Carter Family Happenings

Vacation Part I

2010-08-21T09:16:00.007-05:00

It's been three weeks since we got home from our vacation, so what better time than now to bore you with all the details of that vacation. Woo hoo!

Day One: We drove from our house to Albuquerque, NM. I've always been intrigued by Albuquerque because of Weird Al's 10 minute long song called Albuquerque. I was on the lookout for someone to shave my back for a nickel. No dice. The air did not smell like warm root beer, and the towels were not oh so fluffy. Such a disappointment.

We had been telling the kids the whole day that when we got to the hotel, we'd go to the pool. We got to the hotel, went to the pool, and in the pool was a girl that shall henceforth be known as the spawn of Satan, or SOS for short. Apparently SOS was having her birthday party at the hotel pool (who does that?), and she owned 40 pieces of floaty pool toys that were all in or around the pool, that no one else could look at or touch. She also owned the water in the pool, the pool itself, and the souls of everyone who dared enter. After twenty minutes of being there, we had the choice of drowning SOS in her precious pool, selling our souls for ten more minutes of swimming time, or leaving so we wouldn't have to listen to the sound of her voice reminding us to not touch her pool toys. So, we did the logical thing and drowned her in the pool. I hope the Albuquerque police don't find out. The kid's disappointment of leaving the pool early was soon forgotten when they found out the hotel room had a sofa bed. That was the coolest thing in the world!!!

Day 2: We drove. A lot. Turns out, it's a long way from Albuquerque to Salt Lake. We passed by a lot of scenic stuff around Moab. There was a twenty mile stretch through Moab that was scenic, but the rest of the scenery was kind of lame. We stopped like 40 times so the kids could pee. Soni got mad because we stopped by the side of the road and let the boys pee, but we didn't let her pee on the side of the road too. We eventually made it to Auntie Wick's house. I considered just finding a home there in Utah and moving there, just so we wouldn't have to drive any more.

Day 3: We went through Salt Lake so we could take the kids to Temple Square. We enjoyed it. I think the kids thought it was cool. Here are pictures:

The kids outside the conference center. I forgot to rotate the picture. They thought the waterfall was oh so cool.

Here are the kids on top of the conference center looking at Temple Square below. They didn't jump off of the roof. Score one for us.

Here they are in front of the "Jesus Statue"

Here's everyone in the conference center. That thing is huge! The guy said they fit the entire state of Utah inside of it. I think he was lying.

We left Salt Lake and made it to Star Valley Wyoming, home of THE WORLD'S LARGEST ELK HORN ARCH!!!! Be amazed, be very amazed.
When we got here, I considered finding a house and moving here, so we wouldn't have to drive any more. Then I remembered that it gets to like 120 below in the winter, and decided against it.

I'll post Vacation Part II sometime within the next two months. Try to contain your excitement.

Summer Vacation

2010-08-08T23:14:00.005-05:00

For vacation this summer, we went to Star Valley to visit family, and to see the World's Largest Elkhorn Arch. It was super fun.

We played at grandma and grandpa's house

We soaked up some sun at the beach.

We went to Rexburg and showed the kids were we met.

We saw the Grand Canyon on the way home.

Feelin' Groovy

2010-05-15T20:32:00.004-05:00

While trying to come up with a title for this post, the old Simon and Garfunkel song came to mind. "Slow down, you move too fast. Gotta make the morning last, just kickin' down the cobblestones, lookin' for fun, and feelin' groovy!"

That about sums up this week.

I've realized that the kids just need to slow down, already! Need a few examples?

Soni's hair is now long enough to put in a ponytail, and she will very often (usually while grocery shopping) burst into song. Her favorite at the moment happens to be "we will rock you". We'll be going down the cereal isle, when she will begin to shout "We wheel, we wheel, WOCK YOU!" She has also started this thing where she will scratch Cameron's back, or "do" his hair, and then ask..."All better, Daddy?" I swear, 2 1/2 is a lot cuter on a kid that you know is your last one!

Peyton is very proud of the fact that he can now spell his name. Yesterday, I heard him chasing the others around going "Wemember, guys...it's P-E-Y-T-O-N!" He repeated this over and over again, each time spelling it faster than the time before.

While at the dentist office today (Cameron and I were taking turns, so I was in the waiting room with the kids) Dylan read me a book. He read the whole thing himself, with very little help from me. Granted, it wasn't a particularly challenging book, but if you know Dylan, you know that he takes after his mother a bit. He's a perfectionist. He doesn't want to try, if he thinks for one second that he might fail. So, up until now, he refused to read to me. Turns out, he's pretty good at it! Let's hope we can get him to keep it up through the summer.
Andi has recently taken to reading "chapter books". While her handwriting still worries us that she may be dyslexic, her teacher assures us that it's most likely because she is left handed. I still have no idea how we managed to get a lefty. She's the only one in the house. In an effort to make her look more nerdy, she recently got glasses. Cameron sat content in the knowledget that he was getting his way, with making her less attractive to the opposite sex. Unfortunately, his plan failed. Turns out, she has the perfect face for glasses, so she still looks cute. To add insult to injury...

A few days ago, there was a knock at the door. When Cameron looked out the window, he saw that there were a couple neighborhood kids at our door. Thinking they were panhandlers, Cameron answered the door. To his surprise, the boys asked if Andi could come out to play. That's right, Andi has male admirers. I recognized one of the boys from Andi's class. His name is Christian, and has always been polite to me. We consented, and they ended up playing in our backyard. I wasn't worried, because I figure she's just like me. I always had more boy friends than I had girl friends. Cameron WAS worried for the exact same reason. "She looks just like you, and you're cute! This is the beginning of the end, I tell ya!"

I may be mistaken, but I think I saw a look of "I gotta get me a shotgun" in his eye.

At ease, Daddy, at ease...

I would post a picture of Andi in her new glasses, but I can't seem to find the camera. I'll get right on that. Maybe this time next month, I'll get it on here. Golly, I'm such a slacker...

Four Score and...How Long Is That?

2010-04-28T13:54:00.003-05:00

Obviously, I have been doing a stellar job of updating the blog. So well, in fact, that I'm not even going to apologize. I've been updating it in my head...so there. If you can't think back that far, I will remind you that something significant happened 4 years ago.
Granted, if I were a good blogger, I would have posted about this a week and a half ago, but I'm not, so you get to read about it now.

PEYTON TURNED 4!!!

I think he had a pretty good day, even though most of it seemed just like any other day.

For two days before his birthday, Peyton had been asking for waffles as a birthday dinner. However, on the morning of the 19th, Andi woke up, and began telling Peyton all about Chuck E. Cheese, and what kinds of things you get there if you go on your birthday.

Big sisters are SO helpful!

As you can imagine, Peyton's mind did a complete 180, and his tenacity kicked in. After MUCH bargaining, begging, promises to pay for his college education, etc. Peyton finally relented to eat somewhere else (Burger King) as long as we could play at Chuck E. Cheese FIRST.

Do we have pictures from the blessed event? No. Why? Because Cameron and I were too hungry to hold a camera steady, or even remember to take the blingin' thing. Perhaps Cameron has one or two on his phone, but he's not here right now, so that does me no good. What can I say? Parents of the year, here we come!

We do, however, have a few pictures from the party that followed. Heather and the Crookstons came over for cake (which we may or may not have picked up on our way home from Chuck E. Cheese, and it's possible that there was no personalization on it. What can I say, it was a busy week.)

Peyton got this awesome RC car. It's possible that this was also picked up at the same time as the impromptu cake, and could only be wrapped after a quick run over to the neighbor's house to borrow some tape. Like I said, it's possible, but I plead the 5th...

This was NOT an impromptu gift. We've had this baby since Christmas, and couldn't give it to him then, because Dylan spotted it, and we could no longer pull off the "it's from Santa" routine. He loves his Leapster, and with any luck, won't submerge it in water like Dylan did.

The Crookstons got him a "critter carrier" and this fascinating magnifier. Of course, I'm not so sure he's actually used either one for what they're supposed to be for. We do know that the magnifier makes anyone's head look like "an orange on a toothpick" and the critter carrier can carry more than just bugs. I wish he would use it for the ladybugs he collected this weekend though, instead of my jam jars...

Peyton is demonstrating his awesome new "wace cah"! I just love his stance. Looks like he's gonna take off running. Just a note: Soni does NOT make a very good tunnel...

The lame cake the disappointments he calls "mom and dad" bought him. Obviously, he minds...

Happy belated birthday BUGABOO!!

Cam ♥'s Bon Jovi

2010-04-14T21:19:00.004-05:00

I love Bon Jovi! I've been listening to them since I was 12. I've always wanted to see them in concert, and last Saturday Sam and I were able to do just that. We left our kids with Heather (thanks, you're awesome) and took off for a night of awesomeness.

I didn't take a whole lot of pictures. We had descent seats, but every picture I took didn't turn out so well. Here are a couple of them.

Jon and Ritchie signing "I'll Be There For You".

"Every little boy wants to learn to play guitar so he can pick up all the chicks and be a rock and roll star."

The concert was unbelievably awesome. The bands sounds just as good live as they do on their cds. They did a good mix of their new stuff and their older stuff. They filmed the music video for their next single "When We Were Beautiful" at our concert, which will be cool when it comes out. I found this blog that keeps set lists from all their shows, and links to You Tube videos from that show. I hope they're still touring when our kids are older so that we cana take them.

Speaking of kids at the concert, a family that took two of their kids to the concert sat in front of us. The kids looked like 14 and 12. The son got all dressed up for the event:

The picture really doesn't show all aspects of this daring outfit. Lets start at the top; his hair was spray painted silver with streaks of maroon. As you can see on his wrists he wore... what are those even called? Spikey wrist things? You can't see it, but on his right arm we wore a fake tattoo sleeve. And his pants? Zubazs pants! Where do you even find Zubaz any more? Sweet! So, when I end up taking my boys to see Bon Jovi, I will insist they dress like this kid.

Another entertaining attendee sat a few seats away from us. Bless her heart, she danced the night away, albeit crazy looking and off beat. She seriously danced like Elaine on Seinfeld. It can best be described as "a full body dry heave set to music". If you don't know what I'm talking about, start watching this at about the 25 second mark:

Wow, I kind of went off topic there didn't I? Anyway, Bon Jovi Rocks!!! I ♥ Jon, Ritchie, David, and Tico!

With Tumbleweed, and Everything!

2010-04-05T13:45:00.004-05:00

First of all, I know what you're thinking...Wow! That is really orange, right? Well, bear with me. I decided that we needed a little bit of a blog makeover, and what better look than that of a construction cone? And second of all, this is just sad. 1 post in the entire month of February. NONE in March?! This place has turned into a real life ghost town. Since Cameron claims to have nothing interesting to say, I am taking the reigns. That's right! I will pause for a minute while you jump up and do the dance of joy...done? Okay, good.
This is me, committing to write at least one family update a week, so that those of you whose lives are only worth living when you can read about our nonsense, can feel fulfilled. Normally, I will post on Sunday, but since yesterday was Easter, that idea kinda fell through. So, here you go, the first of many (hopefully) posts about our weekly chaos.

Cameron and I forgot that it was Easter this weekend, until Thursday. That's right, folks, we really are THAT oblivious. Cameron went and did some emergency "Easter Bunny" shopping Friday after work. Saturday was then so busy, that we neglected to dye our eggs. So, the Easter Bunny hid plain white eggs, and we dyed them before dinner on Easter Sunday. Don't judge, the kids didn't seem to mind...
I had an appointment with my cardiologist on Tuesday. NEWSFLASH!!! My valve leaks! Oh, wait, that's not news. No worries, it's not the valve they just replaced. It's the OTHER one. YEAH ME!!! What does this mean for me? Well, it means I get the pleasure of seeing my Dr. every 6 months, so they can monitor size change for my aorta and heart in general. Who knew that having a big heart was a BAD thing?! Luckily, it could be years and years until any intervention is needed, so I choose to look at it as just another side effect to my oober awesomeness. She did give me the all clear to ride roller coasters, which is awesome, especially considering that we bought season passes to Six Flags this year. How bad would that have been, to spend $50 on a pass, so I could ride the kiddie rides all summer?
Cameron and I have recently discovered "How I Met Your Mother" and have gone from never having seen a single episode, to being completely caught up with the rest of the world in 4-6 weeks. Thank you, Netflix, DVD's for purchase, and some website who I question the legality of! You are the best!
5 days and counting until our big date out to see Bon Jovi in concert! WOO HOO!!! That is the main thing that Cameron got me for my birthday this year, but let's face it, it is just as much a gift for him. This is the last show that we are determined to see, so who knows who we will see next. My vote would probably be for Lady Antebellum.
I GOT A NEW NEPHEW!!! Brandon and Diedre welcomed their second child to the world on April 3, and he couldn't be cuter. Don't believe me? Well...see for yourself:

His big brother's not half bad either! His name is Barton (yeah, like my other brother) Graham, but they plan to call him "Gray". I don't know what I'll call him yet, but I do know I wanna squish him! You can read about his arrival and all his stats here. Congrats to Brandon and Diedre, I know it's because of Diedre that these kids are so dang cute! Love you guys!

So there you have the most recent happenings around the Carter house. If we've lost our readership, I wouldn't be at all surprised, but please don't give up on us! I will do better...

Trip to the Dr. Pepper Museum

2010-02-17T20:30:00.002-06:00

A while ago we decided to take a road trip with the kids to somewhere that was past the Wal-Mart in Rockwall. There are lots of things to do around Dallas and stuff, so we had a number of places we could have gone. We chose to go to the Dr. Pepper Museum in Waco. Why? Well, Dr. Pepper is good, and well, it qualified for road trip status. It was a two hour drive there, which wasn't too bad.

Here are the kids cooperating for a picture in front of the building. Good job, kids!

Here's an old Dr. Pepper delivery truck. Boo for no free Dr. Pepper handouts.

One of the first things you see when you enter the museum is this animatronic guy. I forget his name. He talked about the history of the Dr. Pepper making stuff or something for a long time. It was better than riding Space Mountain. The kids loved it.

You walk past creepy animatronic dude and one of the next rooms is this. It has a bunch of the old equipment they used to process and bottle Dr. Pepper back in the day. In this picture, Sam is reading the card to the kids. I'm sure it said something super awesome.

"Hey, maybe there's a secret door on this wall somewhere that will take us to the part of museum that doesn't suck." No such luck there, pal.

So yeah, the Dr. Pepper museum in Waco Texas is kind of lame. The first floor is the equipment and stuff and the second floor is the history of their marketing. Cool, you can spend 2 hours watching 60 years worth of Dr. Pepper commercials. Woo hoo! Of course, there is a gift shop, where you can buy a child's shirt for $15. Oh, and there is NO FREE DR. PEPPER ANYWHERE IN THE DR. PEPPER MUSEUM!!!!!!!!!!!!! You can buy a cup of hot Dr. Pepper in their snack area for like $5. Score!

Hey, at least we got out of the house and went somewhere we've never been before.

The Test Subject

2010-01-18T09:14:00.002-06:00

I have been very neglectful of this blog lately. Anyone who follows it, must think that we just don't do anything interesting. That's not true...we have a whole trip to the Dr. Pepper Museum that we have yet to post about, but I really don't have time now to argue with Blogger about where I want my pictures to go, so that adventure will have to wait. Until then, I have had this little gem of a "blogworthy" story in my aresnal for about a month now.
First I'll set the stage: I was "sleeping in" one morning during Christmas break. This was early in the break, because Cameron still had to go to work, but the kids were out of school. By "sleeping in" I mean it was not yet 8 am, because I am almost always awake by 8 am, if the kids haven't had breakfast yet. Anyway...here's the story.
I was just beginning to awake from my pleasant slumber, when I hear the sound of my bedroom door being opened, and no fewer than 3 little bodies scurry in. They did not, however, make a sound. I'm assuming this is because it was light enough in the room that they could see that their father had already left for work, but I can't be absolutely sure. I then hear 3 little bodies exit as soundlessly as they had come. I then hear the following exchange in the hallway:

Peyton: "Where Daddy?"
Dylan: "He already left for work." "Go ask Mommy for breakfast."
Peyton: "Me? No, you."
A few moments pass, where I hear several feet run up the stairs.
Then I hear my door open once again, and this time 4 bodies enter my room. (I can only assume that they had gone to get reinforcements in the form of their older sister.) I then hear Andi say: "Shhh, she's still sleeping. Don't wake her up."
They exited again, and I hear a few exchanges out in the hall that may or may not have included drawing straws to see who would be the best candidate for the job. I know I also heard a few words involving "But I'm hungry now!" but the memory has become a little fuzzy. Apparently after some deliberation, I hear my door open one more time, and the sound of two little feet scurrying accross the floor. Then I hear Dylan exclaim from the hallway to his croanies: "It's going to be alright...I sent Soni in!"
It was then that I lost it. I couldn't pretend to be asleep any longer. Especially since a matter of seconds later, my diaper clad princess climbed up on my bed, tackled me, and said: "HEWO, MOMMY!"
Should I be worried that my older 3 children so easily sent thier baby sister into "the lion's den"? Should I be even more concerned that my children view me as the grumpy bear that they must not wake from hibernation? Whatever their reasoning, I am just grateful that they have been well trained to wake up their dad...even if he is not.

Christmas came and went...

2010-01-03T23:02:00.004-06:00

So, it's January. Christmas and New Years came and went and now we have to get back in the Work/School routine again. That happened quick. Christmas was uneventful at our house. Since we live so far away from everyone we just stuck around here, which wasn't too bad.

The kids enjoyed Christmas. Leading up to the big day, Dylan had his heart set on this big monstrosity of a toy called "Spike the Ultra Dinosaur". He saw a commercial for it on Nickelodeon, and was dead set on getting it. Why not? It's green and it's a dinosaur. Green is his favorite color, and he likes dinosaurs. It's perfect... except we had already planned on getting him a Leapster. He got a Leapster for his fourth birthday, but it came to a quick demise when he decided to wash it by submerging it in water. As you may know, when you submerge electronic stuff in water, it really doesn't work very well again, or at all. Anyway, we tried to steer him away from Spike, knowing full well that two days after Christmas, Spike would become less and less cool. Green can only get you so far.

I had told Dylan I wouldn't get him Spike for Christmas, so Dylan pulled a Ralphie on me and asked Santa Claus for it twice. (If only Spike shot little bb's out of his mouth, I could have given a "You'll shoot your eye out" argument. That could have been fun.) If he had wavered even slightly for a second I would have jumped all over anything else. We decided not to ruin his hopes and dreams of Christmas, so we got the huge frickin' dinosaur for him.

Dylan was super excited to play with Spike on Christmas morning. It was cool seeing his face light up as his Christmas wish had been granted.

Two days later....

Spike had become a whole lot less cooler than his older sister's Leapster. He has played that so much the last week that I've had to change the batteries in it twice. Spike? I haven't had to recharge him since the 27th. Now we have this huge frickin' green trip hazard that I am sure will one day kill me, either by becoming animated and going on a rampage, or by me tripping on it in the dark and being impaled by its huge tail.

Thanks Fisher Price for making that thing, and thanks Nickelodeon for advertising it. :P I'm going to look up your corporate headqurters on Google Maps street view and picture throwing tomatoes at your buildings. Take that, suckas!

Our other kids? Andi got the commandeered Leapster for Christmas, and had her Birthday party the next day. Noo more presents for 363 more days for you. Ha! She had her first sleep over for her birthday too, which she enjoyed. Can't believe she's 7 already. If I had any measureable amount of hair left, I'm sure some of it would be gray.

Peyton asked for a toy flashlight for Christmas. Luckily, Handy Manny has a little flashlight tool named Flicker. Thanks, Disney. Between that and Dora, our kids will be learning Spanglish at a reasonable pace. He might be able to tell the Mexican kids to turn off the lights by the time he's in Kindergarten. Muy Bien!

Soni loves anything Dora, so she got a stuffed Dora and a blanket. She was happy with it, and she's not stealing her sister's Leapster. Or Spike. In fact, no one is stealing Spike.

Here's a picture of the gang in their new Christmas church clothes. A handsome bunch of kids if I do say so myself.

That about does it for the Christmas recap. Yay. Hope your holidays were as enjoyable as ours.

Shafted

2009-12-04T11:43:00.003-06:00

I have a confession. One I am not proud of, but also one I am sure I'm not the only one that needs to fess up. First a little back story...

Growing up, my little sister always whined about "middle child syndrome" and how she was constantly overlooked. I admit now, it mostly just annoyed me. Being the second child, and one that had "special needs" during a good portion of my childhood, I had ample attention, even with being one of 5 children in the home, and couldn't see how her perspective could really be THAT different from mine. While making our 2009 Christmas card, however, I realized that there just might be something to her claim. We don't have a "middle child" so I still don't really know how valid her claim of injustice is as far as that goes, but I can say with some amount of certainty that in one way or another, when you have multiple kids, inevitably someone will get left out. I'm really surprised to say that this year it was Soni. Soni got shafted. Don't worry, she still got her fair share of love and attention, but we have little to no photographic evidence of it. While looking for pictures to include in the "collage" that became our Christmas card, there were exactly 3 pictures of Soni with her hair done all cute. I'm not sure how this happened, and seeing as how she is the "baby", I never would have thought it would be her to be neglected, but alas...

I suppose we could blame it on the fact that once you have 3 kids all meet the same milestones, the 4th has some tough competition. After all, how big of an accomplishment is it really to get a tooth in comparison to your older sister who is reading, or older brother who's a math whiz. I mean, come on! Step it up, sister!!!

So, I guess this is my public apology to my baby sister who was apparently right about our parents loving me more, who could blame them, right? This is also my public explanation to all those who receive our Christmas card in the mail and wonder why there's not a better individual picture of Soni on it. There isn't one. Plain and simple. For all those who may not get a card in the mail, here is what you are missing out on...

Black Friday

2009-11-27T07:34:00.004-06:00

This morning I ventured to the Wal-Mart in Quinlan for the Black Friday sale. I usually don't do that, but this year they had something we needed, so I braved the crowds to spend our hard earned money. Yeah me. Here is some advice and observations from my trip.

I thought about wearing some black spandex shorts to the store in honor of Black Friday. Unfortunately, I do not own any spandex shorts. Luckily for me and everyone else waiting for electronic items in the dairy section, a stout 50 year old woman with lots and lots of junk in the trunk wore her spandex shorts proudly.
Bring your 10 year old child with you, and put them in charge of grabbing four things from one display. Be sure to load them up with Red Bull and Monster Energy Drink before hand so they have enough energy to fight off the middle aged man going for the same things.
Don't be afraid of knocking someone over to grab a copy of Candy Land, even if it isn't on sale. Christmas is all about violence!
Someone had a great idea that I wish I had thought of: Bring your two year old child to the store with you. Who doesn't like a cranky two year old that is awake at 3AM. The fun never stops!
If your item rings up with the wrong price, the best thing to do is yell at the checker. It is their fault after all, and they did it just to tick you off.

There are no losers...

2009-11-26T13:43:00.003-06:00

...except for the people that didn't win! Yes, that's right, Thanksgiving is here and the moment you've all been waiting for is FINALLY here! Admit it, y'all have been checking the blog anxiously every day, just hoping that someone didn't out guess you, right? Well, I must admit that you all did a cracker jack job of guessing, and so we came to a bit of an impass. Does it count if nobody got all the costumes right? We think it does. Here is a rundown of who everyone was, in the words of the children...

Soni: PIRATE PRINCESS. And may I add, the cutest little Pirate Princess that ever was. Her costume could also be described as: "quick, we still have groceries to get, and the kids are losing patience. Which do you like better, this one or the Garden Knome?"

Peyton: LION. Could also be described as: "What costumes do we have left in the closet from past years. Cool. This one is even his size!"

Dylan: "BUILDER". Also known as: "No, you said "builder" and we have everything we need to do that. It's too late to change your mind to robot now, son."

Andi: TAYLOR SWIFT. She is the reason we had problems with a theme this year. Ever since last year, when her best friend was Taylor Swift for Halloween, Andi began insisting that she too, wanted to dawn the curls, and "hippy" clothes, and be her idol. What goes with Taylor Swift? NOTHING!!! At least nothing that we came up with.

Which makes our THEME: "Dang! Halloween is in a week, and we still haven't come up with a theme. Does ANYTHING go with "Taylor Swift"? No? Okay, I guess we won't have one this year."

Which makes our winner, technically Heather, but I think she's disqualified since she talks to me every day, and knows me well enough to know that I would make it a trick question. So, Lady, you're prize is to help me make the items for the winner(s) we've selected. CONGRATS to you!

The real winner is actually a tie. I was AMAZED that LeAnn was able to come up with any sort of theme at all, with the Modge Podge of costumes, and then I was FLOORED by the way Allyson pulled them together, and made my husband hang his head in shame while I laughed out loud.
For this reason, you two shall share the prize, by each receiving a care package from me. Make sure I have your current address, and you can look for it in the mail in about a week.

!!!!CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

Trick or Treat!

2009-11-10T10:21:00.003-06:00

I know, I know, we are nearing the middle of November, and here we are just posting about our Halloween now. Lame, right? We'll try to do better. Now onto my account of the Halloween festivities.

This year, we ended up not going to the Ward Trunk or Treat, for reasons that elude me now. The kids did get dressed up to go Trick or Treating on the night of the 31st though. Cameron took the kids around the neighborhood while I stayed home and passed out candy. This has been the routine the last 3 years, which may sound unfair, but I've usually had good excuses. The first year we moved here, I took the kids around with the Buckley's (our good friends and neighbors) but by the next year, I was VERY pregnant with Soni, so I opted not to aggravate my "temperamental" uterus once again. Last year, I was having too much trouble with physical exertion, so Cameron took the kids around again. This year would have been my year in the rotation, but when I found out that Jordan (Buckley) had the flu, and would not be going Trick or Treating, I emphatically volunteered to stay home once more. I'm sure Cameron appreciated the chance to take the 4 kids by himself again this year, and I assured him that no thanks were necessary. Unlike most years, coming up with a theme was more of a challenge this year. In fact, I think I am going to offer a special Thanksgiving care package to the person who can name what each of my kids were, and how they all fit together as a whole.

CONTEST ALERT!!!

Leave a comment naming what each child is, and whatever theme you think they followed this year, and you will receive an entry into our giveaway, that will include, but will not be limited to, a PerfectlySPACED gift card, a candy treat of some sort (depending on the person who wins it), and at least one Holiday decoration to get your place ready for Christmas. If you can't find a theme, don't feel bad. In fact, it's so fantastic I'm sure nobody will get it, but take your best shot!

Without further adieu:

Andi

Dylan

Peyton

Soni

The kids Trick or Treating at our door.

I mainly added this picture so you can see Andi's bottom half since you couldn't see it in the picture above.

We'll announce the winner on Thanksgiving day.

GOOD LUCK!!!

You can't fire me...I QUIT!!!

2009-10-12T11:17:00.002-05:00

How many people do you know that have been fired from a volunteer position? Well...now you know at least one.
How did this happen?
To make a long and horrific story short...I had multiple children. I should have known that would be the thorn in the PTO's side. (Or at least ONE MEMBER of the PTO's side) After all, if you have a kid in Elementary school, you should be able to spend no less than 3 whole days a week at the school if you dare to sign up for a spot (even an assistant position) on the PTO board, right? Turns out, when I signed up to be the "recycling coordinator's assistant" position, I was also signing up to be the "assistant" to no less than 4 other positions, as the recycling coordinator is Superwoman, with one child, an unemployed husband, and endless time on her hands to spend at the school.
Don't get me wrong. I LOVE to volunteer at the school. I look forward to every Wednesday when Aubrey and I exchange babysitting so we can each spend half a day helping out in our kids' classrooms. I am just not willing to sacrifice my job as a Mommy to serve as a free personal assistant to someone else...
On Sunday we decided to go our separate ways.

Sorry Superwoman...guess it's time you flew solo.

Brad Paisley Concert

2009-09-20T22:13:00.004-05:00

We were lucky enough to get to go to another concert this summer. On the 12th, we went to Brad Paisley's "American Saturday Night" concert. (It even happened to fall on a Saturday night.) It was quite awesome. We've wanted to see him for a couple of years now, so we decided to do it this year, even though we'd already seen Rascal Flatts a few months ago. I'm glad we went. It was really fun, and we loved every minute of it. Here are a few pictures.

Here's our view of the stage. We had pretty decent seats.

This is how he opened his set. He came out alone on stage and sang "Start a Band", and then faded that into "American Saturday Night".

The visual effects were pretty sweet. He mixed his music videos with live video feeds and other stuff he made for the concert.

Now that we've seen him, Rascal Flatts, and Kenny Chesney in concert, we're left to wonder who to see next summer. They are the three groups we definately wanted to see. Now that we've seen them, who next? I want Bon Jovi to go back on tour and come to Dallas!

Nap Time

2009-09-19T13:43:00.002-05:00

Sam found Soni like this the other day after lunch.

PB&J makes a good pillow.

We need your HELP!!!

2009-08-28T11:55:00.002-05:00

Hello there Family, Friends, random strangers who stumbled on our blog thanks to links on other people's sidebars, or Google searches! As many of you know, we launched our own vinyl shop online a little less than 2 months ago, and since then, we have had a steady trickling of customers come. Cameron, who watches the Google Analytics religiously, is not too impressed with the amount of foot traffic to our site, so we began discussing some ideas for ways to improve on our site, and attract more customers. This is, after all, one of the ways we had hoped to pay off all of my medical bills from the past year. One of the things we want to improve on is the look of our site. As you may have noticed, the pictures of our items leave much to be desired, because as a rule of thumb, we do not Photoshop our items onto generic stock photo backgrounds, as we feel this is like lying to our customers. After all, the dimensions never look right, so there's no way for the customer to be able to tell how big the item really is in comparison to a sofa. We think that real photos of our items on display in people's homes would add elegance, style, and reality to our store; not to mention give people ideas on how the items could be used that they may never have thought of before. Why am I telling you all this? Because this is where your help comes in. So far, our attempts to lure our customers into sending us "customer appreciation" photos have failed, so now we are reducing ourselves to bribing you, our beloved friends and family. What can you do? For the next week, take a gander at our site, find something you like, and then email us at our business email address. Let us know what item you want, what color you want it in, and we will send it to you FREE OF CHARGE. That's right...FREE!!! The ONLY stipulation to this, is that you have to promise to send us a photo of the item (applied in your home) within a week of receiving it in the mail, along with a short review of your experience. I don't want you to gush over our customer service if you don't actually have to use our customer service, so I want you to review us based on shipping time, if that impressed you, or ease of application...anything, just so long as it is something you feel you would praise a total stranger for as well. Better yet, if you have a blog, and you want to post a "look what I just got" review of our product on your blog, we will send you a $15 gift card to give away on your blog.
If you don't like anything on our site, but have an idea for a custom item, let us know, we can design something to add to our shop using your idea, and send it to you free, with the same rules as above.
The other catch, is that this is really only open to family and friends. I can't afford to supply vinyl products to any random person who stumbles on our blog, claiming to be a friend of a friend of a friend, or the vet to my sister's neighbor's cat. If I can't remember you, sorry to tell you, you are not included in this offer.
If anyone wants to help out with more than one item, the first one will be free, and any one past that point we will charge you just the cost of the supplies...no labor or shipping. After all, we don't want to go out of business just trying to promote our business, right? On that same note, the free item can only be for the smallest size of that item that we offer. If you really want a larger size of that item, we ask that you just be willing to pay the difference.
YOU CAN'T BEAT THAT!!!

SO, get to it everyone! You have until next Saturday (September 5th 2009) to contact us with your requests. And remember, I'm not "Sami- who you have known since way back when" I am "Sami-Design team member for PerfectlySPACED vinyl decor and design" so my emails back to you will be all (or at least mostly) business.

*To easily access our site, just press the big green button with a "PS" on it on the right hand side of your screen, and enjoy!

Back to School, and such.

2009-08-24T09:44:00.004-05:00

Today was the day! Don't get me wrong, I do love spending time with my kids, so it's kinda sad to have half of my children gone all day, but the utter joy of having two less kids to fight with each other all day, makes me giddy! Last year, when Andi started Kindergarten, we went as a family to drop her off, causing quite the spectacle. This year, we opted for a more laid back approach. We took the mandatory "first day of school" pictures, but then Cameron left with them at the same time he will every day, and dropped them off himself. He did walk them both in, to make sure they knew where they were going, and he plans to get off work early enough that he can pick them up and reacquaint Andi with the way home, but other than that, we treated it just like any other school day. My hope is that starting the routines from the very first day, will make it easier to follow them all year long. Soni had a bit of a hard time with it this morning since she doesn't seem to remember Andi going to school, but she was better before they even pulled out of the garage...so even that was manageable. I'm sure this will all be a different story when we drop Soni off at Kindergarten in 4 years, but let's not get ahead of ourselves!

Here's how the kids looked this morning:

Dylan looking like quite the chick magnet for his first day of Kindergarten.

I don't think any shotgun will be big enough...

Can we go yet?

On another note: Andi had to have a clipboard for school this year. After having a LOT of trouble finding a clipboard that Andi approved, I decided I could make one cuter than I could buy one. With a plain brown clipboard, and a few other odds and ends, I was able to turn a plain brown clipboard into this:

The front

The Back

(You can't really see it, but it says "Andreia" the name she has decided she wants to go by this year...)

I hope her teacher doesn't regret giving me permission to spruce it up...

HAPPY FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL EVERYONE!!!

Happy Birthday to you...

2009-08-24T08:34:00.004-05:00

...you live in a zoo, you look like a monkey...

As many of you know our "buddy" turned 5 on August 19th. With the hustle and bustle of back to school madness, we have failed terribly by not posting pictures. I guess it's not too bad, since it's only the 24th, but still...
Cameron came home early from work, so we could begin the festivities by going out to lunch at Dylan's favorite place...Pizza Hut. I can't remember what else we did, but here are pictures of his party:

Here is Dylan with all his birthday presents. He made out like a BANDIT!

Dylan loves puzzles! Have nooo idea where he got that from...(so hard to type sarcasm)

Obviously, I couldn't resist getting in on the fun too!

We also decided Dylan was old enough for Legos...

Soni, however, is not.

He got a LOT of new school clothes too! THANKS GRANDMA SLOAN!!!

Cameron loved showing Dylan how to actually build something with his Legos. This little beauty is a helicopter, that Dylan can now build all by himself.

We rounded out the day with some good ol' San Francisco 49ers cake. I know, based on where we live, we should be tarred and feathered...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DYLAN!!!

Cheer season again

2009-08-17T21:23:00.004-05:00

It's time for football/cheerleading season again! This year Andi is cheering for the Raiders. Dylan didn't want to play football this year. At least that's what he told us until two weeks ago, when it was way too late to sign up. Oh well, there's always next year. Their uniforms are pretty cute. The first game was Saturday in 100 degree heat, but she had fun, so it was worth it.

I seriously need to buy a shotgun. And then learn how to use it.

They have a few more cheerleaders than they did last year. Last year there were three, now there are 18. Quite the difference.

Oh yeah, we have other kids too. Here they are. From the picture it may look like it was windy that day, but we actually started combing the kid's hair like that. Flock of Seagulls is going to make a comeback sometime, right?

When did that happen?

2009-08-17T17:07:00.003-05:00

Today was a very productive day. The last few weeks have been spent slowly gathering school supplies and necessities that our two elementary schoolers will need for the upcoming year. Today, we officially finished. With a handful of school supplies, and the only clothing item still needed for either kid...shoes, we gathered and paid for the items, and then headed out for the very last "Back to School" chore... getting Andi a haircut. Andi is almost 7 years old, and has NEVER had a haircut, unless you count the time she twirled it too much she had a horrific knot that required scissors. I have always loved her long hair, and was definitely hesitant to cut any length off of it at all. But, the fact that it was SO uneven due to the aforementioned twirling, it became a necessity. So, we made the trek to "Sharkey's cuts for kids" and committed to what we had been dreading. Andi didn't get to sit in the fancy Barbie Jeep to get her hair cut, but she did a fantastic job of holding still, and doing what the stylist said. To say the least, Andi was timid, and even looked mad when it was all over, but after some encouraging words from the stylist, and her parents, I think she's grown to love it. Because her hair was so uneven, the length cut off ranged from 1-8 inches, but it's all even now, and it aged her big time! I just can't get over how grown up she looks! Her hair is still long enough to put in a ponytail, and to do french braided pigtails (a requirement I gave the stylist at the beginning) plus, this length should be much easier to manage.

What do you think?

Road Trip

2009-08-15T11:57:00.004-05:00

Last week we took our first road trip in years. We went to the Lubbock area to visit our old friends Matt and Becky. Sam and Becky were roommates in college, and we've ended up following them around wherever they move just because they are so cool! This was Soni's first long trip in the car, and our first one since Thanksgiving three years ago. Wow.

The kids did pretty ok in the car. Soni had her moments of being ticked off, but she did pretty well considering how young she is. About halfway there, Peyton started tapping me on the shoulder to ask me if we were there yet. He did it every 5 - 10 minutes. At least he was polite and tapped my shoulder instead of just shouting.

When we moved to Texas, we noticed that in order to be considered a town, a place needs to have a Sonic. Apparently that is just East of DFW, because when you go West, Dairy Queen is the notable restaurant of choice. There were Dairy Queens in towns called Merkel, Clyde, and Baird. Every town had a gas station and a Dairy Queen. I thought it was odd, but I guess I'm just used to it being Sonic. You didn'tt need to know any of that. Sorry.

Here are our kids and the Williams kids. They had lots of fun together. Peyton has been saying that he's going to marry Sarah (the one in yellow). Hailey (in green) is two days older than Dylan. They're all pretty close together in age, so they all had someone to play with.

Saturday morning they formed and band and recorded their first single, "I love you Mommy!"

Becky took us to the Science Spectrum, which was way cool. Dylan keeps saying that he wants to go back. They had a bunch of different "experiement" stations set up. This one had a bunch of water going through it. I'm sure there was some point to learn from it. I learned that if some streange little girl purposely points a squirty thing at my baby and gets her wet, I get mad at said child. Maybe that's what you were supposed to learn.

They had a station set up for bubbles. Dylan was pretty good at making big bubbles like this.

We also went to a park and let the kids play for a couple of hours. Andi, Hailey, and Sarah rode on the tire swing for 15 minutes. They had a lot of fun doing that. Andi said "This is the best vacation ever!" Cool, we don't need to go to Disney World or anything, we just need to find a tire swing. That's quite the difference in price.

We had lots of fun visiting the Williams. We'll have to visit them more often than once every two or three years.

Sleeping in

2009-08-14T11:24:00.003-05:00

I am the first to tell you that the following story is my own fault. During my 3 month long recovery/hiatus from real life to devote to healing, I became quite accustomed to sleeping in. My children also got used to this as a way of life, so mommy could rest. This is not such a bad idea when you have at least one more adult in the house to keep the shenanigans to a minimum, but it is a VERY BAD idea when you are the only "responsible adult" in the house. Normally, Cameron wakes up between 6:30 and 7 and gets ready for work, and feeds the kids breakfast and then leaves around 7:30. The kids will watch cartoons for about an hour, and I am up and ready for the day no later than 8:30. I guess I was a little more tired this morning. At 9:30, I got up, got ready, and exited my bedroom to find weird spots on the hallway carpet. I didn't think much of it because it looked like someone had just gotten into the vacuum cleaner canister, and spread some dirt on the carpet. That is, until I made it to the kitchen...

Turns out, Soni, who has recently taken a liking to taking off wet diapers herself, had taken off her diaper, and proceeded to go #2 all over the kitchen. I will spare you all the gory details, but the spots in the hallway were NOT what I had originally thought, and required immediate attention from the Bissel.

Lessons learned from this experience:

1-Bedtimes are not just for children.

2-Diapers only work if they are on the child's body.

3-Modesty is a concept lost on 21 month old kids.

4-The inventor of personal home carpet cleaners MUST have been a mother, or at least had a toddler in their home.

And finally:

5-Cameron does not pay me enough.

If a girl's night out wasn't already planned for tonight, I would be planning one thanks to the events of the morning.

School Clothes

2009-08-02T09:01:00.006-05:00

We took Andi and Dylan shopping for school clothes yesterday. (Can't believe it's only three weeks until school starts, and that we'll have two kids in school.) Heather forwarded an Old Navy coupon to us that saved us 30%!!! There's nothing I like more than saving money. Well, I like my wife and kids more. I also like food more than money, since I will part ways with money for food. Then I guess you need to count the 49ers, and the High School Musical franchise. Anyway, I like saving money a lot, so the coupon was wicked awesome.

We got the kids some pants and a couple of shirts. Dylan got the coolest shirt ever!
Yeah, buddy! You may ask why I didn't just take a picture of him in the shirt instead of making this one. Well smarty pants, our camera is not working at all, so this is going to have to be just as good.

It's a little harder to shop for clothes with Andi. She's kind of picky. Apparently every piece of clothing she owns has to have pink on it somewhere. If she had her choice, this is how she would dress every day of the week.
Sam had to talk her out of the Pepto Bismol look and convince her to buy some non-pink clothes. She still got some pink stuff, just not so much that it's sickening.

So after the trip to Old Navy, we hit Target and finished up. Now we just need to buy our list of school supplies and we'll be ready for school. Woo hoo! Does Costco sell 120 packs of glues sticks? It seems like that's how many we'll need.

Zany Action

2009-07-25T09:07:00.005-05:00

Our Mouse Trap board game is a few years old, and in the past year it's been played quite a bit. I guess the kids love the zany action on the crazy contraption. Well who doesn't? It's also kind of adventurous because of the choking hazard. "Hey, where's the green man? Oh no, daddy is choking on it again!"

When you play the game out of the box for the first time, it's just amazing how the thing works so fluidly. All the parts perform their necessary function to make a complex and wicked cool mouse trap. The boot swings freely and precisely kicks the bucket, etc, etc. It's genius I tell you!

Well, after the game has been played a certain number of times, it really doesn't work so smoothly. Dylan was playing it this morning, and after he had it built the contraption worked something like this:

Turn the crank
The rubber band broke
Replace the rubber band with an elastic out of Andi's hair stuff
Turn the crank
Stop sign hits the boot
Boot swings around the pole, missing the bucket completely
Manually knock the bucket over with finger
Steel ball rolls down the ramp, gets stuck in a groove
Help ball continue down the ramp
Ball gets to the end of the ramp, but misses the hand pole because the ramp isn't set quite right any more
It's ok, because the other ball got lost, so the one ball has to be put at the top of the diving board.
Knock the ball from the diving board down into the bathtub
Balls gets stuck in the bathtub
Push the ball down the hole in the bathtub onto the diving board
Green man is knocked into tub (Hey, that part actually worked!)
Cage on top of the pole shimmies down onto the poor mouse
If the mouse were real, it could climb through one of the parts of the basket that is broken and has been re-taped several times
Feel the excitement!

Our Online Store!

2009-07-01T19:51:00.004-05:00

Sam and I have been working on building an online business for the past few months. We're expanding our vinyl business from an Etsy shop to its own website. We've spent most of our spare time the past few months working on this, so it's nice to finally get it going. Here's the web address for our new online business:

www.perfectlyspaced.com

We made all of the items in the catalog ourselves, and because I'm a nerd I was able to create the website myself. (Yeah for PHP!) We'll be adding items to our shop periodically, so check back every now and then.

Right now we're having a grand opening sale. Enter the coupon code "Grand Opening" to save 20% off your order! Texas residents will also get an automatic 10% discount to offset the sales tax.

Feel free to pass this on to your friends ;) We would appreciate it.

If you have any questions or run into any problems, please let us know.

Let's go to the movies

2009-06-28T19:38:00.002-05:00

The past couple of weeks, we packed the kids up on Friday night and went to the drive in theater in Ennis. We used to go to the drive in all the time when we lived in Nevada, but this is the first time we've done it in Texas. It's pretty fun. The kids enjoyed themselves. They finally got to see Up, and The Proposal was on for the second show, which wasn't bad. We let the kids pick out a box of candy to have, so they were pretty stoked about that. We had a good time. We'll probably keep doing it because it's a fairly cheap way to see some movies, and it's fun to get out of the house every now and then too.

Here are the girls waiting for the sun to go down and the movie to start.

The boys hanging out in the back of the van. This is one of the only time it is cool to have a mini van. Even then, it's not that cool.

Holy cow, that's a lot of kids!

Here's the view we had of the screen. Not too bad.

On another note, you may or may not recall that I have a beef with Sandra Bullock. After The Lakehouse and Premonition, I wasn't really a big fan of hers. So, I was a little skeptical of The Proposal. Luckily, the movie wasn't too bad. There was no time traveling, or correspondence with people in a different space time continuum, so that was a plus. I think Sandra is off my list for now, and has been replaced by Drew Barrymore. Just because.

Who?

2009-06-25T21:59:00.002-05:00

This afternoon Sam and I mentioned how weird it is that Michael Jackson died. We've never lived in a world without Michael Jackson, it's strange. (Or exactly like it was before, just without him in it.) Andi heard us talking about it, and asked "Who's Michael Jackson?" Well, NBC had a Dateline special about him, so I sat down to watch it with her and point him out. It turns out, the first segment we started watching began talking about his sexual assault charges. Because I didn't really want to explain what sexual assault charges are to my 6 years old daughter, I changed the channel rather quickly. We can learn who Michael Jackson was some other day.

Rascal Flatts Concert

2009-06-14T16:58:00.007-05:00

Our 9th anniversary is coming up this week, so to celebrate we got tickets to see Rascal Flatts last night. It was awesome. Our last concert was two years ago, so it was fun to get out to another one.

Sam in front of the entrance.

Some nerdy guy in front of the entrance.

I was going to try to start a mosh pit, but then I saw this sign. Oh well.

This is the view we had from our seats. They weren't too bad.

At least we didn't have to sit in the general lawn area like these people. The spots there are first come first serve. It was crazy how many people were packed back there.

Before we went to our seats, we got a couple of bottles of water at the low low price of $4 each. They said they had to take the lids off as part of the event center's policy. I guess they take the lids so that people don't throw the bottles. Why would someone go to a concert and possibly throw a bottle at the stage?

Well, if Cledus T. Judd is the warm up act, you might throw something at him. If they hadn't taken the lid off my bottle, I would have thrown mine. The dumb thing about him (well, one of them) was there was no band backing him, so he was singing karoke to his own songs. Luckily, he only sang three songs.

After Cledus was Darius Rucker. Hootie!!! I really liked his set. I love me some Hootie and the Blowfish. He sang some songs from his country album, and he threw in a couple songs from Cracked Rear View, which was good for everyone around us because if he didn't I was planning on standing up and yelling for Hootie to come back. I like his country stuff too, it was pretty good.

Rascal Flatts was pretty fun to watch. They did some songs with their whole band, then midway through they brought out the piano and did some more laid back stuff. They brought a little girl on stage and the guy (whose name I do not know) sang "My Wish" to her. They were really good. I enjoyed it.

For their encore, they brought Hootie out! They sang "Only Wanna Be With You" together, which was the coolest part of the show. Go Hootie!!! They sang a couple of Rascal Flatts songs together too. We had a pretty good time. It's fun doing stuff like that.

Kindergarten Graduate

2009-06-11T16:42:00.002-05:00

Andi graduated from Kindergarten last Friday. Woo hoo! Only twelve more years of school to go! And the another for or five. And then another four. Woo hoo!

There she is up on the stage with her diploma. How exciting!

Here she is with Mrs. Owen. On Saturday she was saying "I miss Mrs. Owen." I think Sam and I both pointed out that she usually doesn't see Mrs. Owen on Saturday.

Next year, Dylan will be in Kindergarten and Andi in First Grade. That may cut down Sam's stress level considerably.

So It Begins...

2009-06-04T20:46:00.002-05:00

Andi came home from school the other day with a big picture one of her friends made for her in art class. There was a smaller piece of paper glued to the center of the picture with a phone number scrawled on it. Andi said "My friend Tawnee wrote her phone number down. She wants me to call her." Hmmm, ok.

I helped her dial the phone and told her to ask for Tawnee. They started talking and Andi headed up to her room so she could talk in private. I even got a pretty good icy glare when I dared to enter the room and take this picture. It's like she's been practicing for this moment for a while.So, this is how the whole "daughter dominates the phone" thing starts. I look forward to not being able to use the phone for years to come.

NBA Finals Preview

2009-06-04T19:32:00.011-05:00

It's time for the NBA Finals! Woo hoo! Here's my breakdown of the matchups and my prediction for who is going to win.

Center

Dwight Howard vs. Andrew Bynum
Ok, Dwight Howard is good. Andrew Bynum is not good. Howard dresses up like Superman and is an athletic freak of nature. Bynum wears Superman underoos.
Dwight has a cool name. Who doesn't like the name Dwight? I love it. I think it's because of Dwight on "The Office". I'm thinking of renaming Peyton Dwight just for fun. Andrew, not so cool. He can't really go by Bynum either, because that just sounds like a word from Jeff Foxworthy's Redneck Dictionary.
Advantage: Orlando

Forward

They used to be cavemen. Now they are Forwards.

Unfrozen Caveman Forwards!
I don't know, this one is a toss up. I think it's the people with HDTVs that lose this matchup.
Advantage: Standard Definition

Not As Ugly Forwards

Lamar Odom vs Rashard Lewis
Lewis is 6'10" and is hitting three pointers like nobody's business. Lamar Odom likes moonlit walks on the beach and recreational marijuana use. Always vote against the hippies!
Advantage: Orlando

Guard

Kobe is better than anyone the Magic can throw at him. If they actually pick people up and throw them at him, he may be in trouble, otherwise the Lakers are in pretty good shape at guard.
Advantage: Lakers

Bench

Adam Morrison is on the Lakers bench. Though he hardly ever plays, his good looks and enthusiasm will provide a much needed spark during timeouts.
Advantage: Lakers.

My Prediction

They'll win in 6 games. Why? Kobe is my age. I've got to cheer for the old guy. You never know, it could be his last Finals before he starts going downhill. Plus I cheered for the Magic when they were in the Finals back in 1995. They got swept by the Rockets. I cried myself to sleep on my pile of Magic shirts while wearing my Magic hat and asked my Shaq and Penny poster "Why?" Never again.

Traitor

2009-05-16T16:01:00.005-05:00

I feel so betrayed. I thought that I had taught my kids better than this. It just shows you that no matter how hard you try to teach your kids something, they still make their own decisions.

This morning my son was wearing this:

Even though we live near Dallas, I still refuse to cheer for them. It's a matter of principle. The Cowboys and 49ers were bitter rivals in the mid 90's, and I couldn't stand the Cowboys, and that still holds true. I tried to explain that to my kids, but they apparently don't listen. :(

Why does he have this shirt? Sam's friend Heather gave it to us because her son outgrew it. <sarcasm>Thanks, Heather.</sarcasm>

Oh, and if you like the Cowboys and are going to tell me the 49ers stink, let me ask you this: What year did the Cowboys last win a playoff game? 1997? The 49ers won one in 2002. Ha!

Finally!

2009-05-15T08:23:00.004-05:00

Can it be? A new post! Don't get too excited...it's gonna be short. I was so excited, I just had to share. Our baby will be 18 months old in 4 days, which means big news around our house.

First, it means Soni gets to start going to the nursery at church. This is the first time that Cameron and I have sent a kid to nursery without anticipating the arrival of another child, so it's big news all in itself-but that's not the only reason for our excitement.

Next, once Soni finishes cutting her canines, (soon, hopefully) we will be officially done teething. Considering Cameron and I have been going through intermittent bouts of teething for something like 7 years...this will be a nice change of pace.

And last but not least...18 months old means (following the tradition of Andi) that my baby finally has enough hair to do something with! Both my girls have sported mullets due to the fact that they were both born with so much more hair in the back, and I didn't have the heart to trim it. But alas, the time has finally come where our patience has been rewarded, and Soni's diligence has paid off. Without further ado, here is what Soni looked like yesterday (before she rubbed macaroni in her hair, that is):

Personally, my favorite thing is that the bows are bigger than the pigtails, but hey, it's a start.

Helping

2009-05-09T09:57:00.003-05:00

Peyton is at that stage where he likes to help do things. Sometimes his helping is really sweet and actually helpful, like when he helps Soni walk down the stairs.

Then there are times when his helping isn't really helpful. The other day, he decided he wanted to clean, so he went and got a bottle of OxiClean® Laundry Stain Remover and started spraying it all over the walls. Unfortunately, the bottle says "Do not use on painted surfaces". Oh well, at least he didn't decide to clean the carpets with bleach.

Easter

2009-05-02T09:43:00.004-05:00

I am just now getting around to posting pictures of the kids on Easter morning. Oops.

Here are all the kids with their cousin Krew, who was here with Uncle Brandon and Aunt Diedre. Brandon and Diedre are like the coolest people ever! You guys rock!

Soni is looking all grown up.

Peyton's been doing this posing thing for pictures lately. At least he's not at the "I'm not sure how to smile" stage...

...like this guy is. He actually kept the sport coat and tie on the whole time.

Here's Andi. She was pretty excited about her dress because it was pink.

Hey look, pictures

2009-04-19T22:25:00.003-05:00

Here are some pictures from Peyton's birthday:

Dylan looks over Peyton's shoulder in amazement. "It's a pillow. It's a book. It's Cars. I'm going to steal it!"

Ok, he didn't get just Cars stuff, he just did a good job posing in this picture.

It's the birthday boy "Peylon" and his groovy cake.

Andi refused to eat her dinner because her tummy ached. As she was leaving the table she said "I think cake and ice cream will make my tummy better." Yeah, look how well that worked out for her.

"Mmmm cake.

Happy birthday, Peyton!

Happy Birthday Peyton

2009-04-19T08:18:00.002-05:00

Our little man turns three today. Holy cow, time flies when it's not your first kid. Now that he's three, I can start charging him a quarter for every diaper change. He got birthday money, so I know he has some cash.

Back in the saddle again

2009-03-30T10:04:00.003-06:00

Hey all! I know that you have all been itching to hear from Frankenstein herself, and I wouldn't want to disappoint. I have reached that point where I'm feeling well enough to do some things, but I'm quickly reminded that I can't, either with a twinge of pain, or a nasty look from my husband or other loved one here to help out. I've also reached the point where I have no excuse for why the thank you notes are still on my dresser apparently becoming a permanent fixture there. But, thankfully, I have yet to reach the point where I feel bad that I'm still wearing my PJ's all day, every day. To prove that I am getting better, I have compiled a list of general musings, observations, and grievances of the experience so far.

Three weeks post-op there are a handful of things that I know for sure...

First: Pajamas are a WONDERFUL thing, but what's better are pajamas that look like real clothes. Kind of like my own personal joke on society...it may look like I actually TRIED to look nice for you, but I actually just woke up from a nap. HA HA!

Second: Going to Walmart in pajamas, holding a stuffed dog, and sitting in a wheelchair will get you some weird looks if it is not completely obvious what your ailment is. I'm sure there are several people in Rockwall county that assumed I had more of a mental disability...

Third: Inevitably, the basket in the convenient "sit and shop" wheelchair will not actually be big enough to accomodate all the items on your shopping list, leaving the "pusher" with the responsibility of carrying the extra items.

And Finally: No surprise that the horribly overpriced, non-formulary, more than a dollar a pill vitamins you were prescribed will turn out to be the culprit for your nausea...making them the most expensive decoration in your kitchen.

Thanks so much to everyone that has kept me in their thoughts and prayers, and especially to those that were able to help out in one way or another. Ya'll are my heroes!

Sam is Home

2009-03-16T16:36:00.005-06:00

Sam got home from the hospital today. Everything is going well, she's just really sore (understandably). They sent us home with a list of stuff she should and should not be doing, a list of medicine to take and a couple prescriptions. Considering they were just finishing up the surgery this time last week, it's amazing she's home already. It's nice to have her home again.

If you are local and want to help out at all, meals would be helpful (and cool). Seriously, could you see a fat guy like me turning down food?

Day three

2009-03-11T19:51:00.002-06:00

Sam was doing pretty well today. She was resting a lot (thanks to morphine and zofran), but when she was awake she was a bit more like herself. There aren't any real problems now. She's still in the ICU, just to make sure everything gets healed up sufficiently. I think they plan on getting her up to walk tomorrow. I've seen some other people in the ICU do it, and it looks really difficult for them. I can't even imagine the pain she is going through. She is quite the trooper, and is doing her best to get better. I don't know how she does it. After seeing her I would never want to go through open heart surgery, but here she's done it twice now. She is amazing.

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. Also thanks to those who have helped us out so far. It is appreciated.

Update

2009-03-10T22:12:00.002-06:00

Sam is in the ICU now and is doing fairly well. She was in surgery for 6 hours Monday. Everything went pretty much as planned. Except for some post-op bleeding that she was having. The surgeon had to go back in Tuesday morning at 3:00 to patch something up and drain the fluid that was collecting around her heart. So yeah, she pretty much had two surgeries in 24 hours.

Right now she is recovering fairly well. She's in a lot of pain (understandably) and really doesn't like the respitory therapist. I'm hoping she'll be out of the ICU tomorrow, but that all depends on how well she is progressing. We'll see how that goes.

Thanks for all the prayers sent our way. It'll take her a while to recover completely, but I know she can do it. She's a tough chick.

Prayers

2009-03-08T21:11:00.002-06:00

Please include us in your prayers. Sam is going in for open heart surgery tomorrow (March 9th) at 5:30 AM. She's getting something done that they'll need to do every 15 years or so because of her heart condition. We're hoping that everything will go smoothly and the recovery will go well. So, if you're the praying type, we would appreciate being included for the next week or so.

I'll update her progress as much as I can through the week.

Thank you.

Today's Typo

2009-02-25T12:30:00.002-06:00

I sent an email to someone today explaining how to select multiple values from a list in one of our computer programs. The email was something like this:

“Click on the first item, hold down the Shift key, and then select the last item you want and you will be good to go.”

I got a reply a couple of minutes later that said:

“I don’t think I have that key on my keyboard. LOL”

I thought that the person was crazy. Who doesn’t have a Shift key on their keyboard? There are two on every keyboard! I reread my email, and noticed a small yet significant typo. Turns out if you leave the “f” out of “Shift”, it makes a whole new word. Oops. You would think spell check would pick up on something like that. It's a word, but come on, point out that you may be accidentally sending a vulgarity or something.

Who says we have to let it go?

2009-02-18T07:47:00.004-06:00

For any of you that know our little family very well, you know that yesterday was a solemn yet joyful day in our household. A day we had been anticipating for some time. A day that Cameron especially was so excited about, that he acted like a child counting down to the last day of school. No, he didn't ACTUALLY mark the days off the calendar with a thick red marker...but I know he probably wanted to, and was most definitely doing it in his head. What, you may ask, could cause such longing and delight in the heart of a 30 year old man? Well, I'll give you a hint...

That's right! High School Musical 3 was released to DVD and Blue Ray yesterday, and there was much rejoicing in the Carter houeshold. Believe it or not, I completely forgot the impending date. Don't worry, I'm on Cameron's list for that one...I shall never forget something so important again. I actually had a dentist appointment in the morning, so Cameron took the kids to get an oil change, and pick up a prescription for me while I was at said dentist appointment. When I came out to the car, the first thing I saw was the newly purchased prize nestled safely between my seat, and the seat of my HSM obsessed spouse. Needless to say, we allowed the kids to stay up a little late last night so that we could commemorate the occasion with the ever important maiden viewing. While lacking in refreshments (we opted not to give the kids candy and treats since they were already getting to stay up later than usual) the interaction from the viewing audience (i.e. Dylan and Peyton) was unbeatable. From Dylan's break dancing to every song, and Peyton's back up vocals to "The Boys are Back" a good time was had by all!

Now, while we were excited for the release, the day also came with some bittersweet emotions. This, as you probably know, is the third and final installment of the High School Musical enterprise. However, thanks to Disney DVD, we can relive Senior Year as many times as we want. Believe me when I say we will. If Mr. Ortega is ever looking for an honorary cast member, he should look no further than my dear husband-he already knows all the songs.
So, in closing it is with a heavy heart that I say so long East High, goodbye Wildcats, and don't let the door hit ya Sharpay...

10 Things I Hate About You

2009-02-16T09:46:00.005-06:00

When I was in college, my roommate, Becky, and I went to see the aforementioned movie in the theater. For the weeks that followed you could hear either of us at any given time reciting the ever-sarcastic line from the movie "I want you, I need you, oh baby oh baby" This, in addition to our dancing in the kitchen probably made other people wonder about the people living in our apartment, but nevertheless, we had a great time. I mention this as a preface to the following post. My little sister posted this on her blog in honor of Valentine's day, and I thought it was so cute, I decided to copy her. I just wanted to tell my husband that while these are truly the traits in him that drive me CRAZY they are exactly the things I would miss if he were ever not around. I HONESTLY want you, and need you, oh baby oh baby...

10: Your complete inablility to put your dirty socks in the hamper. I mean, I expect to have to pick up socks left around by the kids, but honestly, you would think that at least occasionally the kid socks would outnumber the dad socks, but alas...that is NEVER the case. Couple this with the Mountain Dew cans I find all over the house and in the garage, and you would think I have a 5th child.

9: That you never hesitate to open the dishwasher once the wash cycle has started. I know we forgot to stick in a sippy cup, or a spatula, but one of these days the dishwasher won't work anymore and you know I'll blame you. Can't you just hear it now? "I know the dishwasher is 20 years old, but I'm sure it's broken because you opened it 15 years ago!"

8: SNORING!!! I think that the only real reason that this bothers me is because I have a devil of a time trying to take a nap or fall asleep at night if you are not there. We haven't been apart many nights during our marriage, but those occasional business trips, or trips I took without you led to definite sleep deprivation for me.

7: How much better you are than me at basic computer programs. I mean, I expect you to be able to navigate complex computer things better than me, since that is your job, after all... but come on! I can wrestle with the computer for HOURS trying to get something simple to work, call you in tears, to have you tell me to wait til you get home. You get home, press 1 button, I swear, and everything is fixed! DISGUSTING!!!

6: Buying you presents is IMPOSSIBLE!! I can probably count on one hand the number of times in our relationship when I have been able to surprise you with a gift that you just loved that was not a DVD or CD. This especially gets on my nerves when you never fail to pull out all the stops to surprise me for birthdays or Christmases. I always love what you get me, and I usually don't have to make you a wish list. It's just not fair!!!

5: Your uncanny ability to make me feel guilty by not making me feel guilty. You never hesitate to let me sleep in, take naps, go out with friends, etc. and you openly encourage me to do so. Even to the point of kicking me out of the house to have lunch with a friend, and not only watch our kids, but the friend's kid(s) as well. I feel guilty for not doing the same for you, but you never complain. I don't think I deserve you.

4: Your love of sports. I was kind of thrown in the deep end when we got married. From no sports, to all day-every day sports was a little much to handle. Getting ready for work to the sound of Sportcenter got to be like a security blanket. Thank Heaven we are no longer to the point where we watch pre-game, game, and post-game anymore. I am thankful to you that I can now carry on an intelligent conversation about sports. Nice to know that I am tall enough to win the slam dunk competition...

3: Your CHARM. It is so impossible to stay mad at you, no matter what you do to make me mad. I'm also a little irritated that you passed this trait on to Peyton. If there's anyone I need to be able to be mad at, it's a two year old.

2: The look you give me when you think I'm talking nonsense. Whether I'm talking about a solution to a problem, or a design idea, it is inevitable that you will not understand my concept right away... and look at me like I'm crazy. Eventually, I make my point, you can "tweak" it a little, and everything falls into place. But until then..."you got some screws loose, lady".

1: Your T-shirt addiction. Even though you know that I love how you look in "dressier" clothes such as polo shirts, you are hopelessly addicted to T-shirts, and will change into one as soon as you get home from work. I rarely even get a dressy shirt on a date. Come on...it's not like I'm asking you to wear a tie!

And there you have it. Now for a special message just for my dear husband...

Happy Belated Valentine's Day Everyone!!!

Aching Arms

2009-02-12T22:13:00.002-06:00

So the other morning I woke up and my whole left arm was sore. It was sore all day long. Why? I have no idea. I must have slept on it wrong. You know you're getting old when your body is sore when you wake up in the morning. Luckily we just recently bought a new mattress along with some bedroom furniture that should be here sometime within the next decade. That may help my body to not hurt all over in the mornings, but I kinda doubt it just because I am that old.

Anyway, the next morning I woke up and my left arm was fine, but my right arm was sore. It was hard to pick things up. It almost felt like I had done some forearm exercises, which I knew wasn't the case since I haven't lifted free weights in . . . nine years. I chalked that aching arm up to being old too, until later that night. Sam's siblings have gotten Wiis recently, and every now and then we play Mario Kart over the internet. I've been practicing playing a lot lately because I was tired of losing to Sam's Brother's wife. I pulled out Mario Kart again and noticed, "hey, my arm may be hurting because I am pressing down on this button for two hours straight." Yeah, I strained a muscle playing Nintendo. I may as well buy a walker and a wheelchair now, because it can only go downhill from here.

Chorus of Coughs

2009-02-08T09:10:00.004-06:00

Last night Andi came into our room and stated that she just threw up. (Thanks goodness for kids who know how to get to the toilet, trash can, or sink to do that.) Soon after she finished telling me that, she threw up again. I guess she wasn't just making stuff up to get out of her US History test tomorrow.

This morning I was sitting around with the kids, and the other three were taking turns coughing and sneezing. Add that to the puking, and it was like we had Ferris Bueller's keyboard in our house. Woo hoo, I'm gonna use it to call in sick tomorrow!

Superbowl 43

2009-02-01T09:16:00.003-06:00

So, the Superbowl is today. Woo hoo! I'm hoping for a good game, but there's probably no way the game can be better than last year's. Last year I really hated the Patriots, so I had someone to really cheer for. Sam is claiming the Manning brothers as her boyfriends, so she was cheering for Eli. Eli is a pansy! This year, I really don't have a preference. I'm leaning towards Arizona so the Steelers don't get their sixth Superbowl win overall before the 49ers do it next year.

I think Arizona has a chance just because Larry Fitzgerald is some kind of freak of nature. If Pittsburg doesn't double team him the whole game, they're just insane. If Kurt Warner gets Fitzgerald confused with Troy Palumalo because of their similar hair, the Cardinals don't have a chance. They'll be wearing different colors and all, but Warner is what, 83 years old? How well can he distinguish colors from more than ten yards away?

See, they are practically the same person.

I heard Arizona shored up its defense by signing a 62 year old woman in a Chrysler New Yorker to chase Roethlisberger around in the backfield. (It's been three years, and he's recovered, it's ok to joke about it! If not, I am sorry.)

My prediction for the final score: Pittsburg 31 Arizona 34. You can take that to the bank. (If you do that though, you may lose money.)

Starting tomorrow, the 49ers are undefeated, baby!!! Superbowl 44, here we come!!!

Targeted Advertising

2009-01-31T08:36:00.003-06:00

I was looking around ESPN.com this morning when I saw this ad...

What the heck? Did the computer decide to keep track of my New Year's Resolution and plant a weight sensor in my chair while I was asleep? How in the name of Pedro do "they" know who to show that ad to? I'm going to start scanning my game room for bugs. There's probably one in that Elmo that says "Elmo wants to play" whenever I step on it. I'm on to you Elmo.

How to feed 6 people for under $6

2009-01-29T10:30:00.002-06:00

My kids never go without. They have 3 square meals a day, an endless supply of snacks, toys galore, satellite TV-complete with several cartoon channels, including the Disney Channel. In return, they do NOTHING. I remember growing up, and by the time I was 9, I was doing every shred of laundry in the house for my family consisting of 7 members. I remember I had the job of dusting a long time before that, so I'm sure I had chores before the age of 6, which is how old Andi is. I didn't have a "boom box" until I was probably 10-12 years old, and Andi has one of those already. The one thing we ask is that every few days (when it becomes absolutely impossible to walk through the destruction) they clean up their bedrooms and the gameroom. After all, if they got the toys out, it is obvious that they know where they go, or at least where they came from. Tuesday night, we had one of these battles. You know how it goes...first a promise of a reward, intermittantly followed by more serious and severe promises of punishment. I was exasperated with Andi and Dylan for not cleaning. After all, Peyton was busily scrubbing his artwork off the wall with a magic eraser, and if a 2 year old can clean, why not a 4 and 6 year old? I finally told them that if I did not see an improvement, and caught them playing instead of cleaning, that they would go to bed WITHOUT dinner. That's right, it was nearly 6:00 at the time, and I was serious. They failed to heed my warning, so they went to bed...without dinner. Peyton and Soni got to eat with us, but the other 2 wer banished to their rooms. Andi also lost her stereo privileges until further notice, but that's a result of the fit that ensued.
Fast forward to last night...
Again, the mess had not been cleaned up, and Cameron had had enough this time. First, he helped them clean up until they stopped cleaning, and he was doing it all alone. The whole time he just kept telling them that they would determine when we would have dinner. The faster they cleaned, the sooner dinner would come. He said that bedtime would still be at regular time (8:00) so if the mess wasn't cleaned up by then, too bad. Well, 8:00 came and went, and Cameron announced that "dinnertime" had passed. The very thought of another night without dinner made Andi collapse into a puddle of tears, and made my mind flash to the inevitable chat I would have with CPS. I played good cop, and told them that I would make them "dinner" really quick. Being so close to grocery shopping day, our resources were slightly limited, but they did get dinner. It consisted of 2 slices of toast each, a banana or some other form of fruit, and juice. A meal fit for any convict. Top that off with the fact that Cameron and I each ate Ramen noodles, and you have what has to be the most inexpensive meal EVER!

Loaf of bread- $1.09
Butter- 50 cents (at least for the amount of butter we used)
Ramen noodles- $2.00
Juice boxes- $1.97

Teaching your children that your threats aren't so idle- PRICELESS!

A Not So Familiar Sound

2009-01-29T08:59:00.003-06:00

When 75% of your children have asthma, you become very accustomed to the sounds of wheezing and "seal barking"-especially during cold and flu season. The symptoms of my children's respiratory distress usually present in the same way. First comes the runny nose. This sends up a signal that a cold is on the horizon. Next comes the cough. Usually this cough sounds "wet" and while wheezing may exist, there's not much cause for concern because we usually have a day or two of warning to start the inhaled steroids. Last night, however, we were NOT prepared for what we heard. Cameron and I had spent so much time during the evening doing necessary things around the house, that we hadn't even settled in to watch "Lost" yet, and it was quarter to 11. I heard crying coming from one of the bedrooms, and since Soni has been desperately trying to get several new teeth, I assumed that she was the source of the noise, and went to pick her up. However, as I walked past the boy's room, I realized that the source was, on the contrary, in there. Crying is a familiar sound, and I can differentiate my children's cries from any other child's crying, even in a crowded room...usually. But this sound was completely unfamiliar. I couldn't tell whether it was Dylan or Peyton. It was Dylan, and he sounded HORRIBLE! He was obviously struggling to breathe, and sounded like a seal barking (a clear indicator that he had croupe). He was crying, and the only complaint he vocalized was that he "couldn't sleep". I was taken completely off guard. This was not the way things were supposed to happen! Hadn't he received the memo? Where was the runny nose? Where was the fever? He is totally FIRED! Luckily, (and I never would have thought that having asthmatic kids was "lucky") we know how to handle respiratory issues, and have everything on hand that we need. Albuterol and Pulmicort are our best friends in the winter time. So, we put regular procedure into action. Gave the poor kid two back to back treatments of Albuterol to stop the wheezing, and called Pediatric after hours care to await further instructions. Around midnight we gave him a Pulmicort treatment, and he significantly improved. Just to be safe, he slept in our room last night and, much to our relief, sounds MUCH better this morning. He is a real trooper when it comes to taking his treatments, which makes my job a whole lot easier too. I'm just relieved we didn't have to make a middle of the night trip to the Emergency Room, have to pay $150 dollars for the doctors to give him treatments of all the stuff we already have at home. Thanks to the inventor of the portable nebulizer! I owe you BIG TIME!

School's Out For . . . Wednesday

2009-01-28T07:46:00.005-06:00

Mother Nature blessed us with a 1/4 inch of ice covering everything this morning. The school district in turn blessed all the children with a day off.

A day off for this? In Wyoming we had a name for this sort of thing when everything was covered in ice. We called it Monday.

When I was a kid in Star Valley (yes, I'm a crotchety old man), my school district never canceled school. I remember listening to the radio on the bus in the middle of white-out blizzards and hearing all the schools in Idaho that were canceled for the day because of the one inch of snow they got overnight. Idaho pansies. We had to go to school once when the electricity was out all day. Their reasoning: the power might come back on. How was I supposed to learn if I couldn't watch "Conjunction Junction" in Mr. Whoseit's english class? There was even an earthquake in the valley one night that woke everyone up and freaked people out. We still went to school the next day. (Granted it was only a 4.5 and it didn't do any damage, but still, it's the principle.)

I guess it's good though that they do cancel school, because too many people just don't get that you shouldn't drive 70 mph, make sharp turns, or brake suddenly on the highway when it's covered in a fresh sheet of ice.

Have You Seen This Person?

2009-01-26T21:40:00.002-06:00

ALIASES: I Don't Know, I Didn't Do It, It Wasn't Me, Huh?, and [scapegoat of the day] Did It

WANTED FOR numerous violations including:

Spilling milk on the floor and leaving it there to dry

Waking the baby up from her nap

Drawing pictures on the wall

Pulling all the toilet paper off the roll and leaving it on the bathroom floor

Not flushing the toilet

Helping themselves to Capri Suns and taunting the authorities by leaving the evidence of this transgression in plain sight

Touching DVDs and leaving child-sized fingerprints all over them

Leaving all the pointy toys in the hallway for dad to step on in the middle of the night

Eating Pop Tarts outside the kitchen

Setting the DVR to record ALL episodes of Dan Zane's House Party and Paid Programming on channel 52.

CONSIDERED ARMED, LEGGED, AND EXTREMELY MESSY

IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION CONCERNING THIS PERSON, PLEASE CONTACT YOUR LOCAL FBI OFFICE OR THE NEAREST U.S. EMBASSY OR CONSULATE, OR A PARENT, BECAUSE "NOT ME" HAS A LOT OF EXPLAIN' TO DO.

REWARD

The FBI is offering a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading directly to the arrest of Not Me. Parents are offering bribes of an extra cup of juice or a selection of any piece of Halloween candy (it's still good) for information leading to the cessation of Not Me's reign of terror.

Sneak peek.

2009-01-24T18:07:00.003-06:00

As promised...I just saw these on Kevin's photography blog, so here is a sampling of the pictures from our session yesterday. I am definitely impressed, and can't wait to see the rest. Here you go...

And to think this isn't the only picture we have of everyone looking at the camera! Marnie and her monkey dance saves the day!

I love how fun and almost candid this shot looks. I do, however, wonder what Peyton was thinking about...

This is definitely a keeper! I love Dylan's face. It's almost like he's taken on the personality of "Alexander" -"There was kissing on TV, and I HATE kissing". Couple that with Peyton and his "Ponyboy" (from the "Outsiders") stance, and you've got yourself a Kodak moment!

So there you have it folks. This is just a small sampling, there are more individual shots on Kevin's blog: http://kevinparkerphotography.blogspot.com. Check it out, and we will post more of our faves once we have the CD. Thanks again, Parkers, YOU ROCK!!!

Gimping around.

2009-01-23T23:46:00.004-06:00

Here it is, quarter to midnight on a Friday night, all my family is a snooze in their beds, and I for the life of me couldn't fall asleep. I layed there for nearly 2 hours listening to Cameron's gentle breathing (aka: snoring) to no avail. I guess the reason for that is probably the fact that I have been nothing but lazy for the past 4 days. Granted, I should give myself some credit. I had a "procedure" done on Tuesday-just one step closer to the inevitable surgery, and it went well. Cameron was able to work enough last week to take Tuesday off, and planned to work from home on Wednesday, giving me time to recooperate. However, when I was being discharged from the hospital on Tuesday evening, I was informed I couldn't lift anything heavier than 10 pounds for the next 5 days. Say what?! I guess I had ignored this little detail the other 6 times I've had this same procedure done, seeing as how the last time I was 17, with ne'er a care in the world. Somehow this news came as more of a shock since my "baby" does nothing but eat all day, and has the physique to prove it...weighing little less than her siblings. No problem...Cameron was able to arrange to work from home Thursday and Friday as well, leaving me to feel completely useless. Not only does he get to work from home for at least 8 hours a day, but he has to take care of every need the kids have. I can't squat down on the floor, so I can't change diapers, I can't walk up and down stairs easily, so it's easier to send him to get things, I can't even pick the baby up from her nap. Come to think of it...this is starting so sound very much like how our Christmas break went for me as well, so I really shouldn't blame my laziness on being a gimp for the week. I'm just glad that Cameron CAN help, and more importantly DOESN'T MIND helping out at times like these. I'm also thankful for good friends that we can rely on when we are so far away from family that will do ANYTHING for us. Whether it be watching our kids, calling to check how we are, or feeding us dinner, I don't know how we could make it without them sometimes!
Now, just so ya'll know, everything went well, my doctors saw everything they needed to see, and hopefully by this time next week I'll have a surgery date set. YAY???
Anyway, there is other news around here. WE GOT NEW FAMILY PICTURES DONE!!! YAY!!!
Cameron and I had decided that before the "big day" we had to get new family pictures done, because:
1-the last "family" pictures we had done were at Bear Lake, and if you recall, Cameron wasn't in them...

and 2: The time before that we got them done at JCPenney, did not have the best experience, and left with this lovely souvenier that totally shows Soni's personality...

I hope you caught my sarcasm there...

Anyway, this time we decided to ask someone we trusted, and had seen his work before. Kevin Parker (an awsome Jack of all trades in our ward) and his amazing wife Marnie took us out this afternoon to the park where we had the most AWESOME photo shoot ever! The weather cooperated, the kids behaved, and while I don't have a picture to post right now, I am confident that the results will be amazing. I was amazed at how down and dirty Kevin was willing to get to get good shots. It was definitely money well spent, and we are just sad they will be moving in the next year, and won't be around to do this for us in the future. I promise I will post pictures as soon as I have them.

Well, since I have been writing this for an hour now, I suppose I better go back and try to sleep. After all...I've got a big day of DOING NOTHING ahead of me...I need my rest.

Flattery will get you everywhere...

2009-01-10T18:26:00.002-06:00

The last few days have been, well for lack of a better word, tiresome. I'm sure you've all had those days where it seems that your children will NOT STOP. Stop anything. Stop talking, fighting, just generally being awake...you name it. I have been near the brink of insanity for just about 72 hours. By dinner every day, I have made that lovely face that I'm sure every mother makes on a semi-regular basis. You know the one, where you pull the bottoms of your eyelids down with your hands, as you try to rid yourself of your frustration by pealing your face off your skull? That has been me the last 3 days. Tonight, we needed to go grocery shopping, so we made a list, and agreed that we would eat out tonight, because it was already dinner time, and since we have no food...seemed like a good option.
When you have 4 kids, you have to narrow down your choices based on who either has the cheapest kid food, or which places the kids eat free on any given night. Tonight, it was Steak n Shake. Turns out the kids don't exactly eat FREE all weekend as the big billboard outside claims, but that's a whole different post. Usually if we eat at Steak n Shake, we allow the kids to get jr. shakes at the end of the meal granted they finished their very nutritious meals of Mac and Cheese (why do kids ALWAYS choose something like this, even if they had just had it for lunch?) or cheeseburgers. Not tonight though. Since I was near the point of stabbing a straw into my own ear so I wouldn' t have to hear the word "mom" one more time, we opted to not treat the kids to milkshakes. Cameron and I, however, did order shakes. By the end of dinner, I was really full, with half of my shake left. So, the kids started asking for "sips" (which we all know is really just their way of asking if they can drink as much as possible before you say "okay, that's enough already") so I decided to reward the ones that had finished their food. Peyton got a drink first, then Dylan. When Dylan asked for more, I told him he could have more given that he would sing me "my" song (he loves to sing a certain song to me by James Blunt...I'm sure you've heard it.). So, as loud as he could, he belts out... "YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL! YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL! YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL, IT'S TRUE!" Our waiter happened to be standing behind him when he started singing, eliciting a smile and a chuckle. Once the other kids caught on that this technique worked on dear ol' mom, they broke into several renditions, from Andi's "You're pitiful", to Peyton's "You're beautiful boo boo" all drawing attention to our table. All in all it was a successful outing, except for the fact that we never made it to the grocery store...I knew we forgot something!

Dinnertime Serenade

2009-01-10T15:00:00.002-06:00

The kids were watching TV the other day and the Wal-Mart commercial with the family singing "We Will Rock You" came on. Andi got excited because apparently she had heard it in gym class. She asked me how the song goes, and for some reason I taught her the words that I know (we will rock you, that's it). Little did I know that she would not stop singing the song for the rest of the night. At dinner she got her brothers in on the fun, and even started making the Boom Boom Clap noises with it. Cool, stadium rock at dinner time! Woo hoo!

I tried teaching them "Bohemian Rhapsody", which I know all of the words to thanks to Weird Al's "Bohemian Polka". They kids weren't really into that song though because it had more than four words to it, and Sam has something against letting them watch Wayne's World, so they'll never really know just how cool it is. What? It's not cool anyway, and I'm a big dork? Ah, man.

My Wife the Comedian

2009-01-07T21:57:00.004-06:00

I like Nerds (the candy). They are quite tasty with all their tiny, tangy, crunchiness. They have Nerds jelly beans, and those are simply the best jelly beans ever made. Sam found a couple bags of Christmas jelly beans on sale at Wal-Mart, for which I will love her forever. (For that, and some other things).

This afternoon, Sam told Dylan to hand me the bag and say "You are what you eat." Har har har. She's lucky our marriage isn't based solely on her finding bags of Nerds jelly beans.

How's the "Losing weight" thing going? Nerds are a fat free treat. There you go. :P

New Year's Resolutions

2009-01-01T08:22:00.002-06:00

I wasn't going to make a list of resolutions this year. Why wait until New Year's Day to resolve to do something you could do any time of the year? But then I decided that it's a tradition like fireworks on the fourth of July, pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving, or receiving an atomic wedgie on the first day of school. (Glad that's over with, though it still happens at work and at home from time to time.) So, here goes my list of things I should do this year.

Lose Weight This is another tradition, the old lose weight resolution. This is the ninth year in a row for this one. You have to admire that consistency. I can pin down three main reasons why this never ends up happening.
1. I like food. I don't want to start eating rice cakes and oatmeal. Besides, I made oatmeal for my kids once and they said it was disgusting, so I'm going to take their word for it.
2. I like Mountain Dew and Coke when Mountain Dew is not available. I've tried the diet versions of the two, and they just aren't as good. The Diet ones just taste like they left the sugar out or something, and sugar makes stuff taste good. Unless it's my oatmeal, then apparently no amount of sugar can mask the nastiness and taste bud burning putridity.
3. To lose weight I would probably need to exercise, and exercise makes me tired. I don't really like being tired. I haven't slept in like six years, so I'm always tired already. If I exercised I would probably be falling asleep at work starting at 10:00 in the morning, where as right now I'm making it until 1:30 before I start snoozing. I did pretty good at exercising back in May when we first got the Wii Fit, but at the end of June the TV we had in our room went out, and after that I just figured, eh.
So, there you go. I really should lose weight (that sounds familiar) due to stuff like being tired all the time and something called "blood pressure" and it being "too high". This year it will happen! Yeah, that's it.

Write more stuff on the blog Well, that is like a kiss of death to the blog right there. Sorry blog, I'll miss you. I want to do this more so that I can remember what happened during the year. I was going to do one of those lame "year in review" posts, but I realized I wrote like 2 things a month so my review would have ended up saying "Gas prices sucked then were awesome, and I like Mountain Dew." If I keep it up enough, the kids could have some good documentation if they ever end up needing therapy.

Finish things I start I have a short attention span due to my lack of sleep for the past six years, so I'll think something is a good idea and get started on it and then lose interest half way through. Hmmm, that could explain my failure in the weight loss and blogging departments . . .

Well, that's all I have. Now that I've written down my goals, I am certain that I will achieve them. Oh hey, Imagination Movers is on, gotta go!

Andi Turned Six!

2008-12-27T20:06:00.004-06:00

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

2008-12-26T07:08:00.003-06:00

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

2008-12-06T06:32:00.002-06:00

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

Giddyup!

2008-12-05T21:32:00.005-06:00

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"

2008-12-04T20:39:00.005-06:00

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

2008-12-04T20:19:00.004-06:00

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

2008-11-28T07:09:00.003-06:00

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!

2008-11-19T07:02:00.003-06:00

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

2008-11-15T22:16:00.002-06:00

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

2008-11-05T09:44:00.005-06:00

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

2008-11-05T09:05:00.006-06:00

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.

:)

2008-11-04T10:52:00.001-06:00

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

2008-10-19T09:05:00.004-05:00

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

2008-10-12T19:50:00.003-05:00

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...

2008-10-12T17:35:00.003-05:00

...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

2008-10-12T09:04:00.004-05:00

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

2008-10-10T21:44:00.006-05:00

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

2008-10-01T17:25:00.002-05:00

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

A New Post!!!

2008-09-23T20:29:00.003-05:00

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.

2008-09-22T11:53:00.001-05:00

Something

Halftime Dance

2008-09-06T17:20:00.004-05:00

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

2008-09-06T16:46:00.004-05:00

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

2008-09-06T16:40:00.004-05:00

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

2008-09-06T16:26:00.005-05:00

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)

2008-09-02T23:10:00.003-05:00

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.

Like Father, Like Son.

2008-09-02T10:59:00.003-05:00

Everyone that knows us, knows how much Peyton takes after Cameron. Apparently he looks just like Cameron did as a child, and that charisma...oh that charisma. You know what I'm talking about. The kind of charm that makes you laugh too hard to discipline even if your son has just emptied two tubes of toothpaste and a tube of Desitin all over himself and the nearest inanimate object. Yeah...he's gotten out of much trouble because I need to leave the room to gain control of my laughter, and then I forget what he did. Anyway...that kind of went on a tangent. On Friday, I had even more proof that Peyton is his father's son (as if I needed more). I was cleaning the living room (well, tidying mostly, I think cleaning is against my religion...at least it appears that way) and every time I would bend over to pick up a toy, I would hear Peyton "whistle" (which involves him yelling WHOO HOO, as loudly as possible). It didn't stop there. I was already laughing because of the "whistling" and so Pey decided to take it up a notch. Next thing I know I feel a "smack" on my bum, and this continued the entire time I was straigtening up. I even called Cameron at one point to tell him what was going on, and he could hear Peyton in the background encouraging me like any good construction worker would. I hope this doesn't continue too long, or I may need to be disturbed...

Kindergarten

2008-08-25T21:03:00.002-05:00

Today was Andi's first day of Kindergarten. Woo hoo! Sob, sniff. We were excited/nervous for her. Grandma Sloan bought her a book called "The Night Before Kindergarten" that we read to her last night. She enjoyed it because in the story, the kids had fun and the parents got sad and cried. Yeah, like that would happen. So, we dropped her off this morning, which was pretty quick and uneventful. She has a good time at school from what we heard, and she got a smiley face stamp on her behavior chart. Yeah, only 181 (or so) more of those to go!

Here are couple of pictures...

Here she is getting her hair done. I decided I need to buy a shotgun.

In front of her classroom. She's in Mrs. Owen's class. Andi said she is really nice.

Kindergarten, feel the excitement!
We figured she was a little nervous when she first got there, that's why she looked like this.

Overall it sounds like she had a good day in school. She told us about the rules of raising your hand when you want to talk and that you need to be quiet when the teacher is talking. She also told us about a girl who said "Hey friend, come here and play with me" and Andi said "I'm not your friend, my name's Andi." Guess we need to work on the meeting new people thing. I think I'll leave that up to her mother, because my idea of getting to know new people is sputtering out sentence fragments and lighting things on fire.

Good to be Home!

2008-08-25T09:22:00.006-05:00

As many of you know, I was out of town with the kids for a week and a half on a "vacation". I flew to SLC on August 14th, and was met by my inlaws. Our flight got in at around 10 in the morning. We decided to take the kids to a splash park to give them a chance to stretch their legs and relax. I don't, however, have pictures of any of the kids enjoying themselves because I was sitting on a deserted bench in the shade guarding the beach towels, and keeping Soni cool. While sitting there (for at least 2 hours) I snapped a few pictures of Soni...

I think she was cute, but I could be a little biased. Of course she doesn't look as tired as I felt, having gotten 2 hours of sleep the previous night...but it was nice to get some fresh air. We did a lot of stuff that day, and didn't pull into Star Valley until after 10 that night. Needless to say, my nerves were pretty strained by then...

After a run in with the zipper of my luggage, I was able to settle in for a good night's sleep, in about 3 hour increments. Yeah, Soni was not too keen on the change of scenery, so she let her opinion be known. The next day we went to Jackson to see Grandma's work, and have old time pictures taken. The pictures turned out to be too pricey, so we spent $50 at the candy store instead. I don't have any pictures of this outing, because I'm not used to manning the camera...that's Cameron's job.

Saturday, we were supposed to go to Idaho Falls to the zoo and such, but I was just too exhausted, so we opted to stay around home and let the kids swim in a couple inflatable pools and do the slip and slide. They had fun, and I finally got to relax. I have a CD somewhere that has pictures Great Uncle Mark took of the festivities, but I seem to have misplaced it, so I'll post those pictures when they become available.

Sunday we went to church, which aside from Dylan having some issues with Primary, and landing his butt in time out in the hall with mom, was uneventful. Sunday afternoon we went to a combined birthday party at Grandma Great's house for Dylan and Great Aunt Dena. Dylan got some birthday money, and loved his Cars cake. I loved that people wanted to hold Soni. Whiney baby... Again, no pictures because I'm retarded, and forgot the camera.

Mixed in here also there were many eveings of good conversation with my SIL Cynthia. I really enjoyed her company, and it was really nice to get some one on one time that didn't involve the phone. It was also nice to give everyone a chance to meet Soni and see the other kids. I don't think most of the relatives had seen Peyton since he was 2 months old, so a lot had changed.

Monday morning my brother, Brandon, came to pick me and the kiddos up to go to Bear Lake for the "Sloan Family Christmas in August Extravaganza". We reached Garden City at 1 (as planned) and not a single other member of the family had even left Ogden yet. So, we found a pizza joint to sit in and eat while Uncle Brandon played You Tube videos for the kids to keep them entertained for 2 hours. Finally some other family members arrived, and we were on our way to the condo where we would be staying for a week. That night we had another combined birthday party for my nephew Jonas (his birthday was August 17th) and Dylan. I actually do have some pictures and video from this event, so I'll post the pictures and let Cameron handle the video at a later date.

Here is Dylan with Jonas and their Elmo Cake. It was made up of cupcakes with impossible to clean icing. They loved it!

"Hey Jonas, You're one Buddy!"

Time to blow out the candles

Aunt Boogs helping Soni eat a cupcake. I'm not sure who ended up being the bigger mess!

Okay, maybe Soni won that contest!

So, those are the only pictures I took of the trip to Bear Lake. My siblings were much better, and I hope to get a CD of more pictures to post later, but I was a slacker. I'll post the rest of the story of my trip as I get pictures, and have a few minutes. Until then...thanks to everyone in the fam that took such good care of me and my kids while we were there without daddy. I'm glad my siblings love me, and wouldn't take "no" for an answer. You guys are the best!

Spare Time

2008-08-18T11:18:00.001-05:00

Sam and the kids have gone to Wyoming and Utah to visit family, leaving me here in Texas alone with my thoughts. That's kind of scary. She mentioned the other day that I should to the "quirky" post that she did, and I thought about what I would put on it. I haven't actually written that out yet because I don't want people to read it and then look at me with the "holy frick that guy is crazy" look.

Luckily I have the Wii to help me pass the time. I was going to get the new Madden game, but I read that it didn't have all the cool features on the Wii that it has on X-Box and PS3, so I probably would have been disappointed with it. Instead of Madden, I got Lego Star Wars. It is freaking cool. Over the weekend I reverted back into a twelve year old and played Nintendo in every spare moment I had. I've probably played it a little too much. How can I tell? This morning I found myself walking in the hallway at work brandishing a non-existent lightsaber and looking for piles of Lego to build into bridges, doorways, or vehicles. Yeah, when you're doing that it's a sure sign that it's time to cut back.

While Sam and the kids are gone, I have a list of things that I need to get done around the house. Stuff like clean the kitchen, clean the bathrooms, shampoo the rugs, wax the car, paint the fence, sand the floor. Apparently Sam wants to have a clean house and watch me beat Kobra Kai in the karate tournament when she gets back. No problem, right? The kids aren't here to pester me for snacks or destroy things that I just finished cleaning. I've got all the time in the world after work to do this.

At least that's what I was thinking over the weekend. The reason I stayed home instead of going with them is I have a project deadline at the end of the month, and I'm working crazy overtime to be able to meet it. This week I had planned on working 64 hours, so I pretty much will be using my spare time to sleep. Somehow I need to work all that time AND get my honey-do list finished. Using my 20-20 hindsight, maybe I should have spent some time doing something productive. Oops. Guess I better learn how to get The Force working soon so I can just make stuff clean itself.

"TWO tag"

2008-08-17T19:34:00.002-05:00

My friend, Teresa, basically challenged me to fill this out on her blog, so I figured...why not? Here it goes...

Two names you go by:
1.Sami
2. Samantha (not very often)

Two Things You Are Wearing Right Now:
1. wedding ring.
2. nail polish.
Don't worry, I'm wearing clothes too, but I thought that was just kind of a given.

Two Things You Want Very Badly At The Moment:
1. To have Cameron in Star Valley with me.
2. To have Cameron meet me in Bear Lake.

Two People Who Will Fill This Out:
1. Tiffany (she's usually a pretty good sport)
2. Brandon (He's accepted the challenge before...)

Two Things You Did Last Night:
1. Went out to dinner with Cynthia
2. Nursed my grumpy baby twice.

Two Things You Ate Yesterday:
1. Cheeseburger with ham on it (yummy)
2. A caramel cashew shake (also yummy.)

Two People You Last Talked To:
1. Cynthia
2. Andi

Two Things You're Doing Tomorrow:
1. Going to Bear Lake
2. See my family! Wish Cameron could be there...

Two Favorite Holidays:
1. Christmas
2. Thanksgiving
My answers were the same as Teresa's. Although... Arbor day is a close third.

Favorite Vacations:
1. Disneyland is pretty fun.
2. I don't know if it's a favorite, but I want to go to Australia really bad!

Favorite Beverages:
1. Dr. Pepper
2. Ice Water

Well, that was pretty painless...

Ranger Game

2008-08-10T21:13:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago we went to a Rangers game with the Buckleys, the Crookstons, and some other people from church. Because "Any rebroadcast, reproduction, or other use of the pictures and accounts of this game without the express written consent of Major League Baseball is prohibited", I can't tell you who won or what happened in the game, but it was fun.

Peyton, Soni, and I.

Andi, umm, looking pretty, Sam, and Dylan trying to see something.

The Buckleys, Jordan, Heather, and Jeff.

This is the view from our seats. Is my nose bleedin'?

Soni likes her some Cracker Jacks. Mmmmm.

Pictures of Kids

2008-08-10T21:02:00.003-05:00

Catching up on more pictures...

This is one of Sam's favorite shirts for Soni. It says "Little Miss Sunshine" across the front. Stinking cute baby. (I'm not biased or anything.)

Speaking of cute little girls... I don't think the boys know what kind of ammunition they are giving me for when they are teenagers. He he he.

Here's the ringleader.

Victim #1.

Victim #2.

Back on July Fourth...

2008-08-10T20:53:00.004-05:00

I downloaded our photos from our camera, and we had some from back on the Fourth of July.

Everyone thinks Soni is so cute. They may be right.

She's such a happy baby.

It's so nice that our kids get along.

Then again...

Picture MeMe

2008-08-06T20:39:00.005-05:00

Here's a MeMe that Tiffany tagged us with. I have some time while Sam is out with Aubrey spending all my hard earned money on booze or whatever, so I'll do it. Here's the deal: Go to Google images, type your answer in the search. Using only the first page choose one of the pictures that comes up.

1. What is my first name? Cameron
Oh goody, I get to choose from a variety of pictures of Cameron Diaz. Here's a non-skanky lookin' one.

2. What age will I be on my next birthday? 31 (Holy crap!)
This was too awesome to not pick

3. What High School did I attend? Star Valley High
We had a pretty good rasslin' program. Yee haw!

4. What is my favorite food? Pizza.

5. What is my favorite color? Blue
Ok, maybe blue isn't my favorite color any more

6. Who is my celebrity crush? Sigourney Weaver is one sexy woman.

7. What is my favorite drink? Mountain Dew

8. Where is my dream vacation? I don't know, Hawaii?

9. What is my favorite dessert? Cheesecake. I can't think of anything sarcastic to say about cheesecake. Hmmm. Give me a minute. Nope, I got nothin'.

10. What do I want to be when I grow up? Batman

11. What do you love most in life? My family, of course.

12. One word to describe me. Sleepy

13. What is my favorite thing? Here are a few of my favorite things:

14. Where is my favorite place? I don't have one in particular, so I'll pick Jackson Lake. I spent a lot of time there as a kid fishing.

15. What is the name of my pet? Sadie

16. What is my favorite flower? Here we go

There you go.

Me Quirky? Nah.

2008-07-29T16:13:00.003-05:00

My friend Teresa posted this on her website, and although she didn't tag me specifically, I thought it would be fun. I know some of the things will make you laugh at my expense, but that's okay. I found myself laughing at Teresa's answers just because I remembered her doing some of them... Anyway, here's the deal. List 6 quirky things about yourself. Sounds simple enough. Hard part is, that the things that are "QUIRKY" to others are either just good sense to you, or "normal", so it's harder than you would think. Anyway, here it goes:

1. I always eat my M&M's in the same order.- It's true. It all started when I was a kid, and my older sister told me that the green ones were lucky as long as you ate them last. Then, my little sister and I sat down one day, and did a "blind" taste test to see which ones tasted the best (the red ones, in case you were wondering) and my order just sort of fell into place after that. For those curious, it goes: Brown, Orange, Yellow, Blue, Red, and Green. Don't even get me started on the "seasonal" M&M's. Yes I have an order for them too. There is a method to my madness, but nobody gets it but me.

2. I always save my "favorite part" for last. - For example, I will eat the entire outiside of my cheesburger before eating the middle (where all the good stuff is), or I'll save the cookie crumble from ice cream cake until the rest is gone, so on and so forth. That is why I eat the red m&m's next to last. I would eat them last if not for the whole "lucky" thing. This doesn't just apply to food though. When doing a craft, I'll start with the part that I don't want to do, to get it out of the way, and then I only have to do the stuff I like at the end. See, to me, good sense. To someone else...quirky.

3. I am OBSESSED with the way my laundry is done. Not just washed and dried, but folded as well. Those who know me best (Aubrey, especially) will know that they can come and help me with anything at my house, except laundry. One time, my sweet Mother In Law came to help me after Dylan was born. She folded a load of my linens (I think) and I literally had to leave the room so she wouldn't see me cry. Like I said, obsessed that it be done a certain way. I think my mom is the only one who could actually do it for me, because she is the one that taught me how, after all.

4. I am very particular about "having a spare". Not just tires, but of everything. It used to drive Cameron nuts because I wouldn't just buy one tube of toothpaste, I would buy two. When there was no longer a spare in the cupboard (even if we'd just opened one) I would insist on buying a spare the very next time we went to the store. Like I said, it USED to drive Cameron nuts, but now he realizes that we have never once ran out of essentials like shampoo, toothpaste, toilet paper, paper towels, etc. We also always have batteries and stamps. Maybe I was a boy scout in a former life...

5. I have a photographic memory for commercials. If a commercial held any interest for me from two days ago, or 12 years ago, I can remember the jingle. Cameron's favorite is when I sing the "Kodak Disc" jingle from back in the 80's. My mom once bought me a game called "adverteasing jr." because I was so good at remembering products and their commercials. Does anyone else but my little sister remember the "Crayola Draw and Do Desk"? If so, then you can probably list this as one of your quirks too.

6. I cannot have anyone or anything touch my feet right after I get out of the shower. Something about them being all wrinkly and stuff, I don't know, but you cannot come near my feet when they are freshly cleaned. In fact, in the winter time, I can't even stand to have the blankets touch my feet, so I wear socks to avoid this. I know what you're thinking, because Cameron has asked how I can stand then to have the socks touch my feet, and the answer is...I don't know. But it works, so I go with it.

Okay, so there are 6 things you now know about me that you probably wish you didn't. To Teresa: I would just like to remind you that you also eat Kit Kats funny, how do I know? Because we eat them the same way...but that's for another day. I now tag anyone reading this that feels like giving someone something to laugh about. GOOD LUCK!

Proud Papa

2008-07-26T17:36:00.002-05:00

The other night Andi came up to me and said: "I want to watch one of your movies". I asked her which movie and she said "Star Wars". I was so happy. Sam reminded me that it wasn't the happiest day of my life because there was the day we got married and then the births of our children. We sat down to watch it, and I told her to pick one. She picked "The Empire Strikes Back". She actually watched the whole thing.

When we were in the car today she asked "When are we gonna watch the other Star Wars movie where the hero gets the guy out of the statue?" Woo hoo! My kid's a nerd just like me!!!

Common Sense

2008-07-18T21:43:00.002-05:00

Some people have common sense. Clearly, I don't.

(The additional kids belong to the Crookstons, for those who didn't know)

Soni Crawling

2008-07-18T21:12:00.003-05:00

Here's a video of Soni crawling.

She's getting so big. She can go from crawling to sitting up with no problem at all. Also, she cut her first tooth today! Holy cow!

Brain Damage

2008-07-17T06:54:00.001-05:00

As you may have noticed, there has been a lack of posts on our blog lately. Sorry. I've been working overtime since April, and it is causing mild brain damage. By the time I get home I have just a handful of brain cells left, and I need to use those to tell myself to not yell at the kids because I don't want to be stuck with the nickname "Old Yeller". I just don't have the brain power to write the usual sarcastic post about stuff that annoys me. Plus, I hate computers. Computers and I aren't friends (which is a little dumb because my job kind of relies heavily on the use of computers). I'm going to add those to my excuse rolodex behind doctor appointment, car trouble, plantar warts, granddad fought in World War II.

Some things I may have missed posting about because of the aforementioned summer long brain fart:

Soni is crawling now. I'll post video someday. She may be 17 before I get it done, but that would still fall under the "someday" timeframe, so I'm good.

We signed Dylan up for pee wee football! Woo hoo! We also signed Andi up for cheerleading. Andi started practice this week, and we think Dylan will start next week. When Dylan grows up to be the 49ers linebacker or running back, I don't care which I'm not picky, we'll look back to this month as when it all started. Just to throw in a quote from Scrubs: "Earn daddy's love on three. One, two, three -- earn daddy's love!"

Let's see, there's one other kid. I'll remember his name... Pedro. Pedro is running for student body president at his school. Vote For Pedro.

Bad things happen when you turn 30

2008-07-11T10:44:00.000-05:00

This morning I got to my cubicle, and it had been decked out in black "Over the Hill" decorations. (Some people also brought food, so it's cool.) Then a guy in my group sent this out to the rest of my group:

All,

Join us in recognizing Cameron's hundreds of years of super hard and fantastic work by celebrating his retirement!

When: sometime this weekend

Time: 3pm early bird special (this discount stacks with the AASOP (American Association of Super Old People) discount)

Where: Luby's Cafeteria

please be sure to dress somewhere between funeral and golf attire (plaid and sweater vests are acceptable)

We will also be taking cash donations to give to Cameron so he can continue to feed his children.

Woo hoo, I get to retire! We're moving to Florida and I'm going to wear a button down shirt, khaki shorts, and long black socks. Rock on! My retirement only lasts through the weekend though, so I don't think we'll actually make it to Florida. Maybe someday...