One of our favorite things to do is turn some music on and watch the family go to town…singing and dancing. Carson has been the funniest of them all lately. He loves music and shakes his arms and body as fast as he can possibly go.
This is a typical pose for Logan when music comes on. He runs and grabs his cowboy hat, puts his hands in pocket, taps his boots (that he puts on his feet the second he rolls out of bed in the morning,) and gets this look on his face.
We took the kids to the dentist this week. It was their first time ever & quite the experience. Sydney did GREAT. Uneasy and nervous at first, but once she got back there & saw all the movies and nintendo games & nice dental assistants, she was fine. I was so proud of her! Unfortunately she has at least 2 cavities that I have to take her back to get filled on Monday, and a possible “root canal.” I am so nervous and dreading it for her. 
Poor Logan was not so thrilled about the dentist. Thankfully he was able to sit with Rodd most of the time, and thankfully he had no cavities.
I learned my lesson and will be flossing their teeth frequently.
As I mentioned before, my sister was down here a week ago for a surprise visit. She put pictures of our time together on their blog, so you can go here to look at them and I’ll add a few more below.
We went out for Pho at my favorite restaurant.
We said good-bye to Carson’s mullet. It was a joyous occasion!
We stayed up and made valentines cards and pretzels for Sydney’s class.
Kar and Sydney put together her Chixos doll
Thanks for coming down, Kar. It was a dream of a week! ♥
On Saturday we were supposed to go to a church work day and on our way there our van almost died. We barely sputtered home & had to pull over to the side every few seconds before making it home. It’s now in the shop and they are putting in a new transmission. Ugh!
Rodd and Rusty were given free tickets to the Daytona 500 on Sunday–so Valentines or not, it was a once in a life time experience they didn’t want to miss. It was a cold and long day but they had so much fun!!
Rodd had Presidents day off, so he took S, L & C to a movie in the afternoon while I stayed home and prepped dinner. The girls in our small group made a big valentines dinner for our husbands (+ one fiance.) Lots of fun…and work! 
Lots to update on here. My sweet grandparents flew my sister down here for my birthday weekend and we had an amazing FIVE days together! So so fun and such a great GIFT. We fit as much as we could in those days and I had a special birthday. Kar more than made up for the 4 years of missed birthdays.
We went strawberry picking the first day she was here. Will post more pics of her time here soon.
We wanted to get S & L in AWANA last year, but because our small group met on Wednesdays, we weren’t able to get them to AWANA at the same time. BUT this year they are going on Sunday nights to AWANA at a church close by and are loving it! They are in the same class which is fun for them. We love it and think it is such a great program. Here they are in the blistery cold weather we had yesterday…
They just got their first 2 badges that I now need to sew on for them. It’s a nice 2 hour “break” for Rodd (Carson) & I to run errands, get coffee…whatever we want. Sundays have fast become a family favorite!
(whoops, meant to send this yesterday.)
Rodd took S & L to church and then Sea World for a bit today, so I’m going to write a quick blog update and then continue on with my “peaceful” Sunday. Carson is on the tail end of pneumonia and was up several times last night, so he’s upstairs… hopefully sleeping away his sickness. Poor baby! We really had no clue he was so sick. He had been coughing and had a runny nose & fever so I finally took him in to the doctor last week.
2 weeks ago we had our friends Brian, Jeanie, & Parker staying with us. Every time they come we have a blast! This time was no exception except for the last 3 days when everyone was sick and poor Jeanie was in the hospital all day! It was horrible…and definitely not how we planned spending our weekend.
This weekend we painted Sydney’s room and it is a huge transformation. My kids have a lot of energy so I look for any way to calm them down and the previous color of bright orange just was not helping towards that end. “Green Tease” is much more soothing & she loves it.
My kids are still asking where Parker is. He’s such a sweet boy!
How were we to know he was sick? He’s always so smiley…
A few pictures of 2010:
The first of many pictures of us at Seaworld. We love this place. 
Logan and I with Shamu, Elmo, and Abby Cadabby
We brought in the new year with our friends who were visiting their family for a few weeks. So so fun to catch up with them…just made us wish they lived closer!
Syd and Summer got to see eachother several times too, which was fun for them.
Sydney is back at school 3 mornings a week. It has been the perfect amount of time/days for her to be at school before she starts kindergarten next year! She’s lovin it!
On her first day of school, I thought it was so sweet of her to write Logan this “I ♥ You” note. She told him he could look at it when he missed her: 
We are all about the “30 day shred” in this house. It will more likely be the 30 week shred in our case I am sure!
I think that’s enough pictures for one post. Haven’t said much about Rodd lately, but he is doing great & still the favorite around here. We’ve all had random colds here and there but he has managed to stay healthy which is great! He’s kinda re-structured his current project at work and is excited about getting the ball rollin on it.
And lastly, happy 57th birthday to my amazing mom who we love & miss!! They are hoping to be in PNG by the end of this month!
Logan taking his role of a cowboy seriously
Grandma got him a big boy bike, which he loves. The only thing is… the training wheels can’t be tightened so he falls off all the time. So he goes as fast as he can and eventually always ends up pinned down…laughing.
At the end of the day he asks for ice on his “wounded leg.”
Someone asked me about our blog the other day to which I replied, “WHAT blog?” so I’ll take a few minutes and give a quick recap on our Christmas season. (I’m wondering how I found time to update it so “frequently” before.) We made a gingerbread house, slept under the Christmas tree, Syd and I had our late night shopping excursion, I had way too many other late nights out shopping, played at Chick Fil A with our friends, went to an ornament exchange & ended up with a sparkly reindeer, & waited up for Rodd at nights because he was working on a major end- of- the- year project at NTM.
It’s tradition to celebrate with Rodd’s family on the 23rd and we always have such a great time. I like it that it’s a day early because it spreads the celebrating and family time out and we’re not trying to fit so much in to 2 days. His mom always puts on a beautiful brunch (among other things) for us and it’s just a very relaxing day. We love it!
This is what happens to Carson when Rodd and Rusty are around. At one point he had 4 or 5 of these darts on his forehead and he kept the same look on his face the whole time.
On Christmas Eve we went to Sea World (which was SO fun) for a few hours! That was our family gift this year and the kids loved it. We can’t wait to go throughout the year. Christmas morning we opened our stockings and then went out to Gi Gi’s (Great Grandma’s) house where we spent the day with her. Merry Christmas and HAPPY NEW YEAR! Can hardly believe it is almost 2010. Hope you are looking forward to the new year as much as we are .
rkharris
Rodd
