Christmas Vacation Part II

Weston's birthday was on the 27th, so we were able to celebrate it in Vegas. My cousin's wife has hook ups at the Stratosphere so we got to go up and ride all the rides for free! Even my mom (who is deathly afraid of heights) went.

Later that night, Weston and I got to leave the kids with Nana and Papa and go on a date! My parents got us tickets to go see Phantom of the Opera at the Venitian. It was SO GOOD and it was super nice to have a night out just the two of us. We also got some greasy pizza and deliciously overpriced gelato. Yum!

Weston snuck a picture of the theater at Phantom. It was incredible!

Sadly, we had to come home yesterday :( and Jackson has been super whiney ever since. Every now and then he will say, "Go back Nana Papa's house!" He always misses the attention he gets when we leave grandma and grandpa's.

I apologize for the crappy phone pictures. It's just so much more conveniant to use the phones now instead of carrying a camera!

Christmas Vacation

Merry Christmas! We are in Vegas celebrating with my parents, and we have been having a blast. The first night we were here, we went to a live nativity that a super hard-core stake here in Vegas puts on. They did a fantastic job! The costumes and set were amazing!

Jackson loved petting the sheep, goats, and donkey before and seeing Baby Jesus afterwards.
My brother drives a huge semi truck, and Jackson got to sit in it and honk the horn. I'm pretty sure that was the best moment of his life.

We took Jackson to the mall to see Santa because he has been wanting to "ask Santa Francesco" for weeks now. After waiting in line for about 40 minutes, he refused to sit on Santa's lap, but he struck a deal with him from the comfort of Mama's arms :)

Jackson is a lover of water so I thought he would think the Bellagio fountains were the coolest thing ever. Boy was I wrong! He was scared to death of the loud boom they make. This is pretty much how he felt about the whole experience...

There is a free carousel at one of the outdoor shopping malls here which he liked a little more :)

This was such a fun Christmas because Jackson was SO excited about everything. When he woke up this morning Weston asked what day it was and the first thing Jackson said was, "open presents!" haha what a funny kid :)

He was so excited when he opened one of his presents this morning and found that Santa had kept his end of the bargain and brought him a Francesco!
This is how Carter spent most of the morning...

More fun to come so stay tuned!!

Jackson-isms

Jackson is a talkin' machine lately. He pretty much never stops from the time he wakes up in the morning to the time he goes to bed at night. As you can imagine, there are some pretty funny things that come out of that kid's mouth!

- Whenever Weston goes into the bathroom, Jackson runs back to the door shouting, "WESTON!" Apparently, I have yelled at Weston to get out of the shower one too many times :)

-Whenever Carter starts crying Jackson runs over to him and says, "Ohhh baby brother! Baby needs plug!" and he tries to put his binkie in his mouth

- When Jackson feels like he needs some attention and I'm holding the baby he says, "Put baby swing!" One day I think he got a little frustrated and he said "Put baby trash!" If he didn't love his brother so much this would have worried me a little bit

-Yesterday we went to get Weston from school and the whole way there he kept saying this like, "I see the moon baby!" "We're going to get Daddy baby brother!" "Look its a truck baby!" These two boys are going to be such good friends :)

- When Weston is watching tv Jackson will sit next to him and say, "I want to watch football daddy!" Atta boy!

- A phrase I hear frequently throughout my day is, "What happened?!"

- When Jackson doesn't want to go to bed, he lays by his door and yells, "Snuggle mama!" or "Snuggle dada!" Little manipulator :)

-If you ask Jackson "What does mama say?" he will answer, "Mama says no whining!" haha yes I do say that quite often.

He is at such a fun age! I love hearing the things that come out of his little mouth :)

1 Month!

How on earth did this happen? Carter is already 1 month old! I can't believe how fast this month has gone. I swear we just brought him home from the hospital.

Carter is seriously the best baby on this planet. The only time he all-out cries is when he has a bubble in his tummy and needs a burp. Other than that, we hardly hear a peep. Even at night, he doesn't cry when he wakes up. He just wimpers and grunts to let me know he's hungry. He is only waking up twice a night and he goes right back down after I feed and change him. How in the world did I get so lucky?? At his two week appointment he weighed 7 lbs 1 oz and was 19.5 inches long. He is now weighing in at 8.4 lbs on our scale so he's definitely a growing boy.

We love our little Carter Bug and we already can't imagine life with out him. He is the perfect little addition to our family.

P.S. I "unprivatized" my blog in hopes that it will help me be more motivated to post more often.

Carter Weston Caywood

I want to write down Carter's birth story before I forget all the details :)
It kind of all started in the few days before he was born. I was SO crampy and while I was at my appointment on Thursday I almost passed out (story of my pregnancy) and then just felt yucky for the rest of the day. On Friday I actually did pass out at home (seriously don't know what's wrong with me) so when I started having contractions that night around 8:30 and they lasted a couple hours I called my doctor and he told me to come to the hospital so they could monitor the baby. I really didn't want them to send me home so I asked if I could wait until the contractions got more intense, but he told me he wanted me to come in right away.
I left by myself so we wouldn't have to call a babysitter for Jackson until we knew for sure that I was staying. I got to the hospital around 11:00 and the nurse checked my cervix at 11:30 and I was dilated to a 3. I was a 2 at my appointment the day before so my doctor told me I was staying and having the baby! The nurse said I could have my epidural whenever I wanted and I told her the sooner the better (I don't have a very high threshhold for pain). I called Weston while I was waiting for the epidural and he called our aweseom friends over to watch Jackson and came to the hospital.
I think my doctor was super tired and didn't want to come in until the morning because he told the nurse not to give me Pitocin or break my water. Which was fine because my epidural did it's job and I slept for about 3 hours until the nurse checked me again at 3 am. I was dilated to a 6 at this point, which was great!
My doctor came in around 5:30 and when he checked me I was at a 9.5. He said he had a couple other patients to check in on but he would be back in 15 minutes. Well, 15 minutes turned into an hour and let me tell you if I hadn't had my epidural I would have been cursing his name! I could feel a lot of pressure down there and I knew if I wasn't all numbed up it would have been really hard not to push.
When he came back I was at a 10 but my water still hadn't broke. He broke my water and we did a practice push. I guess when I pushed the baby started crowning because he said, "ok stop stop!" and told the nurse to call all the other "helpers" in. I ended up pushing through three contractions and baby Carter was here!
They layed him on my stomach to clean him up and Weston cut the cord. They took him to weigh him and do his Apgar test then brought him back and we got to keep him for about a half hour until they took him to the nursery.
It was, seriously, such a great experience. I have the best doctor and I had great labor and delivery nurses. The hospital I delivered (both kids) at is the only one in the state where the nurses only have one patient so they are there with you the entire time giving you 100% of their attention. It's fantastic! I almost want to stay in Houston so I can have all my kids there!
Anyway, my recovery this time around has been super speedy. I was pretty much feeling back to normal before I even left the hospital. Being home has been fantastic. Carter is such an easy baby. He hardly ever cries and he is sleeping great. Jackson has been adjusting very well. He loves his "baby bwudow." Last night he came and sat by me on the couch while I was holding Carter and was giving him kisses and holding his hand. When the baby sneezed, Jackson thought it was the funniest thing ever. It was the cutest thing ever to see Jackson loving his brother so much!

Dear Jackson,

Today, you are two years old! We really can't believe that you are no longer our little baby. You are growing up so fast!

You are learning new things every day, and we are always amazed at how much how understand. You are such a vivacious and fun little boy with such a happy disposition. There is never a dull moment with you, and you find a new way to make us laugh everyday. Your smile is contagious. At times, you can be pretty stubborn, and you have so much energy that it's hard to keep up with you, but we really are loving this stage of your life.

Some things about you at 2 years old:
You love cars and trucks. Oh man, do you LOVE toy cars and trucks! It's bordering on obsession, really :)
You are really good at playing by yourself and keeping yourself entertained. Mommy really appreciates this
You do not like riding in carts at the stores. You would rather be walking by the cart (or running around the store). Mommy does not appreciate this so much.
"Cars" is your favorite movie (also bordering on obsession) and you would watch it 10 times a day if we would let you!
Sharing isn't your strong suit, but you are very social and love being around other kids
You love being outside and we really wish we had a backyard for you to run around in
You are so smart and catch onto things so fast. Right now we are working on counting (so far you can count to three...sometimes five), shapes, letters, and colors. Your memory is amazing! I will sometimes find you in your room "reading" books to yourself and you know the stories!

We are so grateful to be your parents. You have brought such joy into our lives and we really can't imagine our family with out you in it. We hope that you will always be so happy and fun!

We love you so much little man! Happy 2nd birthday :)

Love,

Mommy and Daddy

San Antonio: 2011

Yeah yeah, four months later and I'm finally posting on this blog. I have been a lot better at posting on my other blog, so if you need to know I'm alive just check there :o)

Anyway, we just went on a fun family weekend getaway to San Antonio and I wanted to put some pictures up here.

We got to San Antonio around 3:00 on Friday afternoon. Jackson was SO good for the 3.5 hour drive there (and back today). We headed to the Riverwalk for some dinner about an hour later. We ate at Rita's on the River, a delicious Tex Mex place. It was so pretty and had such a fun atmosphere. We got to sit right by the river--and I mean RIGHT BY THE RIVER! We even made some new friends!

Jackson had a blast watching the boats and feeding the fish and ducks

Happy camper eating his chips, salsa, and rice.

Ater dinner we walked around for a bit. I just love the Riverwalk. It's so pretty! I just wish it wasn't so hot and I wasn't so pregnant on this day so we could have stayed longer.

Typical Texas

We remembered the Alamo.

Jackson loved to help push the stroller.

On Saturday, we spent a marathon 12-hour day at SeaWorld! On the way in, Jackson thew a fit because he couldn't wait to get to the water I had been telling him about. There was a fountain just inside the entrance that he thought he was going to get to play in , and when we walked by it he freaked out. He finally calmed down when he saw what we were really going to play in. We didn't really get any pictures, but they had this Sesame Street themed play area with water shooting everywhere. It was super fun and Jackson thoroughly enjoyed himself.
We spent the rest of the day watching shows, looking at animals, and eating yummy food!

Jackson didn't quite know what to think of this guy. He did give him a high-five though.

He did so well waiting for the shows to start. He was so enthralled with all the animals!

If this isn't a look of pure joy, I don't know what is.

What a great weekend! Now, we get to look forward to going to Utah in about 6 more weeks :o) Yay for vacations!