Baby needs new shoes!

Robert and I couldn't figure out why Carter INSISTED on going to town with me on Saturday. Given a choice, she picks going with dad every time, but this Saturday, she was determined that I didn't leave her behind. I had been hoping to quick sneak into town by 8 am, grab my groceries before the hordes descended on Walmart, race through Target to see if there were any sweatpants I could possibly wear until forced to go into maternity wear, and be home by 11 am at the latest. I also kinda enjoy the short break to just have a little free time to myself. Ha! Carter wasn't going for it this time. So, by the time I got Carter ready, changed outfits twice (nothing is fitting now since I'm too big for my clothes and still not big enough for maternity outfits), changed Carter twice and gave her a fast bath due to a bout of diarrhea (now I'm really excited about taking her to town with me), it was almost 11 before we left. I later realized that Carter was all for the shopping. I had told her earlier in the week that we needed to go to town and get her some new shoes since she had pretty much grown out of all hers. She was determined to go to town with me on Saturday to make sure she got to pick them out. It was all she talked about all the way to town.

We must have looked through 700 pairs of shoes at Walmart and there was only 1 pair that she decided she needed. She didn't like any of the others and wouldn't try anything on. Naturally the only pair of shoes she liked, were the the only pair not on sale. Go figure. They were pretty cute shoes though...Care Bear themed tennis shoes that light up when you walk on them.

After racing through Walmart, we stopped over at my Gramma Betty's for some lunch. I'm always nervous about having lunch with Gramma because she has white carpet in her whole house, including the dining room. Carter has done her best to turn it into dalmatian carpet--lots of spots on the white. So far Gramma and the rug cleaner are winning, but I don't put anything past that little girl. I tried to get a couple pictures of Carter and Gramma, but it was like taking pictures of Dash from the Incredibles...she had on her new shoes and wanted to try them out!

Mail

Carter loves mail, especially the ripping, tearing and shredding part to get the mail open. I've learned to pick and choose which pieces she gets depending on if it's junk mail or I actually want to read what is inside and don't want to piece it together like a puzzle. Our mailbox now is a little harder to get to, but before we moved, we would take a daily trip with her wagon to go pick up the mail. We'd start out with me pulling her in the wagon, and then would switch to her walking along, her pulling the wagon or me carrying her and pulling the wagon. Least favorite for me was carrying her while she was still trying to pull the wagon. We'd gather up all the mail and race back home to (rip it to shreds) open it. It was about a 200 yards or so back to the house, so race is a relative term that includes running the wrong way, stopping to fill the wagon with rocks or dirt, pointing out bugs, watching my cousins horses, trying to feed horses who were naturally suspicious, etc. All in all, getting the mail took around an hour or better. Now our mailbox is around 2 miles away, so we've missed out on this ritual.

Yesterday she really wanted to play with the stamps. The mail lady was wonderful enough to leave me these great brightly colored Disney stamps that Carter is absolutely sure are HERS and are STICKERS not STAMPS! I made the mistake of leaving them out on my desk after mailing a bill and she instantly caught site of them. (How she can find the one interesting thing on my desk with all the piles of papers, pens, general crap that litters around my computer, I have no idea) I, thinking I would nip this in the bud, simply told her NO in my firmest Mommy voice and said these only go on letters. End of discussion. She sat there for a moment eyeing me, and I figured she had taken me seriously since she didn't raise a fuss and simply walked off to go back to playing. Or so I thought. A few minutes later she was back with a carefully colored piece of paper. "Me need to mail letter, Mom. Me need stamp now. " Arrgh. Outsmarted by a 2 year old. So I put her letter in an envelope. She had decided that she wanted to send her letter to Gramma Aunty, although was very reluctant to let me write the address on her letter, because, well, that's exactly what she had already scribbled on there, couldn't I see? But at last, the coveted stamp! I handed it to her and tried best I could to help get it placed where it belonged along with the indignant cries of "ME do it, MINE!" She was very happy with the result, and very proud of her little letter. Then, naturally we needed to mail it, right now. Ah, why not? So we drove up to the mail box and she put it in and raised the flag. She loved the whole experience. Our mailbox is right next to the mail box we were sending it to, but I've made the mistake once of thinking you could deliver mail (thank you notes and such) to family mailboxes without running it through the local post office. Bad idea. They really don't like that and let you know with some nice hate mail that it would be an even worse idea to try it again. Point taken.

She really loves getting her very own mail, mostly from her grammas around the holidays. I need to get some fun stuff that I can mail her this summer.

I had a few pictures I took this month that I really liked but didn't find a spot to put them in my other posts from this month. The first is a shot of my ponies laying in the sunshine just outside my window. I've really enjoyed having them around the house and Carter seeing them all the time. Hopefully when the weather warms up again, we can get Picky (the middle paint horse) saddled up for another pony ride. It takes me 20-40 minutes to catch the horse, brush him down and get him saddled up for me to lead her around on a 10 minute ride before she is tired of the wind and ready to go home. It feels like a lot of work, but it's really important to me that she enjoys the experience right now. She certainly does. In the summer, when it's warmer, it's much harder to get her off once she gets on, especially if one of her cousins, Blake or Vashti are riding behind her.
Calving season around here starts right about the first of March, with the heifers starting first. The calving pasture is right on the way when I'm taking Carter down to Landa's in the morning and Carter is always on the look out for new babies. My brother Clint was great enough to take her on a four wheeler ride to see the first new baby born this spring. She loved it and talked about it for days. The little guy below was pretty wobbly still when I got this picture, but I didn't want to get any closer as his momma was still a bit skittish. I thought it would be poor form to show Carter how to act around new momma cows by getting run over first thing.

The last picture is of Carter and her grampa or Bompa as she calls him. She is very lucky to have such a great Bompa. He always seems to have a pocket full of 'Kid Bait' as he calls it, aka candy.

Outside before the snow

After I picked Carter up yesterday, I decided to work outside for a little while, cleaning up around the house. It's supposed to snow today, and for the next week, so I figured we better take advantage of the nice day. It was a bit windy (surprise!) but otherwise warm enough that you could start smelling spring. I get so hungry for the color green this time of year, enough of the brown and yellow! I am so excited that my iris are coming back--they got planted a little late spring and the puppies were pretty rough on them. I mean if you are a puppy with several acres to run around on, naturally the best place to play, chew, dig is right in the handy flower bed. I can also see some hollyhocks coming up as well, and I'm hoping that the cosmos will come back too. They were so gorgeous last fall. The started blooming around July in these beautiful bright pink colors and kept blooming until a hard frost in October took them out. I love flowers, but I like easy, not too much fuss type flowers. My general rule is I'll try it once and if it dies, never try it again. Makes for easier planting decisions. ( oh that and I always like free...extra flowers or seed that someone is trying to give away are always my new favorites)

Carter naturally was all kinds of help outside. I hauled wood over to the house--we store a bunch on the porch so it can stay dry and figured I better stock up before the snow. Carter grabbed sticks or chunks of bark and put them in the driveway...as far as she wanted to carry them apparently. She liked it better when I loaded up her wheelbarrow and she could haul the wood chips around in that...and dump them all over naturally. She also played on her swing, dug holes in the lawn with with an old metal serving spoon she managed to unearth somewhere, and hauled dirt from the garden into the holes on the lawn, drug out her tricycles... We were busy.

Carter is really enjoying her trampoline. I love that I can zip her up in it and she's safe while I'm running around doing stuff. She loves bouncing off some of her energy to spare (I really wish you could bottle some of that up and give mom a boost to keep up!) She was doing somersaults, bouncing off the netting, having a grand time. It's really hard for me to get too many pictures of her smiling because as soon as she sees the camera she runs the other way or starts scowling, but yesterday, I was able to get a few pictures of the little girl I'm used to seeing. Most of her pictures would have you thinking she's pretty serious or cranky all the time--or at least around the camera operator.

By the time we came in the house, I had a very tired little girl. She helped me get dinner started. She's very good at dragging items out of the fridge, scooping up chopped vegetables, and stirring, her favorite. I can't say that it speeds up dinner much, but only one way to learn how to help. I really have to watch myself that I give her lots of opportunities to help, even if it is much messier/slower. It's a bit frustrating to me when she's decided she's making cookies out of the corn bread batter--you think you have 2 cups of flour but she's spooned out a half cup on the counter, smeared on the third clean shirt today, then ate half the butter...you just never know how it's going to turn out. Slowly, I've (with a certain amount of determination) decided that, who cares? It really doesn't have to be perfect. Really. Seriously. (I've got my work cut out for me eh?) After trashing the kitchen, I popped Carter in the tub, and by the time I got her dry and we sat down for a minute, she was out by 5 pm. Naked. I FIRMLY believe in letting sleeping babies sleep...so I piled up blankets on her bed in case of an accident, and put her to bed. Luckily she woke up by 7 to play with dad for awhile so we could get pajamas on and she was strangely enough ready for bed by 8:30. OK so if you asked her, she DID NOT want to go to bed, but 20 minutes later she was back asleep. Just before she usually goes to bed, Carter comes into our room to snuggle and play with mom, and it's my favorite way to end the day. She snuggles, and giggles and squirms around, plays peekaboo under the covers and is all around silly. Then dad comes to put her to bed and she gives me a kiss and off she goes. It's taken a long time to come to point where someone besides mom could put her to bed, but it's been worth it. I usually sneak off about a half hour before her bed time to catch up on some reading while she gets to play with dad and he gets her ready for bed. We figured with number 2 coming, it would be better to start now then big shock later when mom's busy. We're just now getting to the point where she will go to bed by herself. This has been an even tougher battle, but it's working better with dad than it ever did when I tried it. Sorta. There is so much to learn...

Busy girl

Carter and I had a busy afternoon yesterday. I picked her up from Landa's and she chattered the whole way home. It's still pretty hard to follow most of the time. When you ask her what she did during the day, it generally starts with a "Don't Know", then she'll start in. I heard all about running, playing, hugging Cade, that she doesn't like trucks (which started because Mom told her she couldn't run on the county road because their were too many trucks driving by). When we got home, I convinced her to lay down for about 30 minutes and have some quiet time, hoping maybe she would take a nap, but she was on to me. She played, sang, jumped around, but mostly stayed pretty quiet. When she got up, we cleaned up the house and she helped, even running her own little vacuum. She helped me clean up the bunny cage, and was furious when she got saw dust shavings stuck all over her hands and clothes--which she tried to clean off with her bug vacuum. Then after changing clothes three times, she decided that her baby doll needed num nums, her baby word for nursing. Having diligently watched both of my sisters nurse their two babies (occasionally even getting up on the couch and trying to look down Aunty Jessi's blanket to get a better look) Carter knew all about feeding babies. So after spending a half hour cleaning her baby and changing diapers, it was time for food. It's a little hard to see her baby in the picture, but it's there under the blanket. She must have sat in the rocking chair for 10-20 minutes (Forever in toddler time) feeding her baby and rocking it. It was so cute.

A few weeks back, when she was down spending a morning with my sister Jessi, she had followed Jessi around as she was taking care of Keenan. Whatever Jessi did with Keenan, Carter did with her stuffed toy, from changing diapers, cleaning, to nursing. It sure reminds you to be careful of the example you are setting. My mom and I are planning to go shopping this summer to get a nice baby doll for Carter will all the works...blankets, clothes, diapers, stroller, bed, etc. So that when I come home from the hospital with a new baby, we will be bringing a new baby home for Carter too. We're hoping that it will help her adjust a little easier. Fingers crossed. I think it's going to be a little hard on her at first, but trying to find whatever we can do to make it a little easier.

It was Robert's birthday yesterday also, so Carter helped me make a great peanut butter pie. I don't really like peanut butter pie, but Robert loves it, and this was a pretty darn good recipe. I used 2 packs of peanut butter Girl Scout all crushed up for the crust with a few melted chocolate chips drizzled on top and the pie part was all cool whip, cream cheese, peanut butter and powdered sugar. What Carter didn't wear, smear on the counter or drop on the floor, went in a pie pan and in the fridge. Dinner was the best part. He didn't know when he was going to be home, since he's been working a job in Columbus, so we figured it would be dinner at home. I found this amazing recipe for Creamy Pesto Shrimp that is very very good, not diet food by any means. You can check out the recipe at http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Creamy-Pesto-Shrimp/Detail.aspx?pos=1 Between the cream, butter and pesto, I don't want to know the fat content, but Robert thought it was better than some he'd had at restaurants in town. I also liked that it's fast to make and very easy, but tastes like you slaved away in the kitchen. (Robert if you are reading this, I really did slave away all afternoon, just for you...seriously.) My thighs are still laughing at me as I can feel them growing from just thinking about dinner. I made the recipe as is, although some of the comments mentioned trying to lower the fat content some by using Half and Half and less butter. Not sure about that, but this is a keeper, a 'only eat once in a great while otherwise buy bigger pants' treat. I think next time I would serve it as a side dish to steak or something rather than the main dish, it's just so rich. Carter spent her whole time eating every one's shrimp...her favorite part. I had a hard time keeping any shrimp in the sauce. Carter was stirring for me and every time I turned around she was trying to scoop more in her mouth. Robert was very happy with his birthday dinner and it was worth it. My favorite part though was Carter singing her dad Happy Birthday.

Finally...Easter Eggs

I've been dragging my feet on the decorating and coloring Easter eggs, but Carter persisted (and dad kept reminding her...) So finally mom got her act in gear and we (mostly her and dad...ok, mostly her) painted eggs. Ok, so I really was pretty much out of time. I can't remember the last time I dyed and painted eggs. It's been at least since maybe high school? I'm fairly certain I wasn't nearly so excited then as Carter was. We first made her take a nap--I just don't think I could handle a tired cranky kid with dye and paint. Carter's been trying really hard to ditch her afternoon nap and it's made things a bit rough. From my google research, it sounds like a pretty normal thing, but I was kinda hoping she would take nice 2-3 hour naps until she was oh, 6 or so and starting school. Nice try mom.

Carter is just starting to get into the coloring and painting. We've got the coloring books and big crayons. This was her first time painting and she really liked it. I'm not quite as thrilled about the mess, but the paper on the counter helped a lot. I think I'll like painting a lot more when it's warmer and she can paint outside. We had a big time as kids with water paints and painting up all our favorite rocks. It was a whole lot funner at the time than it sounds now. Really.

Happy Easter and Happy Trails

The Easter Bunny Came! were Carter's first words when she woke up this morning with her eyes as big as dinner plates. Well actually it was 'Where my Easter Eggs?', until she noticed the eggs hiding around the house and the presents. (That Easter bunny was smart and left coloring books, chap stick, gum and bubbles--all her favorite things!) Her and Dad ran around finding all the eggs with her as excited as could be. It made it all worth it. This was the first year we've really gotten to celebrate holidays with Christmas being the first big holiday to make an impression. We spent the month of March getting ready, by decorating the house, making Easter muffins (much easier/faster than Easter cut-out cookies...), painting our Easter basket and sending out a few Easter cards that she decorated. It was fun. After I graduated high school, I really quit celebrating most holidays other than a nice dinner with friends and family, but this has really been the first time I've really gotten back in the spirit of things, besides Christmas. I'm sure my 'really getting into it' is pretty mild for some, but hey, I'm coming along, slowly! Holidays really are for little kids or at least the little kid in us.

We had to hurry down for Easter breakfast at Mom's and one last goodbye to my sister Jessi, Eric and Keenan before they drove off to Denver to start their trip to Kiev. As always, Mom cooked up a great feast (if you left hungry, it's your own fault sort of deal...). It's getting more complicated trying to fit us all around the table as the family keeps growing--not to mention the musical chairs as Cade now wants on dad's lap, Avery's crying so Mom holds her while Christy tries to get three bites in, Keenan was happy where ever he was, so long as some one remembered to feed him, Carter starts out with Gramma, then ends up with dad.

We got one more picture of all the cousins after breakfast...you can see the Easter candy glaze is starting and everyone was starting to think NAP, well, OK, they weren't but you can be sure their mom was!

Didn't take the kids long to get tired of pictures. Cade could only handle so much sitting pretty, before he figured he better liven things up some! Avery after 2 pictures (with all the mommy's, aunty's, gramma'a snapping pictures fast and furious) had enough. Apparently so had Cade!

One more picture of all the sisters before Jess had to leave. It's going to be quite awhile before we get another chance to all get together. By the next time, there will be at least two more members since both Corrine and I are pregnant. Yah, lots of little babies--all the sisters will have one, with Christy leading the pack with two already. Corrine's due in July with a little boy and I'm due in September. Now, it's Jess's turn to have one more! After listening to how much fun Christy's having with two, I rather imagine, she's planning to wait awhile! We're not real sure when they will get to come back, it's a 2 year tour in Kiev, but they do get some vacation time, but not all is family leave time to come back to the States. I do envy her the opportunity to tour Europe. I've always wanted to go, but the timing has never worked, yet. (I'm saving my miles, but thanks to Number Two, it's going to be a bit longer...) It's going to be such an interesting experience and I can't wait to read her blogs about it...HINT HINT Jess! : ) Anyway, I hope they have a safe uneventful trip over, and that all their stuff shows up on time and at the right place!

On Saturday afternoon, we had a going away party/potluck for Jess and Eric. Quite a few members of our large extended family made it to the party and it was really nice to see everyone. Since it was right before Easter, my Aunts also put together a great Easter egg hunt. Carter loved running around with all her big cousins finding and gathering up all the eggs (eggs that mom helped the Easter bunny re-hide this morning!). The older cousins were really pretty good about making sure the little kids got their fair share and helping them find eggs--not that Aunty Linda wasn't reminding them occasionally in a loud authoritative manner. The picture below shows the egg hunting crew and yep, that's just a few of Carter's close cousins. There are actually some missing. Notice Sterling, the little boy right behind Carter, watching out for her with his hand on her shoulder. He is the sweetest little boy and just loves Carter. He's in the first grade and has a great time coming over and playing with her. He calls her little sister and takes great care of her.

No matter how much Easter loot you manage to pick up, there is always room for more! The girls found the table hosting the left over candy that didn't fit in all the eggs and were sure they better pack it in as well.

I'm accused of being rather 'draconian' by my dad about candy around my house, but if there is a single sweet thing in the house, that is all Carter wants to eat and whines about it all day. (Not to mention, that's all I want to eat!) Also, one of her close cousins who is a few years older went to the dentist last summer and they found 11 Cavities!!! No thank you. I'm not against some treats on occasion, and doing what I can to promote healthy eating which yes, as a kid, really does need to include candy, but not every day! It's just hard when every time you turn around someone is giving her candy, and every holiday now seems to promote it's own special "must have" candy. Sigh. I suppose I survived it, but as someone who struggled with her weight, I always thought it was a bit cruel for all the family to stuff you full of candy and sweets then comment that it looked like you were gaining a few pounds. The grammas were great this year and got more clothes and toys this year for Easter presents, which I really appreciated and for Carter is a great treat. She LOVES new clothes (I sometimes wonder if she is my kid--although I guess I like new clothes, I just don't want to shop for them...) She got a great big box of new clothes from her Gramma Howell and spent the whole afternoon trying them all on, preferably one on top of the next. She also got a great new blanket with a pillow and some toys. She really liked the giant stuffed bunny because she can ride it around the house holding on to the ears! I offically have a pink bucking bronco bunny in my house. Gramma Debbie got her a bug gun which basically vacuums up bugs so you can look at them then turn them loose. She wore the batteries out in less than a day.

I don't think anyone enjoyed their Easter candy quite as much as Cade. The picture doesn't truely do the sticky factor justice. He was head to toe in yellow sugary goo and couldn't have been happier about it--until he discovered the red licorice, which sounds like a safer choice but the end result looked almost the same. He wanted Aunty Jami to pick him up but, ah well, that's what his dad is for!

All in all, a great weekend with lots of family. Now, back to the grind!

Automatic Gate Opener

Since we turned our horses out in the pasture around the house, we (well, Robert...) put in a cattle guard so that we wouldn't have to open and shut a gate every time we left the house. However, this cattle guard was designed with a large truck in mind, not a small low to the ground car. So if I want to use the cattle guard, I can say good bye to the bottom of my car, muffler, you know, little things like that. So, mostly I'm stuck using the gate. However, thanks to my little helper, it's now practically an automatic gate, requiring only some cheering and applause to get it to work. I occasionally feel slightly guilty having a 2.5 year old opening and shutting the gate for me, but hey, it's never to early to start learning to earn your place, right? 'Sides, little Miss "Me Do IT!" loves helping momma!

Thursday and Friday night we were lucky enough to have Blake, my cousin's little girl, come over and visit. Blake is 10 and just the perfect age for entertaining Carter. She is a very sweet wonderful little girl and Carter adores her and her sister Vashti who is two years older. (For the non-family readers, my cousin has four girls ranging in ages from 16 to 10 and one boy, and as you can imagine, her house is Carter's very favorite place to be.) Blake is great about entertaining Carter and keeping an eye on her so that I can work on dinner, cleaning, etc. It really gives me a nice break and Carter couldn't be happier. A few months ago, Blake stopped in with her older sister Brianne to drop something off, and they could only stay a minute. Carter was getting all geared up for a fun time and they were already gone. She just sat down by the door and cried. I thought my heart would break for her. But yesterday, we got to played until we crashed! They must have spent an hour on the trampoline. Good thing since it snowed last night and will be a tad chilly to jump on today. We try to get over to my cousins to play whenever we can, which is always a challenge with everyone's busy schedules. Carter's new trick it to suddenly have to go pee whenever we are passing by their house. Note Dad trying to get all the wood chopped in the background!

Playing with Aunty Jessica

Carter spent the day with Aunt Jessi who is leaving on Sunday for her big move to Kiev, Ukraine. Her husband Eric was flying in tonight for a quick visit, just long enough for their going away party tomorrow and an early Easter breakfast. It should be an interesting two years for her and her family. I can't even imagine trying to grocery shop, much less travel that far with a baby! She is very brave! or very crazy... : ) We're going to miss her, Eric and Keenan lots! Carter had a great time with Jessi, and Keenan loved following his big cousin around. When I got there, Carter was just getting wound up. She wrapped a lace doily of Mom's around her waist so it could be her saddle and Jessi could 'ride' her around the living room. It's one of her favorite games. She's also a big help finding Keenan's pacifiers and taking all his toys away. Naturally anything he wanted to play with was a sure fire invitation for her to grab it and jump up on the couch where he couldn't get to her...yet! We're working on the the whole issue of 'sharing' but it's tough. We're at least working on the 'if they have it, you can't whack them on the head and take it'. Little measurable success to date, although some less whacking and but not much less taking. We do better at other people's houses, mostly only go into full blown meltdown when other little kids are terrorizing her home territory (mostly just by showing up and wanting to play with anything she doesn't want them to...which is pretty mush all her stuff). She rather reminds me of a dog circling around the invader, hair standing on end, just waiting for them to do something dumb, like touch one of HER toys. Then the fur starts flying and it's every kid for himself with every momma to the rescue. I can't wait until Number Two starts a real invasion for good.



Trying to get a picture taken with two mobile little kids and a slow flash on my camera was about more than we could manage today, although these two pictures turned out pretty cute.

Trampoline!

On Sunday, Robert finally decided to finish building Carter's trampoline that his mom got Carter for Christmas. The weather was so lovely that it was the perfect day to get it finished and play on it. Carter loved the whole project as you can imagine. She was real big on getting all rolled up in the safety netting, hiding screws or losing them altogether, knotting strings, tearing foam and generally trying to be a big help whenever possible. While I love the idea of the safety netting it was a real pain to put on! Robert and I spent over an hour trying to get the foam in place and basically sewing the netting to the base of the trampoline. My hands are all cut up, but I think it was worth it. What better to way to wear a little girl out?

Now my next project for this spring, besides the garden, is to get a sand box put together (somewhere away from the cats!!) Carter loved playing with Landa's sandbox at their old house and with the weather getting better, it's about time. Between the swing set, trampoline, sandbox, wading pool, and rock slide behind the house, I should be about set for outside play with Carter and all her little cousins. Plus there is a little bunk house that we are planning to fix up as a playhouse. Robert's mom has been so wonderful about getting all these great toys for Carter and it sure is a big help.

Sometimes it feels like a real hassle living so far from town, but there are so many advantages too. We have lots of room to spread out and have lots of little kids toys all over--backyard space isn't much of a problem right now. It's nice to know Carter can go outside and be safe.

I knotted a blanket around Carter and she was "Super Carter to the Rescue" in the afternoon complete with her super girl outfit of Dora the Explorer gardening gloves, pink flower hat and snow boots. She's run all over yelling "To the Rescue" although I'm not sure if she knew exactly what it meant, but she knew that's what you say when you are Super Carter. I think she picked up the idea from Riley Jo who was playing Super Riley the other day at Landa's. She's testing her super powers on the stove to see if mommy closed it up right.

I cooked dinner on Saturday for my sister, Christy and her two kids, talk about chaos! My Aunt Linda also came over (hey, the house is clean, I actually cooked, lets show off to as many folks as possible!) and she brought my three little cousins: Blake, Chance and Stirling. It was like a three ring circus. Robert was trying to get all the food dished up and on the table, Aunty is rounding up the three older kids, I'm trying to keep Carter from a full fledged temper tantrum when she realizes Cade is playing with HER TOYS, Christy is trying to keep Avery sleeping so she can eat. The three older kids were running in and out of the house, wanting to eat outside, but always managing to forget something, Cade runs into the Bunny and is scared to death and starts screaming, Avery wakes up and needs food NOW, so Robert takes Carter, I'm trying to calm down Cade, my sister is hiding in the back room nursing Avery and Aunty is trying to eat a nice dinner. Oh, best laid plans... It only went down hill from there. I'm thinking my sister was wishing she had stayed home and ate instant Mac and Cheese in somewhat peace and quiet. I KNOW Aunty wished she would have stayed home. Sigh. The food was pretty good though! At the end, my house looked like a bomb went off, even after Aunty was nice enough to stay and help do up the dishes. It still hasn't quit recovered.

Pictures!

My mom and sister Jessica went to town last Friday to get some professional pictures of Keenan taken at the mall, so naturally they took Carter along and got some of her as well, which I really appreciated. Mom is saving the pictures she bought for a birthday present for Robert, but I got a sneak peek on the website. I copied my favorites and although the quality isn't great, you get the idea. She looked so CUTE! and SWEET! I've always been afraid to take her in to get her picture taken, thinking first she wouldn't let me fix her hair-which mostly she won't- and then would be grouchy and not smile during the pictures. Maybe it's a mother daughter thing, but she is always better behaved with anyone else. I try really hard not to let it hurt my feelings, and mostly it doesn't unless someone comments on how sweet Carter was until I showed up! (Thanks for the vote of confidence in my mothering skills, and for pointing that out. I feel better already...) Mom said Carter loved the whole thing, from posing to all the attention and was great all day. I have read several places that kids do have a tendency to be better behaved around other people because they are so comfortable and secure with mom. Not sure if some mom deperate for validation of her parenting wrote that, but hey I'll take what I can get as it does make me a little better. At any rate, these pictures really are so cute, that I really need to do this more often--or con Mom into taking her more often...

Today was the last day of SoccerTots. They were going to be in the St. Patricks Day parade, but since it snowed, I decided to skip it. I signed Carter up for an 8 week class this winter, but it wasn't as much fun as I had hoped for her. If we could get there a little early, she LOVED running around in the gym chasing all the soccer balls, playing keep away, and generally just running around. Then for the next hour, they had more organized activities and she did alright for the first 20-30 minutes then was tired and wanted to go home. The guy organizing the show was very nice, but his program was a little too mature for 2-3 year olds, IMHO. He was trying to get them to actually dribble the little soccer balls when many were just doing good to actually kick it. Sometimes he would try to get all 20+ toddlers to line up and go one at a time at an activity (you can imagine the commotion the parents had towards the end of the line tyring to get their kid to wait that long...) Some things were good though: we loved noodle tag, where you run around with those foam swimming noodles trying to whack each other. Anything with balloons was great, and the giant parachute was a big hit. I mostly just wanted to get Carter around other little kids since it really scares her right now. A room full of adults, not a problem, but through in 20 other monsters her size and she won't hardly get off my lap. She's come a long ways in getting more comfortable around lots of other little kids, but we decided not to sign up for another 8 weeks. It's almost spring so I think we are just going to start heading to the park and work on more pony rides. I'm hoping to get some swimming lessons in this summer since she LOVES to be in the water and is absolutely fearless. I'm just having issues with finding a maternity swimsuit. I generally don't like swimsuits in general, but a maternity one? I suppose as long as the locker room doesn't have any mirrors

When Carter got up this morning, the first thing she wanted to do was hold her bunny. So far the bunny has been a big hit, with Carter and Dad at least. I'm somewhat less enamored of the idea of house bunny since I'm now finding little bunny poop everywhere. We're working very hard on bunny etiquette with Carter: Don't poke her in the nose, Can't pull her tail, no wrapping bunny up in blankets, can't sit on bunny, no bunny can't take a bath with you, bunny would rather have bunny food than Coco Puffs, really.

Cow Babysitters

Sometimes I feel guilty about taking Carter down to Landa's during the week, even though it's only for a few hours. She's been pretty good lately, but some days it's all I can do to get her dressed and out the door. (It's even easier if I go for sneak attack and get her bundled into the car before she's even awake...but then of course, I feel guilty about not getting to spend some time with her in the mornings. Sigh.) This morning as I was driving past the heifers who started calving earlier this month, with a still sleeping Carter, I remembered cow babysitters. Before I moved to Colorado, I spent 6 months working for my dad during calving season. During nice warm days when I would be riding through checking all the cows you would come across one cow sitting with 5 or 6 baby calves. The other mother cows would be off some where eating, while this one cow would be taking care of all the kids. I often wondered how they decided who got to watch all the calves and how the babysitter cow determined just how many calves she was going to watch. Nor did I ever figure out how they decide when it was time to come pick junior up, although now having nursed one child, I suspect it had something to do with freedom vs. engorgement. Strangely enough, thinking about cow babysitters made me feel a little better today about dropping Carter off. Even momma cows need some free time!

When Carter isn't playing with her new bunny, she's got our old house cat Pete in the house. She loves Pete, and strangely enough, I think that cat actually must like her because he lets her drag him around, maul him, sit on him and has only tried to bite her once (it was pretty called for...she had him by the tail trying to drag him out from under the couch). Sometimes watching her play with Pete makes me feel better about having another child because I think Carter is just now starting to get a little lonely. She likes having Pete in the house to play with while mom is trying to rush around getting dinner started and picking up the place. The bunny has also been a big hit...with Carter and Dad. Carter decided to name her 'Purple Carrots'. I offered up the name Carrots and she didn't like it, but thought about it, and came up with her version as much better. Now she is pretty sure Dad needs to paint the bunny--you know, purple.


My aunt has been watching Carter one day a week this winter and it's been a hoot I think for both of them. My aunt generally does not like babies or really little kids, but her and Carter have just been getting on famously. This week Carter asked her for an apple, so Linda got her an apple and cut her up a couple slices. Just as she was handing Carter the slices, Carter spied something she wanted even more: CAKE! "Me want THAT" But no, says Aunty, she had just cut up the apple and that's what Carter was going to get. Carter tried giving back the slices, and Aunty still wouldn't let her have any cake. So, pouting a little, Carter took her apples into the living room. A few minutes later she was back with a stool. She got the rest of the apple off the counter, put the slices back together so it was a "whole" apple and put it back in the dish. "Cake now?" Aunty thought it was pretty funny, although I'm not sure if that got Carter her cake or not.


I had a doctor appointment today so I could finally hear the heartbeat of Number 2. Robert came roaring in from Columbus so that he could hear too. My appointment got bumped up (a very rare occasion) and it didn't look like he would make it. I called and told him that the appointment was earlier than expected, so he might as well head back. He was pretty cross, and said he was almost there and make them wait. Right. The appointment took less than 5 minutes, but I was able to talk the doctor into letting us come back once he finally got there to hear the heartbeat. It was worth all the fuss. I'm at 13 weeks 3 days, and Number 2 was at 170 beats/minute--I have a mover! They had a pretty hard time finding it as Number 2 was hiding clear down in my pelvis. The joys of baby number two when everything is a wee stretched out. I really hope I don't have three or they were will looking around my knees, evil thought.


I picked up some Coco Puffs for Carter thinking she might like them and they would be better (slightly, and I could feel comfortably fooled by the term 'Whole Grain Goodness') than candy. Carter was pretty suspicious when she first saw them. She looked in the bowl and looked at me, "Poop?" She thought I had given her a bowl of bunny poop. I have to admit, it looks pretty similar--probably only slightly healthier... I had to eat several before she could be convinced to try them.

Famous Last Words

I always swore I would not spoil my child. I would know better. (All you moms, you can start laughing now). I certainly wasn't going to buy a lot of useless toys. This weekend Carter managed to talk me (yes, I realize she's 2.5 years old, but she's very persuasive...really) into a little Disney kid camera. It's so cute. She had a ball with it for about 2 days and now I think it's already lost. I'm only slightly mortified that I spent so much on a toy that didn't last any longer than it did. Notice her great big purse. Her other new toy that we managed to snap up from Gramma who was cleaning out her closets. She loves filling it up with all sorts of treasures and hauling it all over the place. You can find a brush, a puzzle piece, several pieces of gum, 2 necklaces, a couple random toys, several scrap pieces of paper, a couple horse cakes and a boot spur she hasn't grown into yet. That's when it's not full...

We called our vet, Doc Haaland, up about spaying several barn cats. He was like sure, bring in, no problem, having a slow week, yada yada. So then I clarified, we're catching this cats with live traps, you can't exactly pick them up. He was a bit hesitant, then laughed, sure--just let me know when your bringing them. My brother had managed to talk him into fixing a load of barn cats for him a few years ago and we were counting on Doc taking these. It was either that, or they were headed to the Happy Hunting Grounds. When we first moved into this place almost a year ago, the guy who originally owned it was feeding almost a PALLET!! of cat food a month to all these wild barn cats. We counted over 40 dang cats and I found at least 3 litters of kittens. The barn smelled like the worlds largest cat box and you almost couldn't stand to be in it on a hot day. Robert thinned out the cats and I hand raised almost 20 kittens to tame down and then gave away. I don't know if you've ever hand raised kittens but it's a lot of work! Baby kitten formula costs almost as much as baby human formula. They need to be feed every 3 or 4 hours and if they are small enough, you have to wipe them with warm wet washcloths to help them urinate. It was a lot of fun though. Carter LOVED all the babies in the house and we even managed to keep her from mauling them in all her excitement. Anyway this winter we were down to about 5 or 6 wild cats that were coming in to be fed. There were several other toms that showed up but mostly I was worried about the females. I didn't need any more kittens to raise and certainly didn't want anymore cats running around. So Robert managed to trap most of the females and hauled them into the vet. He called today to to let us know we could pick them up, but one had managed to escape in the building and he still hasn't found her. I don't know why, but it struck me as kinda funny. He's had a live trap set out for a couple days with no luck. He had already spayed her but was nice enough not to charge us for it unless he catches her. I love our vet.

This is the first year since we got married that we have had our taxes filed on time. I'm so excited I can't hardly stand it. Robert was terrible with paper work. When I met him, he was behind a couple years already on filing. I nagged and whined until he finally got them all caught up again, just to fall behind again. I swore I would never do his book work, because it was part of his job, his company. He is self employed so there is a huge amount of paper work involved in filing taxes, especially if you haven't been real faithful about keeping things recorded and up to date. IN all fairness, he doesn't exactly spend a lot of time around the house when he isn't busy doing something and finding time to keep up with the paper work was difficult for him (especially when it's the last thing you want to do...) Last year, I finally had enough and took over his bookkeeping. Talk about trial by fire. I have a tendency to be a wee bit of a research fiend, so I had to learn how to do it correctly! I had never done any sort of bookkeeping and knew nothing about QuickBooks. The first couple months were rather rough as I tried to learn how to do everything Robert wanted and get Robert to give me all the information I needed. It took us awhile to find a system that worked for us both and kept us from trying wring each other's necks. But what a relief to have them done, in the mail and even have some money coming back this year rather than trying to catch up on back taxes.

Weekend

This weekend, I didn't get much accomplished. I kinda took the weekend off since Carter was running around with her dad, and spent most of it catching up on my reading. My aunt had sent me over two Jodi Piccoult books that I hadn't read yet. There were 7 million other things that really needed getting done, but sometimes it's good to take a little time off. Piccoult is not an easy author for mom's to read. She is a wonderful writer, don't get me wrong, but she's almost like a Stephan King for families. Her books deal with topics that are every mother's worst nightmare and how the family's deal with the aftermath. What almost makes them even scarier for me, is that the family's generally are presented as normal people who are doing their best to be good moms and dads and life takes a horrible turn. So this could really be you in this situation. What I find so interesting about her books is how she shows all the different points of view of the characters in the book, and there really isn't a 'bad guy'. The first book, I just couldn't finish, maybe later when there isn't so many pregnancy hormones running through me. The book, Perfect Match, is about a little 5 year old boy who is sexually molested and how his parents deal with it. It just tore me apart. The mom worked in the legal system so she knew the chances of convicting this guy were slim to none so she took matter's into her own hands. The book constantly leaves you asking yourself what would you do in this situation? And just like the mom in the book, how could it have been prevented? The idea that something like that could happen to my little girl is so unthinkably horrible. It just makes you wish you could tuck your babies back in the womb where you knew you could protect them. The second book, Nineteen Minutes was about a high school shooting, like Columbine, and how it got to that point. Reading about the struggles of the parents, both of students who were shot, and the parents of the shooter, was heart wrenching. There were scenes where the parents are remembering these teenagers as happy toddlers trying to figure out where it went wrong. For me, I'm there now, with the toddler wondering how to give her everything she needs to grow up happy in this tough world. That's one thing about this author, you think about her books for months after you've read them. Sister's Keeper and Vanishing Acts are still my two favorites that she's written so far, but I haven't read them all yet!

The last couple weeks Robert has been working closer to home which has been wonderful, since he's had more time to spend with Carter. She loves going to town with him to pick up supplies and spending the day running around with him on the weekends. She always comes home tired and dirty, full of ice cream, and generally had a ball.

This weekend Robert decided Carter needed a bunny, you know, an Easter bunny. (What??!!) So now we have this really cute bunny that I can't catch and really only likes Robert.
She is very pretty, however is a SHE which makes me nervous. Bunnies didn't get their reputation for multiplying by accident, which means for now, she is a house bunny. I'm not sure how I got talked into this. Carter, naturally is beyond excited. She managed to fall in the cage twice, got scratched trying to pick the poor bunny up after chasing it all over the living room. I hope the bunny is tough enough to put up with my little girl.

Robert managed to get the best picture of Carter this weekend. She had drug out her tricycles and was trying to ride them in the yard. Her pony Picky came over to check all the commotion out and give her a hand. First time I've seen an actual horse powered tricycle. I'm sending the pictures over to my aunt who knows a lady who may be able to clean them up a little since the dark barn door kinda detracts from the dark horse, but they are so wonderful.

Cousins

My sister Jessica is staying at Mom and Dad's for a few weeks before the big move to Kiev, Ukraine. Her little boy, Keenan is the happiest little baby I think I've ever seen. He just likes everyone! My mom or sister took these pictures of all four cousins together. So far, that's all the cousins--two more on the way! Cade and Avery are my sister Christy's, then Carter, and Keenan playing with the toy phone. It will be awhile before we have another opportunity to get pictures of all the cousins. It's so fun that they are all about the same age. I'm not sure Avery is as excited about Carter holding her as Carter is about it!

I remember when I found out that I was pregnant with Carter I was kinda sad that Carter would be all alone. None of my other 3 siblings were married or planning kids at any time soon, but within a year of Carter being born, all 3 got married and promptly started having kids! Just goes to show you never know!

Yesterday it started snowing after I dropped Carter off at Landa's for the morning. Everything looked so pretty and peaceful that I had to take a picture. The house needs so much work, but with the snow, you can't see it. The barn and the outbuildings all need paint and covered with steel, not to mention to corrals need to be stood back up! (They fell over this winter, but we knew they were going to...) The yard in the back is all tore up. Right before Christmas, Carter managed to flush a whole box of diaper wipes down the toilet and it clogged up the pipe. It was great. When you flushed the toilet, the bathtub filled up. We had no idea where the septic was actually located so they had to dig around to find it, and managed to cut the electricity to the house. On the plus side, they did find the septic, it was located BELOW the garden (which was good!) and it was working (we had no idea other than we knew it was really old) other than when filled up with diaper wipes.

This morning when I was taking Carter down to my mom's, we drove over a pretty big bump and the truck has poor shocks, so it bounced pretty good. Carter looked over at me and says "Whoa Truck!" Then "Come back here Truck, Stop!" It was pretty funny--she was acting like it was a runaway pony.