To Eternity and Beyond!

My baby sister is 19!!

2012-01-30T18:23:00.006-07:00

My very first memory of Summer: I was ten years old when Summer was born. We went to the hospital to see her and we got to be in the nurses room as they did her post-birth testing/cleaning stuff. I remember them doing a test on her in which they took her itty bitty hand and folded it backwards and forward so that it completely touched her arm. I was weirded out!! Older people can not do that. But I remember the nurse telling me that is what babies are supposed to do and that it was good. 19 years later and I am still amazed by Summer's talents and skills!!
Surprise Summer! We came to crash your birthday!!!Although she later confessed that she heard lots of children in Krista's apartment as she was coming up the stairs...it was nice that she still gave a surprised face for us! We crashed the YSA of BYU having some good Sunday dinner. When we left Eric said,"Was it more awkward for the family or the single college students?" We decided the students! They were all nice and tolerant though. (And yes, that's totally Brenda and Ryan on the top right corner). We made sure Ram was at his cutest for Summer. They're bonded afterall.

The kiddos loved Kristas hammock!And they loved Elise! Who in fact made the delicious roast we had for dinner. You may think this is a picture showing that the children had the best time with darling Elise. But I really wanted to document a precious part of life as a single college student wanting nothing more than to get married an be a mother. Look closely...Closer...
Yes, that is Elise's pile of tissue from her heart-break that happened just the day before. When the girls asked her why she was sad and she told them she just broke up with her boyfriend Viana was quick to respond that she wouldn't have a boyfriend until she was 49 and get married when she was 100 and Brooke was not going to have a boyfriend (she claims) until she is 4292 (said: forty-two ninety-two).
We had fun with Sum and Kris, but Summer said her best birthday present was CharlyAnn learning to say "CHEESE!" for the camera. I'm pretty sure it's now everyone's favorite present!What a ham! (sorry for some chewed food shots...but when she says cheese it's all out!)We're so glad Summer lives close enough for us to make Sunday afternoon visits to her on her birthday!!!

Meadow Hot Springs

2012-01-28T21:14:00.004-07:00

Eric was able to take some priests and teachers to a really neat hot springs about an hour away today. (But don't you have hot springs in your back yard? you may say. True, true...but you can actually go in these with full faith you'll be ok when you get out). You better believe he's taking me there next! He took pictures at sunset, and look how beautiful it was!

You can see the steam rising really well in this pic.If you look super close in this picture you can see a little green IFO. It's a glow stick they brought to throw around and to dive for in the hotspring. I guess the water is super clear so it's really neat. They had a great time and only came back with a few injuries!

Friday night in

2012-01-27T21:00:00.005-07:00

The options were endless. Eric had a less than stellar day yesterday, so including a perfectly timed lunch date (thanks Melissa!), we offered Eric the pick of any family activity he could choose to cheer his soul and remind him that we are--and always will be--his biggest fans. He came home from work with a list...to Emery to watch the basketball team, to Meadow to find the Hot Springs, to Las Vegas for a night at Circus Circus (I know...how cool would that have been!), to Richfield for bowling, to Provo to party with Summer, and mumbled under our breath stayathomenanddonothingmuch. Well, as we were discussing and hosting all the neighborhood children I suddenly noticed that Eric had dozed off. So I left the room and came back two hours later and said, "Well, I guess we did decided to go with stayathomeanddonothingmuch." Truth be told we did venture in to Richfield for some ooey-gooey carmel brownie twix shake and blue moon ice cream with red cream soda and crushed ice. Then we got to come home and watch the basketball game through live streaming on the internet. And do nothing much. Why do little boys think this is what you should look like when you say "cheese"?

CharlyAnn spent some time emptying her favorite drawer.

Viana and Brooke played an played.Silly face! per Brooke's request of course.Eric and Ram played basketball for a solid hour. Eric squatted down, and so Ram thought he needed to as well. I love when kids do that!As antsy as I was to spoil my husband with some amazing Friday night activity, I really really liked what we did instead. And now I am off to snuggle down and watch some Star Wars with my extremly kissable husband.

Kitchen Aids

2012-01-24T22:43:00.002-07:00

I don't know why, but I feel like bearing more of my soul on this blog this year. Maybe I figure I want the posterity that will look to this as my history to know me better? Anyway, today I want it on record that in the past two weeks I have used my griddle, my waffle maker, my blender, my quesadilla maker, my steamer, my crockpot, my (fake)George Foreman, and my bread machine. Woa! That's cool! A)because I have all those machines B)it means I'm loved because most of them were gifts C)we live in a world that has technology like that and D)That means I really branched out in my cooking!! I'm usually not very creative when it comes to food--but we ate good these two weeks!

Linguistical bRookie

2012-01-21T20:33:00.003-07:00

Brooke continues to charm us with her humor and preciousness. We have been working on improving some of her speech, including her initial /s/. One cute thing she does is say 'henu' instead of 'hold'.
Here is one cute conversation:
Brooke: I want to henu the balloon.
Me: What do you want to do to the balloon?
Brooke: Henu it.
Me: Do what to it?
Brooke:Henu it.
Me: Do what?
Brooke(recognizing I wanted her to say it differently): Sssss...henu it.

hehehehehehehehehhe. IT WAS SO CUTE!!!

My Piano Recital

2012-01-18T20:58:00.004-07:00

I held my first piano recital tonight. Is it normal to have refreshments at such an event? We did! (ps-I had a lot of fun making the goodies with my 3 kids today, it was the easiest baking I've ever done!) Here are my 4 students plus one who we let perform! Alex...

Lexi...Zairen...Mattie...Makenzie...I love my piano students so much. They each have their own strengths and personalities and I have so much fun with them!! The recital was simple and sweet and they all did SO GOOD!! I was so proud of them.

And just because...here is Eric relaxing while he is relaxing...he fell asleep while he was playing a little Batman :) What a cute boy. I am thankful to have such a hard working husband-he deserves every moment of down time he can get!

Boyified

2012-01-17T17:30:00.010-07:00

Coming from a family of all girls, followed by three granddaughters, Ram the Man was like this unfathomable species entering into the Roy family. Now that Daniel and Billis are here boys are becoming much more believeable, but it used to go like this: Any sister, "CJ! You have a BOY!" CJ, "I know! WEIRD!"

But I sure love me my boy. He may not have known it though, since he used to sleep in the room with the pink Finding Nemo curtains (at least they weren't princess, right?) that was essentially nothing more than a storage room with a bed in it. NOT ANYMORE!
I give you: Ram's Man Cave.
(Spain's flag--Orion sent us that for Christmas. Keep Ram mission minded.)(R for Ram, much cooler than pink curtains--thanks Mom!)Hooray for the cutest room in the house belonging to our boy!

I made REAL cookies!!

2012-01-15T19:50:00.005-07:00

Being the oldest I sometimes feel like I missed out on my sisters' childhoods. So I am always mesmerized when my sister Krista starts recounting childhood stories to me. Sometimes she asks what my childhood was like, and I don't always have an answer. Different than hers mostly. She can tell me about games like "Bob" and campouts with Sarah and shnikes on Taryn and movies made with Summer. Today I realized what I can tell her. Coming home to mom in the middle of baking cookies (how did she always time it so perfectly so that there was still dough, and some fresh cookies?), chattering on to mom while she finished, sneaking cookie dough, then sneaking again, eating around all the chocolate chips and having a baked cookie...then back to the bowl to sneak a little more dough. That is my childhood.

As such I occasionally long for mom's chocolate chip cookies. I've tried and tried to make them like her--but I am a miserable failure!! They're always burnt, or the textures wrong, or they're not soft enough, or they somehow taste nothing like moms.

Until TONIGHT!!!

(That's a cookie smile...)

That is right, I nailed it!! YUM YUM CHILDHOOD!!!! What finally did it for me? My mom giving me step-by-tiny-step instructions. Thank you mom!

And because what good would a post be without any cute kids, I give you: What 4 children do the day after you babysit an infant who used the pack n' play to nap:

How novel!! But CharlyAnn wanted in on it.(If you look close you can see the tooth she acquired during Christmas break)In she goes!!

A Treasure

2012-01-13T15:45:00.003-07:00

I am cleaning my house. Spring cleaning. Early. It feels great. You should see my bedroom. It is amazing. So, since I finished that it was on to the laundry room. In there I had shoved 3 boxes of old piano and organ music we inherited from Eric's grandparents when we inherited their organ. I decided to go through it and see if I wanted to keep any of the music. I shuffled through every page and found a couple good things. I put the rest of the box by the growing DI pile. Later on CharlyAnn found the box, and you know babies, they love to play with paper. She started emptying out the contents piece by piece--something I had already done once. But then out of the box came a manila envelope that said "Don Carter" on it (Eric's Grandad). I opened it and found this: A collection of daily love notes until the day Grandma retired from Granddad. What a TREASURE!! I wanted to call the Smithsonian or something. Look at this antique proof of love in America. I am now fully confident that Eric inherited his romantic goodness.
As you can see Grandad also attached little gifts with these daily poems. Thread, soap bars, on the other pages he also gave her 7 needles, 18 dimes, 6 pantyhose, 17 scrubbing pads (welcome to retirement?!), 13 bobbins, 12 bags of popcorn, day 1 (the retirement)ended with one $15 gift certificate to the store.
Another favorite poem was with 4 days to go:
"A symbol of my girl's sweet light"
The world is lit by these small bulbs of light/But my world is lit by the very sight/Of the pretty girl who is the queen of my house/And the fact that I'm her ever lovin spouse. 4 light bulbs for day 4.

A TREASURE!! I just love the miracle of it's appearance since I had gone through the box CharlyAnn magically summoned this from later. Eric's grandparents have both passed away during our marriage, and I am certain that they are together now sharing beautiful moments like this every day in the eternities!

Before I play catch-up, a blog of joy

2012-01-05T20:23:00.005-07:00

It is that wonderful time of the new year when you think, "Oh man, I still have so much to blog before I send in my order for the yearly blog book." But while I was going through so many pictures I found some joyous ones that didn't really deserve their own post, but were joyous none the less, so I thought I would throw them all together.

Ram does not have the best car trip behavior. But he does love to unroll floss. So I thought I would marry the two on our trip to Colorado. It worked for a while... :)

Brooke is always great on car trips. This may be why. (12/22/11)

Brooke is precious. I don't like a blank card in my camera, so after I clear it I always take a random picture. This was definitely the cutest one I've ever taken! (12/16/11)
One of our Christmas envelope activities. I would sum up the remaining 8 days...but now that it's over all I can think of is painting, and choir concert, and craft and surprise trip to SLC to see Carter Gparents...regardless, envelopes: success. (12/19/11)Brothers-in-law!! I am so happy to have such great brothers-in-law, and I am so happy that they like each other. (12/25/11)When is a picture of Ram not joyous?? The crumbs around his mouth are indicative of the week of gluttonous eating at my mom's house! You better believe I gained 8lbs. in 2 weeks! And I'm sorta motivated to work it off...(12/29/11)And I still love living in Monroe. Our bald eagle sightings are still frequent enough to keep me feeling so patriotic. (12/15/11)

Joy. OK, well, I will be post-dating my catch-up posts if you're interested (mostly mom :)

Oh to be spoiled

2011-12-31T22:35:00.001-07:00

Though our Christmas break was short, we spent every second we could at my parents house in Colorado. It was WONDERFUL. My mom knows how to spoil me...that is for sure!

One thing that we did while we were home was never take pictures. So the only pictures we have are from the actual Christmas holiday. But we did so much more that needed pictures. Blast. Oh well...for the record, here is the fun we had:

First of all, my mom made every delicious food you could imagine. (cookies, wings, jerky, bbq, white chili, etc.)
Second of all, we surprised everyone and drove into the night Thursday the 22nd. It is always fun to have a surprise arrival.
My whole family was there. I loved that.
The 23rd we went to the church and played volleyball with friends and fam, which was so fun.
The 24th we went bowling and the Willises rocked it! Jimmy is good at anything he does, and the center of gravity that pregnancy gave Charina was perf for her! And it was confirmed that you can't take LaDon in public :) Christmas eve involved delicious pizza, nativity and gifts...and puke.
The 25th was Cristmas morning and church. Krista got super sick :( Then so did Jamie and LaDon. But we still had a great family testimony meeting.
The 26th I threw the surprise baby shower for Charina that Jamie organized (since she was sick) and then the surprise anniversary party for my parents (30 years on the 30th!)
The 27th we took the Willises to the airport, but before that went to a sealing session with them at the Denver temple. It was so marvelous! I really love Jimmy and Charina, it was SO GREAT to spend time with them. When we got home we went to see Dolphin Tale at the dollar theater and Summer and I stayed up until 3am playing Settlers of Catan.
The 28th we went glo-golfing which was ridiculously fun. It was the perfect activity for our family! All the kids LOVED it!!
The 29th my mom and I (and Kris and her friends) hiked the incline and Eric and I went and saw Mission Impossible 4 in the IMAX theater!
The 30th was my parents anniversary so they took off and us Carters went to Chuck E Cheese and had a mostly great time! And Eric and I listened to BYU's awesome bowl game victory on the radio.
The 31st my dad hosted the 31+ single adult breakfast after the dance, so Eric and I cooked for that. It was great! Before that we went to see Sherlock Holmes 2 (LOVEDit). We came home to find my mom with a pre-punctual single guy. So, the 4 of us rocked in the New Year (dad was still at their dance) and watched the fireworks off Pikes Peak, and right at midnight a beautiful 6-8 point buck walked right in front of the house. It was SO cool.
Image from here

January 1st found us at church in my parents ward and then driving home to good ol' Monroe! (With about 5 hours of crying babies in the car, eh, whatcha gonna do?)

It was such a glorious break! As a mom you really never get a break--unless you have parents as wonderful as mine! It was so relaxing and fun for me!!!

The Incline!!

2011-12-29T21:00:00.002-07:00

There used to be a cog railway that went half way up Pikes Peak (a 14,000+ beaut in Colorado Springs). It retired, the rails were removed, but the ties remained. The incline is now a stairway straight up the side of a mountain. It is about 0.8 miles long. Here you can see the base to the first false summit. (That means there's more straight up beyond that). "No Trespassing", yet they upkeep the rails, have a paid parking lot at the base, and 50,000 people a year trek up this zipline. I think they need to take the sign down. The rails were a little snowy and icy, but the weather was great! My mom basically left me in the dust. This is at the top of the false summit. There's still about that much to go...except you're already so tired that it looks so much steeper and longer.View from the TOP!!
Victory pictures!!!My mom and I did this in 1 hour and 9 minutes (minus a detour to the side of the trail for me). Can you imagine taking 69 minutes to do something that takes 6 minutes and 9 seconds on flat terrain?? This was a beast! But it was so awesome!! We then trekked down a trail that was 2.5 miles to the parking lot. That was it's own little adventure due to the snow and ice! But we all survived and had a great time!!! I can now consider myself a real Coloradan.

Christmas break rocks

2011-12-29T19:34:00.002-07:00

We had ultimately joyous mass chaos with all Roy family members at my parents house for Christmas. Christmas Eve most children were in bed with visions of sugar plums a-dancin'. However, Daniel was up feeling very cranky. We found out why when he threw up ALL OVER at about 11pm. It caused quite the commotion and halliballou. I hear from the basement Viana saying, "Mom? Mom?" I go downstairs at which point she didn't think anyone could hear her, so she then screams out, "Anybody! Is it Christmas morning yet?" Hehehe. She's so cute!!

Ok, more to come on that vacation later!!

Christmas morning

2011-12-25T21:56:00.000-07:00

Glimpses of the morning:
Santa was goooood to us!! He even left a note saying there was one big present for each kid waiting for them in Monroe. Hence Monday morning (we still had 6 days left in Colorado) Brooke said, "I want to go home today." When we asked why, "So I can open my other presents!"

Christmas Eve

2011-12-24T20:48:00.000-07:00

Christmas Eve was a joyous evening for all (except maybe poor Daniel...he was afterall only hours away from his first puke ever.) We first had the grandly orchestrated present pass-out.Daniel... Much anticipation over the piles!

Time to dig in! Here is our own Dobby. The siblings got amazing Harry Potter scarves made by Charina, and Charbar got a hat. She is SO cute!!! (And of course, favorite present: The Box).Contents revealed!

Several rounds of BYU giftsBaby Billis!!Viana's big gift was her own camera. She first unwrapped the case. You can see her face with a bit of confusion, maybe sadness even.But then wait! Next present!!!Camera!And Brooke got her much anticipated Maximus!

It is so fun to have Christmas with older kids! They had wants and we were blessed enough to fulfill them, so the excitement was great!! And we topped the night off with a great showing of Wasatch King!! Was it ridiculously horrible? Probabllllllyyyyyyy...not!

The Nativity

2011-12-24T20:30:00.000-07:00

The Nativity was super fun this year with all of the cousins. We had to do it twice though, because Viana wanted to be Mary, she was gracious enough to let Ally be Mary first. (Ally as Mary and Ram as Joseph? SO CUTE!)Viana did really good as the angel though...she read the verses all by herself!Ally riding on her Donkey Brooke. Oh it was so cute!

Sometimes I crack myself up

2011-12-21T11:55:00.003-07:00

So I seem to have this habit in which I am given a very simple task that could be accomplished without out much effort mentally or physically, but then my brain takes over on the possibilities and I find myself in the middle of these huge undertakings just laughing at myself and my brain.

Like one year for RA appreciation week each HA took a day to leave a little token in the 42 RA mailboxes. I could have (should have) bought 42 packs of gum (with the budget even!)printed off 42 notes that said, "We'd always 'chews' you to be on our team!" taped the notes on the pack and done. But no. I looked around my office, saw that I had some spare notecards, pipecleaners, fake money, and candy. With the pipecleaners, I fashioned little stick people bending over backwards (42 of them). I glued the money pieces to the notecards, somehow made the people bend on the notecard and taped the candies...then handwrote some sort of phrase like, 'Would you like a penny for our thoughts? You really bend over backwards for us, so here's a little treat for you.'. 42 times. In the middle of that guy I certainly thought, "Why does my brain work like this!"

And that brings me to my most recent episode of me laughing at myself.

Objective: Bring ball toss game to Viana's Christmas party. Reindeer balls provided.

Normal Follow-through: Get board or box, cut holes, maybe wrap in wrapping paper. Done in 10 minutes.

CJ Follow-through:

The problem was that they were reindeer balls. So they needed something grand. Like how about Santa lands, goes down the chimney, the reindeer get restless and take off, Santa comes out and says, "Where are my reindeer?" Enter little 5 and 6 year olds trying to land the reindeer back into their sleigh harness positions. And this sucker even takes down like a charm so as to fit in my car and have minimal set-up. And don't worry, every reindeer the kid lands back to safety earns him one piece of reindeer dropping (thank you chocolate covered raisins for having multiple purposes in my life).

And now I'm really laughing. Instead of posting, "Hey, I made this for Viana's party," you got this epic post instead.

a-Boo a-Yah. Hehehehehehehhehe.

Early Christmas with the Carters

2011-12-17T21:34:00.000-07:00

It is really great having such cute kids because then their grandparents just can't get enough of them! As such, the Carters decided to come share Christmas with us the week before Christmas. They flew to SLC, we drove to Sandy and made a weekend out of it!

It was going to be this absolutely fabulous weekend full of fun and adventures and dates with free babysitting and temple square. Unfortunatley it ended up looking like this:

That's a pretty good smile considering I felt so sick and so much piercing pain in my stomach that bed turned out to be the only option. Wait, I take that back. We did make it to the mall, where Eric was able to get his very best Christmas gift:
Image from here
Aren't those pretty? And they feel amazing. I put them on just to see what Eric was so excited about, and oh baby...I wish I played more basketball!
Later on as I slept Grandma took the kids to Target and let them pick out their presents. They got great gifts and played their little hearts out at the hotel!

Although it wasn't ideal to get sick, it was a blessing to be with 3 extra helpers (Molly, our niece came too!) I never had to worry about the kids! Thanks Carters, we are so happy you came to see us!!

Christmas Countdown

2011-12-15T21:07:00.001-07:00

We brought back the envelope countdown again this year. It is still a smashing success! Over halfway to Christmas and here is what we've done so far!Day 1: Make a countdown chain until we leave for Meemaw's houseDay 2: Make a chocolate cream pie for the ward Christmas party. (We tried to make meringue, it failed in looks-which means it didn't all get eaten, but it tasted wonderful, which means we lucked out!)Day 3: Got to Christmas Boutique at the high school followed by the dance recital (detailed here)Day 4: Decorate the tree for the girls' room(HEART MELTING to walk in later and find Ram simply entranced)Day 5: Welcome Santa at the Monroe park (detailed here)

Day 6: Homemade present making (no cameras allowed!)

Day 7: Party all day long for Viana! (detailed here)Day 8: Visit the Trumans (detailed here)Day 9: Do a Christmas craft projectDay 10: Richfield Light Parade (detailed here)Day 11: Make Christmas cupcakes and deliver them to neighborsDay 12: Decorate a little Tree for Ram's roomDay 13: Color giant Christmas book pages with markers Day 14: Watch a Christmas movie with Daddy! (Thank you $1.96 Black Friday DVD's!)

Richfield Light Parade: Dec.10

2011-12-12T21:03:00.001-07:00

We've always seen advertised the Richfield Light Parade, but have neer been able to make it until this year. We loved it! (Though my dear husband said he would have liked it more had I been in charge...you know me, parade organization is on my resume'!) It was so cold but the girls were still anxious enough to unfold themselves from our family snuggle to get a closer seat on the street.Our favorite part was the fire truck that lit of fire wroks every 50 yards or so. It was so cool, they set one off RIGHT in front of us. Up, up, up.Kaboom!The floats were all darling.And we did stay warm.
This one is for Grandma! All the floats came and there was only one left. We looked down the road and thought we saw someone special on that float.There he was, the big man himself.
Good job Richfield--we approve.

Our Carolers

2011-12-11T22:17:00.003-07:00

The city office called on Friday to ask if we would be home on Sunday because the City Youth Council wanted to come caroling. I was so excited to say yes! I thought it was precious that they called to make sure we would be there. Caroling holds a precious place in my Christmas heart. We awaitied for the blessed hour, and they did indeed come. They sang as wonderfully as a group of cold teenagers could. We even got to request Jingle Bells and sang along.

It was so good we offered them fudge. All of us Carters (minus Char) were in our matching Buzz Lightyear aprons to listen and share.And when they left they gave us an envelope. And inside the envelope were beautiful Christmas wishes and miracles. They made some of us feel like this:How did they know and how was it so perfect? Christmas miracle. That is all there is to it.

Thank you MYC. We love all of you so much and are so happy to have you in our lives.

Everyone needs a visit to the Trumans: Dec. 8

2011-12-11T21:29:00.004-07:00

Eric and I have been friends with the Trumans for 7 and a half years. That is longer than we've even had Viana. They are the best people that we know (and we know a lot of great people!!) We made it up to Payson this week for a visit. Lori and I were gonna go Christmas shopping...which we did sneak in a bit of that...but we also got to play, play, play while Lori's furnace was fixed. Ironically enough, her home teacher (who she called to help) is the brother of 3 people from Monroe, two of whom are in our ward! So that was a crazy connection. And then, when it was determined the furnace needed professional attention it was a warm miracle that the company happened to be installing a furnace in the new homes surrounding Lori that very moment so they could just pop into Lori's and fix hers. Lori was so kind to let us just mill around her home and relax all day. The children had the very best time and Eric had fun throwing the boys around a bit. And I of course loved every second of Lori's company. I told Eric when we were driving home that visiting with Lori is kind of like going to the temple, you can leave her home feeling so refreshed and connected to the spirit and more committed to the gospel. What a beautiful soul she is.

As you can see we just had a fun little afternoon with the very best kind of company!

Monroe welcomes Santa!: Dec. 5

2011-12-10T14:35:00.000-07:00

We were having such a lovely fall until the eve of Dec. 1. Then the snow came and came and came. So it was actually quite romantically Christmas at the park as we waited for our lighting and the arrival of Santa. The countdown to the lights was wonderful. Although it will never quite live up to the Provo lighting... (Charina, remember that?)(Viana in brown coat, Brooke in foreground in pink coat, Ram black pants in front of gray pants)
Then we saw the firetruck with Santa round the corner. Although since it was so cold Santa rode in the cab this year.
We made more snow angels
And then we got to see The Man. (Whom Viana has declared the real Santa because he brings Mrs. Claus with him)
We opted for donuts in the car this year due to the freezing weather!Despite the cold it still made us feel like a nice Monroe Christmas!

Viana is SIX!: Dec. 7

2011-12-07T23:49:00.007-07:00

Six? Really? CharlyAnn was in about as much awe as I was that her oldest sister was SIX.We had a great day. Decorations to wake up to, birthday hat at school (that lasted all day), I got to work in Viana's class and then we shared cheesecake (Veezy's fav) with the children--half of them had no idea what it was and one little boy said, "But I don't like cheese.", opening present when daddy got home, dinner at the 'horsie restauraunt', a stop at Wal-mart on the way home to play PYOP, preceded by a visit to Christmas Tree Lane. Haha, thanks for coming Ken.A little cheesecake of our own way past our bedtimes-just the way a birthday should be, right?
Viana is such an important part of our family. She is the oldest and takes on that responsibility. She takes care of her siblings and loves to play with them. She is a concerned soul who thinks about things as much as her own mother (poor dear). She is smart beyond smart and it is so fun to see her learning and loving to learn. She loves the gospel and works really hard at learning and understanding principles. She is a silly girl with tendencies towards the serious (balanced quite nicely by her best friend Brooke). She loves pink, Harry Potter (literally, since she's Ginny), reading, coloring, singing, her Daddy, and chicken and rice. She has a logic brain and the memory of an elephant. We love her so much and are so proud to be her parents!

The Dance Recital: Dec. 3

2011-12-07T23:27:00.005-07:00

This was our first go at having the girls in a real live dance class. They loved it so much. And they were absolute stars at their recital. And Eric even got to pray. Don't worry, this isn't the actual prayer...it's right before hand. Ah, so reminiscent of LaDon praying at BYU graduation and taking pictures.
Brooke was so precious. As soon as she lined up she was searching to find us. I, like a proud first time mother, was raising my hand into the air and waving hoping she'd see me. The people behind me probably thought I had no theater etiquette. I mostly didn't :)
But then she thought she saw me. A special point from Brooke.
Oh, she was absolutely precious. And, true to her character, the curtains close after they finish and we see little feet underneath run to the center of the curtains, find the split and stick her head out with the biggest grin waving away. Everyone laughed and I beamed with such pride at my precious girl! How cute was she! I probably shouldn't promote such behavior, but it was too irresistibly cute, and then to see the other little girls think Brooke had a good idea, but then see the adults running after them to shoo them off. PRESH!
I didn't get very good pics of Viana because I was in too much awe at how amazing she was. I didn't really see the other girls because I was so zoned in on her, but I'm pretty sure she was the best dancer on the stage! She did so well.
In a part of Viana's dance she screams and then puts her finger over her lips and "shushs". Ram could hardly handle himself when this happened. He was so tickled, and kept repeating "Nana 'Ahhhhh', Nana shhhh." It too was probably bad etiquette to let our 2 year old scream repeatedly while telling his story, but once again, it was so cute!
The finale was great. Brooke, on the end, Viana, to the right of the clasped hands in shadow.
Thank you Center Stade Dance Studio for giving our girls a great opportunity to learn and grow!

Ward Christmas Party: Dec. 2

2011-12-07T23:04:00.007-07:00

Ok, here I come catch-up.
It is fun to be a family who enjoys being involved. All Carters got to participate in our ward Christmas party this year. Eric and his YM leaders were some AMAZING sugar plum fairies. And if you looked on youtube, you could probably find some video of their dance. :) Eric was also the "Blitz" portion of the reindeer Blitzen. It was pretty awesome. Kudos to Trace for taking a fairly hard hit on stage!Viana got to be a shepherd this year in the primary portion of the program. She was precious and sang so beautifully. I am so proud of her for overcoming her shyness and learning how to perform!This is a little blurred, but it was so cute...they sang Angels we have heard on high, and when they learned the chorus they taught them how to move their voices on "gloria" by showing them it was like a roller coaster with their hands, so Viana kept her hand going up and down throughout the chorus. It was so cute. She loves that song now.Brooke chimmed in with her "Glorias" from the audience.I played the piano for the Elders Qurom (Eric sang)I played my accordian for the ward mission leader (moral support by Ram)And I played the piano for the Relief Society. After seeing all this I am not surprised at my new calling sitting in the rafters anymore.We even were visited by ("that's not the real santa, that's my old primary teachers husband") Santa.Ram was fully prepared to ask Santa for Batman, until he saw that there was a bag of candy at his feet, then all he could say, and still says is CANDY.Merry Christmas has officially been wished by the Monroe 4th ward.

Only 7 days into December and I'm so far behind!

2011-12-07T22:28:00.002-07:00

But look, six years into my first born's life and we managed this at 9:30pm!!! (Rest assured we partied hardy up until then, so she never missed out on celebrating.)

Escapee

2011-11-30T18:20:00.003-07:00

My neighbor and I have a sweet deal. We swap kids to volunteer in our children's kindergarten class. Today was my turn to volunteer. As we were driving home from having lunch with Eric I told Ram he was going to play at Layla and Jada's house. He was happy about that. We went inside and I went into my room. I thought I heard the outside door open and close, but typically the children know they are not to go outside unless they ask. So, I come out of my room to find Ram MIA and ask Brooke where he is. "At Layla's house." I knew they weren't home yet. So this is what I saw:What a cute boy--a little dangerous, but still cute! Needless to say he had an enjoyable time this afternoon when he actually was supposed to be at their house!

(thanksgiving posts below family:)

It's Christmas Time!

2011-11-30T17:55:00.008-07:00

Normally we put up Christmas Thanksgiving day after the feast. But we were having way too much fun with my family to take time for that, so we put it off until FHE on Monday.Unlike the indian at the feast, Brooke was excited for this.

We got the lights on the tree via fireman's bucket brigade. I handed the bundle to Ram,

who handed the bundle to Brooke,
who handed the bundle to Viana and back around again.
And CharlyAnn has decided she knows how to pull herself up to standing now. CUTE!
Ornaments was very fun. I can't believe I have three kids who understand Christmas. Ram was so into it--of course it helped that most of our ornaments were Toy Story or basketball.
Combined effort to put the star on top.
Finished product.
And Silent Night.

Post-feast fun

2011-11-30T17:34:00.007-07:00

It all ended up in the theater with this gem of a show. Is it worth the $7 or $8 bucks you may have to pay? Oh yes, yes it is. Especially if you grew up loving the muppets and their absolute eccentricities.Image from here

But before that blessed miracle from the motion picture heaven we bowled.

(well, some carousel-ed)

Even those of us with tails. Ram loved it of course, being able to throw balls and then watch them speed back to you (we have a ball return on top of the ground--way more entertaining than the underground ones!)

Summer took way more cool pictures than I have...but suffice it to say, Krista bowled a TURKEY!! Eric bowled a TURKEY!!! Which led to his game of 200!! Mom clenched her last frame to nail the 100 even on that same game! Mackenzie waved her arms all around and flung her ball and bounced it off the gutter 3 or 4 times a ball and still got spares and strikes! Then, on the last bowl of the last game Summer picked up a split in the tenth and then bowled a STRIKE to top it off!! It was epic and wonderful!

It was a very very fun Friday (how did we survive it after Black Friday, we don't know--but we did!!)

Black Friday!

2011-11-30T09:38:00.003-07:00

Eric and were super excited that we were going to be able to experience every inch of Black Friday since we would have babysitting this year. So we put the kids to bed, and then we put my dad to bed and Eric and I, my mom, Summer, Krista and he roommate Mackenzie headed to Wally world!Since we live in a rural area there's not so many options for Black Friday...so every soul within 60 miles was at Wal-mart with us. The parking was insane! Cars were even lining the street.
And incase you missed any midnight madness...here it is in a nutshell.

So they had all the deals lining the middle of the main aisle and clumps of desperate people were huddled around their item of choice just waiting for the clock to strike. We weren't too determined so we walked around for a while gazing in wonder and awe at all the people in their craziness. Then I decided, well, we might as well wait in the clump for the printers. I tried to imagine how this would all take place. I saw a Wal-mart employee with a neon vest waiting near by, so I thought at midnight he would come up with an exacto knife and slice off the plastic wrapping that was holding all of the items together and then we'd all dive in. So, I ask Eric what time it is. He says, "11:55" The student we were talking to then said, "Actually, only 4 more minutes." Then from across the way someone yells out to the mob, "FOUR MORE MINUTES!" At that yell everyone went crazy. I think they thought, 'Ah, someone yelled something loud, that must mean we can go for it.' So people just start ripping and clawing and grabbing and shoving and jumping and going crazy. And in my brain I thought, "Wait, wait! They didn't say go, everyone stop, we're gonna get in trouble!" I was waiting for the neon vested man to shoot a gun in the air or something. But then I realized, it had begun--there was no stopping this madness! So Eric says, do you want me to get it? I think he could see the terror and shock on my face, so I said YES...but then I looked back at the crazy people and the dwindling stack of printers and I lunged into the the pack of ravenous wolves and came out the victor! I even got a real live battle wound! (see that small speck of blood on my knuckle? Boo yah)

It was so great. I loved it. And good thing we got that printer, Eric is doing the Giving it Back slideshow for the school and we had to scan in all the pictures--good timing Black Friday, your spoils of war were well worth the fight!

Thanksgiving dinner

2011-11-26T09:25:00.001-07:00

We had some cute little injuns show up to our feast this year. One was out of her skin excited to be there. The other? Not so much.
Viana even treated us to some cool war dances. Or hopefully they were feast dances.
My dad was puttin' on a pretty face while my mom so kindly slaved in the kitchen to make us an incredible feast!
I guess it worked out that Brooke was not into the indian dress-up, because then Ram got to dress-up!
Viana is still ridiculously excited, and Brooke is still distraught over the clothing issue! HA!
Who knew one feast could make Viana so happy?? Sure glad it did!!
Dig in everybody!!
We were so happy to have a portion of my family come to our home!! And thank you thank you mom for spoiling me with all the cooking and dishes done!!

Hot Pot Trot!: extended edition

2011-11-25T21:59:00.003-07:00

Welcome to our newest Thanksgiving tradition! May it become Monroe City's newest tradition in the future! Throw your turkey in the oven and head out for the Hot Pot Trot! So invigorating, so fun, so rewarding!

In Colorado they run the Nielsen challenge the first Saturday of every month. I want Monroe City to run the Hot Pot Trot every Thanksgiving. But until I can organize that, we started with our little family. It was between 1.5-1.75 miles and it was great! The starting line was the crack in the road outside our house.
And we're off!! (Krista and Summer have crazy poses because they were practicing the body spelling of Hot Pot)
Camera (wo)man was in the middle...some in front and some behind.
The trail begins uphill. And it was beautiful!
You can see my dad as the little dot in the left between the two trees.
Eric with his grueling finish line face. Summer spitting in the background.
It was too beautiful up top to just turn right around, so we rested for a while.
And then we cheered on the last of the runners!!
Summer went out as an uphill pull.
And then the shortest competitors sprinted to the tunneled finish line!!
Brooke even got a battlewound but was still in such good spirits!

Jumping picture!! Everyone got air, even little Brooke--good timing on the picture Mom!!

Carters and Roys with the hot pot in the back!
HOT POT !

When we ran back home the turkey was sure smellin' goood!!

The goings-on

2011-11-20T21:26:00.006-07:00

First of all, within the last week Eric has finished, burned, and distributed both the football highlight video and the basketball highlight video. Holy Cow. He probably spent about 360 hours on those two projects. So hooray that they are done, done...and we're on to the next one...First basketball game on Tuesday! We have agreed to work much more steadily on this years film so that those 360 hours don't have to cram into one 6 week period!
Second of all, I too have finished a project this week that probably took me 360 hours as well. See this pile of dryer sheets? I never threw them away for as long as I had laundry on my bedroom floor. I fold the clothes on the floor, and then I rarely get around to putting them away...so it just gets dumped and folded and worn and washed then dumped and folded again. But, HAHA! I put away every piece of clothing on my floor this week! And now, I can throw away all those dryer sheets.

Third of all, this is the best 67cents I ever spent. Wal-mart Halloween clearance costume tails. I bought 5. The children (Ram especially) LOVE them. (Funny how the picture I took happens to be while Ram is wearing a large waisted pair of pants that are sagged to below his diaper...)

Fourth of all, while we're speaking of Ram...the kid loves to floss. Or at least pull out all of the floss while I am curling his sisters hair for church. (Luckily, we didn't really like that floss, so now we can buy better floss).

And look at that precious sleeping face. I LOVE a good high chair nap. How hard it must be to be at that stage of life when you do not want to take your nap anymore even though you still need it.And fifth of all, I think CharlyAnn finally has enough weight on her to balance, so now she can sit and play and sing and crawl and be an absolute ball of delight and joy!! She is so stinkin' cute and she just loves all the commotion and hub-bub of our family. The girl never sits still. She is go, go, go. So there you go. Some goings-on, and boy are they lovely.

Growth!

2011-11-15T21:07:00.001-07:00

Thank you for your prayers! CharlyAnn gained 13 ounces in 2 weeks!! I'm thinking that's pretty much a miracle.

CharlyAnn is an official Carter

2011-11-11T21:15:00.015-07:00

Before CharlyAnn, Ram was the oldest Carter child to make it to a Disney park at a whopping 8 weeks. For her to be 7 months old before her first trip was a long wait. But so, oh so worth it. She was a doll. And when she was awake--she loved it! Our first ride was The Nightmare Before Christmas remake of the Haunted Mansion. We told Viana and Brooke to make their scared faces.

(Their eyes look green...)

And Ron filmed us all day long. We can't wait to see Uncle Ron's next movie creation!Besides being CharlyAnn's first trip, it was Brooke's first trip in which she was tall enough for the big rides. She was SO excited. Her first trip down a mountain was Splash Mountain.
Nothin' better than SISTERS!!Brooke's first dip!

While everyone went on Splash Ram, CharlyAnn and I went on Winnie the Pooh, and then we got my birthday button. I was pretty excited about it, someone said "Happy Birthday CJ" and I totally expected to see someone that I knew...but it was just a literate stranger! One of our epic new discoveries of this trip was the Mickey Mouse shaped beignets sold at the Mint Julip bar. They were so good and so magical that not a single one lasted long enough for a picture. Out of the 3 pics we tried to take, this is as close as you can get to seeing the Mickey shape. (One ear is in Brooke's mouth)Brooke was also thrilled about Big Thunder.Viana found a hidden Mickey.

CharlyAnn woke up and could see the world!The girls were princesses and the 4 of us were aliens (Char was just in lime green...close enough!)We were waiting in line for Little Mermaid and Ram was enthralled with the Mickey Mouse fun wheel. Disney magic!Eric and Eric! My Eric always appeases me on vacation by not shaving :)And then CharlyAnn was back asleep.

Toy Story Mania!!Oh how characteristically Brooke!Don't worry, we totally rode Triton's carousel twice in a row. It's all about riding the rides that are not crowded!Ram was just a-wavin'. At anybody and everybody.How did he get so big?That's a lot of people in one little ride!! Ram has always loved his Grandma!

Brooke has talked of nothing else but the Tower of Terror since we've been home. This was her FAVORITE ride. She LOVED the up and downs. LOVED LOVED LOVED it. (and check out the girl to the right of Uncle Ron just reading her map! Good one girl!)We watched one of the most magical parades, we stood right at the exit of the parade where there was hardly any other people, so it was like our own personal parade. Every character and dancer catered right to us. It was so cool. And we were standing right in the line for Small World...so we beat the post-parade crown to that!Don't worry, CharlyAnn still has big eyes!!!Once the little babies started falling asleep, Eric and Viana snuck off to use the last Big Thunder fast passes. Viana was a little excited...Our children were so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so good. We could not believe how unbelievable good they were. Never have any children been so good for a 15hour day at Disneyland. It was awesome. And it was a FULL day. Here's our "We're finally leaving the park" picture. And this is as close as we got to a family picture!! Who knew once you got 6 people in a family it becomes near impossible to get a fam pic!! Thanks Disneyland, we always have so much fun when we visit you!!!

In case you miss Halloween: Our Disney Halloween party

2011-11-07T22:40:00.013-07:00

My mother-in-law got me a very kind gift: two tickets and a night of babysitting for Eric and I to go to Mickey's Halloween Party at Disneyland. It was so INCREDIBLE! We didn't take CharlyAnn, but she's the only one who has a shirt to match us. You can tell by the discoloration of our shirts compared to hers that we wear ours a lot :) We've never been to a special event at a Disney Park, so we were pretty excited.

We had early entrance 3 hours before the party started, so we were there with all the non-costumed, non-party go-ers, so our costume was pretty exciting for them. When we got there we decided to play a game to see how many times we heard the word "Incredibles" in reference to us. In the first 45 minutes we heard it 23 times. Throughout the whole night we counted 66 audible 'Incredibles', plus a ton of points and oohs and aahs. Very fun.

One cool benefit of being a very obvious couple: we had 3 different people offer us fast passes to rides they wouldn't make it to: Big Thunder, Indiana Jones, and a "Choose any ride fast pass"

With that one we chose Space Mountain: Ghost Galaxy. It's a halloween makeover they give to one of the greatest rides ever!

There's the ghost!!

As evening fell upon us the crowds shifted from day patrons to costumed party patrons.

And once night was official, we donned our masks.They had these little trick-or-treating trails all over the park. It was so great. We decided it's the only time in an adults life when they can participate shame-free in trick-or-treating. We got SO MUCH candy. It was sweet!Our favorite part of the party was the Intergalactic Space Jam with Buzz Lightyear. It was so fabulously fun. We danced and danced and danced. And then we danced with Buzz Lightyear!!!Like a real dance circle dance with Buzz! Not just a meet and greet but a "hey-we're-friends-so-obviously-we-would-hang-out-at-a-party-and-dance-together" dance party!!It was so so so so so so fun. My calves hurt for the next 3 days from all the dancing. We followed that up with some Buzz Astroblaster. A fun part about the party was that 90% of the people there were costumed. Even Carl Fredrickson was there!I always love dates with good food! How about some bacon-wrapped asparagus! Yes, please! In the Golden Horseshoe Revue, a trick-or-treat trail.Big Thunder...we missed being on it during the fireworks (a favorite) by like 2 seconds. But it was still such a great ride, we even got a little splashed under the waterfall!!!
The Halloween parade was great! Mickey and Minnie looked fabulous in their costumes! They had this guy acting as a scarecrow...he was so funny, and it was such fun flavor!We had just an absolutely fabulous time. One might even say that it was INCREDIBLE!!!

Percentiles

2011-11-03T19:54:00.004-06:00

CharlyAnn's weight percentile journey
Newborn-8lb 5oz, 75th
2 week-7lb 5oz, 24th
2 month-10lb, 17th
4 month-12lb 0oz, 7th
7 month- 12lb 0oz, um like -25th

Did you catch that?
She literally did not gain one ounce in 3 months. So, we're a little concerned around these parts. She did gain 5 oz in the last two weeks since we discovered the non-weight gaining baby. She's been eating more protein filled food and the like. But her weight gain is not quite satisfactory still. In fact, we've been instructed to return her to a new-born eating schedule. That is right, I wake up every 2 hours now to wake CharlyAnn up to feed her. We're trying to gain 8oz in the next two weeks. So, if you don't have any agendas on your fasting palette for the up coming Sunday, we would feel blessed if you added CharlyAnn's weight gain on there. :) The good news is, our Doc believes she is still healthy, she's just not getting enough calories.
Moral of the story, when you wish a baby to just stay little forever, be careful--they just might!!!

And in other percentile news...Viana had parent teacher conference today. We reviewed her standardized test scores. She scored in the 78th percentile for math. And reading? 99th. Woa. We knew she was smart, but holy cow. Good job Veez!!!

The REAL Halloween

2011-10-31T22:56:00.004-06:00

TRICK or TREAT??

Halloween, oh what a fun yet exhaustive holiday! We've made it to the end, and so now we are all too tired to do much door-to-door...but it must be done!CharlyAnn dressed up as a 3 month old baby...what a petite cutie!
Here is something funny about Monroe. When you live in a big city you just go door to door in your neighborhood, or around the block and that is fun. Here, you could do that, but you know half the town, and they've all requested that you be sure to stop by their house, so you get in your car and you drive all around town trick-or-treating at all sorts of houses. And we were not the only ones doing this. Many of the families we saw were out driving around to the places they had to go. It's a cultural beauty I think.
Good thing though, because on the drive from one house to another we saw this spooky yard and only Viana was brave enough to get out and investigate. We were glad we saw it while it was still light out, because it was legitimately creepy! Fun!As the sun set Cinderella let us know she did not think she would make it to the end of the ball, but she sure was pretty. She trooped along, she has been recovering from the bug that Viana had last week.

We had 21 efforts at getting costumed, with a total of 12 different costumes and 6 different Halloween functions amongst the Carter Fam. Next year I think I may just put forth the effort to get 6 costumes for 6 people!!

Halloween Parade!

2011-10-31T22:32:00.005-06:00

This fall has been so so beautiful. Today the elementary school had their parade and we got hot waiting for it to start. It was just so sunny and warm and perfect. Finally we saw the children emerge. All the way from the wee little kindergartners to the BMOC 5th graders. There was a LOT of kids! But we spied our cowgirl Viana across the street!

Then before we knew it she had made it over to us!

She may not have reacted much to me, but when she saw Brooke she managed a little wave to her. Sister love!I put this picture in so you could see the kids still pouring down the street on the other side. And so you could see how obedient Viana was to keep her arms folded the whole time. What a cutie.

I asked Viana if she had fun in her parade and she said, "It wasn't a real parade because we didn't get to walk in the road." But she sure had fun at her class party right afterwards, and even got a pumpkingram delivered to her from her Daddy at the high school!

4th Annual Jones Halloween Party

2011-10-29T22:20:00.000-06:00

We really like traditions, especially the good ones. Homemade pizza and the candybar game make it special. And pumpkin pie--homegrown punkins--is a must! Back when it started we chummed around with Logan, Orion and their friends. Now that they are all old and grown and serving missions we get to hang-out with 13 year old Kaiden and his chums! Daniel won the Symphony bar that Eric wanted in the candy bar game.

CharlyAnn LOVED rolling around the lush carpeted floor while Viana, Brooke and I bowled on the xbox kinect (such cool technology!)And then it was back to the basement, which happens to be TOY HEAVEN for our kiddos!!

Halloween is not Halloween without our party with the Jones'!

Ward Halloween Party

2011-10-28T21:56:00.001-06:00

Our ward is awesome. The Halloween party always pulls in SOOOO many people, so it is much-o fun. Eric judged the chili contest this year (lucky) and the best news ever was that Clark, who owns The Sagebrush Grill--which I LOVE--entered a masterful creation. It was like having free Sagebrush for dinner. CharlyAnn just came for the Cheerios. When you have a family of 6 it is nearly impossible to get a fam pic. This is as good as it gets. So imagine me matching Eric, and CharlyAnn matching us.

The girls knew our little neighbor boy was going to try and scare them at the party, so they made up a little princess power handshake cheer. It was so cute--and very effective, this is the final handshake.

This is right before we went out to the trunk-or-treat: girls were very excited, Ram was very grumpy.But once Ram saw how things worked...He was off leading the way!! He LOVED it!3 happy sugared-up babies!After trunk-or-treat we played a few inside games,went to Daddy's Spook Alley, then went home for our 3rd annual family sleep-over. We had random groups of students come over caroling us and looking for random things (we gave one set the wipies Eric had just used to clean off his mask, and another group an old can of pears from the fridge!)The we partied it up with Garfield's Halloween special. Ram really enjoyed his initiation family sleep-over!

From Snow White to Chimney Sweep

2011-10-28T12:54:00.003-06:00

Brooke got herself dressed this morning. She came in to show me and said, "I'm adorable!"

It was amoment when had I had a mouth full of milk it may have spewed from my nose. Could there be a better rag-a-muffin? But rather than saying, oh Brooke, let's get you a different outfit, or wash your face, or your hair, all I could say is, "You ARE adorable!" Because seriously, this is ridiculously adorable!
We did not bother to wash out the black hair spray from Brooke's hair last night--figuring that we had another party today so why bother? And now we know she can go as a chimney sweep instead of a princess.

The fairest in the land

2011-10-27T21:53:00.011-06:00

Brooke had her preschool Halloween party today. She was the very prettiest Snow White I'd ever seen.So pretty in fact that The Prince found her and asked her to accompany him to the HS carnival. The dwarves stayed home with Momma dwarf to take care of sick Viana Dwarf. It was a true date for the fantasy couple.Can you imagine what it must have felt like to get all the tickets to yourself??Fairly fantastic, I am sure of it.

They came home with such a lovely loot, and being a true princess Brooke shared her goodies with the dwarves at home. Happy Halloween!

CharBar

2011-10-27T08:32:00.003-06:00

I put these glasses on CharlyAnn expecting her to rip them right off, but instead I laughed my head off!

She knew there was something different put could not quite figure out where to reach. Just floating grasping fingers hoping they would run in to whatever it was she was seeing. It was so funny!

4 for 4 at 4

2011-10-26T14:59:00.004-06:00

Remember when we had 3 for 3, 3 and under? All 3 children were crying simultaneously? And how it was such a precious reminder of my childhood when my dad and I would count us girls up once we got past two crying at once? And how if 3 or even 4 of us were wailing we would jokingly say, "Quick, hit Charina!" or whomever it was left with dry eyes. And how the one precious time when all 5 of us were crying is seared into my memory with every ounce of glee that can come from 5 crying girls at once?

Well, not to let our past record of 3 for 3, 3 and under go undone...last night we had 4 for 4, at 4. Technically it was 4:10am, but also technically our clock is 10 minutes fast; which returns us to 4 for 4 at 4. Looking back at it I am shocked that it was not 5 for 6. How did I retain my composure?? It's called a mother's love. Oh joyous memories.

(ps-how appropriate that this is my 4ooth post! Long live the 4's!!)

We say NO!

2011-10-25T13:51:00.005-06:00

This week is "Say no to drugs" week at the schools. Eric has always tried to participate in the spirit days that accompany the week as best he can, but since he wears a suit to work he's limited in what he can do. But not Viana! She can go all out! Eric and I both loved spirit days when we were in school, and hope to instill that same passion in our children! Why be a bump on a log when you can have so much fun! So, today was RED day. She did pretty good!! Really, she takes after her parents.And more on this little outing to come. :)
Post edit: Viana won the competition for her class!! Way to go RED!

Pumpkin Patch!

2011-10-17T20:52:00.011-06:00

We've been having a luscious fall this year. It has been warm and sunny and beautiful. We took advantage of it and went to the pumpkin patch on Friday. They trucked us out to the middle of the patch and let us loose!It was great that we did have the first freeze already, so all the vines were shriveled and out of our way (except for Ram who is so close to the ground anyway...he ran everywhere, tripped about 80 times, and got back up to run some more)

CharlyAnn! Good job!!
(love that little tongue)
BEAUTIFUL!! I LIVE HERE!!!
Love that sky, and those mountains, and that little man headed our way. Here's half the loot...we stopped at the gourd section and picked up all sorts of little guys. We got 14 pumpkins/gourds/squash for $7. SEVEN DOLLARS. It was a steal people!And then we got to go on the little train ride, for free. I love our small town and all it's goodness!!This is on the weave down the road. So fun!!

We were happy to come home and decorate the front steps of our house with our finds...and to decorate the finds themselves!! Happy Fall!

29 is mighty fine!

2011-10-13T20:55:00.006-06:00

I love my birthday! So, since this is my last year as a 20-something, I thought I better get a grip on my life! Therefore, a few months ago when I was ready to shed my baby weight post-CharlyAnn I said, "I would like to lose 30lbs." So on my weight loss journey I went. As I was shedding the serious poundage I realized I had a chance at losing it by my birthday...a noble goal. And guess what? I did it!! 30 lbs gone. And while I was in the goal-writing session...

A while back I had set the goal of working up to running at 7.0 mph on my treadmill. I did that and felt great about it. Then, when Krista ran her marathon, she ran 26.2 miles at 7.2 mph, so I thought, "Now I will run at 7.2mph on my treadmill." So I did that. Then I thought, "I have not run a mile in 8 minutes in years. On my birthday I would like to do that."

So I attempted that. Can't see the stop watch? Does that help?
How about this?

Ba-BAM!! It felt SOOOOOO good. And now I want to run a 7:30 mile.

I also had a birthday goal to go to Sagebrush on a date. So we did. It was HEAVENLY!!! I had filet mignon with bluelump crab and I was on cloud 9. PLUS Eric had arranged with some seminary students to come to Sagebrush while we were there and deliver cards and much joyous singing. It was wonderful!!! (Hopefully I can upload that picture later)

Then, we brought home the delicious cheesecake and celebrated with candles and more singing. Viana has a nifty little birthday song she's learned at school that she sang. It is so cute, and Brooke and Ram learned it.

Hooray for babysitters who gifted us with free babysitting!!

Other highlights included Eric coming home from work whenever he could to kiss me and bring me goodies, laying out in the glorious sunshine with Brooke and Ram for hours, great phone calls, great cards, nice gifts and Ram singing his little rendition of Viana's birthday song per my request all day long.
(sorry it's so dark)

(that would be "happy birthday*whew*" (blowing out candles)) (Seriously, I made him sing that at least 80 times today...it started out with a few more 'happy birthdays' and by the end of the day all he did was blow...it was so cute!!)

The greatest part of my birthday? The celebrations don't stop today!! Hooray for UEA next week and a great trip to look forward to! So far I like 29!!

8 is great for a date!

2011-10-11T21:25:00.002-06:00

Eight years ago tonight Eric and I went on our first date. Our courtship has now reached the age of accountability.

Here's the traditional first date picture!!!

For last year's pic go here, and for the previous 6 to that here.

My Bronco and His Charina

2011-10-09T22:04:00.011-06:00

I love my husband so much and I also think he is so funny. (Eric home from work: I was actually funny today! Me: You're always funny! Eric: No, funny in a way than more than just my wife would laugh at my jokes) The other day we were getting out of the van after coming home from a volleyball game and Eric was at Ram's door getting him out and I was at the other door getting the girls, when all of a sudden he looks up at me from across the van and says, "When I do my face like this I look like Bronco!" (ie Bronoco Mendenhall BYU's football coach) He then flashed me this fabulous face that really only made me laugh at his cuteness! I had to capture the repeat moment to share with you. But could I just say, "Make that face again so I can take your picture"? No, first he had to get dressed-up (at which point we realized we a)don't know where Eric's BYU sweatshirt is and b)don't have a decent BYU hat) then he had to practice in the mirror, then he had to get in the zone (walking down the sideline), then he could flash me "The Face". Well, we actually took like 15 pictures till we got one that was satisfactory. But I am so happy we did, because it was just such a joyous, funny, happy memory--the first time, and definitely the second time.

And while we were in the zone of look alikes...I got dressed and did my hair today for church and I felt like Charina. It could have been because I was wearing what I have come to believe is a hand-me down sweater from Charina (which how I would have gotten that I don't know...so now I'm questioning my logic there). Or it could have been because of my side swept hair...whatever it was, it was nice to feel connected to Dave.

Don't you think I remind you of her?

This is the face I make to feel like how I would have to make my face to imagine how I would look if I was looking at myself as Charina. And that makes no sense. In other words...I don't think this is what Charina looks like, but this is how I pose to make myself feel like I look like Charina.

And then I made this face and Eric said, "Now you just look like you." Which was funny. See? My husband is so funny. Those lucky seminary students...

Second Installment of Epic post catch-up: More Us

2011-10-04T21:26:00.009-06:00

If you are just now joining in, don't miss the beginning of this story HERE

Before the adventure to St. George, as in literally, right before it, we raced the clock and the rain clouds and had my mom shoot these FABULOUS pictures in the field across the street.
Here is the story of the Carter family:First, two people fell in love. The along came their beautiful oldest daughter Viana.One daughter became two daughters. Then along came the first son.

Followed by little baby CharlyAnn.

And that my friends is a happy family!! Here are some of the other great pictures we got!!

But St. George wasn't what the entire week was about...

Leading up to St. George: COUSINS!

2011-10-04T21:03:00.000-06:00

The Lindes were due in to Provo Friday and Saturday, but Jamie thought to herself, 'what will the kids and I do before then? Come to Monroe!' And we are glad they did!! The kids had so much fun together. Daniel and Ram are finally both old enough to be boys together. They played cars together. They ate (anything) together. (Well, Ram is sitting on the carpet...so you can't see him, but they were eating at the same time)

They played basketball together.

They shared balls together.

We had one happy Meemaw on our hands!! Happy were we that she made the drive from California with Jamie so she could enjoy the week with us!

And other cousin fun was had!

Surely, you say, this must be the end to the week of fun. But no. Oh no. There was Tuesday night that we have yet to see...

On that Tuesday: Monrovian Cayon

2011-10-04T20:16:00.000-06:00

This is my best friend niece Ally. We have the coolest best friend hand-shake around. And when you ask her to smile like Rapunzel (one of her favs) this is what you get! One of her requests while she was visiting was to "burn marshmallows." The rest of us wanted to try roasting them. The s'more was quite pleasing to little Brooke.

Viana on the other hand had this reaction the the stickiness.

It was so beautiful up the canyon and we had a pretty good time considering there were 6 kids 5 and under!

We even had an emotional trip down to the stream...we all made it! Ally is right behind Daniel...sad you can't see her :( Moral of the picture: 2 sisters=lots of humanity.

But before even all of this...

Yes, before that: Bishop's Banana Splits

2011-10-04T19:31:00.000-06:00

We have a tradition every September that is connected to the last (first) great event of our past week. And that tradition is Banana splits at Bishop Jones house. Although when this tradition started he was not yet Bishop. But boy do we look forward to this! Viana may or may not have been heard to say that night, "Our bishop is funny." Brooke was heard to say, "Trick-or-treat" and Bishop did not disappoint! Here he is awarding the practicing Halloween-ers.

And boy were the splits yummy. Although the girls love the Jones' toys so much they nearly missed out on the ice cream!

CharlyAnn made a split second swoop for Eric's bowl with her right hand, grabbed the spoon with her left and and put it right in her mouth. It was so funny. She is a smart girl!

And now what, may you ask, was the initial kick-off to this grand week??? Only one more post to go...

The triumphant ending beginning: Monroe Power Picnic

2011-10-04T18:41:00.000-06:00

I have 5 top events that encompass and epitomize my love for Monroe. One of those 5 is the Annual Power Picnic. Inviting the entire town out for a free picnic? Yes, please! Thank you lovely Monroe power! We have been every year, including 10 days after Ram was born in 2009. And back in 2008 we saw the Jones' family there and as the picnic is always on a Monday they invited us over for FHE and we have never looked back! LOVE the power picnic!!
Since the entire town is invited (and technically it's all Monroe power patrons) parking is intense...so we walked a little ways and Ram snuggled into his stroller hole.

Here are all the souls in my town!! I love how everyone comes to the picnic!! The line may be long, but one may never know it for the company is joyous.

Happy family! Chips, good, cookies, good, Hotdogs and hamburgers, goooooood.
And they have a drawing every year for all sorts of cool prizes. We always enter--we never win. I will go until I win! (And then I'll keep going some more!) Eric has Brooke on his shoulders on the left side, Mayor is in the hat pulling winning names on the right.

And by the way, look at those beautiful mountains in the back. Precious!

WHEW!!! That my friends, is why we had such a fabulous 7 days. You made it to the end. Congratulations!

The epic catch-up: starting with today

2011-10-03T21:43:00.004-06:00

One fantastic thing about Kindergarten is that "birthday" and "party" and "invitation" combine into one phrase that little girls learn about and find to be enchanting and wonderful. Viana had one such experience last week and got to see the result of such today. We dropped her off and while she was at the shin-dig we ran to Wal-mart. Let it be recorded that an all out down-pour started while we were shopping and for the family memory and adventure of it all we opted for dashing for the car together rather than waiting for Eric to bring the car to us. It was a rain to prove that the earth really did flood in 40 days if rains like that existed then.

But before that...

Before that: MegaRam

2011-10-03T21:42:00.000-06:00

We were driving home from The Adventure and stopped in Cedar for a bite to eat. It may have been providence, since my Dad was sleeping and could not lead us to our pre-planned Costco meeting spot (which doesn't exist in Cedar). I don't believe in coincidence, especially when this is in the parking lot.
Oh my goodness! He is so cute!!! And then the next night, Sunday, was the premiere night for Ram to wear his birthday present from Meemaw.

"And Beyond!"
But before even all of this...

Yes, before that: Bess Lightyear

2011-10-03T21:41:00.000-06:00

As if one little Buzz Lightyear didn't make the week, imagine our surprise at THIS Lightyear wanna-be! On the way toward Santa Clara, UT is a slew of darling little cows. None, however, bess-ted this one.

To 20/20 and beyond! Thanks Clearview eye care!

But there is still more...

Before that: The core of The Adventure

2011-10-03T21:40:00.001-06:00

And the destination for this portion of our epic week was to St. George for the MARATHON! My sister Krista would run her 3rd marathon, 2nd St. George marathon, and 1st marathon with me as a witness.
My parents, CharlyAnn and I woke early in the Saturday morn. After, mind you, sleeping not in '3 to a bed!' but '8 to a tiny room!!' After much adventure to include seeing more of St. George than we intended to, and seeing more of nature than I intended to see of it, and nature seeing more of me than it intended to see of me, we made it to Veyo.

MARATHON!! Be inspired.

And if the runners in Veyo didn't inspire you, the cute little town band definitely would!!

We didn't get to this mile 7 marker in time to see Krista, so we got in our car, realized we were mostly in the middle of nowhere with no gas, found gas, and drove into town to find her at the next best spot. We decided on mile 24. We saw Tristram, my old Rhall resident, Dr. Scoville, the very doctor who has delivered 2 of my babies--including one in the middle of a training run, and Bro. McLay. While we were hollering to Bro. McLay (hearing-aid was out, ipod in--he did not hear us) Mom all of a sudden said, "There's Kris!" Sure enough, there she was! 24 miles in and all she could say was, "There's Bro. McLay." See, there is Bro. McLay (blue outfit getting lathered with icyhot). And Krista in the neon yellow pointing, and LaDon, supporting Krista.

I chased Krista down the street screaming for her at the top of my lungs!! She was great!

When she passed we hustled to the finish line. There we saw the human zoo. Look at all these crazies caged up wandering around about to pass out or puke.

And one of them was Krista!!

She even offered a smile.

Marathons are so cool. And crazy. And inspiring. And I will complete a marathon one day. Then I can grow up to be like my little sister Krista.

But that wasn't the only great thing about this week...

And the night before that: The temple

2011-10-03T21:39:00.002-06:00

We were pulling into St. George right at sun-set. The other caravaners were about 30 minutes behind us. So we dashed to the temple. We went to the visitors center. Brooke caught a peek around the corner and saw someone. "Bee-ana, I see Jesus! I want to go see him!"

Here is a vision of my future. I love my family and we love our Savior and He knows us.

Night came quickly. It was beautiful.

And have you already guessed that the fun doesn't even end there??...

(more to come tomorrow)

Us

2011-10-02T20:37:00.002-06:00

I have many posts to come...we had a fun-filled week last week. But until then here is us:

Not Precious

2011-09-21T20:26:00.004-06:00

As you may know, Brooke's middle name is Talei, which is Fijian for 'precious'. We often times call her precious because a) it's her name and b) that's just what she is. Today she had gotten dressed and looked just as precious as could be. While she and Ram were in the middle of an intense Harry Potter playtime I said to her, "Come here, let me take your picture precious." She ignored me just a bit so then I said, "Hermione, let me take your picture you precious." (You know, as in "you silly" or "you cutie"..."you precious"). This time she looked at me and said, "I am not a precious, I am a Granger." It was so funny...and well, so precious!!Ram can throw a pretty mean spell!!

And of course, anxious on-looker. :)

A note to the world

2011-09-18T20:17:00.003-06:00

Dear World,
Eric had a seminary fireside for parents tonight and each seminary council member was responsible for bringing one dessert for afterwards. Eric also wanted to bring dessert to make sure there was enough. I whipped up 3 different kind of cookies and arranged them delightfully on two platters. I was feeling so domestic. Before he left I said, "Let me take your picture," thinking I could preserve the evidence of my secret Betty Crocker. But when I held up the camera and (when at first it took a video...and then I switched the mode) took this picture, I no longer cared about the cookies or the arrangement or anything but the central focal point of this picture. Look at my handsome husband world. May it be known that I love this man. I consider myself the luckiest woman alive. My husband is everything I could have ever expected...and more. He is patient (like how he was a few minutes late but he calmly posed for this picture and didn't even roll his eyes). He is supportive (like how he comes to my Sunday School class every week even though he's heard (and taught!) these lessons before). He is consistent (like how when we tend the Metcalfe girls he applies the parenting techniques that are important to Dave and Kiersten in a way that shows steadiness to Avery and Emma). He works hard (like the way he was up at 6:30 this morning so he could speak at a baptism, then go to a farewell, then go to ward correlation, the have a presidency meeting, then do church with 6 kids and a wife teaching 2 lessons, then do a seminary fireside). He listens to the spirit (like the time I was feeling blue and he knew just what to say, how to say it and when to say it--when I asked him how, he said he was full of the Spirit). He is playful (like how we golfed in our backyard yesterday with 4 little girls and an onlooking Char!). He loves me (like how tonight when I made his preferred version of Hawaiian Haystacks he recognized it and sincerely thanked me).
And so world, though this is just the tiniest list of some great traits, I just wanted to throw it out there for you to see what a great man I have. Consider yourself proclaimed to :)
Love, Halcyon

She's skinny, but she's strong!

2011-09-14T14:34:00.005-06:00

CharlyAnn Jill is so cute. But at church on Sunday when people were sharing their legitimate concern about her tiny-ness it made me feel sad and worried...but since this week she's started doing this I've decided she must be healthy if she's got all this muscle!!

Homecoming

2011-09-10T10:31:00.006-06:00

The best part of homecoming this year was that instead of being in the parade, Eric got to watch the parade with us! The girls wanted to watch the parade by the pioneer house on Main Street...so, that is what we did!And of course it has been picture perfect weather this year up until the day of Homecoming. But really, rain makes everything more fun doesn't it?Too bad our camera has weird black splotches on it, cuz this is a cute picture!Unfortunately this is the happiest our team would look all day (Ok, actually when we went into half time up 12-7 we were happy...but when the game ended 18-37, not so happy)Eric has been doing sideline filming for the team this year, so here's his view of us in our little "tower". It's the perfect spot for me to have 4 kids at a football game by myself! Last night we got to have Merilee sit by us 2nd half though which was great.And here's Eric on the sidelines :)And while I was uploading these pictures I looked down and saw that CharlyAnn was sucking on both of her thumbs at the same time. Cute!

First Day of School: part 3

2011-09-06T13:50:00.006-06:00

Brooke got to go back to Ms. Carma's today!! She was so excited and had a great day. And so telling of her personality, before we left she said, "Mom, do I get to meet new friends this year?" She sure got to! Look at those happy pre-schoolers :)

And in my opinion this was the very cutest one!!

Ram is 2!

2011-09-04T20:40:00.008-06:00

It's been TWO years since our Ram pride first began...and it's only become more intense! We always like to put up some sort of birthday greeting for the kids the night before their birthdays so they can wake-up to a great day. I think we nailed Ram's dream bday greeting. When he woke up he was mostly in awe. He just stood in front of this for many minutes as we tried to convince him of his birthday situation. He caught on, and once he did--no sisters were gettin' near that thing!!

Lucky for Ram his birthday fell on a Sunday, so he got to look this dashing for his debut as a 2 year old.

You can't totally see, but Ram is flossing in this picture. He loves to floss.

We made Ram a basketball bday cake. Eric was trying to get him to look at the camera in this picture, but he was WAY too focused on that "bu-ball"!!

What a polite little cake tester.

Next came presents! A total of $8 was spent on his presents...but he got an awesome loot! May I highly recommend the dollar store, DI, and stashing away toys in your toy room that you can re-gift in a couple years time. :) It was pretty cute how he would open a present, then slide it off the edge of his tray (where he normally slides his dinner plate to when he is finished) and then reach right for the next one...pic below, set aside balls, eye on the next prize...

Viana and Brooke eagerly looked on. They had split up the pile of presents between themselves to bequeath to Ram, while deciding they would both hand him the big one.Here he is opening the big one. I mostly wanted to point out the smudge of orange frosting on his right forearm that he picked up during taste-testing.

And boy was he happy with the big one. It's a double racer car track--Toy Story style. I would just like to thank the donater of this toy to DI. We happened to be dropping off some stuff when I saw this in the just-donated pile. I had been wanting to get Ram this same toy (but Cars2 version) but it was stinkin' $25 bucks! So forget it! (Love you Ram!) So when this was just perched on the pile at DI I was awe-struck. (Heavenly Father loves you Ram!) We asked the manager if we could just buy it then, but he said it had to go through the process--which should be completed Saturday afternoon. 3 trips to DI later and with much persistence we got it! And well worth it!! Ram spent 20 straight minutes on this thing.This is what a basketball looks like post-taste-testing :)

And apparently Ram wasn't the only taster :)

Ram is such a great little guy. We love him so much. He brings so much to our family. He is all boy and we love that. He is so sweet and such a good little helper. Most of all he love love loves his sisters and especially dotes on CharlyAnn. Happy birthday little man, we sure love you!

The First Day of School: Part 2

2011-09-01T21:35:00.004-06:00

Today is Eric's first day of school for his fall semester at USU. He is one-third of the way through his master's program and so far he has a 4.0! I am so proud of him. The great thing is, his classes are really interesting and we're both learning and applying what he's learned to work and life! Who knew education was so interesting?!
In other news, were you wondering how Viana liked Kindergarten?

I wondered to as she walked toward me at our designated meeting spot (I like all the anxious and waiting mothers in this picture).

But then when I saw this smile, I knew it was a great day to be Viana!! She absolutely loved it!! And she loves her teacher ("Mom, I love Mrs. Bastian." "Good Viana" "No, I mean I really, really love her!")
Ram was over playing at the playground when he saw that Viana has found us, he ran over shouting, "Nana! Nana!" and gave her a hug. I tried to catch the cute moment while Viana happily detailed her first day for me.It is very fun, and believe you me, Brooke can not wait until "The First Day of School: Part 3" to come!! Only about 10 times today I had to remind her when Tuesday came ("First comes tomorrow, then Saturday, then Ram's birthday, then Monday when Daddy doesn't have to work and THEN you get to go to preschool.") It's very interesting to see the dynamic changes in our family with the new school year. Brooke misses Viana while she is away. And on Tues and Thur when Brooke has preschool they won't see each other from 9:30-3 since their classes overlap time! Crazy to see my babies grow up!!!

KINDERGARTEN!

2011-08-31T12:57:00.005-06:00

(As if I wasn't already emotional enough, I made the mistake of trying the "new blogger" and it's DRIVING ME CRAZY!! If offered that option--refuse it!) Anyway, today my little baby Veezy starts kindergarten. She is more than ready and very excited. And look how cute she is! That's a real live kindergartner if I've ever seen one!

Brooke came along for the drop-off. They're cute sisters.
Here's Viana outside the door that she'll go in and come out of everyday.

This is Grayson, Anden and Viana. These 3 are in the same class and live on the same street! We love our neighbors!

Once all the kindergartners were there Viana started feeling a little anxious...

But once her teacher came outside and lined everyone up Viana felt much more comfortable.

She was being such a good listener trying to follow everything Mrs. Bastian said.

And then off she went!!!
I was very calm and thought I was doing really well as a "first time mom" but once she lined up and I realized my little baby wasn't a little baby at all the tears started to come. But since Viana hadn't left yet I just had to hold them in and keep on a brave face for her. Once she trotted out of my sight though, I let them flow! Luckily, there were so many moms around I kept mostly composed and dashed to the car to have a more personal tear. :) I am so excited for Viana and I know she is going to be a great kindergartner!!

The dwindling summer...and welcoming Summer!

2011-08-24T15:56:00.008-06:00

Today was the first official day of school. I bet Eric's legs are really sore right about now. Unless you teach, you would have no idea how hard it is to stand up for 6 hours everyday. He left the house very handsome this morning (hopefully I can get a welcome home pic on here). Shortly after he left we ushered Brooke out the door with Meemaw and Grandbill and our newest neighbor to the north...Summer!! Today also brought BYU freshman check-in which is where she was headed! We're excited to have TWO favorite aunts in Provo this year!! And Brooke is very excited for her special 4 year old trip (or 'fear-year old' if you speak Brooke-ese)!And what better way to celebrate these two exciting events than with a sneak attack on the double fudge-stuffing on all these oreos!! What a cute boy!! And if that wasn't exciting enough for one day I took Viana in for her Kindergarten testing. She did so well and was so brave!! As I left the paperwork I had to fill out (which I think is really just a distractor for the parents so they're not looming or hovering over their poor child while he or she tests) I caught a glimpse of the comments "Very smart" and "quick" on Viana's form. That's our girl. :) And lest you think that is all, I have started a new blog. It is called "To Become Like Mine". You can find the link to it on my lovely links or you can click THIS. Go ahead, bookmark it, link to it, etc, 'cause i know you'll like it (if you're my mom at least :) (And Jame, do you want to be a contributor with me on there? I'm sure you'd have good input for it!)

Viana officially starts Kidergarten next Wednesday, Brooke starts preschool Sept 6, and maybe Ram and I will have a crack at potty training 102. Happy days all around!

Our Triathalon!!!

2011-08-20T10:02:00.008-06:00

Thanks for the inspiration, Wes!

Today was our long awaited, much anticipated Beginner's Triathlon!!! It was so so so fun and both of us would definitely do it again!! We think we could even train up for a sprint tri. Our tri was run, bike, swim--1.25 miles running, 5 miles biking and 225m swimming. There was such a joyous atmosphere of triathletes. I love getting a whole group of crazy people together at once!! As we were racking our bikes and preparing our transition area I could see that Eric and I were definitely beginners...there were some serious people there...in fact, I felt like we were the only two people with mountain bikes instead of sweet road bikes! Eric is right in the middle of this pic. Since you swim you can't wear a bib number, so they mark you like this! Cool! We're official! We really liked our numbers because Eric was wearing his Vince Carter jersey which was number 15, and I was 82, my birth year.
The race started with both the beginners and sprinters together so it was a joyous air-horn blow of excitement! The run felt GREAT for both of us. I got to pass quite a few people and Eric felt like he ran as hard as he could with still being able to have legs for the bike ride--he was first to come in to the transition to biking of the "beginner" triathletes.

The biking was the hardest part for both of us. Eric's chain was off when he came in to get his bike so he had to fix that and I had a flat tire...oops, should have checked for that this morning!! So you think a triathlon is hard?? Try biking 5 miles with a completely flat tire!! But, I did it!! I prayed for a miracle and got one though. My legs had a renewal of strength and though they were sore the first half they sorta "healed" and did not hurt at all on the way back. It was very helpful considering my flat tire. When I got back to the pool Eric had already finished! It was so cool to see him there!!

The swim was so great! I felt so happy! And it was nice since my legs weren't sore :) Eric cheered for me every time my head came up and 9 lengths later I pulled myself out of the pool. I wanted to collapse right there because then every muscle in my body was sore!!! But I was done!!! We both did a TRIATHLON!! TOGETHER!!!

And guess what?? WE WON OUR AGE DIVISIONS!! And, I had the goal to do it within an hour and finished in 53 minutes. Eric finished in 44. And I had the goal to finish before any of the sprint athletes started their swim and I did! And Dr. Scoville won the whole sprint tri!! It was fun to cheer for him!!

And Eric beat everyone 18 and up. I was 2nd for 18 and up. Eric finished 4th of the boys. I got 19th overall!!

My favorite part was definitely being able to do that with Eric!
Marked!

I made sure to have CharlyAnn when I got my 1st place prize as another mark of my awesome accomplishment! I won a tri with a 5month old baby!

My husband is so cute :)

Hooray!!
Don't worry...I think we are still going to take a jumping picture with our sweet tri shirts later!!!

Here they are!We took a backwards one too, since that is where our numbers were!! (Nice calves!! Genetically speaking our children should have great legs!)

DT reunion=much joy

2011-08-14T21:01:00.005-06:00

It was Costco that called to us on Saturday. More specifically the $1.50 3-scoop gelatto cone that called to us. It was our first time to try such a treat...and it won't be the last. Although Ram discovered that for $1.50, we might as well buy two. He was surviving off this cone like it was oxygen.
Then when he discovered we all had to share...

He was not happy!!

But, we cheered his spirits by reminding him that the real reason we had trekked up north was to reunite with our DT family of 2005/2006 at the brand new home of the Trumans (so new they haven't even slept in it yet...it was a house warming party--on fire!)
At one point there was 37 people there!! (Lori had family helping to move stuff in).

But oh was it joyous. The party consisted of the Trumans (V hall then, Payson now), Wrides (Q Hall then, Virginia now), Carters (R Hall then, Monroe now), Rasmussens (S Hall then, Africa/WA now) and Martins (T Hall then, Virginia now). I love living in Utah because it is a place of gathering.

There were 9 adults and 16 kids (6 girls and 10 boys). Ram and Natalie still loved playing together just like they did in December.

What used to be 4 years and 3 months worth of children when the 5 of us "started" is now 62 years 9 months and 2 weeks of kids. Holy Cow!

The Trumans house was absolutely beautiful and Lori is looking forward to moving in this week!! What a neat treasure to have a home built by so many family members and friends, including her dear sweetheart Wes. The surprise backyard put in by Wes's cousins was perfect.
As is this shot with the most adults in the same place at once. (16 kids from 8yrs to 2 weeks kept us all pretty busy. When Brooke got there I said, "I want to hear the birth story!" She said, "I want to tell it! Let's wait til I can tell everyone together." Eventually I found her in a corner nursing baby Wil and she told me the story because we realized there would be no all of us being together at once!!)

All of our children had such a good time (minus poor Spencer W. who got dehydrated from a busy busy day!) All of the arranged marriages still look like they will work out quite nicely in another 15-20 yearsAnd Janna, myself, Brooke, Lori, and Marie still found it so inspiring and so uplifting to be together and share with each other our struggles, our triumphs, or joys, or successes and our families.

These are my truest friends.

And this is a perfect summer memory.

We partied hard and slept like babies all the way home.

Fair Time!

2011-08-11T10:22:00.006-06:00

I am such a sucker for our little Sevier County Fair. So, while Eric was at his LAST CLASS!! for the hardest masters class he's had to date, we decided to go to the fair!
Ram was in love with the livestock. He thought it was pretty cool.

CharlyAnn has recently found her thumb. CUTE!

They had a free bounce house this year! (No crazy carnies saving our children from a deflating monkey house!)

The girls got to pet a real live baby kangaroo. (cool aussie animal show--kangaroos are a funky animal!)

We got to pretend to be farmers. It only took Ram about 5 minutes of uncomfortable staring before he realized he would be ok to reach into this fake hen's nest to get the egg. It was pretty funny. You can kind of see the little look of apprenhension on his face.

Viana's gatherings.

The favorite part of the night was this weeping willow we sat under while we ate our free Commisioner's BBQ dinner. There was a little swing someone had tied up with some of the branches. It was amazingly strong and amazingly fun.

These are a few of his favorite things...

2011-08-03T22:29:00.005-06:00

Ram's pillow and CharlyAnn--at the same time. I'm pretty sure this was the best day of Ram's life. And these are a few of my favorite things.

Eric's Priest Super Activity: June 10-11

2011-08-02T18:44:00.006-06:00

Eric and the Priest group went on an epic adventure that was inspired wholly by my GRAND birthday adventure. They had a fabulous trip in the Kanab, UT area and then of course visited the remarkably Grand Canyon.
Their first stop was at the Moqui cave. This is at the bar inside the cave, from when the cave used to be a bar. From back to front: Bryant Laughbon, Bishop Jones, Tony Phelps, Cody Hales, Corban Blackburn, Calten Brady. They visited the rock shops and then went to the Western Film museum and backlot in Kanab. Here are the 4 priests, Cody, Corban, Calten and Bryant.

Eric would be a really good actor. Check out how convincing his dead-guy look is.

They then went to the Coral Pink Sand dunes. That is one awesome action shot!!

They had a pleasant evening in Kanab full of much good eating and rainbows, and the next morning they went to the Grand Canyon.

There's the whole group (minus Eric): Corban, Cody, Calten, Bro. Lindsay, Bishop, Tony, Bryant.

They also went to another trail head and went on a hike there. I think it was called the Kaibab trail. Eric got to do good missionary work on the trail (hopefully he can insert that story in the future). Until then, I think my husband looks super good-lookin' in this picture :)

I thought this picture was so cool. It looks like everything is being sucked into the center of the earth.

Hooray for SUPER super activities!!!

Happy Birthday Harry Potter! (and Ally!)

2011-07-31T21:34:00.007-06:00

(The doodling represents how long it takes our computer to boot up and load the internet...the recipe from Madame Rosmerta on Mugglenet is 8oz of cream soda or club soda--we prefer the cream--1/2 c butterscotch ice cream topping melted for 90 sec. with 1/2 T butter, stirred for 30 sec. and poured into pop.)

That is right. Time for our annual Butterbeer toast to Harry Potter. This year we got to celebrate with the Metcalfes.

Some liked it (Ram), others...not so much (Avery). We're crazy(-eyed) about Harry Potter! Cheers!

Where to begin?

2011-07-30T12:04:00.008-06:00

How about with this weekend?? And as you all know, over the next couple weeks I certainly intend to post about all the happeneings that we've missed in the summer...I'm too in love with this blog as our family history to let things go undocumented!

We are currently having an adventure at our house that leaves Ram feeling like this:

He had that pose right after we took this picture:

There are SIX girls at ou house right now, so Ram is uber-out-numbered. Avery and Emma Metcalfe are staying with us so their parents Dave and Kiersten can have an anniversary get away. Ram finds himself needing to hide much of the time and drink away his sorrows: It sure has been super fun though! We have played dress-up and danced, swam and sang, eaten and tried to sleep, walked to the park and played...it has been fabulous.
And lest you forget, that really is 4 of them, plus 2 of us:

6 girls!!! We're the fun that never stops!

My phone's popular

2011-07-19T18:11:00.002-06:00

Twice. In one day.

Have you ever experienced that strange phenomenon when you pick up the phone to call someone and right as you pick it up someone else happened to be calling in at that same time, so instead of the dial tone that you expected to hear you instead hear a voice saying, "hello? hello?"?

Twice. In one day.

It can be certain that the 24th is this week without even having to look at a calendar and judging solely off the popularity of my phone.

The busy part of summer

2011-07-12T22:34:00.003-06:00

We've reached our annual summer blogging hiatus...where there are so many wonderful things to blog about that it turns into a catch-22. So much to record, but then so much to do, then more to record and more to do. So until we reach a lull (hopefully in 11 days when the 24th celebration is history) we can do a catch-up. But until then, here are our children.

Four year old Brooke!

2011-07-06T21:50:00.000-06:00

If there's one thing I know about Brooke, it's that she loves McDonald's. So, one again we happily found ourself at the Golden Arches. And never you worry...she is still as precious as ever. Viana was thrilled to be celebrating with her best friend.

So was Ram!Brooke's birthday was on Wednesday, when we have summer movies, so we got to see Shrek 4 on the big screen. It was fun!

We had a fun little birthday party at home.And then we headed out for fireworks! (One benefit of having a bday within 3 days of July 4th!)I think we had to convince Brooke to stay awake for it :) She's holding the "precious" stones firework.

Happy Birthday Brooke! You are a dear sweet girl who is so fun and we love you so much!

We love to see the temple

2011-06-21T22:49:00.008-06:00

We had the blessing of attending the sealing of two of Eric's past students and their little baby on Saturday. Eric attended the sealing while the kids and I enjoyed the spirit of the temple.

The shed

2011-06-21T22:20:00.004-06:00

Have you been anticipating the post detailing the best young men's activity ever? (Referenced to during our trip to girls camp). We'll let this picture be worth those thousand words.Eric persistently took the YM on a shed hunt. They were out on the prairie and saw a lone tree up the way a little. Tony said, "That looks like a good tree, sometimes they rub against trees to get their horns off." So to the tree they went and Eric did it. He found a shed.Well with the feeling of success now coursing through our veins we thought we would try our luck again. Eric got home from a two day area inservice in Price on Friday and I had arranged a surprise baby-sitter. We went on our first date alone since CharlyAnn was born, and we went shed hunting. It is much easier to cover ground and get higher in the mountains without the 4 kiddos.We kept going higher and higher and it kept getting more and more beautiful. And I was only a little nervous that we would run into a mountain lion.We found no shed, but we did find evidence of deer. We found this little clearing with all these deer beds. It reminded me of the scene from Tarzan when Jane and her father discover the gorilla nesting spot. It was cool.We saw plenty of bones too, but no sheds...next time maybe :).
So when you come to our house you can see our deer shed proudly displayed in the front...we're one step closer to being true Monrovians!

Ram's first trip to Girls' Camp

2011-06-16T20:41:00.004-06:00

Eric was asked to be a priesthood leader at girls camp for a night this week. His condition--bring the family for the night! BUT, it was a complicated play of time, so this is how it went:
Eric had class Tuesday night from 4:30-7 and then scouts from 7-8:30. I had planned on going up to the campground (about 30 minutes away) while he was in class to set up the tent so that when we finally got there at 9pm we wouldn't have to fumble around with that. I'm loading the car and he calls from Richfield saying that his class has been cancelled. He comes home, we pile in the car, zoom up to camp and set-up as fast as we can so that he can make it back for scouts at 7. We were throwing in all the sleeping bags and bedding and I check the car, see Ram's precious pillow and toss it in at the last second. We're driving away from camp and Ram is hysterical. I can't figure out what he's trying to say until we realize that he is sobbing "pi'ow" and pointing desperately back to the tent. Poor kid. We throw him in a car, adventure into nature, dump his pillow in the middle of nowhere and leave!! We managed to turn around and retrieve it and still get Eric to scouts with one minute to spare.Eric has the MOST OUTSTANDING young men's ever...so outstanding, it will have it's own post to come...comes home and back to camp we go. It was pretty late, and we didn't know how intrusive we would be able to be with the young women so we tossed the bag of marshmallows into the back of the van and told the kids to have at it. That was probably their highlight. We got to camp at 9:30 and started to get nestled down. HA. Ram had to make the rounds about 20 times. We were all given at least 100 kisses from Ram. Viana informed me that she knew more about camping that I did. (It was her 4th camping trip after all). Daddy told a great story about his priest super activity to the Grand Canyon (again, another post to come). It took some time and lots of "lay back downs" but I was shocked to see that it was only 10:18 when everyone was asleep. Not too bad. CharlyAnn was in the ultimate camping incubator. See that pile of warmth in the pic below? She is in there. I thought it would take me forever to fall asleep and that it would be a long night. But guess what...sleep cam easy and lasted until 4:30! CharlyAnn slept better in a tent than at home! HOWEVER, when she woke up, so did Ram. And that is where the fun ended, or began. He was up and loud. It was pretty chilly at this point (did I mention in the rushes and back and forthness I forgot the warm layers?) but he insisted on being up and about. And of course, he wanted only me. I was nursing though, so it wasn't really an option. Eric kept trying to coax him into his sleeping bag but he would have nothing of it. Finally we turned on "Up" on the ipod and that settled him down for about 20 minutes. Then he was back out insisting that he wanted me. I was still nursing trying to keep CharlyAnn warm, while Ram was nuzzling on my face and shivering, while my air mattress kept feeling flatter and flatter. I wish I could have taken a picture of that priceless camping moment. I finally got CharlyAnn back into her incubator and was able to snuggle Ram into my sleeping bag. Did I mention that Eric had to be to a meeting in Salina the next morning by 9? I set the alarm the night before for 6:45. Ram was up til at least 5:30. I figured I wouldn't get back to sleep after that she-bang and Eric assumed we would all be up with the sun. But there we were, all dreaming away when Eric finally bolts up in his bag and says, "It's 8:30!" You should have seen the dart to the car! We yanked the kids out of their bags, literally threw them in the car, and speed-limited home. Eric was late. Obviously. And once he left, it was back in the car for the kids and I to go take down our camp. It was great. All in all it was a memorable first camping experience for the 2 young-uns. And I think it was successful enough for us to venture out on our own REAL camping trip!!

BOY, oh boy!

2011-06-11T12:02:00.002-06:00

And as soon as I said the word 'bath', he ran straight inside and crawled right in.

Happy thoughts

2011-06-09T19:28:00.007-06:00

I've been pondering life lately whilst drifting off to sleep...oh wait, that would be CharlyAnn who does that.But seriously, as 4th child our pictures are less than fruitful for this little girl. But let me show you her personality that absolutely supports my nickname for her--because she is so delicious--she is my Charly Bar.

And it runs in the family I suppose, that delicious, addictive, happy smile, that just makes you want more and more.As you can see, we had a little Buzz Lightyear apron donning before we went up the canyon for some marshmallow roasting.And isn't it fun to eat ice cream outside during the summer? I tried to bring the bars into the house the other night and Ram insisted that ice cream be eaten on the steps!!And sometimes when you're feeling good about yourself you say to your mom before bed, "Mom, I look so pretty in these shoes can I wear them to bed?" "Of course." your mom says. And so you do.And we got summer haircuts. Except I forgot to take the after picture, or the before and after picture for Viana. But I can assure you, they look cute!!

And there, my friends, are some happy thoughts.

CharlyAnn's Blessing

2011-06-06T19:10:00.000-06:00

CharlyAnn was blessed June 5, 2011. She had so many people who love her come for the big day. Grandma Carter along with Becky and the 4 cousins drove down on Thursday. We met them up in Provo that night and Eric and I snuck away to the midnight showing of X-Men. (So fun!!). Meemaw, Grandbill and Viana camped back to Utah and got here Saturday, along with Grandad, Jared and Ron, who all flew in. We all had a great hike to the hot springs and went swimming at the hotel. It was so fun!! On Sunday Eric blessed CharlyAnn. The 2 grandpa's, 2 uncles, and 2 favorite soon-to-be missionaries (Orion and Logan) stood in the circle. My favorite thing that I remember from her blessing was that she was blessed with faith.We love our little CharlyAnn Jill!

A pictureless clue party

2011-06-01T18:54:00.001-06:00

Well, there is one picture. Because I had to make room in the fridge, and seeing as how Easter was 37 days ago, I finally said adieu to the boi'uh eggs and dye. Anyway, a Clue Party is a night where you have clues for dinner, play clue and watch the movie Clue. We had been wanting to do this forever with Logan Jones...and seeing as how he leaves on his mission in a week, we finally did it today. He and Kaiden and Orion and Janie Lundgreen and Dania Parker came for the festivities. Eric and I made up really hard clues that all led to a breakfast sandwich/burrito/bagel. If we do this again someday we need to make either easier category clues or easier clues altogether. Here is an example of one of the 7 categories that each had 3 clues: (category) To be used sparingly (individual items) 1. A friend to Buzz, Woody and Rex 2. PeeWee Herman makes his smiles with this 3. Sounds like: Metal teeth used to cut down a desert bush. I'm hoping you came up with Meats: Ham, Bacon, Sausage. We didn't think they were too hard, but they really stumped (and maybe even frustrated) the guests!

We finally were able to eat and then we watched Clue starring Tim Curry. It was so BJ reminiscent. And a funny movie! We played a little treat game during the movie. We had 4 bowls of candies and cookies and each person picked a character. I was Ms. White. Each time someone said your characters name during the movie you could pick something out of the bowls. We also had 3 big candy bars that we played with like "spoons". We assigned each candy bar a sound: doorbell, phone ringing, or a quote from the movie. When you heard it you had to dive for the candy bar to win it. It was exciting. We then ended with a rousing game of Clue Mysteries (also so BJ reminiscent) and sent the girls home for curfew at 10...and talked with the boys til the wee hours of the morning. It was a great party and I hope we can how another one again!!

7 adventures for 7 years

2011-05-30T13:49:00.004-06:00

On Saturday for our anniversary we woke up, sent Viana out the door with Meemaw and Grandbill for a week in Colorado, and then set off to have 7 adventures to celebrate our perfect 7 years.
Adventure #1-A hike to the hot springs
It is funny to us that the hot springs are in our backyard and we've only hiked to them twice. But it was a beautiful day and an even more beautiful hike.

This warmed my mother heart.Adventure #2: A picnic at Fremont

We picked up some KFC and headed into the canyon. We found this flooded out section of serenity.Could a better rock have been found?Adventure #3: A viewing of the end-of-year scripture mastery movies at the seminary building(plus sprite and m&ms) (This is Hagrid and the Mexican elf in "Tangled Harry Shrek")Adventure #4: An at-home viewing of "UP"
This is such a good movie!! And it has anniversarial meaning for us. And the kids napped. It was perfect.Image from here
Adventure #5: A Wal-mart game
There were 3 items we had to find for each other under $5. 1)Something for the other person that we wanted. I got Eric a pack of 22 pens and he got me a fancy toothbrush. 2)Something that reminded us of the other person's childhood. I got Eric a little basketball and a turtle (for the ninja variety) and he got me a pack of 5 waterguns. It represented my hours at the shooting range...and there was one huge water gun and 4 little ones, so it also represented me, and 4 sisters. 3)A dessert that typified our marriage. Eric got Orange Dream Bars because our marriage has been like a dream, it's fun and also sweet. I chose m&m cookie icecream sandwiches because each one of us represents a cookie with fun and colorful parts, but when you put us together and throw some children in the middle we make something really great.
Adventure #6: Carnival
Since Ram missed the carnival while he was in Colorado we had to take him because we knew he would love it. We were right.Adventure #7: Pizza Hut
Pizza Hut is one of those great restaurants that you can feed your whole family for under $15...unless it's your anniversary--then you just go all out!!

Hooray for such a fun anniversary!!!

Perfection

2011-05-28T10:41:00.002-06:00

Happy 7 year anniversary to us! And seeing how 7 is the number of perfection, isn't it nice that we feel so perfectly matched and perfectly blessed and perfectly in love?

(SSHS graduation 2011)

SSHS graduation has arrived!

2011-05-27T18:15:00.000-06:00

Graduation day was extra special for us this year because it was the day Ram came back home after a great visit to Meemaw and Grandbill's house! We also got invited to Clayton Higginson's BBQ. It was super fun and we got super full!! Colten Argyle (wrestling state champ), Clayton Higginson (USAFA bound), Wyatt (we all know Wyatt).
Brooke couldn't get the attention of her mom or dad long enough to ask them to push her in this car, so she asked Dane Peterson and he obliged. Dane is such a great soul!! We love him!

And check out Viana's face. She had this expression on the entire time she had to ride shot-gun instead of being at the wheel.

We all got in on the bouncy slide action, but Eric did it with the most flare.

After the party we welcomed Ram home and thanked mom and dad for the babysitting and headed to graduation. It was great! (Except they eliminated the parents coming onto the floor to take pictures and there were no refreshments this year...so I guess it was only good).

Brianne Payne was the senior class president this year and did a fine job with her remarks.
CharlyAnn was really happy about the whole situation.

And there was of course jovial hugging and much picture taking afterwards. I think we took 47 pics with kids. Here are a few, including me and Hudson Perez!! (If you'll remember, he ran the 300 hurdles in 55 sec. last year and it was the happiest moment of our lives) Oh, and William Clark.

Chris Lee, Asa Roberts, Eric, Austin Manwill, Konnor Young

Jackson Jacobs and Eric

Eric and Shaquira Begay with the cool c/o sign.

After graduation we went to a great bbq for Abby Chesley and it was yummy and fun! We sure loved the class of 2011 and expect many great things out of them!!