Annnnd I'm Back.....

Does anyone blog anymore? Is it just Vlogging, InstaStory-ing and TikTok-ing? I know I am guilty of it too.

Today is just a short hello with plans to start writing again soon. I worked on some video editing today and documented Nicholas turning 12 (last year). He just turned 13 a week ago, maybe that video will make an appearance before he is 14. Then again, maybe not. LOL!

Until next time!

RE-Launch 2018

Well, hello again!

It's been awhile.  Years I guess. I decided I want to blog again. Mostly for me, but if anyone wants to follow along, than hello and welcome. I like the idea of a place to record my stories so I can go back and read them later.  

Over the years I have blogged on three different platforms and had four different blogs. It's time to get it all in one place under one host. I transferred my content from my former Life of Carr's site, but the photos came over a bit wonky. Probably because that blog had already combined my other past blogs. I am okay with the wonky-ness, I care more about the words in the posts.  I have the pictures saved on my computer, backed up to the cloud and in some cases documented in a scrapbook, so that is good enough for me.

If I spend too much time getting the old stuff cleaned up I will never focus on moving forward and writing stuff down. I'm not doing this to make money and I have no plans for annoying pop up ads (I won't say never because you never know where life may take you). But I am hoping to check in here at least weekly to document what is happening in my world.

Color Run Tempe 2013

This morning I participated in the Color Run with a bunch of girls from work and a few of their friends. I had heard about Color Runs when I started reading some fitness blogs last year and I really wanted to do it. When I saw the registration come up for one here in Arizona I asked my friend Christina if she would do it with me, knowing I could probably talk easily talk her into something that would involve running. Then we got Karen to join us and then Christina challenged everyone else in the office to join us, that’s how we became  “The Jelly Bean Counters” (we’re accountants, get it?)

Last night I made sure to have all my stuff ready to go for heading out early this morning.

My Color Run T-Shirt ended up being way too big, I ordered it before I lost another 20 pounds. So it will make a good painting shirt. I was up early to get ready making sure not to forget my tatooo!

All week long the forecast had predicted rain, making the outfit choice in question. I settled on layers of white. And at the last minute added a white trash bag to my bag.  Not that it would matter I would be soaked long before the race even started.

Our start time was at 7:30 and we planned to meet by 6:50. By the time I found everyone the only dry part of me was that covered by the trash bag. The rest soaked.

Of the 9 of us that signed up, 7 of us braved the rain (because, that had not let up at all).

There are color chutes every kilometer and after the first one I would rather get colorful than worry about keeping anything dry and I ditched the trash bags.

While I am certain the color is messy on a dry day, the rain made it that much more fun.

Christina got us to run and jump in the huge puddles.

Trisha got a whole lot of blue dumped on her.

In the end we were completely soaked and happily colorful.

And we thought Trisha looked like the blueberry girl in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (which coincidently is the planned movie tonight for Family Movie Night)

Trisha and me after I ended up with red smeared on my face – which doesn’t look like much in this picture.

Every layer I had on was soaked and the color bled through each layer, including my socks and some of my skin is still blue after a shower.

Would I do it again?

You bet – rain or shine. But I am putting in my order for shine next year!

Celebrating 16 Years

16 years ago today I married the love of my life…

We have lived in 2 states

Built 2 homes

Adopted 2 puppies

And had 2 amazing boys

And we did it all together

Happy Anniversary Mike! Thank you for making my life perfect! I love you!

First Day of School - We Have a Kindergartener

Yes it is already time for school here in Arizona. We start a few weeks earlier than most schools. I think it will always seem crazy to me that they go back at what I think is the middle of the summer. I remember going back in mid-September when I was a kid. But we live in a school district that has a modified school round schedule, so we get to enjoy longer spring, fall and winter breaks. When I really think about it the worst part of the summer starts around mid-July, when the monsoon and dust storms pick up and we get hot days and humid disgusting weather. So really the kids don’t want to do anything outside any more than we do. Today was no exception on the weather front. Just plain yucky. But I digress.

Jackson’s pre-school class was moved to a different school, so now Mike has to go across town to drop off Jackson first and then race back to drop Nicholas off before school starts. I took today off to join him.

We started off with a mini photo shoot, with the best that I get in cooperation with pictures. He’s cute anyway!

Showing off his new Super Mario backpack that he picked out…

This was the best we were getting this morning of a shot with both boys in it. But what was cute was Jackson hugging Nicholas and saing “ohhh”. So cute.

Waiting for daddy to pull the car out of the garage.

Jackson wasn’t having the photo shoot with his backpack out front, so we improvised.

Heading off to class at the new school We found out he does not like the new backpack so we may need to revert to the old smaller one for the time being.

In the classroom now and we are happy. Jackson has the same teacher at the new school and she has the class set up almost exactly like the old classroom at the old school, so he was right at home. Good thing we went to meet the teacher night last week. They were running late and we had to get going to get Nicholas to school on time.

By the time we made it to Nicholas’s school it was a madhouse.  We had to park across the street more than a block away and walk him to the play yard. We packed lunch on the first day and were so happy the school allows kids to bring peanut butter in their lunch, since that is all Nicholas will eat. Lunch is really the one thing we worried about most.

All set and we are on our way to school.

We hurried up to wait in the kindergarten playground. It was a bit overwhelming with all the parents in line with the kids. Nicholas was super excited to be there and get his day started. These are some of my favorite pictures of the day!

Finally in the classroom and settled at his desk we said our goodbyes.

We are so proud of how far this little guy has come and we know he is going to have a great time in kindergarten.

We picked Nicholas up after school and it was a little crazy. The kids all come piling out of the school at the same time. We were a little nervous because Nicholas is used to Mike signing him out when he was picked up at pre-school. So we did not want him to be scared if he couldn’t find us. It seemed like forever before we saw him. He was following a teacher out and I got this picture of him, before I got his attention. Our little boy just seems so big to me here.

Nicholas’s teacher is awesome. She called the house tonight to see how he was doing after school and said he had a great day. We believe it. He was in such a great mood when he got home and I was so thankful I took the day off of work so I could share this big day with him.

I realized as I was holding his hand walking into school and leaving this afternoon, that it probably won’t be that far away when he won’t want to hold my hand anymore when we are at school around his friends. That is the only thing that I teared up about today. I was so happy for him and proud of him that I could not stop smiling.

Where Did May Go?

I guess for me intention and reality have not quite aligned. I spent time transitioning my blog and getting it updated posted once and let life take over. What is up with that?

I love this song…I think it is going to be big this year

….I digress

I guess since I was last here we did a few things. We took the boys to Schnepf Farms to pick peaches, Jackson really got into it this year. He was much more cooperative than his big bro!

I spent my Mother’s Day with my 2 best boys. we were working on our backyard so it wasn’t really relaxing.

I

But the results made me happy, even if I had to spend a lot of time at my 2 favorite big box  hardware stores.

We were able to get in the pool by the middle of the month. With the life vest, Jackson now acts like he owns the pool and is giving Nicholas a run for his money. I will be surprised if they aren’t swimming without them by the end of the summer.

We spent Memorial Day Weekend with Mike’s brother’s family. In between pool time there was lots of Apple friendly fun.

Nicholas had a couple of friends birthday party’s over the weekend so we had fun with the 5 year old friends at gymnastics and Peter Piper.

Jackson took over my iPad. The only way to get him to eat was to let him have it at the table. He looked like he was at Starbuck’s.

I took the last day of school off and took the boys to school.  They had a fun last day with Miss Jacci.

We now have a kindergartner. So proud of this dude!

To celebrate we headed to Coldstone for ice cream before cooling off in the pool.

It’s officially summer in the Carr House!

Lot’s of time in the air conditioned house playing the Wii.

Jackson drew this yesterday, it looks like one of the characters in his favorite Nickelodeon show and iPad App from Team Umi Zoomi. Pretty good for a kiddo that needs a little therapy for fine motor skills.

He is so fun.

I finally finished the family room drapes. Love that Jackson was admiring them.

That is our past month. Looking forward to seeing my family and going to an Angels game this month, and hopefully I will very soon paint my bedroom. The boys are in summer camp in the mornings and for the first time since Nicholas was born, Mike has a few hours alone every morning.

Have a great week!

Catching Up

I see it has been months since updated.  We've been busy with lots of home improvement projects, and we are still have lots more to work on. I started a separate DIY blog House of Carr's that will cover the adventures and mis-adventures we are having DIY'ing and decorating our home plus some crafty and other domestic things. While I was building that website, I also decided to move my original blog over to a self-hosted website and rename it Life Of Carr's here I will be talking about life in our little corner of the world.

So how about a speed catch up of 2012, before I resume a more regular posting schedule.

JANUARY

Nicholas turned 5 and had a Super Mario themed birthday party where he invited his pre-school friends and they made pizza's at a local bakery.  The kids all loved it!

Jackson was star of the week at school and Nicholas helped him with his poster.

Mike and I took advantage of parent's night out and left the kids at the pre-school while we enjoyed an evening out.

FEBRUARY

We had an awesome Superbowl celebration with friends and lots of yummy food.

Nicholas loves to watch Super Mario videos on YouTube and then he teaches Mike how to play. Sometimes it doesn't go so well.

We started our home improvement projects by ripping out the baseboards in the rooms that were getting new flooring.

The boys jumped for joy over their Valentine's gift...a trampoline.

Before the new flooring went in we started painting the family room and kitchen.  Our one coat paint took a coat of primer and 2 coats of paint. And there are still a few areas, I think that could use another.

MARCH

And finally it was flooring week.

Since all the main areas were a mess with the flooring, everything was moved out and the boys spent most of the days crammed in our bedroom.

We took a break from projects to enjoy an Angel's spring training game. It was a perfect day for a game.

I painted the office and Mike took the boys to the Ostrich Festival with some friends. It was a super hot March day.

We celebrated Mike's birthday, the day after.  His birthday we worked all day and late into the night to put the office back together after the flooring and painting was done.

Mike learned how to paint (yippee for me).  My hand was hurting from onset of carpal tunnel and it was definitely nice to get some help.

We still found time for some fun and silliness.

Hurricane Jackson swept through Nicholas's room.

APRIL

We colored Easter eggs, Nicholas decided he didn't want to smell vinegar, so he opted out...more for Jackson.

We spent Easter in California with Grandpa & Grandma Johnson

The boys like to destroy our bed on a regular basis.

I was able to spend a fun girls weekend with good friends at the Scrapbook Convention in Mesa

MAY

The past few weekends have been spent sewing drapery panels.

We celebrated Cinco de Mayo with watermelon margaritas (YUM) and a great night with friends.

We went to a wedding.

We made a gifts for teachers for Teacher Appreciation Week (how I made these is posted here).

Sometimes we take naps and watch TV.

And today we read lots of books.

That's plenty for today.  We'll see if I can get back to a regular posting schedule. Have a good week!

12 on 12 in January

I had been considering documenting a day each month in 2012 in pictures. I was going to do 3 on 3, but kept coming back to 12 on 12.  I guess a lot of others in the scrap and photo world have the same idea because I am seeing it pop up everywhere today. Here are the snippets of my day, my 12 on 12 for January

(1) Pancakes for breakfast before school. (2) Me and the new camera, thanks to the parents ;) - I need a haircut. (3) taking a much needed quick break this afternoon after non-stop meetings and demands from when I walked in until late this afternoon. (4) Lot's to do according to my planner. (5) What's on my podcast list this week (6) New Powerball ticket, the one I turned in was a loser. (7) Ouch, what it costs to fill up the Tahoe at $3.29/gallon (8) That's my boy, one shoe on one shoe off, let's go outside! (9) Mario is getting ready for an overnight trip to the bakery, where he will be the star of Nicholas's birthday cake on Saturday. (10) Looks like the first week back after winter break was a bit tough on Jackson (11) Pinterest - the ultimate time suck (12) Kiddos asleep, now it's play time for the grown ups

This Man Changed Our World

Steven Jobs

Apple CEO

Brilliant Innovator

1955 - 2011

I am not quite sure I can put my finger on why the passing of this man, that I did not know personally, has moved me so much. I am sure it has a lot to do with him dying of cancer at too young of an age. And it is almost this time last year that the beginning of the end of our time with my mom began. I know my heart aches for his family and friends. That is definitely part of it.

Maybe it was because I saw the news on my iPhone. A device I cannot live without because he knew we wanted it. Maybe it is because when I got home tonight, I saw Nicholas, at almost 5 years old, glued to my iPad playing one of a hundred games he has downloaded from the App Store. Maybe it is because I cannot survive my drive to and from work without the podcasts I listen to on my iPod Touch that come to me straight from iTunes several times each week.

Our world today would not be the same without this man. And I believe we are all very lucky for it.

Rest in peace Steve Jobs.