A Little Behind

Okay, so maybe I don't have the littlest behind in the world, but I am feeling a bit behind right now. We just got home last night after a wonderful week of Spring Vacation, and it took me quite a while to catch up with everyone's blogs. Plus, we left the house messy (I hate doing that) so I've got to catch up on cleaning while I unpack everything. Here's some pictures from Easter and such.

Ethan's journey from the bed to the chocolate bunny. He enjoyed it - he really did.

All of the kids enjoying Easter. Marcus loves his bunny!






























And here they are enjoying the foam pit during open gym at the gymnastics center. Alyssa and Marian are mermaids, and Ethan is building a tower.

A Much Needed Vacation

This week started out pretty cruddy. Along with other things, I broke our glass pitcher that we got when we were first married (I love that thing!), Ethan has been getting up at 5:00, so I haven't been able to go to the gym (where's my 'me' time?), I nearly burned down our house when I put a bag of chocolate chips in the microwave (what was I thinking?), and there's something else really cruddy that happened earlier this week, but things must be looking up because I can't remember what it was.

Ethan needs his hearing checked, and he needs to be tested by early intervention, because he's still hardly talking. But Dr. Brown says that since the rest of his development is right on or ahead, it's most likely that he's just not ready to talk yet.

So it started out as a yucky, crummy week, but the past couple of days I've been feeling better. And tomorrow we get to pack up our little car and go to the Tri-Cities for spring break. We're so excited! It's going to feel so nice just to get away and hang out with our families. Also what's fun: We got Ethan to say 'water' yesterday, and Marcus is starting to crawl.

Nicknames

Brian

If I'm not calling him by his actual name, I usually call Brian 'Honey,' or 'Brian - Love'.

Carrie

Brian calls me 'Carriewif'. I don't know exactly how it became 'wif' instead of 'wife,' but that's what he calls me. We actually have a pretty good-sized rock sitting on a bookshelf in our living room that is engraved to say, "Carriewif, I love you." Usually when a man gives his wife a "rock" it means a diamond, but not at our house. I love that rock. Brian has actually been on a campaign the last couple of years to change my name to 'Mama Llama Ding Dong.' The scary thing is, sometimes it works.

Alyssa

We usually call Alyssa 'Lissie." In fact, when she was a baby I labeled things of hers by writing Lissie with the i's as flowers. It was pretty cute. We also call her 'Lis,' 'Lissie - Boo,' and 'Lissa.' Brian calls her 'Alyssa - Monkey' sometimes, or just plain 'Monkey.' One thing that I've noticed lately is that I call Alyssa 'Baby' and 'Babe,' but I don't call the boys that. It's funny that even though she's my oldest, she's still my baby.

Ethan

Ethan doesn't have any nicknames derived from his name. We usually just call him just 'Ethan.' Nickname-wise though, we call him, 'Sir' and 'Little Man.' We also call him 'Bud' or 'Bub.'

Marcus

Marcus is my baby. I call him 'My Marcus' and 'My man.' I love saying, "Who's My Marcus? Marcus is!" while changing his diaper and watching him just smile at me. And since he's the baby, right now he's the one privileged to be called 'Little One.'

You Know

You know you're a blogging junkie when your friend hasn't even pulled out of your driveway and you're already taking pictures of her cookies so you can put them on your blog.

Spring has Sprung

Spring has sprung in the form of Char's yummy cookies, and off and on again rain showers. Have you ever heard of a Monkey's Wedding? Apparently, when it's raining and sunny at the same time, it's called a Monkey's Wedding. We've been having a lot of that lately, and it's absolutely beautiful.

Shoulda Listened

When things get rough, like when I was pregnant and puking all over the place, Brian tells me to call someone for help. "Just ask someone to watch the kids for a while," he would say, but I didn't want to bother anyone. "If someone called you and asked you to watch their kids, would it bother you?"

No, it wouldn't bother at all. Not in the least. But I hate calling and asking for people to help. It feels like I'm putting them out, even if I might not be.

Yesterday morning I thought, "We should have Jenny and her kids over this afternoon. That would be fun." But then I got busy with the laundry and never called her. Then Steve (her husband) called and said that Jenny hurt her back pretty bad and could we please watch their kids? Of course I said yes, and they ended up just sending Katie over. Alyssa and Katie had a marvelous time together, but I couldn't help thinking that I should have called Jenny when I thought about it, then I could have offered to watch the kids instead of them having to ask.

Self Control? What's That?

So the cake didn't get put in the freezer. I thought to myself, "How can I not have cake the day after my birthday?" Three pieces later I was really regretting that thought.

The Glories of Having Curly Hair

I tried to lay down with Ethan and Marcus to get them down for a nap. Marcus fell asleep while I read "A Bad Case of Stripes" by David Shannon, but Ethan was still going even after I told "The Three Bears" and was halfway through "The Three Little Pigs." It was when I caught myself saying, "And the little pig woke up and ordered that his room be..." that I realized I had been dozing off. Who knows what the little pig had been doing before I realized I was talking nonsense?

Anyway, I got up and Brian was studying in our bedroom. He said my hair looked hilarious. Here's the Photo Shoot he put me through:

On the plus side, Marcus is cute.

Birthday Weekend

27 years old, that's what I am. Like all of my other birthdays to date, I don't feel any different than I did yesterday. But, we had a great weekend.

On Friday we went to Red Robin, and I had the new Bruschetta Chicken Burger with Parmesan Steak Fries. It was so yummy! Alyssa loved that they sang "Happy Birthday" to me, and she and Ethan helped me eat my ice cream.

On Saturday Ethan and I got up at 6:00 (it was Ethan's idea, not mine) and we made name tags and printed out character information for our murder mystery party that was taking place that night. When everyone woke up, we started cleaning the house and rearranging the furniture. Ethan and Alyssa were having a great time making messes while I cleaned, but once I gave a little lecture about how we all needed to clean the house and (a little louder, so Brian could hear) "get out of bed," the cleaning went a lot smoother. Alyssa washed walls, while Ethan was in charge of getting the dust buster out when I was done sweeping. Brian's job was to put together a play list of 40's music and to hold and entertain Marcus. When everything was almost ready, we headed to Costco to pick up the cake and some flowers, and we ended up getting cream puffs and cookie dough too.

The party was fabulous. It seemed like everyone had a great time - I hope they did. We played "Dazzled to Death" by Freeform Games. Char and Mason did a great job of keeping their secrets secret, and Trent did a stupendous job of being the thief. He made little cards that said "Puma, you've been plucked" (Puma was the name given to the thief) and he left them around the house when he stole something. Items that went missing were: the cake knife, my camera, and Cali's bag of diamonds. He almost got away with it all, but when he sat down and the cake knife fell out of his pocket, he got caught. Brian was killed by accident, (accident meaning he wasn't supposed to be killed and I, as the one in charge, killed him wrongfully) and he was soon resurrected. Nate was killed on purpose by Casey and Derek, but not before he was able to blackmail Char. Brian was the FBI agent who arrested Trent. Anyway, great time.

And Sunday was my birthday. We went to church, I said prayer in Relief Society, then we came home and had dinner. I had cake for breakfast and lunch, which I think is perfectly fine to do on your birthday. The leftovers are going in the freezer for a while though, because I am caked-out.

Bringin' Back the Do-Rag

Okay, here's a little hair history. I grew up with stick-straight hair. Both of my sisters have beautiful curly hair, and I was always jealous of them. It took me 24 years to come to love my straight hair, and just when I did, it started to grow curly. Being pregnant with Ethan affected my hormones in huge ways, and my once-straight hair had cute little wavy curls in it. I loved it...for about a year. Marcus's pregnancy decided to mess around with those hormones a bit more, and the end result (I wish I would have gotten a before picture) was a short, feathered, not quite curly, not quite straight, but not even wavy kind of hair do. If I didn't curl it every day and clip it back, I looked like David Cassidy from the "Partridge Family," but with not quite such a big smile. It took a little bit of thinking, and I decided that getting a perm is not just an 80's thing to do, so I headed to the salon to get back those slight curls that Ethan had given me.

The lady said that the biggest curler would give be "body" and "volume," so I opted for the second to biggest, because my hair's body was the problem I was trying to get rid of. So now it looks like this:

These pictures were taken right after we got home, and I was on the phone with my sister, telling her I look like a poodle. And I purposefully didn't do my make up yesterday, because I wanted to do a dumpy, gloomy before picture (why don't they ever smile?) and then later do a made up, happy, glowing after picture with my new do. The thing is, I never got around to doing my make up, and Brian followed me around the house with the camera the minute I stepped through the door. The phone conversation went like this:

Carrie: I look like a poodle! It's so curly! Brian, stop taking my picture!

Christina: No, post the pictures so I can see what it looks like.

Over the past 12 hours I have evolved from thinking that I look like a poodle. I can also compare myself to the kid on "Boy Meets World" or Screech from "Saved by the Bell." But overall, even though it's curlier than I expected, I think I'm going to like it once I get used to it. I might wear a scarf or handkerchief on my head for a couple of days, though, just to ease into the transition.

In a Vocabulary Rut

I go through phases sometimes when I notice that I use a particular word over an over again. Sometimes these phases last an hour or two, but sometimes they can last weeks.

Lately, a few of my frequently-used words are "beautiful" and "gorgeous." It is a beautiful, sunny day outside. It's gorgeous. The last piece of carrot cake I made for Family Council on Sunday isn't very beautiful, but when more of the cake sat on the platter instead of in my tummy, I would pass by the kitchen counter and think that it was just gorgeous. My over-use of these words probably stems from me telling Alyssa that she is beautiful and gorgeous every day. I usually say she looks beautiful, but when it's something specific I'll say, "That headband is gorgeous." I want to say these things frequently, though. I want her to grow up confident. (Yes, I tell her that's she's smart, funny, talented, etc., too.) See, I am not photogenic at all. I really don't like to have pictures taken of me, and I especially didn't like to be in photos when I was in high school. I thought I was funny looking, and it certainly didn't help that all of my friends were beautiful and gorgeous and always looked great in the pictures that I developed. Jamie says that a guy once told her that "every girl should look like Carrie Lewis," and I believe her (although I doubt he was completely sane when he said it - maybe it was early in the morning, before zero hour) but if she would have told me this during high school, I would think she was playing a trick on me. Anyway, I used to think I wasn't pretty, but I've come to terms with that now. When Brian and I were dating, he would say that I was pretty, and that I "sparkled" and that made me feel special. But what really did it was going to church with Alyssa and having people tell me that she looked exactly like me, a "rubber stamp." Well, I think that she's beautiful, so how can I not be? Well, it makes sense to me.

A short-lived vocabulary rut happened on Monday. I took the kids to go see "Enchanted" at the Compass Room theater (free, for us students) while Brian was studying. I was a little afraid to go by myself with three children, so I spent the drive to McMenamins telling them how good they needed to be, otherwise we would go home. We made it there a few minutes early, and we sat down, and the kids were being awesome. Yes, awesome. I haven't used that word in ages, but for some reason, I couldn't stop using it for that five minutes. "Okay, you guys, you are being awesome. You're doing an awesome job. I need you to be good for the whole movie, and that would be awesome. Just stay in your seats, sit still, and we'll have an awesome time..." I swear, the guy sitting behind us kept looking at me like I had no education whatsoever. We enjoyed the movie though. The kids were very well behaved, and it was awesome.