Happy Birthday, Carter!

It seems amazing to me that I have a 5 year old. Five years ago--after a long night at the hospital (we arrived at Baptist about Midnight), our first, perfect little miracle made his way in to this big, scary world. A team from the NICU was there, just in case, since he was 5-weeks early, but they were not needed. They did want to get him under a warmer sooner rather than later but Zach was able to go with him to the nursery. Little did we know that the sleep that we lost that night was a foreshadow of things to come (the next 4-hour stretch of contiguous sleep we would get would be 4-months down the road).

Just about everyone agreed that Carter looked like the Jensen side of the family from the get-go but Zach was just happy that he didn't inherit his hair. Regardless of who he looked like, we were just thrilled that our little one was finally here. It didn't matter that the clothes were not washed or that the car seat was barely out of the box. Carter's home was ready and so were the new mom and dad.

A little about Carter at 5 years old:

• He is definitely my most sensitive child. He can be very emotional.
• He is becoming a little harder to discipline. A year ago it only took a look and a warning and he would stop. That is changing. He definitely is testing his limits and has his own opinions about everything (and he is definitely not afraid to share them).
• He loves to help me clean and organize. He asks at least once a week if we can organize something together. I love it!
• He is so good with his little brothers. Although he does get tired of being followed around, most of the time he loves to play with Seth and Ethan.
• He loves school and loves to learn. He loves doing art and making things. He is VERY excited about going to Kindergarten.
• He still LOVES sports. He is currently playing baseball, but we have already talked about tennis lessons and basketball camp for this summer. He practices some type of sport almost every day and does not give up easily.
• He is still so skinny! Seth is catching up with him fast and I am afraid he will be 6 by the time he gets to move into a booster seat (40 pounds).

Happy birthday little man...every day of the past 5 years has been a blessing and we're looking forward to many, many more.

Carter opening his birthday presents.

He was very excited about his new driver and really wants to go to The Little Course in Franklin to play some golf.

Carter and his Daddy.

Carter and his Mommy.

Cousins!

We were blessed to have a full house last weekend. Spencer, Katie, and their kids drove up from Atlanta and Mom and Dad drove down from KY. Craig was able to spend the weekend over here as well. It was so nice to have everyone together. The weather was awesome and the kids spent so much time playing outside. They play so well together and Carter has talked about his cousins all week. We can't wait for the day when they live closer!

With all the kids around I was not able to take many pictures, but here are a few.

This was actually the night before everyone got to our house. Ethan just attacked Seth. I guess he has seen the boys wrestling so much he decided he wanted in on the action. Carter and Seth thought it was hilarious!

Cute boys in their dinosaur pajamas.

Sweet Ella Ann has to put up with all these boys!

Seth loves Rane. He talks about Baby Rane all the time.

Seth snuggling with Nana.

Carter opened up his birthday gifts this weekend. He loved all his news toys. He even talked Papa and Uncle Craig into taking him to the tennis courts that afternoon.

Enjoying their afternoon snack on Seth's new picnic table.

Man, I love this kid. He is the happiest baby and I feel so blessed with such a good baby.

Can't wait to watch these two grow up together. They are only 4 months apart and I have no doubt they will be great friends.

Valentine's Parties 2010

Today the boys celebrated Valentine's Day at preschool. Seth picked out Pixar (Nemo, Incredibles, Wall-E, and Cars) valentines. Carter picked out Clone Wars. He was so excited about his cards that he sat down and wrote his name on all 27 the first day we had them. He couldn't wait to take them to school today and pass them out to his friends. I had a lot of fun visiting both classrooms and seeing the boys interact with their friends. I feel so blessed to have them in such a great preschool! We love Harpeth Hills!

Carter's sweet Pre-K class. We will miss these kids (and their parents) so much next year!

Carter and his best buddy, Jackson.

So excited to finally get to open their valentines!

Seth eating his snack during his party.

Seth and his best buddy, Cooper.

Going through their "loot" at home.

Seth's birthday party

We celebrated Seth's birthday at Chuck-E-Cheese. He had so much fun celebrating with his friends! It was also a special night because he gave all his pacifiers away. He decided a few weeks ago that he wanted to trade his pappies in for a trip to Chuck-e-Cheese. He was so excited to give them to the employee at the door. She gave him a token as a trade. He played his special token at the duck game (one of his favorites). The machine was evidently broken because at the end of his first game, the tickets started pouring out. We couldn't get them to stop. After it was all done, we got 250 tickets! We tried to return them but the employees insisted that we keep them. Such a special gift for being such a big boy and giving up such a big thing in his life. :) We are so proud of him!

Showing off 2 of his tickets.

Playing alien ski ball while Chuck-e watches. He loves this game, but has a really hard time getting his balls in the hole. It takes about 10 minutes to get all 5 balls in...it requires a lot of patience. :)

Seth and his buddy, Reid, playing air hockey.

And this is what Ethan did...sleep! He slept through most of the party. We were lucky to have Zach's mom there to take care of him. It helped SO much!

Seth loved opening all his presents.

Seth picked out a Diego theme for his party.

Blowing out all 3 of his candles!

Look at all these sweet boys! I think they were debating who was going to be the captain when they started playing again. :)

My crazy boy! He ate 4 pieces of pizza that night!

These guys were on a complete sugar high at the end of the night. They were dancing in front of the blue screen while Ella played cameraman. They had SO much fun!

Our sweet boy finally woke up and met...

Chuck-e!

Our family of 5!

Happy (late) Birthday

to my sweet Seth! I wanted to post this on Sunday, but it just didn't happen. My sweet middle child celebrated his 3rd birthday on Sunday. Seth pretty much wakes up in a good mood every morning and Sunday was no exception. He opened his two presents before we left for church. He was very excited with his new dragon and Bible (he tries to take Carter's Bible all the time). He carried his Bible to church and the dragon rode in the car with us. He picked Dimples Deli for lunch because they serve waffles. After church and lunch we went home to get ready for our Life Group Superbowl party. He loved having a lot of his friends over that night and enjoyed some yummy ice cream cake for dessert.

Some things about Seth at 3 years old:

• As mentioned above, he is such a morning person. He doesn't sit still from the time he wakes up (he is not a tv watcher) until he goes to bed.
• He is so funny (and he knows it!). He is the comedian in our family. He makes us laugh so hard.
• Despite the fact that he appears to be very outgoing at home, he is rather quiet in big groups. He stays close to Zach or I when we are in large groups. Carter will run off and play with his friends, but Seth won't.
• He wants to do everything Carter does. I'm sure this is normal for a younger sibling. When I asked him how old he was going to be on his birthday, he informed me that he would be 5 too. We are trying to teach Carter just how powerful his influence will be on his little brothers.
• He still sleeps around 11 hours at night and takes a 1-2 hour nap each day. He is giving up the pappy (pacifier) tonight! :)
• He loves to eat (especially sweets). He would love to snack all day and his favorite drink is orange juice.
• He loves preschool, but he loves staying home even more. He is thrilled every Wednesday to stay home with me while Carter goes to preschool. I need to enjoy this...soon enough he will prefer to be at school.
  
• He is obsessed with the Lion King. After our trip to Disney World and seeing the Lion King live show there, he asks to watch the movie at least once a week (and he doesn't even like to watch tv). He knows all the characters' names and walks around the house singing "Hakuna Matata." :)

Today we will celebrate with a party at Chuck-E-Cheese. He is VERY excited! Stayed tuned for pictures of the party. Here are some pictures from his actual birthday:

Showing off his new Bible.

He loves his new dragon!

Trying to get a serious picture with him is very difficult. Look at these faces! :)

Finally, a good picture with his Daddy.

They were all acting so silly when I tried to take this. Ethan would not sit up (he wanted to slide down and go) and the older boys could not keep their hands off of him.

8 months old

My little boy is over 8 months old now and amazes me constantly at the new things he can do. It is hard to believe that 8 months ago we were dealing with daily nicu trips. Rarely a day goes by that I don't think about how blessed we are with his progress and health. It was such a scary time for us.

He is doing a great job sitting up. He loves being able to sit up and play with Carter and Seth. He is also army crawling everywhere. He can get to anything he wants. This is very dangerous in a house full of tiny army guns, action figure lightsabers, and legos. We are trying to teach the boys that they have to clean up after themselves constantly (and that is not working too well). Ethan also likes to blow/spit bubbles while you are feeding him. Makes for quite a mess at feeding
time! :)

What a big boy! He loves his loveys just like his big brother, Seth.

He also loves to play with his feet. Every once in a while you'll catch him with them in his mouth.

He LOVES this ladder. It goes with his Little People Firehouse that Santa got him.

6 month pictures

I just got back Ethan's 6 month pictures (not because of my photographer, but because I kept forgetting to pick them up). They turned out so good!

My happy boy!

I just love his expression in this picture...not sure why, but he looks so serious.