Lucky Number 8: Where Oh Where Did My Baby Go?

Carson is two you guys. TWO! My baby is not a baby anymore! In fact, he's so big he prefers to drink out of a sippy-less cup. He's so big, he can already talk fluently in full grammatically correct sentences. He's so big, he is already beating up his older brother...

But somehow he's still not big enough to sleep through the night. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Maybe the new quilt I made him for his birthday will help...just like all my other attempts to get him to sleep through the night have helped...

Carson has pretty much the best birthday ever because it's the day after busy season! Which means everyone is excited to see Jeff again, and we're all ready to party! We left town in a quick hurry after Jeff got home from work on Tax Day, and we headed down to our favorite vacation spot -- St. George! We got into St. George super late, but the boys slept great, and slept in so we were all ready for a fun birthday celebration day.

Every morning. Without fail. Carson requests pancakes. I have had to move my pancake griddle from the bottom shelf in my pantry to a higher spot because when the griddle was in sight, Carson would rummage through the pantry to find all the supplies to make pancakes and throw them up on the counter for me to make him his favorite meal. The birthday boy got his favorite breakfast without any grumbling from me for a change on April 16th though. I really decided to spoil him on his big day, so I didn't even make him lug the griddle out for me.

We thought it would be super fun to take the boys swimming. They agreed! They were in their suits lickety split and so excited about our plans that they agreeably posed for a few pictures for me. This is what happened when I said, "Raise your hand if it's your birthday!!"

Here's my favorite Eli quote from the trip. As we were getting ready I said, "Carson! I'm so excited it's your birthday today!"

Eli then chirped in, "But why are you not excited about my birthday?"

Me, "Because it's not your birthday. Today is all about Carson!"

Eli, "But when is it going to be all about me?"

I think Eli quickly figured out that even though the day wasn't all about him, he still got to do all the fun birthday things Carson got to do. So he ended up being okay with it. We started our day at the splash pad which was a big hit.

Carson was ever so timid when we first got there. He would barely dip his toe in. He had to sit and observe for a good ten minutes before venturing away from us. Then he would go and carefully step into the water and race right back to proclaim to us, "I stepped in water!!" Then he would go back in and he had to loop back around to us every time he did something he felt was adventurous.

By the end he was fearlessly splashing, running and exploring, but it took him quite a bit of warming up.

As I was trying to strategically place myself directly in the sun's rays to achieve my only St. George goal -- get a tan -- Jeff reminded me we are total opposites. I stared at him in unbelief as he comfortably sat in his jacket and then placed a towel over his legs while announcing, "Don't want to get the cancers." or something like that. It's alright if I age myself a little bit with sun rays since Jeff is so much older than me. Then I won't have to be a widow for as long later down the road.

Eli loved the fountain part. There were some kids that put their shoes on the fountain so that when the water came up it pushed their shoes up. Eli found that to be VERY entertaining.

Even better than the flying shoes was the spitting toad if you ask Eli.

My most successful brother photo op.

When Eli started getting bored with the water, he noticed this crab made out of car parts. He had to inspect every inch of it.

Then he ran back over to the water and rinsed his bum off really funny. He kept swishing his bum around in the water. It was hilarious.

We came home for naps and then we grilled up some hot dogs for Carson's birthday dinner.

The boys loved playing with their cars out back while Jeff was cooking.

We served Carson's favorite foods. He loves hot dogs, and he is actually a pretty good vegetable eater, so we threw some broccoli into the mix.

Then it was time for presents!

Several months ago we went over to a friend's house who has three girls. Carson found a shopping cart toy there and monopolized it the entire night. He loves filling things up and pushing things around. We decided to try out the shopping cart to see if he would still like toy shopping carts if we owned one.