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.

Live and Learn

I called this entry Live and Learn because that is what we are on earth to do. I am finding that it happens everyday all day long. So, my entry this month is showing a few things that the we have learned this month.

Carter has been wearing a dress shirt to church for what, 8 years now? Well, this is what happens every Sunday morning. He comes upstairs and asks me to put his tie on. I always start laughing and tell him to look in the mirror. He looks and says "How did that happen?"

A few weeks ago he got a new sled. We have an area by our house that was named by all of the neighborhood kids "The PIT", this is an area that is meant to be a retention pond, but it is also a great biking area, roller blading area, sledding, bb gun shooting range and anything else you can think to do in a pit that is about 10 feet deep and 50 feet long. So, when Carter got the sled and said that he was going to go off the jumps down at the pit, and I told him that probably wouldn't be a good idea. Well, from the picture below you can tell that he decided to go off the jump.
He had scabs for a good week and insisted on wearing his coat with his hood on all during church so nobody would notice. Well, I hated to tell him that it probably draws attention to him. Buster hates clothes! As soon as we walk in the door, off come the clothes. Well this day, when I was down stairs he must have taken off the underwear, put it back on backwards a inside out, then decided that he needed a little extra "support" so he put on another pair over the top.
When he grow up, he wants to be a fireman, so he was practicing hitting the rock hard snow with a garden tool.
Buster has been saying quite a few funny things that make me laugh. Here are a few of them.

1. The other day we had a conversation as to why he couldn't take his underwear off and run around the house naked. He was so mad and he kept saying "Lamenites don't wear underwear"!!!

2.He just became a sunbeam and the other day when we got home from church is asked him what he learned about and he said "beans", I thought that was a little weird. Then he started singing "Jesus wants me for a "SunbeaN".

3.Paul was eating some food on our bed and Buster was sitting with him, then Buster sneezed and Paul said "Thanks for sneezing in my food", then Buster sneezed again and Paul said "Thanks for sneezing in my food", then Buster replied and he patted Paul on the back, "No problem dad".

4. The other night we were eating and we were having french dip, so I started to cut Busters hoagie bun is half and he started getting mad and yelling. I told him we couldn't put the roast beef inside if we didn't cut the bun, he didn't care. He told me to stop and then he said, "That's it, where is the tape".

I won't die young from a lack of laughter!