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!

Better late than never!

We left the day after Halloween, so I never got to post our Halloween pictures. The day was horrible. Carter wanted to be Buzz again after we bought the Pooh costume for him, so I had to fight him to put it on. Then we missed the Halloween party at Maggie Moo's that we had planned on going to and so we ended up going to the children's museum for their little Halloween activities. I should have known better than to go when we only had an hour. It was horrible getting them out of there and then they were just cranky for the rest of the day. Once Mike got home things got better. Carter really got trick-or-treating this year, which was fun. Samantha definitely held her own. Her new favorite phrase is "I want a treat". I think it's about time for detox.

Love the mischievous look:

All "pooh"ped out.

This picture pretty much describes the night; "Carter, wait up!!!"