B is for buh-buh Bear Day!

Last week Carter had B is for bear day, and was allowed to bring a teddy bear to school. I just wanted to share with everyone what bear he chose. Keep in mind, we have a plethora of teddy bears, including Care Bears in every color imagineable. In his defense, this is the only one that has red on it, which is his very favorite color at the moment. I gently tried to steer him in the direction of a more gender appropriate bear, but he wasn't interested. When I asked what his friends thought about his bear, he told me that Isabella said "That's a girl bear!" He thought it was funny. Apparently he's very secure in his masculinity. He also informed me that Jackson brought a bunny on bear day, and apparently that is a much more grievous offense than bringing a "girl bear."
He also had crazy hat day, and since I wouldn't consider any of his hats to be "crazy," I had to improvise. I bobby pinned a curly beard that Randall used for Halloween a long time ago to one of Randall's ugliest hats. I thought it turned out pretty well! I'm pretty sure he got more laughs on crazy hat day than he did on bear day. Isn't Kindergarten fun?

Family Update

It's been a while since I wrote about what the kids are doing lately, so I figured I should write a new post.

Meleah

Meleah has probably changed the most since my last post about her. She is saying lots of new words like "moooore psss" (more please). The picture above is me trying to capture the lowered eyebrow look that she gives me every time she's doing something she knows she's not supposed to do. It's not quite the same because usually she's not saying "tees" (cheese) while she's doing it. I'll keep trying, though. She is constantly moving, and loves to play outside. She loves to wrestle and climb around with her brother and sister until someone inevitably gets hurt. She also loves to play with babies, and bring toys to me so that we can play together. Her favorite TV show is "Do, Do, Do" (Dora, Dora, Dora) although most of the time she only watches the opening song before she gets bored. She's also obsessed with my makeup and lotion which is why we have a strict Mommy's door ALWAYS stays closed policy at our house.

LydiaThis is a picture of Lydia with her new "twisters" for those of you that haven't seen them. It's kind of hard to see, but it's a belt that's connected to some glue stick looking things that are twisted and connected to her braces. They help to keep her feet facing forward and I'm finally starting to like them even though I think they should make the glue stick looking things in pink instead of the ugly yellowish brown color. Ü She seemed to be going slower at first, but now she's getting used to them, and I'm hoping they'll help her walk more correctly so she doesn't damage her joints.

Favorite Color: pink and purple
Favorite Food: cereal, "chickens" (which pretty much means any kind of meat), and anything with sugar in it.
Favorite TV Show: Dora the Explorer, hands down.
Favorite Toy: Dora dolls, babies, and Barbies
Favorite Phrase: She got this from Carter but lately she's been asking A LOT of questions like, "Why do we have trees?"
Favorite Movie: Sleeping Beauty, Care Bears, Barbie, and of course Dora movies
Lydia loves to play outside, wear "pretties," lip gloss, and lotion like a princess, dance, be silly, and sing, whether she knows the words to the song or not.

Carter

Favorite Color: "red, vermillium (vermillion), pink, aquamarine" He learned the obscure ones from a Blue's clues episode, and he's constantly asking me questions like, "what does purple and brown mix up to?"
Favorite Food: "cheesy quesadillas, squiggly noodles (Top Ramen), Handy Manny cereal (Kix), Mac 'n Cheesy, marshmallows, strawberries, and apples."
Favorite TV Show: "Blues Clues, Ninja Turtles, and Transformers."
Favorite Toy: "Ninja Turtles"
Favorite Phrase: "That scared my life!"
Favorite Movie: "Barbie Movie and the Diamond Castle, Spiderman, Toy Story, Toy Story II, Transformers."
Carter loves to play with his Ninja Turtles, usually tying them up with something and swinging them around or dangling them from somewhere while they plead for their life. Poor Mikey has a permanent rope tied around his arm because I can't for the life of me get the knot out. He loves Kindergarten and begs me every day to do his homework. Unfortunately, we finish all of his homework assignments for the week in about 30 minutes, so I have to improvise. He loves to draw, paint, play with play doh, and joy of all joys...play X-box with his Dad.

Politics, Anyone?

It has come to my attention that in surrounding myself with people that listen to Rush, Sean, and Glenn all day long while they're at work, I may not be getting a fair assessment of Democratic candidate Barack Obama. Therefore, Obama fans (I know you're out there!), I would truly like to know what you love about him. Right now all I've heard is that he voted repeatedly to allow live-birth abortions, he has several questionable associates (Wright, Pfleger, Ayers, Rezko), that his wife has just recently become proud of her country, and of course that Lindsey Lohan is endorsing him. All but the last one are not things that I really enjoy about him.

Unfortunately for Barack these are my beliefs:

I'm pro-life. I would be totally happy with the overturning of Roe vs. Wade. I think that Roe regretting the results herself should tell us something about that legislation.

I don't want government healthcare, period. I've already spent enough time filling out paperwork, holding to be transferred yet again, and waiting for mail/ phone calls from the government to last me a lifetime.

I would love it if there was some parental choice, and a little healthy competition in our school systems.

I think McCain has more experience and would be more likely to have success with the war in Iraq.

I'm totally down with drilling in the wastelands of Alaska.

I'm Anti-taxes (yes, even for the rich people who would subsequently just raise prices on their products to make their profits.)

I think the welfare system is corrupt.

That being said, there is probably no way that anyone is going to sway me to vote for Obama. And let's face it, I live in Utah, so it doesn't really matter anyway. However, I would really love it if there was SOMETHING that I could agree with Obama on so that if he does win the election, I won't be totally devastated. Is there anything, or am I just too dang conservative?

Carter's Creations

These are a couple of Carter's latest drawings. How could we not name the baby Mikey after this picture? He included a few of his favorite things that he plans to do with his little brother once he is born, such as: play X-box, paint, read books, and play with play-doh (in case you couldn't tell).
This is a current picture of our family. Apparently Meleah is pulling Lydia's hair, and Lydia is crying. I'm afraid to admit that this does happen rather frequently, especially when Meleah is tired. We're all holding hands and having a picnic together outside. Carter, Daddy, and I are all wearing our matching "hole shoes" (crocs), and you can see that he didn't forget to put Mikey in Mommy's tummy. Other than the fact that I'm apparently having a bad hair day, I think he did a great job!

Fish Lake!

Randall's family started doing an annual family reunion to Fish Lake last year, and it has been such a great new tradition. This year Jackie found an adorable old farmhouse in Loa for us to rent, and almost all of Randall's siblings, nieces and nephews were able to come. Greg was unfortunately too sick to make it.

It's kind of deceiving calling it the trip to Fish Lake, because I had the most fun hanging out in Loa with the kids and the ladies while all the men were fishing. We made sack puppets, bean art, fingerpainted, blew bubbles, threw water balloons (I wish I had a picture of Jackie after Casey played a water balloon game with her. She was SOAKED!), and what's become a Stewart reunion family tradition...making jewelry.

We did spend some time out on the lake, however. Meleah wasn't really a fan of her life jacket, but she was all good after I pulled out the Swedish Fish and Sixlets. I'm a little bit paranoid having my babies so close to such a huge body of water, even with the life jackets, but I still enjoyed my ride on the boat. Randall and Carter had a lot less luck on this trip as far as fishing goes, but everyone had a good time cruising around the lake.

I didn't get any pictures, but on Saturday night we met up with Randall's extended family at a bowery by the lake. We had fun chatting, and of course eating a delicious meal. Aunt Pat's chicken wonton salad is AMAZING! Even after 3 days of relaxing, playing games, and staying up late talking, none of us were ready to come home.

It's so hard to say goodbye to summer and all the fun that goes along with it. Especially now that Carter is in school and I can no longer hang out with friends, go shopping, or drive down to Vegas whenever I feel like it. Fortunately Carter is LOVING school, and I'm having fun asking him endless questions about what he does there every day. We have had an excellent summer, and now it's time to start counting down to the Holidays and an exciting new addition to our family!

Kindergarten Blues

Prologue
Well, I have gone back and forth about whether I should write about Carter's first day of school or not, because it's only going to lead to a lot of whining and complaining on my part. However, Rachel specifically asked for it, so you can all blame her for this somewhat negative post. The picture I got is not so great because Carter is super sensitive to sunlight, but I am happy to have captured how he thinks he has to tie his backpack in the front (so cute!). I was planning to take a picture of Randall and Carter together because it was actually both of their first days of school, but I never ended up getting it. Randall just started going to school to be a physical therapist assistant, so 20 months from now I'm going to be a very happy woman.

Justification
I've pretty much been dreading Carter going to school for about the last 3 weeks. I know I'm weird, but I just don't want to miss ANYTHING in his life. I want to be there to cuddle him when he's sad, and I want to hear every single funny thing that he ever says. It's also just a huge reminder that we're all heading into a new phase of life where my babies are all grown up and going to school, and they're never going to be my little babies that stay home with me all day again. I really hate change, so this has been extremely overwhelming for me. I need to work on loving the moment I'm in, instead of reminiscing about the past all the time. We also were just coming home from an amazing 4 day vacation at Fish Lake the day before Carter's first day and I had an intense bout of "morning sickness" (I puked into a Lay's Stacks container). Once we made it home, I slept for about 4 hours, woke up for forty five minutes to help Randall get some stuff together for his first day of school, then went to bed. The next day I was still not feeling so good...

August 25, 2008
Why is it that they just assume Mom's that have never sent their kids to school know all the Registration dates, open houses, and weird schedules? I heard about pre-registration the day after it occurred from one of my neighbors, and was fortunate enough to find out about the open house enough in advance that I could actually attend. I even felt priviliged to know that Monday is Early Out Day so that I would be sure to pick Carter up at 2:30 instead of 3:30 on the first day of school. However, no one informed me that Monday is early IN and OUT day. Therefore, I roll into Eagle Valley Elementary in plenty of time to take a few snapshots and give a tearful goodbye to my child as he walks into the classroom only to discover a locked door and a couple of aids tearing down some posters. Apparently we were fifteen minutes late. It was probably good for me because instead of bawling my eyes out, I just snuck Carter into the room, apologized to his teacher, and bailed.

Wednesday
Wednesday was my first attempt to do anything other than get Carter to and from school. I had an appointment to get some new attachments for Lydia's braces in the morning, so I dropped Carter and Meleah off at my Mother-in-law's and headed into town. As most of you know, I live in the boonies, so it takes me 35 minutes to get pretty much anywhere. We arrive, and he begins to work on her braces. 20 minutes later, he informs me that one of the brackets broke while he was attaching it, and he doesn't have another one. I go back to my Mother-in-laws, feed the kids lunch, then attempt to load Carter and Lydia into the car. I say attempt because Carter, who was wearing his shoes 5 minutes earlier, no longer knew where they were. I go up and down the stairs 2o times checking every room and finally give up. I run to my house and get his shoes from last year that no longer fit if he's wearing socks, and throw them on. He is now late for the second time in three days, and his door is of course locked. I have to walk him around to the main entrance then all the way down to the end of his wing. This wasn't such a big deal the first day, but this day, I was carrying my forty-five pound child and her awkward metal walker. After I walked him to class I continue to walk across the playground to Lydia's portable (she has physical and occupational therapy on Wednesdays) and drop her off LATE on her first day of school. I leave her crying in the portable, suffer from another bout of nausea, then leave the school crying myself. My poor Mother-in-Law had found the shoes while I was gone in the bathtub of all places (why hadn't I thought to look there?) I sobbed out my feelings of failure to her, then went home to dwell in my ineptitude until my husband got home at 9:00.

Thursday
Thursday actually turned out a bit better because I didn't have to get all of us up and going so early. I scheduled the appointment during Carter's school since Lydia doesn't have therapy that day. The only problem I ran into was that it took over an hour to assemble Lydia's braces, and I had to stop at the store to buy a couple of things for a famiy barbecue the next day. I got in and out of the store in 16 minutes (pretty good when you consider that I had to buckle in 2 toddlers). I was able to pick up Carter on time, but I got to the school later than I like to. I like to get there early enough that I can back into a spot that's visible from his door, so that I can just go get him when he comes out, and not back into any kids that are running around. Why have I never heard anyone complaining about how big of a pain in the butt it is to pick up their kids from school? I still have not figured out a perfect solution. I tried walking one day, and was so afraid that Carter was going to get hit by a car when we crossed the roads. Plus, it was hot and I got a blister. Ü But driving is just so chaotic. If anyone has any tips, please let me know.

Light at the End of the Tunnel
To conclude this incredibly lenghthy and somewhat depressing post, I'm going to go ahead and say that I'm doing much better this week. I know this is going to be a hard year, but I am going to get through it. Everyone really likes school, including Randall, which somehow seems to make it all worth it. I miss Randall a lot, but I'm so excited for him to have a regular 9-5 job, and also that he's gaining so much knowledge that he can use to help Lydia. I've now vented all of my frustrations out to you guys, and plan to move on with a more positive attitude. Thanks for listening!

Names...

Here is a tally of your choices. The # of *'s = # of people that liked the name. I didn't include names that less than 2 people suggested (half of Rachel's list). Ü

*****
Cohen, Cole, Gavyn

****
Cameron, Easton

***
Dallen, Jaren

**
Blake, Devyn, Dylan, Ely, Ian

Well, that puts me at a total of 12 instead of 17. I hate to break it to ya, but you guys aren't much more helpful than my husband. However, I have loved hearing all of your suggestions. I'm really liking Cameron lately, even though it's only four stars. It's just so hard to decide! We are also most likely changing the middle name to Michael aka Mikey. Carter just will not let go of it. He wants a little brother named Mikey so bad, that we might just give in. He also has 2 uncles named Mike, so it would still be a family name. If it hadn't been on the top ten list of names for like the last 20 years, I would maybe even consider it for a first name. Anyway, let me know if that changes any of your suggestions, and help me cross off some more names!