Is it too early to be a snowbird?

I'm sick of the winter...sick, sick, sick. I hate being cold and I am cold all of the time. So I have decided that I am going to start living in Arizona with my friend Kristyn from about October to April. I hope she's okay with this...I don't cook, in fact I will be expecting a nice meal most nights...I will organize, but not clean...and I don't babysit...I'm not sounding like that great of a roommate, sorry. I am still deciding whether or not I'm bringing my family...maybe Joel, probably not the kids. They can come and visit. I tell Joel almost everyday that we are moving to Arizona or that he needs to take me to Hawaii. I love the heat...bring it on. This is totally weird, I know, but, I am so cold all the time, even in my house...I essentially have frostbite on my toes...apparently I also have a circulation problem. The point is, I'm freezing and would like to be in a coffin of heat. The boys and I are in California visiting Ben and Whit and the boys, and my grandparents and aunt and uncle. It's warmer, but not enough...we are heading to Palm Springs this week! Hopefully that will do the trick for a bit.

Terrible 2s...I think not, 3 is bad!

Is it just me or are 3 year olds really hard to deal with? Don't get me wrong, I love my kids, even the one who is three, but he is causing me much stress lately. It's getting a little better, but I keep anticipating another horrid couple of weeks.

Carter was the sweetest and best baby ever and then he turned one and it was the pits. I attribute his bad attitude towards not being able to communicate. He would scream at me and we would just be at each other all day. I didn't know what he wanted and he didn't know how to tell me...it was rough, but by 17 months life got better and I liked him again. He started talking and we could help each other and life was good. When he was two he was great. We had so much fun together, singing songs, running through fields of tall grass...wait, no, that was Little House on the Prairie...anyway it was fun, seemingly carefree. Three started out blissfully and as the year came to a half-way point it started going downhill. I don't know if Christmas and being spoiled with toys triggered this bad behavior or what, but the last couple weeks have been bad.

I've been afraid that I will be on the 5 o'clock news...woman snaps and does something terrible...I can't even finish it, but I've been stressed. Let me tell you how I spent Valentines Day. So, bad day at home with the kids, obviously, and then poor Joel, comes home from work and disagrees with one thing I said and I flipped out and said, "I'm out of here." I dropped off the garlic mashed potatoes I made (which were a pain to make) for the ward dinner and then drove to Home Depot to pick up some "specialty" light bulbs for our stupid light in our bedroom that had been out for forever (annoying, because I had checked like 300 places for these dumb light bulbs and nobody carries them). Anyway, at Home Depot this super cool guy helped me find the light bulbs and then we sat at the patio furniture and talked about rotten kids and how hard it is to be a parent and then he asked me to do him a favor if I had some time. I told him I had all night. He asked me to walk around the whole store and tell him how many employees don't say "hi" to me and ask if there's anything they can do for me and he gave me a card for a discount next time I come. I did and they have a pretty friendly store. I wasn't ready to go back home yet, so I went to Starbucks and had a hot chocolate and a cupcake (nice dinner, I know). I sat there for about 2 hours just staring at the wall and enjoying being alone and listening to the nice music. As I was sitting there I will admit, I had a few bad ideas crawl through my mind...like maybe I should start drinking...wouldn't it be nice to just drown my stresses with a nice...okay, I'll stop there. I was a good girl and pushed those thoughts right on through...

I shouldn't just pick on Carter...Mason is a little annoying right now too. He is super sweet, but he is into everything! He drives me up a wall. I hate having to shut doors and move things around just because there is a baby around, but I can't keep up with this kid like I could with Carter. He is busy. Just recently he got into my paint and managed to spill almost an entire bottle of white paint (at least it was white) all over our carpet and himself, all within a matter of minutes. No worries (well, there was stress, but) we got it all up and out, we hope, with a rug doctor we rented. So, Carter - flip outer...Mason - annoying.

My point was not to have anyone feel bad for me or think I'm bad for having bad thoughts or think my kids are bad...I guess my point was just to vent. Kids are tough...little stinkers, mouthy little stinkers, stinkers who flip out every time you say anything. But sometimes they are wonderful...maybe I'll have to do a post about a nice time we had once...awhile ago...when life was good...it'll get better, right?

...and a Happy New Year!

Ah yes, what follows Christmas...(which I just finally posted below)...New Years. We went to Mom and Dad Shafer's house for New Years. Doug and Jackie were visiting and it was so much fun to be with them. Jackie and Doug gave Mom some kids super-hero capes that Jackie's mom makes and sells on etsy (they're pretty cool, so you should check them out)...and Carter had fun with it...we put one on Mason and he didn't seem to care one way or the other. He would just walk around doing his thing with the cape on.

Sweet Aunt Jackie was so nice and would play with Carter...meaning she had to run around the kitchen about three trillion times as they chased each other in their capes. Carter had so much fun with Doug and Jackie and like I said, they were so nice to play with him as much as he wanted.


Doug is so funny. This is him trying one of the kids' capes...I wish I had gotten a picture of Joel when he tried them on, but I didn't...sorry Joel, I need to take more pictures of you. We also went to my cousin Stacey's wedding in Portland, which was really cool. We're so happy for her!

We also went to the Mt St Helens Museum just down the road from Mom and Dad's house. It was cool to watch the videos and realize that Joel and I are probably going to die due to volcano eruption, seeing as how we live right next to Mt Rainier, which is next in line to blow!...supposedly. I don't know who we're standing next to...he's covered in ash though...maybe an explorer who was around for a different eruption, not the 1980 one because he looks like he's from another time.




Here is Carter outside the museum. I just thought this was a cool picture.





Mom, Dad, Doug and Jackie, and Joel went for a walk on the trail around the museum...I took the kids home for their naps. I think this is a cool picture...poor Joel didn't have anyone there to hold his hand...what a fun time though. We sure do love being with our family. We wish that Ben, Whit, and the kids could have been there too. We really had such a great time. Seriously family is the best.

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.

I'm thankful for...

I'm thankful for family at Thanksgiving! Obviously, I have problems getting things done, but give me a break it was Christmas which is totally stressful though such a wonderful time...blah, blah, blah...So here are some pictures from Thanksgiving. Ben, Whitney, Joel, and Kadin came up and we had a great Thanksgiving together! This is what meal time looked like everyday...three times a day. Is it just me, or are these the cutest kids ever?!
The boys were so excited for the new beds they have at Grandma's house, complete with Lightening McQueen sheets. Though they had to sleep in the storage room where it was freezing...no worries, we put about 30 blankets on each kid.
They loved Uncle Ben's stories before bed...even my Joel got a kick out of them. I can't help but smile when I see this and wonder what Ben was saying. Carter has now started telling us stories before bed and they are hilarious. I tried to get sweet Kadin in this picture, but the angles weren't working for me, so the best I could get was the corner of the pack-n-play he was sleeping in.
This is where you would find Mason most the time...doing laundry with Grandma. He loved it and it wouldn't matter where he was or what he was doing, as soon as he heard the door to the laundry room open (which he could hear from anywhere in the house amazingly) he took off running, so happy, to find Grandma and help her out. Unfortunately for me he took this new fun thing to do home with him and I now have to let him help me all the time. He's a good help though and he's so cute about it.
Carter and Joel really had such a good time together. They loved playing with Grandma's trains and have missed each other since then. Mom and Whit made a delicious Thanksgiving dinner...well as delicious as you can get for Thanksgiving food. I dislike almost every dish that is served at Thanksgiving. They did a great job though. I did contribute one dish, which is almost the only dish I like, fluffy sweet potatoes, a recipe from Cami (Joel's sister). I'm not a sweet potato fan, but these are seriously good. Nobody liked them two years ago, but this year, hmm, strangely, everyone seemed to eat them up (except for Whit, who was true to her dislike of them). I am so grateful to Ben and Whit for making the trip up. It was really such a wonderful time together. I miss them already and look forward to our next gathering...only with Doug and Jackie too. Family is awesome!

Oh My Cars!!

So Carter and Joel were in heaven early in November when we went to the Seattle Auto Show! I just thought I would show you a couple of pictures from the extravaganza. This is Mason...already having developed a love of cars at the young age of 1!
Here is Mason taking Carter out for a spin in the Golf before the Auto Show.
"Mom! Look a Hummer!!"
I believe in this picture we are standing next to Nini's car...I'm not a car person so I don't really know...I'll have to check with the experts.
And finally a motorcycle just Carter's size. The boys seriously had so much fun. Carter was so excited the whole time and of course threw a fit when we had to leave. He knows a lot the cars and their names...it was really funny...and amazing. Good times.