Freebie

This is not an announcement, but for anyone who is pregnant, or thinking about having a kid anytime soon, you can sign up here to get a free What to Expect When you are Expecting book. You will end up buying it anyways, you may as well get it for free!

It's a good thing we don't have to be anywhere today!

Yes, that is a tattoo in the middle of my son's forehead. Here is what he had to say about all of his tattoos (they are up both of his arms as well - he figured out how to put them on himself): "Daddy isn't even going to believe that I have all these tattoos. They make me so cool." He's right - I think Mike will be very surprised.

Man Cold

Mike was sick this last week and while he is nowhere near this bad, it always reminds me of this video that I saw on a friend's blog a while back:

Merry Christmas!

We had such a great Christmas! We had to wake the kids up at 8:30 because we were up and couldn't go back to sleep. I am assuming that this is the last year that will happen. We opened presents upstairs and played for a little while before we tooke them downstairs for the big surprise:

Mike and I have spent the last month getting the basement cleaned up and painted for the kids. We finished in time, although there are still some small things to be taken care of. The ball pit is a definite hit and Carter loves the blowup fire house. I am hoping that they will have more to do in the house besides watch TV now.


These are some of my proudest accomplishments (the aprons, not the kids :)). I made them aprons with 'Sous Chef Carter" and "Sous Chef Samantha" embroidered on them. They are super cute. That toy kitchen came in about 1000 pieces. It took me almost 2 hours to assemble, and I am pretty good at assembling things.

Above and beyond the toys and gifts we have been so blessed this year. We are all healthy, we have enough to eat, and we have a warm home. Mike has a good job that he does well at and we have the gospel in our home. We are so grateful especially at this time for our Savior and his life. May God bless you and your family the way he has blessed ours!

Sledding!

I guess the one positive thing about all this snow is that we have enough to make a little sleeding hill in our front yard. Who needs to leave the yard for wintertime fun?

Happy Birthday Carter!

This is late, but here's to one of the funniest little guys I know. He is always thinking, and he always keeps us on our toes. He is very thoughtful and can be a fierce protector when it comes to Samantha. He loves all things boy, but that doesn't stop him from enjoying Tinkerbell or a great tea party occasionally. He loves to learn and is very persistent when it comes to getting something down. He is an awesome helper ("friends help friends, mom"), especially in the kitchen. He brings excitement to everything he does, and our family wouldn't be complete without him. Happy birthday little man!

Thanks, Aunt Amber for the Hulk Hands! He loves them!

Jealous?

We had our snow day on Friday and now it looks like tomorrow will be a cold day. This is from weather.com:

WINDS WILL SHIFT TO THE WEST AND STRENGTHEN IMMEDIATELY BEHIND THE STRONG COLD FRONT TO 20 TO 30 MPH... WITH GUSTS TO 40 MPH. TEMPERATURES WILL PLUMMET FROM THE 20S INTO THE SINGLE DIGITS BELOW ZERO OVERNIGHT. THE COMBINATION OF BITTER COLD TEMPERATURES AND SUCH STRONG WINDS WILL RESULT IN WIDESPREAD DANGEROUS WIND CHILLS OF 30 TO 34 DEGREES BELOW ZERO BY EARLY SUNDAY MORNING.

A WIND CHILL ADVISORY MEANS THAT VERY COLD AIR AND STRONG WINDS WILL COMBINE TO GENERATE WIND CHILL VALUES OF 20 TO 34 BELOW. THIS WILL RESULT IN FROST BITE AND LEAD TO HYPOTHERMIA IF PRECAUTIONS ARE NOT TAKEN. IF YOU MUST VENTURE OUTDOORS... MAKE SURE YOU WEAR A HAT AND GLOVES.

Seriously? Negative 20-30??? Plus 2-4 inches of snow on top of the foot we got on Friday??? Shouldn't they cancel church? Shouldn't they cancel everything?

Mike and I have been having this debate for a few years now. In his house growing up, Santa just put the gifts in separate piles for the kids and they just went at it. In my house Santa wrapped everything and we got to unwrap it all. Mike says that Santa shouldn't waste his time wrapping and I say that there is something special about getting to unwrap things one by one instead of just going at a big pile of toys. What do you think? What does Santa do at your house? Vote in my poll, let me know. Carter is getting old enough now that we need to settle this.

Cheese!

Chuck E. Cheese that is. Every year for Carter's birthday we ask what he wants to do and every year it is the same thing - Chuck E. Cheese. He loves this place. We went last night since his birthday is on Sunday and the kids had a fabulous time! I took my little camera because I didn't want to bring my big one in. Big mistake. After using my nicer camera the old one feels like a dinosaur (it was the first digital camera that we purchased). Anyway, that is my excuse for the lack of quality pictures.

Carter is a air hockey junkie. One day we will get a table for the basement.

This was a ride that simulates a roller coaster. Carter rode it for 20 minutes straight. I was a little worried that his brain would be scrambled after all the shaking! He seems alright this morning...

Snow Day!

We got some serious snow last night. And while you can usually expect some not-so-nice words from me when this happens, not today! I am loving it. The boy I was supposed to babysit today couldn't make it and after 2 hours of snow blowing Mike still got stuck twice getting out of our driveway. So, he gets to stay home and we just get to relax and hang out! It is really nice to have an excuse not to go anywhere. We have plenty of food, nice warm slippers and lots to do around here. What more could we ask for?

Pictures just don't do this storm justice. We have this wind tunnel effect between our house, the garage and the neighbors house resulting in drifts 3 ft deep. Our poor little snow blower really pulled through for us! It's days like this that I covet our neighbors huge snow blower.

Birthday Treats

I found the idea for these cookies online and thought that they would be cute for Carter's birthday treats for school yesterday. They aren't perfect, but I have to say I am pretty proud of how they turned out considering I am not at all crafty.

This is what they were supposed to look like:

I did ok, considering I had to improvise with some of the candies.

Anyways, they were a hit with Carter and his little classmates, so score one for Mom!

Gingerbread Men

My good friend Jessica just happened to post her recipe for gingerbread men just as I had been thinking of making some. I took it as a sign that it was meant to be and here are the results:

I have to say that they turned out pretty great for my first try. Carter had fun with them.

As for catch up, it's been a busy month! Thanksgiving was awesome. The food was delicious and we were able to get Mike's mom here for a few days, which I know made her happy. My favorite sister, Amber, came out for the week, and even though we didn't get out to do anything amazing, it was so much fun having her here. The kids absolutely adore her and they were both sad to see her leave. We are still trying to convince her to move out here.

Since then, I have just been trying to get my house cleaned up and get ready for Christmas. Mike had the idea to paint the basement and make a toy room down there for the kids' Christmas. For those of you who haven't seen our basement, this is what we are up against:

Except now we have all of our storage down there as well. Needless to say, it's been a project (all of those shelves are built in and had to be broken down), but it is coming along nicely. I knocked the strange room pictured here out a while ago, so that has helped (anyone who really knows me shouldn't be surprised to find out that demolition is my favorite part of any project). Really all we have left to do is paint the floor, get some carpet down and move the toys in. I really want to frame it off, so the utilities are in a separate room. but for now, I am just going to have to come up with some cute partition ideas. Anyways, nothing exciting, just life!

Like a Virgin

An eyebrow virgin that is. I got my eyebrows threaded yesterday for the first time and it was amazing! I can't believe that I have never had my eyebrows done before. They are nice and evenly shaped, no strays. I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone. You will never go back, I promise.

Yes, I know I have been absent from the blogging world forever and I will catch up later. Although you would think that I have a lot of spare time now that I don't have to worry about my eyebrows, somehow it hasn't worked out that way.

Bummer

Yes, my car seat order was cancelled. Target sent me an email stating that the price was wrong, but if I wanted to order it for $247 I still could. Whatever. What I find funny about the whole situation is how upset some people are getting about this. I am disappointed, but I will deal with it and move on. There are people calling their local news, boycotting Target and setting up groups to barrage them with emails. So funny.

Puppy Love

Carter picked out Homeward Bound for our movie last weekend and ever since then, I have seriously wanted a golden retriever. I know it's strange and out of the blue and yes, I do have 2 cats (I am secretly hoping it would eat them - kidding! Kind of). Anyways, I have always thought that little boys should have dogs. And, Carter is super cute with dogs that he knows. I have been looking at the GR rescue sites - there are 2 in Wisconsin! Who knew there were so many dogs to be rescued? Anyways, how can you not love this face? I would get an older one so I wouldn't have to deal with all the puppy energy and training. I know they require work, but it would be fun, right? It's all I can do to not fill out the application right now. But I won't, I think my plate is full enough. Someday soon, though...

Update

Thank you to everyone who has been asking about Mike's mom. We really appreciate your concern. At this time, she has decided to do hospice care. Which means that she has gone off her meds and could go at any time. Whether that is a week or a month we don't know. The hardest part right now is that she wants to come home to die. I have some serious concerns with Carter witnessing (even indirectly) the process. That, along with some other issues make it difficult for us to agree to that. For right now, she will be staying in the nursing home. We are exploring the possibility of her coming home for Thanksgiving day. Things change everyday, so who knows. Anyways, we appreciate your concern and will let you know if there are any changes.

Party Animal

I just have to say that although we struggle a lot with Carter (he inherited more of my traits than I would have liked), he is such a joy. We were at my good friend Jessica's birthday party tonight and he was just the life of the party! He absolutely loves these get-togethers. He talks to all the adults, entertains us and then hugs everyone as we leave. Tonight as we left, he said "well that was sure a nice party!" He is such a ham at these things. He was so disappointed last week when he couldn't come to Karen's baby shower. I honestly think that he would have more fun if we invited all of our adult friends over for his birthday next month than if we had a party with his friends. He totally cracks me up. He says the most mature things at times, and I just have to do a double take to make sure that it was really him that said it. Like tonight he was telling Jessica good job for something and it was like he was almost talking down to her. "Good job Jessica, you did that really well!" or something like that. He definitely keeps us on our toes!

Dissapointments

So it turns out that Carter read that book with Mike the night before and Mike spent a lot of time going over some of the words with him. My son is not the genius that I thought he was. He does recognize some words, but he's definitely not reading. Which is just fine.

And, I am fully expecting Target to cancel my car seat order. From what I have found online it was a typo. If it sounds too good to be true... We'll see!

Won't you be my neighbor?

My neighbor has been trying to sell his house for a while now. And as some of you know, I have been trying to sell it to friends so we can have great neighbors. He came over the other day to let me know that he has dropped the price to $189,000 and is offering all sorts of incentives (snow blower, lawn mower, etc). His contract with his agent is up around Thanksgiving, so he would be willing to go lower without the agent commission. It's 4 bedroom, 1 1/2 bath, 2 1/2 car garage. You can read more about it here. If you want to see it, let me know and we can schedule it directly through John. You know you want to be my neighbor. I make cookies and bread...

Seriously?

Yes. I just bought a Britax car seat from Target for $45. Free shipping. No, that is not an announcement. If you are in the market for a new car seat check this one out! Click here.

These went quick. They are out of stock this morning.

Oh, Baby!

Tonight I threw a baby shower for my good friend Karen. I was so excited to do it, because this girl has thrown her share of showers and then some. She is always the first to volunteer to do them. She throws and attends baby showers faithfully although it must have been torture sitting through all that baby talk when she didn't have kids. She has been a great friend and tonight it showed! So many people came to support her. We had a full house! It was great though, she got some great gifts and I think we all had a good time. So, thank you to everyone who helped (especially Jessica)! And a big thank you to everyone who came!

My little genius

So I was reading Carter his bedtime story tonight and all of a sudden, he's like "Mom, I'll read it" and starts reading. What?!? Now I am not 100% sure that he didn't have parts of it memorized, but I am pretty sure that he was reading some of the words! Don't get me wrong, I'm not bragging, I take absolutely no credit for it (other than to say that he does come from a superior gene pool :)). Go MPS, right?

This one is for Jessica

Carter (after the baby shower I just threw): Since everybody is leaving, these cookies are leftovers. We can eat them now!

Whitney: Do you know what happens to boys who eat too many cookies? They get their hands cut off.

Carter: No, CAVITIES!!!

Utah

This probably would have been better had I posted right after I got back, but I got busy, so this is our Utah trip in a nutshell.

We stayed at my brother's house with his awesome family (Carter took this picture):

Had fun with cousins:
It snowed one of the first days we were there (the weather was beautiful back home - go figure):

We made new friends - Carter and Ashton getting crazy: And hung out with old ones - me and my best friends from high school:

We ate great food - Wingers, Los Hermanos, Apollo burger, Taco Time, Brick Oven, Chili's - YUM!

We hunted flies. Ok, Carter was on his own with this one:

We slept with a large purple horse - again, just Carter:

We performed slave labor. Just kidding - Carter and Samantha had a blast helping Grandpa pick up the walnuts from his tree:

We spent some quality time with one of our favorite aunts, Amber:
We were stinkers at the Bean Museum:
We had a tea party with service for 20:
Carter reconnected with his betrothed. Tell me they're not the cutest couple ever (this is Eliza Ward). Once we showed up at the Ward's house these two disappeared and were inseparable:

And quite possible the best part of the trip, we went to the BYU game with Grandpa.

Thank you Amanda and Andy!

Carter insisted on winking in this one:
Overall, it was one of the best Utah trips yet. The kids missed Mike (so did I), but we had a great time visiting with family. I am actually looking forward to going back!