Monday, November 28, 2011

Thanksgiving

So much to be thankful for. There are plenty of pictures here.....don't think I have much else to say.

my dad and his 10 pointer

Carlee and Grandpa ....she had to hang onto a horn.

Grandpa and Carter

Our "smokin'" turkey

Emma - Hanna - Carter

Emma wanting her picture taken.  :-)

Carter, Hanna, Emma & Carlee all coloring the same page.

Love this one.....Hanna wanted to see what Carter was playing on his Leapster.
So sweet......

Ah.....I get one of them sleeping EVERY time.  I think Jordan stayed up too late the night before.

Matt and Angie...what a nice picture of you two.

Carlee having a conversation with Liz.

Liz & Jeremy

Dad & Nadine

Dad trying to hang onto all the kids.

Grandpa & Grandma with the little ones.

Hanna 

my big sis and I

Little Emma....and her wild hair.

me with Dad & Angie 

Carter brushing Carlee's teeth

Justin and Marissia

Kids playing at the next Thanksgiving dinner.

Penny

Rhonda & Nadine

Ashley, Geoff & Penny

Stanley, Sophie & Sandy

Penny & Rhonda

Shelly with Carlee and Penny

Carter watching as Marissia learns to play his Leapster.

Carlee & Aunt Shelly

Carter was super excited to go out hunting with Daddy.

Carter waiting patiently for a deer.....

He looks so proud holding his own gun.




Thursday, November 17, 2011

Skittles are awesome....

Last week I forgot to mention, Carter learned how to tie his shoes!.  Congratulations goes out to Carter!  We worked on it one evening last week.  It started off pretty rocky, but after I decided to get the Skittles out, he chose to learn pretty quickly.  :-)  
A "congratulations" also goes out to Carlee.  As of last Friday, she has finally decided to cooperate with potty training.  We've been working with it on and off since August, with no luck.  I started out bribing her with stickers, which didn't really work.  I went straight to Skittles, but that didn't work right away either.  Friday was the first day we went back to potty training and we started early in the morning.  By about 9 that morning, she had finally peed in the potty!  Without even mentioning Skittles to her since a couple weeks prior, she looks up to me after I've given her a hug and told her how proud I was of her, and says "I have Skittles."......which meant that she wanted the Skittles she earned.  I couldn't believe she remembered that!  So I did reward her with two Skittles and now we're down to one skittle (or if it's close to bedtime, she gets a great big bear hug instead).  I have to say, it's not been a full week yet and she hasn't had a pee accident in two full days (except #2, which will soon follow, I'm sure).  It'll be so nice to get rid of buying diapers!  Yay!  Carlee will be 2-1/2 next month, so I'm pretty happy that she's finally decided to work with me.  
Skittles work like charms in this household.  :-)

Carter on the 4-wheeler

time for crazy hat...

i think she looks pretty cute here.

Carlee

Grandma and the kids

the kids and Grandpa

Three Men & a Baby
Larry - Jay - Justin

Carter with a funny look in his one eye.....lol

Grandma with a pickin' nose Carlee

Grandma and Carter sharing a chip

Carlee wanting to share a chip with Grandma

Carlee wanting to share a chip with Grandpa too....

my little girl and I

Carter outside riding his bike

On Sunday, we had a big bear that was kicked out of the field by a combine and headed straight to our place and went through our sheds.  Of course I had to go and get the camera!  Only wish I would've taken more than this one picture.  Just after this picture, he was up on his hind legs for probably a good 10 seconds, but I just stood there staring.  Using the 4-wheeler and a gunshot, Jay chased him back into the woods.  It was a neat experience, but I'd rather not see him again here.  


our Sunday visitor


Carlee just a swingin'

Carlee posing  :-)

Gotta throw rocks in the pond

and now sticks.....

Good luck to all the deer hunters!  Hope you shoot the turdy pointer!

J

Thursday, November 10, 2011

It's been busy lately, but I sure didn't take enough pictures to show it.  :-)  


It was a spur of the moment decision, but I decided I wanted the bathroom painted, finally.  So we worked on that project on and off throughout the last week.  Earlier this week, I had to take a very important phone call....one where I couldn't have the kids yelling or fighting in the background.  Therefore, I went outside and sat in the car. (Anybody else ever do that?)  Afraid to see what five minutes would do, I came back inside to find Carlee with the bag of bagels in one hand and her holding a bagel with one finger in the bagel hole, nibbling away like a little mouse.  I wish I would've had the camera with me at that moment, but I got the next best thing.....a picture of the bagel when she decided she was finished (see below).  Another Carlee moment happened tonight while I was making snacks for Carter's "snack day".  Usually, if she's not at my heels, I know she's probably into something.  I seen the bathroom light was on and realized she found my makeup (the kind in the pump). She didn't choose to put it on herself, but she did decide it would look better smeared on my 3-day old paint.  No soap and water took it off either!  Thankfully, Lysol all-purpose cleaner did the job and it didn't take off my fresh paint.  So of course, she had to stay by me from that point on.  Trying to get these snacks made, I still wasn't paying enough attention to her, but she was playing in drawers so I figured everything would be okay.  Wrongo!!  I go to look for my handy dandy measuring spoon and it's missing.  Need I say more?  I still haven't found it.  I swear whatever this girl touches goes straight to the Bermuda Triangle, because there have been so many things she's had lately and somehow they just disappear.  I don't even want to know what she's going to be like as a teenager!  Some say if they're rotten toddlers, they grow up to be very good teenagers (which is how I was, right Ma?....I still blame Angie and Terry Jr for all those things....lol)  Others say that it'll always stay the same.  I'm hoping she takes after me in this case...    

Carter helping out with the paint job.  I think he did better than I ever have.

Carlee's bagel, as described above.

Carlee watching the snow come down.

I took this picture almost as soon as she stepped outside.  It truly shows her expression because she was in such awe of the first snowfall. I think it was the longest she's stood still since she learned how to walk.  

Had to get the big guns (aka tractor) out to get this snowman's stomach on.  :-)

Carter climbing the snowman.

He's such a good builder.

Carlee just sticking her tongue out to be funny.

Our first snowman of the season.  Yes, I know Carlee doesn't have any socks/shoes on.  She wanted to come back in the house before I could grab my camera, but I had to get her in the picture.

Carter's idea to sit on the snowman's head.  Not quite the hat I'd choose, but  original.  I'm just glad it didn't break.

Frosty turned out pretty good.  Although, he is positioned right in front of our front porch area and when we come down from upstairs....that's all you see out the front door.  He startled me just a bit when I came down stairs in the middle of the night.  The moon was so bright out last night, the snowman just glistened, and I guess you could say it just took me by surprise a little bit.  :-)  I'm sure he'll be melted away soon, but I'm sure the kids will have a blast making another.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Halloween

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!  The first two pictures are of the amazing pumpkins Jay carved for the kids.  Carlee's favorite "Tinker Bell" and one of Carter's favorites, "Lightning McQueen".  He definitely has more patience than I do.  I think he did a wonderful job!  I found the templates and he carved them....that's a fair deal, right?  You'll also see some pictures of the kids dressed up in their Halloween costumes and some when they went trick-or-treating.  It was really cute seeing Carlee walk up and say "trick-or-treat".  She handled it great.....although she was slowing Carter down.  He wanted to run, run, run to every house, but he had to wait for 'lil sis.   Soon enough she'll be running along with him.  :-)

Tinker Bell & Lightning McQueen

...with the lights off

the kids and their pumpkins

My little girl dressed up as a pirate

Carlee saying "Arrrgggghhhh"


Carter saying "Arrrgggghhhh"

Carter said to me one day, "But pirates aren't mean, Mom....I want to be something else."  I replied back and told him not all pirates are mean, but if he wanted to be a mean pirate, he could pretend.  His only knowledge of pirates comes from the"Jake and the Neverland Pirates" disney show, and that doesn't exactly portray very mean pirates (which is just fine by me!); even Captain Hook doesn't look as scary as Carter does in this pic.


Getting ready to go trick-or treating

Carlee looks thrilled in this picture......lol   (I was trying to get her to say "Arrggghhh", but it didn't quite work out.)

The first house.....

The kids trick-or-treating

Carlee diggin' in for a good piece of candy.



Another Halloween has come and gone.  Carter says he wants to be a zombie next year....I think he learned that word from Scooby Doo. 

Pretty soon, it'll be Turkey Day, and Christmas is right around the corner too (only 52 days).  I can't believe how fast this year has gone!