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!

Christmas time

We were fortunate to have a great December. Paul and I went to the MOTAB Christmas concert and it was great. That has become our yearly tradition and our one official date of the year. We get all gussied up and eat and a nice restaurant and we don't have to go to a place that serves kids meals. Mom and Dad came down and made the rounds to every ones house. They came to our house on Christmas eve and stayed until December 29th. It is always great having them come and spend a little one on one with the kids. They love having Grandma and Grandpa Berrett come to visit.

This is what happens when Grandpa puts his suitcase on the toy box! The love Buster's little look. I don't think he can take the whole blame, his cousin Grant was running around also, so I think he probably had a little to do with it.

It is usually hard to catch Buster will all of this clothes on, so we were doing good to catch him with half his clothes on. He was excited about his snow shovel and scooter that he got from Santa.

Carter picked out a Buzz Lightyear for Buster for Christmas. Every kids seems to go through a "Toy Story" phase and Buster is smack dab in the middle of it right now. It's ok, that is one of my favorite Disney movies.

I think this might be Carter opening up his first of 20 king size candy bars he ate on Christmas day. Ok, the # might be a little exaggerated, but nobody will really every know how much he ate that day.

First of all, Carter and Caleb are both cursed with my "bloody nose" gene! So, as you can guess from this picture the poor kid got a bloody nose on Christmas morning. So, for us it is normal for him to have toilet paper up his nose, but to everybody else it probably seems weird. Carter did make a haul this year from Santa, among his favorites were his night vision goggles (on his head in the picture), Nintendo DS, snow boots, ski coat and mad libs.

A couple days after Christmas we went to the movies and saw "Marley & me", we absolutely loved the movie. We aren't necessarily dog lovers, but Carter had just read the book and we thought it would be a cute movie to see. We laughed and cried and even sobbed a little. There were some words in the movie that I would have preferred my kids didn't have to hear, but it wasn't anything they haven't heard on TV. It was a good movie that reminds you of the days when you were young and how you loved your dog.

November Happens

We went to my parents house for Thanksgiving. I was personally told before we arrived that we would be sleeping downstairs in the bedroom with the king bed. But, when you are the last out-of-towner to arrive then you get left with the one room suite outside. After refusing to sleep in the "one room suite" which is a small cabin with a twin bed and optional double sized blow up mattress, with a 12 inch tv with local channels only and wifi, Paul volunteered to be the in-law of the year. Well, lets say he would disappear quite ofter out to his quiet oasis and would watch tv all by himself while all of the loudness of family get together was going on inside the house.

This year I volunteered to make the sweet potatoes since we have had the same sweet potato recipe since we were little kids. Last year my sister-in-law made a great sweet potato recipe and I had gotten that recipe from her after Thanksgiving, but I forgot to bring it with me. So I hopped on the "wifi" hookups offered and found this good recipe that was very delicious. It is quite simple and I think I will make it year around.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Mashed-Sweet-Potatoes-with-Brown-Sugar-and-Pecans-15683

So my mom wouldn't feel so bad, I still put the marshmallows on the top!



Buster, what can I say about the kid, you have to love him. Today I was looking at the cover of the New Era for December and he saw baby Jesus and he said "Look is Jesus Smith". I think I need to work with him on the difference between Joseph Smith and Jesus Christ. Yesterday we went to the BYU vs USU basketball game and while we were there Buster as usual, was looking for BIG BLUE every ten seconds. Well he caught a glimpse of Cosmo the Cougar and he kept saying "Where is the Jaguar", I think he has been watching a little do much Diego.

Carter was Baptised on November 1st. It was a wild few days with his birthday on October 30, Halloween on October 31 and his baptism on November 1st. It was great to have our families there for the wonderful occasion. Every night during Carter's prayers he asks for a blanket forgiveness of any sin he could have committed that day. Today was his first official fasting day. When we were at church he kept asking for fruit snacks and I said that he could eat when we got home. His jaw dropped and he said that he couldn't wait that long. Well, last hour of church Paul came and got me out of R.S. and said that Carter was feeling ill. We were walking down the hall and I told Paul that I thought that Carter was probably just hungry. He did look a little pale and had the sick little pout on his face. So we were proceeding down the hallway and we were walking by the "dangerous" gym doors that open out into the hallway. I live in fear of those doors because you never know who is going to come walking out of those doors when you aren't looking. Well, it was Carters lucky day ( not really). We were walking by the doors and he had his head turned and was talking to me when all of a sudden BAM a kids pushed open the door and smacked Carter right in the side of his head. Poor Carter started crying and I have a bad habit of laughing when people get hurt (a bad curse I have, I don't know how to stop laughing when somebody falls down or gets hurt or has their zipper down), anyway I had to turn my head while I was trying to comfort him. I did tell him is is a lucky thing his head was turned looking at me or he would have a broken nose!

Carter's baptism day family picture.

Happy Halloween!

I bet Dentists love Halloween. It means more business. Paul says that he hates to take the kids trick or treating, but deep inside it reminds him of being little again and enjoying the best day of the year. For those of you who didn't know, Paul LOVES candy! So, he and the kids left the house about 5:15 pm, and I didn't see them again until about 8:15 pm. That means about 3 hours of trick or treating! Do you want to know how much candy you can get in 3 hours? It was probably about 10 pounds of candy. They went to almost every house in the ward boundaries and also made a trip to the church to another wards trunk-or-treat. I tried to tell them you aren't supposed to go unless you donate, but it didn't matter.

Buster loved his costume, he loves Firemen and was so excited to get dressed. He has worn the costume numerous times since Halloween. Who says boys can't play dress up? Carter, bless his heart, that kid changed his mind at least 10 times a day as to what he was going to be for Halloween. At school he dress up as the Grim Reaper(spelling). Then when he go home he decided that he wanted to be somebody from Star Wars, I can't remember the persons name. So we used the same outfit and put a light saber on his belt and called it good. Carter also decided this year that he wanted to use a pillow case rather than a trick or treat bag. Well good thing, because that bag was half full when he arrived home.

Summer Fun

OK, I will admit that this looks really mean! Sometimes, your kids do things and you just have to take a picture. There has been a couple of times in the past where I wished I would have grabbed the camera rather than going to the child's aid. Well, when this opportunity arose, I grabbed the camera. When they say a picture is worth a thousand words, I think this picture fits into that category. I like the tear on the cheek! I didn't photo shop that in, it is real. I was in my bathroom getting ready and I could hear him moaning in the kitchen and I could tell that he was saying my name, but it sounded really funny. So finally he came looking for me since I was ignoring him ( I know, mean MOM). When he found me I started to laugh and that is when the tears started. I did feel really bad.... after I snapped the picture.

A few weeks ago we went out to Paul's parents house to pick some corn. There had tons of corn and we asked if Carter to take come and sell it out by our house. We set of the awning and made some signs. Carter sat out there for a couple of hours with his friends and made about $34 dollars. He was really excited about the money, but though that he should have made quite a bit more. It is hard to explain to a 7 year old that earning money doesn't always happen quickly and when you do earn it, sometimes it isn't as much as you would like it to be.

We took a mini trip to SLC before school was to start in August. We went to Cherry Hill, Clark Planetarium, Temple Square and Lagoon. Buster really enjoyed riding TRAX. That was the only free thing that we did, why do things always work that way?

We had a great summer,we didn't take any major trips, we took a couple of smaller ones. We went to mom and dad's over the 4th of July for a family reunion. The kids always have fun when there is water and food involved, OK, so do the adults. We shot skeet, played games, slept in tents (at least part of the night), went to the Vale suicide horse race and jumped on the trampoline.

New kids on the block

Look at us!! Well pigs must be flying, because the Naegles now have a blog. Who would have thunk? I have felt the silent pressure building up inside of me since Cynthia created a blog. Although I have nothing exciting to share will the world I guess I just wanted to fit in. I received a call from my mom last night and I really thought that I needed to keep in touch better with family and friends. So, this is going to be a journal, picture album, greeting card and anything else I need to say.

Life is always fun and exciting with a 7 year old and a 3 year old.

Carter started 2nd grade last month and had been enjoying school. He has begged me since kindergarten to volunteer in his class. Well, Caleb (Buster) was to small so it would have been a challenge. This year Buster is old enough so I talked with Carters teacher and she said it would be fine to bring him in with us. So, I have volunteered two weeks in a row now and Buster and I ate school lunch with Carter yesterday. It brought back a lot of memories. The lunch ladies still wear hair nets, but they scoop your food up a little nice, not so harshly.

Carter will be turning 8 on Oct. 30, then he will be baptized on Nov 1st. He asked Paul the other day if he could wear goggles. Paul said that you need to wear all white, and then Carter said he was sure that he could find some all white goggles. So, then Paul said he would have to talk to the Bishop. I don't think Carter is going to let this one die. So, we will have to see what becomes of it.

Buster is a hand full. I thought the 3's were going to be better than the 2's, but I think they are pretty comparable. Some of his favorite phrases are, "Your not my best friend", if you tell him that you love him he says "What ever you want", there are quite a few others, but they really aren't very nice and so I think I won't publish them.

Buster loves toy guns more than the average kid. He always has one stuck in his underwear. He tell me "Mom, you the princess and I am the good bad guy." He is very serious when he tells me that.

Well, I don't want to over do my first entry, so I will hold off and let this be it for now. I welcome your comments and I am excited to have finally started a blog. I would like to thank all of the little people who helped me get to where I am today. (kidding)