Merry Christmas!

We've had a busy couple of weeks go by... so lots of pictures. Grandma Linda was busy with craft and cooking projects--she combined them to help Trev make a gingerbread house. He seemed pretty interested in it and helped with it's construction, but once the candy came out he was preoccupied with the eating instead of the decorating. He got a handful and said "I want to put it in my mouth!" and then spent the rest of the time making sure the quality of the different candies were consistent. He almost put one on the house, but changed his mind last minute and in his mouth it went. So John, my mom and I spent the evening decorating it (despite Trevor's claims that he made it).































Our church had a Christmas Eve service that Trevor managed to sit through in it's entirety. We were asked to do the 5th advent candle lighting that evening so Trevor had his first taste of 'mommy and daddy church' (as opposed to the nursery). He did amazingly well--for the entire service and both John and I were very proud. We went out to dinner afterwards and happened to see a man dressed up as Santa stop in to use the facilities. So the rest of the evening Trev was able to describe how he did see Santa and "Santa go pee!".
















Christmas morning was pretty exciting. When I went into Trev's room and told him it was Christmas, he immediately asked "Santa in my house?". When I explained he came when we were sleeping and that sometimes you can here him late at night, Trev agreed that he had heard him and that he heard lots of reindeer too. We went to the living room where the presents from Santa were pushed out in the living room from the tree and Trev exclaimed "that too many!". We opened stockings before breakfast and anything with packaging had to be opened immediately while any piece of candy he saw he stated "I want to eat it". He was pretty patient and waited until after breakfast and after cleaning up breakfast to start opening presents and again was excited by every toy, wanting them open so he can play with them immediately. Every now and then he'd stop to show Ryan presents too.
















































































One of John's toys was a wii fit--Trev wanted to play too--he was most interested in the yoga pose where you hold hour leg up to your knee and a game where you go back and forth to hit soccer balls with your head (he ends the game by falling off the wii pad and saying "ow my head!").















Today is the last full day with the Quigley grandparents and Uncle Sam. They'll be heading out tomorrow afternoonish. And then John will be back to work Monday(he was home last week). So we'll figure out our new 'normal again. And then I'll go back to work in February so we'll have to do it again...

Growing and Growing

Both of them actually. I took Ryan to his three week's wellness check. It's usually done at two weeks, but he had to get his circumcision done closer to two weeks (which I believe is now actually the worst day of his life)so they pushed it out to around the three week mark.

So the three wee growth stats are...

Weight: 9.25lbs (about 50th percentile)
Length: 22inches (about 75th percentile)
Head Circumference: 15.5inches (close to 90th percentile)















Trev isn't quite so regularly measured, but is now able to reach light switches without help all of the sudden. Not that he wasn't able to work them before, he just would put a block underneath to stand on. So we're not all sitting in the dark right now due to his new found ability.

Here's some cute pictures of the boys. I managed to find a time when both Ryan was awake and Trevor was willing to hold still for the camera...

Thanksgiving Turkeys

We've passed two weeks of being a family of four. We're continuing to adjust--John and I to the lack of consistent sleep and insane amount of diapers, Trevor to the baby that seems to be staying a while, and Ryan to the whole being outside of the womb with all that variation of temperature. Trev is turning out to be a great big brother--he got pretty tired of hearing "careful" at first, but now seems to get what he can and can't do for the most part. Every morning he looks for his baby and plays tickle and kissy game with him during the day. He's good at letting us know when to put the baby down (and will even point out the specific location). And he's very aware of Ryan's pacifier and helps in both suggesting when Ryan might want it and in helping us find one. Here's a video that I took Thanksgiving morning. Trev and I were up making cranberry muffins and Ryan was hanging out nearby.



Trev was helping make Ryan 'feel better' and was pretty excited when he'd do something that worked. Then by the time I was taking the video he thought that the pacifier game was pretty funny and once Ryan took it Trev was going to try to take it back so he could give it to him again.

Here's some more Thanksgiving pictures...















Grandma and Trevor making turkey place cards for dinner
















Finished product
















Thanksgiving morning
















Grandpa and Ryan watching football
















Trevor and Grandma rough housing

And Then There Were Two

Ryan Steven Carter was born November 20th, 8:49 am. Everything turned out fine and we were able to bring him home on the 21st. The measurements were 8lb 7.4oz; 19.5 inches long; 15.25 inches head. We just went to see the doctor for a check up today and he measured 21 inches; so the first measurement seemed a bit off because he'd didn't grow a whole inch and a half in less than a week. He looks very different than his brother--I had a hard time picturing a non-Trevor looking baby, but he's definitely his separate self. He has a whole bunch of hair that's thick, dark and slightly curly and blue eyes for now.


















































Trevor is not sure about this whole big brother thing quite yet. He's become very good at strokes and soft touches and likes to visit with his brother for short amounts of time. Every morning and after nap the first thing he asks is "where's my baby?". I guess the nurses got a kick out of him in the maternity wing--he was super chatty and very diligent about washing his hands (that is a very admirable trait to them).































The grandparents are here and very helpful so both boys can get a bit more attention and I can get a bit more sleep. I'm still very boring now as I am not supposed to lift more than 10 pounds for a month and a half or so. I think Trev is sick of the phrases "careful" and "watch out!". He's got plenty of baking and decorating plans made with grandma and grandpa is able to get some extra throwing around time in with him; despite that he has now announced that "I no like football!".

Last Hoorah for Three

John had a conference in LA this week, and I was officially off work so Trev and I got to tag along. It worked out pretty well. I was (as always) worried about nap times, but Trevor managed to sleep in the car going down and back just fine. It was actually harder in the hotel because of the big window and all the airplanes flying by (we were near the airport). But I'm probably way more interested in napping than anyone reading this, so...

We went to Santa Monica the first day--going down the pier and to the beach. Trevor liked the beach and found the birds eerily not scared of him. When he'd get really close I don't think he quite knew what to do. We took him on the ferris wheel, which was very exciting--seemed like the down trips were the most fun. And he liked looking at the ocean at a safe distance.





































On our last day we went over to Venice Beach for the morning where the ocean was a little more scary. John took him out closer to the waves and one managed to touch his feet so he started crying and running back to me farther up. John was not able to lure him back closer to the water; even with the promise of mud and sand castles. When he was looking at the pictures today he was still referring to the 'scary ocean' and how it 'comes to get him'. Maybe next year.

We're planning on having the baby this Thursday sometime, so we're gearing up for it. I plan to accomplish an amazing amount of things on Monday. So we'll see. I think technically if we had a baby to bring home now it would be just fine; but I would like the house to be a little more pretty. We're still telling Trevor stories about bringing his baby brother home and the latest was in the car explaining how baby brother will sit next to him in the backseat. So he was agreeing and pointing to where the car seat would go and then adds "baby don't talk though". So we agreed that babies indeed do not talk. And then he added "I show baby how to talk". It was pretty cute.

Happy Halloween!

Trevor ended up having two Halloween days--one at daycare the day before and then one on Halloween. I was in Apple Valley and didn't get to go to the daycare event but John got to go over and help out and play along a bit. From his description it seemed like a pretty serious affair with lots of time spent looking in the candy bag to see what was there. When I saw him at home he was pretty excited to tell about getting candy from doors and his friend wearing a hat (John explained she was a witch).



























John took video too... at the beginning he's commenting on the doors that don't have candy, then he hears airplanes (they hear them a lot since the daycare is on base), then he's correcting one of the teachers that he's not a dragon, he's a dinosaur (which seems obvious, I don't know what she was thinking).



Halloween at home actually took a bit of convincing in getting him to trick or treat at home. We put the costume on and I told him that we were going to say trick or treat to houses and they'd give him candy. He was pretty insistant that there was candy in the bowl (that we were passing out)and we should get it from there instead. Which, technically I guess that would be the easier way over all. But he went along with doing it the hard way anyways. He'd say "trick or treat" before the door opened, but that was about it. A few people asked him if he could say trick or treat and he said "yes". He appreciated the Halloween decorations people had outside and talked a lot about one of our neighbor's "scarey windows". And of course, the candy was good.

Pumpkin Time

We went to the pumpkin farm (ie. Murray Farms in Bakersfield) to do all their Halloween activities again this year. Trevor is so good on drives--it was about an hour and a half/two hours to get there and he reads, talks and sings the whole way there. Trev and I took a picture in front of their pumpkin height thing. We did this last year too, and I think I was more aware of the pumpkin picture at the time. This year I seem to be covering up most of it. If you click on "2007" on the blog archive section to the right and scroll about halfway down to a last October you can see he's grown about a half foot according to the scientific pumpkin ruler.




















They had a spider maze to go through and took some pictures...



















John was very diligent about finding the 'spider facts'. Some were pretty disappointing, like the most common spider found in your home is the 'house spider'.















Trevor surveying the land on top of the hay stack (the big ball and string are supposed to make up a black widow)

And here's a video--the music in the background was being played in the maze area--seemed to go well with the 'Daddy Chase'. Towards the end he was doing his little groove walk too--sort of dancing and walking at the same time.




There was a tractor ride out into the pumpkin patch were we got to pick out a pumpkin each. Later this week we can change them into "scary pumpkins"

































And the finale was the petting zoo. Trevor is super brave now with the wildlife. He seemed most interested in the chickens since they made the most noise, but also followed some goats around a while too.














It must have been an energy burning morning because he ate an entire cheese burger at in-and-out and a whole bunch of fries. I think that's going to be the conclusion of the out of town fall trips for this year. Next weekend Halloween activities start, so I should really finish his costume. And I should figure out a way to get him to want to wear it too...

On the baby front--we still haven't completely decided on a name quite yet. But we still have six weeks, so there's time left. I had an ultrasound on Friday and everything looks good, but not quite like the little picture of the baby on the side of the blog--this guy is still head up. Not too big of a deal though since he's not coming out the more traditional way. I'm supposed to schedule the surgery date this Monday and am hoping for the 21st of November.

Dinosaur in training and fun fair

As some of you know, I'm venturing into using a sewing machine AND a pattern this month to try to make Trevor a dinosaur costume. So if everything works out he better still like dinosaurs, not grow too much in the next month, and wear the costume happily. If it doesn't work out, he'll have to develop a new interest in blue mummies, or maybe ghosts...

Here's some pictures of dinosaur practice.



































Here's some pictures from the family fun fair. The boyscout area was definately the coolest with the 'big tent' and rocket making booths.