HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm thankful for:

Bo

Carter

Megan

my friends

the Gospel

Temples

my family

my nice couches :)

sleep

yummy food

the opportunity for Bo to go to school

our Savior

Christmas

DVR

living in modern times

rock band

the power of prayer

medicine

naps

food storage

the prophets

etc.

etc.

etc.

It's finally here!!

So we finally finished making our blog book!! It arrived last week! We are soooo excited. We ordered two. One for Carter and one for us. We'll order three of the next book, this years blog postings, because Megan will be in them. We figure we'll print one for each child when they are in it, which is why Megan doesn't get one of the ones we just got. She's not in it. It's the only way to be fair to the future kiddos. haha. Anyways, we love this book! It's great. We got the hardback because we wanted it to last a long time. Carter probably would have the softcover ones bent by now.
For those of you who want to know how you can print yours, go to blurb.com. It's super easy to do.
Here's a peek at ours!

Was I?

I used to be cool. Or at least I thought I was. Was I though? huh.
I got an email from my cousin with some exciting news, and as I'm looking at the email, I notice an email address. Yeah it was my brother's. I had no idea that was his email. I've been using a way old one and had wondered for A LONG TIME why he never ever responds. I just figured he didn't want to talk or he was too busy. That's usually the answer to the phone calls that never get answered.
So my problem is this: why did my brother not give me his new email? How sad is that!! Seriously. You have no idea how much this upsets me. I'm so out of touch with him and we used to be SO CLOSE!! It breaks my heart.
It makes me wonder how much I'm missing out on things. Not just with my brother, but with everyone else too. I know I've been crazy lately. HELLO, I've had some big things happen to me! I'm guessing I'm just no longer someone worth talking to because I am no longer "cool." I feel like everyone is having these parties and I'm the kid left out.
I get it. Half of my brains went to child rearing. I can't hold very educated conversations anymore. I can't hold conversations because my kids are begging my attention. My vocabulary is shot. My creative brain is gone. Carter hides my phone so I can't call or answer calls.
The sad thing is, I sometimes wonder if some poeple no longer talk to me, or I'm kept out of the loop, because I'm married and have kids and am hence boring. If that's it, that's too bad. It's a sacrifice I'm willing to take, I just pray that that is not it.
That's all. I'm just upset. Sorry to vent on a blog, but I view this as a journal.
*I could be emotional because I'm sick. . .*

Diego, Dora, and Pablo

We have been watching TV pretty much all day. Actually its more like all day yesterday and all day today. Why? Because we have the good fortune of being SICK. It's a nasty sickness too. Poor Carter is burning up. He has rosy cheeks and has that glazed over-about to fall asleep look. Of course he WON'T fall asleep, but he's dead to the world all the same. Carter and I started feeling ill on Saturday night, and since then we have had all sorts of symptoms associated with the flu. I'm only hoping Megan doesn't get it. Or Bo. He has a test he really needs to study for.
I'm getting to really dread the theme songs of Diego and Dora. Oh those two shows drive me nuts! I could watch the Backyardigans all day though. . .

Excited to have a girl

I left Bo home with Megan this morning and took Carter with me to our church to work out. When I came home Bo was holding a sleeping Megan. The reason I'm blogging about this is because I thought it was so cute that he had changed her from her pj's into a onesie and pants AND he put a cute clip in her hair!!! How cute is that? He was so proud too. Man I love my family!

A day at the Aquarium

A few days ago a friend and I took our kids to the local aquarium. It was fun to get out of the house and let the boys run around. The cage that we are in is supposed to be a shark cage. We love the aquarium. It's so relaxing. They have lots of interesting fish too. Carter's favorite animal would have to be the sea turtle. They have a really big one. Mine? I don't know. I do know that when I see the Baracuda I get scared because I think of Finding Nemo. Yep. I told you I get too into shows. haha.

Headaches

I have been getting pretty bad headaches for the past week and a half at least. Last Monday I actually experienced a migraine for the first time. Not a fun experience. It started off with my eye acting all funky and after telling Bo, with him commenting that it might be a migraine, my right eye started hurting big time. Then came the pain behind the nose and other eye, then the nausea. Bo actually had to skip class because there was no way I could take care of two kids with that pain. Not long after we decided he should stay home, I had the wonderful opportunity of visiting the toilet. Good thing I had cleaned it earlier. It went away later on in the evening, but since then I have had headaches almost nonstop. Every time it gets a little intense I start freaking out. I'm so worried that I'll get another migraine!
I don't know what's going on. I think it might be the birth control. A friend mentioned that maybe it's mold. The whole island is covered in it. Someone else commented that maybe its just the stress of the kids. I hope it's not the kids. I've actually been able to handle them well lately. We're actually having fun and getting out! So what is it? I'm hoping it's the pill and that once I get off it my problems will go away. I definitely don't want it to be the mold because that's just scary.

Megan's 2 month stats

We took Megan to the Dr. on Wednesday. It was not too good of an experience for poor Megan. Megan's newborn screening, that was taken at the hospital when she was born, was lost thanks to IKE, so that meant at this appointment she not only recieved her shots, but also had the screening redone. YAY.
It took the nurse 3 times to prick Megan's foot enoug to get the right amount of blood for the screening. She was crying pretty hard, but I was able to calm her down. THEN they brought in the needles for her 3 shots. . . and I thought she was crying hard earlier. HA! THe poor girl was SCREAMING. Needless to say, she slept pretty good the enxt two days thanks to that trying experience.

Here are her stats:
Head: I think it was 38 cm. but I can't remember. It was in the 50th percentile.
Length: 23.5 inches. 50th percentile
Weight: 14.5 lbs. 90th percentile - -- - that's right!!!

Oh yeah. . . Megan is SMILING now!!!

Weird? Me???

I know what you're thinking. . . weird things about me? Is this possible? Can there really be such things? Well after much thought, I have decided to let you all know that yes, there are quite a few odd things about me. haha.
I was tagged by both Stephanie Stout and my sister Libby to list 7 weird things about me. Here goes:

1. I like the smell of dirt. . . and not just any dirt. It's a specific kind of dirt. It's the dirt of a freshly dug potato field. Yep. I really do like it. I like going into a potato cellar and smelling it. Not a rotten one, but a fresh right after harvest one. What? I grew up on a farm!
2. I keep two text messages on my phone ALWAYS. These aren't just any texts either. They are both from Bo with cute endearing little words on them. Why is this weird? It's weird because of the REASON I keep them. A few months after my sister-in-law's brother died, she mentioned to me how she was upset she'd lost her phone because she had a couple messages from him on it. I keep my texts from Bo in case something ever happens to him. Morbid, I know. I'm just terrified of him someday being gone, so I keep those texts just in case, as a little reminder of his love. Now don't ask me about what happens when I lose that phone. . .
3. I kiss Carter, and now Megan, along with saying "I love you" every time I put them in the car. This is morbid too, I'm sorry, but I do this in case we get in a car accident. I want my kids to always know that I love them and so that if I die, the last words they hear from me were "I love you." Of course I talk to them in the car while driving, so maybe all of that becomes void. huh. I'm still going to do it anyway!!
4. I am EXTREMELY ticklish. Seriously. Just touching my feet tickles me. If Carter knew this, I would never get a break. It's that bad. Really. I'm ticklish the most on my feet, but I'm also ticklish on my knees, thighs, above the hips, ribs, under the arms, the arms, you get the point? I'm even ticklish in my mouth. Going to the dentist and orthodontist drive me NUTS. I hate it because of the usual. . . cavities and such. . . but also because they tickle me! The roof of my mouth gets it bad when they rub there hands along it accidentally when looking in my mouth. My tongue is ticklish too. Yep.
5. I'm way anal about checking the house before I go to sleep. I swear I check the kitchen stove at least 3 times before going to bed. The locks? I must check them at least half a dozen times throughout the day, not to mention at night. I have to make sure everything is off. Bo swears our place won't burn down with the burner on low, but I'd rather not test it.
6. For a long time, and I'm talking up until high school, I thought serial killers were CEREAL killers. I was always sooo confused as to why it was such a big deal when people talked about serial killers. Way blond moment, I know. I just imagined people must be going around stabbing cereal boxes or something, and was just always trying to figure out why it was such a shock to people when one was talked about, and why on earth would someone WANT to do that? What's the big deal with cereal? Oh man. *sigh*
7. I get WWWAAYY too into shows. Really. I can drown out ANYONE at ANYTIME. It's true. Bo can readily vouch for that. I get so into them that I make up little additional lives for them. Yeah. For instance: We watch the Backyardigans a ton these days. Some episodes only have, say 3, of the 5 characters in it. Now most people wouldn't give it a second thought, but me? I wonder where the other characters are! Are they at home sick? Did they go on vacation? Are the other characters mad at Austin and is that why he's not there??? So sad. And this is a CARTOON. Can you imagine what I do for shows with real people? I often catch myself smiling when one of the character is smiling, or basically copying whatever they are doing. If they are dancing, I usually twitch. It is true. It is sad. It is WEIRD.

There you have it. I hope you enjoyed it! I tag Brianna, Serena, Claudia, and Bridget. Have fun!

Can I do it?

So I was watching the news earlier this week and they had a portion of it devoted toward saving money. One lady, a financial something or the other, challenged three ladies in Houston to go one whole week without spending any money. I thought this was interested and am kinda tempted to try. I think I'll try it tomorrow and see how it goes. I'm not including grocery as part of this because I REALLY need to go grocery shopping. I didn't go grocery shopping at all last week because it's so hard to do now that I have 2 kiddos. Plus I'm going to need the help of cookies and sweets to get me through this. haha Anyways. . . wish me luck. Can I really do it? We'll see. . . .

Here are some pics of the past week. The ones of the pumpkin are actually from the day before Halloween. When we were done carving it Carter totally picked up a piece of the carving and started eating it. He loved it too. Gross.

Man this girl is cute!!!

Getting ready to take a nap together

Oh Carter

Since evacuating Ike, Carter has slept in 5 different beds. Thats right, 5. Because of the frequent change in lodging, we had to get Carter to go to sleep by lying down with him. Now we are at home and he still flips out if we don't lie down with him. We have sort of gotten better. Now he just screams for 15 min. when we refuse to lie down with him. Thats not the big issue. . . the BIG issue is that he's waking up at least twice during the night screaming bloody murder. He cries, screams, and gets out of bed and knocks/hits on the door. We don't want him to wake up Megan, so one of us rushes in and lies down with him to stop his crying. This has got to STOP. Bo and I hardly get a whole nights rest, not to mention, we aren't getting the chance to be together because we usually just end up sleeping with him. What do we do? I would normally just have him cry it out, but he's been getting LOUD lately and I'm afraid of him waking up not only Meg, but the people below us. Oh Carter, please give us a break!
Ike definetly stinks, but I will say this because I keep forgetting to post this and I want it to go down in my records, that because of the storm I was able to have Bo at home for Meg's first 6 weeks of life. Yep, no work or school. It was AWESOME. I don't know what I would have done without Bo's help. Two kids are hard!

VOTE!!!!

Did you vote? I sure hope you did. I did! I was a little disappointed though. . . I did early voting so I didn't get a sticker. I really REALLY wanted a sticker though. Oh well.
Go out there and VOTE. It's a blessing to live in a country that allows you to decide it's leaders, take advantage of it!
I've said my piece.
Out

Go McCain!

Halloween!

We had our ward party last week. It was held outside in the parking lot because our church building is filled to the brim with donated items. Actually it's pretty cool going through our building and witnessing the generosity of so many church members. It's neat to see first hand all that the church does in helping out disaster victims.

Back to Halloween . . . Carter was a pirate. He actually had a different pirate costume but I forgot to take pictures of him in it. This as his friend's costume that we borrowed before finally just deciding to buy our own. He is obsessed with pirates. It all stemmed from watching The Backyardigan's Pirate Treasure episode and listening to Veggie Tales "The Pirates who don't do Anything" song. Megan? Well she was supposed to be a flower, but she HATED being in the pot. We ended up just putting a big flower on her head that my friend Jorden made, and that was it. She stayed hidden at the party and during trick or treating in her carseat, so it wasn't a big deal anyways. Sorry Meg. Not much of a costume.

They had fun at the party. Carter got tons of candy, which of course meant that Mom and Dad got tons. haha. In the week between the party and Halloween Carter came up all the time with his empty pumpkin bucket and "trick or treat"-ed more.

Last night for Halloween we went to our friends, the Stouts, for a party and then afterwards went up to Clear Lake where my cousin Jackie lives and went Trick or Treating there. We went with Jackie, her husband, and their son Brigham who was a turtle. We also went with our friends the Granthams. Their son Phoenix was a pirate too, and Sequoia was little Red Riding Hood. We would have preferred to stay on the island, but with all the houses being gutted, there really wasn't anywhere to go. Either way, we had lots of fun and Carter got even MORE candy. Carter didn't get in bed till about 10 at night, hence we are having fun dealing with a very cranky and whiny kid today. Oh well. It was great and I must say that Halloween is even more fun with kids then it was when I was. It's fun seeing Carter get excited. He loved being a pirate.