And we're back...

It has been a busy week! I have to admit that it has been a little nice not to have the internet around, but I do miss visiting everyone's blogs and posting on my own. Well, first of all, the move is over. Jefferson and a few of his friends got everything loaded up out of our old apartment and moved into our new apartment in under 2 hours. Pretty impressive. Carter was a big help with cleaning.

We are actually enjoying our new place. It's older, so there are all the fun things that come with older apartments, but we really like the layout.

We decided that with the move, a new house, and a new room, we might as well throw in a new bed. Carter is now officially in a big boy bed. It was a fun first night, but the transition was super easy. We didn't really know how we wanted to go about transitioning Carter into the big bed, so that was part of the problem.

We started out with just going through our normal routine and then just laying him in his new bed and closing the door. He of course just got up out of bed, opened the door, and came out into the living room. We would put him back in bed and then he would come back out. After about 20 minutes of that we found that if we stood in the door way he would stay in bed. So Jefferson and I did that for about 20 minutes and then decided that we didn't want to have to stand in his door every night until he fell asleep. We left the door open a crack, thinking that would do the trick, and went back to unpacking.

Pretty soon we hear Andi laughing her head off and find that Carter has discovered Andi's bed and is playing with her, pulling her legs out of the crib. We only did that about 3 times before we moved Andi to her own room. Then I decided to sit at the end of Carter's bed, not look at him, and hope he fell asleep. Pretty soon Carter would sit up, scoot to the end of the bed, and just sit next to me, silent, holding Lasso. It was so dang adorable, but after a few times of laying him back down, I discovered that probably wasn't going to work.

So, we decided to put the safety latch handle on the inside of Carter's door so he couldn't get out, closed the door, and hoped for the best. Carter cried really hard for about 10 minutes, knocking on the door, crying out "Dada, Mama, Andi!" I really just wanted to go in there and lay next to him. After 10 minutes it suddenly went silent. We thought for sure Carter had passed out next to the door. So then what do you do?! Open the door and risk waking him up trying to put him back to bed, just to do it all over again? Leave him sleeping on the floor all night not knowing that his bed is where he is supposed to sleep? We just didn't know. We finally decided to peek in and see where Carter ended up. Much to our surprise he was curled up on his bed sound asleep! Ever since then he has fallen asleep after only about 30 seconds of crying, in his bed every time, even for naps! It's almost been a week, so let's hope this trend continues!

Next was Easter. It wasn't the most spectacular Easter seeing as we were living out of boxes and our new stove hadn't arrived yet. The kids loved their Easter baskets from Grandma and Grandpa and we all still ate plenty of sugar. Andi wore her beautiful dress that Grandma Stewart made for her and Carter wore his new guayavera (aka, flowery white Mexican shirt). :) They both looked adorable, but we were unable to capture any great pictures together in their outfits.

Other than that, we have just been settling into our new place. Jefferson is on a two week break from school and we are just enjoying some down time with our new cable (hello March madness!) and playing with the kiddies. Whenever Jefferson leaves the room Carter will run around the apartment yelling "Dadda?" We all fight over who gets to sit next to him and play with him. :) So, that's our last week in a nutshell. We are so glad that we have over a week of break left! Here is Andi after bath time and Carter enjoying his cream of wheat (one of our favorite breakfasts).

It's a big world after all

Carter has now learned to use the adjective"big" and he loves BIG things. Whenever a semi-truck passes he says "big truck." When we go on a walk he points out the "big rocks." And just now, we have a bunch of our stuff packed up and Jefferson's big backpacking bag is packed full and Carter pointed at it and said "big backpack." What a big boy!

Carter's crackin' me up

Carter got into Andi's winter clothes for next year and this is what he came up with.

This week

Jefferson is in the middle of national boards this weekend (all day Saturday and Sunday) and then he starts finals on Monday. Needless to say, we haven't seen much of him around our house this last week. We have been doing anything we can to kill the time...

* Daydreaming what it would be like to be down in Palm Springs with a friend, sitting pool side, sipping a diet coke. (that's where my mom is right now)

*Strolling around Target with our dollar popcorn and drink combo. Spilling a whole thing of animal crackers all over the floor, then spilling the remainder of our bag of popcorn all over the floor of the car, and losing the key to my car. (I did all three of those things all by myself, I can't even blame my kids!)

*Learned that there still are good, honest people out there when I found the key to my car wrapped around my door handle. (I didn't even know I had lost it until I found it there!)

*Going out to dinner with my dad. He has meetings for work up in Portland about once a month. It's one of the things that we will miss most when we move in a year and a half... our monthly outings with my dad. He usually has meetings until about 4, then we go and pick him up and go shopping or just walking around wherever, then out to dinner, and then we drop him off at the airport. Last night we went to Red Robins. It was delicious!

*Packing. We are moving in a week. It's just a few blocks away, but man, packing this apartment all by myself is hard work.

*One last girls night with my good friend Michelle who is moving on Tuesday. We are so sad to see her go, but so excited for her to be finished with the "chiropractic student's wife" bit.

*Watching Michelle's kids while she packs and her husband is in clinicals. It's a nice way to break up our day and Carter and Michael love playing together while Baylie entertains Andi. It's actually a break for me!

*Not watching movies! I wanted to put one on tonight, but I got a little over zealous and already packed them up.

*Going to bed early. Our bunny ears aren't picking up anything that exciting tonight so I might as well catch a few extra zzz's to prepare myself for church tomorrow. I am going to brave it with my two kids by myself. Wish me luck! :)

Oh my OshKosh-B'Gosh!

Yes, it's true! For those of you in the Portland area (or in one of the areas listed to the right) OshKosh is having a warehouse sale at the outlet mall in Troudale. It's not in their regular store, but to the left when you turn into the mall, where Mikasa used to be. They will be open until the 31st, or until everything is gone. And it's going fast! We got some cute winter hats, mittens, tights, and slippers for $2 and then a bunch of clothes and pajamas for $4.99. What a steal!

Klamath or bust

Last week we randomly decided to pack up and head to Klamath for the week, me and my kids. I called my sister-in-law Sharon on Monday morning at 7am to see if she wanted to go with us, and an hour and a half later, we were on the road.

Carter and Grayson had so much fun having a live in playmate their own age. I can tell they are going to be trouble this next year. Already they are helping each other escape out the front door, chase the animals, sneak upstairs into Grandpa's art supplies, hiding out in Grandma's closet trying on shoes and jewelry, and getting onto the computer.

Here they are helping Grandma sweep the driveway.

They also discovered that they love playing in a big sink full of soapy water. We had to strip them down to their diapers after this venture they were so wet!
One of our new favorite finds in Klamath is the Steen's Sports Complex. They have a huge indoor soccer field that they do open play hours every day of the week. For a buck a person you get to run around on their nice, soft turf and play with their soccer and footballs, tunnels, and blowup toys, while listening to music. Definitely a perfect place on a cold winter morning.

My mom, Sharon and I had some good girl time too. We painted our nails, watched High School Musical 2 (I have been converted), drank lots of Diet Coke, and chased the boys. It was a relaxing and fun week.

Thanks for taking care of us Mom and Dad, and thanks for coming to play with us Sharon and boys!

I have to add a story about this last picture. We made the boys hold hands whenever we were walking into a store. It is the cutest thing ever and everybody who saw them would comment and smile. Carter took it a little far though, and anytime they were playing Carter would want to hold Gray's hand and drag him around. Gray was not to thrilled about that and would grunt and try to shake Carter's hand off. We got a good kick out of it.

Vote for my niece!

My beautiful niece Taylor has been selected as a finalist of a photo competition. We need all the votes we can get. Please take a minute and vote for her by clicking this link http://www.hayleebean.typepad.com/ going down to the post "finalist" and voting for #6 (that's her in the pink!). THANKS!

Warmest day of the year!

We had our warmest day of the year this last week. 62 and sunny! We could not pass up the opportunity to go to the park. It was so nice to be outside without all of our jackets and mittens and to be able to sit on a blanket on the dry ground. We love the sun!