Carma fighting sleep & Judson Crazy Hair day

This video is pretty hilarious to Michael and me... I don't think it is a "you had to be there" moment... you decide.
Carma will never defeat to sleep!! Her sleepiness is giving her a run for her money, Only Ice-cream can save her now.
We have to keep her up since it is too late for a nap and too early for bed... ice cream is often used when this happens.

This picture is of Judson's crazy hair day from school. He usually doesn't get too into the school spirit thing, but the "backwards day" "inside out day" are a usual but nothing beats "Crazy Hair day".

Been MIA

OK, so I haven't posted in a while, a week and a half now.
I spoke too soon about Carma's amazing recovery. She got pretty sick last Friday.. lots of prayers, blessings, tears, stress and medications later she is doing well. Back to her regular "Life cheerleader" self. That should be her new name "Life Cheerleader" seriously b/c she always says how "GREAT" we all are and gets excited about anything and everything. Too sweet and cute.

I have been reading A LOT. I read "Kite Runner" and "The Host" this week.. too much reading, not enough time taking care of my family or house...and way less sleep. So I had LOTS to do today to catch up. I HATE cleaning! It is such a necessary evil that I just can't get over.

What did I think about the books??
Kite Runner: I really liked it even thought it was REALLY sad. But I loved his outlook on things and the redemption at the end. It also gave me more in sight on Afghanistan which I don't know much about.
The Host: (the new Stephanie Meyers book). It was OK, I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as the Twilight series, it was harder to fall in love with the Characters. But I still enjoyed it and wanted to see how it ended.. she could have cut at least 100 pages though.. way to wordy sometimes.

Carma is doing fine

Carma had T-tubes put in her ears today and her adenoids taken out. For those of you who don't know she has had more ear infections than I can count, WAY too many rosesefin (spelling?) shots for the ear infections, seen WAY too many doctors. This is even her second set of tubes. Need I say that she HATES (understatement) doctors and nurses. She WAS NOT happy about seeing so many nurses.
This is the saddest part, she asked where we were going this morning as I was fixing her hair and I said "to the hospital". "OHHH, I LOVE hopitals!" as she clasped her hands in delight. I felt terrible, for I knew her true fate. I stuffed her back pack with all of her favorite and she was even more excited.. "Oh, we are going to the hopital now? It will be so fun!"
.. Now, this story reminds me of when I was little. Aa story that my dad LOVES to tell. I was probably about her age and my mom told me we were going to get boosters. I thought boosters were those cool seats at restaurants that I loved. I went around the house singing "I gonna get a boota, I gonna get a boota". I am laughing as I type as picturing my dad in my head acting out the scene. hahaha After I got the beloved "boota" I came home crying and my dad asked "what is wrong?" I replied "I got a boota.. sniff sniff". Are you seeing the similarities?
So we get to the hospital and she was OK until she saw nurses in scrubs and equipment. Then she started to panic saying "lets go this way" (towards the door). She played with who I can best describe as a play therapist who tries to put children at ease and explain things to them. She liked her, but as soon as the anesthesiologist came in she turned so fast! "GET OUT DOCTOR, GO AWAY DOCTOR" and started BAWLING! It took him by surprise and he couldn't help but to laugh. All the nurses were laughing b/c I am sure they have never seen such a cute tiny little girl so angry. Don't get me wrong, I am sure they have seen PLENTY share of upset angry children, but I PROMISE you aint seen NOTHIN until you have seen this child in action. They were all talking about it and how funny it was.. the ENT came in and said "so, I the anesthesiologist came in and said there was a child in there yelling at him to "GO AWAY!" and I said, Oh, so you met Carma". hahaha She thought it was hilarious. The play therapist was pretty concerned and recommended that we take her to play therapy to help her get over this and deal with these issues. I agree, I never thought of that before. Although it IS funny now, I am a SO stressed while she is in such obvious distress, I HATE it! I think I feel my ulcer bleeding.
Anyway, she has been sleeping for hours, we are watching her close. Everything seems to be going great. HURRAY!

A day in the Life of Juddy Butters

Judson's life is that of a tough one, he has to eat treats, annoy his sister, go to school (I will give him that one.. I would HATE to be in school that long too!), play out side and do things such as bike, skateboard, catch bugs & Play with friends. Then he HAS to go to lessons such as piano and Karate. Poor kid! How does he survive??
I write this because he was complaining that I make him do everything and he never does anything fun. I was laughing SO hard b/c I am THE WORST when it comes to making him do things around the house . Seriously he MIGHT clean his room once a week and do 2 chores the entire week. I of course pull the "I had to walk to school up hill both ways in the snow!" thing.. you just have to . I KNOW I did more complaining as a child. I remember telling my mom that she had kids just so we could be her slaves. I didn't get it at the time but she would reply "Yes, I had 5 children to make my life EASIER!" hahaha that is funny and true. Thanks MOM!!

Been busy & Cabin Trip

So I have been gone from my blog for almost two weeks. I have missed it. I unknowingly bit off WAAAYYYY more than I could chew by agreeing to do the schools yearbook. (Actually I agreed to do the first grade, but then got stuck doing the entire thing). So, 200+ hours LATER I am finally 99% done. We sent the semi-final draft to the printers Friday. Hopefully there aren't many mistakes to fix. From the other printing we had done it looks pretty dang good, if I DO say so myself, and I DO! I would like to show some of it, but due to the fact that I might get sued for showing children I don't have rights to on the net, I think I will pass. If you would like to picture in your head a space themed yearbook with lots of cool graphics and cute kids, that pretty much sums it up.

So, here is what I would have posted had I not been losing my mind worknig on the yearbook:
We took an extended vaction "retreat" with extended family a few weeks ago. My in-laws rented a HUGE condo and all of us stayed for a few days. It was super fun!! We didn't do much, but that is my kind of vacation. Esp, when I was still requiring 3 hours of naps during the day and REALLY naucious. The kids especially loved having the cousins around 24/7. Judson's favorite people in the world are his cousins! He begs on a daily basis to play with them. Carma's prince charming is her cousin Alec and she was so thrilled to have him around at all the time. Here are some pics: Judson on Jungle Gym, all the boy cousins (yes there was STILL 3 feet of SNOW on the ground only 3 weeks ago), Carma with Lauren, Gavin and Alec, Carma getting her hair French Braided by Grandma. She HATES having her hair fixed. (which is why I cut 4 inches off last week. I will post pictures of the new hair cut soon.

Family Walk

This is our first family walk of the spring. Michael had the cool idea of a shadow picture, I think it turned out pretty cool too, this is the way to take a picture!

Judson is always way faster than we are, Carma is always trying to catch up.


Our neighbors have a girl, Olivia, who is a couple of years older than Carma (Carma IDOLIZES her). Olivia is so sweet that she gives Carma her old toys and she even gave her the bike. Carma was ecstatic! She insisted I take the bike inside once we were done outside and sat on the bike of hours and she wore the helmet for days afterwards.

Black Like Me

I read this book and was awe struck. I have read very few books that impacted me the way this one did. I know in many colleges it is required reading, so maybe you have read it. But, WOW!!
I am always interested in anything involving overcoming racism. I don't know if it came from my Southern Mom who has this amazing ability to look past color and has taught us the same. Being raised in the south this must have been a challenge. I remember saying the "N" word and getting my butt "tow up"! I have to admit that when I was a young adult I strayed from this thinking. I was mugged twice before I was 17, threatened to be raped on a daily basis at school, harassed and called "white girl!", saw the most violent fights at school.. all of these acts came from black people. So, I equated black people (esp Men) to being scary. Once I became stronger in my faith and grew closer to the Savior I was able to be healed from these beliefs (or so I thought). I am sad to admit that many of my family members have not embraced these teaching from my mom and it saddens me. We often get in arguments about racism and they claim that I can't judge because I no longer live in the south. They are right, I am sad to report that I go weeks without seeing a black person. However, many white people around her feel the same about Mexicans. I am proud to say that my closest friends are natives from South America. We had the sweetest girl from Peru live with us for over 6 months. That being said, again I really considered myself cured of racism.
However, after reading this book I realize that I am still racist. It is so sad and hard to realize. I hope to someday to look at a person and not see him/her for the color of his/her skin. I would like to go further and hope that I can look at a person and not judge them for on whether or not they are beautiful or ugly, fat or skinny, rich or poor, dirty or clean. I would like to be able to look at the Spirit of a person and see him/her for who they really are. Not even judge them by their behavior (because our behavior is NOT who are). It is my prayer that I can look into the soul of a person.
Another part of this book that I LOVED was John Griffin's ability to look past a person behavior and understand why that person behaved that way. As he was dress up as a black man this white man started harassing him and treated him as if he weren't even human. It was SICKENING. And John was able to see him as a father, a son, a brother and knew that this wasn't who he was, but rather beliefs he had been taught. Instead of getting angry and judging he just saw past all of it for the real person. Now that I typed that I see that is exactly what I was talking about before... WOW! It is all about UNDERSTANDING! I need to pray for understanding, that is a huge answer.
One more thing I realized by reading the book is that it was racist for me to hope that eventually everyone would be able to be intermingled but all really act "white". That would make everyone happy wouldn't it? NOPE, these people have a heritage and culture to keep, and they should.
We could argue all day and/or try to justify that every other race hates white people, but where will that get us?
Well Folks, this is my soap box for the day. I wanted to share b/c I don't know what to do to help cure racism so this is a small part.. passing on to you.. if we all pass it on then someday it can be better.