Not For The Faint Of Heart

After Carson came home from school I took him to the dentist. The first half of our visit was nice. Carson sat down in the reception area with a lady named Jo. She was really cool and put Carson at ease immediately. I looked away for ONE second and when I turned back to Carson, I saw that Jo was holding his extracted tooth in her hand! It was so funny to me because, seriously, I have tried yanking that tooth for over a month.

So, after Jo pulls his tooth, she turns to me and says "there is another tooth that is totally ready to come out. I'll do it now if you want me to." I jumped at this opportunity to delegate my parental-tooth-pulling duty to somebody else. Of course, I agreed. Here's when the "nice visit" got a little fuzzy.

I could almost hear Carson's heart start to palpitate when I said "Hey Carson, you were such a good boy with that first tooth, so now we are going to do another one!" Tears came fast and furious and he insisted that we were NOT going to pull another one. After about 15 minutes of coaxing and promising lots of prizes from the prize bucket AND numbing his entire mouth AND wrestling his head still, the 2nd tooth popped out. As soon as it was over, Carson admitted it wasn't so bad, and BOY was he excited about his little plastic treasure chest full of his two tiny teeth! In fact, he is bringing those teeth for "show and tell" tomorrow at school.

So, it ended on a positive note and the tooth fairy is supposed to come visit Carson tonight. I hope she comes soon because I'm tired and I need to go to sleep.

Enjoy the lovely close up. My favorite part is the spit bubble sitting on top of the hole where the baby tooth used to be!

Normal?

When Carson was brushing his teeth this morning, he said "Look at my tooth!". I looked and this is what I saw:



I'm thinking it's not normal. His baby tooth is being pushed out through the front of his gums by his permanent tooth. Before I take him to the dentist and risk having an unpleasant experience, I was wondering if anybody has seen this before.

There's always something....

New Calling

Because I'm so domestic and compassionate, (What!?! You don't think "Get over it!" is compassionate?) I got a new calling at church. Can you guess what it is?

To prove how domestic I am, I baked cookies today just for this picture on my blog!



I'll give you a hint: The previous person who had my calling just finished training me and it only took 15 hours!

Uncle Jack's Cabin

Today was the Jackson family reunion (My mother-in-law's maiden name is Jackson). Sam's Uncle has a cabin near Moroni UT and that is where we go every year for this reunion. It was pretty nice because the temperature stayed in the mid 70's. The only not-so-nice part were the turkeys and, more importantly, the turkey stench! There are several turkey coops near the area, but the ones closest to the cabin usually don't have turkeys in them. Well, this year they did and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get used to the smell.

Sam, Parker, and I took a walk down to the coop and let Parker get close and personal with the turkeys. He loved it! I just did my best not to throw up!




The horses were a different story! Parker wouldn't even look at the horse, he just stared at the ground until we walked away.


Sam had his first "hunting" experience with a rabbit. He says they are a pest to Jack's farm so it's not different than somebody killing a mouse that gets into your house.


All in all it was a good reunion. Lots of good food and good conversation. Today is also Fontella's 71st birthday. Happy Birthday Fontella!

Actual License Plate

A few months ago Sam saw this truck and, more importantly, the license plate. It was so awesome that he followed the truck home so we could come back later and take a picture. As luck would have it, the owner of the truck lives just a few streets over from us.

Ever since then, every time we have the camera with us and think to go back to that house, the truck is never there! Obviously, I have been distraught and disappointed.

Last night Sam drove by and the truck was there! He raced home, grabbed the camera, and raced back to the house. It was a success and mission accomplished!

What do you think?

Typical Day

My blog is called Day to Day Life because really random things just always seem to be happening around me. Here are the latest from the last 2 days:

I didn't actually witness the collision, but I HEARD the screeching of....no, not the tires....but instead, Parker! Yes, Carson slammed his old school bus into Parker's modern Disney truck. It was quite the scene. Carson in his usual fashion is all smiles. Parker is ticked off, which is his unique style. He got over it quick enough, so life is good.




Carson is in the same kindergarten class as his friend, who lives across the street. Every day they run home after school as fast as they can and see who wins. Yesterday, Carson was running, stepped off the curb funny, and full-on wiped out! He had serious road-rash when all was said and done. He smacked both knees, forearms, and his head pretty hard. On the outside I was really compassionate, I promise! But on the inside I had one thought: YES! I finally get to use those bacon and eggs bandaids I bought at Archie McPhees in Seattle! Check out the result. Pretty sweet. Common sense made me remove them before he went to school today. I said "Let's take those bandaids off now" and Carson said "so the kids won't make fun of me?" At least the public school system is teaching him SOMETHING!

Fashion Police?

If you know me well, you know that I don't give any cares in the world regarding fashion. Tonight I had an epiphany: Maybe my carelessness regarding looks is spilling over into my children and how they think. This probably isn't such a good thing.

Example: We needed to go downtown tonight to my office. I knew Parker would fall asleep on the way home, so I put him in pajamas. My office is located above the ZCMI mall, so here is Parker and Carson in the mall. I realize now that he might look a TINY bit weird running around the mall like this. What do you think?


Even though he's in pajamas out in public, I still think he's adorable. Add your own caption to this picture!


Me and my buddies

Anniversary update

So, as I was sayin'

Sam and I took a vacation day on Thursday, got a babysitter (thanks Mel!), and walked out of the house without a single plan! We had the whole day ahead of us and we could do anything we wanted. And, even better, we had saved up some cash to play with.

We first went to Ruth's Diner, which is up Emigration Canyon. It's one of our favorite places to eat breakfast. If you click on the link and scroll to the bottom picture of Ruth holding the dog, then you'll appreciate this story...

We were sitting out on the patio eating breakfast and Sam got all sheepish and said "There is a lady staring at me from the window of that building behind you." I casually turned around to see, and sure enough, there was an old lady just staring at Sam. She wasn't even embarassed that we were staring right back! Every 10 minutes or so I would turn around and she was still watching every move we made. I couldn't believe that Sam was still eating his breakfast without any care of the weirdo watching us! Right when I started to get really annoyed, Sam casually said "It's just a picture Carrie, sheesh." HA HA HA, he was right! It was a full size cut out of Ruth and she was placed right in the window. For a minute I thought we were on the movie "Psycho" and it was the dead grandma sitting in the chair next to the window! If you checked out the link for Ruth's Diner you'll know that Ruth isn't exactly "friendly" looking. For the rest of the day I kept laughing every time I thought about breakfast. Sam knew the whole time she wasn't real and I totally fell for his joke.

After breakfast, Sam and I went to Park City and shopped at the outlet mall. It was fun to just wander from store to store, although I didn't let Sam go to the BOSE outlet because he's obsessed with their speaker systems! We had saved up some cash, not THAT much cash!

When we were sick of shopping we drove up "Lamb's Canyon" and enjoyed the peace and quiet, which was nice. The day rapidly came to an end and we meandered back towards West Jordan. I highly recommend this way of celebrating an anniversary to everyone, especially if you have kids. Don't get me wrong, I love my children, but sometimes absence makes the heart grow fonder!

That night we went to Shandy's baby shower. It was so fun! I think Curtis and Shandy are now ready to welcome this baby into their house. She scored big time on the gifts! One of my favorite gifts was the fleece jacket that Cody and Karena gave the baby. Don't let Dexter play outside or you might not find him!

Happy Anniversary, to me!

August 8th marked my 8th wedding anniversary to Sam. We were married in the Bountiful UT temple. It's a pretty cool day because we were married on the 8th day of the 8th month in 1998 and it was my 8th anniversary. Phew! According to some trashy magazine, I passed the seventh year "itch" in my marriage and now my marriage has a good chance of surviving. Well, THAT'S good to know!

To celebrate, Sam and I decided to take a day off work, get a babysitter, and just do whatever we wanted. I'll tell you all about it! Well, that day isn't until tomorrow, so I'll tell you about it tomorrow. :) But I will tell you how I celebrated my anniversary yesterday.

First of all, I made a fancy lunch for Carson. I call it "100% beef wrapped in a golden-yellow honey bread, cut in perfect bite size pieces, and topped with a tangy tomato-based glaze". In other words, a mystery meat corndog cut into pieces with ketchup on top. He loved it!


Later on in the day I decided that the bathroom was scaring people (and maybe even spiders) away! But, I didn't want to clean the bathroom on my anniversary. That's when I remembered I had a 5 year old! I didn't even have to bribe him, I'm serious! I said "Hey Carson, will you clean the bathroom?" He got so excited and said "I'm going to need some gloves..." and then the fun began.






Teaching Carson to shake the rugs was the hardest. Every time I came outside to check on him, he had wrapped the rug around his neck (like a cape) and he was pretending he was superman!




Last night when I came to bed, Sam had put sticky notes all over the place for me. They were so fun! He put them on my pillow, on my closet door, on the bedroom door, on the bathroom mirror, wrapped around the stuff I wash my face with, in my makeup drawer, and even in the kids room! I was obsessed with finding them all before I came to bed! They said things like "thank you for being such a good mom to our boys", "I love that there is nobody else like you", "thank you for cleaning the house and always making it look so nice", "I really enjoy talking to you about everything under the sun", "thank you for being such an understanding wife and friend", "I really like it when you are laughing", "I really love it when you smile", "I really like it when you joke around with me".

There were more, but I don't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable!

It really was a nice day and I can't wait to see what we do tomorrow.

David Brett Petersen 1975-2006

Last night when we got home from work Sam received a phone call from Tim Petersen, who is the brother of Sam's best friend, Brett. Tim called to let Sam know Brett had decided to take his own life on Monday, July 31, 2006.

Sam and Brett have been friends since Brett moved here from California in 1993. Brett was Sam's Best Man at our wedding in 1998.

Today the family held a graveside service. Let me tell you, I wish I had a case of tissues for this event. I have never been to such a sad service. Brett's parents were so gracious and thankful for those who came, but you could see by the looks on their faces that their hearts were just breaking. Sadly, Brett's not the only child they have had to bury. On August 12, 1993, Brett's older sister, Nicole, died in a car accident. She was 18 years old. The graveside service was held next to Nicole's headstone. Brett's body was cremated and it looks like they were going to bury him by Nicole.

Here are some pictures of Brett when he and Sam were young'uns.

Brett, Sam, and Greg Bower (Greg makes up #3 of Sam's trio of friends)This was at our wedding reception


Brett, Sam, and Greg at the airport (Sam was heading to England on his mission)


Brett, Sam, Curtis (my brother), and Carl (my dad) at the Bountiful Temple on my wedding day.


Sam and Brett during the High School years


Brett juggling. Sam and Brett were in the juggling club in High School. In fact, I think they were the only two in the club! One of them was President and the other was Vice President.



Here are some pictures from today's graveside service.

Debbi (Brett's ex-wife) and Zach (Brett's 8-year old son)


This is one of Brett's co-workers


Sam with some of Greg Bower's family: Scott, Sophia, Sam, Rachael, and Dave


Greg's mom (Sophia) and Brett's mom (Sherrie)


This picture, makes me sob every time I see it. Here is Sam kneeling down by Brett. Nicole's headstone is in the background.

1st Day of Kindergarten

Carson started Kindergarten today! Ya-hoo! All I've been hearing for a month is "Mom! Does school start today??" I was so glad to finally answer him "yes" today. He looked so handsome, don't you think? I was impressed because as he walked into school he didn't even glance back at me, he was definitely ready!

Here is Carson at home, right before we left for his school


This is Carson and his friend Lee. Lee lives right across the street from us and they ended up in the same class, so he already has a buddy!


My nieces Melissa and Sydney came with me to drop Carson off. They were keeping Parker happy so I could hang out with Carson. Cuties!