Mia Jennifer Welcome little Mia! Mia was born on Monday, March 16th at 4:06pm. She weighed 7 lbs. 10 oz. and was 19 inches long. She has tons of hair and looks a lot like Carter did when he was born. She also weighed exactly the same weight as Carter did and was only a half an inch off his height. Everyone is healthy and happy and doing well. Carter is extremely proud to be a big brother and constantly wants to hold Mia and talk to her. We hope everyone can meet her soon. Thank you for all the well wishes!

Can you talk yet?

Carter only agreed to this picture because we said he could push the buttons on the bed to make it move.

Proud big brother!

Two and a Half





Carter is officially two and a half years old, it's amazing how times flies. Every day he seems to pick up new skills, vocabulary, and amusing behavior. We went to his "2.5" check up yesterday and he has a clean bill of health. The "2.5" appointment is new to the health world (says our Dr.) and is mainly to check behavior and social skills. No immunizations or anything like that. Carter weighs a slight 26.4 lbs. and his height is 34.5 inches. Both of these numbers only put him in the 15th% for boys his age. The nurse did some checking on her charts and if Carter keeps this 15% pace his whole life, he will probably end up a towering 5 feet 7 inches. We knew he would be smaller than most boys his age so this wasn't anything earth shattering. I guess I should enjoy the fact that he doesn't grow out of his clothes as quickly as other kids (he still wears 18 month pants). Overall, the Dr. was incredibly impressed with his vocabulary, the fact that he is potty trained (and has been for months), and his "engineering skills" as he put it. (Carter asked to see all the Dr.'s gadgets like his pager and eye/ear scope thing, and proceeded to take them apart and put them back together for him).


At home Carter is busy as ever. He keeps us on our toes and running (which is extremely hard for me these days). He moves from one thing to the next and can completely mess up a clean play room in less than 2 minutes. Eating is still a struggle, he doesn't seem to have time for it in his busy life and he'll do anything to procrastinate and put it off. If we let him eat at his own pace, dinner would last until midnight most nights. He is obsessed with the movie "Cars" and would watch it multiple times per day if we let him. He has a lot of the "Cars" match-box cars and loves to act out the movie with them. He also still loves books, puzzles, and his tools. His other latest interest is getting the dogs in trouble. He loves to play with them but he also loves to tattle on them or yell at them if they are naughty. If Maisy starts barking at something outside he'll come up to me with the saddest face and say "Mama, Maisy SCARED me, you should yell at her." Or he will tell me that Shady tried to eat his food (which she probably did) and he'll act really upset (even though we're sure he is probably happy someone else actually tried to eat his food!).


He also seems to be looking forward to the baby's arrival. We talk about his little sister all the time and he tells us he is excited to meet her. We'll see how long that excitement lasts once she arrives, but we're hopeful he is able to handle the change fairly well.

Less than 3 Weeks...

Well, we're in the home stretch for the new baby's arrival. To say I'm ready is an understatement! As most of you know, we found out the sex (even though we swore we wouldn't...) and in case you didn't know, we're having a girl! I have 2 weeks and 6 days until my official due date but I'm hopeful I have her early like I did with Carter. Carter was 9 days early so my Dr. feels there is a great chance I'll be early again. I was always known for my consistency during my athletic career, so I'm hoping that consistency carries over to our kids. Early delivery, perfect health for the baby, sleeping through the night by a few months, genius child, cutest smile...etc.

We'll keep everyone posted on her arrival!

Christmas Festivities

We had a wonderful Christmas this year (despite the flu that ran through our house). We apologize again for getting pretty much everyone in our families sick at one point or another!

The day started at home with his stocking and presents from Santa. Grandma and Grandpa Jernstadt spent the night and were able to watch him open his presents as well. We had a fun Christmas Eve with Grandpa and Grandma!

I think the theme this year was "Cars." (Or anything with wheels). Here is Carter opening his stocking - it was full of the little match box cars from his favorite movie, "Cars."

This is one of his many new vehicles, it's a remote control front loader.

I'm not sure who's helping who figure out how it works.



Mastering the remote control.

Carter also got a big puzzle mat with numbers, a toy air compressor tool set, books, and more. After spending some time at home playing with new toys, we headed over to Grandma Webb's house for more present opening and lunch. Carter received a lot of wonderful toys from Grandma, Uncle Josh, and Uncle Mark...but by far the most exciting present was this fully loaded kid size Jeep (which seats two kids) from Uncle Mark. It comes complete with radio, key noises, forward and reverse gears, and can go up to 5 mph! I was most impressed that he was able to wrap the entire thing!

Uncle Mark is showing Carter how to get it going.

Sean was brave to ride with Carter driving...he loved shifting from forward to reverse in mid-drive so it was a bumpy ride for all.

After spending the afternoon at Grandma Webb's we stopped over at Grandma Baldwin and Grandpa Pries' house for some dessert. (Just long enough to spread those germs). It was nice to be able to see all Grandparents on the same day! Carter enjoyed his Christmas and was incredibly pooped out by the time we got home that evening.

The next weekend Aunt Lee, Uncle Bob, Elsa, and Belle came to visit! Carter was so pumped to see and play with Elsa and have another round of Christmas festivities!

We did two more Christmas' - one with Grandma Baldwin and Grandpa Pries and the other with Grandpa and Grandma Jernstadt. The kids were spoiled with presents and had a lot of fun playing with each other.

Here is Carter opening up his cool new bean bag chair from Aunt Lee, Uncle Bob, and Elsa. It goes perfect in his bedroom and he loves jumping off of it and crashing around. When he first opened it he seemed to love the box more than anything!

More present opening!

We can officially say Carter is puzzle obsessed! Grandma and Grandpa got him a few puzzles and he LOVES them. He started out needing some help but has done them so many times at this point, he can now do them with his eyes closed.

Here is Elsa showing off her new backpack.

One of the most exciting moments of the present opening was when these two ponies showed up! These were from Grandma and Grandpa and they were a huge hit. Carter can bounce his pony so much the feet start coming off the floor!

Here Carter and Elsa are opening up a ton of presents from Grandpa and Grandma Jernstadt. We had a fun day at their house while Lee, Bob, and Elsa were in town.

Here are a few more shots of Carter and Elsa enjoying Carter's new Jeep. Carter got a little possessive when Elsa had her turn to drive, but they had fun.

Thank you to all our family for making this Christmas so special. We appreciate all the wonderful gifts. Carter is such a lucky boy!

Tis' the Season

I like this first picture, I think Carter's face sums up how we all feel during this dreadful, frigid winter season.


Carter isn't a huge fan of the snow this year. We've gone outside a few times and pulled him around on the sled, but he mainly wants to get back inside to play. I don't blame him one bit. It's been freezing cold and miserable and we are counting the days to spring. The first day of spring also happens to be the baby's due date, so it's a good day to look forward to for many reasons.

Below are some pictures from the beginning of December. We went with Grandpa and Grandma Jernstadt to a Christmas tree farm in Spring Lake to help them find and chop down their Christmas tree. Carter enjoyed trudging around in the woods. He also really liked helping Grandpa and Daddy use the saw to cut down the tree.

Looking in on the action.

Trying out the saw.

We had fun on our tree adventure and Grandpa and Grandma ended up with a beautiful tree!

Potty Success!



We are extremely happy to report that Carter is officially potty trained! We did what I like to call "Potty Training Boot Camp." It is actually a method from a book called "Potty Training In Three Days" recommended to me by my sister and a friend. Basically you go cold turkey with diapers. One day he wears them, the next he doesn't. I can't say it took us a mere three days, but he definitely understood the concept by day three. I would say it took us 2 weeks to really get it (I say "us" because it is honestly a huge learning experience for the parents too!). He hasn't had an accident during the day in quite a while and he is actually telling us when he has to go potty! If you would have asked us after day 1 what we thought of this program we probably would have told you we were nuts for trying it and to keep your kid in diapers forever. But, we stuck with it and by day 3 we did see some light at the end of the tunnel (some). It got better from there and now we wonder what took us so long to do it! We're still working on night time accidents but he's getting there.


We're so proud of you Carter! You constantly amaze us with your intelligence and flexibility. Thank you for teaching mommy and daddy a TON of patience with this!

Coming Soon...

...Carter's little brother or sister! As many of you know, we are expecting our 2nd baby. March 20th is the official due date. We had our 20 week ultrasound last week (I'm half way there!) and here are a few snap shots. No, we are not finding out the sex - what fun would that be? Carter is very excited about being a big brother!

Trick -or- Treat!

We had a fun time with Halloween this year. Carter was into the pumpkin picking and loved helping Dave carve them (although he drew the line at actually getting his own hands goopey). He didn't necessarily love dressing up at first but he LOVED ringing people's doorbells (oh, and the candy too).

Here are the boys preparing the pumpkins for carving. Dave always does an elaborate job with the carvings - I'm pretty sure he loves this holiday more than Carter.

Carter decides he will use a spoon instead of his hands...

Even Shady and Maisy are into the action.

The finished pumpkins: Blue (from Blue's Clues) was Carter's favorite.

Here we are trying on the dinosaur costume. Carter had the "ROAR" down pat but he refused to wear the head piece for longer than a few seconds. He loved his tail and constantly had to check it out and make sure it was still there when he walked around.

We went to a few houses in Mike and Meredith's neighborhood for trick or treating. He was pretty good at saying "Trick or Treat" after someone answered the door and he only tried to walk into a few houses. We practiced our "thank yous" a bunch before we went out that evening but when it came time to thank the first person for the candy he simply said "one more?"

I think this is the first year in forever that the kids didn't have to wear coats - it was 60 degrees!

Latest and Greatest

Shortly after Carter's birthday we switched him to a big boy bed! Overall he did a wonderful job making the switch from crib to bed. We had a night or two of some crying, but now that he's used to the bed he loves it. For now we just have the mattress on the floor but Dave plans to build the actual frame (possibly bunk beds) in the next few months.

Last morning waking up in the crib



New roomy bed





Our little reader! Well, he doesn't exactly read things yet, but he certainly tries. When I ask if I can read him a book he says "I'll do it Mama." He flips through the pages and picks out letters and talks about the pictures. He is a pro at the alphabet and we are working on sounds of letters. We are so proud of how fast he seems to pick this stuff up!





Carter also decided he is obsessed with our tractor. Anytime Dave mentions he has to mow or do anything related to working outside Carter pleads to ride on the tractor. Hopefully this love for mowing will last well into his teen years.








We took a trip to Milwaukee in October to visit Lee, Bob, and Elsa. We played outside, watched baseball, and visited the Milwaukee Zoo. Carter especially loved the train ride at the zoo and chasing the roaming peacocks.

Taking the train ride around the zoo

Watch out peacock!

Riding the carousel

Elsa showed Carter all the cool zoo spots

Hanging out in Elsa's play room

Did you think I'd have an update section and forget to mention the Michigan vs. Michigan State football game?? We had some friends over to watch the awesome game and Carter wore his cool split shirt (which by the way is the same shirt he wore last year - still fits him). All I can say is GO GREEN!!! Way to go Spartans, it's about time you took out those annoying Wolverines, and to do it in the "big house" makes it even sweeter.

Last but not least, we got a fantastic play set for Carter! It was given to us by some friends of the family who have outgrown its use. It's actually the play set from Dave's old house growing up - we know the family that bought the house from Dave's mom and they graciously gave it to us since their boys are all in college. We have to send a huge thank you to Uncle Mark and Grandpa Jernstadt for all the grunt work. It's a fairly big structure and they took it down, transported it and put it back up all in one afternoon. Needless to say, Carter LOVES it, especially the swings.