What's New With The Carter Family

Sarah's Baby Shower was held this past Saturday. Thank you to everyone who came, you all helped make this day a special one for Sarah and big sister River :) I hope you enjoy seeing a video montage of the day - just click on the video above!

This year's "Best of Elementary Fair" started with a performance in the auditorium. Grades 1 through 5 were represented, and the second graders combined talents with the first graders to sing a couple of songs (one of which was Yankee Doodle Dandy -- super stinkin' cute!). All grades came together at the end for a grand finale song....here's a picture of Jem getting ready to start singing. How fortunate (pure luck!) that we were sitting in the row right next to where he was standing :). If you click on the video below, you'll hear some of Jem's grand finale performance. You can also see his best friend, Heather, singing behind him. She's such a sweet little girl, Jem was truly blessed to have her in his class 2 years in a row! At the end of the performance, the kids went back to their classrooms where they had their projects displayed. Here's a photo of Jem and Heather by his project.... Jem was also happy that his Grandma Carter was able to make ...

Once again, Jem is participating in his school's "Best of Elementary Fair". His second grade class will be showing their "Body" projects - and Jem has been working on the "Lungs" for this past month. Check out his poster - doesn't it look great? He worked really hard on it! Here's a video of Jem practicing his "presentation" of his project -- so cute! His explanation of his model of the lungs is adorable too...I kept waiting for him to say "diagram" instead of "diaphragm" (because he kept getting the two words mixed up ever other time), but he got it right! Go Jem!

Last Wednesday at Chapel, Jem was honored as Student Of The Week! His teacher, Mrs Inks, chose Jem for the week's character trait - Respectfulness . She had some nice things to say about Jem as he was called up to the stage.... "You are polite and kind to others. You do not interrupt others. You are careful with other people's possessions." Way to go, Jem! Brandon and I both snuck in to the auditorium to watch him be 'surprised'. Come to find out, he'd SEEN US when he walked in with his class and then KNEW he'd be getting the award LOL. Kids. Too smart for their own good!

I love Mother's Day. It reminds me what is most important. Being a mother. Loving my family. And the little gifts of kisses, hugs and jewelery don't hurt either :) Every year my little boy gives me a new charm for my charm bracelet. This year he chose a charm that says "Princess" with a little pink jewel underneath :) It made me smile to think that my son thought THAT particular charm screamed "my mom, Cathy". Maybe to him I am a princess :) That's a nice thought!

Okay, so now we come to the fun part - bottling the wine! Here's a short video of Brandon, doing his thing, in the garage tonight. He's filling his many bottles...some that he bought new, and some that were bought full but are now.....not :) Funny how that happens. The emptying of the bottles. Take a look at the video below, of the re-filling.

This past winter, Brandon decided to try his hand at making wine. Yes, my husband, master of trying all things - decided he wanted to make wine. He bought all the necessary equipment, a few how-to-books, and with a big bag of apples in hand began the process of making wine. Yes, you read right. From apples. You can apparantly use all kinds of fruits to make wine. About 7 months ago Brandon crushed a HUGE bag of apples in a very large bucket. He added some yeast (I'm sure there was a little more to it than that haha!) and pretty soon the mixture began to froth and bubble! A little while later he transferred the liquid into this glass flask, where he let it sit for 6 months in our garage. Six stinky months. 'Cause yes, sometimes the stick thingy that stuck out of the bucket (to let out fumes) let some big stinkers out. But that's ok. Better in the garage than in my house :). On Sunday, it was time to remove the wine from the flask and prepare it for bottling! The wine was dra...