Baking

Long time no update. Sorry. Get ready, here comes an update.

There's been some baking going on at our house. Aside from the kind that results in bread, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and rice krispie treats (yes, I consider making rice krispie treats baking) I've been working on this little bun for the last 9 months.






Yes, we now have a baby sister at our house. The boys love her and constantly ask me how she's doing. We're all excited to have her here.

Here are the numbers for those of you who are into that ;)

Tessa Anne Holmstead
Born 8:42 a.m. on September 26th
7 lb 11 oz
20.5 inches long

Bullet point update

Here's an update in bullet point form. I'll try to pick up where the last bullet point post stopped.

• Zach's trial was CrAzY!! He was gone for three weeks before he came home for a weekend. He put in some super long days out there. On October 22nd I got a call from him. He said, "Trial's over, I'm coming home!" The judge stopped the trial because an expert for the other side was caught lying. Totally crazy. Zach was home for two days and signed up for another trial. InSaNe!!
  
• Carter turned 5 in October. Zach made it home just in time for his Birthday party. It was Carter's first friend party and he had a blast. (Kind of funny, the big threat at our house is, "You're not invited to my birthday party!" The boys say it to each other whenever they're mad or upset about something. It always makes whoever was un-invited upset and they come and ask me to make sure they can still come. My response has become, "Brothers are always invited")
• We stayed here in Chicago for Thanksgiving. We got together with a few other families and had a splendid time.
• We stayed here for Christmas too. Zach had to work every day up until Christmas. Boo! On Christmas Eve we went over to some friends but Christmas day we stayed home in our pajamas all day. It was nice. One thing I'll do different next year is get myself a book for Christmas so I have something relaxing to do while the boys play with their electronics. (Zach got a play station for Christmas and the boys got games for it too so there was a lot of play station time Christmas day)
• We had a party at our place for New Years. It was a lot of fun. The boys loved that they got to stay up so late.
  
• January 4th Zach left for trial in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He was gone for two weeks before he got to come home for a weekend. This trial hasn't been as crazy as the last one. He's been able to come home for a lot of weekends. It's seemed really long though. I'm sure the fact that it's right on the tail of the last trial hasn't helped. Every time Zach comes home the boys are sad to learn that he has to go back again. Last weekend Zach was basically here for a day. He got in late Friday night, on Saturday we went to the Auto Show, and Sunday morning Zach was headed back to the airport.
• Austin turned 3 at the end of January. We found out Zach would be home a weekend sooner than we'd expected so we quickly threw together a birthday party so he could be here. I made super capes and masks for the kids. It turned out really cute.
  
• ZACH IS COMING HOME FROM TRIAL TODAY. He doesn't have to go back to trial but he does have to go to DC for some training next week but that's just for a few days.
• We're going on vacation. The first two weeks of March will be spent in Utah with our families. We're super excited to have Zach all to ourselves and to see our families.

I think that's it. I'm going to make my next post a picture post. I'll try to get that up before we leave.

Funny things the boys do

I have a small list of things that the boys have done or said lately that I need to write down in one place. They are currently on random scraps of paper all over the house. Here we go...

Carter has really been into drawing lately. He draws the cutest pictures of himself. It's been so much fun to have his pictures hanging on the fridge. The other day he drew a picture of himself really big. On the same piece of paper he'd also drawn a picture of a house that was small in comparison to the picture of him. Austin saw the picture and commented, "Carter, you can't fit in your house!" Carter's reply was, "My house is just a little far away." I had no idea that he understood depth perception like that. Very cute.

Yesterday we were headed to the church for play group with the other kids and moms. The boys were really excited and wanted to be there instantly and were asking how much longer. I started to list off the things that we had to pass to keep them occupied. As we passed the hospital that I had mentioned the conversation went like this
Carter: "I think that's the Chicago Hospital of Science and Industry." (he loves The Museum of Science and Industry)
Me: I chuckled and told him, "No, that's Swedish Covenant Hospital."
Carter: "That means they're sweet!"
Me: chuckled again "No, SweDish Covenant" trying to emphasize the "D" sound
Carter: "Ok, so they're kind of sweet" thinking I'd said sweetish.
Hilarious!

We have been working with Carter on reading and recognizing the sounds letters make. Austin has been paying attention too but he's not quite got it yet. He says things like, "I know what I want. It starts with the letter A, it's ck...ck...ck... CEREAL!!!" Or "I know, it starts with the letter B, it's ck....ck....ck....frosted snow flakes (frosted flakes)" It always makes me chuckle.

A while ago the boys had earned a treat and they had decided on gobstoppers. As I went to retrieve the bag of candy the boys had both named the color they wanted, green. When they looked in the bag there were no green so Carter said, "I guess I'll have red." and took a red one. Austin looked for a minute and saw two purple ones and said, "I guess I'll have two"

We had a Family Home Evening lesson on goals one night. The next day Zach was asking the boys what they're goals were for the day. Carter told him his goal was to have no 'time outs'. When Zach asked Austin we got an answer we were not expecting. With a very straight face Austin informed us that he didn't have any goals, they all died. Then he walked off. Later that day I brought it up with Austin again. He gave me almost the same response. He said he didn't have any goals because they all died and he flushed them down the toilet. I was rolling. He got the whole, "they died and I flushed them down the toilet" because of our fish tank experience. We got an aquarium and fish for Carter's birthday and have had terrible luck keeping the fish alive so we end up flushing a lot of fish. For some reason Austin felt all these things went together.

On a regular basis the boys turn on our Tarzan CD, strip down to their underwear and jump on Carter's bed singing at the top of their lungs. They strip down to their underwear because that's what Tarzan wears. They quite enjoy hanging out in just their underwear.

Well, that's it for now. I'm sure there will be more later.

Sesame Street's Influence on Carter

So, the other day Carter and Austin were watching Sesame Street while I did some much needed cleaning around the house. There was a certain short film that caught my attention and made me chuckle. Apparently, it caught Carter's attention too because we have had several conversations about it since.

That same day as I was combing his hair he said, "Mom, I want a mullet." My response was something like, "Oh yeah?! You thought that was pretty cool huh?" Carter, "Yeah, it was really long like yours but it was short in front so it didn't get in his eyes!" And he said it like it was the best idea in the world!!

Today I told him that I was going to give him a haircut sometime this week. First he started to protest as he usually does. Not because he doesn't want his hair short but because he doesn't want to have to sit in one place long enough for me to cut it. Then, I saw the light bulb go on, his eyes lit up and he asked, "Mom, can I have a mullet?" I laughed and said you'll have to ask your dad.

This next conversation seemed to come out of nowhere. We unexpectedly ran into my friend at the post office last week and this is a conversation Carter struck up with her.

Carter: "Bryn, do you know what I really want?"

Bryn: "What?" No doubt thinking it will have something to do with what he wants Santa to bring him for Christmas in a few days.

Carter: "A mullet!"

Bryn and I both got a good laugh out of that.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, I give you the short film that started it all.....

Sesame street says, be nice to kids with mullets!

Cold

You know it's cold outside when there's ice on the inside of your car windows.

Bullet points

Yep, we're still here. It's been a while and some big things have happened. To get you caught up I'm just going to do some bullet points. Here we go....

• We moved...in July. We live in the same general area but we found a nice place in a really good school district. This way next year when Carter starts kindergarten he'll have a definite spot in a good school. It also cut 15 minutes off Zach's commute. Score!

• We took a trip to Utah. We drove. In our tiny little Honda Accord. We barely fit us and all of our stuff for the two week trip. It wasn't bad. Don't get me wrong, it was long. I mean llllooooonnnnnngggggggggggggggg. But the kids did well and we got to swing through St. Louis on our way home and see some old friends. However, Carter did ask (read state) that next time we go to Utah it be on an airplane. No problem buddy, I'm with you on that one.

• On the drive to Utah our car gradually got louder and louder until it sounded like a jet engine. It seriously gave us a head ache to ride in it that last stretch from Yellowstone to Salt Lake. Luckily it was just rear wheel bearings and a pretty quick fix.

• Did I mention that the first two bullet points happened within a four day period? Yeah, we moved all of our stuff (Thank you Elders Quorum!!!) on July 24th and on the 27th we were all crammed in the car destination Yellowstone (and on to Utah after a few days there) Are we crazy? I'd say most likely

• When we got home from our Vacation (not sure that word's really appropriate but I'm going to use it) all of our stuff was still here. Whew! We were a little worried that someone would notice our nicely pre-packed apartment and decide to make off with the goods.

• The boys have been a little cRaZy lately. With the move and the trip any schedule we kind of had this summer flew out the window and insanity ruled for a few weeks. Luckily pre-school started so we are back in the swing of things. I never thought I'd be so excited to get up at 6 o'clock every day.

• Zach's gone. That trial date that got pushed....(see two posts ago)....is here now. He's in Philadelphia and will be there forever! Ok, maybe not forever but it could go for three months and right now that kind of feels like forever. If it went exactly three months he'd be home December 20th. See, forever. Hopefully he'll be able to come home some weekends once they're a few weeks into trial but we really don't know what's going to happen.
  

Are you all ready for the cherry that tops this all off? Here you go...

• Zach got a new calling at church. Our ward just split and he's now the 2nd counlor in the bishopric. He's very excited but feels bad that he's going to be MIA for the first few months. What do you do? That's how things go sometimes. I don't think it's going to get any less crazy around here any time soon.
  

So, there you have it. You are up to date on the happenings at the Holmstead house. Later!

*I'll try to add pictures in the near future.*