It's Not Dark Outside, It's Happy!

That's Carrie's new favorite way to wake me up in the morning. She'll yell out, "Mommy!" and when I come into her room, she's points to the window and says, "See mommy?! It's not dark outside! It's happy!!!" Adorable and profound all at the same time....

And just because I don't have any pictures to go with that story, here's a couple recent random ones. Carrie holding up Flat Steven and a picture she drew for Halloween. Yes, I know you can't see the picture, but you can see her, and she's the cutest part about this picture, so enjoy :)

Also, last night, my youngest brother Jake had his Eagle Court of Honor! We're proud of him and the awesome example he is to Carrie.

Seriously.... Awesome.

What a Doll!

Carrie has discovered Barbies... And I'm totally cool with it. This dollhouse she's playing with was mine and my sister's when we were little. Our parents built it for us for Christmas one year. (I'm feeling like building Carrie her own dollhouse might be an awesome Christmas present this year.....)


The dolls my mom got recently are all Disney Princesses, so Carrie already knows all their names.

I love that she totally knows how to play with them. Nobody taught her, she just started making the dolls chat, play, cook dinner, go to bed... Everything...




Also, because I didn't feel the need for a separate post, here's the cupcake cake I made for my dad's surprise 50th birthday party. It's cake mix boxes stacked and covered with fabric to look like a hill. Get it? Over the hill?.... The cupcakes are green and springy on the left and as they go up and over the hill, the frosting "plants" start to die, until they're only a pile of sticks at the bottom.... I thought it was clever....

San Diego!

What a weekend! We got home last night from our trip to San Diego with my family! Here's oodles of pictures from our trip!

Carrie and "Flat Steven" in the courtyard at our hotel. (Flat Steven is a project for our cousin Steven who's in Kindergarten in Utah. "Flat Steven" came to visit us in the mail. We've had him for about a week and we get to take pictures with him of places we go and things we do, and then send him back so real Steven can give a report to his class!)

Grandma and Grandpa LaPray, and Grandma Lori

Monday we headed to the San Diego Zoo! Before we even went through the front gate we saw an elephant!

We decided the bus tour would be a great way to see most of the Zoo without getting to hot or tired. (Don't we look cute?! I love this picture!!)

The Elephants were Carrie's favorite part! She got soooo excited to see them! And she makes the cutest little elephant sound imitation ;)

Getting tickly hugs from Auntie Rissa on the bus

Some of the gang walking around. With us were, my parents, one set of grandparents, my sister Marissa (w/ husband and baby), my brother Kevin (w/ wife and baby), my brother Jake, my pseudo sister Alex (w/ baby).... Two full double strollers! (If you look really closely, you can see Carrie picking her nose.... I didn't see that at the time)

Carrie playing with Flat Steven during our lunch break

Trying to get a cute pic with Grandma, Carrie, and Mommy. But Carrie wouldn't look, stinker!!

Almost the only picture I got of Justin all day where he wasn't making a goofy face. Isn't he handsome?!

A long day at the zoo will certainly make you tired, especially if you're two years old...

Justin and Flat Steven riding the "Skyfari" tram. The Zoo is enormous!! And so gorgeous from above!

Carrie rode in the tram just before us, with my parents. This was our view on the way down!

Waving hello from the tram

Making friends with a gorilla statue (probably because she wants its banana) ;)

Poking up through the ice with a (fake) seal

Giving hugs to the polar bear statue

Panda bears!

Carrie's loot from the gift shop. A panda t-shirt and a panda puzzle. When she "opened her present", she held up the puzzle and asked us, "Where did you get this?". We replied, "From the gift shop." She thought for a second and said, "Oh... well, you can take it back to the gift shop, I don't need it"..... It was hilarious! (And no, we didn't take it back. It was like $3, and we knew she'd love it eventually)

She crashed in the stroller right as we were about to leave. 6 hours at the zoo?.... We were all tired...

But not tired enough to miss out on the Mormon Battalion Museum. (Thanks Brian and Kristan for the suggestion!) Grandma LaPray stayed at the hotel with the sleeping babies while the rest of us trekked out to the museum. It was so cool!

Jake got to dress up like one of the battalion members. From what I hear, that gun is super heavy!

At the end of the tour, we all got to pan for gold. Wish it wasn't fools gold, we found a lot...

We got a commemorative museum picture too!



Then we headed to the San Diego Temple to see it all lit up at night.

We were back the next day though, because....



My Sister Marissa, Brother-in-law Brandon, and Nephew Isac, were sealed together as a family for all Eternity!!!








We're so proud of them for reaching this goal! Congrats Smith family! We loved being a part of your special day! Thanks for giving us a reason to have a family vacation to San Diego! ;)

Park BBQ

We got to go have a lot of fun tonight with some friends at an abandoned park. The developers built the park, but then never built up the community of houses around it. So we had it all to ourselves. We brought dinner and enjoyed a fun evening of grilling, eating and playing together!

Just Because

Hanging out at Grandma's house.... I'm not quite sure how she got like that without falling completely off the couch....

We still haven't made any more progress on our backyard the last few weeks, but Justin did clean off the patio of all the shovels, pipe, wheelbarrow, dirt, dirt, and dirt.... Which makes playing on the patio with chalk on a BEAUTIFUL chilly morning tons of fun. (And when I say chilly, I mean 65 degrees with a little breeze.... marvelous)

Yo-Yo

Some days I hate hormones, emotions, and being a grown-up.... I have yet to pinpoint the exact reason, but every once in a while, I just have a grumpy day. And usually it's all the tiny things that decide to crash down on me at the same time. Feeling out of shape and mushy, feeling like Carrie is a teenager and actively trying to defy me, feeling like a tornado went through my house, feeling like we have negative money, missing Brigham like crazy, while at the same time feeling like his whole life was a dream....

And then there are the days where my life is awesome and wonderful and loving and perfect! It's exhausting!

Throughout this year, we've often had people say how strong we are. How inspiring it is that we're even "upright". We're living our daily lives and blending in with the rest of the population as if we haven't had the devastating trials we've had. I know we could certainly be lower, but I don't think we're all that awesome.... Anyways, the point I was trying to get to was, our Bishop said something that stuck with me. I can't quote it exactly, but something to the effect of, "Because your highs are so high, when you have lows, they might seem REALLY low."

I kind of think of it with a diving board metaphor. If you're on the low dive, jumping into the pool doesn't seem like that far of a fall. But if you're on the high dive, even though you're going to end up in the same pool, the fall to get there seems huge!

We've been so blessed to have our testimonies be strengthened through all these trials. I know it would be impossible to really count all our blessings, but when we try, it's baffling. We have so many temporal comforts, a nice house, Justin's job, food to eat, one car that still runs. We have good educations, and live in a free country. We have loving supportive families, good friends, an earthly angel for a daughter, and a heavenly angel for a son.... We have each other. For eternity....

So while the bad days are annoying, history has shown me that I'll likely yo-yo back up soon. That's why I write posts like this; So I can read them on a bad day and remember how truly blessed I really am.

I Have To Do My Work First

Last night I went to find Carrie to put her to bed. I found her in my parents room and said, "Come on, it's time to go have prayer and go to bed!" She looked at me very seriously and said, "Mom, I have to do my work first. Just a minute OK?"

She then proceeded to climb onto my dad's desk chair and up to his computer. She started clicking and scrolling away with the mouse. She found my dad's reading glasses and put them on, but I think they hurt her eyes, so she figured they would still be useful just sitting on the desk.

She tried to treat the desktop monitor like a touch screen.... :)

And of course when she discovered I was taking pictures, she had to ham it up for the camera!

A couple other funny things she's said lately:

"It's only the best I've ever seen!!" That means she really really wants it; could be a movie, cereal, a stuffed animal etc. I don't know where she learned this.

When Justin called my parents' dog and she ran away instead of coming to him, Carrie looked at him and very seriously said, "She doesn't trust you". Again, no idea where she learned this one.... Truly...

"Rooster! Come out, come out wherever you are!!" (Calling out the back door for the dog). AGAIN, don't know where she learned this!

I love wondering when she'll say the next thing that just plain baffles and amazes me!