Merry Christmas...

I'm finally getting around to posting some fun pictures from Christmas. We went to Utah to visit Joel's family for Christmas. We had so much fun. It had snowed a bunch while we were there. Carter had fun helping his Dad shovel all the snow around "Nini" and "Poger's" house.








Here is a picture of Joel's parents' house. The snow is so pretty, but far too cold for me.





We took a trip to Downata Hot Springs in Idaho. I was a little leery at first because it was freezing and so swimming in an outdoor pool didn't seem like such a great idea, but it was so fun and the water was so warm. This picture makes me laugh every time I see it. The boys look so funny. They had to wear these ear protectors because it was so cold out...yeah, it was 17 degrees outside.
This is what Mason and I looked like the entire time. We stayed in the pool for over two hours...I couldn't make myself get out, it was just too cold outside and so toasty in the water. Mason even took a little nap while in the pool...funny huh? Our hair even had icicles on it...it was crazy.
Carter had the time of his life in the pool. Once he got his handy dandy float on, he was up and down that slide for hours. I was so happy because he wasn't scared at all and he would just go on the slide with no one's help for forever. It was great.
Here's another shot of him enjoying himself. Even Poger got in and had a good time in the water! That's Joel's brother, Eric, and Molly on the side there as well. I wish I had a picture of Joel in the water, but I wouldn't get out to take one. He had fun and would go down the big twisty slide and come shooting out of it like a spinning rocket...it was cool.
And finally Christmas morning! I love everyone's hair in this picture...the just out of bed look.






There was tons of snow in Morgan and so a bunch of the kids made sledding runs down the hill, they even made little jumps here and there. Our cousin Chad took his snowboard down the runs a few times as well.
Poger was so nice and set up his trains for Dylan and Carter and they loved them! They had so much fun watching those trains and playing with them. I love their hair in this picture too. Seriously, so funny...Utah static + recent nap = this. It was seriously so fun and Joel and I were sad to go. We wish we would have planned our trip better and been there more when everyone else was there...we're sure we missed out on much more fun! We love our family and really have such a good time with them. We're looking forward to our next gathering.

I'm sorry, is Carter 3 or 16?

Has my sweet this, already turned into...THIS!!!???

Seriously, I'm in deep trouble with this kid. He's already talking back to me. I didn't know that 3 year olds could do that. Here's the story...Mason loves to tease Carter by taking one of his cars he as so carefully lined up and running away with it. Carter then chases him and pushes him or hits him and yells at him. When Carter does this to Mason he has to go to time out. Any time he hits or pushes Mason he goes to time out. So, one evening Mason did his normal teasing routine and Carter chased after him and was pushing him down while yelling at him and ripping the car out of his hands. I went over there and got down on my knees and told Carter he was to go to time out for pushing Mason and he knows that those are the rules and we don't push each other. He then proceeded to yell in my face, "Well I have a job to do!". I said, "It doesn't matter if you have a job to do, you pushed Mason and so you have to go to time out." He then yelled at me again and said, "Well, maybe if you watched Mason better he wouldn't get my cars!" Uh, what...what just happened here...did I just hear that correctly? Wow. I admit I thought it was funny that he thought to say that and was trying not to laugh as I told him that he was probably right, but it didn't matter he was still going to time out and he better not talk to me like that again. The story does have a good ending, so keep reading. Carter then puts himself in time out and stays there for about 3 minutes and then on his own he comes up to me and very calmly says, "Mom, I think next time this happens I shouldn't push Mason, I should just come get you." I was so happy! Yes, that's what you do. I told him he was right and he needed to go and say sorry to Mason and give him a hug. He did and then after a few minutes he said to me from the other room, "Mom, I'm so sorry that I pushed Mason." This kid can be so fiesty and angry, but yet he can be so nice and apologetic. We continue to have run-ins with him, but we are trying to figure out how to get a hold of this before his actual teenage years. I do love that he talks so well, but it definitely is a blessing and a curse. By the way, pretend that I wrote this in December when it happened. I still put it in because this is the only "journal" I keep...sadly I'm not even keeping this up well.