Pre-Christmas

The weekend before Christmas we did some celebrating. On Friday night we had a Vegas-Hales family Christmas party at Jodi's house. We had a fantastic dinner and played the gift-exchange game afterwards. It was tons of fun.

We got some more fun pictures of Mannix and Carson together again, Carson opened up a little more since Thanksgiving.

One of the gifts was these antlers. This picture wasn't taken very quickly before he yanked them off his head.

Then on Sunday night, we had dinner over at Jason's because my parents were in town so we exchanged gifts from them.

Opening his first present ever. The blocks were from Aunt Jodi and he loves playing with them.

You can see his three teeth. This is his "give me what you have" look.

Up to No Good

These are some pictures of Carson from around the house. He is clearly doing things that he shouldn't be like playing with the remote and computer, standing on his walker, and taking all the socks out of my laundry basket. He is lucky he is so dang cute!!

10 Months

Every single month I take Carson's monthly picture and think about all the new things he has done that month but I never seem to get it on here. So this month I am actually going to do it and also show all the pictures I have been taking. Amazingly, Carson is now ten months and I can not believe he is that old but I can barely remember how it was before he arrived, except for the great sleep I used to get. But we love him so much and we always have so much fun with him. Most the time I just sit and watch him play because it cracks me up listening to him talk to himself and stare intently on items like he is trying to figure them out. Here are some things he is doing now or has been doing for a while:

• Crawling but he still sometimes prefers his army man crawl when he is in a hurry
• Climbing onto everything
• Falling down from everything and bumping various parts of his body
• Playing hide and seek in his walker
• Climbing the stairs and going down on his tummy, face first mind you
• Clapping all the time, especially when he hears clapping on TV
• Going through all the drawers he can reach and pulling everything out
• Still pushing anything he can with his walker, including the Tupperware lids and towels he pulls out of my drawers (I'm not loving this one)
• He has 3 teeth which really, really hurt when he bites your finger
• Still loves to eat and just stares at you until you share like he's a little puppy
• He was sleeping through most the night until he started teething and now I can't get him back to that
• Still not a fan of strangers or big groups, he just stares and gives no reactions
• He loves to talk and make noises with his tongue
• Dances when he hears music or at least stops and looks around to see where it is coming from
• Always tries to get to the computer and laser mouse with a red light and pushes your hand away when you are using it
• Loves to watch his daddy when he is working around the house and playing with his tools
• Turning on and off the TVs with the remote or the button on the big screen
• He drops his toys while shopping so you have to pick them up fifty times
• He growls all the time and squints his eyes when he is being funny
• And generally loves to be involved with anything and everything that we are doing

I am sure there are tons more things he does that I am not thinking about but all I can say is that I love this little guy!!

As you can see, I tried several times to get a good 10 month picture but he wasn't

really working with me.

MORE SNOW

Seriously? It was fun the first time but now this is just getting out of control. There is a reason I no longer live in Idaho and this is it. I probably would have enjoyed it more if Chyler didn't have to go out and drive in it all night. I was pretty stressed out since Vegas people don't know how to drive in the snow and it was really dangerous.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

So it doesn't happen very often here in Las Vegas but it snowed all day on Monday. Now those of you who know me from my days in Rexburg know that this California girl does not like to be cold and definitely HATED driving in the snow. But since we never see it here, it was really fun to watch all day from my warm house. We did venture out because I had to get some pictures of Carson and the house. Carson enjoyed it falling on his hands but we didn't let him play in it because he would have gotten soaked. Maybe next year if it happens again.

Carson watching with crazy weather Our backyard

The balcony and the park across the street

Carson was trying to touch the snow

Carson was so cute, he just laughed at the snow

Our house

Thanksgiving

A few months ago, my sister Jodi called and said we should have Thanksgiving here since we are adults now. So my house was volunteered and my parents came up, my sister from Cali, my sister from Salt Lake, and my brother and sister here. There were 22 in all plus two babies. Unfortunately, my house is not very well stocked for large gathering or big meals so my poor parents had to bring tables, their roasting oven, silverware, table cloths, and then we had lots of help from my siblings as well. But everything worked out and we had a great time.

It's a really good thing I don't have any furniture in the living room Yummy!!

After dinner, we went across the street so Layne and Jackson could fly their airplanes

Jodi and Carson

The girls

Our family

When we came back home, I sat down and Carson we enjoying climbing on top of me

Hailey and me

My uncle's family came over for dessert that night which was a ton of fun especially since my cousin's adorable little boy, Mannix, was with them and he happened to match Carson. We ran into the same problem as we usually do with Carson, he wanted nothing to do with Mannix. So as we were all standing around watching them, Mannix was entertaining the crowd and Carson was just starring and would move his arm every time Mannix touched him. It was pretty funny. Mercedi took much better pictures than I did but here is a preview.

Salt Lake City

Here are pictures from the rest of our weekend in Salt Lake.

This is a video of Carson playing with Grandpa. Sorry it is sideways, I always forget the camera doesn't record sideways.

Carson and Brilynn Carson playing with the big boys

On the way home we stop to visit my old roommate, Candice, in her beautiful new home and meet her little Kayson

Kayson and Carson