Kids say the darndest things part III

Once again Buster takes the cake with his quick whit! The kid just comes up with some of the most creative things. Tonight I was helping him get dressed for bed and he didn't want to go to bed. So he was letting me know that in his own 4 year-0ld way and he decided to stick his tongue out at me. I let him know that it isn't a nice thing to do especially to your mom! He said "Mom, I was trying to stick my tongue out at the door and you got in the way". Once again, I had to turn my head because I started laughing.

Family pictures.... and a whole lot of threats

Man, I thought that since our kids were getting older it would be easier to have family pictures taken. So we prepped the kids about the pictures and promised rewards if they were good. I had quite a few talks with Buster about smiling good and listening to Nathan and Denise (photographers/ aunt & uncle). Carter had a soccer a 8:00 am so he wasn't excited about getting up so early. Then we went to change clothes and get ready for pictures he decided he didn't want to have pictures, not Buster the 4 year old, but Carter the 9 year old!!! By the time we were done with pictures I wanted to hug Buster and spank Carter! Well, despite Carter's efforts of boycotting the pictures, we did manage to get some good ones. Let me know what you think.

Kids say the darndnest things part II

Yesterday Buster decided to take my church bag and dump it out all over his bedroom. When I saw this I told him to pick it all up. Well, he threw everything in the bag including all the crayons that were once in the crayon box. I said that this isn't the way you found the bag, so I dumped it back out and told him (yes I was being mean) to put the crayons back in the box. He was just sitting on the floor crying and I started feeling a little guilty, so I said I would help him. Through his sad little voice he said " Mom, Jesus said love everyone, treat them kindly too, why aren't you obeying Jesus's commandments?" I had to start laughing, because this kid can make the biggest mess and wonder why I get so angry. He always say's he is to little to pick up his messes and he needs help. What is a mom to do with such an innocent question??

The Big Apple

I had the opportunity to head to New York for a conference for work. I was apprehensive because I hadn't ever been away from my children for more than a night or two. Can I just say that I LOVED NEW YORK!! There are so many things to see and do. I can't wait to go back and take my family. We did a lot of walking I guess I was able to get my exercises in while I was there.

When I go back I would love to go to the Manhattan temple and also attend church. I was only able to catch a picture as we were walking by, we had one day to fit in these sights.
I is so weird when you walk down the street not to be able to see mountain or even sky most of the time. The buildings are so tall, so have to make an effort to look up and see the sky. I needed a compass while I was there because I couldn't ever tell what direction we were heading.
It seems that even the hard times have hit the street vendors and I couldn't help but chuckle when I was this sign.
Our family loved the movie "Night at the Museum" and so when I saw the Museum of Natural History I could help but go in a snap a shot of the dinosaurs.
We asked somebody on the street (I know totally touristy) where a good place would be to go and get authentic New York cheesecake. The nice gentleman told us Junior's which is on Broadway between 44th & 45th street (you need to say that with a New York accent). I tell you what, it didn't disappoint. We went to Central Park and had a seat so we could enjoy the view and enjoy our food!
How could we resist not having our pictures taken with a couple of cops, we loved the horses.
Lady Liberty! She is an amazing view. I could have spent all day on Ellis Island listening to the audio tour, but like I said only one day. No matter how crappy politicians are sometimes, we do live in an amazing place!
A great view of the New York skyline, and a very bored Hispanic lady!
This is the sight of the World Trade Towers. Hard to believe the 10 year anniversary will be coming up in 2011. They are still working on the memorial sight, but I am still in wonderment over the whole 9/11 thing. It is so weird how the buildings around the towers are fine.
OK, so the girl I was eating cheesecake with a few pictures back, is a big fan of Tim McGraw. Well, of all the people, guess who was preforming on the Today show the Friday that we were there??? I was hard to get a good picture, but he is the guy in the black cow boy hat.It is very obvious that they don't enforce the above sign!!!!
I had to try on this cool had, I thought that maybe I should buy it for snow skiing, what do you think?
I can see why people love Central Park. It is the only place that has grass! We found this bum sleeping under his blanked in Central Park. I had always heard about that, but didn't think I would actually see it. We braved the subway, the air bus and the train. It was a great time and I can't wait to go back and visit again.

Signs of the times......

OH, I just thought this was to funny and since it is Halloween! Have a great Halloween weekend and don't get sick eating to much candy. Also, Happy 9th Birthday to Carter on October 30th, you are a great son and we love you.

Kids say the darndest things....

Last night we were having family scripture study (OK that might be pushing it, let me rephrase) we were reading scriptures. When we were done Buster said that he wanted to read and so he took the framed copy of the Proclamation to the world and sat it down in front of him. Then he started rubbing his own shoulders. When asked what he was doing, he said that he was getting warmed up to read! We all started laughing. Then he started reading about how Amalickiah was killing Laman and Lemuel with swords and there was blood everywhere. It was so cute, I just love this age and the funny things that they say and do.

Never say Never

For everybody that says "Oh, I could never do ......", I am here to tell you that nothing is impossible!! I would always say that I would NEVER run, it hurts my body to bad or if you run somewhere, that means that you have to turn around and run back to where you came from. That would take to much work. Well, I ate my words on 9/19/09. I ran my first ever marathon and finished in 4 hours and 18 minutes. After months of training I proved to myself that I can do hard things and that I am not quite over-the-hill yet, despite hitting 35 this year. Before I turned 30 I used to eat WHATEVER I wanted and I would ALWAYS have dessert (my friend reminded me of this during the middle of the marathon). Well, now I have to exercise if I want dessert and I can't go back for seconds :(, no matter how good the food is. It was a great day and now I am trying to figure out what I want to accomplish next. Any ideas???? Below are some pictures and my #1 fan Cynthia took for me at the marathon, despite falling backwards over a construction cone :)

This is my cousins husband Jim and he also ran the race and finished way before I did! He doesn't count because he run marathons all of the time.

Buster

This week in Busters preschool it was "all about me" week. Yesterday she had us send a picture of when they were a baby and write up something that makes them special and unique. Below is what I wrote and why we love this little guy so much. It doesn't hurt that he is/was so dang cute!

Caleb has a couple of things that make him very unique and special to our family.

First of all everyone started calling him Buster before he was born. When he was born we didn’t actually name him Buster we named him Caleb. But it didn’t make a difference to anybody because everyone including his mom, dad, brother, aunts, uncles, grandparent and neighbors still called him Buster. Some people don’t even know what his real name is.

Also he is very double jointed. He can take his thumbs and bend them all the way back. His toes are also double jointed, when he doesn’t have shoes or socks on he can bend his toes under and walk on them. He has done this ever since he learned how to walk.

We love you Buster (Caleb) you are a very special part of our family.

Well, I have been a little bit of a slacker about updating my blog.

Carter is still enjoying school and is learning quite a bit. They cooked a pizza this week in a homemade solar oven. He has been using computers quite a bit and is even teaching his old mom a few things. He has a new email account that his teacher requested that every child have set up. What is neat about it is that I (the mom) get to approve who he get emails from. He has what is called a buddy list and they go into a hold status until I get a chance to approve the sender and then he gets to read the email. Once I approve the sender then from that point on the emails will always go right into his in box. It gives me a little peace of mind. So, if you would like to email him here is his email legoboycarter@zilladog.net. Carter has been busy playing and practicing soccer, he scored a goal in their game on Saturday and that made our day!

Buster started preschool this week and Zippity Zoo Preschool. Carter went to this preschool and he was young and he learned quite a bit and they always love the social aspect. He was able to have the treat bucket last week so 9:00 Tuesday night I was busy making rice crispy treats for the bucket since I thought he didn't have to take treats until Thursday. What was nice is that on Thursday I get to have 2 hours all to myself. I get so excited I have a hard time making up my mind on what I should do!

On the August 29th I completed the Top of Utah 1/2 marathon. Cynthia came up from Salt Lake and ran it with me. I was a little bugged that I finished 1 minute slower than when I ran the same race 2 years ago, my final time this time was 1hr 54 minutes. I have been training with some friends that I used to work at the hospital with and for some strange reason we decided to run the full marathon this Saturday September 19th. This will be the first and the last time that I run a marathon. It takes quite a toll on your body and takes quite a bit of time to train.

Well, we finally did it! We bought our first ever laptop computer. Since Carter and I both use Mac's on a regular basis I decided that would be the way to go. Carter has homework that he will be using the computer for and since we only had one computer and 4 people that wanted to use it regularly it was time to make the leap. One fun feature that the Mac's come with is Photo Booth. This always makes for a good time when you have people around. Here are some pictures that we have taken over the past couple of days.

No worries, nobody was harmed in taking these pictures, they just have cool effects that you can add to them.
In case you don't recognize the people I will name them for you. NATE
GRANT (aka Pinky for pinky and the brain)
Buster, or as I told him, this would be my worst nightmare to have two of him :)
Buster again.
Carter with 3 legs and a heart shaped mouth and a really weird cone shaped head!

Well until next time!

The adventures of 3rd grade

Wow, after a fun filled and busy summer, Carter started 3rd grade on 8/19/09. Carter was having a dilemma because we had FREE Lagoon tickets but they were for 8/19/09, which was the first day of school. I emailed Carter teacher and asked his opinion on Carter skipping the 1st day of school. He said that he was planning something pretty cool, but it wasn't finalized yet, but let Carter decide. So I told Carter and he did the logical thing, he flipped a coin. Well, the coin said that he was going to school and Carter was happy with that. Then, a couple days later I received an email from Carter teacher that said his plans were finalized and that they were going to have a real life HOT AIR BALLOON come to school and take them for rides. It was a secret so we weren't allowed to let the kids know what was going on. The teacher is basing his theme this year off of the movie "UP" and he wants kids to have an adventure and school and to be able to overcome their fears!! Wow, I don't know a better way to do that than to have a hot air balloon ride. They had little baby food jars that had colored water in them along with a fear. As a side note I must mention that you are probably wondering how the school would justify spending money on this during a bad budget shortfall. Well, there is a person they call "Grandpa" that loves to donate money to the class for fun educational experiences such as this. My son is so lucky to have a great school to attend and such a great teacher that would plan something so great!! When we first arrived the wind was blowing a little to hard to put the balloon up, so we had to wait for it to calm down. The balloon pilot told us about wind currents and fun adventures that he had in the balloon. Then after a 1/2 hour the winds calmed down and they unrolled the balloon and unloaded the basked off of the trailer and started to set up.

I just couldn't believe how big a hot air balloon actually is. We were told that they reach about 10 stories high.

Talk about "full of hot air"!!! It was amazing seeing something that big fill up and become a big balloon.

This is Carter and I before our ride in the balloon. We were in the first group of 8 to go for a ride. The balloon was tethered to the ground so we only went about 30-40 feet in the air, but is was still cooler than any Lagoon ride I have ever been on!!!

This is what Carter was like the whole ride. He stood up for one brief second to look over the edge and was scared. I though it was awesome! I am excited to see Carter's adventurous side grow and to overcome some of his fears this year. I can't believe how high tech his school is. They have computer on their desks, and two kids share one computer. They have an ipod, and they are going to have podcasts(I still don't know what those are). I will continue to let you know Carter fun adventures this year.

Summer O' Fun

Carter started playing soccer this summer on a competitive soccer league called Infinity Soccer. He has really enjoyed meeting new kids and learning more about soccer. A couple weeks ago they competed in the Cache Valley Cup. He had a good time, even though it was really hot.

WOW, can you say wild summer?? Before summer starts I always wonder what we could possibly do to fill it up! Well, I have found out that things take care of themselves. We attended a Berrett Family Reunion over the 4th of July. We all headed up to the parents house for a fun weekend. Can I say that the blowup water slide is a great investment? It isn't mine, but I sure wish it was.

Earlier in June we went to Hill Air Force Base during Air force Week. We were able to so see all sorts of cool planes, helicopters and bombers. We were even lucky enough to see the Thunder birds. It was a great day, even though we did get a little sunburned!
OK, sometimes I do things that make me feel really old, almost like I am old enough to be a "real mom". We made our decision on what to plant in our garden then we made our way to the store to buy our seeds. We decided this year we wanted to try to make pickles. Well, after some major weeding (thanks Trevor & Amy) to find the cucumber plants, there were quite a few there that needed to be picked. We picked them, scrubbed them, cut those bad boys up and put them in some jars. I couldn't have done this if Celia, who is the neighbor who grows everything, hadn't given me some of her home grown dill. Well, I poured my ingredients together and presto chango, my cucumbers were now pickles. Surprisingly simple!!!
My birthday was July 7th, and I love ice cream cake. So, Paul was nice enough to buy one for me. I just remember, there is still a piece in the freezer, I better go eat it.

I know this is a real random picture, but I love kids hair when they wake up in the morning. Well, it looks like it took Buster all night to get this cool spiky hair do. I don't think all the hair gel in the world could have recreated this look.

We went to a Bee's game. It was great fun, I'm not sure what the score was, but we had a great time. Also, we attended a RSL soccer game at Rio Tinto Stadium last week, and I was great FUN. I am pretty sure we will attend another game real soon.

We put Buster in soccer this year. Let's just say I wanted to pull my hair out every game. it is like the theme was "to play or not to play" and they would decide every 5 minutes or so. Kids would randomly go sit with their parents, while they were in the middle of the game, or they would lay down on the floor or just plain start crying for no reason. We will see if we decide to do this again next year.

The kids started out the summer taking swimming lessons. Carter has really gotten

be a great swimmer. So it will be interesting to

see if he chooses soccer of swimming over the long run

Furlough mom

As part of budget cuts, all USU employees were required to take the week off, and I have been looking forward to this since I found out, althought it was without pay, I found my week to be priceless. I had a great week being a real mom.

Monday- I started out the week on Monday shipping Carter off to school, exercising and planning on lunch with the girls from work. Well, I got to Cafe' Sabor at noon and found out the because of all the snow Carters' school was being dismissed at 1:00, well so much for a nice lunch, so I scurried off to pick him up, along with my take out.

Tuesday, watched my sisters little boy Grant. Besides being a baby-sitter, I went a step further into being domestic, I decided to pressure cook chicken. I had some chicken that I had bought about six months ago that needed to have something done with it. So, the previous Saturday I had put it in my fridge and started the thawing process. By Tuesday it was thaw and I cut it up into chunks and put in a little salt and put them in the pressure cooker (rented for $1 form the USU extension office). It looks gross, but it has some really nice broth in it and I am sure it will taste good.

Wednesday-I am not sure what I did this day. I think it was laundry, dusting, exercising... boring stuff. Oh, I did get up and go to the grocery store before Paul left for work. Smith's was having an awesome sale. We love Quaker Quakes and they were on sale for $.49, same with Powerade and all sorts of different pasta's. So this was a food storage day. This was my dad's birthday (March 11th) and also Paul and my's first date 14 years ago. Wow, that was a long time ago, I think I have a few more gray hairs now!!

Thursday- I always volunteer in Carter's classroom on Thursday's, but I also signed up to do recess duty. So Denise watched Buster and I headed to Carter's school for 2 hours. Wow, recess duty is really cold, I don't get why kids enjoy it so much.

Friday- I started by exercising, then cleaned bathrooms. I had made reservations to go the the Draper temple open house. So after Carter was out of school, we loaded up and headed down. It was a beautiful temple, but very busy. We had a great time!

Saturday-hair cut, clean, prepare for tax appointment (when you owe, you don't do taxes until late March early April), and in a few minutes I will be watching the Aggies play in the WAC tournament.

It was a great week and it went by way to fast, I think I need one of these every month, I wonder how my boss would feel about that??

Love is in the air

It's that time of year again, when you go to the store and look for Valentines for your kids. Well, Carter picked out the valentines for his classmates they when he has finished them I noticed that he didn't have enough for his teacher, teachers aid, and the 2 student teachers. So I actually had some valentine type cards so I told him just to write a quick note to each person. Well, apparently he must like McCalle, because after he finished writing her card I took a quick look to see what he had written. NOTICE THE BOTTOM LINE ON THE CARD!! Watch out ladies, Carter goes for the older women!

If you can't read it he put his phone #. I tried really hard not to laugh. When I asked him why he put his phone # he said with a cute little smile "I don't want her to forget me". Duh, what a dumb mom!!


Carter has a great teacher that planned a Valentines day tea. I brought some chocolate dipped strawberries (middle of the above picture to the right). Each child had to have one sandwhich, and then they each took about 5 desserts. The fun thing about this tea party was that it was the Mad Hatter theme, so each child mad their own hat. I was impressed with how original Carter was.

The funny thing about Carter hat is that his teacher had to get something out of the cupboard right next to Carter to she got out her stool and climbed up and got what she needed then she stepped down and the feather on Carter had "goosed" her and gave her a little scare.

Wow, that was a lot about Carter, but one last thing. Carter just finished ski lessons and he had a BLAST! I hope he keeps enjoying it because he is doing very well.

February was also filled with multiple USU basketball games and a few USU hockey games. Carter was able to go out during one of the breaks in the hockey game and throw ding dongs into the stands to everybody.

I (Andrea) started taking a weight lifting class up on campus so I can get back in shape to run the 1/2 marathon again this year. I haven't really lifted weights before, but I am excited to get all ripped, just kidding, I don't think by body is made that way, it prefers bulges.