Christmas 2015

Updates on Clifton -
Winter break and he is loving all the time he has to color and write.  He seriously wants to do it all day long and every day.

Updates on McKay -
She turned 4!  I can hardly believe it has been four years since she came into this world.  She is the sassiest girl I know, but she is very much herself.  No one can tell her to be something she is not.  And right now that is tough but I can see it being so good for her when she grows older and the world wants to tell her what to wear, do, how skinny to be, etc...

Updates on Stanley -
He had another asthma attack and we spent Christmas Eve at the doctors, thank goodness they were open and could see him or it would have been a trip to the hospital.  His albuterol inhaler didn't seem to help this time so he needed something a little harder and we had to give him steroid pills for a few days.  Thank goodness that helped.  But still made for horrible nights.  I don't like to complain and really try not to but asthma is HARD!  Many sleepless nights, breathing scares, and the hardest for me is he is fine one minute and then HORRIBLE the next.  I never know when to expect it.  I know there are way worse things so I really can't complain.  I keep hoping he will get bigger and outgrow it but sadly I think he will struggle with asthma possibly his whole life.

Monday we went to Seattle to check out the Ginger bread Star Wars festival.

 Ferry ride is a favorite of ours.

A trip to Seattle never disappoints but the Gingerbread festival wasn't as awesome as I thought it would be.  Probably not on my to do list next season. But we did have a blast!

For FHE we did one of our favorite traditions... donate toys we are not using anymore to the local Child and Family services.

I love this tradition.

Since McKay's birthday is on Christmas we celebrated as a family early.  They get to choose what they want to do on their birthday and the dinner.

She choose Chuck E Cheese and daddy's goulash for dinner.  A fun day and we are lucky enough to have friends who wanted to join us and celebrate too.

That night since we will be at family's Christmas Eve we opened our new PJ's and movies.

Cute matching jammies this year!  My little monkeys :)

That night Stanley had his attack and we spent the next morning at the doctors :/  But luckily the steroids kicked in and we were all still able to go to the Peterson's Christmas Eve show.

This year we played Christmas songs with hand bells.  It wasn't perfect but it was fun.

Andrea had a game to wrap up and make snowmen the fastest we could.  Alex was in heaven wrapping his mom up.  Although we lost, too much giggling to go fast :/

The next morning... Christmas!

First a happy happy birthday to Miss McKay!

We opened presents at home and then headed over to Grandma and Grandpa Peterson's.

All the grandkids waiting on the stairs.  Missing only two grand kids this year

We got some really thoughtful gifts from family.  Clifton got his favorite Sounders player jersey! Rebecca made me some sweet Sounders PJ pants!  And Alex got some of his favorite homemade jam and cookies from Tracie.  

 Playing Star Wars

Alex and JoLin testing out their parents new bed.  JoLin made sure to be the farthest away from Alex as possible :)  A great Christmas spent with family!

Saturday we traveled down to Portland for the Stanley Christmas.

We also got some super thoughtful gifts from family.  Jen made everyone a Sounders hat and I got hand warmers too.  LOVE them!  Now to sport them at a game :)

Clifton's favorite gift, he hasn't put it down since.  Angry bird blanket!

They also got a cake and brought McKay birthday presents.  

What a sweet surprise!

We got Justin and Mechelle's family Pie Face so we had to get it out and play.

Fun game!  Glad we got one for the kids at home too.

Stanley sharing Lucky's new chew toy.
Sunday we went to church with my mom and then went to visit great grandpa.

He was in good spirits and it was great to see him again.
That morning when I looked at Facebook everyone at home was celebrating the snow.  I was so sad.  I wanted snow!  Luckily it was still snowing when we got home, sure made for a pretty (and long) drive home.

 We were thrilled that it was still snowing, ran as fast as we could into our snow clothes and played outside till we couldn't take the cold anymore.

Snow makes everything so much more fun.  My kids hardly play outside when its winter but if their is a drop of snow on the ground they will play outside for hours.  Fun, fun, fun.

Oh and snow means lots and lots of hot coco!