Fab Freebie

I found this today online. A free 8x10 alphabet print from Kind Over Matter.

Just go to http://kindovermatter.blogspot.com/2010/02/freebie-alert-kind-over-matter-abc.html and you can get one of your very own in six colors to chose from. I always see things like this I like on etsy, but can never make the $15 commitment.

Simple. Graphic. Free

Perfect for the new little girl x 2 room I have been dreaming up lately.

BeanBox

Tired and bored of being inside - this cold weather is killing us- I was determined today to find something new to do inside. Luckily it is not hard to be inspired via the internet/bloggers, and saw this.... http://www.themotherhuddle.com/.

Easily replicated with $4 in dry beans and a trip to the Walmart, and perfect for a morning free of boredom. If I was thinking about it I would have grabbed some alphabet letters to hide in the "sand", but we are plenty entertained with hiding animals, and using kitchen utensils as "sand" toys.

And, well, making a mess too.

Added bonus - leftovers. Seems like a dreary day, perfect for taco soup.

Guys and Dolls

Saturday we took Kaylie to the pool in Kamas for the second time in the short time we have been in Utah. It is quite a drive just to go for a swim, but the pool is full of fun things for youngsters, and is warm enough ( 85') that it makes swimming with a blizzard outside not quite insane. That and the chance to meet up with Kate and Brielle, and Kaylie is in heaven.

And just in case you were wondering.... just because she is a Utahan once agian, doesn't mean she can't still swim like a Phoenix.

My littlest valentine

One of the best things about living right downtown.....there are 101 place to take a picture. I used to always be keeping my eyes open in phoenix for a single brick building, with the purpose of wanting to use it as a photograph background. There is probally a brick building in every color within 5 minutes of our home, perfect for photgraphing my littlest valentine in front of.

Another great thing....tons of little bakerys perfect for buying my littlest valentine a heart shaped treat.



Above Kaylie is telling me (incorrectly) that she is two years old. Not that I am going to teach her differently.

Hoping everyone a happy valentines!

We are ready?

We have a few months to go with this baby number two, but today after a doctors appointment, Jeff mentioned the fact that maybe it is time to start getting stuff ready. To which I answered "Aren't we already?"

Do little girls need anything more?

We made it to salt lake city, and are now residing in our fourth home in our daughters short 21 months. For being as particular of a personality as she is she seems to be adjusting better than I expected.

Does anyone elses two year old seems to be a little OC? She has little tantrums over things not being exactly right, not having a towel with a fish on it to get out of the bathtub, setting the table with the exactness of miss martha, finding peices of lint on the carpet and picking them out to throw away.....really you would think I would have a cleaner house.

But she has taken to the changes with flying colors...I guess after four moves, moving is routine for her.

Happy New, New, New - New Year

So what is it that is making the Carpenter family's new year so new...and happy?

The first new is a new job for Jeff. There were many things he loved about his old job at Troon ( like the golfing perks), but his new gig is better in a lot of ways too. The new company is a software company and his first day was new year's eve. The opportunity came really just hours before we were supposed to close on our new house here in phoenix. I have really just decided to not plan. You never know what is going to happen around here.

The second new thing is a new home/state for all of us. Back to Salt Lake City we are coming....it is where the new job is. It seems a little ridiculous to head back to four more months of winter when it is a beautiful 70' outside, but somehow that freeze just feels like home. We are sad for many reasons to be leaving ( I am sure there will be a longer post later about all of that), but also excited to see what downtown has to offer us, and for all the chances Kaylie will have to see her grandparents and cousins.

She looks happy about moving in this picture, but really she screams uh-oh, or no-no when anything gets put into a box, or taken of the walls.

The third new...and most exciting thing is the new baby. We have know for some time that we were soon going to be a family of four, but earlier this week we found out that it will be another sweet baby girl and really we couldn't be more thrilled. Although this pregnancy has been heads and tails different than the last ( a lot more time feeling green), I felt from the beginning that it was another girl. Or at least I have really wanted it to be another girl. My sisters are some of my favorite people and best friends, and I really wanted a relationship like that for Kaylie. That and baby girls are just sooooo sweet and everything of theirs is so much more cute.

To bad, we can never decide on a girl name. With each pregnancy from the beginning we have said if it is a boy we should name him....and we both agree. But when we try to think of names for little girls we couldn't disagree more.....any suggestions?

Kaylie's Christmas Top Ten

There were so many wonderful things about our Christmas this year I didn't know where to start so here is Christmas from Kaylie's perspective in top ten form.


#1 Cousins ... she doesn't usually have so many palymates at once, and was thrilled, especcially with all the big kids.





#2 Spending time with her great Grammy ... She came all the way from California for Christmas and all of us were really thrilled to spend some time with her. She is one of my favorite people in the enitre world and it was the best part of christmas for sure.




#3 Meeting uncle Craig .... he returned from his mission in Taiwan, and since Kaylie is not yet two, they haven't ever meet. Fun for the rest of us too, especcially since he seems well adjusted to real life already.





#4 The food .... She has been a picky eater lately ( not like herself), but with so many good things to eat, she was able to find something.




#5 Sledding/Snow ... before we could even tell her what it was ( this is the first time she can remember being in snow) , she announced "ice" and was off stomping through it in her boots.



#6 The Choo-choo .... Grandma Anderson had a choo choo in her basement, and whenever kay could break free she was headed down the stairs to check it out.






#7 All the animals ....I didn't get a picture of it, but her favorite thing was Grandma Georgia's kitty that she chased all around the house yelling "meow" at and making her cat hands, and lied on top of whenever she got the chance. Two new to her dogs and Toby made things good too.




#8 Some of her favorite presents... a sled form her aunt Carol ( which she sat in like a bed, and even got pulled around in the house with). A tinkerbell doll from her Grandparents Carpenter...she is also watching her Tink movie in this picture, another hit. And her little table from Grandparentes Anderson ( Kay has loved little tables ever since she started "school" and sometimes even sets the coffe table at dinner time so she can eat at a little table.

#9 "Chrithsmas" ... this is what Kaylie calls all the lights and decorations. She points them out wherever we go.




#10 Not Santa.... I am so glad I didn't waste me time taking her to see a Santa. He came to the Carp family party and when she walked into the room she said " Ho-ho-ho" and then procedded to scream at him.



Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas as well! What were your top ten.

Cheese for Thanksgiving

We had Thanksgiving at home this year. Jeff's parents and brother came down from UT to spend the holiday that included black friday shopping, a trip to zoo lights and of course a feast that the Luke family joined us for. We made enough food for like thirty people and have been eating thanksgiving day sandwiches....mmmm, my favorite, from the leftovers ever since. My favorite thing - Kaylie has decided this weekend that she will cooperate with pictures and even says " cheese"....hooray, I hope it last.

Kaylie has been wrapping her babies up in blankies and putting them to bed in the corner for a long time, but now she has taken it to a whole new level. She dumps all the toys out of their bins, wraps the babies in blankets, and them uses the bins as beds.

I thought it looked like a hospital nursery with alll the babies lined up in thier isolettes.

maybe not.....now it seems she is playing mortician.

Scroll down for more kaylie posts.

The best Elmo ever. If you know Kaylie, you know she is in love with seasme street, particularly Elmo. We were at toys r us this weekend and we saw this costume on halloween clearance for three dollars....can't bet that. She was going crazy when she saw herself in the mirror.

Our Halloween Lady

Better late than never I guess. Little K, being the little lady that she is was a little lady bug for Halloween. She carried her little pail like it was a purse and struted her stuff from house to house and trunk to trunk. We even took her to jeff's work to trick or treat desk to desk so she really had the hang of things, trick or treating three times.

CANDY! CANDY! and a Spider. Here she is enjoying her post trick or treat goods. The best part is she only really likes suckers, so mom is gettng most the good stuff :)

She is still getting a kick out of this sticky spider a week and a half later too. She wiggles it at us saying "boo!", and answering herself with a "aahhh!"

The Great pumpkin

To me, a pumpkin patch is an essential halloween memory, so I was so excited when I found a "pumpkin patch" here in Phoenix. So the pumpkins aren't actually growing in this field. ( I am pretty sure that pumpkins won't grow in the desert), but someone did take them time to unload them off a truck and scatter them in the tall grass like they had grown there.

Kaylie was in love with the pumpkins. She counted each of them and touched each of them. She climbed on them, kissed them, and picked out a little tiny one that she was treating like a baby.

Hooray for fall!

Is summer over then?

The rumor is that today was the last 100' day of the year here in the valley of the sun. Which means, that I guess what we have here now is fall. I don't know if I will ever get used to "fall" here, or summer for that matter. Here is our K though- she apparently has no problem with our AZ weather....it just means she has more time to play in the water.

At the zoo's water park - Community lifeguard

The splash park at the mall - Floating in the backyard

Aaaaaaants!

I have a toddler, therefore it goes without saying that there is food on the floor....often. And when there is food, there is ants. In the last two weeks I have been attacked by ants three times.

Not just any ants either, monster venomous crazy ants that leave welts twice the size of ordinary mosquitoes bites and itch accordingly. Rapid moving, skin seeking, evil ants that before I even notice I am standing near them, climb up my body, under my clothing or into my hair.

I have never seen ants that respond so quickly to the morsel lost by small hands to the floor.....or ants that are so aggressive.

Ants that would send a grown women full speed, fully clothed into a swimming pool.

Come to think of it, I have heard about ants of this nature...in a work of fiction. "the posionwood bible". Maybe you have read this novel; maybe you are familiar with the description of this African demon ants that can destroy a village or take a life. The kind of ants that send entire villages running for the nearest body of water seeking escape of carnivorous insects.

Must be instinctual

100% GIRL

This is Kaylie in her element. Notice the tutu and the elmo socks....oh yes and of course the baby. Our little girl is obsessed with babies....babies, babies, babies. She feeds them, rocks them, puts diapers on them, dresses them. At night she takes every one of her babies and stuffed animals and puts them to bed all over the playroom, covering them each with a blankie and telling them "nye-night." We have to take one with us everywhere we go.

Yes, even swimming. I told her to go get her swim suit so we could go swimming one afternoon, and she cam back with her swim suit in hand and her baby dressed like this in one of her swim tops.

What fun.