My First Haircut

Yesterday, my mommy and daddy took me to get my very first haircut. There was a very nice lady who sat me high on a booster seat and put a cool animal cape on me! Then I saw the mirror and got really excited! I love looking at myself in the mirror.

Every once in a while, I would turn and make sure everyone was still around.

But mostly I just let her cut the little hairs off my head while I watched in the mirror and kicked the cape around my feet.

I think I look pretty spiffy! What do you think?

VA Safety Inspections

I like most things about Virginia, but there are a few things, and one thing especially that I despise...Safety Inspections. Ever since we moved here, me + vehicle + the state of VA = DISASTER.

I believe I took 3 or 4 trips to the DMV when we first moved here. 4 if you count when the lady put me at the back of the line because I didn't fill out one of the forms. Enter the Monte into the picture a year later...need I say more? Alright, I will anyway. My understanding is that in most states, when you have an emissions and safety inspection, provided you don't have some clunker that emits black smoke from your exhaust that could cloud the view of the driver behind you, the car would pass. In Virginia? NOT SO! You would think they go over every inch of the car with a fine comb. I had the naivete to take the Monte in for it's inspection, and we failed on three points. And in Virginia, when you fail a safety inspection, they make you feel bad about it. They put a big ol' sticker with a circle with a slash through it on your windshield with the words REJECTED on it. We had two small lights out (you know the one's on the sides of the car that no one ever sees) and the driver window wouldn't roll down...for them. I say for them, because the driver window had a mind of its own. It worked perfectly until you needed to roll it down to pay a toll, or in this case, pass a safety inspection. And I have to ask the question here: What does a driver window not rolling down have to do with safety? Someone, please give me a scenario where my driver window would be my only saving grace against utter destruction! Besides the obvious embarrassment of having to open the door to pay a toll because my window won't roll down and feeling about as white trash as you can get, what is the big deal?
Anyway, you have 30 days in the state of Virginia to fix what it was that caused your REJECTION, but it won't stop you from being pulled over. I was pulled over by a cop twice within the thirty days, probably because you can see the big fat REJECT sticker from a mile away. They came, they checked the date, and let me go. Then, I got pulled over for a third time after the thirty days was up because we were still trying to get the motor for a new window installed. Did the officer feel bad that not only was I pregnant but I was driving around with part of my door disassembled from us trying to fix it ourselves? No...and he slapped me with a fine. To make another long story short, we got the window fixed and another year came and went.

We took the Saturn in for its inspection the other day, and I thought there would be no problems. NOT SO! We received a phonecall saying "Your fog lamps are out, and the law in the state of Virginia clearly states that while a vehicle is not required to have fog lamps, if you DO have them, they must work properly". Are you joking? He wasn't. I looked up the law online myself, it's section 11 of Virginia State code 19VAC30-70-160. We got that fixed, for a price I might add, and planned to take the Monte in this week. What were the CHANCES that the monte would pass? Within the last year, the Monte's automatic gear shift handle broke off...I don't know how something like that happens, but it did. It still worked, but we would have to jimmy rig it every time we got in the car. Our only option to trying to fix it was with liquid nails, so I did that a few days before we took it in, and all the while I was glueing and pressing it back into place I was murmuring "You won't get me this time Virginia". We took the car in, and we didn't hear from the place all day, which made me think something big was wrong with it. We finally called them to see if it was done and it was. IT PASSED! Shock of the century! I feel like I outwitted, outplayed, and outlasted the state on this one...so I guess that makes the score Virginia-9 Nielson's-1.

My new and improved gear shift! (My father should be proud)

Notice you can still see the remnants of the Rejection sticker from one year ago.
The Monte will forever be scarred.

Bella's Blessing

This weekend we were in Charlotte for Bella's blessing. You may recall I did not get a chance to spend my time with my newest niece after she was born because we had to jet back to Florida. I spent a lot of time holding her, and I just could not get over how tiny and pretty she is. I am still flabbergasted that Clark was ever that little because I just don't remember it.


We spent the first part of the weekend picking up projects where we had left off when we were in Charlotte back in July, and my mom and I had fun wallpapering the 'retreat'. I told Tricia when I come back, I want to spend lots of time in the retreat because it turned out so good! After doing projects all day, we decided to go out for dinner at Firebirds. We were all starving, and after waiting over an hour for a table, we found out it was going to be another 20 minutes. Tensions were high and blood sugar was low, and there was nearly a family split reminiscient of the Nephites and Lamanites, except this time it was the Wendyites and the Firebirdites. I have to admit I was nearly a converted Wendyite...I thought I was going to perish! But thanks to some quick thinking and action on the part of my father and I, we got into another restaurant and enjoyed quite a yummy meal together in harmony.

Other highlights of the weekend include celebrating Corky's sixth birthday and going bowling! Tanner and I won the couples contest, although we did almost tie with mom and dad thanks to my awesome choking skills. We won't talk about Dan's skills as a bowler...he could take lessons from the Cardoe...it's okay Dan, we all have had those days (when we were 10). We also had fun at the neighborhood water park, and Clark and Dad had a great time on the lazy river. Dad said that he could hang out on the lazy river all day (shocker).
Tanner and I enjoyed our first lesson in chocolate tasting courtesy of Dan's dad Ed Seguine who is a chocolatier. It was very educational, and I am now a true believer. Chocolate IS a symphony.
All in all it was a wonderful weekend. Bella was beautiful in her dress made by Nana, and Dan did a great job, even if he does think that Tanner and I live in Waynesboro. Thanks for the fun weekend!!

9 Month Check-up!

Clark had his 9 month check-up today! He is a healthy BIG boy! They also took his blood to test his iron, and he didn't even flinch when the nurse pricked his toe. She was amazed and so were we! But he was very interested in his Spiderman Band-aid. Dr. Via said he is doing great and that we are doing a good job...phew! :-) His results are:

Weight: 26 lbs. 1 oz. (off the charts)
Height: 30 1/2 inches (95%)
Head Circumference: 18 3/4 (95%)

He has also started drinking from a sippy cup. My baby is growing up!


Dr. Via was ALL about me continuing to breastfeed until he is a year old...I wonder if Clark agrees?

Clark the Explorer II

Here are some of the places Clark has discovered since returning to Williamsburg:

1. The cupboards under the sink and in the family room

2. The kitchen tables and chairs (he has fallen over backward twice trying to do pullups on the back of the chairs).

3. The glass in the coffee table











4. The AC vent











5. Himself, in the hallway mirror











6. Himself, in a picture











7. The stocks in Colonial Williamsburg!











(he is actually laughing in this picture)

NOTE: I have just posted Clark the Explorer I on a previously drafted blog on Aug. 10

I miss Nana, Papa, and Bonna!

After the novelty of a new place to explore wore off, Clark keeps looking around for what happened to all the people. Today he had what I would call his first rough day. He doesn't normally cry for no reason, but when he woke up from his nap and I took him out to the family room, he just burst into tears for no reason. It was like he was saying "not this room again! Where are all the people?" He wasn't hungry, poopy, or tired, but he was MAD. I called Papa, and let him talk to Clark, and the second he heard Papa's voice, he lit up like a Christmas tree. He was the happy baby I know and love the rest of the night. Thank goodness we will see everyone again in a week and a half!

Apartment Saga

I know I know, I haven't blogged in AGES, but I think I have good reasons for not doing so. It has been a busy week packing up at the birdhouse and driving 12 hours back to Williamsburg...not to mention what we found when we arrived...which I guess I will now mention.

This saga begins during the summer while we were in Florida. We had found a girl who wanted to rent our apartment in Williamsburg while we were away. She is a member of the church, and seemed to be a very nice girl. Just to make sure, I called some poeople who knew her since I did not, and did my own personal background check. Everything seemed to be fine, so we were excited at the prospect of having a little income to offset paying for an empty apartment all summer. She moved in, and two months came and went with no rent check. I won't go into all the details, but throughout those two months, Tanner spent hours trying to get a hold of her through phone and email to figure out why she had not sent her payments. When we did get a hold of her, she said it was either sent or that she was going to send it.

Finally one day, I had reached the end of my rope, and after talking about it with my mom, we decided we needed to bring down the hammer. Admittedly, I was a total chicken, and my mom called and said the following without identifying who she was: "Aimee, if you do not send a check within the next hour (via paypal) the locks will be changed on the apartment and you will not be able to get in." We received the money. Tanner called her later to have a chat about everything that had occured over the course of the summer and to try to let her know that despite her circumstances, she needed to be honest and communicate with us, of which she had done neither. She informed Tanner on the phone that she would be moving out within the next week (a month earlier than scheduled) because she needed to go back home to Maine. We wondered what would have happened had we never sent her the ultimatum. I am convinced she would have left having never paid us a dime. We called our landlord to have them change the locks two days after she was scheduled to move out...just in case. I felt like I was being a little paranoid, but we just wanted to be sure. So I am not quite sure what we were expecting to find when we returned to our apartment, but certainly not what we actually found. The following is a partial list:
1. An entire sink full of dirty dishes
2. A refridgerator with month old milk and fruit
3. Dead flowers on the tables with wax all over the kitchen table from candles
4. An unswept, unvacuumed apartment
5. A dirty shower and sink in the bathroom

and the kicker??

6. Beer bottles and numerous cigarette butts in trash bags packed into our water heater closet.

We were shocked and enraged, all the while Clark was thinking this was the coolest new place to go exploring! I would have taken a picture of the beer bottles and cigarette butts for the blog, but I demanded that they be taken to the trash IMMEDIATELY. The interesting part of the story was that we also noticed that there was another baby who had been here. I felt like Goldilocks and the three bears when I went into Clark's room and saw a pink bunny in his crib and other toys I did not recognize when I said "Clark, someone has been sleeping in your bed!" We are not entirely sure what occured here while we were gone, but we are pretty sure that when we had the locks changed, whoever this girl had allowed to be in our apartment must have been pretty shocked when they returned to find that they could not get in...and we felt like we achieved a small victory with that. Some gifts we found that we have decided to keep include:

1. A brand new hippo walker that eats other toys.


2. A piggy bank or I guess hippobank that had $15 in it.


3. Our renter's laundry detergent that we used to wash all the towels and sheets that she had left piled up in the corner of our bedroom and in our closets.


4. A Mulan DVD that we found under our bed.


After 3 solid days of cleaning and washing, I am glad we got something and I am glad nothing of ours was severely damaged or stolen. You know it's bad when you have resorted to being happy with that.

Cell Phone Saga

On Saturday morning, I woke up nice and refreshed, excited to spend the day with Tanner and Clark. The first activity on the docket for the day was to go fishing down by the lake. Clark had just gone down for a nap and so Tanner and I got our fishing gear together and went down to the lake. We took our cell phone with us and told Brianna to call us if Clark happened to wake up before we came back up to the house.

It was a beautiful morning, and Tanner and I grabbed the chairs and we sat on the edge of the dock. As we were getting everything ready, we realized that we needed more worms to hook our fish. We decided that we could probably run to Wal-Mart and get some more and we would still be able to get back and get some fishing in. As I stood up, I had forgotten that our cell phone was in my lap. The phone went "doink" on the dock, and then "plop" right into the lake below us. My instant reaction was to jump in the lake and grab it, but I had a momentary hesitation as I thought about the water moccasin infestation we currently have going on (see Carterclips blog if you have yet to hear about it, and you will understand why I hesitated). Tanner saw me initially go to jump in and then when he saw me hesitate, he yelled "Go!". So I looked back in the water and I could see our phone slowly making it's way to the bottom. I jumped in, Baywatch style I might add (although Tanner says I belly-flopped), with my eyes wide open and sunglasses still on, and grabbed our phone just before it reached the bottom of the lake (about 7 feet down). I came back up and threw it to Tanner. I then rushed to the shore, so that no moccasin would grab me, and went to see the damage. Sopping wet, I looked at Tanner who was shaking water from the phone. I thought, how stupid am I? Our phone just went into water, it is never going to work again! Of course at that moment, you think "Why didn't we buy phone insurance?" and I asked that to Tanner and he said "Because at the time, we weren't thinking, well we might drop it into the lake, so yeah let's buy insurance". Defeated, we came back up to the house, and took apart as much of the phone as we could, and laid it out to dry.

A few hours later, I went to check on it, and the screen looked a little less water logged. I had no hope, but I went and plugged it into the charger, and some lights flickered, but nothing really happened. Later on that day, Tanner and I went to the mall, and asked how much a new phone would cost. A whopping $165 for a replacement. I was so depressed. The only good news was that we wouldn't have the extra $15 charge on top of that for a new sim card because I had saved the phone. I guess jumping in the lake fully clothed was worth $15 I thought. I told Tanner that I would look online on Monday to see if we could find a used phone that was cheaper.

On Sunday we noticed that the T-Mobile sign had come up on the phone from being in the charger, but it was upside down...which we thought was pretty amusing, but it also just further reiterated the fact that this phone was royally messed up.

This morning, I was looking online, and went to look at my phone to see what the model number was so I could get the same phone. I tried one last time to turn it on, and this is what happened.



It works perfectly. Jumping in the lake fully clothed was definitely worth $165. Oh yeah, and when I turned it off and turned it back on again, the T-mobile sign turned right side up.

Clark the Explorer

We have enjoyed (mostly) watching Clark explore all the nooks and crannies in the Birdhouse since he began crawling. His favorite discovery by far has been the apples under the island in the kitchen. He makes a visit at least once a day and was finally successful in toppling the apple basket over. Good Job Clark!

He-Man

Clark still has yet to crawl with his belly up off the floor, but today this is what I found when I went into get him after he woke up from his nap...

He is now pulling himself up onto just about everything, the chairs in the hallway, and the tv hutch in the family room. My personal favorite is in our bedroom, he pulls out the bottom drawerto help him get up onto his knees, then he pulls out the middle drawer to get more leverage to stand up, and once he is standing, he pulls out the top drawer and proceeds to pull it out as much as he can. I had to save him before he ended up on the floor on his back with the drawer on top of him. This morning, he was practically doing pullups on the chair, I think I saw his legs come off the ground!

Our little He-Man is sure having a great time!