Andi Turned Six!

Andi turned six yesterday. A lot of things make me feel old. The growing bald spot on the top of my head. Bending over to tie my shoe and having my back spasm on me. Looking at the year on my favorite album and seeing that it was made in 1994. Seinfeld ended 10 years ago. But the real kicker is realizing that I have a six year old kid. Holy cow!

Andi tends to be a bit demanding on her birthday, and seeing that it is one of the worth days possible to have a birthday, we tend to let it slide a little. This year she wanted to go see a movie and go to dinner at Wendy's. (Little did she know we planned on going to a movie this week anyway. Ha!) We went to see Bedtime Stories, which was pretty good. It was like other Adam Sandler movies, except it wasn't crude because it's a Disney movie. The kids all sat through it and were telling us their favorite parts on the way to Wendy's.

We got her a Disney Sing It game for the Wii. I played it with her this morning. There's nothing more awkward than being an oldish man singing something something called "Like Whoa" by Aly and AJ.

There are some songs from High School Musical 1 and 2 on it, and I totally kicked Andi's heinie on those songs. I love High School Musical, and I'm not afraid to say it, even though I really should be. I can't help it, it's catchy.



So, there you go. Happy Birthday Andi! Only 10 more years before she starts driving. (Crap!)

Christmas

The kids woke us up at various times Christmas on Christmas morning. Peyton woke up at 4:30 because he pooped. Sam heard Dylan crying upstairs at 6:00. I went up to see what was going on. He was laying motionless on the floor and I asked him what the problem was. He said he was stuck. Huh? He was stuck because if he moved he would throw up. So, I carried him to the bathroom and he promptly threw up. He wasn't feeling well the night before, so it wasn't really a surprise. Andi and Soni woke up at 7:00, and the first thing Andi said was "It's Christmas! It's my birthday tomorrow!"

So, about that time we took the kids downstairs to see their stockings and open presents. I got a great video of Soni running to her toy that she recognized from the store, and Andi acting all excited about her new boom box. At least that's what I thought. I actually got a great video of me setting down the camera after I thought I had turned it off, and then about 15 minutes worth of my behind as I sat on the floor opening stocking stuff with Soni. Good times.

I also did not take one picture of the present unwrapping. I'm going to go ahead and blame this on being up until 1:00 and then being woken up at 4:30. That, and my old age.

Peyton had some problems yesterday where he ended up pooping every 15 minutes or so. I told him before Christmas that the best present he could give me was to start using the potty. What he did was the exact opposite.

Grandpa Sloan and Uncle Pat were here to spend Christmas with us. It was good to have them here. Grandpa helped Sam cook dinner while I was changing diapers and cleaning up puke, so that worked out well.

It was like 68 degrees here today. Our family in Idaho and Wyoming had like 40 feet of snow dumped on them yesterday. Sorry guys.

Christmas was pretty fun. The kids had a good time and the adults are still alive, so there you go. Merry Christmas!

Ho Ho Ho

Peyton is in a Christmas mood, probably because he knows he'll get stuff.

Giddyup!

We gave Soni a Fisher Price Smart Bounce n Spin Pony for her birthday. I am a lame father, and I didn't get around to putting it together until tonight. I've just gone and taken procrastinating to an art form, haven't I? Oops.

She was so excited to try it out that she tried climbing on it before I had it put together. She was having lots of fun until the darn pony bucked her off. Her feet don't quite touch the ground when she's on it, but with how fast she's growing that will change pretty quick.

"Gingerbread" "House"

Andi's school had a gingerbread house making activity tonight, where everyone go to put together their own gingerbread house as a family. Except, it was graham crackers instead of gingerbread, if we're splitting hairs. The kids were excited to do it, because we haven't really had a tradition of making gingerbread houses. The last one we did was 8 years ago. We ended up making a trailer house, complete with a large satellite dish in the backyard, mainly because we couldn't figure out how to make a stupid roof thingy.

We got there and there were a lot of people already under way, making nice little houses that were decorated with gum drops and M&Ms and what not. We picked a spot and got to work.

Here the kids are anxiously waiting for the house to be done so they could decorate it. It's good to teach your kids disappointment at an early age.

Dylan waiting for it to be done already.

No, Peyton didn't just sit there and eat the candy. Why would a two year old do that?

After several attempts and many failures, I was finally and miraculously able to get a make shift structure that stood up and didn't fall down when it was breathed on. It wasn't pretty by any means:

Hey Andi, smile next to your wicked cool gingerbread house! Dylan shows his disapproval of the lack of architectural integrity of our "house". Sorry buddy.

This is what the final thing ended up looking like. Ummm, I'm not proud of it, but hey, look at it standing up under the weight of the candy! Woo hoo! We named it the Hurricane Ike inspired outhouse. It probably wouldn't have been so bad if I would have just let Sam do it and didn't keep knocking the roof over with my large, shaky hands. "I have such fat hands!"

Maybe we'll practice a little more so next year we can upgrade from an outhouse back up to a trailer house with the satellite dish.

Soni's Birthday Part 2

I forgot to post pictures from Soni's birthday party thing. We had the Buckleys and the Crookstons over for cake and ice cream. Yum.

Here she is opening presents. Wow, that first year went by fast.

This is a cool purse that the Crookstons got her. I had to take it away from the boys the next morning because they were fighting over it. Oh my.
The Buckley got her a dolly, which I apparently did not get a picture of. I had to take that away from the boys the next morning as well because they were fighting over it. :(

"Sure, I can blow that thing out from this far away, dad. No problem."

Her first birthday cake. It turned out to be nicer than Peyton's:

(Thanks for that one, Wal-Mart.)

Mmmmmm, cake.

Ugh, I shouldn't have eaten that last handful.

The Thanksgiving of Germs

We had a pretty standard, not too exciting Thanksgiving this year. My cousin Nicole and her family came up from Houston to spend the day with us. I hadn't seen Nicole in years, so it was good to see her again, and to meet Caleb and their baby.

When I was getting the turkey ready to put in the oven, the kids were amazed by it. I had the turkey do a little dance and say "I didn't run away fast enough." Is that morbid? No more so than having to dig the bag of giblets out of the neck cavity, or the neck from the body. Anyway, the kids were so amazed by the turkey that they wanted to touch it too. Sure, touch the salmonella covered poultry and then go play, great idea. To get the kids to stop trying to touch the bird, I told them that it was covered in germs, and that it would get them sick if they touched it. Problem solved.

When it was time for dinner, we got the kids all the stuff they needed on their plates. They started eating the Jell-o salad, because Jell-o is freakin awesome. Not one of them tried the turkey. I told them, "Hey guys, try the turkey. It's good." to which they responded, "We can't touch the turkey, it's covered in germs." Oh. I did say that, huh.

We tried to amend the turkey/germs thing by telling them that after it was cooked the turkey was ok to touch, but they weren't buying it. It was covered in germs and they didn't want anything to do with it. Oh well, more turkey for me!

One Year Old!

Our wee little baby is a year old today.

How the heck did that happen?


This year sure has gone by fast. You forget how small and dependent babies are when they are first born. Seeing how much she has grown is quite amazing.

With our other children, we found out that Sam was pregnant again on their first birthday. Luckily, we have broken that trend and we have no such thing to report (and we're hoping it stays that way).

Happy Birthday Soni!

More Cheerleading

Andi had a cheerleading competition today. It marks the end of the football/cheering season. We had a lot of fun doing it. It will be kind of weird having Saturdays and weeknights free now. Maybe now we'll be able to update our blog more than twice a month (but don't count on it).

Here is a video of their routine. They did a great job at it. They were the smallest squad out there, and the cutest! They ended up getting fourth place out of seven teams in their age group. They placed better than the other Royse City team which has professional instructors come out and choreograph their dances for them. Ha ha!

Halloween

Ok, here goes our Halloween post, only 5 days after the fact. Hey, at least it's within a week.

Here is the house decorating we did for Halloween. The witch on the post that is older than our kids, a "spooky" welcome mat, and some pumpkins. Boo.


Then there are our neighbors across the street ...
I didn't add the blurriness, that's just how our camera is taking pictures when you zoom in. 2.0 Megapixels of glorious blur. Woo hoo! Anyway, they have this elaborate setup and on Halloween night they have a haunted house thing set up in their garage. Cool stuff.

Our kids went like this:
Some may say "Hey, that's cheap, you just put them in their football/cheerleading uniforms". On the contrary, it was not cheap. They were the most expensive Halloween costumes ever.

Soni went dressed as Eeyore.

You may have seen that costume before:

Peyton in 2006

Andi in 2003

Some may say "Hey, that's cheap, you stuck three of your kids in the same costume." I say "Hey, we need to buy a new camera, we have to be cheap."

So there you go, that was the extent of our Halloween this year. Now that it's over, time to put up the Christmas decorations! Woo hoo!

Finally

Woo hoo! The election is over! Now we don't have to see any more political ads!

Who started the "I'm ..... and I approve this message" trend? Of course you approve this message, you just said every single word that was in the message. At least we don't have as many political ads in Texas as we did in Nevada. In Nevada it was a steady stream of political ads from May through November. At least it was a break from the steady stream of Viagra and Cialis commercials.

If you have a bumper sticker for a specific candidate on your car, there should be a set time frame after the election where you have to take the sticker off. If your candidate lost, you should take the sticker off your car by the end of the next week. If your person won, you should take it off by inauguration day. Much like the "My child is an honor student at xxx Junior High" sticker, that no longer means anything if your child is in High School and failing English. I saw a car with one of these stickers on it the other day. Time to take it down, friend.

:)

This past Sunday at church, I was sitting with Dylan trying to help his teacher out because he was being a pain in the butt. Every now and then he gets in these moods where he doesn’t want to do anything but yell and make nasty faces at people. His teacher was trying to get him to tell her what he likes to do. I said “You like to play football, right buddy?”

 

“NO!!!!!!”

 

He teacher asked “Do you like to go fishing?”

 

“NO!!!!!!!”

 

“Do you like to color?”

 

“NO!!!!!!!!”

 

An observant little girl was sitting next to him. She said, “He likes to be angry!”

 

I think she has him figured out.

The Great Disease of 08

We've been passing a bug around our house for the past month or so. I've had it for 3 weeks (and I don't usually get sick), and the kids and Sam have had it at least once. We ended up having to take Soni to the pediatrician on Friday to have her checked out. She has bronchiolitis and the beginnings of an ear infection. They gave her four different medications, and we were told that we need to give her pulmicort breathing treatments until cold and flu season is over. When exactly is that? So, every morning we need to give her all the medicines. Those of you with children know it isn't exactly easy to give kids of any age medicine. It's like trying to give a rotten banana to an orangutan.

As soon as we left the doctor's office, we got a voicemail from Aubrey who had picked Andi up from school. Apparently Andi had a fever and wasn't feeling good at all. You know those parents of kindergarteners that just send their sick kids to school and end up getting everyone else sick? Yeah, that's us. Hi. Sorry.

Because of the pestilence we skipped church again today, making it the 17th week in a row we haven't made it, and the 48th week in a row we haven't made it on time. Oops. We're supposed to speak in church next week, so we're planning on both of those streaks ending. Hopefully.

Etsy Shop

Sam has been trying to figure out some things she can do from home to make some money. Since my suggestions of helping out Prince Mike Okoye from Nigeria and selling one or two of the children really didn't work out, she found something different to do. So, after putting some thought into it and getting stuff ready, we've opened up an etsy shop. (It's kind of like an eBay store, but you sell stuff you make instead of your Scooby Doo lunchbox from 1982 that you found while cleaning out your parents basement.) Here's the stuff we're selling so far:

We have a vinyl cutter thingy, so we can cut out decals (that's the best word I can come up for it) that you can stick on your walls or car windows or whatever. If you ever need any of that stuff just let us know and we can hook you up.

So, there you go. That's our attempt at working from home. If you see something that somebody else might like, let them know because word of mouth is cool.

You know you're in a blog slump when...

...Avid readers of your blog start tagging you because your blog has become boring. Okay, so I know that's not the reason that Teresa tagged me for this, but let's face it, the Carters have definitely be slacking off on our duties to entertain as of late. Anyway, Here it goes...




1. Where did you first meet your husband?
We met at Ricks College. Yes, when we met, and the entire time we attended it was Ricks, so I don't want to hear any corrections about BYU-I. We went to Ricks. Anyway, we were in the same Book of Mormon class, and had it not been for a broken molar, we probably never would have met at all. Funny story. I sat in a seat clear accross the room from him the first day of class, the second day of class I had to miss for an emergency dentist appointment, and that just happened to be the day they were making up the seating chart. Yeah, I know like we were in Elementary School, we had assigned seats. When I went to class the following time, "my" seat had been taken, and the only open seat left was next to "the guy in the plaid shirt".

2. What was the first thing you said to your husband?
I'm guessing it was something totally profound. Ya know, a lot like "Is anybody sitting there?"

3. Where was your first date?
Cameron and his roommates had gotten coupons out of the Scroll (the College newspaper) for half off bowling. However, you had to use them on something retarded like a Tuesday night. So, that's what we all did. Cameron and his roommates got dates, and we all went bowling. It was lucky we even got to go though. I accidentally turned him down when he called to ask me out. How does that happen? Well, I was so excited that he had FINALLY asked me out (I'd been trying to convince him to do so for an entire sememster, and bupkus) that I had forgotten how he had phrased his question. He had asked if I was busy that night, and I thought that he had asked if I was free that night. I said yes, and quickly realized my mistake by his reaction. Glad a blonde moment didn't ruin it.

4. Where was your first kiss?
Our first kiss was on our second date. There's a long embarrassing story that involves me being a contestant on a Singles Ward version of "The Dating Game", but I thought because of that, Cameron would be expecting a kiss that night. (Did I mention we had also been in the same ward the whole time?) Anyway, I wanted to kiss him, but didn't know how to go about it. We were on my porch outside of my apartment (with his roommate, his roommate's date, and his roommate's cousin in the car waiting for him) and I decided to just go for it. As a result, I kissed his upper lip, and top front teeth, was so embarrassed, I looked at him, said "well, goodnight" and ran in and slammed the door, leaving Cameron extremely confused outside. I guess you can say it could have gone better.

5. Did you have a long or short engagement/courtship?
Well, we started dating in January, were engaged by March, and were married in June. I guess you could say that was short.

6. Where did you get engaged?
Unofficially we got engaged at my apartment. Kind of like a joke, it was mentioned he should hook me up with his younger brother, since we were the same age. But, we decided to get married instead. I picked out my ring when I went to Star Valley to meet his family, and when we went back to pick up my ring, the jeweler didn't know Cameron hadn't proposed, and made him put the ring on my finger. I gave it back to him shortly after leaving the store, and Cameron officially proposed a little while after we got back to his folk's house. It was very impromptu, but sweet nonetheless.

7. Where did you get married?
We were married in the Bountiful Utah LDS temple. I wanted to get married in a white temple, so Cameron went to the bookstore, bought small pictures of all plausible temples, and we threw them up in the air. Bountiful was the only one that landed face up, so that's how we picked it.

8. How did the reception go?
Not very well. I woke up that morning with a migraine as a result of all the stress and emotion from the day before. Oh yeah, I guess I should mention that we got married on Friday, and the reception was on Saturday. Anyway, I had a horrible headache, and was nauseous the entire time at my reception. I almost threw up when I ate my bite of cake for the picture. I think Cameron may have been worried he had made a mistake when he saw the "sick" side of Sam. The Star Valley reception was better, except for the old lady that asked how I was related to the groom. Yeah, all dressed in white, veil and all, and I had to explain that I was the bride. Go figure!

9. How was the honeymoon?
It was good. My mom found a discount vacation package that included airfare, and hotel in Reno, Nevada. So, that's where we went. We spent 4 days and 3 nights in Reno at the Sands Regency Hotel and Casino. Cameron wasn't old enough to rent a car, so we couldn't go anywhere that wasn't in walking distance, but there were many all you can eat buffets in the area, so it was good. When we didn't want to leave the room, we would watch tv, and ended up seeing a few episodes of "the Monkees" old TV show. It was especially funny to tell people that we went to Reno on our honeymoon when we lived in Fallon. Even funnier when Dylan was born in Reno. Wasn't quite as romantic as the first time we were there, but we were glad to be there anyway.


Okay, so now I tag: Brandon, and anyone else that might want to do it. Good luck!

Reality Shows

I was watching TV the other day, and I saw a commercial for a show that I thought looked...interesting. The name of the show? Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling.

The contestants include Tiffany, Danny Bonaduce, the kid from Diff'rent Strokes that isn't Gary Coleman, Frank Stallone, and Screech. I don't plan on watching the show. I just think it's funny that there is apparently nothing that these people won't do to get on TV. I came up with some ideas for former celebrity reality shows.

Hammer Time: People line up to hit "celebrities" in the face with a hammer. Hosted by M.C. Hammer. The celebrity who withstands the most hammer hits wins a cameo in an upcoming independent movie.

Where Are They Now? Former child stars are placed in remote locations and have to find their way home. They get a five minute head start before the rabid monkeys are released.

Witch or No Witch? Is Tonya Harding a witch? She is thrown into a lake to see if she floats or sinks. If she floats, she's a witch!

We have found a witch, may we burn her?

Twilight

Sam told me that I have to read Twilight before the movie comes out. She told me this back in July. I realized the other day that the movie comes out next month. Since the book is longer than the comics section of a newspaper (which is all my attention span can handle), I decided that maybe I should start reading it now so that I'll be about a quarter of the way through the book by the time the movie comes out. The past couple of days I've made it through three chapters, and here is what I've gotten out of it so far:

The main character in the book is Elisabeth [create your own last name], but she goes by Bella. Why does she go by Bella? I don't know, maybe it's because she wants to confuse people when she first meets them with the Elisabeth/Bella thing, and while they're busy pondering that she picks their pockets. At the beginning of the book her mother kicks her out of the house and she has to go live with her father, who works for the secret service in Washington. It talks a lot about the rain in Washington, and I always thought of that area as being kind of sunny, so the book must be set in the future after the oceans have risen 40 feet due to the melting polar ice caps.

On Beth's (I'm gonna call her Beth from now on, just for kicks) first day of school, she meets some kid named Matt who has two classes with her and follows her around everywhere. (Turns out Matt followed her because he's trying to convince her to invest in his friendship bracelet business.) I kind of lost track of where the book was going from there. I think in chapter three she met a boy named Eddie who is good looking, except for his pale skin and bags under his eyes. Turns out his washed out appearance is due to the fact that he is a professional gamer, and he plays Halo3 fourteen hours a day trying to increase his world ranking. Also, he is addicted to meth and PCP. Something happened where Beth almost got hit by a car, but Eddie saved her because he's a wizard or something. After Eddie saved Beth from the car, he realized how short life can be and decided to profess his love for Matt to her just so he wouldn't have to hide it any more.

That's as far as I got in the book. I hear that the rest of the book goes something like this: Beth finds a magic apple in her backyard (see the cover picture) that gives her the ability to read minds. She is faced with the decision to use her new-found powers for good or for evil. At first she uses the ability for good, as she plays matchmaker at her school between people who were secretly in love with someone else, her first set up being Eddie and Matt. Eventually she tires of making other people's lives easier, and starts using her power for evil. It started with cheating on a test or two, and eventually grew to finding out the innermost secrets of those around her, and posting those secrets on her My Space blog.

At the climax of the book, Beth loses her mind reading ability as she snacks on the apple when she is unable to find a misplaced bag of Cheetos, not realizing what she has done until she reaches the core. In an effort to retrieve her gift, she plants the seeds from the apple if her back yard, hoping to grow another magic apple tree.

The second book in the series, New Moon, tells about Beth's cultivation of the tree as it begins to produce blossoms (see book cover below), and her thirst for the power she once had.

I wonder if the movie will be anything like the book.

Sharing

If mom leaves her stuff lying around, it means it's up for grabs right?

A New Post!!!

Wow, it's been over two weeks since we've posted anything. Oops. Sorry. I guess that "something" post didn't count. I did that because I thought "I really should put something on the blog." So I did. Ba-dum-cha. Sadly, even though it's been a while, I still can't think of any one big event that's happened that I can stretch out into one post. So, here are some quick thoughts of stuff that's happened.

We kind of got hit by hurricane Ike when that passed through Texas. By hit I mean the eastern most part of it passed over us after it had degraded to a tropical storm. It wasn't really all that bad, it was like a really long thunderstorm without the thunder and with more wind. I think the worst thing that happened to me because of the hurricane (besides a raise in gas prices) was I got the song "Rock You Like a Hurricane" stuck in my head for a week. It's much funner to play on Guitar Hero than it is to watch the music video.

Dylan's team won their first football game Saturday. Woo hoo! It had nothing to do with the fact that I was running the scoreboard. Honest. I wasn't planning on running the scoreboard. I went to the press box to sort of announce, and nobody else was up there to do it, so lucky me I got a crash course in scoreboard running. As soon as I got up there, the officials were signaling for me to change the clock to eight minutes. (That's pretty easy to do, if you have four minutes to kill.) Eventually I figured it out, and despite the protests from the visiting Greenville parents, our team won 98 to 6. Muhahahaha. It was like our team was made up of little Mike Ditkas.

No matter how hard I tried, I could not stay awake through the entire CSI: Miami season premiere last night. I used to love that show, now it's like Nytol to me. I guess it's Horatio Caine's soothing voice that does it.

We bought some Dr. Pepper last week. It had Cowboys logos on it to commemorate the final season in Texas Stadium. I feel all dirty now for having drank from a can with a Cowboys logo on it. It's just wrong.

Soni has like six or seven teeth now and is pretty sturdy when she pulls herself up on things. The fourth kid sure grows up fast. Every time I turn around she's doing something new. I feel old.

I'm sure there's more stuff than that, I just can't remember anything right now. I should take notes because I'm starting to lose my memory.

Something

Halftime Dance

Andi and her cheer team did a dance at halftime of the game. The coach did a pretty good job teaching four and five year old girls a choreographed dance. Sorry for the camera work. I was zoomed in a lot and holding a wiggly baby. At least they're in the frame.

Are You Ready For Some Football

You may being saying "Holy cow, three posts about a football game?" Well, compadre, it's going to be four after get a video clip uploaded.

Andi on the field ready to go.

Dylan with his team on the field.

Andi and her team (all three of them) ready to cheer.

Dylan is on the field in this picture. He's the kid the coach is trying to push up to the line. Why was Dylan reluctant to line up? The other team had two HUGE (for their age) kids in there on the line that probably outweighed him two to one. Dylan was supposed to block. After the first play, instead of blocking, he would assume the "don't kill me" position or the "protect the groin"position instead of actually blocking. I can't say that I blame him. He didn't play a whole lot because the coach kept having to push him up to the line for every play. Maybe next week.

Dylan and the bench warmers are in the background, with Andi in the middle of a cheer in front.

Final score: Panthers 46, Dawgs 30. We scored thirty points!!! Woo hoo! Not bad considering the pair of opposing giant kids, who I think ended up eating one of the kids on our team before the game ended.

Here's what Peyton was doing during the game. "I'm not interested in being your friend, strange boy."

We got the kids ring pops. This is what Peyton looked like after his was gone.

Brother and Sister

We got picture of the kids together in their uniforms before the game. Too cute.

Again, Peyton wanted to have his picture taken too.

Mr. Football Guy

Dylan had his first football game today. I've gotta say, some people sure take Pee Wee football seriously. The other coach took a timeout with three seconds left in the first half so that they could score and go to halftime with a two touchdown lead instead of just one. Butthead. Here are some pictures of our football player dude before we left for the game.

Dylan looking good in his football uniform.

It's so cool, they even had their names on the back of their jerseys. My Junior High School football team didn't even have that.

I told him to make a mean face because football players are supposed to look mean. Grrr.

Peyton got jealous of all the pictures being taken, so I told him to make a mean face too.

Ready to Cheer (finally)

Dylan and Andi have their first football game/cheering this Saturday. Andi was supposed to get her uniform two weeks ago, but because of a slow manufacturer she just got it today. I'm starting to rethink this because she's too stinking cute, and I don't own a shotgun. Still.