Carter - 10 Months

Carter is 10 months old!

No, we don't sit him in this chair anymore! It is just for the monthly picture :)

We have once again had a month with lots of new exciting things!

Carter is starting to talk! He clearly says "Hi" and he will wave! When something drops he says "Uh-oh!"  He will also try to copy other words and sounds we make.
He knows how to give high fives and has started winking at us. He scrunches his face and nose and blinks. It is SO cute!

He started sleeping in his crib this month. It is in our room for now until he is done nursing and then we will move him into his own room. 

He can crawl backwards and in a circle but not forward yet. He is so close to figuring it out. He can go from laying on his tummy to sitting up. He is pulling up on things but only to his knees.

Carter has tried lots more foods. He isn't really a fan of "baby food", like purees. He likes feeding himself little pieces of real food. So far we are sticking mostly to fruits and veggies, puffs, little pieces of bread, cheerios, and he LOVES graham crackers. He also tried yogurt for the first time yesterday and loved it. He still has only had breastmilk.

I can't believe there are only a few more months of his first year!!!!

San Diego Part 3

Our last full day in San Diego was our beach day! There are so many awesome beaches down there and it was hard to choose which one to go to! But we decided on the beach on Coronado Island. It was beautiful! Warm, sunny weather, soft sand, nice breeze, ahhhhhh. It was nice. If only Dustin and I wouldn't have underestimated the strong southern Cali sun and burned, oops! Luckily the kids were sufficiently lathered up with sunscreen!

Carter hung out in his carseat most of the time

Leah LOVED it!

They had the best time running from the waves

Carter was not a fan. After this pic he lifted his feet up and wouldn't put them back down!

Both kids were passed out within minutes of getting in the car!

The next day we were leaving but had a few hours to check out Balboa Park which was amazing and beautiful and you could spend a whole week just checking out all the museums, gardens, shops, etc.

I love all the palm trees!

And finally, a few more pics of us hanging around our hotel on the last evening...

 Then it was time to go home!

We were surprised when Leah put her head down and slept most of the flight home!

Bye bye San Diego!

I definitely would have liked to stay longer and explore more of Southern California! We will be back for sure! Really fun and really memorable first family vacation!!!  Now I have the travel bug though and keep thinking of places I want to go!

San Diego Part 2

After our exciting Disneyland adventure, the next few days were much more mellow, as we explored some more of San Diego!  We realized after the fact that we probably should have saved Disney until the end of the trip since nothing else we did was as exciting for Leah :-) 

The next day we went to Old Town San Diego. It is a really neat area that used to be Mexico so there are lots of great restaurants, museums and shops. It was fun just walking around and we went to eat at a yummy Mexican restaurant.

Watching a blacksmith demonstration

Yummy margarita

After that we drove down to an area called Seaport Village. Another cute place with shops, restaurants, etc. right on the water.

Lil' chubby red cheeks :)

First little taste of ice cream! He kept grabbing at the cone for more, ha!

Loungin' :) The four of us sat in this swing for quite awhile. It looked out on the water and was the most relaxing part of the trip!

I guess I didn't get any pics on my camera, but Carter rode on a carousel for the first time! After a minute of looking pretty scared, he turned toward me and hugged onto me. Not a fan I guess :-)

Disneyland!

This was a place we didn't think we would go until the kids were at least 3 & 5 or close to that. We thought they were too young now, they wouldn't remember it or enjoy it, etc.  But when we realized we were only an hour and a half away, and with how into Minnie Mouse and the Disney princesses Leah is, we decided we had to go!!!

Even though we made the decision a few days before our trip, we kept it a secret from everyone, especially Miss Leah to make it that much more exciting! That morning, luckily the kids woke up early so we didn't have to wake them. We quickly got ready, ate breakfast, and headed up to Anaheim!

Leah didn't ask where we were going that morning which was good. When we got close to Disneyland, there are pictures and posters all over the place with Mickey and characters on them. Leah would say "Look, Mickey!" "Hey there's Mickey again!" "That girl has Minnie ears on!" Haha it was so funny.  Then we managed to get all the way into the park without her asking where we were. But I think she probably knew. Once we were inside we told her we were at Disneyland and she started jumping up and down clapping and saying "YAY!" First thing she asked was "Can we go see Snow White first?" :-)  We got her reaction on video and it is the cutest thing ever! Of course I took a million pics, but here are some of my favorites -

This visit to Disneyland was dedicated to Leah, so we did all of the things that she wanted. We spent 90% of the day in Fantasy Land and Toon Town, riding the kiddie rides and stalking the princesses and Minnie Mouse :-) This was also Dustin's first ever visit to Disney so it was exciting for him as well.

This was my first time on the Dumbo ride too!

Tinkerbell!

It's a Small World was Leah's favorite ride

Dustin and I decided that we should each get to ride one adult ride while the other person stayed with the kids. Dustin went on the Indiana Jones ride, and I went on Splash Mountain! Next time we go we will have to go with other people so that Dustin and I can go on rides together (hint hint Grammy and Auntie :-)

Mickey!

Carter was very unsure of Pluto until he started tickling him with his nose, it was so cute!!

Minnie!

Leah loved the rides. She and Dustin even rode a pretty fast little roller coaster in Toon Town. Little daredevil! :-)

Train ride

Daisy

Sleeping Beauty

We tried to go on all of the rides that all four of us could ride together. That included It's a Small World and Peter Pan's Flight. Carter wasn't too thrilled with the rides :-) 

Snow White is Leah's favorite princess! She was the hardest one to find at the park ugh!

Carter was such a trooper! Just hung out and went with the flow!

Watching the parade - sooooo excited

We are so glad we decided to take a day of our trip and take Leah to Disneyland. It was a wonderful day and completely worth it.  She loved it so much and I think she will remember some parts of it. We wish we would have had more than one day, but we will definitely be going back!