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So want to know a few of my pet peeves? 1. Manipulators 2. People who bag on their spouse, EVEN IN FRONT OF THEM! 3. People who can't be happy for other people... Thats it for now!

Want to know some weird facts about me? 1. I have to sleep with 1 foot outside the covers but I have to have covers even if its 110 degrees outside. 2. I have to wash my hands when I leave a bathroom even if I only go in to check my hair 3. I secretly want to move to India and set up an orphanage and run it the rest of my life.

Wanna know whats going on at the Carter house right now as I type? Hinckley is laying on the floor playing with his airplane. Chandler is on his tummy playing with a fabric stick toy. Its cold 40 degrees outside and its only suppose to get up to 53 today, oh and did I mention its raining?! And we are currently counting down the days until daddy comes home from training

A break from grad pics

Yes I have more to share!

But Kristin cut my hair cute a few days before guests arrived. Here is the final product.

Happy THURSDAY!

My baby now officially has 2 teeth! I ordered Troys graduation present today online off ebay, any guesses to what it is????? I went to lunch with Kristin, got flowers from the hubs because I am THE LUCKIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD! Got an Easter package from my mom.... Lets see any other good news?

(unopened present)

(open present!)

Oh to be that skinny again

I have been looking through my old photos and found this gem. Geez how I wish I could be that size again. Now I know I will never be with having 2 kids my dang hips are so LARGE! But a girl can wish can't she? BY THE WAY>>>>> BEWARE OF OLD PHOTOS COMING SOON! I may just be posting a bunch this week with oldies but goodies

sisterhood of the traveling pants

I have had these PJ pants since at least 2001. I got them for Christmas from my favorite sister in the WHOLE WORLD! They seriously were the most comfortable jammies ever! They have more meaning to me because my sisters gave them to me and they surprised me that year at Christmas! They made it the best Christmas that year. They have since been with me everywhere I have been, they are the first thing packed in my suitcase. Florida, the Carolinas, Arizona, California, driving across the country twice, New York, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Hawaii, they have actually been to every state except: for 12 of them. Thats pretty cool!
They have taken me through many adventures all my years of college, my wedding, honeymoon, 2 babies and pregnancies, miscarriages, love, hate, strength, weakness, pride, humility, laughter, and tears, and just about any other emotion you can think of. They were my companionship for 9 years. I am so sad to see them go. I doubt I will ever find another pair like them. But as you will see they are ripped up to my behind so its time to put them to rest. I LOVE YOU GAP PJS FOREVER!

Friends in low places?

I have been feeling really lonely lately. I am not sure why, its silly because I have a wonderful husband (who is by far my best friend in this WHOLE world), and I do have great friends. I just can't seem to get out of my "lonely state". My dad gave me a beautiful blessing before we came back from Christmas and he promised me I would find friends. And I am telling you I am discovering friendships I never thought I would in a million years. There is something about a new friendship that is exciting but scary. So thankful for new beginnings!

Embarrassing 2010

So I have 2 stories to share and they are both embarrassing but I have to either laugh or cry about them so I am choosing to laugh.

STORY #1
I was driving to a neighbors house and was turning into her driveway. ICE + Me going a little too fast= ending up in a mini snow bank and hitting her garbage can. Oh thank goodness 2 girls helped push me out. I think every year I have to get STUCK in somebody's drive way. I keep think her neighbor caught it on video and it will end up on YOU tube. OH well. At least I didn't hit anybody!

STORY #2
We were having a lazy Saturday and by lazy I mean I was wearing my night gown ALL DAY... well I did get dress about 5pm but it was cozy and I was cold... Anyway... My night gown is a bit short... and I heard a knock at the door. ASSUMING it was my sister in law because she left a few things here and she said she was going to stop by and pick them up I opened the door with out thinking. COME to find out it was a member of our Bishopric wife! Who I totally look up to and adore. UGH! I WAS SO MORTIFIED! Here I am with this mini night gown on and slippers, greasy gross hair, glasses on, no make up. WHAT A SIGHT!

Spider bites or MRSA?!

When we were in Vegas one morning I woke up and found these hard pimple like things right under my behind.... I thought it was odd but maybe it was a spider bite? Then through out the day and next day a few more showed up. We called downstairs and they came up and did a good cleaning and inspection. As we got to Tucson they became VERY VERY painful and the swelling around it became HUGE. So Troy took me to the doctor and we got some antibiotics. Troy had to pop them and drain them. IT WAS INCREDIBLY painful. My niece who visited my parents around Thanksgiving time came with the same looking "bites". Very odd.
Well, my mom is visiting my other brother and his family and guess who shows up with these same looking bites? My sister in law and nephew. I believe this is the 2nd time they have shown up. So they went to the doctor and come to find out.....

ITS NOT SPIDER BITES ITS MRSA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is VERY contagious and is very HARD to get rid of it. If you are interested in knowing more about it here are some links.

Yes I am finding the true meaning of Christmas

I have been feeling really sad this Christmas season. And the second you find you why I am sad I am sure you will think I am selfish and that I do not understand the true meaning of Christmas. And you are 100% exactly correct. I have never had to go with out, I have always been blessed with amazing Holidays and year round. But this year is different... Troy and I decided not to exchange presents this year. Not because we are trying to teach our kids a lesson or each other one but just for the fact we cant. I wish I could say the motive behind it was pure but its not. If we had the money we would. Hinckley will have a few things under the tree (thanks to a check from my parents) and I truly COULD NOT handle not having a least 1 present under the tree for him. He wont care that they came from the dollar store!

So yes I have been feeling really blue about this whole Christmas thing and its all selfish reasons. I tried getting out of this blue streak by doing nice things for people (watch their kids, take a meal to somebody, write a note to friend) but nothing helped. NOTHING. Not any Christmas decoration, music, lights or production. (Troys parents took us to the Forgotten Carols at Thanksgiving) I even tried to just pray and thank Heavenly Father for all the amazing things in my life. NOTHING WORKED.

UNTIL TODAY... Well, actually a few things leading up to today. All these little things lead up to one big BAM moment for me. I was driving to Rexburg to take Troy some dinner (he is in the middle of finals) and that song Christmas Shoes came on. Now 9.9 times out of 10 I turn the song off because it either makes me cry or I get annoyed because you hear it all the time. But this time it was different... I realized something. I AM SO BLESSED TO BE ALIVE! I have my health, I have shoes, I have children, I have a wonderful husband, I get to be with my family for Christmas, i have a nice warm house to live in, I have clothes, I have a car that works, I have friends, I have faith, I have love, I have food in my pantry, and many other blessings in my life. Why am I letting something like no presents for Christmas ruin the true meaning of Christmas?

And all these small moments hit me... The fact that somebody left 2 HUGE boxes of food on my friends door step who is going through a rough time, to meeting a man who will probably loose his wife of 30+ years to cancer before Christmas, from the Christmas bell that my son carries around all day long that somebody dropped by our house, the fudge I made and delivered to families we care about, and many other things lead up to this point and I cried. I cried for joy. I cried for the simple fact that I am blessed. TRULY BLESSED in my life.

So what is the true meaning of Christmas this year? LOVE... Love from my family. Love from my friends and most of all Love from the Savior. For he is truly the reason why we celebrate this time of year.

Anxiety attacks

This is HInckley eating the dinner

We went to the National Guard Family Christmas party on Saturday and it was so fun. I love catching up the soldiers who Troy talks about. We have some great friends we have met through the guard. Many of which we have seen start to date somebody, get married and start a family. The boys love to chase Hinckley around and to talk to him. Some don't even mind Hinckley drinking their water or sharing their cake. Oh how I LOVE THE NATIONAL GUARD. I do have one gripe but it was bound to happen and continue to happen. EVERYBODY AND THEIR MOTHERS wanted to touch my baby. Okay not just touch him but PUT THEIR FINGERS ON HIS FACE! Hello germs?! DO you really think its appropriate to touch a babies eyes, nose and mouth? I knew there would be a lot who wanted to hold him so I took our little carrier to prevent it. Actually Troy wore it... too bad I didn't get a picture. So yes I had major anxiety attacks about germs but what do you do? Oh well! And some random old lady kept taking pictures of him... WEIRD! Thats what happens when you have a cute baby!

9/11/2001

I feel like I have A TON to blog about (the rotc, Kathy, the baby, and more!) However, since 9/11/2009 I have been wanting to write my thoughts down about 9/11/2001.

I was a senior in High School and we had just started school maybe a week or so before. I LOVED MY SENIOR YEAR. I went in late (2nd period and left after 3rd period). Yes I only had 2 classes it was WONDERFUL! I would go home for about an hour and then go to work at a day care for 5 hours everyday. I LOVED LOVED LOVED my JOB! It worked perfect.

Flash back to 9/11/01... I had gone to my first class (Current Events) and was in my 2nd class English. We were in the library that day and my friend Justin and I were joking around and playing on the computers. The internet system kept going down and towards the end of class our teacher kept going in the back room and she was crying. We were all like what the heck? She announced that something terrible had happened to our country...

I walked out to my car and turned on the radio. I couldn't BELIEVE my ears. I 2nd tower had been hit and was about to go down. I had to go to the police station that day to get my fingerprints done for work. I sat in the car and cried as the radio announcer said, "THE TOWER JUST FELL, I CANT BELIEVE MY EYES!" Then news of the pentagon, and Pennyslvania came in. How could this be? What? This must be some type of movie trailer....

I walked in the police station and it was humming. Though we lived an hour and half away from DC many police officers were headed up north to help. I got my fingerprints done and headed home to eat. As I was driving my thoughts turned to my family. Sometimes my dad went to the Pentagon for work.... Where was my mom? Is she safe? What about the hundreds of members of our stake who work in DC? So I pulled out the cell phone that I was ONLY to use for car emergencies. I couldn't get a hold of my mom.... Couldn't get a hold of my dad.... What about my sister? My brothers? Where are they going to hit us next? It wasn't until about an hour later that I got a hold of both my mom and dad. THEY WERE SAFE!

As I drove into the day care I thought... Oh my gosh these poor babies have no clue what just happened... Some of these kids parents work at the Pentagon.... What if they dont return? What do we do? The day was long. It was SAD! After I came home I was just GLUED TO THE TV. I couldn't get my eyes of the news.

That single day in history FOREVER CHANGED my life. I still think about it.

The horrible Eastern Idaho State Fair

I think this is the 3rd year I have been to the Blackfoot fair and this was the first time we were SO disappointed. We got there about 6ish which was a bad idea because the people who go to the fair at this time are very interesting characters! We got our taste of filthily, dirty, pot smoking, beer drinking kind of people last night.



The rides were SO OUTRAGEOUSLY priced and there were no rides Hinckley could ride by himself so you had to pay for 2.


Plus its was INSANELY crowded. We just wanted to get the heck out of there. Did I mention a bag of cotton candy was $5? However, we did get to see some animals and watch this really cool dog show. And we found a vendor that only charge $3 for a bag of blue cotton candy that actually ended up all over my mini van seats because Hinckley barfed on the way home! OH JOY! Here are a few pictures!

More, more and more!

After the cemetery Hinckley needed a nap so we all went back to the hotel slept a while and then met up with my good friend Diana. I CANT BELIEVE I FORGOT TO TAKE A PICTURE! She is expecting her first baby the beginning of January so we got to talk pregnancy talk. It was great catching up with her. Then we ventured off to temple square and had a lovely time there. What a fun trip!

Going into our 5th year!

August 20th is our anniversary. It was so nice to hang out together. We decided that since our wedding anniversary is the celebration of the creation of our family we would hang out all together. We packed up a lunch and headed to Lava Hot Springs. WE HAD SO MUCH FUN! And again, I totally forgot the camera but I think its my new favorite place to go swimming. Hinckley LOVED the water slides. We had cub scouts that night too.

Identity Crisis: Shumway VS Carter

When I got married I never thought in a million years how hard it would be for me to change my name from Shumway. For 21 years thats all I knew was being a Shumway. I LOVED my last name, I LOVED the heritage that came with it, thats what I knew, my last name was Shumway. But when I got married I cried when I got my new drivers license and social security card with my new last name. Not that I didnt like the last name Carter, I just have always loved being a Shumway. In fact of all the last names I had to change it to, Carter is PERFECT.
But I just struggled loosing my last name. I felt like a piece of me had died. Even 4 years later I still struggle sometimes when people ask my name. HOWEVER, I have come to the conclusion its ok for me to be a Carter and still be a Shumway. I can be both. You will never take the Shumway out of me but I can be content being a Carter as well.

The picture is of my son wearing a shirt that has my sisters picture on it and it says, "the only way is the Shumway." I LOVE IT!

Farmers market & Fair

Today we went to Rexburg to the Madison County Fair and the farmers market in town. We loved the farmers market and the fair was fun too but SO EXPENSIVE! Hinckley got his face painted at the farmers market as you will see in the pictures. We saw some fun animals at the fair and learned about fire safety. The rides were $3 or $4 each which is JUST CRAZY. But we did let Hinckley go on 1 ride and then this guy let them both on this crazy one. You will see in the pictures!

Ross Aquatic Park

Today we headed down to Pocatello, Idaho to a place called Ross water park. We had so much fun! We went to Heise at the begininng of the summer and it was WAY crowded, stinky, and dirty. This place was awesome. They have a kiddie area, a lazy river, a huge tube slide, a few other play pools, and some other fun things. The price was better than Heise too. I only have 2 gripes about the place. One, they do not allow any floatation devices.... this makes you very nervous as a parent. Two, they wouldn't let Hinckley and Troy go down the big slide together, so HInckley went down by himself. It just made me very NERVOUS. The lifeguards were really good about catching him but he just flopped every which way. We took a picnic and stayed for almost 5 hours. It was worth it! However, I TOTALLY FORGOT THE CAMERA!!!!!!

New Maternity Clothes

After trying to find cute affordable maternity clothes with NO success. I decided I would ask my mom to help me make some clothes. Here is what we made! SO FUN! 3 new shirts, 2 jumpers, and 2 new dresses! Maybe I will get brave and model them and take new pictures.

Traveling Blessing

Hinckley and I flew back from Arizona yesterday the 5th of August and I have to share what a tender mercy we received! The night before that is the 4th about 10pm I could hear Hinckley start to cry so I waited a minute before I went into his bedroom. I got in there and picked him up and BAM!!!!!!!!! PUKE ALL OVER THE PLACE. He just kept the chunks coming as I rushed into the bathroom. Not only did it get all over him, me and the carpet but the bathroom too. We cleaned up (thanks to my mom who cleaned the bedroom while I cleaned Hinks and I up) and got new clothes on and headed back to bed. Hinckley will occasionally throw up for no reason and it's only once so I thought this was just a little fluke thing. About an hour later he started tossing and turning again and BAM!!!!!!!!!!! Puke all over the place again. This time instead of the carpet he got his bed soaked. Again we jumped in the shower while mom cleaned up everything else. We settled down AGAIN, this time in my room. Put him just with his night times on and towels surrounding him. And from about 1am to 5:00am he was up every hour trying to throw up. By this time he had nothing left in his stomach so he was just miserable.

We had to leave about 5:45 for the airport. I checked with the airlines to see if there was any way of changing the ticket because I did not want to take a throwing up kid on an airplane. It would have cost an arm and a leg to do it so instead I just had to pray. I packed 2 extra outfits for him in my carry on and one for me too. I packed 3 different sizes of plastic bags (about 10 in total), target plastic bags, wash cloths, wipes, and decided that if we got to Salt Lake and couldn't go any further that I would just call my Aunt who lives near there. I also decided not to eat or drink anything or feed Hinckley anything for fear of the up chucks! (I don't need a lecture how pregnant women need to eat) I had to do what I had to do. To be honest I was scared to death to board the airplane because of the unknown. Its one thing to have a sick baby but to be traveling... SO NOT FUN!

But then this miracle happened... Hinckley did AMAZING on the plane. There was a couple of times he got that look on his face and I raced for our puke bags and he would hold his face there a minute and then be fine. We flew to Los Angeles and stayed on the same plane and headed up to Salt Lake. Another miracle happened. We didn't have to share a seat with anybody!!!! If you have ever traveled with kids you know what a blessing it is to have a row of 3 to yourself!

As soon as the flight attendants started around with drinks I realized that Hinckley was bound to start to get VERY cranky because of the lack of food and drink. But another miracle happened. HE WAS AN ANGEL. I gave him a few sips of apple juice the first part of the flight and a few crackers the second. But he was not his usual... which was such a blessing because normally he would have started to show signs of hunger in his throwing fits, yelling, trying to hit me, etc.

Another miracle happened... We arrived in SLC about 30 minutes early! I thought we could catch the shuttle early. Instead of waiting almost 3 hours we could maybe catch it in 40! As you know once you leave the terminal there is little to nothing by baggage claim. Inside the terminal there are little play areas, food, places to walk. I called Salt Lake Express and the lady said that the noon shuttle was full but to talk to the driver. So I decided to leave the terminal, pick up our luggage and just pray that we could get on the shuttle. Mind you Hinckley was exhausted from lack of sleep the night before, I WAS EXHAUSTED from the lack of sleep, extremely hungry but very grateful to make it as far as we did. We headed out to meet the bus and the bus driver said well I have one seat open.... I heart sank. Tears filled my eyes. She told me to board the bus anyway and to see what would happen....

And then another miracle happened.... 2 minors who had never traveled the bus before never showed up. They think they got lost in the airport. I think they took our seats on the next shuttle. TALK ABOUT A MIRACLE! As we drove away from the airport I couldn't believe we were on our way. I couldn't believe Hinckley didn't throw up even once on our way. I couldn't believe I didn't get sick either. I couldn't believe how good my little 3 year old was for little sleep, little food, and a long day. Day of miracles for sure.

Hinckley kept a dry diaper the whole shuttle ride up. Yes I put a diaper on him because I was scared he would have to go with no place to go. And I was nervous about diaherra but he was champ! By the time we got to Troy in Rigby I think I looked like a zombie. Because Troy said in a very loving way that I looked like I had been hit by a semi truck. WE MADE IT! I was so thankful to see my husband! I was so thankful to see my bed and the house. I was so thankful for everything. I know these little miracles seem small but to a 25 year old, 29 week pregnant lady it was as if God moved a mountain just for me. Which in sense I guess he really did.

I promise I am alive!

I know it has literally been months since I updated my blog. We have been very busy with company and being gone and other fun things like naps! I guess blogging isn't much on my "to do" lists. However, I think its time to revamp it and get going on updates! We currently have 11 weeks until baby boy Carter joins our family. We are BEYOND excited to welcome this new little man in our lives. The Lord has really blessed me with the excitement for this new baby. Its hard to explain but maybe someday I will! Look for these updates in the near future:

*Troys parents came to visit us for a week at the end of June and we had a blast! More updates on that later.

*My parents and sisters came to visit the day after Troys parents left and we had a great time! More updates on that later.

*I left with my parents because Troy was finishing up his semester and was headed to Annual Training. More updates on Tucson later.

* Traveling to Yucca for Grandma Williams funeral

* I need to blog about Hinckleys fun 3rd birthday (If I can think back that far!)

* Blog about Troys 27th birthday!