Author: Robin Chartier

Our move is 2/3 over. We still have too much junk. And dust. Lots of dust. But I’m eating candy cane Joe Joe’s so it’s not too bad. Have you had them? They are Trader Joe’s oreos with crushed candy canes mixed into the filling. YUM.

At least we still have our TV and DVR so I can watch TV as I erase pencil marks from the walls. Caleb did it soon after we moved in (along with busting a set of blinds and the towel rack in the bathroom) and I haven’t gotten around to getting rid of them until now. I told him he had to get an eraser and help me since he put them there and he said, “I didn’t do it. Some other kid did.”

The movers took our mattress so I can go sleep in the bed in Calvin’s room or sleep on the floor of my room and watch Judge Judy and The People’s Court as I fall asleep. Sad that I’d rather have TV than a bed, huh? We have a room at the Navy Lodge for the rest of the nights, but I’m going to miss the soothing voice of Judy and Marilyn as I’m drifting off to sleep. I’m getting a little punchy again. It’s almost time to break out another poem except Camille just woke up, so no poetry tonight.

I don’t know why these boxes exist with each picture on my post. I know it has something to do with the html code when I upload pictures to Blogger via Picasa. And I upload the photos individually as draft post and then just copy and past them all into the same post. So this post is a placeholder so I can upload and edit the html and see if I can figure out which code relates to the boxes. Please ignore . . .

Interesting, when I use the “blogging for dummies” control panel and upload it directly from the blog post it doesn’t attach the picasa square, but it takes longer to do it that way (I think).

another pet peeve of mine: I can’t figure out how to post photos side by side. That will have to be my next blog project to conquer.

Ha ha! I win! I am no longer the victim of unwanted Picasa advertising. And I owe it all to this guy: My Blog Hero

Because her daddy is home! Actually I’m probably the one that is happier about that, since it means I don’t have to worry about all the moving details by myself anymore.

And what did he bring home with him? The Vineyard Vines catalog that features our family! Here’s the 2 page spread with the write-up about Josh (you can click on the images to see them full size and to read the text):

** in case you didn’t know, Josh’s friends from high school started a clothing company back in 1999 and they have been so successful they have grown from one store to many stores all over the east coast (and one opening soon in LA). Ian called Josh back in September and asked if we would be willing to do a photo shoot for their Christmas catalog. We said “Yes!” and got a bunch of beautiful clothes and had a great time being models for the day. You can see in the top picture that I’m wearing my sweater from the photo shoot — I live in it here in Monterey. Their website is here: Vineyard Vines

All pictures were taken at approximately 4 1/2 months. (and yes, Calvin was sitting unassisted at a ridiculously young age.)

It’s pretty clear that she looks nothing like Caleb, with his round Charlie Brown noggin.

We know who she gets the tongue from! (that is Calvin, in case you couldn’t tell.)

Everyone says she looks like Calvin, and after going back and looking at some of his old baby pictures I don’t disagree, but when I see her, I think “Carter.” I think she looks more like his older baby pictures:

So twice this week I’ve had people comment on the number of kids I have. All these years I’ve never heard anything other than the occasional “wow, you have your hands full,” but 4 has certainly been the magic number for attracting attention.

At First Awakenings I was waiting for Bob outside the bathroom and this woman came up to me and said, “My friend and I were commenting that you deserve a medal. We couldn’t believe you have 4 kids!” Um, OK. That is a nice-ish comment. But a medal? It’s not like I was fending off an attack of a pride of lions or something equally ferocious. I was just sitting at a table with my 4 children who were happily (and quietly) eating their raspberry/coconut/granola pancakes.

Then at Target today we were leaving the checkout with our cart at the same time as another woman and she says, “Go ahead, you have your hands full.” OK, fine. I’ve heard that one before. So as we pass her I hear her counting, “1, 2, 3, 4 . . . my Lord!” I think it’s funny that 4 attracts attention because 1) coming from a family of 4 kids, it seems perfectly normal and doesn’t feel like an an extraordinary number of humans in one family and 2) in the military I’m surrounded by breeders so 4 is only 1 more than the “norm” of 3 and enough people do 4 that it doesn’t stand out.

Well, I’m certainly thankful to my Lord that I do have all 4 of my children. Cause if we only had 3 I would miss out on this sweet face:

or this one:

or this one:

Heck, I was happy with just this one:

but then I would have missed out on moments like this one:

Thankfully we decided that we owed it to #1 to give him some brothers. And who knows, maybe this newest one one will eventually get a little sister. We could go for “1, 2, 3, 4, 5 . . . oh my!”