it's here! finally here!

("Oh my heck, oh my heck, oh my heck, oh my heck..." is going through my mind...)


These are the announcements that my mom made, they turned out wonderfully! Thank you for doing that Mom!

It's HERE! Graduation Day is finally upon us, and yet I find myself scrambling. I've only had years and YEARS to prepare for this. It's a very emotional time for me and I am overwhelmed with pride. I'm so proud of Ryan and how hard he's worked for this. We talked about him going to law school on our very first date. This day has been in the making for most of his life, and for ALL of our dating/married life.

He can now say that he argued in front of the Ninth Circuit because he just got back tonight. He said that he did "okay" but the corners of his mouth were turned up, forming a shy smile. I'm sure he did better than just okay, he has a knack for debating and arguing. It's just what he does!

This is a picture of him and Chief Justice Roberts who visited the campus recently.

Wow, you rock Ryan. I'm so proud of you. I'm honored to be sharing this day with you but I can't wait until it's over. I'm thinking a giant nap would be nice.

I love you!

real cases. real clients

Oh yeah! That awesome husband of mine is currently in California arguing in front of the Ninth Circut court today! For his Appellate Clinic this year, he has a couple clients that he's representing and after months and countless hours of work, his oral argument is today!

He and his friend are the only two from U of I, so it's a huge deal and very exciting.

What a fulfilling day, the perfect way to end his law school career! So proud of my Ryan!

visiting dawson's school

Dawson and Miss Jackie
He's so proud of himself! He can pump on the swings and make himself go!

Carter doesn't understand this game very well, you're supposed to kick the ball with your feet.

Carter absolutely loved all the excitement and kids, he would start running and then fall.
Everytime I turned around he was on the ground!

Carter ended up having "groupies"-- it HAS to be his spikey hair and the Bombadier jacket, right? They wouldn't go anywhere without him, wherever Carter ran, they ran! They were constantly patting his head and giving him hugs too. What a chick magnet!!





Rolling down the hill.
Dawson and Abraham

There's cute little Isaac!

Snacktime! Dawson absolutely loved having us there for snack, he was such a good helper to Carter and they both had nice manners.

windy fun

We've had such powerful winds over the past couple days and we've enjoyed every second of it! I love wind! We played outside a little after my dental appointment--(prepped for 2 crowns yesterday...nearly 3 hours worth of work and a VERY sore mouth)

We ran to Walmart and bought bubbles and had so much fun!! You can't tell by the limited pictures I was able to take, partly because the wind carried them off so quickly and I had to help Carter keep his Bubble Gun pointed upwards. The bubbles went so far down the street, we even had a couple cars slow down and stop in front of our house to watch the fun!

Can you spy the bubbles down the street?? This isn't a very good one, I'll take more later.

This is what happens when you take away the Bubble Gun because teeny fingers are frozen.
And THIS is what happens when your little Prince is distracted and has to go to the bathroom instead of securing his Bubble Sword properly...

(Reason I'm not freaking out?? It's in the entry way and only on the rug that is disposable. Whew! And it only took one roll of paper towels, not so bad.)

a little about carter bo barter

"Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing up is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing."

~Phyllis Diller

I don't know what to do with this KID! Something so little can make such big messes! He can empty a nicely-folded laundry basket FULL of clean clothes in a matter of seconds. He's amazing, he's got some sort of superpower.

What's fun about having toys all over the room when you can play with the tub that they belong in?!

And why play underneath when you can play on the top?

He's a mooch. He loves food that can be eaten on the go.

Oh and speaking of food, this afternoon he's eaten a permanent marker, some bites of yellow chalk and washed it down with bubble liquid.

I didn't realize it but when I went to go find the marker he had for snack, this is what else I found. It was like walking into a nightmare:
-marker on the wall
-marker on the desk
-toys ALL OVER the room (YES! He can drag the big toy and physically topple it over to make a big crash and an even bigger mess) -marker and crayon on the window
-the CD player was actually skipping and stuck on a certain part of the CD

I love my kid, but this is what I found myself doing today as I was bathing him...looking awful forlorn because of the HUGE mess I have to go clean now...

best day ever

I LOVE Mother's Day! Every year I get breakfast in bed, some flowers and some bites of burnt toast. (the kids are usually in charge of that task) I don't have to get out of bed until an hour before church; when we throw our clothes on and dash out the door.

However, this morning, I had several things to do! I had to make a few dozen mini-muffins for Carter's Nursery class, had to prepare a few 'thank you' gifts to the kid's teachers and hurry and prepare Ryanna's talk. And I had to shower and get myself ready also. Oh, I don't have a blow dryer so I just have to run about the house shaking my hair. (Yes, I actually do this) And I burned most of the muffins. I threw them in the oven, ran and did my hair, came back out and pulled out little black things in the shapes of muffins. I did it three more times...I guess I should get a timer!

As I was mixing the muffin mix together (as my hair is dripping everywhere, thus starting the drying process) I was thinking to myself, "It's MOTHER'S DAY...why am I the first and ONLY one up?" Huh.

Luckily, Ryan woke up (my yelling at him from the bathroom might have had something to do with it) and helped me get everything ready. The kids were dressed, spic and span, fed and ready to go. I got all the gifts, muffins, etc. ready and Ryan finished Ryanna's little talk and we ran out the door.

We were BARELY on time for Sacrament Meeting. Phew.

Carter was hyper and hardly sat still through the meeting and kept yelling "Hour! Hour!" (Water! Water!) when the Sacrament rolled around. He climbed up one side of our bench and down the other. Ryan had dressed Dawson in Carter's pants accidentally, therefore they way to small and Dawson knew it. He was having fits because he was uncomfortable, so they left halfway through the meeting. Seeing his father leaving the chapel, Carter starts YELLING and SCREAMING! (we were second bench from the front...everyone can see and hear what's going on) I ran after them holding a hand over Carter's mouth to mute the screams a little. Ryan heard all the racket and turned around, rolling his eyes and grabbed Carter. They took off to change Dawson's pants, while I returned to my seat. It was only another minute or two when Ryanna starts dancing in her seat and she informs me that "I have to go to the bathroom and NOW." I roll my eyes and tell her that she can wait just a minute until the speaker is done. She kept dancing and dancing. Meanwhile, my friend's little girl peeked her head around the bench arm and smiled at me. I started playing with her and Ryanna kept dancing. I have no idea what the speaker was talking about by now, I was so distracted! I knew I brought it upon myself, though.

Ryanna's eyes were big as she tells me that "I can hardly wait!" and she reverently runs out of the chapel. The little girl I was holding little Ivy on my lap still, but she grew bored of me and hopped down.

I found myself sitting still, wondering to myself, "I thought I came with a family..." because I was the only one sitting on the bench! One by one my family members had left, leaving me all alone and I was able to sit STILL. I didn't know what to do with myself!

We finished church (I was distracted and kept playing the wrong notes on the piano in Primary) and we went home. Ate lunch and then I got presents!!! Before Ryan ran off to school to study (two finals in the next two days) I got these fun gifts that I always wanted:

Sweeney Todd Soundtrack. LOVE the music. It's awesome and completely ingenious. Love it.

A very nice temporary replacement ring for my ring finger! It's a square fake diamond on a Black Hills Gold band. (I actually bought it because my wedding ring has one diamond missing and the prongs are all weathering down...needing to fix that as soon as we have an income!)

Dancing Waters perfume from Bath and Body. It's my favorite smell right now and I can't get enough of it.

And best of all I got....drum roll please........
I got Guitar Hero for my DS! I'm so excited, I'd better hurry up and do the dishes so I can play it. I love my family, thanks to them for making it a fabulous and exciting Mother's Day.