Goings on...

Cute pic of Valerie

We made cookies yesterday with our neighbors.  I made the dough ahead of time so that it would be easier to roll out after school, the best part of Carter at school is not sharing the beaters....

Big girl!

Woohoo!  Not only am I up by 7:30 this morning, but I have my 7th blog follower!

Here's a picture of Valerie, she's getting nice and chubby, just the way my friend, Kari likes her babies :)

You can't make this stuff up

This morning I woke up at 9:45.  Seriously, this has not happened in real life in YEARS!  (I maybe slept that late in San Diego when Paul and I went in May, but, that's different).  Carter and Valerie were asleep... none of my alarms went off.  Let me explain...

We don't set our alarm clock except maybe for going to the airport.  We do have, however, several other alarms:

Carter, usually up by 8:30
Henri, usually up by 7:30
Valerie, usually up by 6 or 6:30
Coffee maker, goes off at 7:30
Me, up after 7 hours of sleep, automatically
Me, up when sun come in my room

none of it woke us up.  We raced to get up and the school called looking for Carter just as we went out the door.  I dropped Carter off, dropped a meal off at my friend's house, came home and did some things that needed to get done.  Then  I had a great Olive Garden lunch with my friend from elementary school, then went home to meet my neighbor to walk to pick up Carter.  Then we came home, I checked e-mail and we had some dinner.  Then I did my meal planning and we went grocery shopping.

As we ate, Carter tells me, "mom, a jail is the same as a prison, and a prison in a castle is called a dungeon." 

Then we headed for bathtime so we wouldn't be up late and sleep in again. We put Valerie in the bathtub (little baby one) while Carter was in the tub as well.  She did great!  I took her out to dry her and Carter noted, "Mom, her penis is inside out." Observant one he is!

New 'do

I took advantage of not having all the kids home and a friend watched the youngest so I could get a hair update.  She asked me the last time I'd had my hair done.  I said, "well, remember the last time you watched the kids so I could get my hair cut?"  She says, " you mean, like, 8 months ago?"  I said, "yeah, that was the last time!" I also finally got a little color.  My hair has gotten darker as I've gotten older.  She was telling me, "you may be shocked, it's light!"  I saw it and said, "it's perfect, it's how I looked 5 years ago!"

Cutie!

Today we went to church, paid the church's bills (using their money, not mine!) then went to service. 

The service today was about passing peace to someone who did you wrong.  The pastor asked us to think of someone who had wronged us and when passing peace in the church, think of that person that wronged you and pass peace to them as well.  I thought about a friend I had been holding a grudge against and passed peace.  I figured if Jesus can forgive/pass peace with Judas, then heck, I could forgive a friend.

Then we headed to my friend Bethany's house and I stopped to see her and her daughter and give back some diaper covers I had borrowed while mine were en route to me. 

Then we scrapbooked with Stephanie, I got some pages done from the summer!

On the way home, LeeAnn and her daughter Isabel were home, so we stopped to visit them since we hadn't seen them all summer and they had not met Valerie.  Her husband, Todd is an amazing photographer and I'm hoping he'll share some pictures with me from today!  They marveled at how grown-up Isabel looked holding a baby.

Then we got home and I got a call from Paul checking in, which was nice.  Henri's wired because Brooklyn was over to have a sleep over with him.

that's a Newborn outfit Miss Valerie is filling out!  I may start trying the 0-3 month clothes on her!  (though there's still room in her footie pajamas...)

What is this sound? Silence?

Today I picked up Carter from school.  He's excited.  He has the class' Curious George Monkey to take on his adventure this weekend and then he will write all about it in the diary, then bring it back to school and another kid will take him home Tuesday night.  I drive him straight to my parent's house where he joins Etienne and they'll all spend their weekend on the boat.

I used this excited, happy mood to tell Carter some news I'd been dreading telling him.  Paul and Henri are going to Canada for the next week.  I thought Carter would be upset that Henri got to go see Nana and Papa and he didn't .  His response, "Woohoo, Henri's going away!"  Well, that went better than I expected.  Guess I chose a good time to tell him.

Henri, however, cried the entire way home after dropping Carter off at my parents' house.

Evergreen State Fair

Since Tuesday was pouring down rain, we changed our plan of heading to the Evergreen state fair to Thursday-Carter was off school and our original plans fell through.  Etienne was up visiting my parents so we said we'd take him.  When mom seemed hesitant to send me alone with 4 kids to the fair, I roped Amanda into bringing her two boys so we could divide & conquer. 

Amanda came to get Etienne from my house.  Etienne fell in the driveway, Henri fell on the sidewalk and got a big goose egg on his forehead, Carter fell within the first 5 minutes of the fair...

First we saw the special dinosaur exhibit that required separate admission.  It was pretty lame, I have to say, animatronic dinosaurs.  Carter refused to go near T-Rex. To explain the lameless.  This is the ride.

You sit on it and pay $2 for the priviledge.

At least it got way better after that.  Then Carter & Etienne tried a game, catch a plastic fish, they weigh it, you get a prize based on the weight, everyone wins.

Then we headed to the rides.  Henri was too short for any of them.

 so Henri waited...

while we were waiting we did run into my friend's parents, however!

The last ride, We only had 3 more tickets, so I gave them to Etienne to go on the slide, Amanda had her kids pick a number between 1 and 10 and Xander won their 3 tickets in order to go on a car ride.  Drew started crying when he figured out he and Carter didn't get to go and the operator felt bad and let Drew and Carter on anyways... 

Next we ate: Cotton Candy, Onion Rings, Funnel Cake, Scones and Lemonade slush

Then we headed indoors as it was getting hot, we watched a puppet show...

Then saw the animals...

then got in the car where everyone fell asleep.