January 2015- SUNDAY FAMILY PICS

 That's right, folks, bringing back some blogging in the form of January Sunday Family Pictures- Jan. 11th, 18th, & 25th. ENJOY!

SUNDAY FAMILY: February 2nd

Happy February, guys! Seriously, February has gotten a bad wrap from me in the past- it's slow and  still deadly cold/snowy. But, honestly, it ain't no January and for that I am grateful!

We had an excellent Sunday- less busy than usual. I actually had some time home to lay & rest/take selfies to send my writer group girls (which is just what I do). But as we all know there is no rest for the wicked & as soon as I laid down just to kick up my feet for a second, in came one child requesting to be snuggled, and then in came another. And another. And despite my desire for peace & quite I counted my blessings that I had babies who wanted to get loves from their mama (though Rob refused to be involved in the picture).
Speaking of peace, this little hooligan, Lincoln Logs, can sometimes make church so painful (Bless his little nearly-2-year-old heart)! I mostly hang out outside the chapel entertaining him & preventing screaming. This Sunday he spent a good chunk of time crouched in the corner, hiding from other unruly babies, clutching his graham crackers in his fist like Gollum from Lord of the Rings whispering "My precious!"

Yup, that's my baby back there.

The biggest news of this past week was that my lovely friend Esther had her baby! It's the first time in the past 2 children we've had, where I wasn't also HUGE pregnant and/or just had a baby (we unintentionally time our babies like nobodies business). I was honored to be there when she gave birth & tape it for her.

Words have failed me every time I've tried to explain to people what its like to feel the electricity in the room right before she came. To see a new human being taking their first breath. The stress and relief and jubilation of it all. No. Words. That sums it up. And my beautiful friend, Esther was so brave, so fantastic, and I was so proud. And we have a new girl on this lovely planet earth. Which is great. We could always use another girl!

So, TA-DA! Still on the Sunday Family bandwagon! Hope to see you all next week!

SUNDAY FAMILY: January 26

Happy Sunday &, yup, that's right still on the bandwagon! 

Hope everyone had a lovely week! It's been a pretty darn good week- I've been on a bit of a "Spring Cleaning" kick and have been de-junking/cleaning/organizing the house. Thank heavens the Carter Casa has been in need of a deep clean!

We've also been trying to focus in on the family- keep our cool, keeping on a schedule, being more patient (heaven knows, this one in tested 45 million times daily), kids helping with chores, etc. We also had a goal to go on more family dates so yesterday we went out for sushi and clean, clean, cleaned the house. It was fun as always!

And here are these sweet kiddos- Syd reading my all time favorite book as a kid (Box Car Children), Rob who fell asleep in the car proving that he really was sick, & Linc, my little daytime hanging out buddy!

Hope everyone has a great week next week! Last week of January- it's all uphill from here, friends!

Sunday Family - October 13th

Mid October? Seriously? I'm ridiculously unprepared for Halloween and I am remissed to admit that Scott and I have only seen TWO scary movies this month. Blasphemy. And we better get on that before the month blows past us!

The kids have decided on costumes we just have to get them together. Here's a sneak peak at one part of Rob's costume that he now NEVER wants to take off. This kid would look quite dashing is specs I think.

 We've also started decorating for Halloween too. Rob took on the front door and I think he did a nice job. Though all the rain we've been getting lately has kind of drooped the poor monster on our door. He doesn't look nearly as threatening.

 Speaking of rain we had a mini flood in our basement. We caught it before it got too bad but our office is a complete wash. We're going to have to replace the carpet but, hey, we'll paint it and re-do it a bit in the process too so that will be great. In the meantime we relocated to the garage (which is actually a really nice garage) and while its a bit chilling and Scott & I sit literally an inch from each other it's been a bonding experience. We believe STRONGLY in laughing through adversity so that's what we've done!

Also, I chopped my hair off. 7 inches but it really doesn't look/feel like that much but my hair was well below the boob line and getting in my way constantly. I almost hacked it off but slipped in a hair appointment with my fabulous hairdresser just in time. I'm still getting used to it but glad it also feels WORLDS healthier too! It hasn't been this short since right around when I started this blog!

Here's to a more festive week to come! I hope everyone has a great one- go out and do something Halloween-y for me and report back!

Sunday Family- Oct 6th

Happy October and Happy Fall! I can't even tell you how much I love fall here. I just wish that it would last a little longer and that it didn't mean the advent of winter which is never ending in Utah.

Last week was  our church's Conference Weekend where we watch online or listen on the radio to church leaders speak. It's so nice to have a chance to rest, relax, spend lots of time together, and be enlightened all together! The Sunday Afternoon Session we made snack necklaces to make and enjoy while we watched like we did last conference.

We made yummy breakfasts each morning and watched conference while we ate. Nothing beats a good breakfast burrito & my happy family.

 Also, Rob also made a pretty darn cool LDS temple out of Legos.

Then when we watched the Saturday Afternoon session we had different chips with words beside them for us all to listen for. It was a good way to stave off the afternoon sleepies and still pay attention. (but unlike last year I didn't do a million different types of candy to get us all crazy high on sugar).

Hope everyone is having a fantastic October!

Sunday Family- Sept 15th, 22nd, & 29th

 Oh, you lucky people! Three Sunday Family Pictures back-to-back, friends!

 I pretty much stunk the whole month of September as far as blogging so here I am making up some family pictures. Thanks for sticking through, my friends!

The highlights of this past 3 weeks are as follows:

Done and done!

Sunday Family- Sept 8th

Happy Sunday! 

Tell me that I don't have the cutest family ever? I mean, seriously, look at that Rob. All smiles and standing in front of his shoes so it looks like her's wearing them- HA! And Sydney- that face and her attitude! And Linc, I'm telling when he's sleepy he insists on binkie, bottle, & blankie. And that handsome Scott Carter of mine. He had to speak at church this Sunday & he did a magnificant job- it was sweet,funny, & spiritual. I am the luckiest lady around!

And, you guys, FALL! It's coming! I can't even tell you the joy it brings me- cooler weather, pumpkin flavored everything,  falling leaves, and Halloween is a comin'! Hope everyone is soaking up this change in season. I feel a solstice celebration coming up!

Sunday Family- September 1st

Hello September (which snuck up on me MUCH TOO quickly)! 

So, as you can tell from this Sunday Family picture it was one of those rough/trough/terrible Sundays that happen now and then. Also, it was Fast Sunday & while the littles didn't fast they must picked up on how "hangry" (angry feeling which stem from hunger) the adults were because it was quite a first-half-of-Sunday for the Carter Clan . Better luck next time, I always say! (And I don't know what I'm wearing- sometimes I scold Scott when we get to church "Why didn't you say something about what I'm wearing- I look terrible!" to which he just shrugs because to him my sweat pants & old t-shirt are the same as my best, dressiest outfit. To which I say, Bless his soul & I am so grateful he doesn't care!).

 This past week went by in a blur of I don't even know what, but the kids are getting back into the swing of school and homework, Linc & I are having fun with our one-on-one time, & Rob has been trudging painfully through football.

Also, there are some new goodies up on my Etsy shop. Just some random fun stuff and within the next week I'll be posting a couple Halloween goodies up there too! Hooray for Fall!

Sunday Family- Aug 25th

 Happy Sunday, friends!

Phew! What a week we've had! I swear I was SURE that once school started I was going to have ALL this free time. Alas, it has not happened. We've been busy, busy, busy week. Lots of great opportunities to serve friends and neighbors the past bit and, best of all, I get to hang with this little man:

The other big news this week is that Rob started flag football. This is big for him both because he needs to get his crazy amount of energy out and get himself out there. It was the first year they've had football offered so I thought that all the other kids would know nothing, like Rob. But no, when we showed up these kids were already crazy good, with their own gloves for catching and knew all these football terms.

Poor Rob didn't even know how to throw a football so after the first practice we went out & practiced. This weekend is his first game- send him good football-y thoughts!

Sunday Family- August 18th

Happy BACK-TO-SCHOOL week!

It was a crazy Sunday today- as Sundays can sometimes be! Scott had an emergency at work so he had to go in this morning and I managed to wrestle all the kiddos into clothes and got them to church without too many tears. As long as everyone made it there with two shoes on their feet I call it a win!

This past week has been Getting-Ready-For-School-Week! Phew! We are ready... mostly. Well, they are ready. I am not. Well, that's not entirely true. If you ask me around 3 pm on any given day I'd tell you I am VERY ready for the kiddos to get back to school but mostly I'm not. I know it'll be great for them, and they CAN NOT wait for it to start!

So, basically I'm just soaking these three up as much as I can and we are blasting through these last few days of summer!

Hope everyone else is having a fabulous week!

Sunday Family- August 11th

Happy, Happy August!  I mean, seriously, is this summer almost already over? The kids start school WAY too soon & I know it's lame but I am super going to miss them!


We had a sickie Lincoln who stayed at home from church so it was just me and the kiddos this Sunday. It was a crazy week last week - we had a lovely family vacation with Scott's side at Aspen Grove a family camp just up the mountain from us. It was so much fun and deserves it's own blog post.

 But the other exciting/stressful thing that happened last week was Lincoln finally getting tubes in his ears and his adenoids out. I have a fair bit of hearing damage from ear infections & problems when I was Linc's age so I have been stressing about all his ear issues. Finally being able to get those problems worked out has been such a blessing! But, goodness gracious, it was only a 10 minute surgery that felt like hours I was so stressed out about it. Thankfully, I had Scott the Rock to keep me steady when I was panicking.

Look for posts this next week about all the adventures I've been doing this past little bit- I've had quite a bit of adventures!

Sunday Family- July 21st

 Hi Friends and Happy Sunday! 

It has been crazy, busy Sunday today! I was given a new calling at church that is fantastic, gets me involved, and I'll meet lots of the super great women in my church but I had all sorts of meetings & visits today that made it MADNESS! Also, the kids & I are off on a little trip this week and we are leaving SUPER early in the morning so we packed up today and got already so we can get on the road crazy early in the AM. It's going to be terrible but, you know what, it's going to be awesome too. I mean, just look at these cuties: 

I had someone ask about our Sunday Family pictures and how we do them. We have a couple rules here in the Carter house when it comes to Sunday Family pictures- 1) We take them RIGHT after church 2) We can only take 2 sets of 10 so if we mess up on all of them then too bad 3) Have fun!
For example our first set today looked like this:

TA-DA! Hope everyone has a fantastic week and wish me & the Carter children luck on this trip!

Sunday Family- July 14th

Hello Ides of July!

It's been a busy week and I'm not even sure with what. Just that I was busy and I'm exhausted, even as another week begins. But as I looked through my Instagram feed to try and figure out what we've been up to I noticed we did one of two things:

ERRANDS: Most of it was running errands which, let's be honest, with 3 children is like unto running a marathon. Some fun stuff like the library or clothes shopping with a friend. And some not so fun stops like a 3 hour long trip to Target.

 AND

RESTING: Looking at pictures it seems like we did a fair bit of chilling too, which as Carters we are most expert at.

 And, you guys, I've avoided going to the grocery store for weeks now, to the point where even Scott Carter has noticed the bareness of our cupboards and fridge. I guess I better bite the bullet this week. Any dinner/lunch suggestions are always welcome! The only thing I hate more than cooking is figuring out what to cook.

Wish me luck! XOXO!

Sunday Family- July 7th

Happy long weekend from the Carters! 

Scott had the 4th & the day after off which was FANTASTIC! I sure do love hanging out with that fellow. We thought we might go do something fun but instead we did the "grown up" thing and stayed home to work on the house. Boo to adulthood but we still managed to have some fun in the form of
playing around, a visit to the zoo, and had some tasty shaved ice. Basically tried out best to stay out of the heat!

 I hope everyone had a fantastic long weekend and Fourth of July celebration!

Sunday Family & Birthday Celebration- June 30th

Howdy & Happy Birthday to Me!

We just got back from Portland on Thursday (that whole trip needs its own blog post) but I did have a lovely birthday weekend starting off with Friday dinner at home with my writer group girls and Saturday I had a lovely lunch with my rfantastic LBG girls and then a date with Scott to fish tacos and buying books.

Today we had a fun dinner with friends & my family! Ribs, sunflowers, & a fancy custom dessert!

 Thank you for all the well wishes and for being my friends! XOXO to you!