I am not cut out for 4th grade homework.  One of Carter's assignments was to make a cake of the state of Utah.  Anytime that a 4th grader gets an assignment to make a cake and start labeling it with candy pieces to represent mountains and rivers...well, I end up having to do a bunch of that work.  I am not good with cooking things.  We did not burn it even though I unnecessarily doubled the recipe.   But, we somehow pulled it off and I am pleased...and Carter ended up learning the geography of Utah as well as being full after eating the cake.  He got his 'A.'










We also got his spelling list for the week and I looked at 'homophone' and I had NO idea what that word was...I knew it looked familiar but I couldn't think of the definition.  I looked up homophone: is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning."  Yeah, I was a Communication major in college and I could not remember that word.  Oh well.  4th Graders are really smarter than adults.

You are sick...but not sick sick

I am going to try to post more regularly again.  Or, I can just post every month or two and apologize and then say 'I am going to try to post more regularly again.'

Not sick, a few days earlier

I got the phone call the other day that every parent dreads.  Your kid is sick at school and needs to come home.  Yeah, that phone call.  So I talked with Carter and asked how he was feeling because he was just fine when he went to school.  He said that he felt sick to his stomach and his head hurt.  He then explained that he was playing a game with his friends at recess on who could run the most number of circles.  He did 50.  50 circles.  In a row.  I explained to him that he was motion sick/car sick/dumb game sick and I told him to sit on the couch in the office and I would call back in 10 minutes to check on him.

Now, this is a fine line.  You don't want to be THAT parent that doesn't pick up his poor sick kid.  But I am not going to be THAT parent that runs to get my kid when he is not sick sick...just dumb sick.  15 minutes later, he was still sick.  I left work to pick him up.  I took him home and miraculously, about 10 minutes later, he was feeling great.  Carter 1  Sam  0.

Carter playing Pro Soccer

A couple of weeks ago, my lovely sister in law Erin hosted a street soccer event.  It was a party with a taco truck as well as a bunch of 9-15 year old kids playing street soccer on the street in front of her house.  Each team had 6 or 7 players and Carter got to play on a team with professional soccer player, Real Salt Laker, Luis Gil.  It was crazy to see his footwork, his passing, etc.  The ball was a yo-yo to him and Carter had a great time.  Here is the not so good pic (it was getting dark) of the two of them after their games.  Go Luis and Go Real Salt Lake.

Is that a brick in your pocket?

We were cleaning out old boxes and I came across an old cell phone of ours.  Yeah, technology has improved for the better, hasn't it?

Taco truck catering rocks the party

Once again, sorry for the long delay in posting again.  I will try and do better.  Every 24th of July in our neighborhood, we have a party.  It is fun to get everyone together, have some food and shoot off some lame fireworks (usually a collection of pops, sparklers and smoke bombs).  In the past, we have done pot luck, grilling up meats, just doing snacks...but this year, we went all out.  We hired out a Taco truck and the fun began.  Our guy showed up an hour and a half before we were to start so that he could get cooking.  We had a tasty selection of spicy pork, chicken and steak.

We had a good turnout and had a lot of fun.  We even had a friend, Friend M, bring awesome fireworks so everyone could enjoy instead of just 2 year olds.  We ended up going through 350 tacos among us all.  I won't admit to how many I ate.

Now, we are trying to figure out what to do next year to beat that.  Anyone know how I can contact the circus?

Everbound

Hi everyone...it has been a while.  But I know that I have been missed by ALL of you even though only 1 person has asked why its been so long since I updated our blog.  I am back.  And I am bringing the awesome back.

For those that don't follow Brodi, she just revealed on her blog: www.brodiashton.com the new cover for her second book, Everbound.  This is the 2nd of 3 books in the Everneath series.  I think the cover turned out fabulous.  If you want a chance to win an ARC (basically a copy of the 2nd book months before it is actually released), you can enter on her blog as well.

Carter rocks the 5K

Carter is our runner. He itches to always be out running. Wherever we go, he asks to stop the car so that he can run the rest of the way. He runs at school, He runs in our neighborhood. For the past 6 months, he has begged us to sign him up for a 5K. Well, we finally found one. Thanks to my sister and her family for pointing out the local High School 5K run. Carter got to run with his cousins during the race as well. (on the right)





We signed up Carter and showed up. 80+ kids were there and all were high school and junior high school kids. He is 9 years old and he was the youngest by 4 years, but he was 6 years younger than most of them. My cute niece E announced the race and paid special recognition to Carter (see by the pic on the right with Carter waving to everyone when he was announced). He thought he was some kind of rockstar when he heard his name, like he was thinking 'Thank you everyone for coming to watch me run this race.'



The race started and Carter blasted out of the race...running fast. After the first lap, I told him to slow down and be steady, he didn't listen to me and didn't need to. After a few laps, they ran around the school and neighborhood and I ran with him and I will be honest, I couldn't really keep up with him. He was amazing and fast.

He finished in 13th place and ran the race in 25 minutes and 43 seconds. Are you kidding me? He was running it in just over 8 minutes a mile. He told us after the race, 'Not bad for a 9 year old, huh?' That evening, he ran another half mile to his grandma's house.