Happy Valentine's Day

This is for my sweetie, who is ever thoughtful and understanding, whom I love more than anything. I love you, Aaron - Happy Valentine's Day! Will you be mine forever?

Not Such a Baby Anymore!

My baby is 4. I don't know whether to be elated or cry over this. A little of both I guess. And despite my New Year's resolution to post more about our family here, it's the last day of January and I've done nothing. And we've had a fun month. I might as well start with a tribute to my big boy.

Despite big plans, Roland had a hard, grumpy birthday which started with tears in the morning (mine) and many, many tears the rest of the day (his). I think he's been losing too much sleep in the last week. But he's been planning a "new lego ninjago birthday" for months now, so we went ahead despite the grumpiness. He loves lego ninjago, which is why I was surprised when he hated the new t-shirt I gave him first thing in the morning. We are working on giving gracious thanks whenever you receive a gift from someone. (understatement of the year)

He did okay playing alone in the morning, which he does well every day. Roley is always an independent player and has a harder time interacting well with his brothers. And I sure hope he had a good day at preschool, but I didn't receive any negative feedback, so...      The party was scheduled for after school and I want to thank my mother-in-law and sister-in-law for all their help in setting up and then helping at the party. They are awesome!

We had balloons and dancing, cupcakes and soda, bubbles and swings, games and favor bags. And Roland only had to be taken out three times in 1.5 hours for crying meltdowns. Let's just say it was a lot different than Alden's 4th birthday. Ro is definitely my baby. But I think the three guests from his preschool class had fun and Roley's first friend birthday party is history.

We made Ro's favorite orange chicken for dinner and he had visits from Auntie Candice's crew and Ma'am and Grampa before bedtime, which couldn't come soon enough. Apparently we are in the formidable fours now. The mood swings are amazing.

Here's some details about Roland's personality and life right now:

• I can still convince him to snuggle with me for a few minutes at a time. Especially if I rub his back or his skin somewhere. He likes it when I touch him really light and give him goosebumps. He holds so still. We call him Master of Snuggles, which comes from Lego Ninjago where each ninja is the master of an element.
• He loves preschool, where he now has the same teacher and school as last year. He started the year at a new school and despite how wonderful his new teacher was, I just didn't feel good about it and he is back with Teacher Julie now - he's a Boulder Creek Bulldog! I even got him a school t-shirt for Christmas. He rides the bus (which he enjoys too) and is gone from 11-3 Mon-Thur. Roley's speech is still hard to understand sometimes, but he is making great strides with the therapist at school, Miss Cindy.
• Roland loves to dance, do ninja fighting (pretty much the same as his dancing), and play Lego Hero Factory, Lego Ninjago, Kung Zhu ninja hamsters, and Star Wars light saber fighting. And he loves sticks. Are you sensing a theme here? His choice of toys & television is much older than it should be because of his older brothers - it's pretty hard to separate these things. He is also generally athletic and good with balls, but hasn't shown a distinct preference to a sport. I'm thinking about soccer for the fall as his first team sport but we'll see.
• Roley started as a sunbeam in primary this year - he is the oldest in his class and the tallest too. (he's above the 90th % for height) He is not terrible in primary, but he has a ways to go before we can stop asking his teachers how things went every Sunday.
• He still sleeps every night with his Minky Moo. We have been reading the Book of Mormon (kids comic book-type) as a family every morning early and he loves to bring his Minky downstairs for this. Otherwise we try to keep it up in his bed.
• When Roland gets hurt he cries huge tears that drop all over everything and he needs to hear this: "Oh, Roland! That's awful!" And then he says, "And terrible!" Or we say terrible first and then he says awful - it's hilarious. This is true for everything from imagined hurts from his brothers to serious injuries.
• He loves to take pictures and I often find tons of random shots of the floor, walls, and his toys on my camera. He loves the self-portrait of his feet or legs too.
• When Roland is concentrating on something, especially if he is having a hard time, he will yell at anyone in the room to "Be Twiet!" Even if you aren't talking to him. Even if you aren't talking at all. Mostly this is directed at Mommy, but others too. Today he even told me. "Don't even breathe, Mommy."
• He's a super jumpy kid. He loves trampolines, bouncy houses, jumping on beds or couches, and just seems to hop along through life.
• He has a big gap between his front teeth just like Emmett. I love it and worry it will be gone when his permanent teeth come in.
• He has the cutest buns in the whole world!

FHE Hip Hop Style

Alden & Emmett took an after school karate class this fall, and then Alden had golf and a Lego class. And Emmett has been taking a hip hop class. (We love that we can use our school contribution money that is tax deductible to pay for these classes!)

So tonight for Family Home Evening Emmett showed us the routine he's been learning. I even bought the Justin Bieber song so he can practice. And as soon as his routine ran out the other boys joined in with their best moves. And Aaron & I sat back and enjoyed the show.



Afterwards we worked on putting up the Christmas tree. We're planning to have all our decorations up this week since we are hosting a Carpenter Christmas party on Saturday.

His First Book Report

When we were in Flagstaff in January we visited Bookman's, our fave used bookstore, and had Alden join their kids program. When he reads 10 books they let him choose a new book to keep! We are only choosing chapter books that he reads himself, and it's so fun to see him sitting somewhere reading for an hour on a Saturday. I gave him a new spiral notebook to write his book reports in and this is what he came up with for his first one. We are proud of the reader he has become! Not to mention his serious writing skillz.

Our Soccer Stars

Alden & Emmett both played soccer this winter. It was a bit much for Emmett, who had played in the fall too, but he learned a lot & we convinced a bunch of his friends from the ward to join our team for the 2nd session. We had Alden play with his old team, back in our old neighborhood, because we love his coach! But it got a bit old driving him out there for practice. But we did enjoy seeing some old friends every week. And we sometimes had dinner with my parents, which is always fun.

I love these pictures of Emmett, who is always good for some funny faces or interesting hand positions. That kid is awesome! He has been making so many new friends too. Between our ward and his soccer team, I think he'll know at least 18 new kindergartners at the elementary school next year.

I NOT TREE, I TWO

For about a month before his birthday we asked Roland daily how old he was. Which he knew. But when we would talk about his birthday coming up and how he would turn three, he was always angry and said, "I not tree, I two!" But by the time the big day rolled around, we had finally convinced him.

The day before, Papa Carpenter had a big birthday party, which he graciously shared with Roley. We took Spiderman cupcakes with bright blue frosting and Nana gave Roley his own Spiderman! Can you tell he's obsessed? His preschool teachers tell us he also talks of Spiderman constantly at school. At least he can pronounce it fairly well now, for the last six months it's been my-a-man.

He woke up the morning of his birthday in his Spidey jammies, holding his new Spiderman. I made him a cute pin to wear to church over his fancy corduroy suit. He's like a little man.

We had the Blasnek family over for cake, ice cream & presents. Ma'am & Grampa got him a canopy for his new loft bed and we gave him some Toy Story Legos. Buzz & his Alien friend still get in a little playing time with Roley, especially since Spidey is too noisy to take to church.

The last year with Roland has been fabulous - he is a sweet and fun boy. He will give Mama loves and kisses anytime and runs bawling to me 10 times a day after "Emmett hurt me!" Yet he's the tough one who jumps his brothers constantly and loves to wrestle. He is more and more interested in book and reading stories and can sit still for a movie at the theater now. He is going to be a star soccer player next year, and wants to play golf too. We can't wait to see how he develops in the next year. We love our Ro Ro!

The Semi-Frozen North

My parents invited our family to share their timeshare in Flagstaff again this year and we were happy to take them up on it. It's been a few years since we've been and I'm a little glad we waited - I think things were much easier now that the boys are a little older.

We scrounged snow clothes for the boys and the boys played in the quickly-melting snow around the condo. When we arrived at 8pm, Roland wanted to go right out. We obligingly left him on the porch in his PJs, where he shivered for a minute and declared it too cold that night. But the next morning we suited the boys up and sent them out. While the sun wasn't great for the snow, it made it much more comfortable to be outside for more than few minutes.



I couldn't resist this picture of Roley crying with a face covered in snow. His brothers got a little rough.



We had a great few days, hitting McDonald's, Bookmans, church, redbox, etc. And on Monday we went sledding with the Rasmussens, who drove up just for the day. It was a beautiful, warm day, with lots of slushy hills. We left our camera in the car, but imagine Alden as the young daredevil, who would go off the tallest and steepest hills face down! He loved it so much and we're pretty sure he's going to become an Olympian in some winter sport. Emmett and Roland had fun too, going down the hills plenty of times. Roley constantly wanted to have a snowball fight and would throw handfuls of snow constantly while giggling - he's a cutie. Alden went off with the Rasmussens to build a snowman and have a real snowball fight. Kirk & Jody said that even when he had a faceful of snow, he was smiling wide and laughing. Here are a few shots from the car afterwards. We were all soaking wet because of the barely-there snow, and I loved Alden's face covered in dirt from going face first down the hills.

Thanks for inviting us, Ma'am and Grandpa - we want to go again next year!

My Baby Started School!

After a fairly quick and pain-free round of testing as soon as he turned the required 2 years and nine months old, Roland was accepted for the special needs preschool. His class is pretty much like a regular preschool, but extra focused on speech, which is the ONLY thing wrong with my perfect baby. (You get the sarcasm there, right?) This all means that on January 3rd Roland started preschool! He attends four days a week, for two and a half hours, but with the bus (which comes to our front door), he is gone from 8am until noon, Monday through Thursday. I have spent time in his class, which has about a dozen kids ages 3-5, a teacher, a full-time aide, and a speech therapist who is there one day a week. Roley LOVES it and also enjoys riding the bus every day. We are noticing small changes in his speech already, and anticipate big improvements in the next couple years. Barring unusually fast progress, we anticipate he will continue in this program until he starts kindergarten in two and a half years. I am so thankful for this free service from our school district.



A little shy posing for pictures on the 1st day



He is a Boulder Creek Bulldog and this is Teacher Julie



First day riding the bus all by himself


In far more important news - between Roland & Emmett's overlapping schedules, I now have a blissful 2.5 hours to myself, two days a week. One of those days I use for volunteering in Alden's classroom, but that other day... I can totally take a morning nap if I want!