Jackson

After 15 hours of travel, 3 planes, one delay, 3 gate changes, one diarrhea diaper blowout, 2 vomiting attacks, 45 minutes of waiting for our bags and then coming home at midnight with no power.... we are finally home! We had a great time in Jackson, even though both boys were sick most of the time.

Carter had his first real day of skiing! He took a half day lesson on the Magic Carpet at Jackson Hole. We cheated our way into the lesson, though, since you are supposed to be potty trained. We just put him in a diaper, put all his ski clothes over and hoped he didn't have a really bad smelling poop. He didn't, and he seemed to have a great time! Quite a cautious skier (despite the fact that he kept telling us he wanted to go "super fast!") Here's a little montage from his lesson. We were the really obnoxious parents hiding in the entryway with our video camera so he couldn't see us.

Here's some more photos from the week - 

Spending time at the teepee in the yard

Can I go skiing, too? Please?
Isaac, Papa and the new tram
Carter posing with his first pair of 'real skis'
Congratulations to sister Christina and soon to be Uncle Andy!  They got engaged while we were hiking to Taggart and Bradley Lakes.  We are very excited for them!

Cutest Kids Ever!

I think it most be some parental hormone that makes every parent think that, yes, THEIR kid is the cutest ever.  Well, I've fallen victim to that.  It probably occurs so we don't leave them on the porch step when they frustrate you beyond belief.  Here are some examples of said frustration:

1. Not sleeping.  Ever. (Isaac) Although this is getting better as we approach 6 months old!

2. Actually regressing in potty training (is that possible when they've never peed on the potty?)

3. Yelling over and over 'keep talking!' when you are, in fact, talking about their 3 imaginary mice (fee fee, foo foo and fa fa). And, in fact, you have been talking about them for the last 2 hours, yet the stories aren't exactly right (probably because every time I say something, it's wrong and must be corrected) Here's an example of one of my stories:

carter: let's keep talking about fee fee foo foo and fa fa.

me: so what are they doing today?

carter: ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm........ playing outside

m: OK, so fee fee foo foo and fa fa are getting ready to go outside so they put on their teeny tiny glov-

c: NOOOOOO!

m: what?

c: they heard a noise!

m: OK, what kind of noise?

c: GRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

m: ooooooo, what was it?

c: You say it.

m: a tiger

c: NOOOOOOOO!

m: what was it?

c: You say it.

m: ummmm, a -

c: it's a tiger!

m: Oh, a tiger! So they are playing outside and they heard a noise...

c: NOOOOO! (quite upset) they weren't playing OUTSIDE! they were in the basement! (duh, mama)

Anyway, you get the drift.  I should make a recording someday to get a real transcript, but that is pretty accurate...

Even though my stories are all unfinished, I never get to shower, I'm out of shape and can barely keep the house clean, I must admit I hug my kids tighter than I should, give them more kisses then they really need and take way too many pictures.  These boys are my world right now and I love them to pieces. 

Here are a few of my 'cutest kids ever' photos. 

And here's Isaac leaning in for a kiss from Maude (Rebecca and Jake's daughter) while she pretends not to notice.

Slices of life at the Whitmans

Hi all.  I've been a little lazy about blogging, so here's a bunch of pictures to show you what we've been up too.  Here's our latest family photo - I won't show you the 7 others it took to get this shot.  Carter developed this 'fake cough' every time we'd sit down, so all the others show him in various coughing fits.  Isaac just stares wide eyed, as usual.

Grammy K and Grandpa came for a visit and we went sledding at the local hill at the Round Church.  Here's the money shot of Grandpa going over the jump.  Check out the look of anticipated pain on his face.
Carter and Papa took lots of runs, all with Carter covering his eyes.
Project time at the Whitman's one morning consisted of making 'party hats'.  I think all the stuffed animals in our house have now worn them at one point or another.  Isaac was a willing participant.  He just loves when Carter plays with him!
Carter and Mumble (the penguin) kneading bread.  We're not afraid of a little flour!
Carter has recently enjoyed pretending he is a baby.  What fun.  My favorite is when he takes Isaac's pacifier, lies on the ground, spits it out of his mouth and makes annoying little noises until I pick it up and put it back in his mouth.  For real, Carter? Isn't one little guy enough? Most of the time he is a big help, though.  AND, big news: Carter is currently wearing UNDERWEAR! Never mind that he has never peed on the potty.  We just decided today was the day.  He hasn't peed yet, I think he'll be in for a bit of a surprise in a few hours (and we'll be doing a lot of clean up) but he's in a pair of underwear! How exciting.

Isaac is a champ.  He's 5 1/2 months old and sitting up.  No rolling over yet.  I think he weighs too much to push himself over.  He has been sleeping 9-10 hours at night (YES!!!) for the last 2 weeks, which we all love! And he's finding his voice - lots of 'ba ba ba ba da ba da ba' (which obviously means 'I'd like to play with that ball over there')

Squeals of joy!

Sweet! I finally figured out how to add a video on to the blog! Carter loves to entertain Isaac.  I was upstairs getting ready and heard laughter coming from Isaac, here's what I came down to! Enough to brighten anyone's day, which is what we needed after a week of the stomach flu, our generator breaking, Isaac not sleeping more than an hour at a time, and then, to top it all off, our built-in cabinets above our computer came crashing down in the middle of the night.  The only causality was a bobble-head figurine whose head got sheared off....

Food going in (and coming out)

I realized I never wrote about Isaac's newest accomplishment - food! He's been eating rice cereal and bananas for a few weeks now, and he seems to be enjoying it.... he also enjoys how it flies out of his mouth when he squeals.  Oops - as I was typing the above note, we have had victim number three of the dreaded stomach bug that is flying through our house at blistering fast speed.  Remember all that food I was just talking about? Well, now it is all over the exersaucer. Hmmm, lots of nooks and crannies to clean on that one.  

Spoiler alert, the following may contain some graphic language so you can fully understand "life at the Whitman's"

Poor Carter was victim number one yesterday morning.  I'll never forget the pathetic look on his face as he stood in the kitchen, puking onto the floor, not understanding what was going on and way food was coming OUT of his mouth.  He vomited several times that morning, he kept trying to eat and 10 minutes later it would all come back out again, even juice.  Here's a note to moms and future moms, don't feed your kid a chocolate chip cookie when he's sick, no matter how much he wants it, unless you want to clean up pureed chocolate 10 minutes later. 

Once Carter and Isaac were safely in bed last night, the fun began for me, up every hour until 4am....  Feeling much better today, just weak and tired.  The cruel irony was Isaac slept 12 hours that night for the first time with only a mini wake up at 3:45am. Papa let me sleep in and when I came down the stairs, Carter said "mama, you were sick like me last night"  I said "yes, I had a belly ache and stuff coming out of my mouth, too."  (How do you explain vomiting to a 3 year old?)  And he looks at me and says "pee came out of your mouth, too?"

Now it's seems Isaac is next....

Don't worry, the photos are all of food going in, not coming out!

More Florida pics

We quickly became addicted to Rock Band - Carter was a pro at the drums!

Mama and papa rocked the guitar


Carter loved the motorcycle ride at Busch Gardens

Sheer excitement on the train with cousin Paul

Archery practice at the neighbors house

Papa enjoying sun and fresh squeezed orange juice (with a little something extra in it!)

Florida! Sun! Warm!

So we left Vermont just in time to miss the latest cold snap.  It was -9 when we left last week, but I hear it got down to -20.  The Floridians were freezing on the coldest night of the year (it hit mid 30's there!)  Lars was wearing his t-shirt, I went for a run! But it quickly warmed up and was 65 and brilliantly sunny both days we were there.  We went to Busch Gardens and celebrated my grandmother's 91st birthday.  We also ate lots of oranges and strawberries.  We picked oranges off my Uncle's tree and had fresh squeezed OJ every morning.  Yum. It was great to see family and meet my cousin's son (Nicholas IV)!  While we enjoyed our time there, we did not enjoy our travel time much.  The only good thing was no one told me about the USAir crash until we were safely in Florida.  We flew out of NYC Kennedy about the same time the accident occurred at LaGuardia.  Thank goodness for good pilots.  Anyway, Isaac hates being in the car and screamed the entire time we went anywhere.  I eventually just put on my iPod headphones and closed my eyes.....

 

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