Man of the House

Nathan has been traveling a ton and working extremely late, so he's not been able to blog. Bummer. So, here's the boy who's been serving as the man of the house:Not very manly, but pretty darn cute. Max has been pulling his "paci," his "buddy," and his "blankey" onto the chair and rocking when he gets tired. SO CUTE! And yes, I know he needs to get rid of the pacifier.

Ali's Birthday Carnival

For her birthday, Alison wanted to have a party at Chuck E. Cheese's or at BouncerTown and invite the whole world. It turns out that it's pretty pricey to host such an event for the entire planet, and the kids end up going off and doing their own thing so that much of the fun of having friends together for a party in the first place is lost.

So, to solve this dilemma, Ali decided to host a carnival at our own house in the basement. Alison carefully made, illustrated, and decorated signs that we put out in front of each carnival game. We gave each attendee a bag full of pennies (tokens) to pay to play the various games that we had set up:

• Shell game (vs. Nathan)--and it's a lot harder to fool 1st and 2nd graders than you might think!
• Dig for coins in a bucket of wheat
• Toss a frog (non-organic) onto a leap pad
• Wheel of fortune (spin the spinner to win tickets)
• Find the coins in a tub of Easter eggs
• Ring toss
• Basketball shootout
• Bottle knock-down
• Blackjack (kidding)

Based on the kids' ability to win the various games they earned tickets--real tickets that look exactly like the ones you win at carnivals. (We looked all over town and were able to find a roll of 2,000 tickets for $3.00.)

Then, with the tickets the kids amassed, at the end of the party, they were able to redeem tickets for prizes that we had set up on our counter.




The kids loved being able to "buy" bubbles, squirt guns, play dough, noisemakers, whistles, and candy with the tickets that they won. I quickly learned that in the economic world of 7-year olds low cost, instantly gratifying candy are in demand much more than quality soaking squirt guns that may cost more "tickets". I've never been on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, but I imagine it is probably something similar to the group of hyper-energetic, anxious-to-transact, elementary school girls in our kitchen at Ali's party.


Our neighbors graciously loaned us their play bounce house, which we set up in the backyard and which we used for play time before and after the basement carnival's official hours.


We wrapped up the party with a High School Musical 3 cake, and present opening.

Happy Birthday Alison! We love you and hope you had a wonderful birthday.

Heaven

I've never been to heaven. Certainly it wouldn't be heaven unless Megan were there too. And, it wouldn't be heaven without my family there either. That's the truth.

Before I was married, I dreamed that heaven would look something like this:


A room full of musical gear--keyboards and amps and drums and recording equipment and microphones...

...with electric guitars like Fenders and Les Pauls on the wall...

...as well as acoustic guitars like Martins and electric basses hanging prominently alongside CD's I'd recorded.

If only I could be home more to actually record!

But, to put things in perspective, I am one pretty lucky man. I'm lucky to be married to a woman who is practically perfect in every way. We luckily have 3 beautiful children. And, I--I mean, we--luckily have a basement recording studio.

************

Now, on a completely unrelated note, I must show off some pictures of at least one of the kids...

Lately, Max has been particularly clingy--constantly wanting to be held. So, I had to mow the lawn with him in one arm. It was tricky. Not only was it uphill both ways, but the lawn mower was also self-propelling. I somehow had to hold down the gas the whole time while walking behind the mower.

Note: In addition to "helping" to mow the lawn, Max also likes ice cream and messes.

Guess Who?

Since I've started traveling again for work, we've been doing everything we can to keep in touch as a family: morning phone calls and family prayer, webcam at night (on nights when I'm not working until midnight), and emails back and forth, to and from each of the kids--in addition to Megan.

Here's how it works: the children dictate their letter to Megan who types it up and sends it to me from her email address with the subject "Letter from Kaitlyn" or "Letter from Alison" or "Letter from Max." Your task is to guess which of the following letters come from which child:

Letter #1

Dear Nathan C.,
I can read the scriptures very much, because I can sound out the words; when I grow up I'm going to be a teenager and I'll drive! Dear C. (that's me). And in the morning I'm going to wear my new shirt--that striped one--with my shorts...cause it's going to be very warm...I think. If Rebecca could play with me, that would be much more funner. Better with boys. Cause when it's with boys, it's not fun mom.

Love, Author #1

And we had ice cream. The end. So it's like a story. Then at the end I'll say "futbol!"

Letter #2

Hi Dad,
At school today we had specials at 10:05 and came back at 10:55. It was weird because the computer that hooked up to the screen that we pull down, the shows that put it on...they weren't working very well...it would work and then it would stop. I'm typing "Diary of a Snake"--it is a good story. One thing that we did was take a Math test before specials. It was really easy. I think I'm getting an "A" or and "S." On computer in tech lab we did research on our animals and typed about the animals we chose. I chose the gray wolf. It was cool because it was the largest dog in the dog family.

Love, Author #2

Letter #3

Wow it was a great day. Actually, I didn't really do anything. In the morning I ran around the yard while mom watered the lawn/plants/anything green. I pulled out an old picnic basket set that was in the garage---I took the pieces of the kit and put them in random places, so I'm sure you and mom will be finding them throughout the week. Then mom watched Gabby, and we played dress up. The girls got mad at me because I was bugging them. Mom made mac and cheese for lunch. I love picking out each noodle and throwing it across the room--did you know that I can get better distance with the peas? Then we went to Target. I did not like this at all! Mom wouldn't let me have anything! I wanted to play with the Roundup, but she wouldn't let me touch it. But once we got to the food department she bought me a string cheese--futbol! Then I came home and had a nice nap. When I woke up, mom and I cooked dinner. She then tried to feed it to me, but I wasn't hungry--doesn't she know I just like to throw the food!!! Rice is hard to throw, but I somehow managed to do it. Then we went to another author's softball practice. She did great from what I could tell. I sat in the stroller for a little while, while mom pushed it walking. I kept standing up then sitting down in the stroller--it was awesome! I was so tired at her practice though, so mom ended up putting me in my car seat and taking me for a ride. I know I was grouchy--but it was after my bedtime--what did she expect?! Mom surprised us and took us to Dairy Queen, she said something about how she can be a cool parent like you and get us ice cream. She got me a whole big ice cream cone (I think her idea of "teeny-tiny ice cream cone" was different than the worker's idea). I thought for sure that she wasn't going to let me have it, but she must've been feeling crazy b/c she gave the whole thing to me. It was awesome. I was so happy. I didn't throw it like I did all the other food she gave me today. I hope she learned her lesson. When we got home we had to finish our ice cream outside. Mom kept taking my picture--I must've looked handsome with all the ice cream on my face. Anyways, I was a mess, so she made me take a bath (LAME!). Now I'm in bed--sound asleep. Nice. How was work? Did you get to play guitar?

Love, Author #3

Well...how'd you do?

Easter, Brought to You By: The Bee Movie

What says "Easter" more than bees? Apparently last year (or was it the year before?) "The Bee Movie" came out right around Easter time. As a part of their multi-pronged marketing push, somehow we acquired an official "Bee Movie" Easter Egg Decorating Kit complete with Bee Movie stickers, Bee Movie egg holders, and other Bee Movie branded Easter items. As long as there is money to be made I suppose we'll have sponsors for everything. (Speaking of which, this Friday is brought to you by Nathan and Megan.)





Despite the corporate sponsorship, we had a wonderful Easter. We tried our best to help the kids remember and understand that the true reason for Easter is to celebrate the Resurrection, and that egg hunts and bunnies are just a fun tradition that we do. They got the right answer every time we quizzed them--except, of course, when we were in public and asked them the reason for Easter, in which case they purposefully threw the game and answered the question wrong to ensure that we didn't get too proud of our parenting skills. (How thoughtful!)


Alison, Kaitlyn and Maxwell each participated in egg hunts at various locations and were successfully able to gorge on sweets (thanks Carroll family and Grandma and Grandpa Carlson!). Max was particularly slow, however, because he thought you were supposed to consume everything in one egg before moving on to the next one.

On Easter morning, the Easter bunny left some baskets with fun toys and treat-filled eggs for the kids. And, Alison made cute cards on her own for each of us wishing us a Happy Easter!

We also made sure to procure the traditional Easter outfits--and our kids looked absolutely adorable (in our highly biased and opinionated view)!

All in all, a wonderful Easter. We hope yours was too.

Random Stories, Wonderlab and General Conference

Stories about our children, in no particular order:

Kaitlyn, Kaitlyn, Kaitlyn. She just says whatever comes to her mind. The other day as she was going on and on she said, "...I love Rebecca (her friend from church and from pre-school) more than Jesus. But, I do love Jesus."

Here she is building the "temple" out of building blocks in our empty dining room.


We've mentioned Kaitlyn's stylish outfits before. Let's see one of her latest:

Below Kaitlyn is sporting a pair of pajama pants on her arms as as a bolero sleeve thingy, a night gown with only one arm in the sleeve, another pair of pajama pants as pants, and a green head band with a pink headband wrapped around it to look like a flower.


Maybe we could make it a weekly feature--Kaitlyn's Crazy Outfit of the Week.

For Spring Break, Megan asked the kids what they wanted to do during their week off of school. Their suggestions included: ride bikes, eat Macaroni and Cheese, develop innovative homemade pizza products and services, and go to WonderLab. Megan uploaded several pictures from the week so we could blog about them. However, since I was out of town while Megan accomplished all of these Spring Break activities, I'll just have to guess at what it all means.

At WonderLab they had a powerful shrinking machine which was able to miniturize Alison and her friend (Rebecca's sister) Susan. Either that or they had a giant, two-story, spider web inside the building that the kids loved climbing on. Ali told me at least 5 times about the "giant leaf" they could play on when we spoke on the phone.


Both Max and Kaitlyn enjoyed the lighted table with the green plastic implementations. It was probably their favorite.


Max (and Megan) really liked the powerful magnet which was able to hold nails, bolts and washers so strongly that you couldn't pull them off. It was probably their favorite.


When Max wasn't trying to learn the secrets of electricity and magnetism, currents, magnetic fields, forces and the right-hand rule (he's pretty advanced for his age), he was busy trying to jam out on the colored drum-pad looking things. He also liked the big square brown thing in the background. Probably.


Another crowd favorite at the WonderLabs was the full-size wall of nails where you could crash your body parts into one side and see the form of your shapes on the other side. (Alongside Kaitlyn in this picture is the saintly Rebecca.)


As last weekend was General Conference and we were able to watch it on BYUTV, we set up tables in front of the TV and printed off the traditional conference packets with the usual try-to-get-your-kids-to-pay-attention games: General Conference talk bingo, General Authority tie coloring pages, and General Conference announcement trivia questions (How many members? Who is the new member of the Quorum of the Twelve? How many missionaries? Etc.).

While we've done this every year, this time it seemed to work especially well--so much so that Alison was concerned on Sunday night after conference was over that she didn't hear President Packer speak. I reassured her that I heard him speak during the Priesthood Session on Saturday night.

Even Max got into it. Briefly.

The Law of the Harvest

Weekends are full of fun. And by "fun" I mean "projects." That's right, I said projects are fun. Futbol! About a week ago Megan and I were chatting about the economy, the state of the world, self-reliance and counsel from the leaders of the church and we concluded that one of these days we should plant a garden. The next day, Megan had already consulted a variety of sources and determined what kind of garden it was that we should procure.

So, at the next available opportunity we (and by "we" I mean "Megan and the kids" since I was in Pittsburgh for business) went to Home Depot and picked up some treated wood, Behr Premium Paint (note: only buy Behr), screws and garden soil. Then, Saturday morning between sessions of General Conference we set out to farm.

Step 1 was assembling the wood components. Megan took care of that while I was gone too. Next, we picked a place to place the planks. Since we plan on acquiring a basketball hoop for the end of our driveway at some point we shot an airball from an appropriate distance to make sure that a real airball would have a low probability of bouncing into the garden and ruining our hard work.


Since the ground was extremely muddy, and since the "grass" in our backyard is rather patchy, I decided that an essential next step was tight rolling my jeans (like you had to do in 7th grade) in order to keep from completely enmuddifying my apparel.


When Alison and Kaitlyn saw how much fun digging up patchy sod was, they begged us to join in. We obliged by giving them shovels and instructions.


However, it wasn't long until they politely returned the shovels.


After we installed the special garden soil, Max was anxious to consume some of the fruits of our labor. So, he took a Wheat Thin and scooped up a big dip full of soil and helped himself to a big mouthful and found out that the vegetables weren't done yet.

Megan shared Max's sentiment when she said, "We've spent 8 hours working on this garden and I still don't have any vegetables to show for it."

Finally, we planted some carrots in random places, some peas, some lettuce and some other stuff. In 75 days we'll let you know how it all turned out.

(Pictures courtesy of our neighbor Amy, who came running out when she saw what we were doing and said, "I'm taking pictures so you can blog about it.")