Where do I start?????

Wow, I get the "Bad blogger of the Year" award. We've had so much going on the last couple of months I don't even know where to start. I haven't been the best at taking pictures either, but I do have a lot from a trip we just took. Let me start with October......

This was about all I could get Aiden to wear for Halloween this year. He would NOT wear his costume. We went over to some friends house to trick or treat and I thought when he saw all the other kids dressed up that he would want to, but NO he had no interest in it this year.

We were spending a lot of time at the zoo when the weather was nice. Aiden loves making a stop at the petting zoo area.

Petting the goats

This was one morning before school. He LOVES giving me that cheesy smile. It just makes me want to crack up.

The week before Thanksgiving all the Carothers took a family trip to Branson. Jonathan's parents came in from Guatemala and everyone met up there. Ron and Margie got a house for us all to stay in that was so nice. We all had our own bedroom AND bathroom. It was perfect. We stopped in NLR on the way so that my parents could watch the dogs and we met Kristen and Ben there and rode up with them the rest of the way. We put Aiden's carseat in their car so he could ride with his cousins. They had so much fun. Kristen and I got the privilege of driving all three kiddos!

Aiden and Bella are 11 months apart and they had so much fun together. This is them riding one of those cars you put quarters in and it goes back and forth. A.K.A cheap entertainment! We were shopping at the outlets this day so we had to find something to keep them happy.

Little Norah Kate is 8 1/2 months old and was crawling everywhere. Aiden and Bella wanted to crawl around with her.

Sweet Norah Kate

Aiden painting an angel for our project that night.

Jonathan helping Bella paint her angel.

Jonathan came up with this creative idea to have make a nativity scene out of all wood and let us all paint our own. They were so neat. This unfortunately wasn't ours, (I think this was Ben and Kristen's) because I'm not the best at painting and kind of messed ours up. But you get the idea. It was fun fellowship time!

On Tuesday we did Christmas with everyone. This is all the kids opening up their stockings. (If you can't tell by the picture, all us girls wear the same pjs on Christmas day.)

Aiden digging into his stocking.

Gigi helping Aiden open some of his gifts.

One of his favorites was definitely this recorder.....also one of the loudest gifts he got.

Bella playing her recorder.

Bella and Aiden going at it playing their recorders.

Someone is worn out from all the playing.

This is his "Mom, seriously stop taking pictures" face. He must have learned that from his dad.

Little Brooks opening up some of his gifts.

Norah Kate surrounded by her stuff. She even has her purple scarf on! So cute.

Playing with his train that Gigi and Pops brought from Guatemala.

Isn't that such a sweet little face?!?! Cute little Brooksie (as Bella likes to call him).

Precious Norah Kate watching everyone at the table.

We even got in a game of golf fish with Bella.

It must have been cold because we're all still wearing our scarves we got that morning from Ron and Margie :)

Kristen and Bella

That night we bundled up and went and looked at Christmas lights.

Another day of shopping means another day of trying to find things to entertain the kids.

Ron and Margie were still here the week of Thanksgiving so we met them at David and Nekayeh's house in Jackson. We had a wonderful time and the food was excellent.

Aiden and Norah Kate

Norah Kate trying to get closer to the camera :)

Aiden waiting on Norah Kate to come back so they can take more pictures together.

Gigi and Aiden

Pops carrying Aiden around while we went shopping Friday night.

Thank you for such a wonderful time in Branson Ron and Margie. It was so fun for us all to be together again. Looking forward to the next time.

I've started putting up our Christmas decorations and Aiden has been obsessed with this little gold tree. I guess because it's just his size. He's also been obsessed with this hat my sister brought to him this summer. Since she's living in Texas now she thought Aiden needed a Texas hat.

Aiden saying "Yeehaw!!!"

And we'll finish off with the famous big grin (that makes me have a big grin)!!!!

This may look.....

like a cute little boy....

in a normal shirt, but...

the shirt has a big message.....Aiden's going to be a Big Brother!!!

And he is SOOOO excited!

First picture of the baby.

I am due May 20th so that makes me around 9 1/2 weeks now. I have been feeling great, just very tired. (That's my reason for lack of blogging.....at least that's what I'm telling myself). Please keep little baby C in your prayers.

P.S. The shirt Aiden is wearing was Jonathan's shirt he wore when his younger brother was born. Jonathan's mom gave it to me and I knew I wanted to save it for when we were pregnant. This is what Aiden wore when we told everyone we were pregnant. I love the shirt because not only does it have a special message, but Jonathan wore it as well when he was Aiden's age.

Such a big boy!

Our little man is not so little anymore. I wanted to put this picture up of Aiden that I took this morning before we left for Mother's Day Out. He is wearing one of his shirts that his Aunt Kristen (and Uncle Ben, Isabella and Brooks) got him for his birthday. Isn't it so cute.

(I've been horrible about putting pics on the blog lately. I need to put his two year pics up still that we had taken. I will soon, I promise!)

Happy 2nd Birthday Aiden!!!!

Our little man turned two on Friday so we had his birthday party this weekend. We just had it at our house this year with family and friends. It was a lot of fun.

Here's the family.

The sign I made.

My monkey cupcakes. We did an animal theme this year since Aiden LOVES animals.

This is his room after the kids got done playing. They pulled out just a few toys.

Some of the guest.....Audra and Aaden

This is what my sweet little nephew Bryce did the whole party! I guess he's not much of a party animal yet.

Getting ready to sing to Aiden.

Some more of the guests.

Aiden had to take a little break before going to open up gifts. Must be a rough life!

Holding up the Mickey 2 card! (Forgot to mention that I did color my hair. This is closer to my natural color, which is a dirty blonde. I just thought I'd do something different for the fall. And this will be easier to maintain.)

Holding Aiden while everyone sang to him. He's about to dive into that cupcake.

Licking the icing off the candles.

Reed showing him how to open gifts.

He was more interested in what was on the outside of the gift.

He got this really neat puzzle. Might be a little advanced for him now, but he loves looking at the picture.

Opening up one of the Razorback shirts my parents got him. Of course the boy has to have Razorback stuff for the football season coming up.

Madelyn and Aiden playing with another block puzzle he got.

Playing with a Cars book. BTW, his favorite movie right now is Cars so we did get him a lot of Cars things.

He got this really neat truck from Kristy and Paul. His buddy Carter is trying to figure it out.

He's loving tractors too so he got some John Deer tractors

His new bike from Mimi and Papa. He was so excited to ride it.

You can kind of see in this picture that Aiden's shirt has an elephant on it. He has been obsessed with elephants for a while now. They are definitely his favorite animal so it only seemed appropriate that he wore an elephant shirt for his birthday.

We had out this beautiful ark we got in Guatemala.

And his giraffe we got in Guatemala. His Gigi and Pops got him this. I'm going to have to do a separate post on all the cool toys we got in Guatemala. They were all so neat.

We had such a wonderful party, but even more it was fun to celebrate Aiden turning 2. It seriously seems like just yesterday we had his one year old party. Aiden has brought SO much joy to our lives. We feel so privileged that God chose us to be his parents. What an honor. I love being with him every day and just getting to see all that he is doing. He is talking like crazy now and is always doing something that makes us laugh. I seriously think just in the past week he has been doing things that make me laugh so hard I cry. I will be putting his 2 year pictures up next and I'll let you know all he's saying. It's so cute. We love you so much little man.