Here are some pictures of Andi in her new dress.
The girls (Tess, Andi, and Ella) all enjoyed their new dresses.
I feel pretty...
She's starting to try too hard to smile during pictures. I did that from third grade until I turned 20.
Dylan didn't get a new dress. He actually wore clothes that were a size too small.Yesterday did not go at all as planned. Isn't that always the way? I had big plans to have dinner ready when Cameron got home, so that we could venture out to Mesquite where the closest Babies R Us is to exchange the swing that Cameron got for Addison. (Sidenote: It's not his fault he got the wrong one, I should have told him there were more than one of this brand.) Anyway, the day started to veer off course around 2:30. My sister in law called to talk about recent family happenings, and we got into a pretty lengthy discussion (as is usually the way.) that was still going strong by 3:00. During this time the kids had come in and out of my bedroom telling me various things they needed, wanted, or were unhappy about. Overall, nothing major. A little after 3:15 I heard Peyton screaming from upstairs. I hadn't heard anythign out of the ordinary, you know like a crash or anything, so I concluded that one of the other kids must have done something totally unfair, and I resolved to worry about it in a minute. Only, the crying didn't let up. A minute later, my conversation came to a screaching halt when Andi came downstairs to tell me that "Peyton is stuck in Dylan's drawer." How is this even possible? The drawers on Dylan's dresser are way too small to fit a 15 month old with a head in the 85th percentile. I end my call, run upstairs, and find Peyton in Dylan's room with the dresser completely turned over on top of him! He is almost spread eagle on the floor, with the exception of his legs that were kind of curled under the rest of him. His torso section was pinned by at least 3 dresser drawers that had fallen out and landed all askew on him, along with the actual weight of the dresser. His head was pinned to the floor by another drawer. I worked as fast as I could to get him out, and find out how exactly this had happened. From what I gather, and assessed, Dylan was playing with Peyton. Dylan climbed the drawers, (probably all the way to the top) which then started to tip. Dylan was able to avoid being pinned by jumping off when it was lower to the floor, leaving Peyton below the rubble.
After I had Peyton calmed down, I noticed that he seemed to be breathing differently than normal (which I thought could have been associated with a recent cold, but wasn't sure, since I hadn't noticed it before.) and he kind of had this glazed over look in his eye, and kept staring into space. I called Cameron at work, and told him the situation, and when I heard the worry in his voice, I knew it would probably be smart to call the doctor. After a couple short conversations with the nurse, it was decided that we should take him in to be looked at. Cameron left work as quickly as he could, so he could race home to try to make a 4:45 appointment. (At this point, it is a little after 4. Greenville, where Cameron works, is 20 minutes away; Garland, where the pediatrician is, takes about 30 minutes to get there, so you do the math.) Luckily, Aubrey was planning to stop by my house anyway to drop some stuff off, so when she called to tell me she was on her way, I gave her the details. Luckily, she is a fabulous person, and immediately took action to get my other kids taken care of, so Cam and I could just focus on Peyton.
The doctor's assessment is good. Peyton will definitely have some bruising, but there appears to be no internal damage. Turns out that he is having trouble breathing, but due to his cold, so we were sent home with a prescription of Albuterol, and a "Home Safety Checklist". I guess we know what we'll be doing this weekend...
Sam spent all day today at Aubrey's house making a dress for Andi. Since she was gone, that left me watching the kids by myself. It's not such a bad thing because they are my kids and all that, but I think today I got a little taste of what Sam goes through while I'm at "work". Here's a time line of how my day went, in case you're interested.
We dropped Sam off at the Crookston's house around 10:00 I thought "This should be easy. I'll just do the dishes really quick and maybe clean the living room and have the kids clean their rooms. Then I can spend the rest of the day watching TV or playing Madden. I might even get to take a nap. Woo hoo!"
The following things happened before one o'clock:
I swept the floor, did the dishes, and wiped off the table.
I gave the kids cinnamon rolls for cleaning their rooms.
Peyton thought crumpling his cinnamon roll into little bits and throwing it on the floor was way cool.
I swept the floor a second time.
While I was sweeping the floor the second time, I heard some rustling upstairs that didn't sound right. I head upstairs to find Andi and Dylan pulling all the wires out from behind our entertainment center.
I noticed that to Dylan, cleaning your room means "Take everything off the floor and put it on your bed."
I helped Dylan clean off his bed.
I try to think of a way to go back in time and take Dylan's cinnamon roll away from him. No luck.
I listened to the kids telling each other knock knock jokes.
The kids fight over whether the joke ends with Apple Poopy or Banana Poopy.
My hairline receded half an inch.
I forgot that the children need lunch.
I gave them corn dogs for lunch.
Dylan decides to be an artist and uses his corn dog as a brush and mustard as paint to create a happy little tree on the table.
I wiped off the table a second time.
Peyton thought throwing chips on the floor was way cool.
I swept the floor a third time.
I had to referee at least four different fights and fix one boo boo.
I think my hairline receded a quarter inch.
Peyton took a nap. Sort of.
I sat down to read a magazine. I got up to get a glass of water. Peyton ripped three pages out of my magazine in the minute I was gone.
That was all before one o'clock. The nap I thought I would take didn't happen. I didn't watch any TV. My 49ers team went untouched. By three o'clock I was ready to lock myself in a room and pretend that I didn't have children. Today I learned to appreciate what Sam goes through every day. I'm amazed she's still able to complete sentences and has all of her hair. Next time I watch the kids by myself, I won't be giving them a sugar filled treat at 10:30 in the morning, and I'll have a roll of Duct Tape close by.
Montse at Beehive Academy, at no fault of her own, has tagged me for The Moaning Meme that originated at The Freelance Cynic. Apparently this Freelance Cynic person doesn't think there are enough email forwards in the world, so she/he/they decided to start this thing. I haven't read their original post, but if this isn't for some kind of school project studying exponential numbers then shame on them.
The Moaning Meme
5 people who will be annoyed you tagged them.
The Crookstons - Sorry
Matt and Becky Williams - Good luck finding your blogger password.
Mark Cuban
Greg Oden
Curt Schilling
4 things that should go into room 101 and be removed from the face of the earth.
* The person who started this blog meme thing.
* Squirrels. They're creepy little animals. You never know when they'll attack.
* Sandra Bullock. Coincidentally, it is her birthday today. Don't forget to pick up your copy of "Premonition", on DVD or BluRay Disc.
* Mosquitos.
3 things people do that make you want to shake them violently.
* Skateboard in the street and don't move for cars. Dang kids.
* Using the speakerphone when they really don't need to. What, are you afraid of parasites on your receiver or something?
* Not signaling when they're turning.
2 things you find yourself moaning about
* When my kids hit me in the crotch. It seems to happen a lot.
* When my wife goes to the store with Aubrey.
1 thing the above answers tell you about yourself.
* I may be a little sarcastic.
RULES
Link to the original meme at freelancecynic.com so people know what it's all about! (And so they know where to send the hate e-mail.)
Be as honest as possible, this is about letting people get to know the real you!
Try not to insult anyone - unless they really deserve it or are very, very ugly!
Post these rules at the end of every meme!
I'm going to add some rules of my own:
Feel free to insult Sandra Bullock.
Send the person who tagged you $100. When you receive $100 from someone, send the person who tagged you 25%. We could all make a lot of money here, folks.
Here it is. One week post-ultrasound and we haven't posted anything since. Which is really weird to me, because since we told Andi what we were going to name the baby, I thought we would be spreading it like wildfire. I think there was just a little communication breakdown in our household. Cameron thought I was going to announce it on the blog, I thought he was, or maybe we both thought Andi would do it. Anyway, we have officially decided what to name our new little girl. It was pretty much decided before we even had the ultrasound, but after a week of trying it out, and getting approval from some family members, and most importantly the Crookston's, since they are like honorary family to us anyway :) I guess we should announce the name to everyone that frequents the blog. Sorry it took so long...at least it's not Halloween, like I thought it might be before, right?
Her name is going to be: Addison Samera Carter.
We will be calling her: That depends. Right now we plan to call her both Addi and Soni (pronounced Sunny). Eventually, we imagine having an Addi and an Andi would get confusing, so that's why we will probably call her Soni most of the time.
I thought of the name Addison at playgroup one day. I hadn't heard it before, and fell in love with it. When I mentioned it to another mom there, she asked if I watched "Grey's Anatomy". Well, you should all know how Cameron feels about that show from a previous blog, so the short answer, no. I do not watch Grey's Anatomy.
Samera is a middle name I actually came up with when I was pregnant with Peyton. I figured out if you took the first letter and last letter of my first name (Samantha) and smush the middle portion of Cameron's name between them, you get Samera. I thought it sounded pretty, and we wouldn't have to wrestle with family names for months, trying to come up with something that sounded "right".
So, there you have it. The "little bug" in my tummy has a name and an identity. She's no longer an "it". My next mission: trying to convince Cameron that Soni does in fact need a swing, AND a new car seat. Wish me luck!
Andi was right. It's a girl. Here are the pictures we got from the doctor today.
This is the visual of the her being a girl, so they told us. This could actually be Sam's kidney or something, I wouldn't know the difference.
Ah, the side profile picture. Everyone gets one of these.
The baby has a foot. Two of them. Woo hoo.
Today is the day! The wait is over, and we finally get to find out what the sex of the new baby is. Now, before you get too excited, it's only about quarter to 10 and my appointment isn't until 2:00, so this post is not to inform you all what we know. I found this to be quite humorous, so I thought I would share. Don't worry, the next post will probably contain the much anticipated verdict.
All throughout my pregnancy, any time Cameron and I asked Andi if she wanted a brother or a sister, she would say sister. We purposely didn't tell her that "mommy's pregnant" means that a new baby is coming, because we didn't want to answer all kinds of uncomfortable questions about how the baby got there, and especially the incessant whining about when the baby is coming (are we there yet?). But, based on conversations she has overheard, she got the message, and now knows that there is a new baby coming. So much so, that one afternoon I was over at Aubrey's, and she (Aubrey) exclaimed that she "wasn't having any more kids!" I agreed that I wasn't either, and Andi got really defensive. She started saying "No mommy! What about my baby sister coming?" That led to me asking if she would be happy if we had one more baby, and then our family could be complete. She told me that no, in fact she wanted 2 baby sisters! (Good luck convincing daddy of that, young lady!)
Anyway, here's the story I wanted to share before I went on a rambling streak....
Last night after dinner, Cameron was out mowing the lawn, and I was clearing off the table. Andi was in there keeping me company, so I started talking to her about the new baby. She said "you mean my baby sister?" I said, well, we don't know if it's a sister for sure, but daddy and I will find out tomorrow. (Andi) "TOMORROW!?"
Me: Yes. Tomorrow daddy and I are going to go to the doctor and we are going to look at the baby on a tv screen, and make sure it's healthy, and then the doctor will tell us if it's a brother or a sister."
Andi: "It's a sister."
Me: "Well, we'll find out tomorrow."
Andi: "You're going to the hopsital? I want to come too, and see my baby sister!"
Me: "No, this is just for grown ups. You're going to go to Noah's house and play, and we'll come get you when we're done. Besides, we don't know it's a sister. We will get whatever Heavenly Father wants us to have."
Andi: "He wants us to have a sister."
Me: "Well, that would be nice, but if he wants us to have a brother, we'll love him too."
Andi: (gettting quite irritated by this point) "But Jesus Christ thinks girls are best and so he wants me to have a sister!"
After that, I gave up. She was right about what Peyton was, so maybe she knows something we don't. Needless to say, if they find male genitalia today, Cameron's the one that gets to tell Andi.
I guess I also forgot to mention that she had gotten confused about seeing the baby, and getting the baby. Later on last night, she kept saying that she couldn't wait to hold her baby sister, and she started packing her bag to go stay at the Crookstons while we went to get the baby. Man, December is so far away for a 4 year old.
Peyton had his first haircut on Saturday. We also changed his crib into a toddler bed on Saturday. Sam was kind of sad because he's growing up so fast. I'm happy because he's one step closer to taking over lawn mowing duties. Here are some pictures from his haircut.
The other night, Peyton got in a fight with the coffee table and lost. He a has a bruise by his eye that I'm going to go ahead and call a black eye. You can see if fairly well in the first picture, but not so much the second one. Peyton is a fighter, so I'm sure he'll have another run in with the coffee table some day.
Since it's July and the middle of the year, I decided I'd look back at my New Year's Resolutions to see how I'm doing. I think I had resolved to:
1. Not get fired
2. Lose Weight
3. Don't get my wife pregnant.
1. So far so good with this one. As long as I don't start doing drugs or taking firearms to work I should be fine.
2. Well, let's just say that today I drank approximately half a gallon of Mountain Dew. I wish I was joking.
3. Oops.
Maybe I should have set more realistic goals for the year. One of our friends from Nevada, Montse, has been doing this Smart Habits Saturday thing for a while now. It seems like a great idea, and it looks like she has been doing an excellent job at it. I would start doing it myself, but I can tell you what my thing would look like after three weeks.
Habit 3: Stop Watching So Much TV But how will I find out what happened to Kevin Arnold while he was growing up if I don't watch "The Wonder Years" everyday?
Habit 2: Stop Drinking Mountain Dew Hey, I can stop any time I want to. I just don't want to right now.
Habit1: Exercise Does getting out of bed count as exercise?
I really should do all of those things. Maybe someday I actually will. Maybe being the key word there.
On a completely different subject, I hate paying my car insurance premiums. Back in Fallon we didn't mind at all because a guy from our ward was our agent, and he was super cool and a really good value for the money. When we moved to Texas we had to go through a different company. Our "agent" has misquoted us on every quote she has given. I am fearful of anything at all happening that would require us to rely on her for help on a claim. One time she sent us a card and wrote in it "I love referrals", and I thought about referring the parents of the skateboard kid down the street, just because I don't like them because their kid is always in the street skateboarding. Hey pal, McDonald's has a hat and an apron with your name on it. Our insurance agent should be joining you there in a month or two. We're going to be changing insurance companies this week. Blah on you insurance companies.
It's been raining a wee bit here in Texas for the past month or two. The city postponed the fireworks show because of rain. To provide some source of pyrotechnic entertainment for the night, Jared and I went to a fireworks warehouse to get something we could light on fire. We spent a grand total of approximately $16.72. Some people were buying cart loads of stuff and racking up two or three hundred dollars worth of stuff. I guess their money was burning a hole in their pocket. Anyway, here are some pictures from the first annual Crookston / Carter fireworks extravaganza.
The crowd could hardly contain their excitement.
Oooooooooh. Ahhhhhhh. Sadly, that's about as good as it got.
Andi was into the sparklers.
You can almost feel the excitement.
Peyton observed the flames and carnage from a safe distance.One hot summer day when I was around Dylan's age, I went to the store with my dad. We were standing in line to check out. The person in front of us was a young woman wearing shorts. I think I embarrassed my dad a little when I told him, "Dad! That girl isn't wearing any underpants!"
The other day at Wal-Mart, I was pushing Dylan around in the cart. He apparently was being observant and looking at people that we passed. We passed a few women who were dressed for the Texas heat. Dylan noticed them, and announced to me quite loudly "Look daddy, she's naked!"
I guess I had that coming.
