It's a Christmas Miracle!

I finally finished our Christmas Stockings!! Well, the four that we need this year that is. The other three just need to be bound which I hope to do in the next couple of months. I started this project in October 2007 thinking they would be done for that Christmas. That didn't happen. Being 7 months pregnant and chasing a 2 year old didn't leave me with much energy or time to tackle the project. Don't get me wrong, I started. I think I even got the stars pieced and the batting cut. I thought for sure that I would have had them done sooner than last night! Whatever, they're done before Christmas and that was my goal.

Does this look comfortable to you?

I started collecting pictures for this post in November. It just cracks me up the way kids can sleep anywhere and in any position. At night before I go to bed I check on Carter. Some nights all I have to do is peek in and leave his door open (so his room doesn't get too cold). Other nights it's a little bit of work to get him all snuggled into his bed.

This is the first time I decided to take a picture.

This is the very next night.

This is my favorite of them all. He decided one day that it would be a lot more fun to sleep with his head at the other end of his bed. The first night we switched directions I put that green pillow over his fire truck so that he wouldn't smack his head on it if he rolled off his bed (a valid concern). The night of the picture above, while Zach was putting Carter to bed Carter informed him that he was going to sleep on the green pillow. Zach told him it would be better to sleep on his pillow to which Carter replied, "Ok, I'll lay right here (his pillow). But when you go out I will sleep over there (the fire truck pillow)." And that's exactly what he did.

Brrr!

Doesn't just looking at this picture give you goose bumps? Yeah, I took it from our front room window. That vast expanse of white out beyond the trees is Lake Michigan, and yes, it's frozen over. It pretty much shows you what this week's weather has been like: freezing! Because of our wonderful weather the kids and I have been somewhat confined. To stretch our legs today we went down to one of the big hallways in our tower. Carter rode his bike and Austin pushed his walker. As we were sitting on the warm radiators looking out the huge windows the boys began tapping on the windows. Then they would lean their heads against the glass. Then Carter gives the glass a big lick. After which he cocks his head to one side, turns to give me a thoughtful look and says, "Hm! It tastes just like chicken!" What a goof ball!!

Mog I can...

This is kind of an odd post and most of you may wonder why I'm doing a post about this. Well, it's because I find it kind of funny and want to remember that Carter did this when he was little. Ready? Here we go...

For those of you who may not know, Zach and I both served our missions in Russia. When we started our family we decided that we wanted our kids to know Russian so Zach only speaks to the kids in Russian and I speak to them in English. This way they always hear both languages. There's more to this (Russian and English in our house) story but that's enough for everyone to understand the rest of this post. If you want to know more just leave me a comment.

Now, the reason for writing this post...
Whenever Carter says "I can" or even "I can't" in a sentence he also uses "mog" which is a way of saying can in Russian. So, for example, he'll say, "How 'bout we go in my room mog we can play?" or "I moved that mog Austin can't get it." He uses it EVERY time he says can. I'm not sure when it started. I noticed it two or three weeks ago and then pointed it out to Zach. It makes us chuckle sometimes. We're not too worried about it. He'll get it all sorted out pretty quickly, at least he has with the other language mixing he's done. It really has been neat to watch him pick up both of the languages and see where his Russian is more dominant and where his English is more dominant. It especially tickles my funny bone when he says a sentence and it's almost perfectly split with every other word Russian and English. "My palets is gatov mog I can push the button. Ya hachoo Daddy!" (That's the latest one I can think of.) Oh the mind of a three year old.

Halloween

Halloween was fun. We're kind of slackers so we didn't do anything huge. We went to the ward trunk-or-treat and then we came home and put the kids to bed. I know, not very exciting. All day Carter had been talking about wearing his monkey costume and saying "trick-or-treat" but when the time came he was shy for about fifteen minutes. However, once he warmed up to it all he had a blast. In fact, he enjoyed it so much that when we went to church on Sunday he wanted to go over where we say "trick-or-treat" and get some treats. It's kind of funny how kids minds work.

Carter liked to wiggle when he was wearing his costume because it would make his little monkey tail swing and then he could see it. It was cute.

Earlier in the week we carved a pumpkin. We explained how it was called a jack-o-lantern when you cut a face in the pumpkin. Then next morning as I was getting him his breakfast he said, "Look Mom, it's our apple jack pumpkin." He knew there was a "jack" in there somewhere.

Our little monkey

The boys with our "apple jack pumpkin"

No, Austin wasn't dressed as anything. When we went to buy costumes there weren't any his size and I didn't get anything else put together for him. He seemed pretty content to sit in the stroller holding the bag of candy with all of the crinkly wrappers.

Happy Birthday Carter!!

Carter turned 3 on October 27th. I can't believe he's already three!! The time has gone so fast. Carter had a wonderful time opening his presents and then playing with them for hours on end. His Grandma Debi gave him a little electronic guitar that is just his size. He LOVES it. For three days straight he did everything with his guitar. We sang a million songs. His favorites were I Am a Child of God , Do As I'm Doing, and Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. They all sounded wonderful with the rock music accompaniment that his guitar provided.

At one point during the day Carter wanted to play a game that he'd gotten but I told him he had to wait until Austin went down for his nap because the game had lots of smallish pieces. To solve this problem Carter got his guitar and started singing Twinkle, Twinkle and told me that he was singing it so Austin would go to sleep. Pretty funny.

Here's a picture of Carter with his spider birthday cake. I was very glad he decided on spiders because some of his other ideas (t-rex and The Backyardigans) were way outside of my artistic ability.

Give Me Food!!!

Austin is totally aware that we eat different food than he does. He'll be sitting in his highchair having just finished is breakfast and Zach will come sit down at the table with a banana and Austin is leaning forward watching every move that banana makes. Every time we sit down to dinner he's already eaten and is crawling around on the floor. Once he notices us all sitting at the table he scrambles over to stand up against my chair grabbing for me to pick him up. It's like if he can't have any of the food he at least wants to look at it. When he gets wiggly and tired of being on my lap I set him back on the floor and he immediately heads for under Carter's chair searching for crumbs. Carter thinks this is hilarious and says, "He's yooking for crumbs. Ha Ha. He yoves crumbs!"(he pronounces his L's with a Y sound, hence the spelling). One day Austin hit the mother load when Carter dropped a big piece of stuffing on the floor. Before I could get to it Austin had it in his mouth and when I tried to get it out he clamped his mouth shut so tight I couldn't get my finger in.

Monday we (the boys and I) were out doing our dreaded grocery run. We were at Costco, the last stop of our four hour trip and Carter was loving all the free samples. Austin, on the other hand, was mad that he wasn't getting any. Both of the boys were sitting in the front of the cart and whenever Carter got some food Austin would maul him trying to get some for himself. I was laughing so hard because Austin was very determined and almost won a few times. His best technique was to grab Carters arm with is left arm and then reach across Carter with his right arm. Luckily they had samples of freeze dried apples that Austin could have so we made it out of the store without too much trouble.

"So how was your day Mommy?"

I honestly hear this question at least 20 times a day. For some reason Carter has picked it up and is always asking me. When I sit down with him for breakfast, "So Mom, how was your day?". I'm thinking my day just started but I reply, "Great." and if I take too long to ask him back he says, "Now you ask me Mommy, say How was your day Carter?." And so the conversation goes. He asks me every time we're sitting at the table and usually multiple times per meal. It gets a little repetitive but really is quite cute how he's trying to be all grown up.

Another thing Carter does is talk to his toys, or he talks for his toys in a conversation with me or Zach. The other day I was in the kitchen doing the dishes and he comes and stands in the kitchens entry way and this is how the conversation went,

Carter: How was your day Mommy?
Me: Fine Carter (still focused on the dishes)
Carter: How was your day Mommy?
Me: Fine Carter (still focused on the task at hand)
Carter: How was your day Mommy?
At this point I turn around a little irritated only to find that it wasn't Carter asking the question by two of his "car friends" and as soon as I replied "Fine cars, How are you?" the conversation moved on. Funny kid!

Carter got a sucker for going potty in the toilet one day and for half an hour we sat and took turns being sucker and having some wonderful conversation about how Carter went potty in the toilet and got to pick "me" (It was my turn to be sucker).

Last week as we were getting ready for church Carter was playing with his "Grandpa Kevin" truck. Yes, his cars have names and they go along with people in the family. Anyway, he asked if he could bring it to church and we said yes. He had to put it in my bag while he went to nursery but as soon as we got into Sacrament meeting(its last) he had it out and was playing with it. I got to the bench and sat down next to Carter with Austin on my lap. Pretty soon Carter turns to me with his first finger and thumb pinched together like he's found something. I thought it was a random crumb off the church bench so I put my hand out so he can hand it to me but nothing falls from his fingers. I asked him, "What's this?". To witch he replied, "It's Grandpa Kevin! Talk to him!!" We had a lovely conversation and then Carter picked Grandpa Kevin back up and put him back in the Grandpa Kevin truck. Where does he come up with these things?

I just wanted to write down a few of the things that Carter is doing at this stage that make me lugh. Hopefully you enjoyed them and if you didn't, know that his Grandmas and Grandpa Kevin did.

6 Quirks Tag

I got tagged a while ago by my sister-in-law, Jen. What I have to do is list 6 quirks about myself. Here it goes...

1) Crossing my toes. I do it with both feet. The big toe goes over the second toe. I didn't realize that I did this until college when someone pointed it out. I don't think that I do it as much as I used to but I still do it without realizing it.

2)My toenails are ALWAYS painted.

3)This one drives Zach nuts, whenever I have a bowl of vanilla ice cream I put Hershey's chocolate syrup on it and mix it all together. Zach doesn't get why I don't just have chocolate ice cream but I say there's a big difference in taste and my brothers agree.

4)This one's a little hard to explain. Whenever I'm just sitting there watching TV or a movie I catch myself air typing(I guess you'd call it that). Random words stick in my head from the running dialog on the TV and my fingers, wherever they are laying start moving ever so slightly to type out that word. I know, I'm weird.

5)Red Shoes. I love red shoes and currently own three pair that are completely red and one pair that are white with red accents. Very cute!

6)I know I have a bunch of quirks but I can't come up with number six right now. Sorry!

The Beach

Last Saturday we decided our family outing was going to be to the beach. We've been in Chicago for over three years now and not once have we been. I've often heard people talking about their day at the beach thought it sounded fun. We knew Carter would love it. What little boy doesn't love dirt and water as far as the eye can see. I wasn't quite sure how things were going to go with Austin. He's not content to just sit and watch anymore and he's a taster. This kid will put anything in his mouth! By 11 o'clock we were out the door. We went to the beach on 31st Street. When we got there there was just a small handful of people around so we found a nice clean patch of sand and set our stuff out. Carter and Zach went straight for the water with the toys we'd brought and started to build and dig. I fed Austin his lunch while he sat in his stroller but as soon as I was finished he wanted out. I set him down on the towels we'd spread out and of course he immediately started to move toward Zach and Carter. As soon as his hands hit the sand he stopped dead in his tracks. He didn't move for 15 seconds (that's a long time for him). Then he started to push his hands farther into the sand. He sat up and let the sand run through his fingers and there he was for a few minutes just sifting sand through his little fingers. Then it seemed he decided he wasn't ready to venture too far into this strange new ground cover and we played on the towels for a while. When I took him down to the waters edge by Zach and Carter we think he liked it. It was kind of hard to tell because he just kept grunting and we weren't sure if it was a happy grunt or an, "I'm about to cry" grunt. He liked to stand on the wet sand and wiggle his toes so the sand covered his feet. Carter ended up soaking wet and covered in sand. He had a blast. I think Carter's favorite part was when he dropped his bowl and a wave of water caught it pulling it away from him and then bringing it back in to him. He played that game for at least 15 minutes. Eventually Austin decided he was sick of being confined to the small square of towels that he was on and just took off across the beach. It was pretty funny. We all had a lot of fun and may find ourselves back there again this weekend. We only have so many warm days left.

Believe it or not, I remembered to take the camera with us on our outing and even took pictures. I'll put them on as soon as I figure out how.

Brooke Fraser Concert

On Friday September 12th I woke up after a night of very little sleep. Austin had come down with a cold during the night and had been up with a stuffy nose at least once every hour. Yeah, it was a long night of he and I sleeping on the living room floor. Both of the boys had been grumpy Wednesday and Thursday so after Thursday evening I was definitely not a ray of sunshine Friday morning as i made breakfast. Zach came up behind me and gave me a hug asking what was wrong. I told him and he said, "I have a surprise for you. Would that help?" I grumpily responded, "It depends on the surprise." He proceeded to place two tickets for the Brooke Fraser concert at the House of Blues in front of me. Big surprise!! And yes it helped.

Now, I'm sure a lot of you are thinking, "Who's Brooke Fraser?". She's a musician who's CD I bought 4 years ago when I was on a trip to Tonga, Australia, and New Zealand. I bought it as a souvenir for Zach (we were dating). We really liked the CD and her song Arithmetic is "our song". We weren't sure we'd ever hear more of her songs until recently we found her on iTunes. That's how Zach found out she was coming to do a tour in the states. He'd had the tickets for over a month without me even knowing. The concert was Wednesday the 17th and we had a blast. Huge thanks to Shaun and Dianna for watching the boys for us. All of the songs she did were from her newest CD so when the whole band walked off the stage I told Zach that I had hoped she would sing our song. Neither of us thought that would happen but when she came back out for an encore that's the first song she did. That just topped it all off. Thanks Zach for the wonderful surprise!!

Google her guys, she's great!

Joining the Blogging community

Well, I've finally done it. I started a blog. I hope no one is expecting too much because I'm not promising a lot. I have no idea how often I'll get updates posted and lets face it words are not my forte. That being said, here we go...

We are the Holmsteads.

ZACH just graduated from University of Chicago Law School, took the Utah Bar this summer, and is currently clerking for Judge Frank Easterbrook here in Chicago. His Clerkship will last a year and then we're not exactly sure what we're going to do. We may go straight back to Salt Lake and work for Jones Waldo or we may stay and work somewhere here in Chicago for a few years. We don't know. He really enjoys his job and I'm loving the 9-5 hours he's working. Way better then the crazy law school hours we've had the last three years.

MELISSA I'm a stay at home mom to our two boys, Carter (almost 3) and Austin (7 months). My days are filled with keeping Carter entertained, Austin out of trouble, and the housework somewhat caught up. I also try to squeeze in some time to work on one of my many projects. Right now I'm trying to finish sewing my Christmas stockings and learning to tat. There's always a lot going on and never a dull minute.

CARTER loves cars, trucks, firetrucks, cement trucks, anything with wheels basically and to "play" games. Here's how Carter plays a game.
Step 1: pick a game out of the game closet
Step 2: empty out all of the pieces, move them around a bit and tell everyone else playing how to move them around
Step 3: tell whoever is playing with him (usually mom or dad) to pick it up while he goes to pick out the next game he wants to play
Carter learns quickly and is doing really well with Russian. (Zach only speaks in Russian with the kids so that they'll know two languages.) It's really cool to be at a point where he can speak it back and his pronunciation is getting better too.

AUSTIN does not hold still. He is quite the little mover and shaker. He now stands himself up on or against everything and anything. He is such a happy kid. He squawks when he's got himself stuck somewhere(under the stroller, for example), or when he's hungry/tired. Most other times he's totally content. His love for moving has made nap time and bed time a bit of a challenge. He'll be exhausted but as soon as I lay him in his bed he's up crawling and then standing before I've left the room. I end up repeatedly going in to lay him back down until he's too tired to get up.

Well, that's the Holmsteads in a nut shell.