Christmas Day 2008

Christmas for us was WAAAY relaxed. We woke up at the normal time of 7:30 and went out with Carter to see what Santa brought. Megan was still asleep, so we just looked in our stockings and played with the gifts and goodies while we waited for her to wake up. When she woke up about an hour later, we got down to business. We all took turns, so as to make the morning last longer. Because of the turn taking, we only made it about two thirds the way through opening till I had to feed Meg and put her back down for a nap. We paused opening the gifts for about an hour, which gave Carter time to play with some of his new toys, and then got right back in the game. Towards the end of the morning Carter got impatient with the whole taking turns thing, and started opening mine too. Funny boy.
It was a great morning. We were really spoiled. Bo got some Wii games and clothes and a PDA from my brother. I recieved some lotions and a book and some jewelry and cookbooks, along with a panini grill, which is the ULTIMATE!! Thanks Whit and Bridget! My other gift was a shopping trip in a few days to San Marcos, which has two HUGE outlet malls. Carter got his cowboy hat! He also got Hungry Hippos, puzzles, books, Kung Fu Panda, a guitar, a rug with car tracks on it, cars, and a PIRATE SHIP!!! Can you guess what his favorite gift was? Well first it was the hat until he saw the ship. That ship was worth every penny (which, by the way, I got an amazing deal on) he plays with it nonstop!
Sadly, I didn't take too many pictures. We were too busy having fun. Bummer.
Carter zonked out after the busy morning.

He loves this ship. In case you're having a hard time figuring out what's in his ship. . . those are his tractors and cars and just all his toys. The ship was the best place to stash them all.

Bo's playing one of the games he got. It's Mario vs. Sonic Olympic Games. The drums are out because he also got Rock Band 2.

Christmas Eve

We stayed home for Christmas this year. It's been a crazy year, and we needed a break. We decided to stay and have a quiet Christmas at our own place instead of traveling and stressing and all that. It was really fun too.
We found out that two other couples in our ward were staying in town for the holidays too, so we invited them over for Christmas Eve. It was a great night. Bo made some super yummy fajitas and I made salsa and guacamole. We had a fiesta! Ole! haha.
We played Compatibility and Rock Band. Both way fun games. We also read about the nativity from the Matthew and Luke and tried REALLY HARD to get Carter to pay attention and understand it. Sadly I don't think it worked.
After our friends left we all got to open one present. . . . pajamas!! What a shocker! We all put on our pj's except Megan. The poor girl had had a long night and was already tucked in bed, without getting to open hers. Oh well. I don't think she cared. :)
Here's some pictures of our fun-filled night!

The Wests.
The McEntires. Carter was REALLY hyper that night, in case you can't tell. . . he doesn't always look like that. haha

Our stockings laid out for Santa. Like how Megan's is the biggest???? Her's was actually donated to our ward and since our Megan is the only Megan in the ward, we got it! It was brand new--still in the package with Megan embroidered on it.

Nephi is a Pirate???

So you can't tell too well from this picture, but this is the front cover of Book of Mormon Stories. This picture shows Nephi standing amongst his family, with the building of his boat going on in the background. It is this picture that makes Carter think that Nephi is a Pirate. HOW??? Well it's easy. You see, boats aren't just boats. Nope. . . they're pirate ships. If someone has a boat then they really have a pirate ship, and if they have a pirate ship then they MUST be a pirate. So there you have it.
It's really frustrating when you're trying to teach him all about Nephi and he keeps thinking that Nephi is a pirate. And all the battle pictures?? Yeah he thinks they are "naughty knights," because he thinks all the people with swords are knights, and if they are fighting then they are naughty. Oh man. At least he knows that fighting is bad, I guess. Pretty much he's not getting anything from this book that he should. Oh well. At least we're trying.
Oh, Carter. You make me laugh.

Blurb disclaimer

This is for all of you who have had questions concerning publishing your blog through blurb.com, like I did.
Apparently Blurb no longer is compatible with blogspot.com. The reason being that blogspot changed some digital output something or the other. I did some research on the Blurb website and they said that they hope to solve this problem, but that they won't start working on it until 2009. Until then, if you want your blog printed through this site, they suggest copy and pasting. I read on the comments on the Blurb website that one user found an alternate website that would download your blog and then Blurb could take your posts from there. I have no clue if it works, but you can try it.
I'm sorry about this. I suggest waiting a couple months to see if they fix it. Waiting is a way better option than copy and pasting. . . . at least to me. Blogspot changed their digital whatever sometime this summer, and I had downloaded the program and my blog before this, hence why I have mine. I just didn't get my book printed for awhile because I am a procrastinator and we were having computer issues. They are actually really efficient.
As to the cost. . . Blurb has many different options. They charge you different rates depending on hard back, soft back, number of pages, and so forth. They were very easy to deal with. For our two books, shipping included, the total cost was $90. We got hardback, which is more, and we had around 75 pages. Go to blurb.com to get the pricing.
Good Luck! I hope this was helpful.

Carter's Mama

So I put Carter to bed tonight, and later as I was sitting on the couch I heard him calling to me, saying "Carter's mama!" Apparently there's more than one Mama here and he feels the need to distinguish. Silly boy.

Chubby

Who? ME???

Man I love this girl! I can't stop kissing those cheeks. Really. Check out her curly hair too. I hope she keeps those curls!

Santa and Snow

Our library rocks! Seriously. The whole bottom floor was flooded. That means that the awesome children's section was ruined. Did that close them down? Nope. They are still keeping the top floors open (you can get in through another entrance) AND they had SANTA for the kids!!! Of course I jumped on the chance to take the kids to see Santa.
We didn't have a guest appearance of Santa at the ward party so I was getting pretty depressed that Carter wouldn't get to see Santa at all this year, but then our awesome library pulled through! They even gave out new books to the kids. Sweet. Carter did a lot better with Santa this year. He didn't cry at all. He even told Santa what he wanted. A cowboy hat. So he can "ride the range". Yeah one of the Backyardigan episodes has cowboys and they sing a song about riding the range.
ALSO. . . as you might be able to guess from the title, it SNOWED!!!! That's right. It actually snowed down here in Galveston, TEXAS. Oh it was awesome. Carter was loving every minute of it. So were Bo and I. Megan couldn't have cared less. haha. It snowed on Wednesday, right after mutual. All of the youth in my ward were loving it too. Of course it didn't stick, but it was great all the same. We had some pretty huge flakes too.
Here are some pictures of Santa and the snow. The pictures didn't turn out too well of the snow, but it was wonderful.

Sneaky, Sneaky

So Carter has been really into sneaky mode lately. I don't know where he got it, but it both cracks me up and drives me crazy at the same time. Oh what a little kiddo.

His favorite hideout is behind his bedroom door. He thinks he's being sneaky and that no one knows what he's up to, but the problem is that he never goes into his room alone and shuts the door unless it's to do something he's not supposed to, hence the dead giveaway when the door is shut. His latest thing is to grab whatever item he wants but knows he can't have, book it to his room, and then shut the door. Hmmm. . . and then he is all super surprised when we find him, as if to say "how did you find me??" or "I can't believe you've discovered my secret hideout. . .again"

He needs to be potty trained. How do I know? Because Mister Sneaky will randomly run away in the middle of an activity to his secret hiding spot *behind the bedroom door* and then come back all stinky. Yep it's time. It's just sooooo exhausting.

On a final note of being sneaky, Carter will come up to us, mostly me, at random points in the day, and grab something of ours and then run off with it, all the while doing his "evil"laugh. I'm not kidding. He does it in a villain like laugh too. Three Ha ha ha's. Just like that. Three separate ha's each one a lower note then the one before it. His favorite things to snatch are Megan's blankets, the remote, and pretty much whatever is on my lap that I have forgotten about for two seconds. I swear he just sits in the background and just waits for the perfect opportunity to come running in and grab the beloved item and do his little "ha ha ha." Oh that boy. Thank goodness he's usually good about returning it after a few threats to time out. :)

So there you have it. My prankster/sneaky boy. There's no way you can see that in his cute face, is there?

embarrassed

I don't like to be embarrassed or made to feel stupid in public. Go figure. This happened to me the other day. It really made me mad and of course made me cry later when I was in the comfort of my own home and unwinding to Bo. (poor Bo) I like to think that I don't get mad at people that easily, but you can bet that if you do this to me, I'll most likely be upset for a LOOOOONG time.
In other news. . . I made fudge! My awesome cousin Jackie told me this super easy fool proof recipe, and I did it! Now let me just say that I am HORRIBLE at making fudge. True story. I can make toffee, divinity, and all sorts of goodies, but fudge is not one of them. It made my day that I finally made some yummy fudge. Thanks Jackie!!

Thanksgiving 2008

We had a fun Thanksgiving! We spent it with my cousin Jackie and her family at our place. It was way good lovin' food. Everything turned out awesome. The only thing I regret is that I didn't make yams. I LOVE yams but no one else wanted them so I didn't bother making them. Shoulda woulda. Oh well. I also forgot to take pictures of us at the table. How could I forget such a thing? Let me just tell you why. . . because right as everyone sat down at the table ready to eat, Megan decided she was ready for her lunch and a nap. Yep. I missed Thanksgiving dinner. I actually got to come back to the table like 15 min. later so my food wasn't that cold and Lincoln was still eating his seconds. It was good though!
After dinner we played ROCK BAND!!! Oh man we love that game. We played for quite some time too. Jackie and fam. left around 5 ish and then at about 6:30 some other friends of ours came over to watch The Happening on our clear player. The clear play dvd player is a good friend of ours. We got it for Christmas last year. It edits movies for you and it is great.
Anyways. . . Thanksgiving was a great day. A very long and tiring day (Sorry Jackie for being so tired) but fun all the same. I love family and friends and was glad I got to hang out with both!!
The rest of the weekend kinda stunk, to be honest. Bo had a test yesterday and today that he had to study big time for, so we really didn't get to play much. He did take a little break on Friday to go see Bolt with us. I liked the movie. It was cute. So that was our Thanksgiving weekend! Oh yeah, we were thankfully all better when Thursday came. We had a real bad flu or something that made us sick up till Tuesday.
I did take some pictures of the the weekend, even though none show the meal. Enjoy! And yes, normally Carter DOES have pants on.
This was the end result of the turkey. At least you know it was good if it's all gone, right?

Carter ended up taking his nap on my lap.

Megan at the end of Thanksgiving day. The girl was out!! You're jealous of those chubby arms, aren't you!

Carter when he was sick. My poor baby.