Spring Pictures

In the Fall for school pictures you have to fill out a paper and send your money and get everything squared away. In the Spring they take pictures and send home a huge packet and say either send it back or you will have to pay for all of it. So, I usually scan a picture and send it back.

I am always amazed at how big they look in pictures. As soon as I get school pictures back I have to do a double take at my kid and ask myself when they got so big?

My kitty cat

I am not what you would call a cat person. I don't really like cats. I don't really dislike cats either. They just really have never had much of a purpose to me. Plus I have always felt they were such indifferent pets. They could care less about you. So when this scrawny black cat showed up last summer at our house and the boys loved her I decided we could keep her. As long as she stayed outside. I don't like cats in the house. Then she went and had kittens before we could get her fixed. Since the kittens were born at the beginning of November she had to come in with them. We got rid of the last kittens on Christmas Eve. Now we just needed to get her fixed so we could kick her back out of the house. We finally had her fixed about a month ago and she was ready to be booted out of the house.

However, a funny thing happened. I kind of fell in love with my kitty cat. I have called her a manipulative cat since we found her. She tricked us into taking care of her. She tricked her way into moving into our house. And now she has tricked me into liking to have her around. Blast that cat.

How did this happen? I couldn't figure it out at first. Then I realized that she loves me the best. The boys always ask why she won't come sit with them but she sits with me. She follows me all around the house. She sits outside the bathroom and waits for me. Quinn tells me how she will come running looking for me when I get home yet she has been hiding/napping somewhere while they were home. I have never had a pet that loved me the best. Like I said, she is a manipulative cat. She loves to come sit on my lap while I am on the computer. She sits and purrs. How can you not like that?
I crashed one day on the bed and this is where she ended up. I could have a collection of pictures of me lying somewhere and the cat on me.

I still want to have her go outside. For one main reason. I don't like litter boxes. But if she can be a good kitty in our house without a litter box she may be welcome.

Indoor Soccer

I like to put my kids in a sport or activity every once in a while. They hadn't done anything for quite some time. Between my work, Quinn's work, my calling, Quinn's calling and any other little thing we don't have a lot of spare time. I finally thought we would have a little space for something so I signed Carter up for indoor soccer. I also only do one kid at a time for two reasons. One - time. It is hard enough to get one kid to games twice a week, but to do two it gets somewhat difficult. Two - money. Self explanatory.

I went ahead and signed Carter up for soccer. There weren't enough kindergartners signed up so they bumped him up to the first/second grade teams. We showed up that day and there were some friends from our ward that had two of their boys on the team and one was Miles' age. I decided to go ask if I could sign Miles up. That would at least take care of letting them both play without having to schedule two games. There was room so he got signed up and the two of them have been playing and having a great time.
The boys after a game.
Carter posing with a soccer ball.
Carter got to be the goalie for the first time. He was so excited. He actually did fairly well. He did have a couple sneak past him but he also had some really good blocks.
Miles happy that he gets to play instead of going to the games and sitting.

I also have to say that I love indoor soccer. Especially with the little kids. They are completely boxed in. You don't spend the entire game throwing the ball back in. The one downfall is that there is a lot of slipping on the court. Miles has perfected falling. I think he spends more time on the floor than upright.

My little Darth Vadar

My sweet little Carter loves Darth Vadar. A couple of Halloweens ago Carter was Darth Vadar. Most kids like to dress up like super heroes. Not Carter. Lately he has been getting his costume on and watching The Empire Strikes Back. It is cute how he just gets dressed up and lays on the floor watching some sort of Star Wars movie.

The Burmese Python

My mom called and invited us to a thing they were doing at her elementary school for a boys night. They had some reptile guy come and show all sorts of fun lizards and snakes and such for the boys so we headed right over there. They had done the same thing last year and the boys loved it so I thought we could go again.

During the program they got to see several tortoises including a pancake tortoise and a huge 85 pound tortoise. There were a couple of scorpions. The more poisonous one stayed in the container, the less poisonous one he took out and put in his mouth. There were several lizards. One was named zig zag and he was about 4 or 5 feet long. Pretty big. The last items were snakes. He got out several different snakes and walked around with them. One was an albino Burmese python (it looked like the one Britney Spears had). They showed a baby anaconda. It was pretty small. Then the last thing to be taken out was the Burmese python. Last year when we went he had a bunch of kids come up and hold it. This year he asked for some of the parents. Since I had seen it before and thought it would be kind of cool and a little scary, I volunteered. He had us all line up and then it took him and two other men to get it out of the container. It was a 15 foot more than 200 pound snake. I thought I would be at the end with the tail. I was wrong. I ended up with its head. Oh my goodness. It was cool and scary. A couple of times it turned its head toward me as if to check my face out. With all my strength I would try to hold it back, but it was strong. I was very amazed at how strong it was. I think that is what freaked me out the most. Just the fact that it could move its head toward me when the rest of it was just hanging out being held by other people. So kids, never underestimate the strength of a python.

This picture is blurry but you can get an idea of how big the snake was.

I was somewhat concerned as the snake would move and I wasn't strong enough to keep it where I was comfortable with it.

Miles loved every minute of it and you could tell he was cataloging all the information for future reference. Carter was a little more hesitant. He wasn't quite sure he wanted to see many of the reptiles up close and personal. He did get brave enough to pet the snake at the end.