Doctor, Doctor

Taking two kids to the doctor all by myself this morning was super fun. Let me tell you. Between Eli's nonstop attempts to run out the door and Carson being woken up right after he dozed off, I had two very happy boys on my hands. Not.

Eli's so funny at the doctor. Ever since he was about 9-months old, he sits perfectly still while the doctor looks at him. The only thing he'll move are his eyes to intently track each move the doctor makes. It sends me into hysterical laughter every time.

Today the doctor was asking Eli his body parts. True to Eli's motionless-during-the-exam personality, Eli only slightly wiggled whatever body part the doctor asked him to point to.

Doctor: "Eli, can you show me where your toes are?!?"
Eli hesitantly wiggled his big toe while keeping his eyes glued to the doctor.
Doctor: "Eli, where is your tummy?"
Eli, while fighting back a smile, glanced down at his stomach for half of a second and then continued in his stare down.
Doctor: "Eli, do you know where your eyes are?"
Eli then did my favorite thing he does right now. He consciously blinked his eyes. Which involves his eyes staying closed for an unnatural amount of time and then when he opens his eyes, all you see are the whites of his eyes because he's rolling his eyes around in his head like so:

 

Eli freaked the doctor out with his zombie impersonating. I freaked the doctor out with my overreactive laughter. Luckily Carson kept his cool and made a pretty decent impression. Thanks for giving us a good name, Carson.

Anyway, the real reason for this post was to document the kiddos' stats. Here are Eli's two-year stats:
Weight - 30 pounds - 75%
Height - 34.5 inches - 46%
BMI - 17.96 - 83%
Head Circumference - 19.25 - 53%

Here are Carson's 2-month stats:
Weight - 13 pounds 11 ounces - 80%
Height - 24 inches - 75%
Head Circumference - 16.5 - 83%

The doctor gave me tips on potty training Eli -- including putting him on the toilet backwards and lots of Skittles. Sounds fool proof to me. Talking to the doctor gave me a surge of toilet training energy. I've suddenly found myself on the verge of buying a few potty training books for Eli to prep him for his next milestone.

(Cue inspirational potty training success stories, reassurance and encouragement.

Guest Room Remodel

Through a series of small miracles, we've started putting together our guest bedroom. To be honest, I didn't really think our "guest bedroom" would really ever have more than an air mattress in it. Then my mom happened to be trying to rid her basement of a double bed and with my sister's recent move we also happened to have access to a moving truck to haul the bed up to our house. With a mattress in the room and guests planning on using it over Carson's blessing weekend, I found a super cute bedspread that arrived just in the nick of time. Then as soon as the bedspread was on the bed, my mind started racing with decorating ideas.

So there you have it. The background to our spontaneous remodel. These first two are the befores.

Jeff is so good at capturing my design visions and carrying them out for me. He's quite the handyman.

Jeff was a champ and got this whole project done in one day.

The finished product! I love, love, love it! This room is really small so I had a hard time getting a good picture to capture the beautifulness of it, but here are my attempts:

(We're going to paint the other walls grey. Another project for another day. We're also debating adding a ledge or more of a finish to the top of the white part. Yes? No?)

Jeff's also slowly working on the bathroom attached to this room. Pretty soon we'll be running the Excell Hotel. Hey. That kinda has a ring to it.

Did He Just Say...?

We're entering the fun phase of parenting that leaves us staring in shock at our once innocent child who now utters sentences that make me and Jeff exclaim in confusion, "Did he just say what I think he said?!?"

The answer is usually yes. Yes he did just say that word we say all the time that suddenly sounds a lot worse when it's coming out of a two-year old's mouth.

And yes. I guess I do occasionally say "holy crap." So fine, Jeff. I'll take the blame for that one. Like I said, it's a lot worse when a toddler begins to parrot your bad habits.

Then there was the incident this morning when I went into his room to get him out of bed and as soon as he saw me he said, "No mama! You're buggin' me Mama! Want Dada." This continued for the whole first hour of our morning.

And last week we went to D.I. where a 35-40 year old, brown haired woman checked us out. Eli had found a huge dump truck he was pretty excited about. When the cashier handed the truck back to Eli, he proudly exclaimed, "THANKS GRANDMA!"

"Grandma" looked at me in disgust. I looked at the floor. Eli caressed his new dump truck. We remained awkward and silent while waiting for the receipt to print. I had never noticed before, but D.I. does not have the quickest receipt printers.

Or there was the time I was emptying the grass bag on the lawn mower and Eli said, "Change lawn mower diaper."

Last night I was rambling to Jeff something like, "Does it seem like there's a type of mom who has all boys? Am I that type of mom and I just don't realize it?" Moment of silence as Jeff tries to come up with a way to tactfully tell me I am an all boys kinda mom.
Eli: "Yes."

I'm dreading the embarrassment that's sure to follow Eli's recent skill of stringing words together. But mostly I'm enjoying seeing his little mind put things together.

Two Months Old

Carson is a two-month old! Time is flying. Here are a few things about Carson:

• His schedule is getting a little more predictable and he's finally starting to take a couple longer naps during the day. 
• He spits up a ton, but he makes up for it with his smiles. He is such a smiley boy. 
• He's been sleeping a good 5-7 hour chunk each night.
• He didn't make a peep in the car when we went on our trip to Cedar City.
• He loves to watch Eli. Eli can get the biggest smiles out of him. 
• He loves baths now and is starting to splash.
• He is happiest when he first wakes up in the morning. He smiles and coos for the first hour he's awake every morning...even if it's at 5:00 am that he decides to be up for the day.
• He loves to be swaddled but is still undecided about his binky.
• He just started wearing size 2 diapers and 3-6 month clothes.
• He wakes up very easily and as soon as he's awake, he's wide awake. The nurses at the hospital actually commented on how funny it was that he'd be dead asleep and then suddenly be wide awake and ready to eat in the blink of an eye. I didn't really understand what they meant at the time, but now that I've watched him more I've noticed how immediately alert he is after being asleep.
• He can usually only handle about an hour of awake time and then he starts getting crabby and wants to be swaddled and put back to sleep.
• His build is not quite as tank-ish as Eli's so we predict Carson will be our tall, skinny boy.
• He rolled from his belly to his back one time at six weeks old but I'm still counting it even if it only happened because he lost balance.
• A certain father who shall not be named thought Carson needed to have a tiny taste of pickle juice last week. Carson was not a fan. And neither was I.

Carson is a joy! It's fun to already see the differences and similarities between him and Eli. I love watching him grow into a chubby, cuddly, interactive little baby.

A Luau, Fireworks and a Father

We missed the Excell Family Luau last year. We weren't dumb enough to make that mistake again. We trekked down to Cedar City for Carson's first visit to Grandma and Grandpa Excell's house. When we got there, pineapple, watermelon, teriyaki chicken, rice and a tiki bar were all there to greet us.

Bryan and Celeste manned the tiki bar.

Bryan tried to teach me how to hang loose...

But I never could quite master the chill surfer persona that should accompany a hang loose gesture. Instead, my awkwardness prevailed yet again.

If there's one surefire way to throw Eli into a tizzy these days, it's to mention the word "sticker." I'm not talking about the arts and craftsy kind of stickers. I'm talking about the sticky weeds that seem to be overtaking Cedar City. Eli had a little sticker mishap moments before this picture was taken -- meaning he fell in a sticker patch, leaving him screaming and in shock with the palms of his hands covered in stickers. And let's not remind him that it happened twice in a ten minute time frame. Poor kid.

I love this picture of David and Mary. They sure know how to throw a party!

After dinner, Mary had us watch a video of tribal-like stick banging and we all tried to follow along.

Then came the part where we learned that Eli turns into a LUNATIC after 10:00 pm. We went to watch fireworks for the Utah Summer Games Opening Ceremonies which resulted in keeping Eli up way past his 8:00 bedtime. Oh. My. Word. I have never seen him so crazy. He was shaking chain-link fences, running in circles and darting straight for the busy street all the while laughing hysterically.

The only time we could get him to stay by us for a few minutes was when Laura and Bryan started dancing to music on their phones. Eli couldn't resist showing off a few of his moves and I couldn't resist posting the video footage even though it's dark and probably impossible to see:

It's a good thing Mary offered to hold Carson for the evening because chasing Eli ended up being a two-man job.

 

The fireworks finally started and Eli was mesmerized.

This was our first trip with two kids and our first trip since switching Eli to a toddler bed. I was convinced Eli would never fall asleep in a different bed and had prepared myself for very long sleepless nights and days without naps this trip.

With all the firework excitement, Eli fell asleep mere seconds after Jeff put him to bed. He slept perfectly and I was completely shocked. After seeing how easy it was to put him to bed when he was completely exhausted, we decided to take him to a park the next day to help wear him out before his afternoon nap. It worked like a charm.

Friday evening we roasted s'mores and chatted around the fire.

On Saturday we had a lazy day that turned into the boys going out to work on their cars. Excuse the redundancy of these pictures, but Eli was so funny following the guys around trying to do everything they were doing that I had to include all these pictures.

After the headlight deep clean, Jeff took Eli on his first four-wheeler ride. Eli was not as excited as we had expected him to be. He was completely emotionless the entire ride.

But when he came back, he hopped on the other four-wheeler and pretended to drive so I think he enjoyed his ride.

Then Bryan got the tractor going to clear away the sticker bushes while David taught Eli how to use a leaf blower. Such a manly afternoon.

Carson slept the majority of his first visit to Grandma and Grandpa's house.

We went to lunch at an awesome little sandwich place. It is awesome because it has a play area for the kiddos so the adults can dine in peace. And a peaceful lunch it was indeed.

Today we're celebrating Father's Day back home with our traditional treat -- doughnuts!

Here's the inevitable Father's Day sappy part: Jeff amazes me daily with what a great dad he is. I have been reading a lot of parenting tips lately and Jeff always seems to instinctively do the things the child experts suggest doing. He's a natural! He is so loving, patient, playful, gentle, understanding and happy with our kids. I'm grateful for the great example he is to my boys. We're lucky to have him. I wasn't kidding when I said I donette know what I'd do without him.

Little White Suit

Last Sunday was Carson's blessing. We had oodles of family come into town to show their love. The fun began Friday night when the Cox Family arrived to spend a couple days with us. Poor Kaelynn is the only granddaughter on that side. The good part about that is, she got a lot of baby holding time...

while the boys were off swinging golf clubs, stabbing each other with swords and playing video games. Boys. Gotta love 'em.

Okay, so Kaelynn did join in on the video games. Way to represent, Kaelynn!

Carson is getting more social and more fat rolls and more adorable every day. It seemed like he had about twelve growth spurts in the last week. It's a miracle he fit into his blessing outfit.

Mary is the baby charmer. She could get Carson to sleep in no time! I don't know how she does it.

On Saturday we were feeling cooped up in the house so we lugged the kids over to a park to release a little bit of their energy.

My brother Abe always makes fun of Eli's "jump" from this video I posted a while ago. I recently informed Abe that Eli's little feet have finally managed to get off the ground when he jumps. See, check out this air:

It was very windy, so Eli was taking cover under a slide when he found this little gem. It looked like an exact replica of the doll from Toy Story that Sid deforms. Eli loved it. Also keep in mind, Eli had been hitting his cousin Coleman for the past two days, but he was gently patting this baby on the back, hugging and kissing it. Eli will forever be a mystery to me.

In no time it was Sunday morning and I was frantically pacing the house to make sure everything was in order for the big blessing day. The last order of business before going to church -- getting the little mister in his white garb.

My pacing included setting the chairs up in semi-circles and making the men tilt the trampoline against our house. I was made fun of for both of these decisions.

I was not made fun of for serving one our family's most favorite meals these days -- BBQ Pork Cilantro Salad. Y-U-M!

And we all made fun of ourselves for eating dessert first, but when Nani busted out her famous tuxedo brownies, we couldn't help ourselves.

We took our coffee table outside to open up our living room a little bit and to encourage the kids to eat outside. It was an excellent decision. And look at the cute picture it provided:

My friends Melissa and Kenz came with delicious desserts. Carson spit up right before this picture and I think the sight of that was enough to make them not want kids for a while. It's not as gross when it's your own, I promise!

We were able to sneak away so we could snap our first real family picture. I love Jeff and Eli in this one:

To my surprise we got a somewhat decent one. Props to Kenz for mentioning Elmo so Eli would look at the camera!

The women in Carson's life.

After many people telling me how awkward my semi-circles were, my guests took the liberty to rearrange the chairs. Note to self: arrange in one big circle next time.

Three generations of Davids. One David in particular being a little bit of a goofball. I'll let you decide which one.

Eli couldn't pass up the Kodak moment.

Jeff gave a beautiful blessing. Carson cried through the whole thing but weirdly no one except the men in the circle heard him crying.

It was only appropriate for my mothering coach to attend Carson's blessing. Whenever I have a child rearing question, I text or call my sister no matter what hour of the day it is. She's very well read and well trained on the topic.

My sweet Grandma came. She assured me it was a good party because, "Everyone was quiet when they ate their food which means the food was good, and everyone lingered which means they had a good time." Words of wisdom and a very kind compliment.

Grandma and Grandpa Thomas with their ninth grandchild.

Celeste, Bryan, Laura and Mary.

My mom claims Eli get his mischievousness from me, but I think David and Mary are right when they say Eli gets it from Jeff.

Carson's Great Grandma and Grandpa Ward:

Jacob and Laurie. Jacob made us reschedule the blessing just for him. He's lucky he's worth it.

It was a fun day to celebrate our darling little boy. We're grateful he's a part of our family and we're glad so many people were able to come see him be blessed.