Petersen Family

Getting Caught Up

2011-03-29T20:08:00.001-07:00

Okay, okay..THIS is why I didn't want to do a blog. I knew that I was just too busy to keep it up and then everyone would always say "Why don't you update your blog?" So..here's a bunch of pictures I'm just going to throw out here :)

Jared's niece, Mylee (his brother Michael's daughter) came and stayed with us for a few days. Lacy and her are good buds and partners in crime! They had so much fun playing this week and we decided that we would take the kids to the Phoenix Zoo since it was her last day. After we were all hot from walking around the zoo in 90 degree weather we decided to let the kids cool off on the splash pad. This was Garrett's first time and he LOVED it!!

The zoo has a new splash pad, so now there are two of them. The new one is really cool and has a cave slide, misters, and lots of other things there for the kids. Next time we will have to bring our swimming suits. My little skinny Lacy was shaking and shivering towards the end

Garrett hates to have the sun in his eyes. So I tried putting Lacy's sunglasses on his, but A.) they are pink and B.) he kept taking them off.

So Grandma Beth bought him this little foam Kangaroo visor to keep the sun out. He loved it, and would hang onto the brim just to make sure it wouldn't come off. ha ha

Lacy & Mylee checking out the Rhinos

Grandma Beth with Lacy & Mylee

Lacy & Mylee all excited to be at the zoo!

Grandma Beth taking the girls to the zoo!

Garrett helping me do the laundry! ha ha

Lacy has a stroller for her baby doll. The kids were playing around and put Garrett in it! ha ha

Another favorite thing of his is to play on Grandma's computer!

YUM! Oreos!

Lacy so hyper she was climbing the walls, literally

Picture of my grumpy hubby :)

Oreo Baby!

2011-01-03T11:12:00.001-08:00

Grandma Beth slipped an Oreo to Garrett...gee I wonder if he liked it??? ha ha His love for Oreos will make his Grandma Beth, Grandpa Davis, and Aunt Andra very proud! :)

Tub of Emotions

2011-01-03T11:02:00.000-08:00

I was cleaning the kitchen and every time I'd turn around I'd trip on Garrett, who was wanting my attention. So I decided to fill up the sink and let him splash around while I straighten up the kitchen. He was so happy!!! Until....

Lacy came to see what he was doing. He cheerfully jabbered with her, but then she kept bugging in...notice the smile has disappeared....

Lacy, having troubles giving up her spot as the "baby" of the family, wanted to get into a sink bath too. When I explained she was too big, her little 2 year old mind immediately came up with the solution that she could put just her "piggies" in the water. ha ha. So I put her up on the counter...and take a look at the picture and see if you can tell if Garrett is happy with sharing his tub. ha ha ha ha ha

Show Low Trip

2011-01-03T10:51:00.000-08:00

In November we went up to Show Low to go to a wedding for Jared's nephew, Alex. They got married in a beautiful ceremony in the Vernon Chapel. Here is Garrett all dressed up in his church clothes! What a cute little guy!!

Lacy running around Jan & Joyce's front yard!

Picture of Kaylee, she is growing up so fast and is a beautiful young woman!

My little Gar-bear! Here is is only 7 months...but I know, I know, he looks like he could be 2 years old! ha ha

Lacy & Garrett playing with the pine needles

Happy Halloween!

2010-11-01T21:21:00.001-07:00

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! This year we did a Peter Pan theme! I went as a pirate, Kaylee was Tiger Lily, Lacy was Tinkerbell, and Garrett was a Lion Lost Boy! All we needed was a Peter Pan...but there was no way in HELL I was going to get my husband into green tights. He did say he would wear a name tag saying he is Peter Pan though. But I forgot to pick them up. Oh well :)

You can't see it too well in this picture, but Lacy was just coated in gold pixie dust glitter. She looked SO BEAUTIFUL!

ROAAAR! Check out my little man! Is this not the most adorable lion you have ever seen in your life???!!!

Kaylee was bummed because everyone thought she was Pocahontas. She was always correcting everyone that she was TIGER LILY! ha ha

Girls were SO excited to trick or treat! Lacy would run down the drive ways at each house going "MOM! I got more candy!!!!!" ha ha ha

Tonto Fish Hatchery

2010-11-01T21:03:00.001-07:00

On our way back from Show Low we decided to stretch our legs at Tonto Creek! Garrett LOVED the water and was so excited to put his pudgy little toes in the water, even it was a little chilly! ha ha He would just laugh and laugh! Lacy lost a flip flop in the creek (Kaylee rescued it) but Lacy was still upset about almost loosing her shoe and she refused to get back in the creek! ha ha

We also drove up to the Tonto Fish Hatchery. Lacy and Kaylee got such a kick out of seeing all the fish, and feeding them!

My 3 little sweethearts!

Okay, I HAD to take a picture of this! Jared says it isn't pronouced the way it looks (CRAPPIE) but I don't care...it's a "Crappie" fish to me! ha ha ha ha

Garrett chewing on his favorite snack...grandma's shoulder!

Kaylee & Lacy checking out the fish

My sweet little dude!

Lacy throwing out the food to the fishes. Lacy loved seeing the fish go nuts when she fed them! ha ha

Fall Pictures

2010-10-27T14:24:00.000-07:00

Happy Fall Y'all! Jared had to work so I thought it'd be fun to go get pictures of just me and the kiddos! Jared was very happy to be off the hook to take pictures, but don't worry...I'll get him soon to have pictures with us! In the meantime check out the cute pictures of me and my little monsters!

LaNae - 30 years & Garrett - 6 months

Lacy would NOT take off my sunglasses so we could start taking pictures. ha ha ha She spent the rest of the photo shoot pouting. ha ha ha

LaNae, Lacy, Garrett & Kaylee

Toes!!
Big sister with her favorite little dude!

Lacy LaNae Petersen - 2 years old

Garrett has the most kissable nugget!

Kaylee LaShay - 10 years old

Playing with my little monkey!

Lacy was playing peek-a-boo in the old orchard that we were taking pictures in!

This picture is of Garrett laying on Jared's blanket. Jared's Grandma Crook made this blanket for him 16 years ago, and Jared sleeps with it every night :) It was made out of scraps of clothing from his aunts and uncles! :)

Summer Pictures

2010-09-15T23:30:00.000-07:00

Okay so I'm too lazy to create a bunch of posts. So here what our summer was like in pictures. :) Since I had my hysterectomy this summer I was out of it most of the time, so I don't have a lot of pictures. Here's what I do have though!

3 little monkey sleeping in my bed! Miley (Jared's brother Michael's daughter), Garrett, & Lacy

Miley and Garrett
Garrett's first time in the johnny jump up..he loves it now but at first he wasn't sure what to think of it. ha ha

Look at who misses being the baby of the family? ha ha ha Lacy is so petite that she fits all of Garrett's play toys. My mom bought Garrett a 0-3 month outfit..and Lacy thought it was hers and put it on...and IT FIT!!!!!!!!!!! Scrawny little thing :)

Kaylee off to her first day of 5th grade! She is getting so big! I can't believe it!!!

Garrett's first taste of rice cereal. He prefers chocolate :)

Uncle Turd (I mean Wes) stopped by to see everyone.

Here is a peek into our nightly fight with Lacy. Garrett gets in the tub..and before I can turn around Lacy is getting undressed so she can get in too. But she stresses Garrett out splashing around and he doesn't like her to get in with him. So I have to tell her (every night) to wait until the baby is done and then she can have the bath all to herself!

And then I bend over to wash Garrett and when I turn around, guess who has completely forgotten everything I just said about waiting until the baby was out of the tub and is now completely nudie? ha ha

For Beth's birthday I surprised her and had Jan, Joyce, and Grandma Crook come into town. I had her open the door when they got here and she was so surprised! Beth was feeling a little homesick so it was good for her to see her family again! We all went out to eat at Tia Rosa's for dinner!

Jan Crook

Grandma Crook (Garrett was totally enthralled with her jade necklace! ha ha)

On Labor Day weekend Jared, Lacy, Garrett & I drove up to Joseph City for the Petersen Reunion. We stayed at a hotel in Holbrook and drove over to Grandma & Grandpa Petersen's to visit with everyone. Lacy had so much fun running around with her cousins and getting into mischief, and of course no one could put Garrett down! :) He especially loved his great uncle Dennis.

Here is me and Garrett out in Grandma Petersen's backyard.

Sandi (Jared's brother Will's new wife) and Garrett
Here are some cute pictures of Lacy and Garrett in Grandma Petersen's backyard

Aunt Debbie had the "grandma touch" and put Garrett fast asleep despite all the commotion around the house!

Me and Grizzly Adams..opps, I mean Jared

We have been to Holbrook a bunch of times but I guess this is the first time that Lacy has noticed the dinosaurs. Every time we drove past one she would get all excited so on our way out of town we stopped and let her take a picture next to the dinosaurs :)

Jared put Garrett in the kiddie pool out back. He LOVES being in the water!

Jared's son Devon came into town, so we decided to have everyone go to Butcher Jones Beach for a fun afternoon. Here is Grandma Donna, Garrett & Grandma Beth

Testing the waters

Grandma Beth going out into the lake with the kiddos. She got all the way in and they thought it was so fun to go swimming with her!

Lacy was a spaz and swam EVERYWHERE we had to keep a close eye on her because she has no fear of the water or of anything else for that matter. ha ha She had so much fun!!
Beth, me, Lacy, and Garrett out swimming

Kaylee and Grandpa LaMar playing board games while everyone got dinner ready. And Lacy is sneaking a soda pop! :)

Baby Pool +115 degrees = cheap FUN

2010-09-15T23:20:00.000-07:00

Miley came down this summer and spent a few days with us. Lacy LOVED having her cousin and partner in crime here at the house. Beth brought home a small pool and put it on the porch, you would have thought it was the coolest thing ever because the girls splashed around and had so much fun!
Monkey see....

Monkey do... :)

Our Master Bedroom!

2010-07-17T15:56:00.000-07:00

TA DA! Here is our master bedroom that I redecorated. I painted the walls a Tiffany's blue. Then used black and white accents. I made the pelmet boxes with black fabric, then overlaid black and white striped fabric and embellished it with some ribbon. I use black drum lamp shades and tall lamp stands to lift the room higher.

The bedding is white raw silk with black flocked designs. Above our bed I hung black and white wedding pictures of us, with the vinyl design from our website www.vinylwallenvy.com that says "Will forever be in love with you"

So what do you guys think??? It's not really a decorating style that I've done before, but I'm in love with it!

Date Night

2010-07-15T08:17:00.000-07:00

Jared took me out to Carrabba's for dinner this week for our date night. We had never eaten there and the food was soooo good! Before we left my mom wanted to take a picture of us since we were wearing matching black shirts. Of course Jared grumps whenever there is a camera involved and he wouldn't smile. Then my mom started telling a fart joke...and apparently that's what we have to do now to get Jared to laugh in a picture ;) Tell a fart joke. ha ha ha

Random Pictures of Garrett

2010-07-15T08:13:00.000-07:00

LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE this picture! Garrett is reaching out to me, and you can see all his fat rolls! Ha ha ha He is so chewable! Love this little man!

Here he is propped up in bed, probably wondering why I'm taking pictures of him and not making him a bottle ;)

Little toes!
He's got his mama's kissers!!!! The girls are gonna love getting kisses from this little heartbreaker!

Look what I found in my bed!

4th of July

2010-07-15T08:00:00.000-07:00

The 4th of July was so nice this year! Wonders of wonders, the weather was just beautiful! We went over to my best friend, Suzanne Ruesch's parents house in Mesa and had a big dinner. Then I stuffed my fat self into a bathing suit and we all went swimming. Kaylee learned how to do a new dive and fun playing with her friend Trista. Suzanne's husband, TJ, was the designated dolphin and took the kids for rides on his back all around the pool. I bet he was sore the next day, the girls really gave him a work out!

Jared doesn't like to swim so he was the "Picture-taker" which I'm glad he was there because this was Lacy's first time swimming in a pool by herself with just floaties! Usually we just go to Sunsplash, so she does rides and slides but doesn't really "Swim". But that day man oh man did she SWIM! Her little legs were going a mile a minute the entire time we were in the pool! She realized that she could jump into the pool all by herself if she had her tube and floaties! She felt like SUCH a big girl jumping in by herself!

This was also another first for Garrett. He had never been in the pool before. I got in and held him for a while to get him used to the water then I set him in the floatie. He kicked back, closed his eyes and was chillin. Then one of the kids jumped in the pool and splashed him in his face. He held his breath and then finally let out a HUGE scream! You would have thought a shark was nibblin on his bum! ha ha ha He cried and cried so finally he got out and Jared held him while I stayed in the pool with Lacy. :)

After the pool we went to downtown Mesa to see the fireworks. Since the 4th was on a Wednesday this year and probably since Mesa is mostly LDS people, a lot of the fireworks shows happened on Saturday night, which is when we did our party. We went down to the front lawn at the temple and layed out blankets and chairs. The kids ran around the grass and we has PERFECT view of the fireworks! For whatever reason, there was just a couple other families at the temple so it wasn't crowded. It was so pretty to see the fireworks going up around the temple!

Can you tell that Suzanne and I are best friends and think alike?? ha ha ha When it got time to change the kids into their swimming suits, Lacy and Whitney came out both in pink tutu suits! ha ha ha ha So cute!

Mohawk Baby!

2010-06-24T19:08:00.000-07:00

Garrett was born with TONS and I mean TONS of hair! He is 2 months old and he had hair grown almost completely over his ears. So Beth got some scissors and trimmed his hair, but I wanted him to look like a little guy with faded sides, so I got some clippers and started going up his head...and OOOPS he was bald! Poor guy! I have many talents, apparently cutting hair isn't one of them!

Beth tried to trim up his hair and make it blend but he had big bald patches. :( I called Sherry to see if there was anything I could to so salvage it, and she suggested just shaving it all off because I had butchered his hair so bad :(

Then Jared came up with the idea to give him a Mohawk. At this point I was like "why not!" And it turned out freaking adorable! It gives him this little edge that is so cute on him. I tried to get better pictures, but he wouldn't let me take the bottle out of his mouth so I could pose him :)

A Peek Into Our Home!

2010-06-16T09:31:00.000-07:00

Kaylee & Lacy's Bedroom!
(You can order any of these vinyl designs from LaNae's company,
Wall Envy www.vinylwallenvy.com)
I love their new redecorated bedroom! I painted the walls a pale pink and then painted darker pink stripes around the room. This process took forever, but the end result was totally worth it! The furniture in the room is white and the accents are black. Kaylee (and me) love french inspired patterns and decor, so I hit up Hobby Lobby and got the wrought iron dress form that you see on the dresser, and the Eiffel tower.

As far as the curtains go, I totally impressed myself with how my first attempt at pelmet boxes turned out! I made the window frame, then got some quilting batting and black & white damask fabric. I stapled it the pelmet frame and then embellished it with a thick pink ribbon and then layered the pink ribbon with a black & white polka dot ribbon. You can't see it in these pictures, but I also made a matching pelmet box and put it up over the girls closet. I loved these so much, I think I'm going to make some for the master bedroom too!

This is another new technique that I came up with and loved the end results! Since I own a vinyl lettering business (Wall Envy - www.vinylwallenvy.com) I can't help but spruce up rooms with touches of vinyl! This was great wall filler between the bunk beds and the bedroom door. I got a 2 foot x 3 foot vinyl design and put it on the wall. Then I hung the wrought iron Eiffel tower in the center. It gives it such a cook 3-D look! I've never seen this technique done before, so I'm excited to feature it on our website also!

I found a quote from Coco Chanel that says "A girl should always be two things...Classy & Fabulous" I thought that the french designer quote would go perfect in the french inspired room and anyone that knows Kaylee knows that this quote rings true to her personality too! :) I hung the vinyl over the black mirror and I placed above the dresser. I also have some cute black picture frames with their initials in diamonds, but they aren't in the picture.

I got the girls bunk beds. I personally despise bunk beds because they are SUCH a pain to make the beds! But they have turned out to be a huge hit for the girls. Since Kaylee is 8 years older than her sister it's nice for her to have her own space on the top bunk where her sister can't bug her. She can lay up there and read her book with her reading lamp and relax, and Lacy can lay on her bed and go to sleep without any distractions. :) Their bedding is from Target, but I'm looking at getting some fancier bedding...just waiting for Jared to agree to let me spend the money since the new bedding is pretty pricey. I'll post pictures when I get it :)

While I was at Hobby Lobby they had a sale on all the furniture, so I got this black half table that looks fabulous in our entry way! I got the lamp there also and wrapped it with a ribbon (I think I might change the color..but this is what it looks like right now). Then I set the green flowers next to the lamp. I love my new little table because it has cupboards below so I can set my purse and diaper bag in there, that way they aren't always sitting on the couch or the counter tops!

We got HUGE 10 foot brown suede couches and I wanted to fill up the large wall space over such a big couch. So i got these 8x10 frames and put in each family member's picture ( I haven't gotten around to getting a picture of Garrett up yet ... I know I'm a bad mom!) Anyway my friend Suzanne told me about a conference quote from President Monson that I just fell in love with! It says "Our home should be more than a sanctuary, it should also be a place where God's Spirit can dwell, where the strom stops at the door, where love reigns and peace dwells." Peace and tranquility isn't always what every day is at our home, but that's why I love this quote to remind us what our goals should be and what's important!

Casual Pictures of the Kiddos

2010-06-16T09:22:00.000-07:00

This is Garrett's first smile captured on camera! He's got his daddy's crooked grin! It's so cute!! He's cooing a lot and laughed out loud for the first time a few days ago!

Look at how chunky my little man is getting! Can you believe he's only 2 months old! ha ha I love these pictures of him in jeans and a plaid shirt, looks like a big boy!

Here is Lacy and Garrett. This picture cracks me up because Garrett totally has a "Jared expression" on his face! ha ha

The kiddos just hanging out around the house. Lazy summer!

Garrett always gets a little nervous when Lacy gets too close! ha ha He looks around with this expression like he's trying to say "Ummm....is someone watching me around Lacy??" ha ha

Just before bedtime, saying goodnight to my little guy!

Garrett's First Professional Pictures

2010-05-16T17:18:00.000-07:00

Garrett had his first professional photos taken here at 2 weeks old! The picture above is him laying on our couch, curled up in my dad's old baseball glove!!

Here is me & Garrett! I am in love with this picture!! Doesn't he look like a baby supermodel? ha ha

I had to get at least ONE naked picture!!

Batter Up!

2010-05-06T22:45:00.001-07:00

My photographer friend sent me a sneak peek picture of the photo shoot we did of Garrett at 2 weeks old. He is curled up in my dad's old baseball glove. Isn't that cute!? Anyway, more pictures are to come I just wanted to post this so everyone could see it!

First Sink Bath

2010-04-30T22:55:00.000-07:00

Poor Garrett! He went to get circumcised on Thursday and they made me wait out in the lobby while they did the procedure. I could hear him screaming all the way from the back of the office! I just teared up and wished I could be back there to comfort him!! When they brought him to me he looked up at me and grabbed my finger and squeezed so tight that it left imprints on my finger! I have never heard a baby scream like that before!! The doctor wrapped this medical tape around the tip of his penis and told me that it would fall off. But..2 days later it hadn't fallen off and he wouldn't sleep because each time he moved it would pull on him and he'd start bleeding! Poor thing! So my grandma Shupe suggested to my mom that we soak him in the sink and see if it would soften up the tape so we could get it off of him.

So I filled up the sink and set him in it. He hates sponge baths, but LOVED LOVED LOVED that sink bath! He rolled his eyes back and floated his little belly around. He instantly fell fast asleep and was so peaceful! I guess he thought he was back in my tummy! ha ha And sure enough, after 2 bath soaks that hard tape softened up and it slipped off of him. I lathered up the petroleum jelly and he fell fast asleep! I'm so glad that he can start healing and is much more comfortable!!

Here's a cute picture of Grandma Davis and Garrett.

My Little Lacy Bug

2010-04-30T22:47:00.000-07:00

Here is a cute picture of Lacy. She has been spending a lot of time at Grandma & Grandpa Davis' house while I'm recovering from having baby Garrett. Lacy loves to go out to their herb boxes and help them pull weeds and water the garden. She's such a good little helper!

My Beautiful Daughter, Kaylee

2010-04-30T16:15:00.000-07:00

Can you believe that Kaylee is 10 years old? Yeah..me neither! She is growing up to be such a beautiful young woman. She is just as beautiful on the inside as she is growing up to be on the outside! How I got so lucky with such wonderful children I'll never understand! But I'm proud to be her mother! I love you Kaylee and HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Here are some pictures that were taken at the Mesa Temple.

My Little Garden Gnomes!

2010-04-30T16:13:00.000-07:00

Here is Kaylee and Lacy over at my parents house helping them work in the garden! Lacy loves the wheel barrel rides! I remember when I was little I used put pillows in the wheel barrel and give my brothers rides around the back yard too!

Here is Lacy helping Grandma "Duh Duh" (that's how she says Grandma Donna) pick her tomatoes!

IT'S A BOY!

2010-04-24T21:21:00.001-07:00

Garrett Story:
Sunday, April 18th Jared had to work the night shift, so I stayed up as late as I could waiting for him to get home. Finally at 2:00am I fell fast asleep, Jared came home at 3:00am and quickly fell asleep too. Then at 4:00am on the dot I felt a lot of pressure and then a POP. I practically flew off the bed and screamed "JARED MY WATER BROKE!" I startled him so much that he knocked over the nightstand lamp trying to get the lights on to see what was happening! ha ha I got in the shower and tried to clean up so that I could look "cute" to go into the hospital...then the contractions hit, and I forgot all about my make up and hair dryer. Since it was the middle of the night, Jared woke up Kaylee (or tried to) and told her that we were going to the hospital, and that he would call as soon as the baby was born.

Since all my deliveries have been induced, and they were only 3 hours long, when I got to the hospital at 4:45 I fully expected to have my baby before breakfast! I was 80% effaced and dialated to a 6cm. Since this was my last baby, I decided to try out pain medication, so they gave me a spinal block. Instantly I felt WORLDS better and kicked myself for not doing this with the other two deliveries. But that feeling went away when they came back in 2 hours later and said that my labor hadn't progressed at all. :( I was still having contractions, though I couldn't feel them, but I hadn't dialated anymore. At 7:00am my spinal block wore off and for the next hour (when there was no pain medication) my labor picked back up and I dialated to a 9cm. The anathesiologist came back in and did an epidural and they gave me pitocin. The epidural slowed things down (again) and at this point I was exhaused with no sleep, and hadn't eaten anything since the night before.

At 1:15 pm I started pushing. And since i was so tired I wasn't sure how I was going to get through this. I guess I wasn't as brave with this delivery as I was with my other two. :( Jared was very supportive and kept encouraging me.

At 1:56pm on April 19th, Garrett Joseph Petersen was born. He weighed 8 lbs. 8 oz. and was 21.5 inches long. He was healthy and pink and it was so cute to see a little bit of chunk on my baby since my girls were really small! ha ha He came out chewing on his fist and was ready to eat! ha ha He was also very alert and was looking around at everything around him. That "mommy love" rushed over me as I instantly fell in love with the new little man in my life!

Here is a picture of Garrett at 5 days old sleeping like a sweetheart in his bouncer.

Carnival

2010-04-15T22:03:00.001-07:00

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There was a carnival near our home so we took the girls for a family fun night. Kaylee and Lacy had so much fun! Lacy kept wanting Jared to take her on "The Hammer" the ride that tips your upside down way up in the air...yeah..that's not going to happen! She's such a dare devil!

This ride was funny because once it got going and started spinning, we could see and hear Kaylee screaming, and Lacy was laughing hysterically. ha ha ha ha They are so funny!

St. Patrick's Day!

2010-04-07T23:46:00.000-07:00

Suzanne had a fun St. Patrick's party for the kids at her house this year. She had several kids from her ward there also. We decorated sugar cookies, played games, make leprechaun puppets and a bunch of other stuff.

Suzanne did a leprechaun hunt and made trails of Lucky Charms that led the kids to the clues. The kids thought it was so fun to have cereal scattered around the house! ha ha

Getting Ready For Baby Garrett!

2010-04-07T23:41:00.000-07:00

Milking my bedrest status I put Jared to work painting the baby's room! He also painted the crib and changing table. It was a lot of hard work getting things organized. THANK YOU JARED for helping so much around the house more and more! You are a sweet husband!

Here is a picture of Lacy surveying his handywork!

In addition to fixing up the baby's room Jared sealed off part of the garage so that I could set up my office for Wall Envy. Wes stopped by and was helping him hang the dry wall. Lacy grabbed her toy drill and got to work "helping". Here are some cute pictures!

Park Days

2010-04-07T23:34:00.000-07:00

We moved back to Mesa in February so that we can all be together as a family more often. For the last year and half Jared has been working out of state or down in the valley and the distance has been hard on all of us. So we decided to move back! The blessing is that Jared has been very busy with work (which in this economy is something that we don't take for granted), but the downside is that even though we live in the valley, still hardly ever see each other! ha ha So when he's home we make the most of it! There is a park just around the corner from our home that the girls love to go and run off some energy! Here's a little park time..

Our Final Big Snow Storm In Show Low!

2010-04-07T23:27:00.000-07:00

In January we moved back to the valley from Show Low. It seems like the weather wasn't going to let us leave without a big snow storm to say goodbye first! Kaylee had an entire week off of school because the storms kept coming in each day. So we drank lots of hot chocolate, popped popcorn and watched movies. But the kids couldn't be kept in all week since they love the snow! Lacy loves being thrown into the snow piles! ha ha And Kaylee is our snowman builder and snow angel maker!

Jared couldn't help but pull out his dirt bike and see what it would be like to ride in the deep snow... it was quite the sight! His wheels were filled with snow and he almost crashed his bike a few times! ha ha

Merry Christmas!

2010-01-11T10:19:00.000-08:00

For Christmas this year Kaylee stayed up and was our elf! Since she knows about Santa she helped us wrap up presents and put them under the tree. Then she ate Santa's cookies for him (don't worry..."Santa" ate several too!). Then it was off to bed for her so that we could set up her presents!

The next morning Jan & Joyce came over just in time for the kids to wake up! Lacy and Kaylee have notorious bed head! There was no way I was going to corral them into the bathroom to do their hair when they know that they have presents waiting in the living room. So you'll have excuse the bed head pictures!

Here's Aunt Jan walking Lacy down the hallway so that she can

My mom bought Lacy a baby doll and stroller. And...by doing that she pretty much ruined Christmas ha ha ha! It was the first thing that Lacy ran to Christmas morning and she didn't open a single present after that! She had no interest in anything else under the tree! She was thrilled with her baby doll and stroller!!!

See, here's a picture of her snubbing her other presents. All she wanted was her baby stroller! ha ha ha

Kaylee was excited to get a snuggie! ha ha

Lacy got a remote control car. I'm not sure who had more fun with it...Lacy or Jared!

Christmas presents were all opened, and we had our Christmas breakfast, now all Kaylee wanted to do was grab her snuggie and one of her new books and relax!

Happy Halloween!

2010-01-11T10:08:00.001-08:00

Halloween was so fun this year! Lacy was a bumble bee and Kaylee was a honey bee. It was so cute to have them in matching outfits! Here they are getting ready to go to our ward's trunk-or-treat at the stake center.

After the trunk-or-treat we went over to Jan & Joyce's house so that they could see the kids costumes and let their house be the first that they trick-or-treated.

Here is Lacy and her partner in crime, Maddie! Lacy gets SO EXCITED to see the puppy and Maddie goes bananas for Lacy too! It's so cute to see them playing!

Lacy got the gist of knocking on doors and getting candy pretty fast! It was hard to keep up with her as she ran from house to house! The only thing that slowed down the kids were all the people who stopped them to tell them how cute their costumes were. ha ha

First Snow Fall

2010-01-11T10:02:00.001-08:00

We had our first snow fall in the middle of October. It wasn't a ton as you can see, but it was enough for Lacy to get excited and run around the yard in! Kaylee was bummed because it wasn't enough for a snow day so she was at school when we took these pictures. Poor Kaylee!

Jared taught Lacy how to pack snow into a cup to make a big snowball. Here she is acting like it's the heaviest thing in the world to lift. Ha ha

Neil & Nikki & Bailee

2010-01-11T09:43:00.000-08:00

Jared's cousin Neil and his wife Nikki moved into our old neighborhood and are sweet enough to let us stay with them when we make a trip to the valley. They are so much fun to hang out with and Nikki and I both pregnant and expecting our babies around the same time! Lacy loves her Uncle Neil and Nikki! They have 2 cats which she chases all around the house and goes up and down their basement stairs on bum like it's the most wonderful ride at Disneyland! ha ha

We were waiting for Jared to get back from some work he was doing and so we took the kiddos to the park. Lacy had fun going on Uncle Neils shoulders because he's SO TALL she probably felt like she was in an airplane! ha ha

Neil has a daughter named Bailee and she's the same age as Kaylee. They met the first time when we were moving to Show Low. Bailee showed up wearing a Hannah Montana shirt and that's all it took for the two girls to become friends! We rarely saw them the rest of the time we were packing as they had a blast doing whatever it is tweens do these days! ha ha

Blast From The Past!

2010-01-11T09:37:00.001-08:00

Kaylee & Lacy are the same age difference as me and my sister, Sherry. When Sherry was the same age as Lacy is now, she would always climb onto my bed and since she was a wild sleeper she would end up spread eagle and stretched out on my bed and I'd end up with shoved against the wall or curled up in the fetal position at the end of my own bed! ha ha

Looks like Kaylee is getting the same treatment from Lacy! Almost every night Lacy finds her way into her big sisters bed. It's really kind of sweet because she loves Kaylee so much and I think that she finds it comforting to be next to her at night!

Petersen Family Reunion

2009-09-08T18:44:00.001-07:00

Here is us in the backyard of Grandma & Grandpa Petersen's house!

The rain flooded some of grandma's garden so the grandkids took no time at all to get COVERED in mud! You basically could see the whites of their eyes! Lacy would have been the first one in the mud, but Jared and I had to keep a close eye on her to keep her clean. Here is a picture of her pacing in front of the mud just waiting for me to look away so she can jump in!

Lacy loved Grandma Petersen's backyard because she could run around barefoot on the lawn. She kept sneaking over to their garden also. She loves to help me pick tomatoes so I guess she figured she'd help grandma with her gardening also!

Uh oh...Looks like we have another rock hound in the family

One of the boys left their bicycle on the side of the house and Lacy went absolutely NUTS until we put her up on it. She's grown up riding dirt bikes and quads, but never a bicycle (go figure)! So Jared put her up on it and walked her up and down the road for what seemed like forever. She LOVED it!

Jared tried to tilt the bike and scare her! Mean daddy!

A bunch of her cousins were cheering her on!

Kaylee's in 4th Grade!

2009-09-08T18:41:00.001-07:00

Kaylee started 4th grade at Linden Elementary School! Here's a few pictures I snapped on her first day! Her teacher's name is Mrs. Hellarude (hilarious I know) but she's a great teacher and Kaylee loves her class!!

Hawley Lake 2009

2009-09-08T14:30:00.000-07:00

Kelsey, Kaylee & Lindsay hanging out in the cabin!

Jared strummin' the guitar!

Lacy giving baby Sadie big messy-faced kisses.
Sweet...but probably loaded with germs! Sorry Celinda! :)

Kelsey was a riot! She spent the night with us before they went to Hawley Lake and she was such a ham that we stayed up laughing because she was pulling all these funny faces and doing all these funny things! She's so fun!
Here's some pics of her messing around with Grandpa Davis!

Grandma Donna & Sadie

Can you believe I coaxed Jared into taking some pictures?
I know...amazing! Here are some that Uncle Scott took for us!

My little Lacy..the girl who knows NO FEAR!
She would take off down these HUGE cabin steps and try to go swimming in the lake if we looked away for even a minute!
I caught her here trying to go on an adventure!

All the beautiful mountains and here we are hanging out in the cabin! :)

Me & my best friend

Fishers of Men! Kaylee and Grandpa taking fishing very seriously! They have a blast fishing all week and Kaylee got the biggest fish out of everyone! Thank you Grandpa for buying Kaylee a new fishing pole!!!

Grandpa Garrett

Grandma Donna taking Lacy for a walk!

My First Vegetable Garden!

2009-09-08T14:22:00.000-07:00

For my birthday present the Aunts helped me set up a vegetable garden in our side yard. We did something called "Tarp Gardening". It's when you treat & till the ground then lay black plastic over the top of the garden, you cut holes in spots where you plant. This helps keeps weeds out and keeps the ground nice and warm and helps the plants grow better!

Here's what I planted in the garden:

Roma Tomatoes
Early Girl Tomatoes
Green Chilies
Green Beans
Sugar Snap Peas
Bell Peppers
Green Onions
Butternut Squash
Crook Neck Squash
Cucumbers
Mint
Chocolate Mint
Sweet Basil

Here are some pictures of the garden!

Cupcakes!

2009-07-25T21:30:00.000-07:00

The Aunts came over for dinner and we had cupcakes for dessert! Then we went outside to enjoy the nice weather and have our snacks. Here are some pictures!

4th of July Weekend

2009-07-25T21:07:00.000-07:00

This fourth of July was a blast because Suzanne, T.J. and their girls Trista & Whitney came up and stayed with us!!! We tried to go to the parade, but turns out people had parked and camped out the night before to get good seats! So us going 3 hours early wasn't early enough!! Instead the guys were happy to offer a different activity....going to the badlands and go dirt bike riding. Will just bought a second dirt bike, so there was one for Suzanne's husband, and then we got the 2 quads from Jan and rode around with the kids while the guys went out riding! Here's some pictures from the badlands!!

Lacy had so much fun having her little friend here. But they are both at that "MINE!" stage! Lacy got pretty territorial with Whitney..so I guess we've got to work on that! But they still had fun playing together!! They especially had fun at bath time after got back from the badlands!

This was one cute! Lacy and Whitney were trying to sit on the same seat! But as soon as Whitney is flashing a winning smile for the camera, The Bottle Bandit grabs Whitney's bottle for a sip! Ha ha

Flying Baby

2009-07-02T09:42:00.001-07:00

Jared and Lacy on the deck in the backyard. He was holding her and she kept saying "voom voom" which means, "Do something high and fast!" so he tossed her up in the air and I got some pictures while he did it!

Playing with Dad

2009-07-02T09:36:00.000-07:00

My girls LOVE their daddy! And he loves them too! They have so much fun playing with him! Jared got back into town and after a few days of them not seeing their dad they were ready for some play time...

Anyone who knows Lacy knows that she was born an Adrenaline Junkie! She definitely inherited Jared's "no fear" and loves to be flipped upside down, twirled around, and thrown up into the air! She just giggles and giggles!!

Lacy and Kaylee were climbing up Jared to piggy back rides..

Cute picture of Lacy peeking over her daddy's shoulder to say hi to Kaylee!

Driving to Joe Town

2009-07-02T09:30:00.000-07:00

We drove out to Joseph City (joe town for all y'all locals ha ha) for a family dinner with the Petersen's. Here are some pictures...

Kaylee & Lacy taking a quick break from watching Snow White in the back seat to look up for a picture! Then they were right back to being glued to the portable DVD player!

The sun was setting and it was right in Lacy's eyes so she put on her sunglasses all by herself! Big girl!

Of course I have to throw in a picture of my hottie husband!! Such a handsome guy! LOVE YOU JARED!

I took my camera because Jared's cousin Amie was in down and we wanted to take some pictures with everyone, but of COURSE LaNae is an air-head and leaves the camera in the car and I totally forgot about it until we got in the truck to go home. Drrrr

Edible Play Dough

2009-06-04T17:57:00.000-07:00

I came across a recipe for edible play dough! I tried it out and it turned out great plus it's easy to make. I didn't tell my kids it was edible until after they had played with it for a while so that they didn't just sit down and eat it. But of course Lacy figured it out on her own since she's still tasting a lot of things! ha ha

Here's how you make it. Since it's all equal parts you can make as much or as little as you need:

Equal Parts:

Powdered Milk
Honey
Creamy Peanut Butter

I added just a bit of flour to make it stick together better.

P.S. YES! I got this idea from an episode of Jon & Kate Plus 8 :)

Day at the Park

2009-05-29T15:22:00.000-07:00

There was a nice break from all the rain, so we decided to go to the park. It was Lacy's first time on the swings (it's been snowing and freezing all winter) She wasn't so sure about it...

Then Grandma came to the park to have a picnic with us and Lacy was excited to have Grandma push her on her big-girl swing!

Then Lacy starts singing! And I mean SINGIN'! She just swayed back and forth singing "la la la la la la la la" it was so cute!!

Then I let her run around the park for a while. She wore herself our running from one end of the huge park to the other!

The Aunts gave Kaylee a volleyball and are teaching her how to play. Every time someone would drop the ball Lacy would run over and try to snatch it up! She wants so badly to be one of the big kids and loves her sister so much that she wants to do whatever Kaylee is doing!

Favorite Family Picture

2009-05-29T15:19:00.000-07:00

This picture CRACKS ME UP! It's great for 2 reasons...ONE everyone totally looks 80's fabulosity! And then the cherry on top is the goof-ball way Jared is looking off into the distance! ha ha He said that photographer kept telling him to put his hand on his dad's shoulder and he thought that was stupid, so he was looking off in rebellion! So there's the evidence! Jared has been ruining family pictures since 1985! ha ha ha

Petersen Legacy

2009-05-28T14:39:00.000-07:00

I thought this is awesome! This is our ward building, it's a framed picture of Jared's great-great-grandpa, Niels Petersen. He was the one who settled the town of Pinedale and was the bishop for many years. I think that he looks a LOT like Jared does! He has the same nose, lips, and cheek bones. The eyes are wider but the same shape has Jared's!

The next bishop was Neils brother-in-law (also related to Jared) and the 3rd bishop is Jared great grandpa! These men went through so much and have so many cool stories! It was neat to see the pictures in our church and to remember what his family went through so that we have this beautiful church, and a strong family legacy to lean on! Awesome!

Girls Night!

2009-05-18T22:34:00.000-07:00

My little girl is growing up! Which exciting, fun, scary, and sad all rolled into one! Her cousin Alicia is living with her dad and let's face it, guys just aren't good at the girly stuff. So he asked me if I could take Alicia for a night and do all the girl stuff with her that girls need to know as they start getting older.

I took Kaylee and Alicia to the store and gave them each a basket to carry. I walked them to the make-up aisle and taught them which brands of mascara work best and the difference between curved and straight brushes and mascara colors. Since Alicia is almost 12 years old she got a light brown color mascara. Not enough to really stand out when she wears it, but enough to make her feel like a young lady and give her good practice. Kaylee got clear mascara and clear lip gloss to start learning. (You can't see anything with the mascara, but it sure does boost Kaylee's self esteem to think that she's wearing make up ha ha). We also bought deodorant, facial soap and scrubs. Then we got Alicia razors, shaving gel. Although Kaylee was very jealous that her cousin got to start shaving her legs, Kaylee is WAY too young to have stubble on her legs, so she had to sit this activity out for another few years.

That night I did a home-made sugar rub facial and then they kicked back and eat cup cakes while the facial set. They LOVED it! And then later that afternoon I took them swimming! It was such a fun girls night and gave me a great opportunity to start the talks about changing and growing up!

My little girl is growing up! Which exciting, fun, scary, and sad all rolled into one! Her cousin Alicia is living with her dad and let's face it, guys just aren't good at the girly stuff. So he asked me if I could take Alicia for a night and do all the girl stuff with her that girls need to know as they start getting older.

Playing in the Poop

2009-05-18T22:25:00.000-07:00

Okay, so maybe this isn't my proudest moment as a mom! ha ha My children are running around in the manure filled flower beds! As a family we all went outside and got our flower beds ready for summer. We laid the manure down and started watering the ground when all of a sudden Lacy comes running into the manure! Then Kaylee chases her and before you know it they are knee deep in cow poop and loving it! ha ha ha Goofy girls! Jared kept splashing them with the hose much to their delight!

Crash and Burn!

2009-05-18T22:04:00.000-07:00

Kaylee took her first big fall on her bike. :( She was riding down the big hill next to our house and she fell. When Alicia ran in the house and said Kaylee was hurt Jared and I quickly hurried out the door to check on her. We didn't know what to expect, because Kaylee is the type of girl who stubs her toe and needs to lay on the couch with an ice pack all day. ha ha

I'm glad we hurried out to her because she was pretty banged up. Poor girl had road rash all up and down both sides of her body. I got Kaylee in the shower and helped her wash out her cuts. She got so worked up that she threw up all over in the shower! Poor girl, she's not a dare devil so she never really gets hurt. This was her biggest "owie" she's ever had. Jared gave her a blessing that she would be comforted and will be able to sleep well that night as her body healed. That was very thoughtful. here's some pictures of Kaylee's crash, it looked a lot worse in real life!

Kaylee took her first big fall on her bike. :( She was riding down the big hill next to our house and she fell. When Alicia ran in the house and said Kaylee was hurt Jared and I quickly hurried out the door to check on her. We didn't know what to expect, because Kaylee is the type of girl who stubs her toe and needs to lay on the couch with an ice pack all day. ha ha I'm glad we hurried out to her because she was pretty banged up. Poor girl had road rash all up and down both sides of her body. Jared is always getting road rash riding his dirt bike, so he knew exactly what she needed to do. I got Kaylee in the shower and helped her wash out her cuts. She got so worked up that she threw up all over in the shower! Poor girl, she's not a dare devil so she never really gets hurt. This was her biggest "owie" she's ever had. Jared gave her a blessing that she would be comforted and will be able to sleep well that night as her body healed. That was very thoughtful. here's some pictures of Kaylee's crash

Breakfast Buddy

2009-05-18T21:55:00.000-07:00

Lacy loves to be in the thick of things! So lately she has really liked me to either hold her or sit her on the counter while I stand next to her and cook. This morning Lacy was helping me make some pancakes and bacon! She's such a little sweetheart!!!

Temple

2009-05-01T23:48:00.001-07:00

Jared's brother Will got his endowments out in the Snowflake Temple this week. We were so happy for him and Jared was honored to be his escort. Here are some pictures of that day!

Here's Jared goofing around with Will! ha ha

Easter Dresses

2009-05-01T23:42:00.001-07:00

My mom bought cute new matching Easter Dresses for the girls! So sweet huh!

Easter

2009-05-01T23:15:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter! This Easter was fun because it was the first one that Lacy was old enough to really enjoy. After we put the girls to bed the night before Jared and I stayed up and filled Easter Eggs and he was in charge of hiding the eggs around the living room. Above is a picture of Lacy as she walks into the living room Easter morning!

And here is Jared introducing her to candy filled Easter eggs. She caught on REALLY quick! And figured out that if she threw the eggs down on the floor they would break open and she could get the candies! I thought we would have to lead her around the living room and show her how to look for the eggs. But nope, our smart little girl picked up on it in a flash and was able to sniff out each and every hidden Easter in no time! I'm sure the fact that they are chocolate filled helped out her motivation!

Kaylee got all her favorite candies, a new Easter dress, and some Littlest Pet Shops for Easter.

She had so much fun later that afternoon when all the cousins came over and did a big Easter Egg hunt in the backyard! Me and Joyce walked around the backyard and hid a ton of Easter eggs. Then Kaylee, Alicia, and Caleb ran outside for the hunt. We told the kids that they would get a special surprise to whoever wins.

Once we saw that Caleb was going to be the clear winner we decided to play a prank on him. All the kids got together to count their eggs and see who won. Once Caleb saw that he won he go all excited for his special surprise. He didn't realize that the prize for Caleb was a kiss from grandma!! ha ha ha We all got such a good laugh!!

Sand Rail

2009-05-01T23:06:00.000-07:00

Sand Buggy!

Jared's brother Micheal got a Sand Rail and needed to keep it in our garage. Jared is delighted to have a new project to tinker in the garage with. Lacy immediately feel in love with it too! I was busy so Jared put Lacy in the seat while was working on it. She got all excited each time he would rev up the engine! At one point he had the sand rail going and Lacy was standing behind it letting the exhaust blow through her hair. She had her arms out and was singing! What a little grease monkey!

She kept leaning over and grabbing the gear shift trying to get the buggy to start to drive off! ha ha ha Nice try Lacy bug!

Family Outing

2009-04-03T22:43:00.000-07:00

We had a little family outing this week. Jan and Joyce let us borrow their quads and we took the girls out by Lone Pine Dam to go riding. Lacy of COURSE loved it! Kaylee drove her own quad for a while but then decided she just wanted to ride with me and Lacy and Jared drove around on his dirt bike. He lead us out to this spot where there were little slopes and hills that the girls had a lot of fun going over! Lacy had so much fun that it plain tuckered her out. As we were driving up to the truck after out ride I looked down and noticed that she was asleep still sitting up! ha ha ha Lacy does NOT sleep just anywhere so this was so funny for us. Jared started laughing when we pulled into the camp and he saw Lacy fast asleep sitting up! Poor baby but she had SO MUCH FUN!

Pudding for Dinner

2009-04-03T22:36:00.001-07:00

So I was busy working and Jared said that he was hungry and he was going to make something for dinner. I heard the fridge door opening and the blender going so I figured he was making some dinner. Then he brings me a bowl heaping with chocolate pudding! I laughed and said "Is this what's for dinner??" and he said "Yup..it sounded good" ha ha ha Then he gave Lacy her own bowl in her high chair. She of course made a massive mess but loved every minute of it! When we got her out of her high chair she had pudding in her ears, her arm pits, all down her legs and even on her toes! How the HECK does that happen?! ha ha ha I'm glad she enjoyed it because it's not like we feed her pudding for dinner every day! ha ha ha

Joseph City Trip

2009-04-03T22:27:00.000-07:00

My dad is working up in Holbrook at a job site right now and my mom is off work for spring break and she's visiting him. So we thought that it would be fun to do a little day trip and drive up there to see them. I've never been to Joseph City where Jared grew up and since it's only 10 miles away from Holbrook we decided to go have Jared give us a tour.

Okay, this picture CRACKS ME UP! We stopped and took pictures in front of the Joseph City city limits signs (you can see them above) and then we got back in the car and started driving and we saw another big billboard saying "The best thing about Joseph City is the people" I started laughing SO hard and told Jared that he HAD to take a picture in front of that picture. It was a great picture because he likes to look grumpy in pictures so it made this photo so funny!!!

There is a monument in Joseph City made out of petrified wood that talks about how the mormon pioneers settled the town and that it's the oldest mormon community in Arizona!

Family Pictures

2009-04-03T22:22:00.000-07:00

Here's some family pictures we took out in your backyard on our deck. It's rare that we can coax Jared into some family pictures, so since we did we are going to celebrate and post them!

Flower Beds

2009-04-03T22:17:00.001-07:00

Our new house has tons of little flower beds and vegetable gardens. We gave Kaylee her own flower bed in front of the house. We went to Lowe's and let her pick out the flowers that she wanted to plant. Then we all went out in the front door and got the beds ready and Kaylee sprinkled all the seeds. She has been such a great little gardener and has been very responsible about watering the flower beds. We might have planted them a little soon because it snowed a few weeks after we planted, so here's to hoping! :)

Potty Training

2009-04-03T22:13:00.000-07:00

Little Lacy Bug is potty training! She's young, but she's showing all the signs that she's ready to start potty training. Whenever we put her on the potty she goes right away, we just got to get her to start going by herself. Here's some cute pictures of Grandma Donna reading Lacy a book while she was on the potty! ha ha

Sleepy Baby

2009-04-03T22:06:00.000-07:00

Here's a cute picture of Lacy cuddling with her daddy. In the mornings I will get Kaylee up for school and then wake Lacy up, get her changed and dressed and then put her in bed with her daddy. She loves to lay there and give him kisses or just crawl all over him and pester him! ha ha

This picture of Lacy's "Sleeping Faker" face. She does this when she wants to make us think that she's fast asleep! Nice try Lacy...you're not fulling anyone!

Happy Birthday Kaylee

2009-04-03T21:44:00.000-07:00

HOLY COW my little girl is 9 years old! When the heck did this happen?! For Kaylee's birthday we had all the family over and we made her a yummy dinner and then we had cake and some home made mint chocolate chip ice cream (her favorite).

Lacy was all to happy to help her big sister open her presents! She got so excited you would have thought that the presents where for her! ha ha

Jan and Joyce came to the party and they just love to spoil our kids! Kaylee made out like a bandit with a bunch of new toys and her favorite movie Madagascar 2. A few days before her party we were over at the aunts house and I over heard Kaylee talking to Joyce. Kaylee and I had to have a talk about money being tight since Jared lost his job and that this year her party presents might be a little slim, but we would try hard to make the party fun for her. So while Kaylee was talking to Joyce she said "You know, I'm counting on you guys...." I said "KAYLEE! What are you talking about??" and then I noticed that she was going over her birthday present wish list with Jan and Joyce!!! ha ha ha ha All the kids know who to go to be spoiled that's for sure! They are awesome aunts, thanks Jan and Joyce!!

Kaylee's big wish list was anything "Littlest Pet Shop" Here is a picture of all her new loot she got at the party!I was shopping for items for the birthday party and I needed to get a new mop for the house. When I brought it home I showed Jared and said that since it was pink, maybe Kaylee would help out cleaning the kitchen more often! Jared started laughing and said that we should wrap up up the handle with wrapping paper and put a bow on it and give it to her as a birthday present as a joke! ha ha ha She thought it was so funny when Jared brought in her "present" ha ha ha

Dirt Bikin' Baby

2009-04-03T21:29:00.001-07:00

Lacy is our little dirt bike rider! I have never seen a baby so enthralled with a dirt bike in my life! Whenever the garage door opens and she sees the bike she goes nuts pointing at it and getting all excited. Jared put her on the bike and she immediately put her hands on the handle bars like she knew just what to do! He pushed her around the front yard on the bike and she kept rocking back and forth like she is going to make it start going!

So Jared thought it would be fun to put her on the bike and go for a little drive. He went slow but she LOVED having the wind in her piggy tails! ha ha She would get all excited and say "OOOOOOOOOO" ! When Jared took her off the bike she shot him the dirtiest look and was so sad when he put it away! ha ha

Jared was doing some work in the garage and so he put Lacy in there with him because she LOVES spending time with her daddy. She sat there being so good and watched Jared with his dirt bike. She just couldn't wait until he lifted her up on the seat!

Valentine's Day

2009-04-03T15:48:00.000-07:00

Well Valentine's for me this year was kinda sad because Jared was still out in North Carolina. But it was fun because my parents came into town. My dad surprised my mom with a horse drawn carriage ride in the snow up in Greer! Awww so sweet! So they stayed at our house while they were in town.

Our new house

2009-04-03T09:43:00.000-07:00

Can you believe that we moved 2 days before Christmas, and in 2 feet of snow?? It was definately an interesting move and being from the valley, something that I've never had to experience before! After being at Jan and Joyce's house for a few months we were so excited to move into our house. But we miss seeing Jan and Joyce and go over to their house often! We are all so grateful for their unselfishness and examples of service!

Our new house is on an acre lot and has beautiful views of the pine trees. It has a huge deck that I'm excited to use once we have better weather. The only bad thing about out house is that it's solid wood. And I'm not talking about the construction. The inside is SOLID WOOD! Every room is covered from floor to ceiling in wood paneling. At least it is real wood and really pretty...but it's still all wood so how in the hay am I supposed to put up vinyl all over the house?! Anyone who knows me knows that interior decorating is important to me and I totally don't know what to do with all this wood!

Okay, anyway...also in January Wesley moved in too! We have a mother-in-law house in our backyard. It's a small little house that is seperate from the rest of the house and it has a bedroom and bathroom. Wes was excited to move out and spread his wings. Since Jared is still in North Carolina it was so nice having Wes here to help me out with the little things guys do around the house.

Also in January, on a sad note I had a miscarriage. I found out that I was pregnant with twins. Jared was in North Carolina and it was really hard not having him here for support. But thankfully my family was here helping Wes move in and they were able to take care of my kids while I went through the miscarraige.

While my parents were here my mom took the grandkids on a walk around the neighborhood and also did her trade mark "sink bath" with Lacy, here are some fun pictures from the month of January!

Lacy's Birthday

2009-01-06T22:34:00.000-08:00

Lacy is offically 1 years old! What a whirlwind this year has been!! She is becoming such a big girl! She is up and walking (no more crawling for her!). She is such a busy little girl she walks from room to room. She especially loves to open the dresser drawers and emptying the contents! She is also trying out her little voice with lots of new words. She says "Oh wow!"..."Yeah!"..."Ouch"..."No no no" She is such a smart little cookie. I'll ask her questions and she'll say "yeah" or "no"! It's so much fun!

So to celebrate the little lady's birthday we had Grandma Petersen, Jan, Joyce, Will and all her cousins, and since my family was in town, Grandma & Grandpa Davis, and uncle Wes was able to come to the party too! We made glorified tacos for dinner and my mom brought the cake. Lacy is no rookie at knowing what cake is (thanks to spoiling from grandma beth and the aunts ha ha). As soon as the cake hit her high chair she got a huge grin and dug right in!

Lacy's birthday party was scheduled on the new years eve, (a day after her birthday) to accomodate schedules. My parents came in from New Mexico and brought with them a whole bunch of fireworks with them. Jared, Wes and my dad had so much fun lighting off the fireworks and I'm sure making all the old farts in the neighborhood mad at the new people who just moved in! ha ha
The next day Bryan and Celinda had decided to come up and stay with us for a few days. It was so much fun to have all my nieces come over! Kaylee was in heaven playing with Kelsey and Lindsey and cuddling with Sadie! Here are some cute pictures of all the girls playing in the backyard.

Anna Mae

2009-01-06T22:13:00.000-08:00

Anna Mae died today. She was special to all of us kids. She lived as a maid/cook/caregiver/best friend to my grandmother, Velva Skousen. Anna Mae moved in when Grandma still had little ones in the house and needed the help. Ever since then she has been with Grandma, and even though they drove each other crazy, they were very dependent on each other. It seems fitting that Anna Mae would do in death what she had done in life...follow Grandma's lead. I'm sure that Grandma was there to greet Anna Mae when it was her time. We love you and will miss you!!!

Misscarriage

2009-01-06T13:57:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone...I'll keep this short because I don't feel like getting into details right now, but on Friday I miscarried my baby. Even though this pregnancy wasn't planned in the least we were both excited and are now very sad for the loss. Thankfully my parents and Bryan & Celinda were in town and able to provide me the emotional support I needed. Thank you guys.

PREGNANT

2008-12-20T17:35:00.000-08:00

So I was at Safeway today grocery shopping and as I walked down the aisle I saw the pregnancy tests. Just off the top of my head I thought maybe I'd get a test and take one in a week or so if I didn't start. Later that day I went to the bathroom and the test was on the counter so I thought, why not...

Well it came back instantly with a bright blue line saying "pregnant" Kaylee was nearby so I yelled for her and told her. She jumped up and down and got all excited. I gave Lacy a hug and asked her if she had a little brother or sister who was excited to come to our family. Even though I know she's only a year old and probably didn't understand, it was so sweet because she crawled up to me and gave me a HUGE, long hug. It was so sweet.

I called Jared and he was excited. I started bawling and asking all sorts of questions on how we are going to do this or that. And telling him that I hadn't had time to forget how much being pregnant stinks to be pregnant again! He just laughed and reassured me that everything will be okay, and we have time to work out all the details. I'm so lucky to have such a sweet husband who is so supportive!

I looked up my due date and it turns out that I'm due on Jared's birthday, August 23rd! So here starts another chapter in the Petersen Family! Everyone stay tuned, it's sure to be a full year!

Ho Ho HO

2008-12-08T23:05:00.001-08:00

Lacy has learned how to say Ho Ho Ho. Usually she does a MUCH better job at it, but she was distracted this morning. Regardless, it's cute and I thought I'd post it!

Gingerbread House

2008-12-07T17:44:00.000-08:00

Me and girls made a gingerbread house tonight. I think it turned out really cute! We kept Lacy at arms length while we were making it. But once it got time to take pictures...you can follow the pictures below to see how it turned out...

First she poses....

Then she grabs....

Then she cries when she didn't get a taste! You can practically see her tonsils...sheesh! :)

Beauty School Drop Out!

2008-12-06T20:45:00.000-08:00

Lacy has really straight hair that is going through that funky growing-out phase. So while we were down in the Valley, Aunt Sherry decided to put some velcro curlers in Lacy's hair to see if she could give it some umph....I'll let you be the judge if they gave her hair any .... um.... BODY! ha ha ha

Christmas in Show Low!

2008-12-06T20:05:00.000-08:00

Okay, so it's not snowing, and I'm seriously feeling jipped because we are living in Show Low now! There should be fresh snow each morning on the front lawn! But even though it's not snowing, it sure is feeling A LOT like Christmas! We have a family tradition that in December each night, before we go to bed that we read one Christmas story! This year, we turned off all the lights, made some hot cocoa and sat around the Christmas tree to read our first story. Wiggle worm (Lacy) would not sit still no matter what! We got half way through the story before she lunged towards a mug of hot cocoa and succeeded in spilling it all over the floor. So now, we drink our hot cocoa AFTER the story so that I have both hands to rein in Lacy!

Today the city of Show Low had a bunch of activities to kick off the holidays. First we went to the McCarty house which is so beautifully decorated. And behind the McCarty house they have all of the pine trees around the baseball fields lined all the way up to the tippy tops in Christmas Lights. They have all the lights coordinated to the rythmn of music! So we tuned in our radio station to the music the trees are programed to and had SO MUCH fun listening to the music and watching the trees sing along!

After that we drove to down-town Show Low where we watched the Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony. They had the Show Low High School marching band play some music, then a choir sang some songs that were sung so beautifully it made me tear up. After that they did a count down and then lit the 72 foot Christmas tree!!!

Kaylee had earned some money and was excited to purchase a cup of cocoa before we drove down to the Deuce of Clubs Road and backed into a parking lot so that we could watch the APS Electrical Light Parade! I seriously underestimated how cold it was going to be! Eariler that day I was chastising myself for not cleaning out the truck since we went down to the valley, but tonight was GRATEFUL I hadn't! Because I had extra gloves, beanies, and coats in the truck! We bundled up but poor Lacy's little hands were BRIGHT red, and Kaylee (who forgot to put on socks with her ballerina shoes) had frozen toes. I felt so bad, I guess I'm getting used to not living in the valley with their mild winters!!!

During the parade they handed out some candy. We were watching the cars go buy when all of a sudden I looked down and saw Lacy smacking her lips...this is what she got a hold of!

Goodbye :(

2008-12-06T09:41:00.000-08:00

Sunday came WAY too fast and it was time to take Jared back to the airport. This time is was MUCH harder to have him leave. The first time I knew that it was going to be hard, but this time I knew just HOW hard it is to have him gone all the time.

My mom and dad took Kaylee and Lacy to church with them so that I could drive Jared back to the airport. Before they left for Church, I think that Lacy could feel that her daddy was leaving again, because she started doing the same thing she did when he came home, just holding onto her daddy and not wanting to let go. Here are some sweet pictures of Lacy saying goodbye her her daddy. They make me get all teared up each time I see them :(

Back in the Valley

2008-12-06T09:20:00.000-08:00

When we got in town my mom started making dinner, Lacy LOVES it when the refrigerator is open. She crawls right in and helps herself! ha ha

After dinner my mom had us open up all of the Christmas presents she bought for us, since we wouldn't be seeing them again until after Christmas. She got us a big framed picture of coyotes, and a pine cone wreath that is going to look great in our new cabin! Kaylee got a bath robe (which she has been wanting for years now!), some slippers, and some other stuff. Jared got a HUGE 1lb size Sugar Daddy! He was bummed that he forgot it when he left because he is looking forward to breaking into that big candy bar! Lacy got some cute new clothes and a couple other things. THANKS MOM and DAD!

Jared's flight leaves on Sunday, so Saturday we drove down to the valley to stay with my family. That night we went down to the temple to see the lights.

Lacy LOVED looking at all the lights!! Whenever Jared got close to the lights she would reach out and get all excited!!! Here's some cute pictures of Jared and Lacy at the temple lights!

Mom and Dad Davis went with us too. Grandpa got Lacy up on his shoulders and she got such a kick out of that!!

Thanksgiving!

2008-12-06T09:03:00.000-08:00

The day after Jared got in town it was Thanksgiving, and we all hauled out to the middle of BFE to have dinner at Micheal's house. Mike is Jared's brother and he is living in a multi-million dollar home on a 600 acre ranch. The house is AMAZING with a wrapping deck, huge fireplaces, and a master bathroom that I would KILL for!

Jared, his mom, Will (his other brother), his kids, and us all went out there. It has been a long time since all the brothers were able to get together, and they all had so much fun. Mike fried a turkey and it was delicious! While they were waiting for the food to get done, they shot their guns off the porch. It was rainy that day, so Jared was bummed that none of the coyotes were out and about.
Here's some pictures from the day... This one is of Lacy. She got her cousin, Miley's, little walker she had so much fun pushing it around the house!

This one is of Kaylee with Mike and Lindsey's new puppy, Boots.

Jared's home!

2008-12-06T08:39:00.000-08:00

YEAH!!!!!!!!! Jared is home!!!! After being gone for a month and a half in North Carolina, he was able to fly home for Thanksgiving! I was so excited to see him when I picked him up at the airport, that I was nervous! I felt like I was going on a first date with the cute guy at school. It was so much fun to see him standing there!!!

His flight was delayed an hour, so we were behind schedule and we decided to drive straight back to Show Low so that we could see Lacy before she went to bed. We got just outside of town when all of a sudden all of the gauges on the truck went flying and the truck started smoking!! I FREAKED out thinking about how this is our only vehicle and it's Christmas time, and we don't have the extra money to pay for a huge repair bill. Jared was able to get the truck back to my parents house and we went down to AutoZone to buy a new clutch fan. Jared had pricing it before because we knew it was going out and it was about $300. We went to one part shop store and they were sold out...so I started stressing again...then we went to the second store, and they had only 2 left! and it was only $70!!!! Jared and my dad went home and together they were able to put it in the truck in only about 2 hours.

We got back on the road at about midnight. We were both EXHAUSTED but we enjoyed being back together. We were outside of the canyon, when we noticed that the gas was below empty. Jared said that the gauge was probably off because the truck overheated. So I said a silent prayer that we would make it to the gas station in Show Low okay. We pulled into the Whitings, and filled up the truck. We have a 24 gallon tank, and we filled up 23.9 gallons!!! Thankfully Heavenly Father stayed up to 3am to make sure we got home safely!

That morning when Lacy woke up, Jared ran in there to get her. It was the sweetest thing I've ever seen...Lacy got a HUGE smile and then curled up on his chest. She wouldn't let go for at least 30 minutes. She would pull away and look up at him and smile. Then she would curl right back up on his chest and be absolutely quiet. For anyone who knows Lacy, knows that holding still and being quiet isn't something that she does!!! So I knew that she was just so happy to see her daddy she didn't want to let him go! The rest of the trip she was practically glued to his side and wouldn't let him go out of her sight!

Lacy's First Playdate!

2008-11-23T19:39:00.000-08:00

My best friend Suzanne and I got pregnant about the same time!! It was SO MUCH fun being pregnant together and comparing doctor visits, embarrassing pregnancy moments, and delivery stories. Her baby, Whitney Grace (aka Whinnie) and my little girl, Lacy (aka Lacy Bug) have turned out to be little best friends too!!!

Suzanne was sweet enough to watch Lacy for me one night and she snapped a few pictures of our daughters first play date! Hopefully if Suzanne and I play this right, these photos will be played at their baby showers that they for each other when they are all grown up and having their own babies!! :) BFF's!Lacy with Trista (Suzanne's oldest daughter)

Family Clean Up

2008-11-21T22:30:00.000-08:00

Well after dinner we always get everyone in the kitchen and help clean up. I guess Lacy is learning how to do this, because as soon as the dishwasher door comes down, she bee-lines it over to it and crawls right in. I thought it'd be fun to post this :) Jared...this is mostly for you so you can see Lacy I know you miss all of us!

First Snow!

2008-11-11T09:55:00.000-08:00

Me, Kaylee, and Lacy drove out to BFE to see Jared's brother, Micheal's new house. It is a HUGE ranch house up ontop of a hill on a 600 acre ranch. It has a deck that wraps around the entire house, and is filled with huge fireplaces and a kitchen that made me instantly green with jealousy!

We had fun getting a tour and helping unpack their house. Mike made some tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for us for dinner. Lindsey was sweet enough to break open Miley's old baby clothes and give us some warm winter clothes for Lacy.

It was fun hanging out, when all of a sudden it started raining so hard that it felt like the house was going to get washed away down the hill. I thought about waiting for the rain to let up before we ran out to the truck, when Beth called and said that it was snowing in Show Low! That meant that the roads were going to get worse and we needed to get. So Mike showed me how to put the truck in 4 wheel drive and we were off!

The snow started coming down so hard that I could barely see the hood of the truck! I was driving like 15 miles per hour and paranoid because I knew there were lots of little 4 way stops that I knew I was blowing through the intersections and I was so worried I was going to get T-boned. But I couldn't see the stop signs! Finally the snow let up a little bit so I could see better and we were SO EXCITED for the snow we decided that it felt like Christmas so Kaylee and I started sing Christmas Carols!

The next morning a lot of the snow had started melting, but Kaylee was still excited to go to school for the first time in the snow! Here's a picture of her off to school! We can't wait until it snows again!!!

2008-11-08T20:03:00.000-08:00

Lacy had her well child check up and Dr. Leavitt said that she is 20 lbs 8 oz. and that she has finally caught up with the 50th percentile for her weight! Way to go Lacy! He also said that she can start eating meat! So Jared told me that since he can't be there, he wanted me to fry her up some bacon and video tape it so he could see her have her first piece of bacon :)

And here it is...listen closely the first minute...you'll hear Lacy give an unexpected noise..

Electrocuted

2008-11-08T19:46:00.000-08:00

This video is actually from last month, when Jared was still in town. Our room has chunky crystal light pulls on the fan and Lacy kept grabbing at them. So when she'd reach up Jared would jiggle her like she was getting electrocuted. She thought it was soooo funny!

Hawley Lake

2008-11-08T14:29:00.000-08:00

Since Hawley Lake in practically in our backyard, we decided to drive over there and take a visit. We brought a few sandwiches and had a picnic by the lake. It was pretty windy, so we didn't stay too long, but I had to take some pictures before we left...hope you like em! Too bad Jared wasn't there, it would have made some cute family pictures!

Lemon Face

2008-11-08T14:26:00.000-08:00

We went out to dinner one night and I gave Lacy the lemon from my drink...thought the pictures were so funny that I'd post them!

Trick or Treat!

2008-11-08T14:08:00.000-08:00

TRICK OR TREAT!

Halloween was so much fun this year! Kaylee dressed up as Sleeping Beauty and Lacy went as a pink poodle named "Fi Fi"

Before we got ready for Halloween me, Kaylee, and Will's kids got together and carved a pumpkin. The kids loved getting their hands full of the pumpkin guts!

After everyone cleaned the pumpkin off of them, we started getting everyone ready for Halloween. I picked up some glitter make up and glitter body spray that I put on the girls. I also did their make up and put their hair in ringlets. Then I finished off my glitter torture with using glitter hairspray. They looked so pretty!!!!

Then it was "Fi Fi's" turn! Lacy hates getting dressed and she fought this outfit pretty hard, but once we got outside, I think she enjoyed it being so warm. We first went to our wards Trunk or Treat. They had a combined ward event and there was lots of chili, corn bread, and hot cocoa. They had the entire church parking lot filled with trunks, and some of them were very creative! Joyce had a lot of fun showing Lacy off to all of her friends in the ward!

After we left the trunk or treat we went back to Grandma's house and we took some pictures, and got ready for hitting the streets! Kaylee had a blast running up and down the streets. We had to go back to Grandma's house twice to empty her candy bag so it wasn't so heavy! ha ha The only thing that could have made the holiday better would have been to have Jared there!! I miss him so much!

Spoiled

2008-11-08T14:01:00.000-08:00

Lacy took a nap, and I was so tired that I decided I'd lay down too. I was just about to doze off when I heard Aunt Joyce waking Lacy up. Ha ha Turns out that they went and bought Lacy a new little walker. It's the cutest walker I've seen, it's a Disney Princess walker with twinkle lights and princess music. Lacy was so excited for it that she kept stepping on Grandma while she was assembling it to try to get into her new walker! She loves it! Thanks grandma, Joyce, and Jan!!! You're making a spoiled little monster out of her! ha ha

Alicia's Birthday Party

2008-11-08T13:52:00.001-08:00

Tonight we had Alicia's birthday party, she turned 11. Kaylee and I picked out a couple of Littlest Pet Shop toys for her since we got an insider's tip that Grandma was buying her a Littlest Pet Shop play house.

Since her birthday was just a few days before Halloween Will bought some Halloween themed cupcakes with black frosting. I had Lacy on my lap as I was having my cake when all of a sudden she dive bombed towards it! Since her fingers were full of frosting, I thought, what the heck...let her have her first cup cake!

Moving

2008-11-08T13:41:00.000-08:00

We had to go out to the storage unit to put some stuff in it. Jared told me that it was full to the rim, I thought he was just exagerating, well...he wasn't. It took all afternoon to move things around and get to the things we needed to get to put stuff we didn't away.

It wasn't long before the girls got a little sick of moving and let the boys do the work. Notice this picture above how Jared is carrying things and notice what Kaylee is doing. ha ha ha

Kaylee and Alicia took Lacy "driving". Lacy just LOVED playing with the steering wheel and honking the horn.

Here is Kaylee channeling her inner-Hannah Montana! ha ha

First Weekend in Show Low

2008-11-08T12:00:00.000-08:00

Our first Saturday here in Show Low we helped Jan and Joyce clean out and organize their garage. We enlisted the help of our nephews, Rylee and Caleb to help rack up the pine needles and mow the lawn. It was a beautiful day so we decided to bring Lacy out and let her crawl around. She loves being outside!

So we were busy cleaning when all of a sudden we heard a CRUNCH! The 82 year old man who lives across the street was backing out of his driveway and smacked right into our truck! He got out, looked and it and then hurred and drove off! The nerve! Besides, how did he think he would get away with it, we were all in the front yard and saw...and he lives right across the street! There's really no running when you're neighbors! So we called the police and had a ticket and once he got home he had a note on his door from the police department telling him that he had to give us his insurance information. He came over to get it, he didn't even apologize. But he was nice enough, maybe he was just embarassed? Anyway..here's a picture of our crunched truck :(

Sink Bath Baby

2008-11-08T11:39:00.001-08:00

Lacy got all messy while having her breakfast so I decided that instead of carting her upstairs and having little bits of prunes and rice cereal dripping all the way up the stairs, I would just put her in the sink. Here's a fun video of her sink bath:

Oh no...

2008-10-25T18:06:00.000-07:00

So the economy is in the toilet and every industry is hurting. But the hardest hit ones is real estate and the construction industry. Jared lost his job at Willmeng earlier this year, just after Lacy was born. It took us almost 4 months before we could find another job. We were blessed because we had side jobs, and taxes come in, and not to mention that I finally got off my buns and took the church's advice and got my 3 month food supply. So even though we were stressed about what we were going to do, we had savings, money coming in, and food, so we were okay. Just as the money well was going to go dry, Jared got a new job at Caymus. It's a small construction company that work him to a bone, but he is grateful for the work.

With the economy struggling, Caymus started running out of jobs. Jared started worrying because they were loosing all of their bids on new jobs. Finally, on Tuesday his boss called and said that they were letting him go because they had no jobs, and they couldn't afford his salary.

Panic....that's all I can say. The company paid us less than his old company did, so we were already tight on our budgets. Then when he lost his job, we had no money in savings, and there is no side jobs. Our lease was up on the 15th which was in a few days. So we called our landlord and told him the situation and explained why we couldn't renew our lease, so we had to be out in 4 days.

I truly believe that Heavenly Father is mindful of us and what we were going through. We kneeled down and prayed that we would somehow find a place to live and have enough money to get there and get set up. We had no idea how any of this was going to piece together, until the most amazing things started happening.....

We couldn't afford to pay for a new house, especially with no job and not knowing when money was going to come in again. Jared's family all lives up in Show Low and they sweetly offered to have us come live with them for as long as we needed the help. Jan and Joyce had 2 bedrooms and a bathroom that they weren't using, that we moved into.
Jared's cousin Neil came over and helped us pack everything up. Then he did such a generous thing, he went and paid for our U-Haul and the gas that it would take for us to get up here.
A friend in my ward, Angela Robinson, came over to pick up some vinyl that she ordered. But when she came over she surprised me by saying that she was going to pay for a cleaning crew to come over and do a move-out clean on the house for me! What a releif! Moving is so hard and draining, and once you get everything out of the house the last thing you want to do is run around cleaning every nook and cranny.

Jared left Saturday in the U-haul with Lacy and moved up here. Kaylee and I started behind to finish the move. We stayed with Neil and Nikki in what Kaylee called "The Visitors Center". I guess she was so impressed with a house having a guest bedroom and bathroom that she gave it a VIP name. haha. They have these cute little kittens that Kaylee had a blast chasing around the house.

By Tuesday morning we were done with the odds and ends packing and finished painting the downstairs office so we drove up to Show Low. Kaylee and I must have played 20 questions non-stop for the entire 3 hours. Ugh...but it kept her entertained, and it kept my mind off things so I didn't cry the whole drive up there.

Jan and Joyce are just amazing women. I feel so blessed to have such wonderful in-laws who are so eager to love and help us. Lacy has never been happier with all the attention she is getting up here. Both Jan and Joyce are retired school teachers and they have taken up full time jobs drooling over Lacy! ha ha. Jared's mom, Beth lives just 3 streets away so we get to see her everyday too. She has loved having Kaylee and Lacy up here too.

Kaylee has taken to Show Low like a fish to water! She has a great teacher, Mrs. Comer. Jared's brother, Will, lives just down the street, and Kaylee has had a blast becoming best friends with her cousin, Alicia who is her age. Kaylee rides the bus home everyday and goes straight to her room to do her homework so she can go play. They meet each other half way and ride their bikes around, play games, make forts in the back yard, all that fun stuff you just can't do in the valley. Kaylee is eagerly waiting for the first snow to come and was delighted to hear about "Snow Days"!

It's Fall Y'all!

2008-10-25T17:49:00.000-07:00

October started off with excitement as we hung got busy decorating the house with our fall decor, and dusting off the sweaters out the closet, we were excited to kick off the holidays! I had a Wall Envy party at my house that showcased all my fun Halloween designs and it was so much fun! I made these killer cupcakes. These graveyard cupcakes are a tradition at our house and they are so easy to make....

1 box Devil's Food Cake mix
1 container of chocolate frosting
1 container of chocolate sprinkles
2 boxes of mint Milano cookies

Bake the cupcakes, and once they are cooled, frost and sprinkle them. Then with a butter knife, stab a slit in the middle of the cupcake. Then slide a mint milano cookie in the middle. This gives it the look of a grave. It's so easy that Kaylee can hop in and help. We jammed out to Monster Mash and had so much fun!

Since I have a business license I was able to have Baish and Skinner as a vendor. I got the most adorable honeysuckle vines. I laced them down my stairs and then again over my entry way into the living room. It looked AWESOME!

Kitchen Fun!

2008-09-27T19:42:00.000-07:00

Jared's mom came and stay with us for a couple days since she was on vacation. Lacy was throughly spoiled and loved every minute of it! Friday morning I made strawberry crepes for breakfast. Grandma Petersen was getting ready for the day so it was just me and Lacy in the kitchen. I put her on the counter so she could help me make breakfast. First, she held the milk for me...
And then she helped me pour in the flour for the crepe batter...notice how she got a little smudge on her nose!...

Later that day I was cleaning the kitchen and Lacy was crawling around. Making the normal rounds, trying to find anything small enough to fit in her mouth off the floor...All of a sudden it got quiet. All mom's know this "quiet"...it's the kind of silence that tells you that they are up to no good! I look in the kitchen, no Lacy. I looked in the living room, no Lacy, I looked in the bathroom, no Lacy, I looked on the stairs, and in the front rooms, no Lacy. I started getting panicked! Then I heard smacking sounds coming from the pantry. She had never crawled into the pantry before, so I was surprised when I found her sitting in the pantry with a mouth full of Oreos! Kaylee had made a lunch and left the Oreos on the bottom self. Lacy crawled in there, and helped herself to the cookies! Little monster! ha ha ha ha

Grandma Skousen's Funeral

2008-09-27T18:28:00.000-07:00

Grandma's funeral was a week or so ago. It was a beautiful service, even though Lacy relished the quiet chapel because she could hear her little squawks and squeals echo! I had to get up and go into the cultural hall so that we didn't disrupt anyone. After the funeral we went to the graveside service. We were on our way when we realized two things, 1.) we were below empty on gas, and 2.) I forgot my debit card at home! So I had to run into the bank, stand in line, get cash, get gas, then run to the cemetery. We pulled up just as they were saying the closing prayer. :( I was so sad because I felt like I missed the whole thing. We went back to the church house for the luncheon. The relief society did a great job on the luncheon, and as I was sitting there, I looked around at all the family in the room and realized that grandma would have loved to have been there. She was always scheduling family get togethers, and she never missed any shower, birthday, or family party! Here are some pictures of the party...

Dustin flew in from Washington for the funeral. It was great to see him again. We miss him so much since he's been gone. Here's a picture of Dustin and Lacy at the luncheon...Dad with Aunt Denise. Notice how they both have the same silly face! Guess it runs in the family!

Lacy showing off her "Standing" skills. Jared holds her feet in his hand and balances her. She has this face on her that shows how much of a big girl she feels when he does it! ha ha
Uncle Russ playing with Kaylee. He loves to razz the kids!
Grandpa Davis playing with Lacy!

Teslin's Birthday

2008-09-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

We went out to Coolidge with Bryan and Celinda for Teslin's 1st birthday (Teslinis my cousin Cory's daughter). She so adorable with these big chunky cheeks! We had so much fun, there was good food and good company. Sheena's hired a decorator that did their home and I had so much fun looking at her house with all the cute stuff. I was just sick with jealousy by the end! ha ha Lacy had fun browsing all of the birthday presents! Afterwards we went over to Krystal's new house that she just built and took a tour. It was fun afternoon!Uncle Bob with TeslinBryan, Jennie, and Krystal
Darcel and Teslin

Grandma Skousen

2008-09-09T12:11:00.000-07:00

Grandma Skousen passed away today. She was an amazing woman with so many life experiences! I was closest to Grandma Skousen more than my other grandparents because she was the only one who lived here in the valley, that we would go see often. My love of the holidays stem from Grandma Skousen. She always tried to shard to make the holidays special to us kids. She would have a big dinner, and then all of the kids would go looking at Christmas lights while our parents and Grandma would set up elaborate stockings that were as tall we were that were stuffed with goodies. Grandma always focused on family and loves to have everyone over. When Grandma moved to Utah it was hard on me because i've grown up always having her nearby.

I was able to talk to grandma a few days ago before she was sedated. I told her that I loved her, and that we wanted to make a trip to Utah sometime soon and I needed her to get better because I wanted to see her. But she wasn't able to make it. She held on until all of her children were able to come to the hospital, and then they turned off her oxygen and she slipped away within a few minutes. I am relieved to know that she is not in pain, and most importantly, it's peaceful to know that I will see her again someday. I love you grandma!

Sleepy Lacy

2008-09-01T20:52:00.001-07:00

Lacy is such a great little sleeper! We were W.O.R.R.I.E.D. when she was born because she just would not sleep! She would only sleep for 2 hours day or night and then be up for 5 or 6 hours and then sleep for only 2 more hours. I am the type of person that needs good sleep or I turn into a crazy person. Until she was 3 months old she did this 2 hour sleep thing and I was quickly becoming a nutcase. Then one night I put her down at 9pm and she didn't wake up until 7am. I still woke up all night worried that she had SIDS or something because she NEVER slept like that before. I don't know what triggered it, but all of a sudden she just got the swing of things and started sleeping through the night. She goes to be at about 9:00pm and she wakes up at 9:00am! I couldn't be happier with it too! Ha Ha As long as she gets her good night sleep and then gets her 3 naps during the day she is such a little angel. But any slip up in her sleeping schedule and she turns into a rotten little pumpkin. ha ha

Since she started crawling at 6 months old it only took her a few days before she was pulling herself up to things. She walks up and down the couches, pulls herself up to chairs and if you stand still long enough she'll crawl over to you and pull up on your legs. So it was only a matter of time before she realized she could crawl up the sides of the crib. Lacy doesn't cry when she wakes up.She talks to you herself. haha It's really cute.But I have to make sure the baby monitor is on and turned up because she will talk to herself as she pulls up to the crib. One day I was upstairs doing laundry and she was quiet, so I thought she was sleeping. All of a sudden I turn around and see this...

Ha Ha She pulled down her bumper pads and was peeking out at me! She's so adorable when she wakes up and is full of smiles. It's a great way to start my mornings!