My Baby is ONE

Updates on Clifton -
After celebrating both of his siblings birthdays he is SO ready for his birthday.  He keeps telling me his is next which is true but he does still have a few months.

Updates on McKay -
She might be stubborn but she also knows how to make me smile.  She says I love you mom about 50 times a day and usually in silly times.  Like at the meet your teacher event I was up speaking and asked if anyone had questions.  She raised her hand and said... "Mommy, I love you."  How can you be mad at that :)

Updates on Stanley -
He turned one!  He has two teeth and is still my small guy, fitting into 6-9 month old clothes perfectly.  He does not sleep through the night and hasn't once.  The transition to one nap has begun.  We love his spunky personality.  The faces he makes are fun.  He is starting to communicate with us, using the sign more and eat.  Along with pointing to things.

This week we got to have Evan to play with us for a few days.  We all loved having him around again.

 All week the kids played with the little snow that was still around.

It quickly turned into playing with ice which is almost as fun as snow :)

Monday night we discussed out goals for 2016 and the went to see Good Dinosaur.  Cute little movie, but Stanley is getting a little too wiggly to go to movies together.

Tuesday I was asked to teach a class of about 80-90 8-11years old girls.  I taught about setting goals and made a cute craft with them.

I had such a good time with the sweet and fun girls.  Felt very privileged that I was asked to teach.

Thursday my parents came to town.

We partied early with the kids.  Made brownies and then celebrated the New Year by watching a count down.
That night Alex was helping with the multi-stake NYE dance.  Thanks to my parents coming down and watching the kids I was able to join him.

It was such a fun night.  The youth in this area are taking good care of.  I never had anything like this as a youth.  We got to go ice skating, danced, played some sumo wresting and jousting (I totally took Alex down), and the men played some dodgeball against the young men.   We felt like we were youth again :)  But one thing is for sure I am old and going to bed at 2AM, having a baby who still wakes up in the night, and early risers was not easy!

The next day the older kids and I took my parents to play in Seattle.  Alex and Daddy stayed home so we could play and not worry about nap time.

Fun ferry ride eating lunch and feeding the birds our leftovers.

On our way to PSC we found the coolest new park.

We had a blast at Pacific Science Center, so much that I got a membership and can't wait to go back.
On our way home we decided we needed hot coco to warm us up, thanks to Clifton's idea.

That boy loves him some hot coco.
That night we spent playing games with Grandma and Grandpa.

My kids have such a fun Grandma :)

Saturday we had Meet Your Teacher Event at church.  So the kids could meet their teachers for the new year.  It went great.  McKay and Clifton seem excited for the new year in primary.
Afterwards we had Stanley's first birthday party.

He looked mighty handsome for his party!

We had a lot of fun playing with friends and celebrating Stanley.

He was the best cake eater/smasher I have had.

Love it!

Sunday it snowed again!

 Eating snowflakes!

Sadly it rained the next morning and all of it was gone.  But we enjoyed it while it was here.

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!