Carter is One!!

Okay so I'm super late putting this up but life is busy and he is napping so I'm doing it now.
I can't believe Carter is One already!  His birthday was on a Wednesday so we said happy birthday gave him some chocolate milk and sang.  Then the real celebrations were on Saturday and Sunday.

 

Saturday we had a party for Carter at our place with Graydon's side of the family.  They all came and Carter loved the attention.   We opened presents first so that he wasn't so messy. He thought it was fun but was done with getting clothes.  We got him this Dinosaur popper toy and he was really excited for that. 

Kayla's Birthday

 

Some how my baby girl turned four this September!  She is such a big girl!  Kayla knows what she wants and is pretty good at figuring out how to get it.  She loves her baby brother and loves to make him laugh!

We had a party for her birthday and it was the perfect day!  My brother surprised us and showed up from Cedar City and I was so happy!  Kayla said Uncle Bryan made the trip just for her.

 I got brave and made Kayla a cake and decorated it myself.  Kayla picked the theme which of course was her favorite color pink and princesses.  It turned out pretty good if I do say so myself.

 Next was presents.  Kayla was so funny this year and had it planned out who was going to get her what.  She asked Grandma for a pillow pet, Baba for pajamas and the rest she didn't really care as long as they gave her a present.

 Her reactions were wonderful and she got very excited for everything!

 Kayla loved being the center of attention and she is already planning her next birthday.

Carter's First Haircut and 11 months!!!

So I have been really behind in keeping up with my blog so I am playing catch up now.  I gave Carter his first hair cut back in August.  It doesn't look like he had much hair but it is very very blonde and it was like 4 inches long in places.  So the first picture is him before he has seen the clippers or heard them.

 This one is when I have turned them on and he is now concerned and would not stop staring at them.

 And now you can see what happened when I came near him with them and started the hair cut.  He did not enjoy it.  It was a struggle to get it done and not miss any pieces but I got it done.  I was very happy with his hair afterwards and it's growing in a lot thinker now.

 So Carter is now 11 months old!  I really don't know how that happened.  He is happy as ever and moving around more.  He can walk very slowly and for not too big of distances but he is starting to choose walking over crawling more.  He now has 6 teeth!  All four of the top front are in and two on the bottom.  He loves to play hide and seek with Kayla and always gives away their hiding spot.  He loves to eat dirt!  I have to watch him like a hawk outside or I will find him covered in it!  He loves eating what we are eating and is getting so big!  He's now just over 20lbs! 

Carter is 10 months!

I know I say this so much but holy cow how time flies!  Carter is 100% back to his old self after surgery!  I am so glad to have that behind us and to look forward to the future.  Carter has started refusing baby food and only wants table food.  He is such a good eater now and can gum a lot of food.  He has 4 teeth now and two about ready to burst through.  He LOVES to be outside and if he is sad going outside will always get a smile on his face.  Cars and moving things are his favorite if you don't count dirt.  He loves driving those car shopping carts around when I go grocery shopping.  (He really grabs the wheel and moves it around like he's driving.)  Carter has turned into a climber!  He loves to go up stairs not so much down, and has even figured out how to climb on Kayla's bed.  So he can't be alone in their room anymore because he loves to play on her bed.  He loves to talk and give kisses and wave at most people.  He just puts smiles on everyone's face.  He went to the doctor for his 9month appointment really late because of the surgery so I have stats!

Weight: 19 lbs  he lost weight because of his surgery so no worries.
Height: 29.5 inches 85th percentile!  Tall and skinny, sound like anyone?

Carter's Surgery

Carter had a soft palate cleft that was discovered at birth.  It made for a whirlwind of a couple first days with him.  Well when he was two weeks old we set the date for his surgery to have it repaired, August 17th.  That date was burned into my brain and I wanted 9 months for that date to arrive.  I became more and more anxious the closer it got.  About two weeks before surgery Carter got an ear infection.  Then just a week before I noticed him pulling on the other ear and the ear infection had become a double ear infection.  I was really nervous that they would reschedule the surgery and I knew I couldn't handle that emotionally.  Luckily they said that we could go ahead with the surgery and plans stayed in tacked.

August 17th....
The night before had been long since I could not sleep.  We headed to the hospital at 7:45am to be there by 8:30.  We got checked in and Carter got checked out and changed for his surgery.  We then waited and waited as they were behind(of course) but Carter was a trooper!  Having not eating since 5 that morning with just juice he was stellar.

10:30 rolled around and the anesthesiologist came and introduced himself and took Carter back to surgery.  He didn't even cry and was super calm. Then we were off to the waiting room.  They told us it would be an hour and a half to two hours.  We decided to go to lunch and they would page us if news came.  We came back and not 5 minutes later the nurse from the OR called and said they were finishing up and Carter had done great.  He didn't even cry when they gave him the gas to put him to sleep.  Then shortly after that call the doctor came out to talk to us.  Everything had gone smoothly and it was a narrow cleft.  It was a simple procedure for him.  I then had to wait till they called me back to recovery.  This was the longest 40 minutes of my life!

Recovery.....

When I went back to recovery a nurse was holding him and he was back asleep.  They said he was not happy when he wasn't being held and really calm when being held.  I was more than happy to take him and hold him.  It was probable the saddest looking thing ever. 

They had put in a tongue stitch.  The stitch held his tongue forward so he wouldn't swallow it because of the anesthesia.   Then we got to go up to his room where we would be trying to get him to a point where he would go home.  The nurses where all super nice and I love Primary Children's Hospital because of all the extras they have for these little ones and there families.  Once in the room we made a plan to get on top of his pain and gave him some morphine.  This would be his main pain killer this day because he didn't want to eat and loratab makes empty tummies upset.
 
 August 18th....

The night wasn't too bad and he only woke up a couple times.  The next morning the doctor came up to see him and removed his tongue stitch.  Then Carter ate!  He wouldn't drink for us but he was ready to eat!  He also wanted to play which was hard with his moniter line and IV attached but it was good to see.

  We slowly got him off of the morphine and switched him to loratab. 

August 19th....

That night his IV started to leak and clotted so they had to put in a new one and Carter wasn't happy.  He continued to eat but not drink anything so an IV was important.  The next day his IV clotted again so we decided to give him 3 hours.  If he didn't drink by then we would have to give him a new IV.  I prayed and prayed that he would drink!  Then even though this boy didn't like juice before his surgery I tried to give him juice in  his bottle and he took it!  I was so excited and even did a little dance.  When the doctor came in that morning and heard that he had drank some juice he released him!  I was so excited!  That day we gave him one last dose of loratab at home and since then he has just had Motrin. 

Now....

Everyday he took less and less medicine for the pain and as of today he has had none!  He is eating just fine and is my happy Carter again.  It was a hard experience but I'm grateful for modern medicine that was able to do this for Carter.  Now we just have to watch his speech development and possibly do speech therapy.  It amazes me how fast he bounced back and how well he handled it.  I am so grateful for priesthood blessings and pray as I don't know how I would have gotten through this without either.

Kayla's Fish

When we went camping with my parents over the 24th of July weekend Kayla had one goal, to catch a fish and eat it.  So Grandpa took her fishing.  She caught 3 fish in total (with Grandpa's help) but only kept the last one.

 

She then brought it back to camp to show everyone what she caught.  And I mean everyone!  She would drag anyone who was near over to see the fish she caught.

 

 Then she proceeded to watch as Grandpa cleaned the fish.  We were a little nervous that she wouldn't want the fish after watching but the conversation went a little like this.

K-"Grandpa is that blood?"

G-"Yes"

K-"Are you getting all the blood out?"

G-"Yes"

K-"Can we eat the head?"

G-"No that 's why we cut it off."

K-"Can we eat the fins?"

G- "No, we cut those off too."

 

She then helped put butter and some seasoning on the fish and wrap it in tin foil for the fire.  When it came to eat it she ate the whole thing!  I was amazed at her!  So she accomplished her goal of catching and eating a fish.

Carter 9 months!

I can't believe he is 9 month already!  He is getting so big and mobile.  Carter is now pulling himself up to standing and cruising around furniture.  He loves watermelon and really wants to feed himself.  

We call him our little puppy dog because when he crawls he turns his hands in slightly and kind of pants.  It's very cute.

 

Carter loves "helping" in the garden.  As you can tell he sampled the ground to make sure it was dirty enough.

 

Carter loves people and has turned out really social.  He also enjoys camping.  He is Carter with Grandma up in the Unitas.  So cute!

Carter is also teething a lot!  He now has two teeth and has three more trying to pop out.  His surgery is on the 17th of August and I'm very nervous but ready to have it done and over with.  We are doing his 9 month appointment at the end of the month because of his surgery so I will have more clear stats on him then.

Weight 19lbs 8 oz