"You Little Shit!"

Dear Carter

Do you know how much I love you? Do you know how important you are to me? Do you know that I would do anything, anything, anything to protect you? You are my bubby. I love to hear you sing. I love to count your freckles. I love to tuck you in bed at night. I love to take care of you. I love to listen to you laugh. I love to see you smile. I love taking you to the Lawnmower Doctor. I love being your Mom. I love you Carter and don't you ever forget it. Don't you ever forget that you can tell me and talk to me about anything. I will always protect you and be your biggest advocate and fan.

I love you Carter James...

Love

Mom



Once upon lots of times, I have had to talk to some older boys who migrate to this forest area that is right behind our house. The only thing separating them from my kids is an iron fence. Like all kids do, they all call each other names, say their stupid, go away, shut up, your annoying me, etc. etc.

"You do your thing over there and we'll do our thing over here. Please stop teasing my kids."

I was hoping that the problem would just go away but that was not the case.

One afternoon, I watched out the window as they army crawled across the lawn over to where the trampoline is to tease Carter and to call him a retard. That was it! I was livid and immediately went out to ask them what in the hell they were doing? What was their point?

"Well, he is just bugging us." Yeah. That was all that they could come up with.

A day went by. Trevor had just come over to say hi to the kids. They were doing tricks on the trampoline and I was on the porch. Out from the forest area, one of the kids yelled at Carter to come here. So he jumped off the tramp and ran over to where they were standing, only the fence in between them. In some weird way, Carter thinks that they are his friends so he ran over to see what they wanted.

I hear a pop. I see Carter drop to the ground and hear him cry out, scream out in pain. I yell at Trevor who runs over to Carter. Once he realized what had happened he was over the fence in 1 hop off to chase down the boys.

YES. They lured my son to the fence to shoot him with a bee bee gun!!! YES. Can you believe that? WHO DOES THAT??? Really. WHO DOES THAT???

Carter was OK though I still freak out in my head when I think about what could have happened! Thank goodness Trevor did not catch the boys. The parents were not home. The police were called. Tickets were issued. It's over...kind of. I'm still furious, annoyed, and amazed!
It has prepared me for whats to come. Kids are so mean. SO MEAN and I know that this will not be the only time that I'm going to have to be Carter's advocate. I will do whatever I have to do to protect my son, my kids. I will teach them how it is that we treat others, respect others as well as respect ourselves.

I still get all fired up when I think about this!

The only funny thing that came out of this situation was what Kindra said...."Ohhhh you little shit!!!" (yes. that word is my very, very, very angry word! oops! passing it down to my kids)

Now that's classic!

The Salt Lake City Film Festival...

Do you remember my friend Keriann from here ? Well she came in town a few weekends ago for the Salt Lake City Film Festival. Her husbands company funded the production of the documentary so they flew in to be at the opening.

I was a little leery of what I was about to watch as she tried to give me some background on the movie. Oh no! "The Best Worst Movie-Troll 2 Documentary"??? Trolls??? But I will say that I actually enjoyed it!!! Way to go Jim!!! :)

Thanks Ann for the invite...for the payback...for another great story for us to laugh about...and for my next trip out! LOL :)

Our Idea Of A Really Unique Tree House...

Seeing that the first tree-house was not really functional, we decided to see if we could come up with a new idea for our tree-house. We used the wood, our basketball net, our soccer goal, the patio cushions, and of course some tree branches.


See? Sometimes you just have to look outside of the box to come up with the most original plan EVER!!! :)

The Dirty Work...

"Smile Carter. Smile!" I can just hear Kindra now giving her picture taking orders. She has become obsessed with taking pictures (I wonder where she got that from!) I laughed hard when I found these pictures that she had taken of their project planning....
I also love to see from their perspective, of what they think is really cool and important.....




I thought she did a good job! Especially since I was not their coaching her...plus she got Carter to smile and that's a jewel in itself! Seriously.....

The Innocent Imagination...

"Mom? Do you want to come out and see our tree house that we made? Seriously, it's totally freakin awesome?"

There were a lot of images that quickly flashed into my mind. A tree house huh? Now what could they have possibly done that would soon be equivalent to a disaster or a new cleanup project?

"Sure. I'll be right out....." I said wishing that I could really just escape to my ignorance is bliss state of mind!
But what I found was not too bad at all! In fact it was the most creative project that they've come up with so far this summer. One that I am proud to claim. They had the boards perfectly placed like a puzzle leading the way up to as high as they could possibly get. The only thing that made me a little nervous was the ladder that they had pulled out from the ancient space of the shed.

Plus it was impossible to not just grin from ear to ear because of how "proud" I was that they had dug so deep into their imaginations to pull this idea out! I love it! The longer that I can keep these innocent imaginations cranking, the happier that I'll be!

Even better was the fact that once again they had done this project together, calmly, without a punch, a hit, or a name calling! Those are the moments that as a parent, I love the most!

I love you bubby!

I love you keek a boo!

Our Week Of Water...

There is sure to be excitement whenever Katie Thomas is in town. There is something that happens within us that allows for the laughter to happen no matter what. Jenny said it best..."We need to be around you more often cause no matter what we say, you laugh and we then think that we are the funniest people EVER!!!"

Heather decided that we needed to float down the Provo River with her. She has done it a million times and was not worried at all that those of us who had never done it before, would have a hard time. (let's not forget that with me, its like having half of a body!!!)

It's safe to say that I will probably NEVER do this again! It was so hard to figure out if it was better to be on my stomach or to be sitting up, though flexible enough (or to not feel it enough) to be squashed together? You have NO IDEA how many looks that I was getting! "How is she doing that???"

So this is where Thomas and Jenny decided that they had had enough and that they were going to hike it down the rest of the way. Yeah. But their flip flops had been lost in the river so they were going to try it barefoot. Yeah.

Needless to say, this is what they looked like when they ended up. Notice the popped raft that they ripped apart into shoes? Uh. Yeah.

Off to the Thomas residence for some rest and relaxation...

...until she once again made me laugh which caused me to have a near drowning incident?

Yes. She is laughing as I am choking up a lung.

The next day poor Kindra had to be crushed by my chair as we were up to go for a ride. When we've got everything in the car, this is how it goes down!

Seriously look at that view of Timp Mtn???

Playing at the pool...

Can I just tell you how much my kids love Thomas??? No really. They understand why it is that we call her Thomas because of the whole "Katie" thing but they don't call her Thomas. No. They call her "Katie Thomas". "Katie Thomas...? Katie Thomas...? Katie Thomas...?" So funny!

They also know that when you hear that "whistle" that she's got goin on with her being a teacher and all, that you DO and NOW!!! She won't put up with any of the crap that I might put up with. NO lie...

Kindra loves the stairs at ANY pool because the railing is her favorite spot to do tricks and all sorts of maneuvers with her legs! "Mom. Mom! Look at this!"

Don't worry. Our water adventures for this year are not over yet!