Carter is 11!

My not-so-little Carter-Cutie had his 11th Birthday!  (FOREVER ago, but better late than never, right?)

 

He opted for a Harry Potter themed friend party this year,  and it was LOTS of fun!  I know absolutely nothing about Harry Potter, but you can find ANYTHING on Pinterest...

Easiest. Cake. EVER!

Although it was actually kind of annoying for me to mess it up to match Ingrid's cake.

 

Wands and Golden eggs filled with jelly beans.

Carter, leading the singing to his Birthday song -

Honeydukes Candy Shop 

Science experiments

We did several, but this is the only one that I remembered to take a picture of.

 

We also had mandarin orange cake over at the Stewart's to celebrate, but I keep forgetting to get the pitures from Bob!  (My camera was "lost in the move" at that time.)

 

Carter also graduated from boy scouts this year, and although I'm not gonna cry on my pillow every night because I don't get to attend pack meeting or build a pinewood derby car for another couple of years, I AM sad that my Carter-cutie is so OLD!

 

 So happy that he was able to earn his arrow of light even amongst all the chaos of moving.

This was him 3 years ago, people.  THREE unbelievably short years!

Carter is such a sweet boy, and he LOVES serving us breakfast in bed.  His favorite dish to make - tortilla scramblers.

He's got a GREAT imagination, and he loves to mess around.  This is what he does after I tell him to carry all the pillows upstairs-

Food:  Anything Italian or mexican
Least Favorite Food: Anything with raw tomatoes or mushrooms, and also milk
Book: Harry Potter and Judy Blume
Movie:  Anything Marvel or Harry Potter
Color:  Black, Blue, and Orange
TV Show:  Anything that's for my age and up, like Dog with a Blog, Studio C... except NOT Jesse because it ALWAYS insults people!
Toy:  Action Figures and electronics, and my binder (that he draws pictures of action figures in.)
Hero:  Iron Man for Marvel, and Superman and Green Lantern from DC
Thing to Do:  Draw in my binder
Thing to Be When You Grow Up:  Scientist

FUNNY PHRASE: 
"Aaaaw, my back hurts so bad!  It's worse than a fireball blasting into me!  I think I have arthritis!" 

Carter is the perfect oldest child.  I sometimes think all the weight I put on him as the oldest is a little too much for him to bare, but I can always count on him to come through (with a little bit of whining, of course... HIM whining, not me...well, maybe a little bit me...)  He is a great example to all of his younger siblings, and I'm so grateful that he has such strong values and integrity at such a young age.  I love him so much, and could not have asked for a better "guinea pig" to guide me in this crazy world of motherhood. 

And The Saga Continues...

Now we have HIVES -

 On a good note,  I think his owie has gone down a little bit -

Broken

REALLY behind on blogging because I've been so busy with the house, but this is my favorite way to keep everyone informed.  Sooo, for all of you that are following Carter's broken arm saga...

End of July - tried to ninja kick one of those big blow up bounce back punching bag thingy's.  Unfortunately, he stepped from wet grass onto a smooth basketball court before he did so, and as he kicked, his grounded foot flew out from under him.  He put his arm down to catch his fall, and voila - cracked radius.  It wasn't swollen or misplaced, so even his pediatrician wasn't sure that it was broken, but Randall saw the break immediately during the X-Ray.  It was still in place and the ulna wasn't broken, so they thought it had a good chance to heal up just fine.  We just had to have it X-rayed every week as a precaution.

(See how happy he was that his arm was broken? If he only knew...)

 A few days later he got his big cast, and we were good to go.

(Already not quite as happy...)

2 weeks later - X-ray shows that the dang bone moved.  Surgery scheduled to hopefully just push it back into place, and possibly insert removable pins.

1 1/2 weeks later - SURGERY!  Of course, the bone wouldn't stay in place, so the Dr. inserted 2 pins.  Carter did really well even though it took 3 nurses to finally find a vein for the IV. Neither of us passed out, thank goodness!  ;) He woke up a little crazy and in pain.  He kept trying to climb off his bed, and said at least 3 times, "Looks like a splint again..." He wasn't thrilled about that because he hates the feel of cotton balls, and apparently the splint feels like cotton all over his arm.  He recovered pretty well, and was very tough even though he occasionally said that his arm hurt, and he could feel the pins.

5 weeks later - Go to the Dr.'s office to get the cast off, and pins removed.  UNFORTUNATELY, when we removed the cast, we found this-  (WARNING: This pic is NOT for the faint of heart.)

(Yes, that is pus oozing out of it, and this thing is about an inch high!)
Of course I immediately felt guilty for all the times that he told me his arm hurt, and I told him that he was fine, and would just have to be tough until his arm healed.  Ha!  No one (Dr., nurse, X-ray tech) had seen anything like it before.  The Dr. thinks that his body just DID NOT like the pins, and was basically rejecting them by creating pus and scar tissue.

Next day - SURGERY AGAIN!   This time he woke up really well, was in minimal pain, and just a little tired. (We had to be at the surgical center at 6:00 am.  I haven't woken up that early in over 15 YEARS!)  He's thrilled to have the pins out, and they even let him keep them in a little jar.  (I'm wondering what his wife will think in the future... I can just hear Carter saying:  "We can't throw away my arm pins!")

SO happy to have everything done, and the bone perfectly healed.  PRAYING that his nasty oozing wound will also heal nicely, and we won't have to schedule any more Dr. appointments or surgeries!

As if life isn't crazy enough, Lydia fell and hit her tooth on the wall at school, cracking off the bottom of it.  It's not very noticeable, but we had that repaired the same day Carter got his pins out.  Never a dull moment.

Soccer!

 Cameron had lots of fun playing soccer last fall -

This was pretty much Cameron's favorite position...casually jogging a couple of feet behind all the action/the ball.  ;) 

The other kids loved to come and watch as long as I had PLENTY of snacks in my purse. -

Just A Few Random Photos

My Mom took this snapshot of my kids, and everyone's looking at the camera! Of course, Emma's not in it, which is probably how that happened...but I love it anyway.

We put together a party for my Mom's 60th Birthday last November, and we had the grandkids that were in Utah sing "Grandmother" from the Children's Songbook.  It was really cute, and brought back memories of a time that my siblings and I sang it for my Grandma Jensen. 

Rachel and CD also got sealed in the Manti temple last November.  It was such a wonderful day, and I was so excited to FINALLY do a session in the temple where my Grandma and Grandpa Jensen and so many of my relatives were sealed. 

Cam's Birthday

So, I'm behind.  Like, RIDICULOUSLY behind.  Apparently putting a house up for sale, keeping it "show-worthy" with 6 kids living there, then packing and moving all of our stuff is really all I can handle at one time.  Fortunately, after being under contract twice, then having our closing date moved back twice, our house is FINALLY sold.  Now I can write about my little Cam-Cam's Birthday!  (At least what I can still remember of it.  Thank heavens for pictures!)

 Breakfast Pancakes

Cam and Kayleigh's party 

Laura made Cam an AWESOME green Toy Story cookie for his Birthday!

 Someone put the cookie a little too close to Emma, so she got a little pre-Birthday cake eating practice. -

Birthday Fun at Trafalga

For some reason, the only picture of Cam I got at Trafalga was him zonked out on the bench when we were eating our Dippin' Dots!  I promise he was having lots of fun playing laser tag, glow in the dark miniature golf, and arcade games before that!

 I think Carter even got a little higher than he did last time -

After Trafalga we had dinner at Texas Roadhouse -

I can't tell if he was embarrassed because he was on the saddle, or because his mouth was full of food -

 Cookies and ice cream!

 Celebrating with the Stewart Family!

 Those are no bake cookies...just in case you're wondering. ;)

 Playing with the water Toy Story toy Grandma and Grandpa Brown gave him -

His gifts from Mom and Dad and "Grandma Peggy"

Favorites:
Food:  "Um, those little purple things with bumps on them that are like strawberries (blackberries), and Lucky Charms."
Food to hate:  "Um, well it's all the vegetables but vegetable soup."
Toy:  "Uh, it has balls and we're supposed to catch it with sharks and it is a game, and we catch marbles with it, and it has a table holding those sharks, and the little handles that can bite them."
             Me:  "Don't you mean Hippos?"
             Cameron:  "No, it would be better with sharks."
Show:   Monsters Vs. Aliens
Movie:  The last Toy Story Movie
Number:  100
Color:  "You know it!  Black and green or brown and black and green."
Thing to do:  "Play games on the TV."
Favorite video game: "It's the Mickey game that I have, but I still want the number free (3)."

Funny Phrases:
"My name's not Cameron, it's Cam-Cam!"

"I liked them but they made my brain feel a little funny (ham and cheese quesadillas).  I think maybe my taste bugs don't like them."

"Thanks Mommy!  I really enjoyded that!"

"Me Three!" (He says this even if he's the 2nd to join, or the fourth...) 

"You Cookie!" (He thinks this is terribly insulting.)

"peanut, naked nuggets"  (I'm pretty sure you know what he's referring to.)

"Wight (right), Mom?"  (He likes to say this at least a couple times a day.  I hope this doesn't mean he's going to be insecure and need reassurance his whole life!)

Middle finger - Cameron's favorite finger happens to be the middle one.  He likes to use it to point, and REFUSES to change, even though his siblings keep telling him not to use that finger.

Cameron is always bargaining with me.  Whenever I ask him to do something his response is "ONLY if I...can go to the park later, get a bonus point, can play with your phone after, etc." 

Cameron is such an adorable, sweet, fun little boy.  He's very rough and tumble, but also has a tender, sensitive side.  He loves to play with his "guys" and can spend hours with his action figures and a box, or other random object that he has them climb all over and dangle from.  He's really good at making all kinds of  crashing/falling/yelling out for help sounds.  However, he can also be found playing house, barbie"s, a game they call "Frozen", or watching Barbie movies with the girls.

He's become a bit of a picky eater, and often declares that he will NOT be eating dinner because he HATES it (even before taking a single bite).  Fortunately, he eventually does eat at least some of it, and as far as I can tell, there aren't really any foods that he truly hates.

Cameron can be very particular when it comes to style.  Lately, he only likes long sleeves and long pants.  (That's going to be interesting when it gets up around 100 degrees.) His socks have to be pulled down or they "annoy his legs,"  and he only likes his hair "spikey just in the front, not all over."

He's very good to his baby sisters, and spends lots of time carrying Emma away from things she's not supposed to be into, and distracting her with a toy when she's upset.  He still loves to snuggle on my lap (whenever he can find a time that Savanna or Emma aren't already on it), and he's great about giving hugs to everyone.  I just don't know what I would do without my little Cam-Cam.  He's such a big helper, and I hope he always loves to cuddle with me and give me big hugs.