2008: the condensed version

So many things have happened this year, it's hard for me to recall... Here's a bulleted list of highlights, in no particular order

• I earned my Master's degree in Education
  
• I left my teaching post of 6 years to stay home with my little ones
  
• Bella turned 1
• Carter turned 4
• We took a trip to Georgia to visit Dave's family
• Dave an I celebrated our 6th anniversary by taking a long weekend in Napa
• I started blogging (You're welcome.)
• Dave and I both hit the big 3-0. (although, let's be fair - he hit it waaaaay before I did.) HA
  
• We saw Brandi Carlisle in concert 4 times in 12 months (0k, one of those was in 2007)
• We drank a lot of wine
• I helped run a day camp for the fifth consecutive summer
• I started selling Pampered Chef
• Carter played his first season of soccer

There were many other things that I'm forgetting right now, I'm sure. Overall, it has been a pretty big year for us. I wish I knew what to expect in the coming year, but I guess that would take all the fun out of it, wouldn't it? I hope that all of you, my faithful, devoted readers (hahaha) :) have had a wonderful 2008 and will enjoy ringing in 2009.

Lots of love,
Carrie

Message received, loud and clear

A few nights ago, Carter and I were going through our usual nighttime routine and curling up in his bed with a book. His latest books of choice have been the I Spy books. I can honestly say that I was mildly entertained for the first few consecutive nights of reading these books. (that was back in September/October). A few months later, and I'm a bit tired of them now. But I digress...(as usual)

We finished our book and he crawled under the covers and said "uh oh, I think I wet the bed." I pulled the sheets back and sure enough, there was a smallish wet spot in the middle of his bed. After taking a quick inventory of the situation, I realized that he was not the culprit, but in fact, one of the cats had defaced his bedsheets. I had noticed while we were in the bathroom that their litter box was a mess, so I said "well, it looks like one of the cats was sending me a message. They want me to clean out their litter box." We stripped the bed, cleaned it up, threw his soiled sheets in the wash and settled back down for bed. Just then, Dave got home and went in to tuck Carter in and talk about his day. I walked by a few minutes later just in time to hear Carter telling Dave, "Daddy, the cats sent me a message." Dave: "oh yeah, what message was that?" Carter: "I have no idea." I laughed and stepped in, trying to explain.

Flash forward to yesterday (today, I guess, technically)

It was 1 AM and I was still awake and reading in my room, when Carter pops his head in, rubbing his eyes, and whimpering every so slightly. "Mommy, I had an accident." I took my wet, groggy little boy to his bathroom and began helping him get cleaned up. All of the sudden, he starts to giggle. The giggle slowly evolves into a full-blown belly laugh. Remember, it's 1:00 in the morning. I'm thinking he must be delirious. So I ask him, what's so funny???

"I must have sent myself a message!!!" He falls on the floor laughing.

Oh my.

My little comedian.

I like coffee

A friend of mine posted this on her myspace recently and it has been stuck in my head ever since. Especially after I roll out of bed and stumble groggily downstairs in the morning.

I thought you all might want it stuck in your head as well.

Enjoy :)

Our Plump and Perky Turkey

This year we spent Thanksgiving at my parents' house. It seems like we've hosted quite a few holidays at our house lately (because it seems like when you have kids it's so much easier for people to come to you) :) But this year, my parents very graciously had us over instead, which was nice also. (Hooray for not having to frantically clean the house!!!)

Carter and I did some planning together to figure out what to make to share with everyone. We decided on sweet potato casserole, cranberry sauce, banana pudding, green bean casserole and then some fudge and truffles for desert and snacking. He helped with almost every recipe we made. In fact, he made the cranberry sauce almost completely by himself. I measured the ingredients and he did the rest - right down to juicing the oranges and stirring the boiling pot of cranberries (heavily supervised, of course).

The problem is, with the exception of the sweets, I knew there was very little my super picky eater would touch. With Bella, it's never really a problem. As I've mentioned before, we call her our little garbage disposal. She'll finish all of her food and then clean our plates as well. But with Carter, it's always been a different story. So I found a fun centerpiece that we could make together right before dinner that I knew he would have no problem eating afterward. So here's Carter with his plump and perky Thanksgiving Day Turkey. Enjoy!

If my kids ruled the world...

What's up, Doc?

If my kids ruled the world, they would want nothing but lima beans and carrots for lunch. Weird, I know...

Don't get me wrong, my kids aren't typically health food nuts. This morning while I was making breakfast, Bella got into the leftover Halloween candy and started chomping away at a lollipop. She screamed when I took it away and gave her a banana instead. So you can imagine my surprise when Carter wanted stringy carrots for lunch (using a julienne peeler) and while I was peeling the carrot onto Bella's plate, she reached up and grabbed the carrot out of my hand and started chowing down. Of course, to be equitable, I had to then give Carter his own carrot (that was as big as he was). I asked him what else he wanted. Just lima beans. Nothing else. I even tried to be sneaky and put some noodles on their plates.

Nope. Not havin it.

Who's kids are these anyway???


And yes, for the record, we were still in our pajamas at lunch time. There, I said it. As Carter would say, it happens.

Have a Ball!

Carter wrapped up his first ever soccer season this weekend. I was a little unsure of how things would turn out when we first started. There were tears (mostly his) and a whole lot of running around screaming and flailing (again, mostly his). By the end of the last game, he seemed to understand what the point of the game was and had a better grasp on the only two rules a 4 year old needs to know in soccer: keep your hands off the ball, and kick it toward the OTHER team's goal. Of course knowing those rules and actually following them are, of course, two different things...

Here's a video of Carter in action at his last practice: (if you're reading this on facebook, you may or may not be able to see this...try going to www.carrieann123.blogspot.com)



And of course, you can see that Carter took this whole soccer business *very* seriously...



He did, of course have a strong support system from his family. This is Bella cheering for him (kinda) from the sidelines of his last game...



The next soccer season starts up in January. Now what in the world am I going to do with my Saturday mornings in the meantime??? :)

My Civic Duty

Like so many other Americans today, I readied myself to join the huddled masses waiting to sound off at the polls. I told Carter I was going to vote and he was curious what this whole "voting" thing was all about. I tried my best to explain it to him in my best four-year-old-friendly terms, but he still seemed confused. I realized I wasn't going to clear up this issue for him on the 2-minute drive to Umma's house, so I said "ok, let's take our own vote. Raise your hand if you want to go to Umma's house." Carter and I raised our hands, Bella looked at us like we were crazy. "Ok, there you go, 2 people voted to go to Umma's house and that's most of us, so we're going to Umma's house." (wild applause ensued). I said "See, Carter, you just voted." He nodded his head - I think he got the general gist of things.

I dropped them off and went to vote. There were three lines: A-E, F-L, and M-Z. Seriously? M-Z??? Do we have no idea of how to count letters??? Having the severe misfortune of a T last name, I was stuck in the line that wound all the way around the room and snaked back around again. In the meantime, the A-E line was completely empty, so they started pulling the "F" people from the almost equally as short F-L line. Meanwhile, I waited, and I waited and I WAITED, until finally it was my turn. I took my ballot, filled it out, dropped it in the box and got my little I Voted sticker and was on my way.

Then it was on to Starbucks for my free coffee, of course.

After doing my grocery shopping, I went to pick up Carter and Bella. When we got in the car, I pointed my sticker out to Carter. "Where's mine?" he asked. "Remember earlier in the car when I voted?" I told him he could have mine, but when he's 18 he can go vote for real and get his own sticker. "If I vote twice, can I have TWO stickers???"

"Sure. Something like that." We'll cross that bridge some other time.