Carter the Master Gardener

Carter with his amazing trees. He "planted" about twenty.

Carter with Serena, Aunt Staci and Aleeya

I have been participating in a garden group and I was trying to decide if I was going to go on Thursday. I asked Carter if he would like to go to garden group or to scoot outside while I worked on our yard of weeds. He said that he is a master gardener and that he had to go to garden group because some people are experts and he is an expert. I am sometimes amazed at the words he knows, as well as, his incredible sense of self-worth!

He really is the master gardener at our house, he took the branches that were pruned from our fruit trees and planted them in the garden. Apparently, he is tired of me not getting around to planting anything so he took the task into his own hands.

The power of Carter's prayers

Our lesson in Relief Society was about prayer and Bonnie Whitlock asked for examples of prayer we remember being answered when we were children, it reminded me about an experience with Carter's prayers.

We had an Oldsmobile that the transmission was going out on, one day I decided to risk it and drive to the store (I knew a ward member was going to be selling Girl Scout cookies there and I really wanted some, I was pregnant, so that is my excuse). Well, of course, after we got our cookies, the car wouldn't start. I decided to go to another store there in the complex and then try again. I asked Carter to say a prayer that our car would work so we could get home. He gave a great prayer and when we tried again it started.

So... Carter knew that when he prayed the car would work. Well, Taylor drove the car to work one day and it officially died for good. We tried many things to get it started, but it was done. At one point we did say a prayer, but it was time for the Olds. to be donated to charity.

The cute thing is that several weeks later Carter was saying that he missed the white car and that if we would have let him get inside the car and he had prayed, that it would have been fixed. I love that in his mind, since we were not in the car when we prayed that it didn't work. Who knows he might have enough faith that if we had put him inside the car, it would still be running!

Hopefully this will be funny someday...

So it is official, the Dearden children are the most disruptive at church. Carter had such a hard time being reverent in Primary that after they moved him several times, and he still refused to be good, they brought him to us in Sunday School. When I played the piano in Primary, I don't remember any kids getting kicked out, so he must have really been trouble! So, Taylor took him for awhile until he was ready to apologize and be good.

Then after Relief Society I was busy talking with people and Serena was in the Relief Society room wandering around. She climbed on a chair and pulled the fire alarm! I was so embarrassed! Luckily, Bishop Dearden was able to quickly use his key to turn it off, but then it went off twice more as they reset it, so the whole thing was very disruptive!!!!

I don't know if it is possible to have enough Family Home Evenings on reverence to get our kids to practice the principle!

On a happy note, Aleeya was smiling through the whole thing! There is still hope for her reverence!

I always thought I lived in a Zoo....

Most days it feels like I am living in a zoo, but this day it officially was one! Carter and Serena were playing with Jackie and Emily Larsen, children of my friend and former mission companion, Stephanie Larsen. This is the tiger cage they built and I was VERY impressed with the growls and faces the tigers could make!

Just a note on the amazing tiger hair that Serena has; I have decided to grow her bangs out (too much time and money to keep cutting them), but she is constantly pulling the elastic band out of her hair and then the hood on her sweatshirt adds a nice static effect.

Aleeya is six months old!

Yes, that is my foot, clear up by my chin!

So cute!

Serena at six months old

Carter at six months old

I can't believe my baby girl is six months. She had her immunizations and she is still small, but growing fine, so no worries! She rolls all over the place and gets up on her hands and knees like she is trying to crawl. I added pictures of Carter and Serena at the same age, I thought it would be fun to compare!

What happens while I am blogging..

This is what happens when I am not paying attention to the children because I am typing a blog post!! Those are raisins all over the floor! Carter said Serena did it, but he sure didn't come and tell me or stop her!

Easter

Easter was pretty low key for us. Sunday after church Carter and Serena played "Hot or Cold" to find their Easter pails. Thanks to the fact that I didn't shop for Easter candy until Saturday night, they had Teddy Grahams in their plastic eggs. The bonus is they are less messy than chocolate!

We went to Logan for Sunday dinner and then they looked for more Easter presents(cute books) from Grandpa and Grandma Hoppie. Grandma Hoppie had bags of jelly beans or M&M's for the adults so we hid those and let Carter and Serena find them. They had such a good time that we kept hiding the bags of candy so they found them multiple times. When they found a bag we told them to give them to a grown-up. Aunt Jen got the most bags of M&M's.