Birthday Bash Weekend!

My little boy is 3!! I cannot believe it! It sounds so old and grown up and he is. We were lucky enough to have his birthday fall on a Saturday so we got to have a little party on his birthday. The day started out with Carter's choice of breakfast: chocolate doughnuts, eggs, and toast- and he ate all of it. Then we got ready for his party. We invited just a few friends and had ourselves a good time.

We did a jungle theme for his birthday, per Carter's request. We decorated with green streamers, balloons, and blow up monkeys. 

Each of the kids got an animal visor. 

We colored wooden animal magnets and animal coloring sheets.

Lunch time! Pizza, chips, fruit kabobs, and juice.

Then we opened presents. Carter loved all of his gifts! He got a tennis racket bubble set, Lightening McQueen frisbees, dress up disguise, automatic bubble blower, stamp set, Handy Manny tools, Handy Manny power tool, Spiderman kite, sidewalk chalk paint, Little Einstein rocket, baseball bat, among other things.... 

Next was animal cupcakes. YUM! 

Thank you to everyone who came and helped us celebrate. Carter had a fabulous time! 

After nap we had another little mini family party to finish up opening presents 

We played with his new toys.

Then we got to eat his monkey cake. I got the idea from Family Fun, and though it looks almost exactly like the example, I'm not sure it looks like a monkey. :) Carter picked it out of a few pictures that I showed him, and I actually had a good time making it. I made it the night before and giggled every time I walked past it between then and when we ate it. I don't know why... it just looks funny. 

Don't mind Andi's rain jacket... she refused to take it off:

Some 3 year Carter stats: 

-Though he is just barely 3, we are having to buy him 4T pants to get them long enough. This limits the number of places that we can buy pants, however, because they have to have the adjustable waste band because he is so stinkin' skinny!

-He loves Handy Manny and Mickey Mouse cartoons.

-Some of his favorite movies right now (they change almost weekly) are "Madagascar 2,""The Incredibles," "Hercules," "Cars," "Jungle Book," & "Toy Story 2."

-He enjoys jumping off of things, climbing on anything, and wrestling.

-His favorite thing to eat is eggs and toast and requests this almost every morning.

-He says his favorite color is red, but he picks green if ever given an option. (he picked out all the green hershey kisses out of his potty treats, he picks out the green fruit loops, he picked out the green easter egg chocolates...)

-He is kind of sassy. Some of his favorite sassy sayings are, "Stop talking to me!" "You need to calm down." "Get out of here!" "Get off of me!" (when you tickle him and he doesn't want you to).

-He is very rough with Andi, usually in a playful way, but also has a very tender spot for her. If Andi gets upset when her diaper is being changed he'll bring her a favorite stuffed animal. He always looks out for her in nursery. He always tries to find her binky around the house to give to her (much to Mom's chagrin). If he ever gets in the fridge to get his milk he'll always bring Andi's to her too. 

-He also has some little things he says that just make us laugh. If he can't do something, like a button up on a shirt, or pants he'll say, "That's  a little tricky." He has a Buzz Lightyear watch/compass and if you try to touch it he'll pull away and say, "That's dangerous!" If he spills something or messes something up he'll say, "It's okay, it was an accident." 

-He loves playing basketball and catch.

-His favorite thing to wear are his new red basketball shorts.

-Carter has worn his moose pajamas almost every night since Christmas. He has worn massive holes in the bottom of both of the feet, and finally this last week we hid them and told Carter that they were dirty and have distracted him from needing to wear them.

-Carter is a HOT kid. Yes, he's good looking, but I am talking body temperature. He sweats all the time. I am sure a lot of that has to do with his nonstop jumping, but really, he is hot and flushed the majority of the time. Almost every night Carter will take off his pajamas and sleep just in his pull up, and will still be roasting hot when we go check on him.

-Some of Carter's favorite toys are his Buzz Lightyear, all of his "Cars" toys, and his new Handy Manny toys are rapidly moving into the #1 spot. 

-This boy LOVES to sing. I hear him in the morning singing in his room. We sing all through bathtime and very frequently at the table. If, however, I sing when he does not want me to, Carter will tell me to, "Stop singing!" "Sssssshhhh!" or "Be quiet Mom!" Another sassy moment. 

-His favorite game is to play tigers or dinosaurs. We will crawl on all fours around the house being these animals, or we are being chased by these animals and will need to run and hide from them. When Dad gets home he is always the dinosaur or tiger and Carter, Andi, and I will hide in Carter's bed from him. 

We cannot imagine life without this little ball of energy! Jefferson and I thank our Heavenly Father every night for this sweet, energetic, fun, loving little boy. We just love you Carter McKay!! Happy 3rd Birthday!

Mommy Moments: HAPPY

I can't even explain how blessed we are as a little family. So many things have just been "falling" into place recently. Big things, small things. We are so aware of Heavenly Father's hand in our life. We don't know why we are being so blessed, but it certainly is inspiring us to keep on trying to do all the right things. 

One blessing is not having to work! I have been so much happier and patient with my kids since the job ended. I don't have to rush to put my kids down by one so I can open up the office. We can stay up a little later and eat a cookie if we want to. I don't feel as rushed to get out the door to run all of our errands in the morning because we will have all afternoon to get them done now too. We can start projects in the afternoon and make big messes because I don't have to worry about a phone call or visitor interrupting our play time. We can go on walks and to the park in the afternoon with no office hours to worry about. Thank you Jefferson for supporting me quitting, and thank you government aid for making it possible. :)

A funny/unnerving comment Andi made the other night... we like to play in the kids room. Carter will close the door and I'll knock on the wall so they can't see me and the kids will look at the door and ask, "Who is it?" It's usually a dinosaur or a monster or something so we all have to hide. Well a couple of nights ago we were all in there playing, I knocked on the wall, and I asked, "Who is it?" To which Andi replied, "Jesus!"..... I certainly hope not yet. 

We had the missionaries over for dinner last night and Andi has really figured out the flirting thing. She had those two wrapped around her little finger. She thinks she's pretty cute.

We played with playdough a couple of days ago and so Carter made our whole family. Grandma is on Grandpa's shoulders (according to Carter) in the orange, Carter is blue, Jefferson is green with Andi on his shoulder in purple, and I am in pink.

Carter and Andi have been on a roll together lately. Nobody can make Andi laugh like Carter can. They were playing "kitchen" under the table yesterday and Carter would put play food in his mouth and pop it out and Andi would explode into laughter. It was so cute.

The two of them have also been copying each other and snorting when they laugh. It's totally fake (and actually kind of annoying to listen to after the 100th time), but funny that they both think they are so funny. 

Jefferson had one of his three hour classes cancelled on Tuesday so we did a little shopping and went out to lunch. We made our first purchases for baby girl. The picture doesn't do them justice, but aren't these yummy? We are so excited for this little mover to get here!

Happy Happy Birthday Summer dear!

I have to give a shout out to my older sister. It's her birthday today!! I wish we lived closer so that we could celebrate! She is such a great example of patience and love and dedication (to family, her church calling, being a mom, etc). Happy Birthday Sumo!

Catch up...

Jefferson headed back to school today after a two week "break." "Break" because he didn't have classes, but he still had half days of clinic every day. We still got to see him a whole lot more than when he's in class, so I can't complain. This is his last quarter of classes!!! Anyways, we took off for about five days to go to Boise and check out some potential practice opportunities for our very near future. There were some interesting moments along the way, but it turned out to be an overall, great trip. Josh and Jen were kind enough to house us for the duration of our trip and were excellent tour guides. They showed us some of the great spots in Boise, oriented us to West Boise/Meridian (where we would most likely end up), toured us through some neighborhoods, took us on walks, and took us to all the greatest eating establishments. Unfortunately I hardly took any pictures while we were there! Our friends the Hatch's met up with us for a couple of days as they considered the area too. It was fun to walk through some homes and imagine living without shared walls!! It looks like that will probably be our final destination.... more to come on that in the future.

The only time we thought to take a picture was at 11pm after a long day and we were all just lounging around.... nice.

This is Jefferson's dad, Jon, with Carol. You can kind of tell Jefferson and Jon are related:)

Here we are with Jefferson's half siblings:

While we were gone my mom did a fabulous job of taking care of our kids. She had a different craft for them to do every day: making easter egg bunnies, finger painting, making flowers, coloring wooden flowers, baking cookies, etc. She made them capes to run around in (which Carter wears all the time!), took them on outings, on walks, to the park, to OMSI, and even remembered to bathe them!! I was super impressed and pretty sure that my kids could have cared less when Jefferson and I returned home. 

My mom stayed through the rest of the week when we got home and my dad met up with us on Thursday. There have been many trips to Fabric Depot and a lot of sewing! They got to come to my ultrasound on Friday, which was so fun! We also went to the mall and ended up playing in the fish ponds and on lots of little car "rides."

Saturday we went to the movies and during the priesthood session of General Conference, my mom and I took the kids to the park to feed the ducks, play on the playground and eat a picnic dinner. The fresh air and sunshine was much needed.

We spent the evenings playing Five Crowns and eating goodies:

My kids loved waking up to Grandma and Grandpa in the living room. Some day we'll actually have a guest room... wouldn't that be nice?!

My parents went home yesterday and we tried to catch pieces of conference while the kids played with their tunnels:

After both sessions we went on a long walk and ended up at the park for a bit. Again, sunshine=happy. 

Today is another glorious day. I am loving not having to work. We had playgroup this morning and got to play outside for a good bit of time, I am drying apples now, and we plan on going on another nice long walk this afternoon. I wish the sun was going to stay, but we will take whatever we can get!

We had our ultrasound and.....

We are so excited to have another little girl!! Baby girl looks great. She's growing right on track and is busy swimming around in there. Both Carter and Andi informed us that they wanted a sister and Jefferson and I have thought it was a girl all along. My parents were in town and got to tag along to see our little girl up on the big screen. We cannot wait to meet this little one!