Mommy, come here! Take a picture!!

I hear Carter calling me. He wants me to take a picture of something. I come in the room he is in with Daddy, and he is posing for the camera. I COULD NOT get him to look at me. Oh well. He set up the scene and wanted it documented.

So much fun to have Daddy home for a few weeks!!!

You know you're pregnant when...

You know you are good and pregnant when random men in line with you comment on your pregnancy.

I have found men especially will not comment on a women's pregnancy (for fear it is just a weight issue) unless they are completely confident that she is pregnant.

I had a man in line behind me at the bank comment on my busy child, and my soon to be new baby.

I must be getting big enough huh!!

Animals

I got this really cool mat for a quarter. It has all the letters of the alphabet on it, with pictures of zoo animals. It came with no animals. I thought it would be a really good learning toy, even without the animals. Then, my friend Chandra found 13 of the animals at a garage sale. She gave them to me, and now I am on the lookout for the rest. Carter has a lot of fun with the animals. He gets stuck on Monkey though. He says that Monkey starts with "W, and upside down W". We are working on it.

So, this is my fun summer project - find the rest of the animals. So far I have and need:

Alligator

Bear

Camel

Dolphin

Elephant

Flamingo

Giraffe

Hippopotamus

Iguana

Jaguar

Koala

Lion

Monkey

Nightingale

Ostrich

Penguin

Quail

Rhinoceros

Seal

Tiger

Urial - like a big horned sheep

Vulture

Walrus

X-Ray Fish

Yak

Zebra

We have a Zebra and white Bear that we have been using - but I am still on the lookout for the ones with the red letters on their chest so Carter can see the "match". We have also been using it as a matching game.

Follow the Prophet

Tonight our Family Home Evening was on following the prophet. Carter was very excited, and wanted to teach the lesson. With my guidance, he did a very good job. We learned that our prophet speaks for God, and gives us instructions (mostly to say we're sorry for bad things we've done). There have been lots of prophets throughout the world's history. The Bible is mostly compiled of the teachings of the prophets and apostles - Noah, Moses, Abraham, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John - and of course Jesus himself. We opened up the words of our current prophet Thomas S. Monson from the last General Conference. There is a picture of every general authority in the church, starting with the current prophet and his 12 apostles.

Carter was very quick to point out Thomas S. Monson, Henry B. Eyering, & Dieter F. Uchtdorf (How many of your 2 year olds can pronounce that name huh? I just had to boast a little there.). I was surprised when he started naming others from the 12 apostles: Boyd K. Packer, Russell M. Nelson, and my favorite "That's Tom" L. Tom Perry (He's was an attorney, so he can abbreviate his first name. They all do that right?)

Afterwards, we got into a discussion about husbands and wives. I tried to explain that I am not just a mommy - I am daddy's wife. Carter had a really hard time understanding this. I told him that before I was a mommy, I was just a lady. "Nooooooooo, Mommies can't be ladies." So, David tried to explain that mommy was just a girl. Nope. So, we skipped the before part and I said "I am Daddy's wife, and he is my husband." Carter responded with "And I am my sister". Nope. I still don't think he got it.

Then, he went on to explain "My Daddy has older boys who are tall. They say bad words and make bad choices. Daddy has two three year olds." I'm not sure where he gets this stuff.

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Elmer or Ethel?

David and I really liked having an in-utero name for Carter - "Vern". Vern was David's grandfather's name, and it really seemed to fit. 

We have been discussing new names for a couple months. I want to know what you think, or if you have any better ideas - PLEASE!

 "Elmer" had been passed down for many generations on David's dad side of the family. David's great-aunt said to me last week: "Name him anything, but please don't name him Elmer." I figured if it was his in-utero name, it was pretty safe we wouldn't go with it. 

Ethel just seemed like a good old lady name. David wanted "Elsie" because he has a grandma Elsie and a great-great grandma Elsie on his dad's side. I vetoed that because I didn't want his grandmother, who is living, to think that we were really going to name a baby Elsie when we weren't planning on it. 

We are not set on either one of these yet, so we really need ideas. I know this is horrible, but I have been scanning the obituaries for a good little-old-man/lady name that fits. We just need a name that we are not going to use, but is fun to call an unborn baby.

A day in the life

Today was one of those days that I was expecting as a stay-at-home mom. I had always hoped that I could deviate from schedule (Any of you who know me, know that my schedule is very important to me.) I am not a Nazi about my schedule, but I like to have things on the calendar so we don't fill up our days doing nothing.

This morning we were going to go to the park with friends, but it was raining. I decided to run a quick errand into Seattle instead. While we were there, I realized that we were not far off from the zoo and the boat locks. I gave Carter the choice, and he chose the boats. (Although on the way home, he really wanted to go to the zoo too.)

We had a lot of fun. Carter watched the boats come in and out. He sat watching for an hour! Wish I could get that kind of attention span at home! We saw this boat:

Carter was very interested in what all the boat's names were. This captain sat and talked with us while he was going up, and waiting to go out. He was very nice. It is a wooden boat, built back in 1929 and restored in 2000. You can see more pictures here:

http://sevenbells.org/

On the way home (and the drive up), Carter shouted out a few vehicles. He has been very excited every time he sees a Subaru, saying: "THAT'S A SUBARU, JUST LIKE MY DADDY DRIVES A SUBARU!!"

He says the same about Saturns, except he inserts "YOU" instead of "MY DADDY".

On Saturday, he started shouting a new one:

He calls them Mickeys. It is one of those little kid things that I know he'll grow out of pretty quick, but it is so cute. I have to say "Yeah, that is a Mini, you are right." to correct him though.

He finally stopped calling his toes "Towees". I call them "Towees" and he corrects me. Sad. He is growing up so much in his language.

Slow down kid!

The things he says!

Daddy and Carter went on a mini road trip last night to pick up some car parts. On the way back, Carter let him know that he had to potty. David pulled over at the first place he could - Dairy Queen. After they were finished in the bathroom Carter says:

"We should get some food to eat at the restaurant."

Daddy says:

"I don't think there is anything here you can eat."

Carter says:

"It's okay Daddy, I can eat french fries."

That logic was so persuasive that Daddy bought him french fries.

Speaking of Carter asking to go potty - Carter has seemed to finally bounce back from his regression. He hasn't had an accident in 2 days, and he is more than willing to go and tell us when he needs to go!!! He is also waking up dry again. Yay!!

We have switched over to Christmas music. I heard Carter in the back seat singing "Sure am glad I quit the hard drugs." (from his Old Hippie song). He loves that song, but I just think 2 is a little young to be singing about that. So, we moved onto Christmas. It was very difficult to switch. He didn't want to hear anything else.

As a parent I find myself saying "we" a lot when referring to something that he needs to do. For example, in the morning I will tell him "We have to finish our oatmeal before we get down and play." He will correct me "No, you are not eating oatmeal. Only me". He is quick to correct me when I say "we" are doing something when only he is doing it.

This morning he tells me "We need to go to the donut shop so you can get a donut and I can get a candy." The lady at our donut shop always has a candy for him. He thinks it is the greatest place on earth. If I wasn't so sick, we might not go as often.

Carter has a little hero worship going on with an older boy at church. He thinks he is so cool. His name is Ben. Ben's mom invites us to all of his sports. He is now in track. We went to his track meet today and he ran pretty hard. Carter was so excited to watch. When we got home the doggies were barking at the neighbor. I was calling them to come in and Carter says to me "No, you only yell for Ben, not at doggies!"

Funny Boy

David has a project in the driveway. Carter went down in the driveway where David was working inside the car. He went in the garage, grabbed this cardboard box, slid it under the car, then laid down on top of it. Carter wants to be just like Daddy.

Carter built a "temple" with Duplo Legos. I think it is pretty creative.

Carter and I go to a restaraunt that does a story/craft time once a month. They do an awesome job. This month I ordered Carter a fruit bowl to snack on. He took a bite into all of them and handed me the cantelopes. As he did, he says to me "I can't eat this." When I asked him why he responded "It is not gluten-free". I try really hard not to focus on what he cannot eat, but what he CAN eat. Apparently he is quite observant.

For Memorial Day, I thought it would be a good idea to go to the cemetery to clean the graves of David's family, many of whom served in the military. Unfortunately, David got called to help someone whose car had broken down and we didn't make it. Later in the week, after story time, we stopped by the cemetery to visit anyways. Carter helped me clean their gravestones. We didn't get to do a great job because Carter got bored and began to play baseball - using gravestones as bases, and a stick as a bat. I decided it would be more respectful to leave at that point than try to continue with my goal.



Another Day of Doctors

We went to have Carter's abdominal X-Ray. He was so excited to be there too. I brought all his special doctor only toys. The tech took one look at Carter and told me that it really wasn't going to work - there was no way he could hold still for this. I told him he needed to give Carter a chance. Little man held still for all three X-Rays. There was no need to take any again!

We went to the store to drop my camera off for servicing - so you know there won't be any pictures for the next couple weeks. Where Carter fell off a chair. We went home for Carter's nap and he fell down about 4 concrete stairs. He was trying to open the front door and fell backwards. It was a nasty fall. Off to the chiropractor we went. He had knocked his head off kilter pretty bad.

On the way back home to do our nap for real, Carter said to me:

I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living, my mommy you'll be.

It was so cute. We had been reading that book a while, but not recently.

After nap we went to a friend's track meet. Carter kept asking me what kind of ball there would be this time. I told him there would be no ball. He didn't believe me. How can you play a sport without a ball???? I was sure Carter would be bored. However, he has some sort of hero worship going on for this boy - who is in Junior High - and Carter was glued to the track. He gave me a play-by-play of what happened, and when we got home, he was running short races in the yard. So cute! I doubt we have our new favorite sport, but we have certainly diversified.

At bedtime we decided to read Love You Forever, I was surprised when I let him read it to me. He knew MOST of the words. He absorbs sooooo much!!!