Carter turned 8 years old yesterday. He celebrated with all his favorites: donuts, juice, tacos, and a father-son trip to the skate park. We love this dude so much!

Carter is our little Everything-Man. He seriously loves so many things! He loves soccer (especially drop-kicking), scooters, bikes, trampoline jumping, and playing with sisters. Those are the outside activities.

Inside, Carter loves solving Rubik’s cubes (he can do 2×2 and 3×3 cubes all by himself), puzzles, games, building things and marble tracks, playing the piano, reading, and video games. Among other things.☺️

At school, Carter loves math (he was on the math team), science, his speech class, playing soccer at recess, and making new friends.

Carter is also just an easy going kid with a giant heart. He is kind and considerate to everybody. He loves to help others be happy. And he is our favorite boy in the whole world!

Happy birthday, Bud! We love you!

Our sweet little Bianca Reine turned 2 years old this past Tuesday! However, we were all, and she especially, laid up with a stomach bug; so we didn’t actually celebrate her birthday at all until Thursday. It was very convenient that she is young enough not to care about the change.

She had a list of birthday plans. If you asked her about her birthday leading up to it, and even afterwards, she would say “Candles. Ice-cream. Cookies. Yummy.” It is probably the cutest thing anyone will ever hear!

Anyway, to help you get to know Bianca a little bit here are some fun facts about her at this stage of her life.

• She is just a happy girl! Like anyone, she has her moments of rage, but most of the time she is smiling and excited to do basically anything!
• She loves playing at the park (especially the big slides), going on rides in the red car, taking care of baby dolls, and playing pretend.
• She normally eats about 4 breakfasts each morning. It makes for tough blood sugar management.
• She adores her older siblings, and they all adore her.
• She is talking more and more all the time! She is a little parrot of things the kids say, and that we parents say. It is the cutest to hear her sing songs and chastise the dog.

She is also probably the cutest diabetic the world has ever seen. Diabetes definitely does NOT define this girl; but she knows that it is something that sets her apart a little. Some adorable examples of her owning this disease are:

• When Portia first started getting shots at meals, Bianca would hold out her arm and exclaim that she was the one who got shots (in a one-year-old way).
• Once, when Helen was pretending to be a diabetic raccoon (yes, you read that right), Bianca emphatically declared “Uh MY betes!”
• Sometimes when we approach her with her needle, she’ll scoot away and adorably say “No dose!”
• When she wants a candy or fruit snack or something, she will tell everybody “My low!” (Meaning “I’m low”.) The kids joke that she should name her first son Milo.
• When she is getting a shot, she will sometimes hold out her hand to somebody and say “Brave.” Meaning she needs somebody to hold her hand to help her be brave.

I realize that probably some people will feel uncomfortable hearing about how a baby deals with the realities of something as invasive as type 1 diabetes; but I feel like this is the perfect example of a situation where you will either laugh about it or cry about it. Bianca’s joyful temperament and chubby little cuteness make it so much easier to laugh about!

Bianca is a super joy in our lives! We love every minute we have with her!