As you can see, I have stopped updating my blog. Sorry to those of you who have been checking it. All I really do now is facebook, it is too much to do both and it is easier to stay connected with more people on facebook.

Christmas 2008

I know that it is February and so it seems silly to be posting pictures from December, but as you all know I have been way behind and so I am finally trying to get up to date. Christmas was nice this year, the kids had a lot of fun and Grandma and Grandpa Peterson (Audrey and Larrie) came down on Christmas Eve and stayed the night and we had a wonderful time with them.

I had been meaning to decorate this tree for Gavin's room and just hadn't gotten around to it yet. One day after I got off the phone, the kids said they had a surprise for me. They took me into Gavin's room and showed me the decorated tree with a blanket they had used for the tree skirt and Gavin's favorite puppies in front of it. I might have to put them in charge of decorating the big one next year!

Me and the boys in their new pj's they opened on Christmas Eve.

Audrey and Larrie (Jakk's parents)

Peek-A-Boo Grandpa!

Our little elf!

Blake was being so silly when he opened his presents. He kept hiding them and giving us funny looks and saying, "Don't look, don't want anyone to see."

Gavin was so excited when he opened up 2 outfits for his puppy. One was a police officer's uniform and the other was a fireman's uniform.

Gavin loves his puppy and takes it with him almost everywhere he goes. He says it is his baby girl and he takes care of her as if she was a real baby by feeding her, burping her, giving her naps, rocking and bouncing her, giving her tummy time, etc...

This is one of the presents that Gavin was so excited to give to me and Jakk that he had made at Grandma Peterson's house a few weeks before Christmas.

Gavin loves to catch all sorts of bugs and so he was thrilled when he got this cool bug vacuum.

The boys had lots of fun playing their new game "Don't Break the Ice"!

Gavin loves doing puzzles and he was happy to get a personalized one this year.

Exercise Dance

These videos are of the boys doing their favorite exercise dance video. It is called the Monkey Doo's and they get to pretend to be things like helicopters, scooters, etc... We have been checking it out from the library every few weeks and they love it so much that we will have to get our own copy so that they can do it more often.

Twinkle Twinkle

These were taken back in November, but I was having a hard time uploading them. Kayla and Zack came over to play shortly before they moved to Colorado. The kids were singing songs together in these videos and it was pretty cute and so I wanted to share. They sure do miss them, but hopefully we will be able to go and visit them sometime.

My trip to Washington in December

My dad Doug, his wife Wendy and my sister Jessica picked me up at the airport and we had dinner and visited at a fun restaurant before they dropped me off at Stephanie's house.

I couldn't believe how much Jessica had grown since seeing her in October! So we
decided to get a picture to show just how tall she was getting. We are in Stephanie's
house in Seattle where Dad, Wendy, Jessica, Stephanie and I all had a nice visit before
they left to go back home to Bonney Lake.

This trip was to spend the weekend with Stephanie. Last year we had a wonderful weekend together down in Arizona, but this year the prices had increased quite a bit. So we decided to have me fly over and then spend the weekend on Whidbey Island at a Bed and Breakfast Inn. In the picture above we had just finished a yummy lunch at a cute little Greek cafe in Langley which was on the way to Coupeville where we stayed.

Coupeville was a nice little town and we mostly walked everywhere that we needed to go. The main shops and restaurants where only a couple blocks away from the Inn. They had a snowman like this one on almost every block of the main road that goes through town and they were all dressed up differently which was kind of neat.

This was down by all the shops and restaurants and was a really pretty view of Mt. Vernon.

It is rare for this part of the country to get much snow and so I had to laugh a little when we went down to the wharf to do some shopping and to eat lunch and there was a sign saying it was closed due to snow!

This is a picture of where we stayed. It is called the Love Joy Inn and we stayed in the Cottage Suite which was separate from the rest of the Inn. After you go in the side door you go up the stairs to the Suite.

Steph eating breakfast one morning. The room was really nice and cozy with an island theme and a small kitchenette. We had a wonderful quiet and relaxing weekend together away from the "busy"ness and noise of day to day life.

After spending the weekend on Whidbey Island with Stephanie, I was able to spend part
of Monday,Monday night, and Tuesday morning with Susan, Noah, and Abdurrazag. We
stopped by to see Zach at work (he moved out not too long ago). It was a lot of fun to
see them and to catch up with Susie and play some fun games. She still had 2 wishbones
to wish on and break and we both won one!

When we got home from Rochester on Friday night, Gavin was dying to put up some Christmas decorations, so we put on our hats and went to work!

We spent Thanksgiving with my Aunt Robyn down in Rochester, Mn this year. We had a great time with Robyn, her husband Dave, their daughters Miya and Annika, my Grandma Tricia and Grandpa Bob(who were visiting from Spokane, WA). Dinner was wonderful and the kids had a lot of fun playing together. On Friday morning Robyn, Grandma, and I went shopping. It was crazy like it usually is on Black Friday, but we had fun and found some great deals which made dealing with the chaos all worth it.

Annika and Michelle watching Kung Fu Panda.

Blake was hiding and so we could only get the 3 kids in a picture together.

Gavin and Miya

On Friday afternoon we went to visit Jakk's grandparents who also live in Rochester. We had a really nice visit. Most of the pictures I took were of the kids playing a game with a new toy that Grandma Esther and Grandpa Don gave them. It was a little wind up bee toy that buzzed when you pushed the button. The kids had so much fun buzzing us with it to see if we would jump. They thought it was hilarious when we would pretend to be sleeping and then jump when they buzzed us to wake us up.

Jakk's cousin Jillain(Jill)

We hadn't seen Jill for several years and so it was nice to spend some time with her. She is so sweet and makes everyone laugh with her good sense of humor.

I thought it would be cute to take some pictures on the boys on the neat stairs outside of Jakk's grandparents house. I was glad when the boys said they would pose for me. I didn't tell them to make funny faces, but they did anyway.