Mindy is 24

I just have to say, as I was reading Emily's blog about Mindy, and then Marisa's blog about Mindy, I felt jealous. Why, you may ask? Well, it's because I felt like just because I didn't do a post about Mindy's birthday doesn't mean I don't love her. It doesn't mean I don't think she is the funniest person I've ever met, or one of the funnest people to hang out with, or that I can't wait to see her this weekend, or that I didn't think about her all day on her birthday hoping she was having a great day. So, us Carter's just want to say, Happy Birthday Mindy. We love you.


PS Did you see our scores on Mel's blog about Mindy? That says something.

Elf Yourself

The other day Aaron's mom, Dee, sent us an email and it had the funniest Christmas greeting ever! We laughed so hard, and we just couldn't resist trying it out ourselves. Copy and paste this link (give it a minute to load):

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1204742199

Isn't that SO funny? We definitely give credit to Dee for finding this holiday favorite. Merry Christmas!

'Tis the Season

On Friday night Aaron and I decided it was time to decorate our apartment for the holidays so we went to Dave's Christmas tree lot and chose a tree. It was such a fun experience for us to get a tree together for the first time. Last year we decided to stick with a small, fake tree and knew that this year that would just not be acceptable. We had the funnest time decorating it and our apartment.


We felt like something was missing, so we went back to Target and got beads, more ornaments, and a blanket to go underneath. This is the finished product.

We put our little fake tree from last year in our room

Some Christmas decor


One thing I love is the candles we have burning from Bath and Body Works. When we were at the Carter's house they had these candles and we fell in love with them. I highly recommend the holiday scent and the Christmas tree scent.
I just love the Christmas season!

Ultimate Christmas Lights

We've all seen those houses that just blow us away with their Christmas Lights. We think we have the house that beats them all. This renowned house in Manteca is beyond anything we've ever seen before.
Here it is.

Here's a video of the house up close--isn't it AMAZING?!!?

If I were their neighbors I wouldn't even bother putting up lights. It'd be too shameful.

We love Landon

We don't have any big events to blog about lately, but we did have a fun day hanging out with Landon, our really cute nephew! Lani and I got pedicures again today, and Aaron got to take him on a walk in his stroller outside--they had some good bonding time. Here's a few snapshots of the little tyke--SO adorable!

Can you believe we have TWO red-headed nephews? And each is from a different side of the family! Some odds...





On a random, extreme side-note: Take a look at this last picture. We thought this was really funny. On a hot day Aaron left his sandals in the car, and when we arrived home, this is what had become of one of them--(it was MELTED by the sun!) Notice any difference? Random, we know...again, we have had nothing big to blog about lately :)

Halloween

So, Halloween was a little bit of a bust this year. We meant to carve pumpkins, but I wanted to get them from the pumpkin patch and we never got around to actually going there. By the time we realized we should have gotten the pumpkins and carved them, it was the night before Halloween. Then, we talked about dressing up for the Halloween party that Wes and Lani were having. We thought about being missionaries but thought that wouldn't be too fun, and Aaron thought about being a baseball player, but then what would I be? So, in the end, we went as...leasing agent and manager (ourselves!). Luckily, we weren't the only ones to not dress up.
We did make cupcakes for the party-spiders and monsters with tentacles.


And those are the only pictures we took of this spooky day.
We did have a lot of fun at the party and were glad that someone helped us get into the holiday. In other words, Wes and Lani, if it weren't for you, we would have done nothing.

The Big Two Five

On Friday I turned a quarter of a century! It was a great rainy day here in Sacramento and although I had to work, it was wonderful because Aaron sent me these beautiful flowers at work!

That night we went to eat at the Old Spaghetti Factory with Wes and he treated for my birthday. Thanks! To celebrate with the family we went down to Alamo on Sunday and had a birthday dinner with Mom's famous Lasagna, my favorite.

Then we had Baskin Robbins ice cream cake. Mmmmm.


Taking out the candles. Everyone wanted some.


Cutting the cake!

Enjoying the festivities.
My favorite part of the night was looking through old pictures and coming across this!

Yes, this is Don showing off his behind in my bathing suit. Don't ask me why, but there was also one of me. Not quite as funny because I'm supposed to wear girls bathing suits. Matt must not have been home because he never would have allowed this. Random, I know, but when we came across this we couldn't help but share it. It's just so funny!
All in all, it was a great birthday and I don't feel any older.

Another Fun Day Off

Yesterday Anna, Chris and Kayden came up to Sacramento to visit and we had such a fun time. We went to eat at CPK (Chris bought-thanks!) and went to the mall and then came back to our apartment to relax and make cookies. The best part was getting to cuddle Kayden, who is now almost seven pounds.


Look at the difference! This is when he was still in the NICU.

Look at the happy family (the first family pic)

Uncle Aaron

Cutie!

Our Day Off

It's been a while since our last blog, and since we don't have much going on, we thought we'd share a little from our fun day off. We started out the day around 11:30, sleeping in on the one day a week that we can. We watched a little of Amazing Vacation Houses (on Discovery Channel) and dreamed about which ones we will visit someday. We then decided to clean our apartment and get out our Halloween decorations as it is October first (11 days til my birthday btw).


I know it's a little scarce but we just began our collection a year ago.
We decided then that we needed to do something a little more on our day off. We went to Scandia Family Fun Center. (Remember we went there for my 13th birthday party, although we went to the one near Roseville this time). We played 2 rounds of rousing mini-golf (Aaron won both times, barely. He came back from behind on the 2nd round.) and spent some time gaming in the arcade. 2 games of air hockey (we each took one) and then had some fun winning a total of 41 tickets in which we bought a sour candy belt and gave the remaining tickets to some lucky kids. Too bad we forgot our camera. Luckily we did find the photo booth, and since we've always wanted to take photo booth pictures, we did.

Fun day. Too bad tomorrow is back to work and school...

We FINALLY have a neice!

We are so excited to have a little girl in the family. Go to Matt and Lyndsey's page to see the pictures and read about Caitlin Diane. She's so cute!

Free Couch!

Last week while at work, Aaron got keys from a tenant moving out of his apartment complex and this guy told Aaron that he didn't want anything that he left in his apartment (I think he was travelling across country)...so he went over there are found this AWESOME couch--the guy just didn't want it anymore! (The only things he took with him were his computer, dvd player, etc.) We felt pretty lucky to find it, as it's A MILLION times more comfortable than our last one, and it looks a lot better too! Take a look at a these before/after pics:

BEFORE: Uncomfortable and out of style



AFTER: Can you believe this was free?



So we definitely scored. Cool huh?

What a Pedicure!

Yesterday Lani and I met up after work to get pedicures. Our appointments were at 6:15 and we got spa pedicures which included a parafin wax dip and extra leg treatment. It was wonderful and I decided to go out on a limb with a somewhat dark color. I thought it would be fun to have a little flower so when she asked, I specified that I would like a "small flower". She began with a white flower toward the corner of my nail and I thought "cute". Then she started doing dots and I got a little worried. Then she started doing small white lines and I thought "well at least she's almost done". Meanwhile, Lani has been finished for some time and we are just talking while the lady puts on what I thought were her finishing touches. But, just when I thought she was done she pulls out the silver glitter and Lani and I look at eachother with a "this is a little over the top" look. Okay, okay. Let the lady do her thing, but then she pulls out a the green and does a leaf. And then gets out the rhinestones and puts a green rhinestone in the middle of the flower. Needless to say, when Lani and I left, well over an hour later, we burst out laughing the moment we walked out of the nail salon.
This is what I ended up with.

Farewell to summer

Summer officially ended for me yesterday, as I started my first day back to school--and now that I'm not working as much, Emily will officially begin her role as my suga mama haha :) It actually was a really stressful day--I ended up missing my first class because the traffic was SO bad! I had left in plenty of time "so I thought" and didn't make it to campus until 9:45 (yea, my first class STARTED at 9!) Luckily, I already got in touch with my teacher in that class and all I missed was the typical first day where they hand out the syllabus, have students introductions, and leave early...so no biggie. Anyway...wish me luck! Here's a few pictures of campus for those not familiar with it...

Fall TV Preview!

One of my (Aaron's) favorite things about the Fall are when all our favorite TV shows come back for their new seasons. We really do have lives outside of this hobby, but we have fun getting into these. Em and I have some favorites that we look forward to--we'll definitely be using the DVR!

"Heroes" -- haven't missed an episode, and don't start planning to anytime soon! I would definitely recommend this one. And if you haven't seen much of season one, no fear-you can borrow it from us when we buy it!


"Survivor" -- always a classic, and suprisingly hasn't gotten old after the first million seasons! This season is in China!


"House M.D." -- Last year's cliffhanger finale left us wondering if stubborn Dr. House will have any of his doctors left, as they all seemed to have quit on him. What will be the fate of the hospital and their patients if he is left by himself? They can't just get new doctors--it just wouldn't be the same without doctors Foreman, Cameron, and Chase!


"Lost" -- Season 3 FINALLY got good towards the end (the first half was a little slow), and then after the fantastic finale, we find out that Lost isn't returning until JANUARY! How lame is that? But we'll be there, oh yes.


"30 Rock" -- Tina Fey, comic genius + Alec Baldwin = dang funny show. Em's not the biggest fan, but Aaron has a few episodes on his iPod already. (And for those wondering, 30 Rock is short for 30 Rockafeller Center in NY where the show within this show is taped...)


...and we bid farewell to a few shows that aren't returning this season. It totally sucks, they were awesome shows, but most of you probably won't know because you didn't watch them--which is the reason they were cancelled! So thanks for nothing guys! haha...

"Crossing Jordan" -- A sharp cirme drama centered around the doctors solving muder mysteries from inside the morgue. And Jordan, the lead character, would always do whatever it took to help solve the crime, no matter what trouble she was getting into. At least it had a good 6-year run.


"The Nine" -- Truly devastating. This show was cancelled after only 7-8 episodes last season. The premise was about 9 people (hence the title) that were involved in a 52-hour bank robbery and held hostage. Every week we were given a little more about what actually took place, and how it all happened...it was really really good. Dang execs at ABC, don't know what good TV really means!


Anyway, now that you take a look at that, it looks like we're a couple of TV junkies! :) What will all you be watching?