Christmas Letter 2012

WOW! What a year! I feel like we are just starting to get our feet under us after an entire year of growth and change.

August 2012

Still living in Chandler, AZ and not knowing where we were going to be working this next year, the kids started school again at Dobson Academy. Porter started 4th grade, Eva started 3rd grade, and Ivy started Preschool.

Shortly after school started, Dave received a job offer with Stryker, in the San Francisco bay area. So, we hurried and fixed up our house in AZ, got Porter's tonsils out, found a house to rent in San Jose, CA, and headed West.


September 2012
While the adjustment to living in California hasn't been as smooth a ride as I wanted, there are a lot of things we are enjoying.

We love the beach and go at least once a week. Luckily we have family members close by to come with us and help bury the kids. By AZ standards the beach is very chilly. The kids play in the water without flinching, but I usually sit with a sweater on and wade my feet.

 Porter and Eva are going to a great elementary school just down the street. It's so nice to be super close to the school. Ivy is going to a fun preschool that she loves. She is learning how to read and write very well. She can't wait to start kindergarten.

Our house is much bigger than our home in Chandler. It is 2600sf rather than 1700sf, so if anyone wants to come play, we have plenty of room!

Our ward is amazing! They have been so welcoming and fun to hang out with. There are quite a few kids the same age as ours. It makes it super fun to have people over for games and dinner.







October 2012

As most of you know, we love Halloween! While the costumes weren't as awesome as other years, we still had a lot of fun. Porter went as a Phantom Ninja. Eva was the Evil Spider Queen.

Ivy had 3 different costumes because they were all "itchy!" For her preschool Halloween party, she went as a super cute pink and silver super girl. After getting to class and throwing a huge fit about her costume, they let her take it off and wear a sweater the rest of class. The second costume was a Rockstar at the ward Trunk or Treat. The gloves and tights were too "itchy!" as well. So for Halloween she was a black cat. While the tail was too "itchy", my patience was pretty "itchy" as well and she wore the cat costume until we were done trick or treating. I think next year I will roll her around in the woods and she can go as an Itchy Poison Ivy.

Unfortunately my camera freaked out half way through the week long holiday and I only have pics from the trunk or treat.

November 2012

We partied super hard this Thanksgiving. To start things off, the weekend before Thanksgiving my cousin Eric stopped over with his little family. I hadn't seen Eric for YEARS and it was so cool to see him acting like such a grown up dad...when did that happen?!

For actual Thanksgiving we had my cousin Diantha and her family (4 kids, 1 crazy hubby), Dave's sister Wendy (2 kids, 1 argumentative lawyer spouse), and Dave's brother Ryan (2 kids, 1 long suffering wife). I loved having everyone here! We played tons of games, went hiking, hit the beach, and even had a showing of the Crazy Powell Laughter (if you've seen it, you totally know what I'm talking about).

During the next week, we had neighbors showing up with strange things that had been thrown over fences, on top of houses, into pools, etc. The problem with having so many fun kids to play with, it's hard to know who needs to get in trouble.  So, they all got off pretty light.

December 2012

Ivy turned 5 yrs old on the 18th and feels like she's super grown up. She had a super fun bday party. There were about 30 kids that came and about 15 adults. We were surprised at the awesome turnout. She loved all the presents. We did a pretty low key party. The only activity was that each kid got to decorate their own cup cake and blow out their own candle. Then as party favors, they each got a balloon. It was so super fun and helped her not miss her Az friends quite as much.

The week before Christmas, Porter and Eva tested for their Yellow Stripe in Tae Kwon Do. They did such an amazing job. We are so proud of them and their focus.

This year, we did the 12 days a Christmas for some friends of ours. We dropped of a Christmas story and some candy that went along with the story. It's the first time the kids have done anything sneaky like this and they were super pumped.

House 1 was back in a little nook, but super easy to get to. This was mine and Ivy's house. We would sneak up and she would put the present on the door step and then I would ring the bell and run and hide with her. She loved being sneaky and hiding with me. House 2 was brightly lit with Christmas lights and a big front window that people walked in front of all night. This was Porter and Eva's house because it was the toughest one. Each night we would talk about what they should do if they were caught. They thought for sure there was going to be torture involved if they were ever caught. They decided that they would give fake names if they were every caught...right...because our friends would not know them...:)  it was pretty funny. On a Saturday we had to do it during the afternoon. So the kids dragged out their Halloween costumes to cover up their fluffy blonde hair. So in the middle of December if anyone was a Black Phantom or Spider Queen running barefoot in the rain across the lawn, their code names are "Logan", "Constance" and the Black Panther Princess and they absolutely do not know the Carr kids at all!




Christmas was delightfully simple this year. We had Wendy and Paul (Dave's sister and family) stay the night and play with us all Christmas day. It was so nice to have other kids around and other adults to help make the day super special.

We are having a bunch of Dave's family for the New Year though. We will have Wendy and Paul (of course), Grandma Teri and Grandpa Mel, Hayley and Jess, and hopefully Hobo Kyle...cause what kind of year is it without Hobo Kyle?!?

We moved

We moved to San Jose California.  Teresa really needs to update this.

4th of July

Being in the heat of Phoenix was looking really hot this year. We were not excited about it at all. Luckily, one of our really good friends from Ohio moved to Prescott, AZ which is a TON cooler (about 85 degrees) and right in the middle of Phoenix and Las Vegas. So I worked my charm and Shaun and I met up at my friend's house in Prescott.
They have an amazing house right on the side of the mountain with an amazing view.  It rained all day on the 4th but rather than ruining the day, it made it so nice and cool that it was wonderful. That night it cleared up for the fireworks and we were able to sit on the side of a mountain and watch the city fireworks without the crowds.

The day after the 4th we went to Sedona to play in the mountains. Slide rock is one of our favorite places to hang out and it was a hit with all the kids and grown ups. It has natural slides in the rocks and cliff jumping and rock throwing and all the fun stuff.

We played all day and then decided we didn't want to head home so late. So we stopped at a hotel and were able to get a great deal on a family hotel/lodge/motel room place. They had such amazing grounds. They had a coi fish pond that the kids loved to look at. They spent a good amount of time naming the fish and claiming them as their own.

At the bottom of the property was a fantastic little river. There were rocks to climb on and they even had crawdads that the boys spent about a hour trying to catch. There was a nice shallow place out of the way that Summer crawled around in. The hotel even had some chairs sitting in the river so that you could sit and relax and soak your feet.

To top off the trip, when we were packing up to go Kelly found a tarantula in the parking lot. I didn't know that tarantula's were in Arizona, but come to find out Sedona is one of their major breeding grounds. I know Troy picks them up in the parking lot and adopts them, but I couldn't bring myself to pick it up. In fact while we were taking pictures and looking at it, I swear Shaun screamed like a little girl once.  It was awesome...both the scream and the tarantula. :)

Visiting Vegas

Dave has been interviewing around and we weren't sure if we'd be moving this summer or not. So we decided that we wouldn't be able to go to Idaho and Utah this summer. It's the first summer in 4 years that we haven't gone. I think I was more bummed than the kids. Going north for the summer has kept me sane during the summer months.

So the kids and I have been taking a lot of little road trips. We leave on Monday or Tuesday play for 4 or 5 days then come home for 3 or 4 then head out again. It's been fun, hot but fun.

Our first trip was to visit Shaun and Kelly in Las Vegas. Two weeks from the day that they moved in, we showed up on their doorstep. While the temperature was pretty much the same as it was in Phoenix, it was so fun to hang out with them. It made it feel more like summertime. 

The first day there, Porter was already bored out of his mind with all these girls. Shaun saved the day by pulling out a super awesome Lego. It has 3 different building plans (t-rex, tarantula, or a crocodile) and it has a motor that powers it. Porter was super pumped. He spent pretty much the whole visit building it. It took him all four days of working on it. He was super proud of himself and really pushed to get it finished by our last day there.

 I totally dropped the ball and forgot to bring the stuff for "kitty faces" we were able to do "princess faces" with fancy makeup. The girls felt really fancy and pretty. So we did a modeling show. Addie and Rachel were a little confused about how to sauce up their model moves, so Eva showed them how to be more self-absorbed and shallow. :)

We got to go to Shaun's work and see his cool helicopters. Unfortunately, no tours of the Grand Canyon, but he says he's an amazing tour guide. He does make up his own facts for people though when they ask questions he doesn't know the answer to. It was pretty hilarious.







The girls had tons of fun with each other. They love that they get to throw down blankets and have a big sleep over every night. I think it always takes an extra hour and a lot of threats to get them to go to sleep, but I'm sure they love it.

Glad Bags

At the beginning of this summer the kids were driving me crazy with arguing and tattle-taleing. I remembered that when we were kids, one summer Grandma Berry put together "Mad Bags". In the bag she had put $5 in dimes. If we fought then we had to give up one dime. I think Troy broke the system the first time he got in trouble. He gave his whole bag to mom and said, "Just keep them all." So I decided to try to implement the idea, but called them "Glad Bags" and hope that the kids wouldn't outsmart me like Troy.

So Porter and Eva get a bag of $5 in quarters and Ivy gets $2 in dimes. If they fight, argue, throw fits, tattle tale, etc. they have to give me a quarter/dime that then goes in MY "Mad Bag". On Sunday before church we go through our bags and talk about why they had to pay me that week and how we can be better this next week. I then buy back whatever quarters they have left with dollar bills. Then they do tithing. And they get more quarters for the next week.

It's worked really well for us and has been a good way to encourage good behavior, practice counting, understand tithing, start new each week, do an allowance. Their favorite part is when I buy back quarters and dollar bills with larger bills. At first they were a little upset that they didn't have as many coins or dollars, but once they figured out that the higher bills were the same and didn't take up as much room, they fell in love with the idea.

Well, Porter decided that he really wanted this Wii game called Skylander. So we told him he would have to save his money to get it. So he has worked all summer to save his money to get the $70 together to buy his game. This last week he finally got it all together and went to Target to get it. Luckily it was on sale for $60 and we had a long conversation about taxes. He loves his game and is so super proud of himself for buying it.

Eva decided that she wanted to buy something too. But she didn't want to spend all her money

and wanted something small. So I took her to Claire's. Claire's is a teeny-bopper type store with tons of costume jewelry and stuff like that. As soon as we walked in the door she squealed and clapped her hands and yelled, "This is AMAZING! This is my favorite store in the WORLD!" We then took the next hour to look at every little thing they had. She finally settled on a makeup compact. While she can't wear makeup anywhere, she has had fun learning about it and putting it on her and Ivy. It's been super cute.

Master Bath Remodel

After updating the kids' bathroom, my thrown together bathroom has been driving me crazy. It's one of those things that is hard to be motivated to update because it still functions...just isn't pretty. I kept waiting for the $2K to be able to do a real remodel (move the tub and shower etc.) but come on...never gonna happen. So step one was painting the bathroom. I went with a light gray. It's about 25% lighter than what I put in the kids bathroom. Dave hates the color b/c in his colorblind world it look too much like green and red. He'll just have to believe me that it's gray and not red...bwahaha, I do enjoy messing with his mind though!!

So after the walls were painted we spray painted the vanity and light fixtures black and added new nobs. We got rid of the big mirror that the contractors put in 15 years ago and put two black mirrors. We left it at that for about a week and I HATED it. It was WAY to harsh with the big black mirrors. I was ready to take a sledge hammer to the whole bathroom.

I called in the troops (my artist friend, Jeri) and told her my plans for going berserk in the bathroom with heavy tools. She talked me out of it and promised that with a few accents and new towels I would love the bathroom. I was doubtful. Plus spending day after day walking around stores to choose the perfect accents and towels did not sound fun. If I go shopping, I want to get the perfect thing, all at one store, all of it. I don't want to take it home and try it out and return it. (I hate doing returns!) Luckily for me, she loves it and she stayed happy and positive as I got progressively grumpy and more irritated with each stop. We all need friends like that.

In between store hopping I was also running into troubles on what to do with the window in the bathroom. I have always HATED the window right by the bathtub. Who wants a big ole window in the middle of their bathroom?!?

We had slatted blinds up, but those were so dirty and flopped around so much that they were a bigger pain than it was worth. Plus, they never closed all the way so you had to be pretty quick toweling off and hope nobody went in the backyard.

I wanted to put window film over them, but that was going to end up being about $100. No way was I spending $100 bucks on that ugly window. Next I went to Home Depot and got a $5 can of spray frost. It worked...but wasn't pretty. It just looked like the window was fogged up or super dirty.

So I headed to IKEA and got their flat hanging room dividers/window curtains. Those hung weird and looked terrible. So I was now down $25 and thinking I should have just got the window clings.

Then I remembered my time in Russia and how they would put paper on the edges of their windows in the winter to prevent drafts. I did some research and came up with an awesome idea all on my own!!!

I took the dividers from IKEA and cut them down to size. Then I made a cornstarch mixture that I painted on the back of the dividers to use as a type of glue. Then I stuck it on the window. PERFECTION!!!

They have stuck up there and aren't peeling at all. The best part is that if I ever need to take them down, I just pull it off and wipe with a washcloth. WAHOOO!!! I think it looks amazing! I have the privacy I want without the big dusty blinds and it only cost me $20 for the dividers and $5 for the wasted frost...I'm not counting the man hours that went into the project or the running around. Next time it'll be super easy though!!

After the shopping (6 different stores, 4 different returns required, 3 days), I wanted to go home and build a bonfire with everything we just purchased. Instead, Jeri put me down for a nap with Ivy and began her magic. You'd think throwing a couple of branches in a vase would only take a couple hours...at most. WRONG! Two days later my bathroom was finished. Jeri was right...a few nice accents and I really doLOVE my bathroom!!

Happy 8th Birthday Eva

Right after the baptism, we had a big birthday party for Eva at the house. We invited her whole class at school and church and a bunch of our friends. It was such a fun party with the kids running around and just playing together.

One of my favorite parts of the weekend was that Dave's Brother and Sister and their families were able to make it down for the weekend. They left late Friday night after work and rolled in around 1:00 am. I am so grateful that they made the trip. It was so fun to have them and the cousins to play with the whole weekend.

We've been playing a game with the grown ups called BANG! Anytime we play it we always have to wear crazy hats! Here we were with our rockin' it with our super sexy hats!

One of Dave's favorite birthday presents was these shorts/boxers his brother brought him from NASA. Unfortunately, he was encouraged to put them on. Always willing to model new clothes, Dave was more than willing to show them off!

Eva's Baptism

This weekend, February 18, 2012 Eva was baptisted. We were so excited. I've never met a kid more ready to be baptized and have such a strong understanding of what it meant. It was really cute to see.

Here she is all dressed up in her white baptism dress. The dress has "banana straps" (I guess this means they are wider than the more risky spaghetti straps). She still felt like the dress was a little "inappropriate" (who taught her that word?!?), and so I had to max out my sewing skills and make her a little white shall to cover up her shoulders.

She looked like an angel.

Since we were already taking pictures, we decided to get the whole family together. Unfortunately we were faced right into the sun. We took about 100 pics before we got one with everyone squinting in the sun and smiling at the same time.

My images of a quiet, super spiritual baptism went out the window once Dave and Eva started dancing a jig. Between their dancing and Porter in the background trying to peek into the baptismal font, I knew I was lucky to get one serious picture!

This picture of Eva and two of her really good friends totally cracks me up. I guess washing away sins doesn't include washing away all the silliness.

Christmas in a Galaxy Far, Far Away...

Dave's suggestion for the title of this post is "Who's Scruffy Lookin'?!" or "I'd Rather Kiss a Wookie." He swears that any "true" Star Wars fan would totally get the reference....Too bad for him that I am the one writing the post. :)

For Christmas this year Dave gave Porter the absolute best Christmas present ever. Early this last spring Dave had bought an Lego AT-AT Walker and has been saving it all year to give to Porter for Christmas. Keep in mind that Porter still hasn't seen the Star Wars movies (yes, Dave is bitter, but I think they were too violent for him until this year). Surprisingly, Porter was still excited about his Christmas present. I think he was more excited that he would get to spend hours and hours with Dad than that it was an AT-AT Walker.

Christmas day they began their building. The day after Christmas they continued to build and built, and build, and build...You get the picture. It took a good week and a half of Porter/Dad time to put the dang thing together. But throughout the whole thing they had the Star Wars movie playing and there was definitely a lot of bonding involved. We actually had to deal with a lot of jealous little sisters because Dad was so focused on Porter. Luckily, Eva got a cross-stitch that she got to do with Mom. For some reason it wasn't considered nearly as fun. ;)

While we're on the subject of crazy Star Wars projects occurring at the Carr household, I would like to brag about how supportive and awesome I am toward my husband's crazy collections.

When we were first married we rented an apartment that had built in China cabinets. At the time, we didn't have anything "fancy" to put on display so I made the mistake of allowing Dave to display his Star Wars action figures in them. It was only a mistake because he laments all the room and positioning he once enjoyed.

Now his collection has been relegated to three book shelves in the hall. As his collection has overflowed these shelves, he has had to put a bunch into storage. So this Christmas he got the original Star Wars trilogy on DVD and three 12 foot shelves on which to display his collections.

We put them up in Porter's room so that they both can enjoy them together. Plus Porter's room already had a space theme. Needless to say, Porter LOVES them, and Dave has spent his whole vacation planning and arranging his display.

I never realized how many figures he had collected over the years...he's almost to the point of being labeled the "Crazy Collector Guy" a close relative to the "Crazy Cat Lady". I couldn't get all the shelves in one shot, but here's a quick picture. In his defense, when I took this shot he had just put them all on the shelves and hadn't arranged them in their final positions. When he's done, I'll be sure to post an update. :)