A picture is worth a thousand words!

Here's what's been happening at the Carpenter's in the last few weeks....



Emma ate a WHOLE ear of corn all by herself, and loved it, I might add! We're still working on getting her to keep her eyes open when we say "smile"
A favorite activity of both of my children is to each get a baby wipe and proceed to "clean" something. It is one of the only things they will do together peacefully, and it keeps them busy for quite a while. This particular picture captures them cleaning the rocking chair in Emma's room before bed time.
My little causalities. Emma was outside while Daddy was pulling weeds, and although I suspect Aidan was involved, was told only that she fell. Her binky was in her mouth luckily, otherwise, the injury would have been worse. Her nose was VERY scraped up. Matthew, on the other hand, lost a wrestling match with Aidan...
My mother was babysitting and let Emma "paint." Of course more got on her than the paper!
What do you do when it's STILL not cool enough to go outside very often? Make a cardboard train and let your son drag it all over the house!

Tagged

My friend Annie tagged me to show my life as it really is, by taking pictures of my kids, oldest to youngest, my favorite shoes, my closet, fridge (outside and in), and my favorite room in the house. The only rule was that I had to take the pictures as soon as I was tagged so that I was being true to how things "typically" look around here. So, here it is....


My kids oldest to youngest

Aidan playing with blocks before bed. He is 2 1/2
Emma, riding her "horsey" she is 13 months. This is her "smiling"


My favorite pair of shoes

Right now flip flops are all that I wear, being pregnant they are the most comfortable, and it's stinkin' hot here right now. These are the ones I wear all the time.

My Fridge

Outside of the fridge is kind of chaotic with things I need to remember, and everything has to be up high or the kids pull it down.
Luckily I got tagged the day I went grocery shopping so the fridge is well stocked. The grape soda on the top shelf is a pregnancy craving that I have had with all three!

My Closet

I took a picture of my half...next house we buy will need to have bigger closets :)

My favorite room in the house

This is our "formal" living room. It's my favorite because it's always clean. I don't let the kids play in there, so that if we have company or surprise visits, we are prepared with at least ONE tidy place to entertain. I also like to sit and read in here.
This is what our house usually looks like. This is the family room and where the kids play most of the time, although their rooms are play areas as well.

I guess I need to pass the tag along, so I tag Kori and Robyn! The rules are listed above. And remember, no cheating and cleaning up, take the pictures ASAP as things usually are!

Our Atlanta Trip

Well, we made it back to Tucson in one piece! The trip out there was great. We left Thursday mid day to head up to Phoenix. We decided to go up a day earlier than our flight to have some extra time together. We saw Batman at the IMAX theater, ate at Cafe Rio', and spent the night in a motel room (not my favorite part.) We stayed in a super 8 to save money and as soon as we saw the room I wished I had just spent the money for a nice hotel room. But it was just one night and we were up at 7:00 and out the door by 8:00 am to catch our 10:45 flight to Atlanta. It was a direct flight, which was so nice and we arrived in Atlanta at 5:45 pm (there is a three hour time difference.) We met Matthew's clients at the airport and headed back to our hotel to freshen up. We stayed at the Glenn hotel, a very swanky place, and I was SO happy with the room. A great improvement over the Super 8! We had dinner at a great Italian Restaurant and spent about three hours there talking with Matthew's clients and getting to know one another. Most of the weekend was spent working and eating and hanging out with Robin and Meaghan (the clients) and on Saturday Matthew and I took a break and went to the Georgia Aquarium. It was really cool. We were sad when Sunday came and we had to go home. I didn't think I would, but I fell in love with Georgia and didn't want to go. Our flight home was quite and adventure. We got there an hour before our flight, only to find out we had a FOUR delay and didn't even get on the plane til 10:45 pm! We got back to Phoenix and had another TWO hour drive back to Tucson. We finally got in bed at 3:00 am...but with the time change we had been up all night. Needless to say, we were dragging on Monday! Here are some pictures from our trip!

The Boluga Whale. They are all white and very beautiful. They look a lot like dolphins.
Not the best picture of me, but we were in the room where the ceiling is glass and fish and SHARKS swim overhead!
Me and Matthew in front of the GIANT glass at the end of the Aquarium that shows all sorts of fish and sharks and sting rays, ect. swimming around. It was really spectacular.
Aren't these beautiful? They were even more impressive in person.
Matthew watching TV in our hotel room. It was a HUGE plasma TV, and our bed was a California king with fancy sheets and down comforters...THANKS Robin and Meaghan, we LOVED our hotel room!

Georgia on my mind...

We are heading to Atlanta for the weekend. Matthew has a business trip and I am tagging along...with out the kids :) It's not for Raytheon, but for our web design business that Matthew started about three years ago. It's grown steadily over the years and Matthew has gained some loyal clients, one of which is flying us out to discuss an upcoming design project. It will be a nice break for us, seeing as this is our FIRST trip together since being married WITHOUT kids! And seeing as we will have three children by Christmas, a weekend away together is much needed. Granted he will be in meetings most of the weekend, but any free time to myself is going to be enjoyed. We are going up to Phoenix today and spending the night and leaving for Atlanta early Friday morning. We are going to see Batman at the IMAX this afternoon and have dinner at Cafe Rio afterwards...that's right, Cafe Rio! We have one in Arizona now, and I am SO SO SO happy. It was my favorite restaurant in Utah. There is only one in Mesa, so we make it a point to eat there after visiting the temple. It's wonderful. I will post pictures of our trip when we get back.

Poll Anwser

Backyard fun

Three days in a row of blog posts, this is a personal record for me! I almost wasn't going to post these pictures because of how embarrassed I am of our backyard. You see, here in Tucson if you want a "normal" backyard with grass and trees--you know the stuff that just naturally grows everywhere else, you have to PAY for it. That's right, I said PAY for grass and trees. It is one of the reason I always complain about living in the desert and my biggest pet peeves! I won't even tell you the ridiculous amount of money it is going to cost us to landscape our backyard...but we are planning on having it done by April of 2009, now that most of the inside renovations are completed. Until then, any backyard pictures will show off our lovely gravel and weeds.

Last night after a dinner of McDonald's (it was late when I got back from the doctors so I ran through the drive threw on my way home) I decided that it had cooled down enough for the kids to go outside while Matthew swept the patio and cleaned up after Sadie (our doggie). Aidan bugs me ALL day long to go outside and I usually have to say no until after 7:00 pm, which works because he goes out and gets filthy and comes in just in time for his bath and getting ready for bed. And last night was special because we let Emma go outside too. That is, she got to go outside with shoes on and walk and play around by herself. Up until now one of us would have to hold her because she couldn't walk well enough...she had so much fun and we had so much fun watching her!


Emma and our dog Saddie. Emma just loved that spoon and didn't put it down the whole time.
This is what Emma looks like when you say "smile." She scrunches up her face and squints.
A cute moment alone with no dog or brother bothering her.
Aidan loves his radio flyer wagon and took his sister for ride...notice she STILL has the spoon.
Aidan sitting on his "potty steps" drinking some water after being outside. He was very thirsty when he came in and he likes to go in his bathroom and "be alone." It's very cute.

Outing To The Park

We braved the heat (it was 105 degrees) to take the kids to the park on Saturday. They love getting out of the house, since we stay in most of the time during the summer. I try and take them to the library, where it's air conditioned, for story time and to my in laws to swim as much as I can, but they still just love being outside. I have a hard time watching them both by myself at the park, so we had to wait until Saturday when Daddy was home. They had a blast, especially Aidan. He was able to get out lots of his pent up energy. He just loves to run and jump and climb and swing...typical boy that he is. Emma had fun too. We only stayed for a half an hour because we were all hot, sweaty, and tired from the sun.

Aidan and Emma on the swings...weeeeee!
Aidan is really good about smiling for the camera.
My two little cuties...
Emma about to go down the slide.
Can you say static electricity?
What a strong boy!


Today is my ultrasound. We had one at 8 weeks for viability, one at 13 weeks to do a screening for down syndrome (my test came back 1 in 10,000 and is considered a negative result) and today is my anatomy exam...and also to see if we can determine the sex of the baby. Any guesses?