BradCarpenter.com – Weblog

More Blue Man Group art courtesy of Chase.

The kids are getting colds, so it must be time to blog again. The whole family was together two weeks ago to stage the grand family picture. Justin is leaving for his mission this month so everyone got together for one last big party before he leaves. It was quite an eventful extended weekend.

The morning of July 26th we went for a little hike up to the top of Mt. Rose. The weather was great – overcast and fairly cool. Emilie kept wanting to chicken out and go back, but she made it to the top easily and all was well. As we were driving back down to Reno we found the road was closed due to a semi overturning. We had to go back up to Tahoe and around through Carson to get home. Once home, we all had to get ready for the family pictures.

Taking the pictures was pretty crazy. Once you count kids, spouses, etc. you have a current total of 31 people. Also consider that four of those people are my children. And the pictures were being taken next to pond and streams. Controlling them was like trying to catch a bunch of flies using the lid off a tube of ChapStick. Jaxon insisted on making the pictures difficult by following directions quite literally. The photographer would say “look up” and he would look straight to the sky. She would then say, “no, look down” and he would put his chin to his chest and look straight down. “No, look up” and he would look straight up. And on it went. Nevertheless, we eventually accomplished the feat and went home.

The following day we headed up to Lake Tahoe. We spent all afternoon on the beach, which was surprisingly relaxing. Bryce and Mason were terrified of the waves so they pretty much hung out under the canopy all afternoon just eating and playing in the sand. Or in Bryce’s case, he combined the two activities and was eating sand. Gritty. Jaxon – being the social butterfly that he is – wandered off quite a bit. He wanted to play with other kids and their toys. We were constantly trying to steer him back to our part of the beach. Chase even spent a lot of time out in the water. A few of us played some Frisbee out in the water. Later we found a good rock to jump off of down to the south of the beach. The only downside to the day was that the parking lot was full when we got there, which made parking and shuffling cars a challenge considering all the food and equipment we were hauling in. But the good times overshadowed this minor issue.

Everyone has since returned to their homes and life has resumed. I’ve still got more to catch up on. Goal: try to catch up before the next illness strikes.

About two years ago I set a goal to read 30 books each year. Last year I posted a list of 30 books that I read. It’s that time of the year again, but woefully I fell short. This year I made it to 25. And that’s if you count the two audio books I listened to and the two times I finished the Book of Mormon. So, it’s time to strengthen my resolve and get started for another year of reading. Here are the books I completed during the last year:

• Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt by Parley P. Pratt
• Crazies to the Left of Me, Wimps to the Right: How One Side Lost Its Mind and the Other Lost Its Nerve by Bernard Goldberg
• The Savage Garden: Cultivating Carnivorous Plants by Peter D’Amato
• Arena by Karen Hancock
• Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging War Against Christianity by David Limbaugh
• Arguing with Idiots by Glenn Beck
• Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason
• Hidden Empire by Orson Scott Card
• A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity by Bill O’Reilly
• The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ
• Temple and Cosmos by Hugh Nibley
• Treachery: How America’s Friends and Foes Are Arming Our Enemies by Bill Gertz
• Have a New Kid by Friday by Dr. Kevin Leman
• Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Lyman Bushman
• The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ
• The Overton Window by Glenn Beck
• Conservative Victory by Sean Hannity
• Rush Limbaugh: An Army of One by Zev Chafets
• The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
• Cliches : The Worst Thing Since Sliced Bread by Stu Burguiere
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
• The 5000 Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen
• Our Search for Happiness by M. Russell Ballard
• Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
• American Heroes by Oliver North

I have a few books in the queue already, but if you have recommendations please send them over! You can send your recommendations to “brad” at this domain.

No doubt you remember our incident in May when Jaxon and Mason ingested Tylenol. Here’s a couple pictures I took with my cell phone during the forced charcoal consumption part of their treatment – believe it or not, they were quite clean at this point:

Jaxon seems to be having all the fun lately. A few weeks ago (July 2) Emilie took the kids to my parent’s house to let them jump on the Trampoline of Wonder. I call it the Trampoline of Wonder because I wonder why no one has been seriously maimed or fatally injured on it. This is the trampoline that I grew up with and it has no padding or safety features of any kind. To add to the adventure, the bars are rusty, the springs are rusty and the mat is tearing. The trampoline was recently brought back to life by the nieces and nephews after years of sitting disassembled at the side of the house. And we let our kids play on this thing. So, the kids are jumping around and Jaxon goes head first toward the bars/springs and ends up with nice open wound on his forehead.

I was driving home from work when Emilie called and told me what happened, so I changed directions and headed up to my parent’s house. After inspecting the wound I suggested Emilie take Jaxon up the street to urgent care where he ended up with 3 stitches. Besides needing stitches, the wound was full of bits of rust from the metal so it was good that we took him in. Jaxon did better this time with the stitches than he did the last time he cut himself. This time he carefully protected the wound and dutifully left the bandage in place.

Later that evening I was herding the kids upstairs to get them ready for bed. I noticed that one of the kids brought a Little Tikes Push & Ride Racer up the stairs, which is not allowed because they tend to throw/push the cars down the stairs. Rather than taking the car down the stairs to prevent an incident I proceeded to put pajamas on the kids and brush their teeth. And then I heard the car fly down the stairs. And then I heard Jaxon screaming. Rather than sending the usual ghost rider down, Jaxon decided to try it for himself. It appeared that he rode almost all the way down until her got to the halfway landing – a total of eight steps. He hit his face of something because he had nice lump/bruise on his cheek.

Here’s a shot of the stitches:

Exciting times for our family today. We got a sitter (GMAC) for Bryce and took Chase, Jaxon and Mason to see Toy Story 3. This was Chase’s second movie in the theater and it was the first for Jaxon and Mason. Even though we went during their normal nap times, they each sat perfectly still and quiet through the whole movie. They even stayed awake. The movie was a good addition to the series – especially the baby. I laughed myself to tears. Literally.

I got back on the bike today. The ride was much warmer than last time. I also had a much tougher time finishing the ride for some reason – I’m going to blame the heat. Last time I made it to the peak in about an hour and 30 minutes and stayed on the middle ring the whole way up. Today it took me about an hour longer and I had to stop a few times for some 30 second breathers, which I didn’t have to do last time. I also had to drop to the lowest gear. And just like last time, I got to the top and found that I had a flat, which was lame because I had just put on a new tube that Emilie bought for me. There’s obviously a thorn or something in the tire. Anyway, the downhill was outstanding – very comfortable and not freezing like last time.

In perhaps the most exciting news of all, Emilie’s little orchid stem opened it’s first flower. There’s another one or two that will probably open within a few days.  Woo.

Of all the blogging things I need to catch up on, stories about mountain biking sadly aren’t among them. Actually, I guess there was one ride I did a few weeks ago. It felt a bit chilly, but I pumped up my tires and headed up Toll Rd. anyway. Once I hit the dirt and started working harder the temperature was actually very nice. Miraculously, I made it to the top of the hill and then noticed my front tire was flat. I didn’t have a spare tube, so I pumped it up and headed down the hill. As nice as it was going up, it was freezing going back down. The cold air caused my eyes to water so much I could hardly see where I was going. Nevertheless, gravity was on my side so I kept going and finally made it to the bottom of the hill where I found my tire to be flat again. I pumped it up enough to make it home and called it a good ride anyway. Albeit a very cold good ride. Wasn’t that a great story? Moving on…

Emilie graciously signed me up to donate blood at another stake’s blood drive on 6/12. She signed herself up, too, then ditched her appointment. While I was donating blood up at King’s Row she was taking all four children to a birthday party for AR. The party started at a park and then moved to a fire station, which, for kids, is awesome. Mucho gracias to the Rs for letting my kids crash their rockin’ party.

I spent some time repotting plants last night and tonight. My dragon tree outgrew its pot so I moved it to a bigger pot. I acquired another plant that I have been unable to identify so far. I may have to post pictures and ask for some help with identification. As for the CPs, I’ve got 6 sundew babies and 5 flytrap babies. One of the sundews was moved to a big boy cup, which was thrilling. The sundews may need a new home soon since I’m running out of room. If you would like to adopt one let me know. They are easy to maintain if you provide the basics: LOTS of light (including several hours of direct sunlight each day), pure water (distilled or rain water, no bottled or tap water) and snacks every couple of weeks (spiders, ants, potato bugs or even cheese or chocolate). If you think this is your thing let me know and I can give you more info. I only ask that you commit to taking good care of it – if it starts to die then you can give it back and I’ll nurse it. I’ll post pictures once I’m done repotting the babies.

I’m sorry if you thought this was going to be interesting.

As you may recall, we recently discussed Chase’s affinity for Blue Man Group. His fixation was seemingly fading when I saw a picture that he had drawn (pictured below on the left). I commented on what a great picture he made and he quickly jumped to show me a different picture (shown below on the right – it’s Blue Man Group, in case you failed to guess). I then turned my attention back to the first picture and said, “I like this picture. Who are these people?” Chase replied, “It’s Blue Man.” I said, “But Blue Man only has three people and this picture has a lot more than three people.” He replied, “Those are the people watching Blue Man Group.”

Warts and all, this page is now Movable Type-free. If you don’t know what the big deal is then you’ve never used Movable Type. MT was the first actual blogging platform I ever used. Prior to that I had played with CMS tools like PHP-Nuke, but I think I finally made the move to MT around 2003. Everything was good, even when I started using WordPress for another blog a few years later. After extended use of both platforms I finally woke up one day and thought, “What am I doing?” Long story short, WordPress has all of Movable Type’s strengths and none of it’s weakness. If it came down to a single issue, I would say MT’s site publishing process stinks on yellow ice.

So, here we are. There’s still work to be done, but at least progress has been made. Just not by Movable Type.

And lest you think I’m just being dramatic, check out MT’s blog showcase. MT is used by such winners as Britney Spears and Barack Obama. So there.

Other than the little hospital incident, Bryce seems to have the most going on these days.

About 3 or 4 weeks ago we took him off “the binky”. The binky-weaning was somewhat uneventful. I snipped the tip off of it as I had done for Mason and Chase. He immediately rejected it and wouldn’t have anything to do with it. We had a backup binky that we had to resort to a few times, but for the most part he went cold turkey and within a few days was solidly binky-free.

Although he has been saying “mommy”, “daddy” and “ball” for a while, he has started to become a real blabbermouth over the past 2 or 3 weeks. When Bryce talks it can sometimes be difficult to understand him unless his words are in context. For example, he likes to say, “I hold you” but it really sounds more like “I ol’ ooh.” But in general day-to-day usage it’s pretty obvious what he’s saying. He likes to say “thank you” when you give him something he wants, he will say “more” when he needs more of something and he can identify many of the items in his picture books. His comprehension is extremely good and his speech gets better every day.

Bryce is very smiley.  He will often watch you and just wait for you to look at him. The moment you look at him he loves to smile at you with a big grin. And he loves to do it over and over.

He has grown very attached to his blanket and a stuffed duck (not taxidermied). He goes to bed much easier with the duck under his arm. He is also still very good when it comes to bed time. He rarely fusses or makes a sound when it’s bed time. If he cries it’s usually because he’s hungry or thirsty. On occasion we’ve taken him back down for some cereal, at which point he promptly lays right down and goes to sleep. This is, of course, in stark contrast to the drama surrounding getting Jaxon and Mason down every night. Every night.

Less enjoyable is that he’s an early bird, apparently. And he doesn’t wake up as nicely as he goes down most of the time. His internal clock is usually about 30-45 minutes ahead of everyone else in the house. Unfortunately, if we just let him cry then he wakes everyone else up. But we don’t want to feed the habit of getting up too early. Once in a while we’ll go try to lay him back down or give him some books to read. To him this is the equivalent of literally rubbing salt in an open wound and it can get ugly. So, we generally have to get him up and deal with him.

Anyway, he’s good and he’s getting to be very big. Last check-up at the doctor found him to be off the charts in size, so we’ve reduced the amount of steroids he’s been getting. Just kidding! We’re still giving him the same amount. Har.