Carlson 2011

Wow 2011 went by so fast I didn't post anything. So maybe I'll try harder this year

Snow Days

Oh please let Virginians learn to drive in snowy conditions so my kids can go to school....
We have had 4 snow days plus teacher work days and I am ready ready ready for school to be in session.
The first few days were lots of fun and then we all got cabin fever. We had a power outage during family movie night and had to light some candles and turn on the fireplace. Hans read a bunch of stories to the girls and they had to go to bed with no night light, Sadie said "This is sooo tragic!"

A New Yankee Fan is Born!

I think someone is Loving having a boy!

Christmas

We had a really fun Christmas this year. The girls made gifts for each other and for their Dad. Hannah made Bella (with help from Grandma Fuller) 2 pillows for her doll bed and she made Sadie some napkins with horses on them. Sadie made Hannah a pink fleece Fancy Nancy blanket and she made Bella a blanket for her Doll. Bella gave her sisters Fury slippers with pictures that she colored stuffed inside. The Girls made Hans a book where they listed the top five reasons he is the greatest Dad in the world and drew a few pictures for him. He loved it.
Tyler loved Christmas morning so much he slept right through it in his bouncy chair.
I had a fantastic Christmas. I loved watching my girls get so excited about giving instead of getting. They were so excited to give each other the presents they had made for each other. My favorite present was however store bought. I have wanted one of these for many many years
A photo printer with 12X12 capabilities!
This may sound lame to some of you but for an avid
scrapbooker, a dream come true.
Hans also had a dream come true for Christmas and his birthday. We found a great deal on a flat screen so I finally agreed to get a new TV. When it arrived it was bigger than I thought. When questioned Hans said, "It was only
a little bit more for the bigger size" Riiiight.

Halloween

Ok Mom here are some pics of the girls on Halloween.
Sadie is an astronaut
Hannah is a peacock (first and last costume I will ever make)
Bella is a China doll

Ya I know its been a long time

So my last post was in Feb. not much to tell after that because I was so tired I dont remember. Seriously. But now we actually have another boy in the house. On October 6th we welcomed Tyler Johan Carlson into our family. He looks just like Hans except he has red hair. My good friend Stacey and I went to the hospital the same day to be induced by the same DR. Our husbands kept texting each other with updates. They did not know what they were having. Ty was born first and then we got the text that we needed to pick out matching baseball uniforms, they had a boy too! Ty is a sweet baby and is finally sleeping for 3 hours at a time at night, that 2 hour thing was killer. All the girls just love him even Bella, they are three little mothering maulers. We are blessing him this weekend and all my family is coming.

Feb 2010

Hannah turned 5! She woke up and said "oh its about time, I have been waiting years, weeks, months, days!" She had a costume party theme and the kids had a great time. Linda made her a Fancy Nancy dress/cape to wear at her party which she went absolutely crazy over.
I went on my scapbook weekend and had so much fun, I can't wait to do it again. Hans had fun with the girls but I think he was glad to have me home. But probably not anymore because I came home unusually tired and a little sick to my stomach. Which has now turned into major exhaustion and nausea, hence the 2 pink lines in the picture. Hans might need a boys scapbook weekend in a few months!

More sledding pics

Holy Crap does the snow ever end!??

We have had record breaking snow out here and not one of these east coasters knows how to handle it. Its a gud thing they have us here Idahoans to take care of everythin.
We have had sooo much fun sledding down our hill. Our neighbors think Hannah is going to be in the X games. We got 6 inches on Tuesday then 34 inches on Friday. More snow is coming this Tuesday, sweeeet. My scrapbook weekend getaway is this weekend and I am going no matter what! Here are some great pics of our sledding adventure.
And I sent Sadie off to a friends house and a cheetah came home in her place.

Last half of 2009

October and November were great months for us. Sadie was baptized and most of the the family came out and we had a great time. The day after they left Hans and I took off to St. Lucia for our 10th anniversary for a week. It was awesome and I can't believe we came back. Then in November Hans and I ran in the Richmond 1/2 marathon and actually finished. It was something I wanted to do before I turned 30. A few days after that I came home to find a surprise party for my birthday. It too was very fun. Then a few days after that it was Bellas birthday and we had a little family party. Then Thanksgiving was upon us, and then finals for me, and then Christmas whew! Now we are in the new year and things have slowed down thankfully. Here are some pictures that Hannah took of herself when she snuck off with the camera, one of Hans and I on the beach, and one of the marathon.

May 2009

This is what happens when you go to chik fil lay on Family Friendly Tuesday nights!

April showers please bring warm weather!

Hello Everyone
Sorry I haven't updated in a while but the webfittie icon was blocking the sign in icon so I haven't been able to access my blog. It is still blocking but I found a way around it. Anyway we are fine and dandy and ready for some warm weather.
I just took a trip to New York with a group of 9 women to see Lion King on Broadway. It was amazing! We had so much fun. So we decided to do it every year. I even drove in New York this time. The cabbies there are crazy! We stayed 2 nights and everyone went where they wanted to go. My Mom-in-law Linda and I went to the NEw York City Botanical Gardens to see the Orchid show. Seriously Cool, you were in a rain forest dripping with 100s of different kinds of Orchids with no bugs. We also went to the garment district to all the fabric and trim stores.
I have two great stories from this trip.
First, (I hope I can relay how funny this was because we are still laughing about it) We had 5 women staying in a hotel room for 4. We booked a room with 2 queens and a sleeper sofa. When we got there our room had a King and a sleeper sofa so they were going to bring up a roll away. Linda hid in the bathroom while the guy set up the roll away just in case they made a stink about us having 5. He opened the bathroom door to check if we had enough towels and pushed the shower curtain aside and there was Linda standing in the shower with her arms folded. She smiled at him and said "Hi" He said "O!" and then left. Way funny

2nd Funny thing. Linda and I went into an Italian bakery to share a treat. She really wanted this rum cake. She promised me that the rum gets all cooked out, she has had them before yada yada yada. So I ate my share first and when I was on my 5th bite my stomach started feeling really warm, uncomfortably warm. So to make a short story shorter, my Mother in law got me a little sauced. Hans says I can't go on any more trips with her. Ha Ha My only side effect was a warm tummy and a headache the next morning.

This week is Spring Break so I am taking the girls downtown to the zoo, museums, and to see the cherry blossoms. Should be fun!

February

Soooo C c c oldddd.
I don't think I can walk Sadie to the bus in the morning any more. My ears are going to get frostbite.
What happened to the mild weather of Virginia? I think I am getting soft.
On to bigger and better things. I love Valentines Day! I make everything the kids eat pink and red. Hans and I go on a big hot date with flowers and great mushy cards. Its the best. So I was really looking forward to this Valentines day and then I got a phone call from a nice Sister in the ward putting together a Valentines dinner theatre telling me that my dear sweet husband volunteered us to sing a duet. AAAHHHH! its ok Sara breathe, so we can't sing no one will notice right!?!. So we ended up singing "a whole new world" from Aladdin. Now that it is over I can say it wasn't so bad, but my mouth full of stress canker sores still hurts. So that was Friday. On Saturday Hans went to the temple with out me, and after went to a Gun Show for 3 hours. He came home just in time for us to miss our movie but the night was still salvageable because we had reservations at this cool place called The Inn at Kellys Ford. As a nice surprise, since we missed the movie, Hans took me shoe shopping and bought 2 pairs of sweet shoes instead of flowers. I think that should be a tradition.
Then it was off to dinner. The first thing I heard when we walked in the door was really loud country sounding music filled with bad words that start with f. And then the host told us it would be 40 min wait. The gross music was coming from a pub/lounge in the basement of the Dining Room. And because there were only 2 chairs to sit on upstairs we had to go down to the lounge to find a seat. We ordered our sodas while this barfarama cowboy sang awful Jimmy Buffet style songs, but when he started singing a song about never seeing a breast he didn't like, it was time to go and throw up somewhere, preferably on his guitar.
The dinner was fine and the atmosphere was too.
Ok so thats my funny story and while all true here is some stuff I left out.
Hans did volunteer us for the show, but he was going to sing to me on stage not have me sing. (I'm not sure which one would be more embarrassing)
Then Friday night he got up with the girls in the night so I could sleep even though he had to make the 7am session at the temple (1 hour away) to go with a couple in our ward. So he needed to let off a little steam and what better way than to go to a gun show and he ran a few errands for me too. My errands are what made him late so no biggie and the shoe shopping was way better than any movie. The whole gross cowboy was totally true and totally barf. But was soon forgotten except anytime anyone mentions Valentines Day, and anytime I might have to bring it up to get my own way. Just Kidding!
Happy Valentines Day Everyone!

January Brrrr

January started out with lots of fun. New toys, new activities, and school. Women's basketball has started and I love it. It is now officially cold. But still no snow. THis last weekend I went on a scrapbook getaway to a cabin in Maryland. It was really fun and I got 25 pages done! While there someone emailed me a picture of my girls hair at church with the caption (so, gone for the weekend huh) Their hair was pretty sad but at least Hans tried. My brother Nate and his friends got tickets to the inaguration and so they braved the cold and the HUGE crowds and had a great time. Except Nate got the stomach flu thats not so fun. As soon as I learn how to get pics from my camera onto this computer I will do a blog about Christmas it was really fun. Now I get to start planning my friend trip to New York to see Lion King on Broadway! I can't wait.

My wonderful Mom made these beautiful dresses for the girls for Christmas. They want to wear them everywhere. We had our Family Christmas picture taken and they turned out really cute!

It was a lot of fun trying to get a picture of Bella. All she wanted to do was bang on the window.

Countdown to Christmas

We are one week away til Christmas is here. So far we have done our cards, newsletter, and family picture. We have some Christmas Decor around the house, a lost of Christmas books, but no tree. We have been waiting for Hans to be home one night so we can go get one. It is a week before Christmas so Hans just picked up a fakey at Target on his way home. The were not pleased about not getting to cut one down, (they had sooo much fun last year). So I just bribed them with promises of hot chocolate with candy canes while we decorate it tomorrow. Works every time. Tomorrow we are going caroling with goodies for the widows in our ward. I hope they are hard of hearing. Because these past weeks have been so busy we have not had a chance to do some of our traditions. So, we are cramming them all into this weekend. We are going to visit Santa, see the lights at the DC Temple, visit a huge drive by lights display with a Christmas carnival at the end, take goodies and carol to our neighbors, and watch the Grinch that stole Christmas. It should be a fun weekend.

Man those kids are cute!

You better not pout...Santa is coming...

I love Santa Claus. For one month I have less bawling, whining, and fighting. Sadie will start whining and then stop and say, "oh ya Santa is watching." And she is always reminding Hannah too. Hans has had a lot of trips for his job the last little while so hes getting behind on his "honey do" list. So we have a kid in our ward, about to go on a mission and looking for jobs, coming and doing odd jobs for me. It has been great! He cleaned out the garage and put up shelves and organized them. Then did the same in the basement and today he put up all of my Christmas lights. Tomorrow he is going to put together a dresser from Ikea that has been waiting for Hans for 5 months. Too bad he doesn't finish basements. Hannah was in the basement while he was here and she hit her head on something and he asked her if she needed a kiss better and she said, " You can't kiss me your brown." And he said "well your white." Hannah replied holding out her arms and looking at them, " I'm not white I'm golden." Hilarious!

Sadie taught Bella to growl and howl like a wolf. It is a little strange to see this cute chubby face popping up all over the place growling at you. I've got to get out the camcorder.

Thankful for Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving was the Best! We actually had family at our house. My cousin Holly and Jeff and their 4 boys came on Wed and will stay until Tomorrow (Sat). The kids have been so cute and good. We keep taking their temperature, but I think they are having so much fun they forgot to be stinkers. Right at this moment we are playing Risk and Hans really wants to sleep on the couch tonight so he keeps attacking me, and killing off all of my armies. What he doesn't know is that I am going to be like a mosquito with malaria who can't be swatted to him for the rest of the game.

Thursday we started off with a little Turkey Bowl Football. The men played for two hours and the wives and kids played on the adjacent field. Hannah scored a touch down and was really excited. I had to stiff arm a couple of 8 yr olds in the process but it was worth it. After football we came back and made an awesome spread of food while the kids made turkey crafts to hang in the windows.
Then it was time for the feast. Everything was great except for the apple pie. Hol forgot to put sugar in it so it was a little sour but the crust was GReat and it made for lots of funny comments.
This morning Hol and I went shopping and got some great deals. I wish they weren't going home tomorrow but we are planning Christmas with them and we are going to Raleigh next weekend for my nephews baptism.
Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

all dressed up

Here we are!