I should go to bed...

It's a bit after 2am and I know I need to be sleeping, but I wanted to joy a few quick words before 2011! Wow, I cannot believe it's really almost 2011.

We have had a great week with family. The kids have been playing and not getting enough sleep and then playing some more. It's been fun, and busy and stressful at times, but mostly fun. :) I love my family...really, being with them makes my face hurt because I am laughing all the time.

Chris, Brenda, Bode and Boone leave on Sunday. I will miss them. :( We will all miss them.

And GEEZ, I cannot believe this weather! I'm praying we do not have any snow accumulation for the next 3 weeks so that our move into the new house can be a snow free move. I have a feeling I may not get that prayer answered, but who knows!

If I don't get a chance to blog before next year...HAPPY NEW YEAR! I have TONS of pictures from the last few days that I'll be posting on Sunday or Monday. :)

It's not easy...

...to get a photograph of 4 children ages 4 and under and 2 grandparents all looking at the camera at the same time while 3 different cameras are pointing at them.
That didn't stop us from trying.

Nana and Papa with all 4 of their grandkids.

Well I say we get an "A" for effort.

I'm thinking it may work better next time to just have only 1 camera in use at a time, then maybe they will all be looking at the camera at least!

Hey, it's a miracle that we even got some with all the kids smiling!

I'll take it!

these kids

These kids are blessed to have each other.

These kids have blessed our whole family.

These kids have blessed their grandparents.

These kids will always have each other and to see these kids together makes my heart sing.

These kids will be able to look back at these photos and see the love that surrounds each of them.

These kids are loved beyond belief.

OH, and these kids are pretty darn cute if you ask me!

In a short couple of weeks (or maybe sooner!), there will be a baby added to this group of cousins! We cannot wait to meet her!

Christmas Festivities

Never a dull moment when you get the whole family together.
The kiddos are hilarious, and crazy and out of control and I love it.

Here we are trying to get some order in the house before the gift opening extravaganza...

So much cuteness amidst the chaos...
And JOY...almost time to open gifts!!!
And excitement for the gifts received! A Hawkeye Snuggie for Daddy!
And you may not be able to tell here, but this boy LOVES his new Buzz Lightyear. He wanted to sleep with him tonight and when we said "no", he cried and cried and said, "but I LOVE him soooo much!"

So I would definitely say the evening was a huge success!

Cute kids...

We had our Peakin Family Christmas this evening.

We are so blessed to have so many cousins in the family that are all so close in age...oh, and that are all so cute!!!
The kids (and adults!) had such a great evening!

Beautiful Leah...

I could hardly get a picture of Tyler because he's always running and hiding from the camera (sounds like Tate!), but boy does the camera love him! And Tater...he LOVES being with his cousins...he had so much fun!

Kayla, Kayla...she is SPUNKY! She cracks the entire family up constantly...and what a cutie pie!
Oh how I love ALL of my nieces and nephews!

Boy am I blessed!

Christmas Round 2

We will celebrate Christmas with the Peakin side of the family today. We are so excited to be together with all of the nieces and nephews, siblings and Sean's parents. Surely there will be plenty of pictures to come. :)

To the moon and back...

We had a very Merry Christmas and as you can see, we were surrounded by CUTENESS!

We were missing 2 cute little boys in this group, but fortunately, we won't have to miss them for long!

Chris, Brenda, Bode and Boone will be joining the family on Tuesday so we can have our Christmas celebration with them! YAY!

At dinner tonight, Tate said to me, "Mommy, I love Lani to the moon and back."

I can certainly tell in this picture!

Then he proceeded to list all of his family members and tell me he loved them to the moon and back.

I love them to the moon and back too, each and every one of them.

Now THAT'S what I call a nice smile!

Would you believe me if I said that this was the best smile I got out of Tate during gift opening last night?

Well believe me!

I'll prove it to you.

Um, he's got a bit of the crazy eyes going here...

Okay, still definitely not a real smile...

Oh wow, don't really even know what to say about this one!

I mean, I don't even know how he made his eyes do that!

"Smile a good one for Mommy!"

Ya, not so much.

Despite his expressions, he WAS and IS genuinely thrilled about all of his gifts.

And he MUST have been on the nice list because he got a lot of good stuff.

:)

Oh how I love him...

...and his craziness...

and silliness...

just make me love him MORE!!!

He was singing "this is the BEST DAY EVERRRRRRRR!" (from Spongebob) all day today.

So cute.

Brigg, Lani and Ayla

Seriously, they are that cute.

Love.

Our niece, Willow...

I think she had more fun in the snow than anyone!

She even got to join us for a bit to open her gift. :)

She is so darn cute!

Tate loves the snow...

A White Christmas...

There is just NOTHING better on Christmas than time in a cozy house with family while it's a world of white outside!

Beautiful.

funny

Tate just peed the longest pee in the history of pees. I am sitting down here in the quiet living room and I hear Tate get up and go to the bathroom. I hear him start to pee and keep peeing for (seriously!) like 20 seconds! I was kind of amazed about halfway through and suddenly I hear Tate with genuine frustration say, "STOP PEE! C'MON, STOP PEEING!" About 5 more seconds go by, "C'MON PEE...STOP!" Well, his pee wasn't listening because he kept going for about 10 more seconds. When he was done, I heard, "Whoa, it stopped." He had no idea I could hear it all. He's so funny...and had a super full bladder!

Our New House!!!

We will be moving into the house pictured above in a month!

We are SO EXCITED that we will not be sharing any walls with neighbors, that we'll be in a super cute, family friendly neighborhood a short block away from the elementary school we want Tate in (if we're still living here in Davenport when he starts school), only 2 blocks from the DeCook's house, we will have a fully fenced in back yard with a huge patio, a fully finished basement, a 2 car garage, so much more space and the list goes on!

Isn't it so cute?!!!
So after the new year, we will have exactly 3 weeks until moving day! YIKES!

It would be really nice if all the snow would melt before moving day, but we're pretty certain that's not going to happen. :(

Oh well, we couldn't be more excited!!!!

YAY! I got my computer back!

Updates to come. I feel like myself again now that I have my computer back!

Christmas with DeCooks

We had a great evening celebrating Christmas with DeCooks!
We did a little gift exchange, ate an amazing dinner and played games.
It was so much fun!!!

And one of the most amazing things about the night was that Lora and I happened to get each other the EXACT SAME GIFT! Seriously, when I opened my gift, I was SHOCKED! I am talking the exact same jammies! Hilarious!
Great minds thing alike!

Thank you, DeCooks for being the great hosts you always are!
We love you guys!

Give us a nice smile!

Tate was ecstatic about his Iron Man gifts from the DeCooks...ecstatic.
Do you think he'd give us a genuine smile for a picture though???
No.
This is as good as we got...

And then when we asked for a better one, this is what we got.

Nice, Tate.
Gosh I love this boy.
He is so funny!

8 years ago to the day...

...Sean and I met.
December 17, 2002.
We met at a bar in Des Moines.
I was there with a friend who was meeting a friend from college there. That friend of hers had a friend with him...Sean.
We didn't start dating until a month later, but I liked him right away...well, up until we were saying goodbye and he called me "Jessie". :) So I guess it was loud in the bar. We had been chatting for HOURS and apparently, the entire time he thought my name was Jessie! Ha.

This was one of the first pictures taken of us.

Who would have thought that less than 2 years later, we'd be married!
Then, we'd have a child 2 years after that!
Amazing how much life changes in only a few years.

Amazing how much 2 people can change in a few years...so glad that we've changed and grown together!
I love you, Sean!

He cracks me up...

Tate is so funny sometimes. He has been saying some pretty funny things lately. Here are a couple.

We were at the gas station and he said, "can we get some ice cream here?"
I said, "they don't have ice cream here, Tate."
He responded (kind quietly like he was talking to himself), "Oh barnacles, they don't have ice cream here."

Another funny one is that when we were driving to Muscatine a couple of days ago, Tate asked me out of no where, "what are you doing Mommy?" I said, "I'm driving, what are you doing?" He said, "just holding my penis so I don't pee my pants."

He is just too funny. He has been a pretty good boy lately too. He had his AEA evaluation the other day and he was being extra good and social and not acting sensitive to hardly anything...very out of character for him. It was kind of frustrating because they didn't get to see what we see on a daily basis. However, still a few things were noted and we were referred to an Occupation Therapist to work with him and us in order to be equipped with the tools we will need to address his Sensory Processing issues and and hopefully help him to be successful to his transition to preschool in the fall. We are possibly going to be putting him into a daycare setting for just a couple of hours a couple of days a week sometime in the late winter or early spring so that he can get used to it. We'll see.

Jennie Peakin Daycare

I could totally have four kids.
Really.
It's been fun today!
I have Tate (of course), Ayla, Ava and Chloe today.
We crafted and baked and decorated cookies.
The 3 oldest are "resting" and watching a movie right now and Chloe is napping.

Crafting masks...

I thought I'd keep the markers away from this one.
She got crayons instead and seemed to be just fine with that...

A few things I realized today...

I totally want 4 kids (Sean however, does not).
If I had 4 kids, I would definitely need a dishwasher!
I don't have one right now and I feel like all I've done today is corral children and do dishes.
If I had 4 kids, I'd be skinny...well, skinnier. You know, because there's no time to eat. :)
If I had 4 kids, I would be able to survive on much less sleep. I got less than 4 hours last night and have been too busy to notice that I'm tired.
If I had 4 kids, I would need a toy room.
If I had 4 kids, I might never put clothes on, I'd live in my jammies.
If I had 4 kids, I have no idea when I'd shower.
Even so, I still would love 4 kids...especially the 4 I had with me today!

It's been a good day at Jennie Peakin Daycare.
:)

Cookie decorating with the kids...

One of the activities we did today was to bake chocolate chip cookies and then decorate them with frosting and M 'n M's.
The kids had so much fun.
As you can see, much frosting was consumed...

And Chloe opted to just eat the cookie and frosting instead of decorate.
I kinda knew that would happen, but I didn't want to leave her out.
:)

And the finished products...

Seriously, Tate's cookies crack me up.
I don't think he has a career in cake or cookie decorating in his future...

And then there are the girls cookies.
Nice and neat...

It was a fun and yummy project!