Christmas Day

Well Christmas was awesome. The kids let us sleep until 7:00. After that they were up and so excited. Actually I think Amy was up before them and kept checking to see if they were up. She was more excited than they were and definitely more giddy. Madison got a cash register and a jewlery box and some necklaces. Preston got 2 transformers and 2 light sabers. Boys kind of have to get things in pairs so they can fight with them. Jackson just got a few little baby toys.

I got Amy a new set of scriptures and a new coat. She got me a man jewelry box. Now I know that sounds a little gay but it is actually pretty cool. It takes a while to explain it but trust me, any guy out there would like it. The kids also got new coats and church outfits.
We also used the money that was given us to buy a bike trailer extension. I uploaded a video of it b/c it is easier to watch it than it is for me to explain it. It is really fun and the kids had a really good time when we took it out for a spin yesterday.
Yesterday we went around and delivered some cookies and cards to our neighbors. It was fun b/c I think sometimes we forget that Christmas is a time to give instead of receive. We wanted our kids to give something to our neighbors. It was fun. Well I hope that everyone had as fun a Christms as we did. Till next week, Adieu.

CHRISTMAS IN NYC

Well Merry Christmas everyone. I hope everyone had as fun a Christmas as we did. Fortunately for us the kids let us sleep in until 7:00. Actually before I tell you about Christmas I am going to tell you about our trip to NYC.

We went up on Friday to see the Christmas lights and the toy stores. I got a cheap price on a really nice hotel in Manhattan which was only like 3 blocks from Rockefeller Plaza. So Friday night we went around and saw a the ice skaters and lights at Rockefeller. It was nice but it was really really crowded.

The next day we went and saw the Macy's window displays and stopped in a few toy stores. The kids had a good time but it was really windy and super cold not to mention crowded. We walked around until abot 1:00 and then we headed back to the car. We are really glad that we went but we probably won't go again. It didn't seem as Christmasy as we were expecting. You always see in the movies how Christmasy NY is but in real life it is crowded, cold, noisy, and everyone is just out to make a buck. Take this Santa for example. We took a picture of the kids with him. We didn't notice the fat wad of cash in his left hand. After the picture he asked us for a "tip." He wanted $2 per kid. I gave him $1 per kid and we headed for home.

Pictures Say 1,000 Words and Videos Say 10,000

Well I don't have a whole lot of time this week but I thought I would just post a few videos from this week. Enjoy.

Madison's receital on 12/16/07.

Jackson started doing this this week.

An Eclectic Week

Well this week found the Carter household doing a variety of things in a variety of places. The week started off by me taking my National board exam on Monday and Tuesday. Then on Wednesday I took my regional licensing exam. They all went pretty well and I feel like I passed. Hopefully I will get the results back this week. Other happenings included my hunting experience on Saturday. After being shut out twice last week I finally shot a deer on Saturday, which also happened to be the last day of the season. It was only a doe but at least we will be able to put some meat in the freezer.Now dad, you're not allowed to laugh. This is whitetail country. Not everyone can be so lucky to find huge mule deer laying on the sides of mountains.

After the big hunt I cleaned up and then we went to our ward Christmas party. It was pretty fun and the kids were able to see Santa.

In other news...our kids never cease to entertain us with their logic. Madison told me yesterday that the reason I used to wear glasses is because I didn't eat enough carrots when I was a kid. "Only people that don't eat their carrots have to where glasses, dad. Mr. V in my school doesn't even like carrots and he has glasses." On another occasion I was wearing a shirt and tie to school instead of my usual blue scrubs. Preston made the comment,

"Dad everyone is going to make fun of you today."

"Oh yeah, Preston, why is that?"

"Because you are wearing the wrong clothes to school."

Preston apparently only associates shirt and tie with church. When I got home he asked me, "So dad, did everyone make fun of you?" We kind of laughed about it but then when we thought about it more we tried to think of how he would even know about people making fun of others. It is amazing what these little kids pick up on. Well that is our week.

Thanksgiving

So it has been 3 weeks since I last updated the old bloggerino, so I appologize for all the time you guys spent anxiously checking back every five minutes for updates from the Carter household. Well all your efforts have paid off.

So we went to Tennesee for Thanksgiving. We went and visited Amy's sister Abby and her husband, Justin. All of Amy's family was able to fly out and so we had a big old shin-dig (spelling???help me out here!!!). It was the first time in quite a while since everyone on that side of the fam has been able to get together in one place. While we were there we had a murder mystery dinner, built huge paper airplanes out of posterboard (my idea), made some delicious dinners, ate an unquantifiable amount of turkey, played some back yard football, and watched an unholy amount of college football. We also went and visited some old roomates from college. I was roomies with the husband and Amy was roomies with the wifeski.

This is the Hamblin family, Blaine, Angie, and Jace. So that was fun visiting them. We also had a little Christmas party where we had a gift exchange. It was pretty fun especially for Preston and as you can see he has a strange way of showing his enthusiasm.

We were able to take a big family picture with everyone in it. If you can't tell it was freezing, but I think the picture turned out well. It was a pretty good time. It was really nice to see everyone, but we were tired when we got home. I took that Monday off of school so I could recuperate from the long drive.

Now that we are back we are in the final push until Christmas. I am taking boards Mon, Tue, and Wed of this next week. Amy is trying to get Madison and the rest of her piano students ready for their big piano receital on the 16th. And amidst everything else I am trying to find a job. It seems like the fun never ends. Oh well, Tis the season. Well take care and I will try to update again next week. Here are a couple more pics for your veiwing pleasure.

Jackson obviously didn't eat enough for Thanksgiving dinner.

Madison being herself. Amy wanted me to make it expressly clear that Madison was dressed up for "mis-match day" at school. Amy wouldn't noramlly dress Madison in clothes that clash. I guess this just goes to show how much I know, I think she looks pretty good.

The Carter Family Conquers

So as you can tell from the title this week we have been getting things accomplished. Probably the biggest accomplishment is that Jackson finally started to move around. On Monday Amy called me while I was on my way to school. She was in tears and naturally I inquired as to the cause of her tears. "Jackson started crawling!!!" I don't know if these were tears of joy or despair. Regardless, we are going to have to Jackson-proof our house. The other big thing this week was when Amy decided to go dark. She decided to go back to her natural hair color. It is decidedly darker than anything she has ever had. I guess pregnancy can change things.

Madison gave the scripture in primary this week. We forgot that she had to do it until this morning on the way to church but she was able to memorize the scripture and reference in the time it took us to get to church. She did awesome when she had to recite it for the primary. This week Preston got a new Spiderman hat. We are proud of him and even though getting a new hat may not seem like a major accomplishment (to the untrained eye), it really is. You must be trained to see it though. As for me I got a lot of requirements done at school this week. I basically finished my crown and bridge requirements and I did finish my denture requirements. Those requirements tend to hold people up when graduation rolls around but fortunately I was able to get them out of the way.

Anywho, we have accomplished quite a bit this week. These weeks don't seem to happen as frequently as we would like but we get excited when they do. Welp, see ya later.

Happy Halloween!

So thanks everyone for looking at our blog. I think that Amy has been inspired to start blogging with me knowing that people actually read them. In fact she wrote like half of this post! So this last week has been a little crazy. Halloween was definitely the highlight. Amy and I kind of pooped out this year and didn't dress up. The kids however were freakin cute. As you can tell from the pictures the kids hada blast dressing up. Madison was Geniveve from one of the Barbie princess movies.

Preston was originally going to be superman, then he wanted to be a cowboy. We drove to like every store in town and couldn't find any good cowboy accessories (what happened to the classics!). He ended up being a Knight in shining armor. In fact, at the ward trunk-or-treat all the little princesses wanted him to protect them from the dragons while they huddled in the corner. He was so brave!

Preston had a cute Halloween Joy school party this year. He got to make a ghost out of a milk jug, a ghost footprint, and a monster pinata. He had a blast with all the activities and songs that they sang for their little program.

Jackson went as a cute little lion. He actually kept his hat on all night! Some little side notes . . . Our "little" Jackson has turned into quite the "jumping Jack" (ha, ha). He's got some strong legs and loves to bounce and boing all day long. He gets himself pretty worked up about it too, making him very overtired at naptime and bedtime. However, he's got the cutest little giggle and uses it often, so we still love the little chunk.

After the trick or treating, we all came back here and enjoyed some hot tang to warm us up. I think everyone pretty much had a good time though. Here are a couple more really cute pictures for your enjoyment.

The First Post--Our Adventures Over the Summer

Well just to bring people up to date I thought I would start by posting a few pictures of the things we had recently done. This last summer we traveled by minivan across the US and back again. First we traveled to Kansas City to visit my brother Lance and his family. They just moved there and so we wanted to check it out as a possible place to move after school. We were able to go to Liberty Jail and see some of the sights in and around KC. After spending around 6 days there we set off for Utah to visit Amy's folks. We stayed there for a week and went to a few water parks while we were there. Then we went up to Idaho. We had a big reunion with all my brothers and their families. It was awesome b/c it was the first time in probably 5 years that we had all been together. It was awesome. We were able to ride the horses , shoot guns off the back porch and otherwise enjoy the simple pleasures of country living.

After we left Idaho we traveled to Tennesee via KC where we stopped overnight. We visited Abby and Justin there for a few days. They were experiencing record heat in Nashville while we were there so we didn't get out to see too many sights while we were there. After our four days there we came back home and started school the next day. All said we put 5250 miles on our van. The kids did great great but surprisingly enough Jackson was the best behaved of all the kids.

After we got home we were wasted from our "vacation." We did go camping one time to help us relax. We went to this place in PA called Pine Grove Furnace State Park. It was an old open-pit iron mine that fell into disuse in the late 1800's and since then has filled with water and is now a beautiful lake. The PA parks dept. has hauled in a bunch of sand and now there is a big sandy beach at the lake. It is awesome. I don't have any pics from the lake, here are some from our camp site.

Well, Madison took that last picture. I hope you like the show. Well that is what we have been up to. If you are reading this last paragraph I guess the blog didn't suck too bad. Tell us what you think. We were inspired to start blogging by a few our friends that have blogs. Hopefully now we can just keep up with it. Peace out until next time.