Carter's Baptism

We had Carter Baptised in November. Our church underwent some major renovations, and it looks absolutely amazing. We are so blessed to have such a wonderful family support us and Carter in this life. Carter's God Mother is my dear friend Kimberly Malsom and his God Father is my brother, Ryan. Enjoy the pictures.





Carter was smiling at Father as he was speaking and as the water was being poured on his head.

Carter with his family and God parents.

Carter with "GG" and mommy and daddy. Carter's Baptismal gown is almost 60 years old. Both of my uncles and my father were baptised wearing this gown as were my brother's sister and myself. Haylee and Carter are the third generation to wear this gown.

Holy S*#^

So, last year for Christmas, my parents got Byron (well me too) a leaf sucker/blower thing. We finally bought it this past fall for our yard. I love doing yard work, and don't mind picking up the tons of leaves that we have all over our yard.

We have four window wells that we don't have covers on, so of course, leaves fall down there. I took great pride in cleaning those out this summer and putting river rock in them making them look nice, so I didn't want the leaves decomposing down there and the weeds to grow back, so I decided to leaf suck them out. I was on my last window well, down in the well, struggling with the huge bag on the leaf sucker when I looked down and saw the biggest spider I have ever seen in my life. I of course, screamed, dropped the leaf sucker and somehow, catapulted myself out of the window well. I was screaming Byron's name and jumping around the yard when he came out hold Carter. He looked at me as if I were insane and asked, "so what, you see a spider?" I said, hell yes I had seen a spider, but it was HUGE! He didn't believe me, so I grabbed Carter from him and made him look, sure enough, he agreed with me that it was the biggest spider he had seen too.

We are pretty sure that it was someones pet - a pet tarantula! It was so big, and there was no way that it could get out of our window well (and I was not about to let it try to get into our house!) so I told Byron to kill it. For those animal lovers, I am sorry, but yes, we killed the spider. He told me to get the spider killer from the shed, I ran to get the 1/2 can we had, he used it all on the spider and it didn't even phase the spider, he kept crawling around, acting as if the killer stuff was nothing. So, I ran back to the shed and got the other bottle.....Byron used about 1/2 of that bottle....finally the spider gave in and went to spider heaven. We went down into the basement a week later to get him out of the rocks (mostly because I didn't want him to come back to life and live down there, and I didn't want his spider family to find him down there) even after a week, you could still see how big he was! Gross!

I refuse to clean out the window wells now!

You could see the three set of eyes Mr. Spider had in the third picture! Ewwwwww! Gives me shivers even now!

Long Time.....

So, it has been a really long time since I have posted. Life won't slow down, and I cherish my sleep, so the blogs have suffered. Here is a brief glimpse of what our little clan has been up to since my last post (I know, two months ago!)

Haylee started Preschool at the beginning of November. We made sure that we continued to talk to her about what school would be like, that she was going to have fun, and that this is where big sisters go. She needed more interaction that Dot just couldn't give her.

Here is a picture of Haylee on her first day.

The first day was great, she went in, played with all the kids, and left there happy at the end of the day. Day two and everyday there after was a different story. She cried every time we would drop her off. "I don't want to go to school" is what she would cry as I got her dressed. When we asked her why she didn't want to go, she would just say she didn't want to go. This continued, no joke, until the middle of December. I felt so bad for her that she cried and chased me out to the foyer of the school when I dropped her off, and that there was nothing I could do to make it better for her. The lowest point for me came one morning when she refused to talk to me. Byron had to take her to school, and Haylee refused to say even a word to me. I had a good cry that day, and then the next day, I was over it. I told her that I couldn't help make it better unless she told me why she didn't like school (according to the teachers, she would stop crying about 15 minutes after we dropped her off). She finally told me that she didn't like it because her school friends weren't there for her to play with yet, and she wanted them to be there. We have worked through this, and are now happy to be going to school, learning our bible verses, and letters. She enjoys it now. (thankfully!) My little girl is growing up so quickly!

Let it Snow!!!!

As natives of Colorado say, "if you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes and it will change" This couldn't have been more true the last couple days in October. The weather reports said to plan on lots of snow for the metro area - up to 24 inches in some areas. Being skeptical that almost two feet would fall, we carried on with our days. Well, as the day progressed, Wednesday October 28th, more and more snow fell. Working for Adams County I knew that there is no way I would ever get a snow day, but one could hope. The day progressed, more and more snow fell. We got word that the office would close early to let everyone get home safely....I was so excited. I hoped for a snow day the next day, Thursday, October 29th, but in checking the office line, we only got to start late. I figured that since we left early the day before, and were getting a late start the second day, being released early again was not going to happen...it did. On Thursday afternoon, the snow finally began to slow down, so I got home with the kids early, and we decided to take Haylee out to play. Enjoy the pictures of the family playing in the snow!

Haylee dressed up to head outside!

Haylee and Daddy measuring the snow

16 inches of snow fell at our house in two days.

Daddy with the kids outside.....brrrr!

Happy Birthday Haylee

Haylee turned three on Tuesday, November 3rd. She was so excited to have a birthday party with all of her friends! The past two years Haylee has had some pretty exciting birthdays. With an "Under the Sea" theme and Octopus cake, to Bubbles and Balloons with a bouquet of balloons cake. This year, I was not on my game and not that organized to have a theme. Haylee is getting big enough and likes to express her opinion, so we decided to let Haylee pick what colors she wanted to use to decorate her cake. Yellow and Purple it was. So, Byron and I baked a three layer cake that when you cut into it, it looked like a checkerboard, and decorated it with yellow frosting and purple accents. I think it turned out pretty well!

We had friends and family over to celebrate and Haylee had a great time. I can't believe that Haylee is 3.....

Happy 3rd Birthday Haylee!

Happy Halloween

This is Haylee's third Halloween. By now, she is a seasoned veteran on costume shopping, pumpkin hunting and trick or treating. This is Carter's first Halloween. Haylee was almost a year old for her first Halloween, so it was fun having a newborn to dress up! Haylee was completely comfortable trick or treating - she would go up to the door, say trick or treat and hold up her bucket for people to drop candy in. It was so funny. There was one person who let her pick the candy she wanted out of the candy bowl, so every time after that, Haylee would get incredibly close to the bowl and try to grab the candy out, even though the people were putting it in her bucket for her....it was funny. Carter did go with us, although he slept the entire time. Enjoy the pictures!

Haylee as an angel -

or devil (depending upon which picture you are looking at!)

Carter our little pumpkin

Pumpkin Hunting

There is a pretty good sized pumpkin patch near our house, and we had really good luck finding pumpkins there last year, we decided to try there again this year. We had a pretty early freeze down in Denver a couple of weeks prior to Halloween, and we were late in getting to the pumpkin patch (we went four days before Halloween) so when we made it to the pumpkin patch, we were disappointed in the amount of pumpkins that they had left for sale. When we started looking for pumpkins, we noticed a LOT of them had already begun to rot (our guess was from the freeze) Haylee seemed more interested in playing on the playground than looking for pumpkins, so we decided not to get pumpkins there, but to let Haylee play on the playground and in the corn box. Carter did not like the pumpkin patch all that much. It could be because it was almost time to eat, we woke him up, or it was pretty windy and chilly...either way, he wasn't a happy camper.

A picture of the two kids - gotta love the "looking into the sun" pictures!