friends came.

Some snacks for the fan club.

Carter's own baseball cake.

Some of the crowd.
The kids all played great together. Carter has a new girlfriend, she is a year older. If he tires of older women, she has a younger sister too.