"Why would Nana DO that?"

Ashlyn is in that all too wonderful stage of ALWAYS wanting to talk on the phone. The other day she was talking to Nana when Nana had to go. Oh the drama! See the real alligator tears? Is it such a horrible thing that someone hung up on her? (I actually hung up the phone, not Nana - just to clear her name!) I try to hide the phones from her as much as possible!

The Big 4!

Happy Birthday, Carter! He's now the big 4! He requested a pirate cake with a volcano, so we went with a pirate theme for his whole birthday.


This is the really cool pinata that we made. It wasn't quite the fierce pirate I had envisioned, but Carter loved it, so it was great, right?

We had a pirate party for him on Friday. He thought it was a lot of fun...I thought it was a lot of chaos! I was so glad some of the mom's stayed to help, but I still didn't get that many pictures.

Inside the pinata there was a treasure map! How lucky!

I got sparkler candles to make the volcano look like it was erupting, but they didn't sparkle much and they didn't blow out. I felt bad. He's not old enough for trick candles!

Nana and Papa came on Saturday to spend the day for more party celebration and to watch the kids for my race. They are always lifesavers and way too good to me!

Since we had already had the cake on Friday, he blew out a cinnamon roll on Sunday for his actual birthday. I think he really enjoyed the three days of celebration!

I thought this car that they fashioned out of cushions and pillows was pretty cool and creative. Not much to do with his birthday, but it was on his birthday!

We tortured him and made him wait until Eric was home from church to open presents so that Eric could watch on the webcam. I don't know how much he saw, but at least we felt like he was more apart of things! Carter of course made out like a bandit. Thanks to all who gave him such wonderful gifts! Now to find a place for them!

The Big Race

My friend Amanda and I have been saying that we wanted to run a 5k for quite some time now and we finally did it! Saturday morning we ran the "Miles for Melanoma 5K" at Lion's Park. It was so much fun! I was really nervous watching all of the real runners warming up and listening to them talk, but then they blew the horn and I relaxed and really enjoyed my run. We both exceeded our goals, mine being 1) to be able to run the whole race without walking and 2) to come in under 30 mins, although I didn't have high hopes for this one. My finishing time was 28:04 and I came in 6th out of 18 in our age group. My amazing friend Amanda finished with a time of 23:41 and came in first in our age division. Go, Amanda, Go!

This is our before picture...


And after!

Go Speedracer!

Our ward had a family "no rules - no weight limits" pinewood derby Friday night. Luckily, we had gone to Lubbock, so Eric was able to cut our car out for us.

There were a lot of fun cars. The camo one at the front left of the picture won, by major domination, with a three pound scuba weight attached to it and the pink car with the bolts at the bottom right came in second. Our car SHOULD have come in third, but we were experiencing technical difficulties with our wheels (it was missing one by the end of the track) and lost by a fraction to the third place car. Jacob, whose car it was, claims his wheels weren't up to par either (yadee, yadee). :) Win or lose, we had a dang cool car and we had a lot of fun racing it.

We got the "Joe Cool Car" award and that made Isaac's whole night. It has been hard to convince him that it's not just his car, but ALL of ours. Notice all the wheels were off by the end of the night and we were missing half a spoiler, but all is well. I can fix anything! (at least until Eric gets back!)

Random Pictures

I was downloading the pictures from my camera and there were a lot of cute ones that don't have a lot to do with anything, but I wanted to post them anyway.


Jennifer (Eric's sister) and Anton came down for a quick weekend visit. It was great to see them and her blossoming belly!

Have you ever seen a fiercer pirate?

The boys really wanted their picture taken in the empty dresser...go figure?

Ashlyn on the way to her first day of Nursery. What a big girl!

My camera got stolen again. Every dish in my sink and cupboards was documented, as well as Carter the bat about to take flight?

Just relaxing after finishing off a few bowls of popcorn.

Carter wanted me to make him a mask, so I decided to make one for everyone. Ashlyn was hilarious. She wore it for a good half hour or more. She's a very serious super hero. She can't wear it much, though, or I think it will make her go crosseyed!

Lubbock or bust!

The kids and I decided to brave the 6hr drive to Lubbock, so that we could visit Eric for the weekend. We left Friday morning and got there around 3:30 that afternoon (actually 7hrs later!). I was having a near anxiety attack for taking Isaac out of school (I'm weird like that), but I am so glad I did. We had such a fun evening and we would have missed all of that! Eric is staying with an older couple that offered to let him live for free for the month and they invited us up as well. The kids loved their toys and their basketball hoop. The couple was out of town for the weekend, so I loved living in a house with just my family! I hope they didn't mind me fantasizing that it was my own! That evening we took the fam to Chuck E. Cheese for an early birthday dinner for Carter. I meant to take pictures every where we went, but I only got a few...I know you're disappointed! Isaac took off the second he got his tokens, so I only have a couple of Ashlyn and Carter...okay...mostly Ashlyn.

"Whatever you do, keep your eyes on the road!"

She loved riding with the puppy!

Saturday we took the kids to the park and stopped by Hobby Lobby for weights to beef up our pinewood derby car (more info will come on that later). Then we (Eric) spent the afternoon designing and cutting out our car. We didn't do a whole lot, but it was SOOOO nice to be together! Eric had only been gone two weeks, but neither one of us really like to be alone, and the kids have really missed him. Only six more weeks!

Lubbock has a small temple in the same lot as the churchhouse. The boys thought that was pretty neat. They couldn't wait to get their picture taken in front of it. It's beautiful, just like all the rest!

After church, we headed home and the drive back went much smoother, with MANY less stops on the side of the road. We had a WONDERFUL time and it was well worth it. Now I'm just trying to talk Eric into detouring 5 hrs on his way to Missouri....

Dead Cricket Procession

The boys got a hold of my camera the other day and while I was looking through the hundred (not exaggerating) pictures that they took, I saw these and they made me laugh. We are CONSTANTLY catching crickets at our house - most alive, some dead. Here is the story, frame by frame, of one lost cricket...

Here are a couple of other cute pictures that they took. I could have posted several of Carter. I'm guessing Isaac had the camera most of the time. I was there, but doing good 'ol PTO and not paying a bit of attention.

Since we've been back...

It took me so long to post about Arizona, I haven't kept up with our day to day or even week to week happenings. Here's a little bit of what's been going on since we got back from our month long vacation....

- Eric submitted his applications for residency - over 40 - so hopefully we'll start getting interviews soon!


- Isaac FINALLY lost his first tooth. He's been wanting it for more than a year now and it has happened! We thought he had swallowed it because he was putting his dinner plate in the sink when he noticed that it was gone. Luckily, it just fell on the floor and Dad, the hero, was able to find it. (It took me awhile to find my battery charger for my camera after getting back, so there aren't many pictures!)

- The boys perfected their fort making skills.


- All three kids got sick, sick, sick. The poor babies had severe headaches and vomitting for minimum one day, maximum three. It was miserable - even more so for them than for me, believe it or not! :)

- Isaac started the first grade - a day late due to being sick. I went to his open house by myself and met his teacher, but didn't realize until AFTER I had dropped him off at the curb that he had no idea where to go and I wasn't even sure he remembered his teacher's name! Oh the neglect!


- I agreed to be PTO President this year. Although forwarned, I never really imagined it would be so much work or so much DRAMA! Things are starting to settle down, but if you have an afternoon, ask me about holding a parent "hostage" at a PTO meeting. I can laugh now...

- The boys and I made suckers with my mom's old sucker molds and flavoring that I brought back from AZ. It was a fun treat and we've actually made a few batches!


- Eric finished his ortho rotation with Scott & White and headed up to Lubbock for a month and then he'll be off to Columbia, MO for another month.

I'm sure I left out something really great and really important, but those are the highlights for now!