PUMPKINS

I love how I can talk my husband into doing things he might not otherwise do. I think that things like pumpkin carving and egg dying (at Easter) are a couple of things that Jason must have avoided as a youth but now he will do it "for the kids." He and Charly had a lot of fun tonight carving our pumpkin. Charly dug right into the gross insides right away and then she actually was biting off pieces of the pumpkin and saying that it was good (eewww!!). I'm glad they got to do it tonight though because tomorrow is when we go trick-or-treating here in Iowa. Most cities here celebrate "Beggars Night" which is technically the correct tradition but most everywhere else just does it on Halloween. I will have to post pictures of the kids in their costumes tomorrow.

Happy Birthday Carter!

So I realize this is a little late but Carter's 1st birthday was this past Saturday. We had Josh and Becca and their kids over for celebration on Sunday. (I actually didn't get to see Carter at all on his actual birthday because I had skipped out and headed to Omaha with a bunch ladies from our ward. We were at Time Out for Women.) Of course we let him dig into is own cake and of course he loved it. Lucky for him his Aunt Becca got him a nice warm sweatshirt for his birthday so he was able to change into it after getting a good hose down. He really likes his big truck too.

Another One?

Introducing baby thrap #3. No, it really was not planned. There will only be 19 months between this one and Carter but we are still excited. I had my first appointment on Tuesday and figured out that my due date is 2 weeks later than I had originally thought. That means I get to feel crappy for longer but I'll take it because there is a good healthy baby in there with heartbeat. The due date is May 30th.

Fishing at the Lake

As many of you know, we got to spend this last weekend at the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. We got lucky because it was probably the last great weather weekend for a long time. We really enjoyed getting to be with the Bell family for the weekend in probably the SWEETEST resort we have ever been in. Our accommodations had 4 rooms a full kitchen, living room, basement with a big screen tv, and a balcony overlooking a perfect lake with a hot tub. Carter decided that he was going to get up at 6 AM every morning so I got to enjoy the sun coming up and it really was beautiful. We had a really relaxing time. We swam, fished, went jet skiing,the guys went out to play golf and a few of us went to the outlet mall. It really was just great and as always it was way too short.

Shiner

The kids both recently got a couple of bad boo boos that I'm sure have caused people to wonder if I am beating my children. First, Charly had a run in with her bedroom door that made her top lip the size of a large olive. The day that it happened we had been invited to friend's house for dinner and they got to see her beautiful lip not too long after the incident. I was for sure that when we left they would be calling social services on me. Then, two days later, the kids were taking their evening bath and Carter tried to stand up in the tub. Of course he slipped and ended up with a black eye. I almost didn't go to work the next day. I had Charly with fat lip and Carter with a black eye. Not exactly a good sign when the child care supervisor comes in with her kids looking like that.

A Video

So we we were playing today (which is something I don't feel like I get to do with my kids as often as I would like) and I figured I would try taking a video of them. Pictures don't catch their personalities as well as actually getting to see them in action. I figured grandma would appreciate getting to see them play together and hear Carter attempt to talk.

Camping as a Family!

We bought a nice tent on sale at Target around this time LAST YEAR. And this past Friday we broke it out for the first time. We'd been talking about going all summer and we could not have picked a better time to go than this weekend. The weather was perfect...highs in the mid 70s and lows in the mid 50s without a cloud in the sky. Jason got off of work early and we headed up to Saylorville Lake. When we got there we set up camp (air matress and all) and got a big fire. The fire is Jason's favorite part. After a couple hours our tin foil dinners were ready but neither of the kids wanted to eat because they ate way too much junk before hand. But they were having so much fun running (or crawling in Carter's case) around that they quickly tuckered out in the tent and Jason and I got to spend a few hours just talking out by the fire. That is something that very rarely happens so it was really nice. In the morning we were woken up by flocks of geese landing in the lake near by. Jason made us a great pancake breakfast on the fire and we packed up and went home for the rest of our busy Saturday. It was really nice to be out and away from things even for night and it was a great time for our family to bond. It was after ward and all of the loads of lau