The Blake Effect

I am starting this blog again because Jeff's Great Grandma Venice is the coolest Great Grandma in the world.   She lives in California and doesn't get to see her grandkids very often.  She earns the "coolest in the world" title because she's so tech savvy on her iPad.  I've been sending her email updates about the kids with pictures and realized it wouldn't take much time to upload the pictures on here so I can share them with her and with all the other family as well.

I will not be trying to catch up because that many years is impossible to tackle.  We moved shortly after our last post and then the infamous SMOKE DAMAGE happened which took a long time to recover from.  (I still have one box of shoes from the dry cleaners that hasn't been unpacked.)  Jeff should just throw it away so it doesn't taunt me anymore.  Then we suffered from what we now call The Blake Effect.  Get it?  Lake Effect?  Blake Effect?  Google lake effect if you are lost.

I got pregnant with our fabulous Blake Gordon Carlson in December.  I quickly realized I'd suffer the worst pregnancy so far with him.  I had morning (all-day) sickness the entire 9 months.  I was completely exhausted and with 4 other kids at home, our household suffered.  After he was born, he quickly let me know who was boss.  He did not sleep, eat, and smile like the first four babies.  He ate, screamed, screamed, screamed himself to sleep, and then started the cycle all over again.  We finally learned he was sensitive to lost sleep and had a hard time going to sleep.  We tried every trick to help him fall asleep but he wouldn't stay asleep for long.  We admitted defeat and laid him in his crib every time he started to get drowsy.  He sure put up some monumental fights but soon learned to soothe himself to sleep.  He now is a champion thumb-sucker just like Daddy was.  He is now 8 months old and is such a joy.  I feel like I am finally starting to get a handle on not only my daily chores but my to-do list as well.  We also suffered from annoying computer problems and broken cameras.
We now have a new computer and a new camera.  I'm ready to go!  Are you ready to follow?
I will set a goal to update once a week on Sunday.  I'm excited because a blog is just like a family scrapbook mixed with a journal.  I LOVE going back and reading some of the old posts. 

Here is Kyle signing during his school's patriotic program.

Here is Caleb with his best friend Kyler Bonney.  Kyler is only 3 but we have found out that the therapist was right.  Caleb plays best with kids older or younger than him. 

This is a horrible picture of Katie's class singing the Songs of the Armed Forces.  She was so excited that Grandpa was going to be there and that HER grandpa could stand during the Army portion.

Poor Blake is a blur but I was teary watching my Daddy stand and I had a hard time getting a decent picture.

Texas part deux!

USS Houston

Battleship Texas

We had a blast when we got to board this battleship which is now a museum. They let you walk all over the ship and let you touch whatever you want.

Who would draft this bunch of misfits?

This never got old! No matter how many cots we passed the kids had to climb on every one. I kept imaging all the disgusting things those beds have seen through the years. Yuck!

Caleb was not quite a walker yet so he was carried throughout the whole ship. He was so happy when we let him down to crawl up the flights of stairs. Boy were those stairs steep. I don't know how those sailors managed running up and down the flights of stairs during drills and emergencies.

I took pictures of many of the fascinating spaces. The favorites were the dentistry (super primitive and scary!), laundry room, prophylactic room, the movie locker, and many other cool room. I chose this picture to share of the store because they had it stocked with period goods. My mom loved seeing gum that she chewed as a kid.

Kyle saw the size of the kitchen equipment and said "CHILI!". I don't know what chili has to do with huge copper pots but he thought it was super cool.

Kyle's guns in front of the GUNS!!!

"WHOA DUDE! Look at the size of those guns!"

We had quite a bit of fun with this head cutout picture opportunity.

When would you ever get the chance to play war with real navy guns???

Texas Was SO Good To Us

We got to travel to Houston right after Christmas. I mean RIGHT AFTER. We opened our presents and promptly packed to make our flight at 5 pm. It wasn't the optimum flight time but the ticket prices were quite convincing.
My sister Katrine lives in Texas with her family. I have been there twice to visit her but Jeff and the kids have never been. We were able to see our new neice Holly who was born at 25 weeks and is now a fabulously healthy 11 month old.

The weather was AMAZING. Our kids were in need of some outside time and it was great to see them spend hours outside.

Katrine has taken pictures of every critter she found in her yard for our boys to see since they moved there. Joshua is an animal lover/freak. He loves all kinds of animals but bugs, snakes, grasshoppers, spider and other crawly things are his specialty. They wasted no time and the first morning we were there Joshua found a little frog under a yard brick. It was super cold for Texas at the time and he was quite lethargic. He allowed Josh to cart him around and pet him. This cute little frog was so obliging to the kids. He never fled his hidey hole to escape the clutches of such an eager boy. Joshua would go out each morning and find his froggy friend.
Katrine breathed a huge sigh of relief because the animals are not very visible during the winter and we were worried that after all our talk about Texas critters, we wouldn't see a single animal the whole time. (Because it was winter the only other cool Texas animal we saw was a dead 'possum on the side of the road. The native Texans must've loved seeing us make 4-5 U-turns to make sure each kid could see the gruesome sight.)

Katrine and I were able to take our beautiful daughters out for a movie. We got to see Tangled and the girls were SO FREAKIN' CUTE sitting there entranced with a cute fairy tale, popcorn and a Sprite to share.
We tuckered them out as you can see here....

Here the kids are mounting a fallen bamboo limb. I'm not sure that's what you call it though. We had a nice time walking around these botanical gardens.

TWINS!!
Well they do share the same birthday only two years apart. They had just finished a Princess Bubble Bath and Katrine dressed them in matching outfits, matching hairdos and cute shoes. Katherine didn't enjoy her girl cousin's company at all (hear the sarcasm).

We had our candlelight Christmas dinner the day after we got there. This is a tradition the Clark family has done for every year. It so fun to eat by candlelight. Katrine is much better than I am keeping with these traditions. I will repent of my wrong ways Grandma Glover!

I'm not going to Title this "Catch-up"

Even though that's what it is........

Thanksgiving 2010
Pacifica Beach
32 degrees???

Walnut Creek
Carlson Turkey Bowl

Jeff's bro. James
and his
DELICIOUS Smoked Turkey

Thanksgiving Dinner
We don't make the kids eat with the normal rules applied. I don't care what they eat because I want to enjoy 1 meal a year without all the whining!!!!

Mmmmm
That was GOOOOD

You might not be able to see what the kids are watching but they were so cute watching Toy Story 3. They got out all of the toys from the movie. We only have a few of the "actual" toys from the movie but they were very resourceful and found toys that were close to the characters. I loved seeing the kids play together this way. My babies are growing up and I can't stop them.

Time for a haircut?? How about our 5th or 6th haircut?

For those of you that haven't heard we selling our condo finally. We are pretty excited to have some change in our life. We will miss this little place but it's long overdue. We don't have just one plan in mind so if you can offer us a decent job we'd love to be your neighbors.

Can you guess the event?????

These pictures are in order of a big event at our house. Can you guess what happened??
Clue: It happened on Monday November 1st

Halloween 2010

For some reason my children have found the words "hobo" and "hippie" the funniest words in the English lanuguage. They have used these words for years to describe anything funny or weird. This year we thought it would be funny to dress up as a clan of hippies. We tie dyed our own t-shirts, made peace sign pendants out of salt dough and hemp, found super cheap glasses and wigs....and......this is what you get.

Do you think Caleb likes the wig?

I added this picture because he's sooo freakin' cute.