Happy Birthday to Me!

I decided it was finally time to update our blog, so why not make a post about my awesome birthday to get back in the swing of things? For 2009, Disneyland was giving free admission on your birthday and we decided to take advantage of it. It was unusually cold that day and the park was extremely crowded (one of the many disadvantages of having a birthday just 3 days before Christmas), but we had such a great time.

Family picture with Chip (or maybe it was Dale...)


In front of Small World. This was Ryan's first time seeing Disneyland decorated for Christmas.


Carter on the Teacups...this was definitely not his favorite ride.


In front of the castle.


Carter's favorite ride. Carter discovered his love for Buzz and was crying for Buzz when it was time to leave the ride.


Carter and Daddy on Autopia. We got stuck behind a little girl that didn't know how to hold the gas pedal down, so I had plenty of time to take pictures.


On our way out after a very fun day!

Lost in 2 Months

On February 2nd, 2010 the sixth and final season of Lost airs on ABC. On December 6th, Katie and I decided we would attempt to watch all 5 previous seasons on DVD before the new season begins.

As of December 27th, we're two seasons down, three to go. To recap, it took us 3 weeks to get through 49 hour-long episodes, averaging about 2 episodes a day. In reality, with Katie in LA a couple days a week and other distractions, we haven't watched episodes every day, and we've really done a lot of catching up over Christmas break and on weekends. In fact, we've watched so much lately that we killed our 6-year-old DVD/VHS player, and since we got rid of all our VHS tapes not long ago, the death of the player wasn't too hard on us. A quick trip to WalMart to get a replacement player and we were back on track.

How does this bode for the remainder of our marathon? We've got 54 episodes to go in 5 weeks. We only need to watch an average of an episode and a half per night to make our goal. Barring any emergency hospital trips from false labor, another DVD player death, or any other cataclysmic event... I think we'll be fine :)

3rd Wedding Anniversary (and our 200th post!)

Katie and I were married in the LDS San Diego Temple
on December 28th, 2006.




We honeymooned along the California coast.


We had a handsome baby boy named Carter Harrison
on February 11th, 2008.


He'll be 2 in a couple short months, and he's our rambunctious little superhero.



We're expecting another adorable son in March 2010.



We've moved 3 times, experienced all the joys and troubles of home, work, school, and child-rearing, and had tons of laughs.

I've known Katie for almost seven incredible years, and I look forward to being with her forever. Happy anniversary, honey!

The LONG Drive Home

I know this is a few weeks old now, but I wanted to finish blogging about our Thanksgiving trip to Utah. Ryan had to get back to work the Monday after Thanksgiving, so we decided we would leave fairly early Sunday morning to give us plenty of time in case there was traffic. Everything started out just fine and we were making really good time.

We saw some snow outside Cedar City.


Carter was having fun entertaining himself.

We stopped in St. George for a very brief visit with a friend and then continued on to Vegas where we had lunch. There hadn't been any traffic and we were really happy that we were over half-way home. Then we got on the other side of Vegas and everything came to a complete stop and we were stuck in major traffic almost the rest of the way home. We had complained about the traffic on the way to Utah, but we soon realized that was nothing compared to the 9 hours it took us to get home from Vegas. And that is why we will NEVER travel the Sunday after Thanksgiving again!

On the bright side, once it got dark the lights from the brake lights ahead of us and the headlights from the cars in the opposite direction reminded us of a big candy cane.


And by some miracle Carter was either happy


or sleeping the whole time.

Early Christmas

Since we were driving to Utah for Thanksgiving, we decided to bring our Christmas presents for the Woods and Tolmans with us. We even convinced them to open their presents early because we wanted to see the joy on their faces when they opened them. :) We also brought Ryan's dad's birthday present with us since we would be going home just a few days before his special day.

What could it be?


An awesome Legoland hat to remember his awesome son's awesome job! :)


Ryan's mom loves lighthouses


...and seashells


It's easy to find "personalized" gifts for Lauren at Christmas :)


It's hard to see, but the candle holder says Joy


Brett loves The Simpsons, so we made him a Bart mosaic.


Another awesome Legoland hat!


From the Tolmans. Somehow we didn't know this book existed, even though we're the Battlestar fans!


It's pretty scary how well they know us! :)


Someone woke up cranky from his nap


Showing off his cool book


A lion from Grandma and Grandpa Wood. (They let him have one of his presents early and he'll get the rest on Christmas.) He loves making it say "roar".

Thanksgiving in Utah

We decided to spend Thanksgiving with Ryan's family in Utah, so we hit the road Wednesday afternoon when Ryan got out of work and eventually made our way to his parents' house around 4:30am. Fortunately, we were able to get some much needed rest before the Thanksgiving festivities began. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with tons of great food and lots of family.

Carter meeting his adorable cousin, whom he later hugged/tackled.


Yummy food!


Carter's not so sure about something


Carter playing with his food.


Lots of family


The Tolmans


Carter entertaining everyone


That's a full belly!


Giving Auntie LoLo "beeps"


Playing peek-a-boo


Ready for some football


Carter having a blast on the trampoline

Caged In

Carter and Daddy in the cage...I think Carter is winning


Carter is the champion! (Poor Daddy)


He must not realize he's trapped

We were at Babies R Us the other night and happened to see this baby gate/cage and decided it would be perfect for protecting our Christmas tree from Carter. Since we haven't put up the Christmas tree yet, we decided to let Carter play in the cage. He's not a very big fan of it unless someone is in there playing with him, but that's ok because it looks like the tree will be going up this week. :)

Trick or Treat!

I know this is a little late, but I wanted everyone to see our cute little Yoda. This was Carter's first year trick or treating and he did pretty well and seemed to enjoy himself for the most part. Ryan or I would take him up to the door and we would tell him to say trick or treat, but he would just stare at the person. He's never been shy, so it was really funny watching him just stand there. If the person put the bowl of candy out for him, he would quickly reach out, take a piece of candy and drop it in his bucket. We kept trying to get him to say thank you, but it never happened. By the end of the night he was saying "bye bye" and that's it. We did have one problem to deal with...if a house was dark we wouldn't go up to it, which Carter didn't understand. He quickly picked up on the fact that each house he went to he got candy, so I guess he didn't want to skip any opportunities to get more.

With dada

Carter with mama and sharing candy

It's a....

BOY!!!

We're so excited to be welcoming another little boy into our family! Now comes the hard part...figuring out what to name the little guy (suggestions are always welcome!). Here are a couple more pictures of our handsome boy:


Saying hi to everyone


Our little alien


Ryan and I made a cake the night before the ultrasound and frosted half of it pink and half blue, then he took it to work and put the baby he built on the blue side. (By the time he realized he hadn't taken a picture, this was all that was left.)

P.S. For those of you who guessed correctly, there will be prizes coming your way.

POOP