Our tiny dancer

Our little Avery is currently in her 4th year of dance. Now that she is in the "big girl" class she had a little Christmas show at the studio. They only practiced for 5 weeks and I think did quite well. Here is a video of her Jazz dance. She also had a ballet routine. She is such an angel!!!

Christmas card rejects!

First, I must apologize to all of my faithful readers for not posting anything new in weeks. Hopefully you haven't given up on me! The Christmas Season has kept me otherwise occupied. I couldn't decide what to post about so as I looked at my camera to see what pictures were on it I figured I'd go with our Christmas card reject pictures.

Last Tuesday Gavin came home to find his wife and 2 children decked out in our holiday best and our tripod was set up in the living room. We took about 2o different pictures, uploaded our favorite to Walmart.com, picked them up an hour later, addressed them, and sent them out Wednesday morning. Nothing like a deadline to get you motivated.

Here's our first attempt at a family Totem Pole.One of just the kiddos!

Our 2nd attempt at a family Totem Pole. Cute picture but crooked and too much window, not enough tree.
Crooked and Samuel is in a weird smile phase of life.
I don't know why this one didn't make the cut. I think we look great!

Merry Christmas from the Family!

A new chapter...

As many of you already know, the Carrier family is relocating to the Houston area. We are excited to begin this new chapter of our lives and sad to say goodbye to so many people and a church we love. We will be going to an area called The Woodlands and Gavin will be working at Faith Bible Church as a Small Groups Pastor.

It is a beautiful area! The one thing that Gavin didn't like from his time in Texas was the lack of trees. The Woodlands is truly the exception. In fact, you can't find anything because it is all hidden behind trees. There is a lovely waterway that goes by the mall and ends about a mile and a half later at a hotel. Here is one of the water taxis that takes you from one end to the other.
Yes, we will be safe in such an area. There are plenty of police on horseback to protect us on any shopping excursions we may venture out on.
Needless to say, we would like everyone to visit us! We are sad to report we won't be posting anymore sledding pictures after March but I'm sure they will be replaced by pictures of the kids playing in the sand. On that note, does anyone want to buy a lovely 4 bedroom on a half acre in a cul-de-sac? I know of one if you're interested!

It's official.....Winter has come

Winter has definitely shown up in upstate New York. We got a few inches earlier last week but on Friday night we got close to a foot of snow! We were left with only one option for Saturday......Sledding!!!


We usually go to a place called Strawberry Hill but it can get a bit crowded and it is pretty steep for Avery and Samuel. Don't get me wrong, they have both done it before, but they don't like it anymore after they wipe out. It's a pretty long fall to the bottom of the hill!
This year we went a different route! Our friends Mike and Jenny invited us to come sledding at their house. They have a great hill and Avery even got to sled with their 1 1/2 year old Evelyn.
We had a couple of trails going (always being careful not to slam into their house at the bottom). The kids (and adults) had a wonderful time!I took a moment to relax before it was all done!

A Poll...Brought to you by Mr. Carrier

Tonight is the CMA awards on NBC and this time of year always brings a few comments about me looking like Miranda Lambert. I guess it would be appropriate to say she looks like me because I am older. Regardless, when she appeared on the scene back in her Nashville Star days (around 2002) I had a handful of people tell me we looked alike (this was back in Texas). A few years and a cross country move later folks told me the same thing. My husband, Gavin, has always agreed. One night, in fact, he was flipping channels and saw Miranda on Austin City Limits. He watched the whole time in amazement and kept telling me, "make this face, say that, etc." I believe my response was to fall asleep next to him on the couch.
So here's the question.....Do you think I look like her? Leave your comments and settle this once and for all. I can kind of see it (when you look past the blonde hair and blue eyes) but to me it is more obvious watching her live. So if you feel so compelled you can Youtube her.
I'll post the results when I get enough comments!

Happy Halloween!

Mulan and MuShu the Dragon wish you a Happy Halloween. We had a very full day. Our first stop was Samuel's preschool for a little singing.

Then after a trip to the nursing home to trick-or-treat and a party/craft it was time to go home for lunch. Then it was off to Avery school.... (here are all the girls in her class).Then the kids headed over to the high school (which is next door) for a parade through their hallways. Avery's teacher (Miss Ball) was dressed as Dorothy and her principal was a referee (he is younger than Gavin and I). This was followed by a party of course and graphing M&M's.


Here is the first of our pumpkins we carved last night. Mickey did have a face but when I returned from Avery's school it had fallen off. :(
Samuel wanted a pirate and he thought this was close enough.
Avery's pumpkin is Sleeping Beauty but I have to say I did much of the work.
Here is Samuel after trick-or-treating.
Avery posing with the pumpkins.
Samuel was so cute to watch from behind. His little tail swished back and forth.
Our friends Kylie and Cooper came to trick-or-treat with us because they don't really live in a neighborhood and because it's more fun!! Here's the whole gang (plus Kara's hand).Happy Halloween from our house to yours!!!

Halloween past

Thanks for the idea Kara! Here are the kids from 2004-2007 at Halloween. I can't seem to find Avery's 2003 pictures but she was dresses in the same jester costume Samuel is wearing in the 3rd picture. Sorry for this bad unicorn shot but it's the only one. I have to give credit to my mom for making Avery's Snow White and Sleeping Beauty costumes. She still plays in them regularly! Happy Halloween.

We put it off long enough.....Today was leaf raking time.
We went to Home Depot and bought an extra rake today to spend a couple hours raking the yard.
It is wonderful that we have a half acre... except when it comes to mowing and raking.
After about an hour our next door neighbor (the best neighbor in the world) came home and fired up his riding mower with LEAF SUCKING ATTACHMENT! After doing his yard (in a matter of about 15 minutes) he finished off our yard and mowed it the mean time. I will be baking that man some brownies sometime soon!
All the raking took place while Avery was at school and Samuel was napping.
When Avery came home and Samuel woke up the fun began!

Here is a short video of the kids playing. If you turn the music off you can hear them. There is some lawn mower noise in the background. Our favorite part is watching Avery's dramatic flare.

Rooster update

I have had a few questions about the rooster story. Apparently, I am not much of a story teller because I didn't tell the end of the story.

A lady who works at the farm (the one on the other end of the walkie talkie) was the one to retrieve the tickets from the ravenous roosters. We were given new tickets to replace the ones the roosters took as they were chewed, gnarled and in some cases eaten entirely.

I hope this provides adequate closure for those of you left with questions. I hope you have all learned a valuable lesson about holding on to your possessions when ravenous birds are around!

Fun at the Fair

This weekend our church celebrated its 10th anniversary. We had a "community kids fair" to celebrate. We invited all the kids in the area and had a great turn out. Our small group made a ring toss which seemed to be a big hit. Our sign is made from an old headboard left in our basement by the previous owners. I, of course, cut the cut letters out! The picket fence used to be in Avery's room. What a tribute to reusing and recycling!!

We had several crafts inside. Here is Avery decorating a pumpkin cookie.
The weather was beautiful!!! Here are two handsome men in orange!
The fire department was there!
They also had hay rides. The horses were gigantic.

Samuel painting a pumpkin. He is concentrating very hard!
Gavin and I got a little rowdy and had to be confined. I had no idea the back seat of a cop car was so small and made of hard plastic! Being a criminal is no fun.
Here is Samuel pretending he is driving the fire truck.
This was the coolest game! You got to knock the flames out by hitting them with a water hose.
This was just a sampling of all the events. They had a couple of bounce houses, lots more games, and a ton of food. We had a great time. Samuel summed it up best when he said...."that was a super fun church party." God has really blessed our church with 10 great years (even though we have only been around for 5).

Got a little story for ya...

Sorry it has been awhile since my last update. We went to Binghamton this weekend to visit Gavin's dad and stepmom and I left my camera there. We don't have a back-up and what's a blog post without a picture? Luckily, Sandy (Gavin's stepmom) is on top of things and sent me my camera super fast! Thanks Sandy!

So here's the story...On Sunday, we arrived in Binghamton shortly after 2:00 and loaded the kids back into the car to go to a Pumpkin Festival (more Fall fun, I love it). We had a fabulous time and the weather was great but as usual these places are a money pit. You had to buy tickets and everything cost between 1 and 3 tickets. Gavin and Sandy purchased 25 tickets for $20. They were a dollar a ticket but if you bought 20 you got five free. What a bargain!! The kids immediately went into a bounce house with a fancy slide for 2 tickets each. For those of you not doing the math, we were down to 21 tickets. At this point we did the only free thing there (or so we thought) which was visit several farm animals (ducks, chickens, pigs, a calf, goats and last but certainly not least the roosters). The roosters were in a typical pen with chicken wire surrounding it. There was a large hole in one side where the wire had been cut, broken, pecked or something. Apparently, Samuel had his tiny fingers through the wire and the roosters were coming toward him. Superdad stepped in to protect his boy from these ferocious beasts. The next thing I knew I heard Gavin say "Hey that rooster stole my tickets." Avery and I were at this time looking at the calf. I looked over and sure enough one of the roosters had our 21 tickets!
These pictures were taken after they pecked them for a while and ingested a few of them. Gavin went to one of the employees to tell them what happened because we weren't sure if eating paper was good for roosters and we wanted our money back!!! The guy came over to see for himself and then called someone on a walkie talkie laughing the whole time. He said "You're not going to believe this but some guy got his tickets taken by the roosters." Person on the other walkie, "What?"
They then decided that someone needed to go in and get the tickets from these Oh-so-charming birds. Apparently, no one wanted to volunteer. I told Gavin "I have experience with roosters." He assured me these birds were not like "Ned" from the dude ranch we visited two years ago. Here is Ned and I.