Happy 10 Year Anniversary Emily!!!!!!

Last year on our anniversary I claimed "One more year and we will be "an old married couple". Well guess what, it's been one more year!!!! I guess we are an old married couple now!!! Happy 10 year anniversary to my sweetheart!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Proof that you are happy!!!!!


I know, cliche', but I love you more and more every day!!!!!!! Please don't have me "done away with" in order to collect life insurance money . . . . . . I know you know how to use a bat!!!!

Happy Birthday Sweet Little Mirian!!!!

Today Mirian turns two!!!!! What a complete and total Joy she has been for us!!!!!!! We love her so dearly! It was two years ago today that Russ got a speeding ticket on the way to the hospital. He even told the police officer that he was going to the hospital to adopt his new baby girl.

Newborn Mirian

Mirian on her first birthday

Mirian at 2

Mirian has a wonderful birth-mother. Her name is Kristine. Thank you Kristine for your completely selfless and loving act of providing us the opportunity to have and raise this sweet little girl!!!!

Mirian's personality is so wonderful!!!!! She absolutely LOVES kitties!!!!!! Her daddy would have preferred that she loves dogs (which she does) but she drops everything for a kitty. Her favorite movie is "Oliver and Company," because it is about a kitty. Mirian even sings along with the songs. In the car, she gets upset if we don't listen to kitty music (the "Oliver and Company soundtrack). Mirian loves babies! She has 3 baby dolls, but she could easily have a million more and be happy. She loves to change their diapers, push them in strollers and put them down for naps. she is a good little mama. Mirian also loves to read books. Her favorites are "Goodnight Moon" and any book with pictures of animals. She loves to point out the different animals and make their sounds. Mirian loves music and she loves to sing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree." It is so fun to watch her do the movements and say "Copcorn." Mirian is her mommy's big helper. She loves to help out with anything that she can around the house. Mirian loves to dance, and she sure knows how to shake her little bootie. It is adorable. Mirian loves to say prayers. She always remembers to fold her arms when we sit down to eat, and she always folds her arms when we are done reading scriptures. She is a good reminder to her mommy and daddy. But one of her mommy and daddy's favorite things about Mirian is that she loves to give kisses!!!!

Today Daddy made waffles with homemade blueberry syrup for Em and Mirian's birthday breakfast. As you'll see from the photos, Mirian LOVED it!!!!!!!


Happy Birthday Sweetheart!!! We love you!!!!

Italian Wedding Soup

Tonight for dinner, we had one of our favorite meals, Italian Wedding Soup. It is so quick and easy, and it tastes great. We especially love it with homemade bread. We've been getting several requests lately for this delicious recipe, so I thought I needed to blog about it. Try it out and let us know what you think.

New Belt

Well this Carter Family Challenge has been, how do you say, challenging. And the competition seems to be heating up!!! Regardless of who the winner is (I, Russ, am currently in the lead, woohoo!!!!!!), I am so happy about the progress and energy I now have. It's been a while since I've felt this good!!! I started the competition at 245 and I weighed in this morning at 228!!!!! I'm gonna need a new belt when this is done and over with. My end goal is 200 lbs.

In addition to the challenge of eating healthy and exercising, there have been other challenges that are included. Things like reading a book. I have to read everyday. If you know me, you know I can't sit still long enough to read a book. I've been able to listen to books on cd or the iPod. I've "read" more books this year (3) than I have ever read in any one year of my entire life. I just simply don't read. People talk to me about getting addicted to it and loving to read. I can't say that I love it that much, but I've been entertained. I find myself wanting to continue on with the rest of the book and being interested in "what's next". The book I am reading now is so so, which is kind of frustrating, but I told myself I'd finish it regardless.

Another piece of the challenge is that you have to get 8 hours of sleep every night. Now sometimes you wake up in the middle of the night, but that doesn't matter. As long as you go to bed (not lay in bed and watch a movie, literally go to bed) and wake up 8 hours later, you get points. This has probably been my hardest challenge. I have so many things going on that I have to simply not accomplish things as fast as I would like. But I do find myself having more energy, so that keeps me driven to keep going.

The last thing that I've had to pay attention to on this challenge is eating breakfast. I typically didn't eat breakfast as I felt I was already overweight and adding to my eating would only make it worse. In addition, I typically am in a rush to get to work in the morning, so I run out of time. When the competition started, I began eating breakfast EVERY morning. Most of the time, I eat two packets of Quaker Oatmeal. I sell product to them, so I may as well buy from them right???? I feel good and I know that Oatmeal is also good for maintaining lower cholesterol. High cholesterol runs in my genes, so this is definitely an added bonus. I also don't get hungry mid-morning like I used to.

All in all, I feel SOOO good about my progress. My energy level is good, I'm starting to get some abs and calves, and I have improved my life in ways I never figured I would. Thank you Mom and Dad Carter for this opportunity to challenge myself and better take care of my family.

Russ' Mission Buddy

While on Facebook the other day, Russ wished a fellow Gringo Missionary (who served in Peru) a happy birthday and noticed that other fellow missionaries had also commented on his page. One of them was Freddy Alva. Freddy is from Peru and was a good friend!!!!

Russ added Freddy as a friend and began to look through his info and pictures. Low and behold, Freddy only lives an hour and a half from Selah. HOLY CANOLI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A week later, we were at his home where his wife Andrea (who he also knew from one of the wards he served in) had cooked an AMAZING Peruvian dinner. We had Aji de Gallina, Arroz con Pollo and INCA KOLA!!!! Inca Kola is a soda made in Peru and it's awesome!!!! Finally, for dessert, Andrea made Picarones which are essentially sweet potato homemade donuts with Fig honey. OH MY GOODNESS THEY WERE AMAZING!!!!!!

Here are a few pictures of Russ, Freddy, the Inca Kola, Mirian and her new friend and Picarones

Labor Day Fun

Well what a crazy and fun weekend. We had different visitors and some overnighters every day of Labor Day weekend.

On Saturday the evening started off with the visit of our dear friends the Jakemans. We played a lot of games with them when they lived in Yakima, but then they abandoned us to go live in the Tri-Cities. They graced us with their presence on Saturday and we got to meet their new little girl Penelope. How precious she was!!!!!!! We had some pizza from Papa Murphy's and played games. A couple of Alicia's siblings along with the Steve and Erin Lawson also came over to enjoy the Penelope visit/games. Russ' brother Mike and his two kids also came after a day of floating the Yakima River. They were pretty exhausted and pretty much went right to bed after a brief chit chat.

Sunday Morning we went to church with Russ' brother and his kids. We then headed over to have dinner with Russ' siblings (Ron, Mike, and Dave) and their families at Ron's house. It was lots of fun and scrumptious.

Sunday night Devin and Amanda Perkins and David Lawson came over for games. Around 9:30 that evening, Collin and Krystal Hunter and their girl stopped for a pit stop at our place on their way home to Idaho Falls.

The Hunters spent the night and we had a nice breakfast Monday morning. Shortly after the Hunters left, the Mills arrived. We told you about Mirian's shiner during their visit. We also got to play catch and Russ and Dave taught Dave's oldest boy Tanner how to throw a ball.
He was practically an expert after all the professional advice he was given.

Kids swang, threw the ball around, oh and we can't forget the BBQ hamburgers we had for lunch!!!! They were awesome.


After the Mill's took off, we went to have Family Home Evening with Russ' brother Dave and his family. They have 4 sweet little children and another girl on the way. Due to the audience (the kids), the scripture was acted out by the entire group. What a great way to teach the scriptures!!!!! It was wonderful. The evening was capped off with a Wii boxing tournament.

What a weekend!!!!! Exhausting, but oh so fun!!!!!!!

4th of July Weekend

Over the 4th of July weekend we had a Carlson Brothers Family Reunion. Not everyone could make it and we missed them, but those who were able to come had a blast. We went to Tri-Cities on Friday night and checked into our hotel. We had pizza and soda and played games. The 6 brothers that we there and our nephew Matt stayed up until midnight playing Liar (some know it as BS). We had lots of laughs (it was obviously past bed time for a few of us).

On Saturday, some family members went on a hike up Badger Mountain. Overall, it was only about an hour hike but there are great views from the top. After hiking, the group went to the local farmer's market in Pasco. The goal was to find ingredients for a salad for lunch time. There was a competition, but no one knew the rules, it was fun deciding on ingredients while trying to figure out how to win a game and not know the rules.

After the farmer's market we went to Columbia Point Park (right on the Columbia River) and rented jet skiis. It was a blast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We jet skied all day long.

We had a picnic where Emily and our sister-in-law Rachel's combined effort salad won the competition. The only rule was to have the most items from the farmer's market. They had 9 ingredients from the market.

We got plenty of sun and had a great time!!!

Sunday we went to church and took a family photo before going in. Emily was sick Saturday night and Sunday and wasn't able to join us. Sunday afternoon we had another picnic, played games and then watched fireworks from the bank of the Columbia River (they lit the fireworks from a barge in the middle of the river). What a show!!!

Monday we had our final get together before everyone left. We had a lunch picnic and had the Carlson Family Olympics. We divided up in teams and competed in 3 events (frisbee golf, cherry seed spitting for distance, and Soap bubble blowing for distance). How creative!!! Way to go Mike!!!

We love to get together with Family and have a good laugh. Thanks everyone, let's do it again soon!!!

Central Washington State Fair

Every year, once the apple harvest begins/beginning of fall, the Central Washington State Fair takes place here in Yakima. It is a fun fair. It's very large with plenty to do and see. Growing up in Yakima, my mom always encouraged us to enter things into the fair for judging. We entered anything from sewing projects to baked goods to dried or canned fruit to flowers. It was lots of fun.

We would enter about 20-30 different items per child (times that by how many kids are in my family and you have a lot of items going into the fair from the Carlson home over the years). You would earn ribbons and if you got a blue ribbon, it was worth $3, a red was worth $2 and a white one was worth $1. One year I got 3 Best of Shows. One was for peanut butter chocolates that looked like chocolate peanuts, one was for a pineapple upside down cake, and the other for a flower I entered. I brought in bank that year!!!!!

What a great opportunity for children to learn and be rewarded for their efforts. Then the pride of going to the fair and seeing your items is awesome. What a fun fair!!!! It helps to get you excited about Fall time with the changing of the leaves and fruit and vegetable harvests.

OLIVIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY'RE BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our expert blogging sister-in-law Olivia blogged last November about the removal of Mother's Circus Animal Cookies from the stores. Well guess what . . . . THEY'RE BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

p.s. Note the yellow tag on the bag that says "Your Favorites are Back" They are absolutely right!!!!!

Dear Thomasons . . . . .

FYI, there are Jamba Juice's in Washington!!!!!!!!!!

Learn from the Best and have a Crap-Fest!!!!

Around mid-April our awesome Sister-in-Law Olivia posted on her blog about having a Crap-Fest. Well today, we had our own Crap-Fest and thought we would give credit to Olivia. Crap-Fest does not refer to the quality of the food, just that you grab whatever crap you can find our throw on the table. It was simple, no real need to prepare much, or stress over dinner, just use up all the leftovers. Everyone can have their own unique meal and you don't waste food. Our Crap-Fest consisted of grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup, cashews, garlic mashed potatoes, salmon, steamed broccoli, chocolate bunny, Hershey's Kisses and caramel apple suckers. MMM, it was fun. Enjoy the photos of our Crap-Fest.