Child-like honesty—the good and the bad!

So, I was in my room when I heard Laycie knocking my door freaking out  saying, “Mom, come out! There is something on TV that you have GOT to buy! Come, come quick! I paused it on TV, but you need to get it—you have to! Come see!” I assumed it was something I just ‘had’ to buy for her, but instead saw this:

After patiently watching, deciding whether to be ticked or depressed, I asked her “Why do you think I need to buy that?” She simply said, “Because I want you to be skinny again.” You and me both girl!  I was taken by surprise a bit because I make it a point to never talk about my weight around my kids, or talk about dieting, losing weight or anything that shows a negative body image. So, perhaps it backfired because she thinks I’m not trying  Well, it’s the sweet part that was followed by this bitter moment that makes it blog worthy: Andersin chimed in and said, “Laycie! I don’t know why you just said that! Mom doesn’t need to get that, she looks beautiful and doesn’t need to get skinner. Don’t say that.” Isn’t he going to be an awesome husband!?! He will for sure take after his Dad and make some girl very lucky! Thanks Andersin for coming to my rescue! (no hard feelings though, Layce)

Andersin Cy Carter

Even though I stopped blogging for a year, my kids have some how managed to keep growing! I don’t know why life doesn’t stop when I do…..but I want to re-familiarize everyone with my wonderful kids, so I’ll be doing a blog on each one

Andersin is in second grade and loves learning. His favorite things in school are math and recess. He loves math because he loves multiplication and is really good with numbers; he loves recess because he says every day him and his 2 friends spend the whole time chasing 9 girls! Good grief! He gets his smarts from his dad and is so logical with his thinking. His favorite things to do outside of school is video games, chess, sports, and more video games. Let’s start with chess. He’ll play anyone who knows how---but especially loves playing those who don’t! He got a Super Mario Chess set for Christmas which was a good link to his next favorite thing—video games. That is his great love. These days you’ll see him mostly playing Zelda I or Zelda II on his DS. He still loves playing Super Smash Brothers with his Uncle Dan (in Idaho) and playing any of the various Mega Man games. He still can only play on Fridays and Saturdays, so outside of his chores and family time we don’t see him much those days! He also loves playing basketball, soccer, football, or riding his scooter.

 

Here are some facts you may not know about Andersin:

• He is really into space and planets. He loves learning and reading all he can on the subject He really wants to be an astronaut when he grows up, but he says he’s afraid it may be too dangerous and he might get stuck in space so he’s thinking of adjusting his aspirations.
• He has a special gift with children. He is an amazing big brother, but it goes way beyond that. He is so tender, sweet, and understanding with all children. Infants, toddlers, little kids; he is patient, understanding and so loving to them. I am always so amazed and love watching him interact with them.
• Andersin still loves fighting and wrestling; he loves that fact that now Masen is old enough to put up a good fight, and they do it on a daily basis. A lot of the time they gang up on Lance and tickle him until he screams like a girl.
• His favorite foods are pizza and mashed potatoes & gravy.
• He has a pretty low guilt tolerance, and he has this need to tell me every time he does something wrong, even small inconsequential things—which is a good quality and I’m sure I’ll appreciate it more later, but for now sometimes I’m like, “Dude, you got away with it, just count yourself lucky and move on!”  He is also really good apologizer and is always concerned with whether or not he’s forgiven. It’s cute.
• He has always had an innate ability to understand gospel principles and be able to remember them, and explain them back to others. He has such a humbling testimony of Jesus Christ and the truths of His restored gospel. What a spiritual giant in a child’s body!

      

We’re so blessed he’s our and that he is the oldest; he’s such a good example to our younger ones and is unbelievably responsible and obedient.  We are so lucky!!

Happy Valentines Day!

Doesn’t this booty just bring in the Valentine’s Spirit!!!???  Oh, I just want to squish that toosh! The day started out great when Laycie came into my room and woke my up by telling me there were surprises on the table! I raced downstairs like a kid on Christmas and saw that my sweet husband had gotten us all little gifts.

 

He got the boys a bunch of dodgeballs—that they love—and Laycie some chocolates and bubbles. For me he got some Ferro Rocher chocolates (my FAVORITE), a cute balloon, and a note saying he’d bring home dinner! What a sweet guy! I am so lucky. Here’s another reason why I’m so lucky:

                             

Happy Valentines Day from all of us!

Snow in the middle of Spring!!

Okay, so February 13th is hardly spring, but with all the multiple 50/60 degree days that we’ve seen this year it felt like this random snowfall was an exception—when really it should be the norm right now! It’s the first real snow we’ve had all winter and will honestly probably be the last, so the kids got right out and enjoyed school being cancelled.

   

The kids came in and asked for a carrot for their snowman’s nose, but all I had was a can off cut carrots…it didn’t end up working so well. It turned the snow orangeish, so I got some puff balls out and even though they weren’t very traditional they worked a little better.

The (non)Dreaded Two-on-one Date!

(That title was for all you Bachelor fans out there!)

So, we’ve started a new tradition here in the Carter home where when it’s your birthday you get to come out on date night with Mom & Dad! We fequently do date nights with the kids—where one parent will take a child out for special time to get ice cream or something during the week— but this makes it extra special to be with both parents on a weekend night! We had such a fun time with Laycie, and it was a night to remember. Laycie started ‘packing’ for the event early in the week; getting a bag of things to do in the car (as if we were taking some road trip), remembering lip gloss and her purse. She even tried on a few different outfits before making the final cut. With perfume and make-up on, we headed out on the town! She was super lucky to get some money from grandparents this year, so we headed to a magical dream land of possibilities--the dollar store. You should have seen her face as we walked up and down every isle—she couldn’t believe everything she saw was only a dollar! (Don’t you feel that way sometimes too when you’re there? I know I still do!) She made some great purchases, some random ones, and some not so wise ones, but felt like the skies were the limit with choices.

I realized when we got there that I forgot to replace the memory card after downloading her birthday pictures—cursed! So, after much debate, we drove back home after shopping and got it. With my new blogging goals I knew I needed it, and I was glad I did! Our next stop was to a roller-skating rink here in Liberty!

Don’t mind the random ambulance that was there; some lady broke her ankle and we got there in the midst of it all. (Lance was just glad he wasn’t on call at the hospital!) We laced up our skates and headed out on the floor!

Okay, so I have to throw this in; I gave the camera to a lady to take our picture, she was too nervous so she gave it to her husband, he took it and upon reviewing it and handing it to me he said, “Well, I didn’t quite get the little one in it; is that okay?” Really? I pretended it wasn’t a dumb question and suggested maybe he take another one. He then took a pic of the back of some kid’s head. Finally we got something we can use!

I wouldn’t say Laycie’s a good skater, actually if she wasn’t listening I would even call her a really bad skater, so we each took one of her hands and held them the whole evening, which actually made it all that more special. I wish I could have held hands with Lance too, but then we’d be skating in a little circle and that’d be weird….

Lance and Laycie won the circle game they played there and won two free drinks! Way to go! (I was so close to winning too…)

The Family Fun Pass we got for the night included popcorn too, so it was a party! After a couple hours our sore feet told us it was time to go, so we headed off to get some food. We went to Stake n’ Shake and enjoyed yummy dinner (finally at 9:15pm!) and Laycie got a double chocolate milkshake—Mmmm!

We met her goal of getting home past 10pm and told her to quickly run upstairs, slip on her pjs, and get right to bed. She did just that and when I went up a couple hours later to go to bed myself I checked on her and this made me smile:

Now, all of you are probably thinking, “Okay, that is a very average (maybe even less-than-flattering) picture of a sleeping kid. What’s the big deal?” Well, only a mom would notice that amongst her hurry to get into bed, she managed to take time to change her hair-bow to match her pajamas Now that’s truly a lady!

Double Birthday Bash!!!

Okay, so we really only celebrated one of the birthdays, but technically it was Aubrey’s 9th month birthday too!  The big star of the day was Miss Laycie-Lou! She turned 6 today and was lovin’ the limelight! It started on Sunday when she got to stand to be the center of attention in primary (the children’s organization in our church) as they sang happy birthday to her. She wore her extra sparkly dress for the occasion!

                                                                                              

Then today we made sure she felt special! She got donuts brought to school, special birthday-girl privileges in class, daddy to come eat lunch with her, a party here at home, cake, and presents!! She wanted pizza for dinner (a true Carter) so we had a pizza-bar set up for the kids to make their own pizza. Yummy!

                   

She got typical girly stuff for her birthday—make-up, bath sparkle gel, hair bows, press-on nails, etc. She also got some crafting supplies and a Junie B. Jones leapster game (we are all about those books in this house!). We’ve loved the past 6 years with this cutie in our house and can’t wait for 60 more!…(because little do our kids know we aren’t letting them go until they are 66 years old; and even then we may convince them to stay!)

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                        We Love You Layce!!!

Runway Coach Extraordinaire

So, I’m mostly writing this post to be able to use as black-male when Andersin’s a teenager! hehe…

I told Laycie yesterday that I really loved her outfit (she has such a good sense of fashion), so she asked if I could take a picture of her. I was on the couch—dealing with strep throat again!—and told her that if she grabbed the camera I would snap a few shots. Here they are:

                              

Apparently Andersin had been watching the whole time from the table while he was doing his homework. He came into the living room—very seriously—and said to Laycie, “No, no Laycie. That’s not how you pose!”  I don’t know if it was Laycie’s lackluster pose choices or light-mindedness with her photo shoot, but Andersin was genuinely disappointed. Not only that…(this is where it got good)..he wanted to show her how a ‘real’ model poses. Now mind you, he is taking this VERY seriously:

                                      

I was dying inside, but I pretended to take it very seriously too; throwing in plenty of, ‘Now that’s a good one.’ ‘Oh, now I see how it’s done.’ ‘Hmm, very creative.” I especially loved how he even curled his fingers in just the right way in that last picture. Once his job was done he walked back to the table, keeping a straight face, and continued on. Oh how Tyra would be proud of him!!