Gettin' dirty at the Carmacks!

The girls got this fun pottery wheel from Grandma Charlotte for Christmas. We are finally getting around to using them today. They had a lot of fun with it. It was very messy fun, but still very fun! Their works of art have to dry for a while and then they are going to paint them, so you will just have to wait a few days to see the finished masterpieces. Thank you Grandma Charlotte!

Spring Break 08

We had the best little trip ever! We stayed in downtown San Antonio, so we could just walk to the Riverwalk and the Alamo and all the cute little downtown shops. It was so fun! I can't wait to go again!

Here we are on the Riverwalk. See this cool old tree growing out of the side of the building. Yep, that's my monkey hanging from the branches.

After walking around for a while, we ate at this yummy restaurant, The Republic of Texas. Miles discovered that he loves eating condiments on this trip. Here, he only wants to eat the ketchup. The next day we ate dinner at Texas Roadhouse and he only wanted to eat the honey butter. I don't blame him though, their rolls and honey butter are yum!

Later we went to a souvenir shop and the kids got to try on some silly hats.

This is what happens to you after having four kids, and eating too many rolls with honey butter. Thank goodness I don't normally see this view of myself! :)

The next morning we got up and went to the Alamo. The girls had learned about it earlier in the school year so they were really interested in reading all the plaques, and they loved seeing all the different items in the museum. They loved seeing anything that had to do with Davy Crockett since we were staying at the Crockett Hotel.

Our whole trip, the girls had to make sure that they all got equal time pushing Miles in the stroller. Poor little prince!

They are sitting in a window of the Alamo. They couldn't believe how thick the walls are there.

We went to the Natural Bridges Wildlife Park next. All the girls said this was one of their favorite things we did.

Isn't this the scariest looking dinosaur bird thing ever?! It was eating out of Craig's hands.

There were so many cool animals here. Zoe is checking out some kind of really hairy camels. There was even a cute little baby camel out there running around. There were also zebras, and giraffes, and all kinds of goats and deer, there were some kind of long horn cattle there too, and the cutest little miniature donkeys.

I just love this picture! Look at how his little feet are crossed. :) He was like this most of the time, until the birds came up close.

This is one of the birds.

And this is what Livee looked like every time one of the ostriches got close. She is crouched down on the floor of the car. All the girls would scream because the ostriches would just reach their heads in the car and grab at the food. Miles even accidentally hand fed one. He had some food in his little fist, and the bird just grabbed it out of his hand. He didn't cry it just shocked him. The ostriches were my favorite because it made me laugh so hard seeing the girls screaming, and laughing and freaking out every time one came near.

They also had a little petting zoo there. It was only goats but the girls had fun feeding them. Every time one got too close to Miles he would shake and push them away and hold onto me or Craig for dear life.

After the Wild Animal Park we drove around New Braunfels and found the coolest parks there. Craig and all the kids climbed across this log to sit over the water.

Miles and Paige are my little tree huggers.

We used the self timer on the camera for the first time with this picture.

We went back to Landa Park the next day to let the girls swim for a little while. They had wanted to swim while we were there the day before but we didn't have their swimsuits with us.

Can you tell how crystal clear the water is? It was so pretty. You could see all the fish swimming around, and the flowers growing underneath the water.

Miles was happy to just throw rocks in the water.

Our last stop was at the capital in Austin. We went inside and did a little tour. The girls were really impressed by how high the ceiling was inside and all the big huge staircases.

That's it for our fun little trip. I would definitely recommend it to anyone! I think we are even planning on going back in June for Craig's vacation, and maybe again in August for Zoe's birthday. The best part of the whole thing was just being together with our family and spending some good time together. I loved it!

Happy Easter!

We had such a fun day today. The kids got up and found their Easter baskets and looked for eggs and then later we went to Tad and Amelia's. We had a yummy dinner and then all the kids got to look for eggs again. They had already found their Easter Bunny eggs, and so this time the parents hid them. All the kids stayed in one room and the adults hid the eggs throughout the house. Man, the bigger your kids get, the more creative you have to be in hiding the eggs! We had eggs in the dryer, on the ceiling fan, in Uncle Bobby's shirt, in the bathtub, in Grayson's pockets.... they had so much fun finding them. It was nice to just hang out for a while too. Then, we all watched Enchanted. Love that movie!!! Then it was time to go home and start getting ready for school in the morning. It was so nice being out of school last week and getting to spend a lot of time together as a family. Easter today was the perfect ending!

Here is Paige helping Zoe to reach some eggs.
Zoe and Livee finding eggs in Gray's room.
Miles getting the one egg he was interested in.

Our silly stripey family.

We're back!

We got home from our little vacation on Thursday night. We had soooo much fun! Unfortunately Miles has been sick since we've been back. He's had high fevers and runny nose, not eating good, and just laying around. I took him to the doctors, and he has ear infections, and pink eye. So hopefully he will feel better soon now that he is on antibiotics. He has been a really good sport, but the poor kid looks miserable! I know I've been behind on my blogging, but I've been taking care of my baby. And every mom knows if baby aint happy, aint no mama happy.... or if baby aint sleeping, aint no mama sleeping..... and so on... :)

Heroes!

Down the street from us there is a family that has a five year old girl, Destiny. She has disabilities and is mentally like a two year old. Today the girls came running in the house yelling that Destiny is on the roof of her house all by herself. I ran outside and she had climbed out of a window and was climbing up a steep part of the roof. I told the girls to ride their bikes as fast as they could to go tell her parents. I was scared to death that I was going to see her fall and I couldn't do anything. I was still too far away. Finally her dad came out to see where she was and then one of her big sisters climbed out of the window and brought her back in. Then, my heart started beating, and I could breathe again! Everything turned out fine, thanks to the quick thinking, and fast riding of my three little heroes!

Did You Wear Your Green Today?

These girls were not going to let anyone pinch them! I got a few pinches though, oops! If you are wondering what's up with their hair..... they got a little too close to Uncle Bobby while he was giving Degan a bath. He dunked them. They don't look like they minded too much. At least he couldn't pinch them!

Justin Jaguar Hall of Fame

Paige and Livee were picked from their classes to be in the Hall of Fame. This is something they do for every six week grading period. They had these pictures up in the hall at school for the last six weeks. If you click on them you can read why their teacher nominated them. Good job girls!

Happy Birthday Grandpa Perk!

Miles is 18 months old!

He got to go to nursery for the first time on Sunday. I had prepared myself to stay in there with him because I knew that he wouldn't be comfortable with new teachers that he had never seen before and kids that he didn't know. But, no! He just walked away from me and broke my heart a little! He didn't even look back! What's up with that?! I'm his mom, he needs me! Not once did he turn around and say "See ya later" or "Thanks mom for feeding me, and taking care of me, and raising me to be a nice independent young toddler for the whole year and half of my life"! Nope he just walked away and started playing...... the nerve! So after a couple of minutes of standing in the corner sniffling, I decided that he really would be okay without me for two hours, and then I went off to my classes. Which I actually got to enjoy for once in the last year and a half - take that Miles! :) Then I picked him up from nursery, and he was happy to see me again. About an hour later at home when he wouldn't let me put him down and was clinging to me, I started daydreaming of next Sunday morning when I could drop him off again. :]

Miles had his check-up today. Everything is good with him. He is 34 inches tall (90%), and he weighs 24 pounds (50%). He is a little bit pigeon toed, but they aren't even concerned about that until about 3 years old, because most kids just grow out of it. Other than that, the doctor just confirmed to me that Miles is definitely the cutest, smartest, most well behaved 18 month old he has ever seen. :]

She did it!

She can ride a bike now!

Craig had tried many times to teach her but, Livee was just not interested. He could not understand why a kid didn't want to ride a bike. He would come in the house after their little mini lessons so frustrated. He says she is just as stubborn as him and sometimes they just butt heads about things. I think she just wanted to do it when it was her idea, and when she was good and ready. They were only outside yesterday for about 5 minutes when Craig came in and said, come look at Livee, she's riding! He was a very proud dad!!!

She's off!
Oops! There were still a few crashes, but every time she just got up an tried again.
This time she had gone all the way down the street, turned around, stopped, and then started going again all by herself. Good job Livee!

Livee is our feisty little girl, but also super sweet! Here is a good example of the different sides of Livee:

Sunday morning we were getting ready for church, and she did not want to wear the shoes I had picked out for her. The pair she wanted to wear were outside, all muddy because she had worn them down to the creek the day before. So Craig was trying to get the dreaded shoes on her, and I was trying to fix her hair, and she was just upset about everything! Craig had a little talk with her, (if you can call losing his patience, and "talking" to her using his cell phone voice :] a little talk) then felt bad and gave her a hug and kiss, then we went to church. As soon as Sacrament Meeting started Livee got out her notepad and pen and started writing something down, then she showed it to me. This is what she wrote:

I LOVE YOU MOM AND DAD IEM SRE THET I BN BD

The last part says "I'm sorry that I been bad"

Nothing like a good dose of guilt for ol' Mom and Dad!

Gosh, I love this girl!!!

Snow Day!

They cancelled school today because of our "blizzard" yesterday. We got to sleep in and hang out in our jammie's most of the day. The kids did go out and play in what was left of the snow for a little while. It is mostly gone. There is still some snow on the roofs of houses and in the shady parts of the yards, but totally different from yesterday. They say out here "If you don't like the weather, stick around it will change." It is so true! On Wednesday we took a little nature hike across the street from our house in a woodsy area. The kids were playing in the creek and catching fish. Miles was walking down the middle of the little creek splashing around in the water. It was so warm! Yesterday the kids said they woke up and went to school in Texas, and came home to Alaska. And, today the temperature was up in the high 40's and all the snow's melting away. Crazy TX!

Miles on Wednesday:

Miles on Thursday:

How's Miles going to be dressed tomorrow?

Now this is snow!

Miles is playing in the backyard, trying to figure out what all this weird white stuff is. Look at how big some of the flakes are. They're more like snowballs!

Zoe thinks she is going to throw this at me..... until I threatened her. Mom's are allowed to threaten their kids, right?
I love how the snow makes houses look. Everything is so white and pretty.
This is looking out from my front porch.
My tree had just started blossoming a few days ago. The girls were singing "Popcorn Popping" when they saw all the buds. Now it is all sparky white, covered in snow.

I made the kids come in and now they are gathered around, e-mailing friends, and blogging. (Man, I really need to dust my fossil of a computer! Oh well, it's been good to us for the last ten years.)

Yum! Hot Cocoa!