Cardboard Box on a Hill With a Thrill

My sister has started writing from some prompts in a "mother's journal". They are simple questions for you to answer and record for your children to read. Reading hers has brought a lot of memories flooding in. She invited me to join her and I accept the invitation.

My title is a phrase that Casey and Kristin Allen whispered into my ear one night while I was sleeping to see if I would dream about it. I can't remember if I actually dreamed about it or if I heard them whispering it and then told them I had some weird dream about a box on the hill the next morning...most likely that latter because I was wily like that ;)

What were your favorite childhood activities?

Well playing with my siblings first and foremost (when we weren't beating the living daylights out of each other)...yes we were one of those families. When I was 3 and 4 playing with my older brother Nate was my favorite thing to do. Of course we always played what he wanted but I felt special to tag along and be "big" along side him. We played with his G.I. Joe's and one year I remember he got an awesome laser tag game where you strap the target to your chest and run around with guns trying to shoot the target of the other person. When you hit the target the lights would flash and make cool siren noises. Coolest toy ever! I think we may have played with it once until we either ruined it, it ran out of batteries, or we lost important parts. Nate and I would also go on treks through the tall trees and swamps and would go in search of the elusive ice cream truck...which we could ALWAYS hear but NEVER find dagnabit!

One time Nate and I set out on our day's journey to make it to a neighborhood friend's house named Red-Headed Johnny. He had the cool Nintendo Games, i.e., Mike Tyson' s Punch Out. Well, for small children aged 3 and 5, walking a couple of blocks is the equivalent of 10-15 miles for a normal adult. It seemed to take all day. Once we made it though the steamy swamps, eluded the R.O.U.S.' , and made it out of the vast forest to a paved street, we ran into one more obstacle. One that is feared by many a small child. So much so, they have even made movies about it. Big, Mean, Girls. 3 big girls were standing on the street and spotted us wee, little things pop out of the trees and start heading toward them. They could have been 7 for all I knew...but when you are 3, 7 seems like 15, 15 seems like 25 and so on. So, I can't really tell you how old they were except they were bigger than us. And mean...did I mention mean? These big, mean, horrid girls put their hands out and stopped us in our tracks, they would not let us pass. We stood there looking at them and listening to them tease us and ask us taunting questions. We asked them several times to let us by but they would not. Finally, under one condition we would be able to pass, but only after we passed the test. The ring leader of the awful, mean, horrid girls ripped a thorn off of a rose stem and licked the bottom of it and stuck it to her hand. She then extended her hand toward us and insisted that we shake her hand or they would not let us by. I remember being stricken with terror! How could they?! That thorn looked to be the most painful thing I have ever seen and I could only imagine it piercing my delicate, little palm and then bleeding to death and never getting to see my mom again. I was beyond myself and could only stare out of fear keeping me from being able to do anything else. I was crying inside but not letting it escape to the outside. If I can remember correctly I was clutching to my big brother's arm (all 5 years of it). Nate extended his hand first and shook. And then I go all fuzzy here...no doubt the sheer terror of it all made me slip inside of myself to be able to survive such a traumatic event. Needless to say I am still here 24 years later...no scars on my hands to speak of. Obviously though, physical pain is not the only thing that can scar. I hope those big, mean girls got pricked by their own thorns a time or two...it is only fair;)

We were let past...I remember Nate grabbing my hand and we took off running. I can remember looking back and seeing the 3 girls standing there...so glad to be putting distance between myself and them. We DID make it to Red-Headed Johnny's and I got to sit there and watch while the two boys got their fill of violence, Nate no doubt releasing some built up angst from the previous experience. I never got a turn to play. Maybe that is why I am writing this now.

I will leave you with this jewel from my past. I shall continue my favorite childhood pastimes in the next post. Until then...go ahead a blog about yours.

Everyone Gather 'Round for a Picture!

So we went to the circus and spent way too much money! With coupons it cost $17.00 per adult! I wanted to choke! But I couldn't give up Carter having "an experience" even though he most likely will not remember it! It was fun though.
This is the only picture that came out visible. All of my other pictures were too dark. Oh well...this was Carter's favorite part of the whole show. We had to stand back here though...it costs 8.00 to get closer!

I walked in on Carter to find him reading "American Baby"...hhmmmm...
Notice the mop he is sportin' on his head!

Now Daddy cut his hair and it resembles Jim Carrey on "Dumb and Dumber"...next time we know to taper the bangs and not cut straight across...hahaha..at least his hair grows super fast!

Her is Carter's cast. The whole time the doctor was putting it on Carter kept saying "Cool!" and giggling. He was such a good boy during the whole thing. The nurse let him pick green or blue and you can see which he picked! He is too cute!

Our Most Favorite People (well some of them;)
Nate and Megan and Halle came to visit and it was sure nice to have them around for a little while. Carter just adores Halle and talks about her non-stop. He chats with her on imaginary phone conversations and at night as he is trying to go to sleep he will say "Halle Sleep?" to me. "Yep, Halle is sleeping too!"...and then he will say "Paw Paw sleep?" ..yep! and he will go through roll call...Grandma, Jake, Nate, Megan, Casey, and Cody..and then start over again. I want him to just go to sleep...but I think it is so cute that he is just thinking about all of his family that he loves!

Here are the kiddos enjoying lunch at Texas Roadhouse

Enjoying the sunniest and warmest day of the year so far!

This was taken at the beginning of April when Carter and I went to Twin for the weekend. Carter is still sportin' his mop! The kids sat down to "Monsters Inc." and a good bowl of popcorn. I think it entertained them for 2.564 minutes.

Josh teaching Carter how to golf!

Carter and his shadow surveying the ground for his best shot!

A couple days later he is at it again!

This was the picture to show his haircut...but I don't want to move it around and put it in order...blah. Blogger needs to come up with a better way to do pictures!

Carter is 22 months now. His favorite thing to say lately is "Go Away!" He says it all the time and hurts Josh's and my feelings! He has mastered counting to 10 and I often hear him off in some room of the house counting as he is "working". He still loves to JUMP JUMP JUMP and do somersaults!! We sing many songs and he knows many of the words to most of them...such as "Row Row Row Your Boat" "Sunbeam" "Bumble Bee" "BINGO" "Old MacDonald" ...and so on.

Another new thing he says a lot is "Scare me"...he now knows what it means to be scared and will tell me when he feels that way. He is scared of our downstairs storage room where our washer and dryer is. That is my fault...he shut us in there when the lights were off and I growled...now he doesn't even want to go downstairs at all. What a mean mommy... jeez!! poor little man.

This little guys loves candy and talks about it more than anyone I know. He will ask for candy the first thing in the morning and all through the day and before going to bed at night. He makes me laugh. I usually just have to say "Sorry bud, no candy, all gone." and then he will walk around saying "Candy all gone."...he will pick candy over anything! We went to the arcade a while back and won some tickets and I wanted him to pick a toy....but nope...he picked a ring pop and tootsie rolls...how did he know the ring pop was candy?!?!?

Carter loves to be outside and will stay out there all day and night if we would let him. He doesn't care if it is freezing or windy he just wants to be outside! Carter also loves to change the DVDs in the player over and over again and because of this love he has scratched a good number of DVDs...thanks bud! ;)

He still adores Cody and will pick him over everyone if he is in the room. He loves Casey too and sure loves when he gets to see Grandma, Paw Paw, and Jake. He loves visitors!!

He makes sure I know my phone is ringing, wakes up bright and early every morning and pokes me and prods me and steam rolls Josh, likes to say the prayer with us, and likes to be in whatever room we are. He is our little buddy and as I have been thinking about moving and the people and places we have to leave behind I just keep thinking how lucky we are that we get to take Carter wherever we go! I love you Buddy!

Kind of a random video of our lunch at Texas Roadhouse. I got it out to film Carter making sour faces while eating limes(and he obviously objected to me filming him)...but he was over it mostly by the time I got it going. Josh had mashed potatoes, applesauce, chili, and green beans because of his wisdom teeth. My salad was awesome! My big bro. got the ribs...very manly indeed and Megan had a delicious Chicken Fried Steak. It was all so yummy but fun just being together!!