Trey's a Charm

Flash back nine months ......

If you will recall, Sister Two was anticipating the big 4-0 and Sister One helped celebrated the milestone by providing 40 gag gifts for the 40 days preceding the big day.

Sister One was ecstatic when she found this mug at a garage sale:

.... and then Sister Two calls and breaks the news that she was both!  

We've had many good laughs over that.

Lots has happened in the past nine months besides Sister's Two's feet disappearing .... 

Sister Two had her gall bladder removed after several severe  attacks and scares,

Mom unexpectedly died after moving in with Sister One (the two events were totally unrelated), and then a few weeks ago, Uncle Jake died as well.  It was more than anyone should have to deal with .... much less while being pregnant, but Sister Two did it with grace and aplomb.

The past week has been especially hard and Sister Two was quite ready for Baby Carter to enter the world, but he proved to be a stubborn little cuss (we're sure that comes from the Carter side of the family) and refused to make his way into the world.  Hitting a washed out road and deploying the side air bags in their fancy new pick-up didn't even scare him out!  

But finally, last night he made his much anticipated appearance.

Meet Trey Allen Carter, born on March 1 at 11:57 p.m.

7 pounds 8.1 ounces

20 1/4 inches long

I could hardly wait for school to be over today so that I could go up and make sure that Sister Two was truly okay.  She assured me that she was, but I needed to see it with my own eyes.

Now, those of you who know me know that I couldn't really give a rip about babies .....

unless they are the furry variety with four legs, a tail and a wet nose!

However, Trey is different for some reason.

He's beautiful and absolutely perfect.

He is a calm, quiet little guy and I swear he is already grinning.

I know, I know, babies don't smile .... and that it's just gas.

This little guy is smiling.

And why not?

He already has a huge fan base.

Niece One looks pretty pleased with him.

Frog Legs showed up and immediately wanted to take him from me.

I was more than a little reluctant to let him go ... which was VERY uncharacteristic of me!


Keith's parents both came up to visit as well, 
so needless to say, the little guy wasn't lacking for attention!

Keith is just as tired as Katie is, and yet he looks great.

Euphoria will do that for you.  

I think he'll be happy to get his family home and settled.

If Trey turns out half as good-looking and half as nice as his dad,

Sister Two will have her hands full when he is a teen-ager!  

Welcome to the family Trey!

Welcome Baby Trey

Just an update to say that sister two did have her baby last night at 11:57! I'll let her post all of the details, just wanted to let everyone know the happy news!

Snow!!

Just when I begin boasting about the beautiful spring weather, Mother Nature decides to play a nasty trick: snow!

Just kidding. They are really fabulously beautiful flower petals from the orchards. But if you squint your eyes a little and stare at the branches long enough, it kind of resembles a light flurry as they gently sail down to the grass.

Wow. They're so pretty, I feel like breaking into a haiku.

This is an exciting week. We finished our book for the pre-school and sent it off to the printer's last night, I booked my first official session as a real photographer(!!) for Saturday morning, AND sister two seems like she might just have that baby today!! Hooray!!

We'll keep you posted!

Spring!!

It might not seem like spring back in Nebraska, but here the first sure sign of old man winter's departure is the blossoming of the freeway flower.

Now that we live in bfe, we spend plenty of time on the road. (Thankyou Mary Pope Osbourne for creating two hundred billion Magic Treehouse audiobooks.)

First the Mustard flowers start popping up, then the Golden Poppy--which, according to Phin, my friend's son--is the California state flower. (Actually, I already knew that, but I didn't learn that valuable tidbit until I was in my thirties. He, on the other hand, is in his twos. He can also identify all of the states, unlike myself.)

I'm going to snag his copy of Fifty Nifty United States, so I can brush up on all of those pesky Eastern states. Not that the states, themselves are pesky. They just happened to be my personal, fifth-grader's geography nightmare. And the point where my brain gave up on learning geography.

Although my brain did write a stunning fifth-grade report on Native American Indians. Unfortunately, it didn't start writing the stunning report until the day before it was due (or was it the day after?) and my dear eldest sister had to "help" me finish it. Having spent an inordinate amount of time perfecting an intricate Crayola beadwork tapestry on the cover--including a snazzy construction paper fringe that echoed the handmade design of a Lakota Sioux dance shawl, I had very little time to focus on the five daunting paragraphs of the actual paper. But I digress.

Anyway, in celebration of the short window of time before it becomes so unbearably hot, I'll be wishing I lived in Siberia, we drove to St. helena to get some pics in the mustard fields. I don't know why looking at a field of yellow weeds makes me want to cry. They are just soooo pretty.

February

Time has been zooming by at the old sister-number-three house. Not much to blog about, but I'll give it a try since sister-number-one is busy with a class full of kids and sister-number-two is busy with a belly full of kid.

We've been potty training our two-year-old, which is a fun-filled endeavor. I'll spare you the pictures. Not that I have any, since I took a solemn vow not to take naked baby pictures of my kids, which I have mostly upheld.

We've been planting flowers.




We've been freezing (not by Nebraskan standards) our booties--and fingers--off at the park.

I have sunk to a new, use-your-sock-as-a-mitten low. I thought for sure I'd avoid that one with my own children. But seriously, where do all of those frickin' mittens disappear to?

I'm taking an indesign class so I can learn how to layout a picture book for Isabella's pre-school class. We needed something to auction during the school's annual fundraiser and we came up with the idea of making a storybook about the creatures in their garden. Since I can't draw or paint, I'm taking pics of all of the kids dressed up like ladybugs and gnomes and fairies and stuff and I'm going to tweak them and cut and past them in photoshop, then turn the photos into "watercolors" for the illustrations.

Here's one of some soon-to-be rolly pollies.

Andrew's taking some grad classes and has started a foray into mushroom growing. (Not the psychedelic kind, although there is an amazing amount of information on that topic available on the web. Who knew?) Our upcoming crop = oyster and shitake. We'll post some pictures if it works. For now, the only pictures would be the amazingly annoying quantity of mushroom-spore-filled containers hidden in dark places all over the house.

Blogger won't let me post any more pics for some reason right now. I think it's a message from the universe to bring this post to a close. Hope everyone is staying warm and having a great February!!!