Quick Catch-up

This has been one crazy year so far! My last update was back in January, which means I have six months of updating to do! Don't worry, I'll make sure it's full of pictures!

JANUARY

 For Christmas this year Bryan got a grill! He's been so excited about it, and has big plans to make lots of yummy food, but so far we've stuck to burgers and dogs. They have been very delish though!

 Michelle was sailing her way through preschool. She is such a smarty pants! It didn't matter what I challenged her with she blew through it like it was nothing!

 January also gave us quite a few snow days. The girls were loving it! I especially loved dressing them up in their matching red coats! So CUTE!

 As one of Michelle's Christmas gifts she got coupons for "Special Nights". She gets to pick a different coupon every month, and then we will do something special and over the top for that family day. In January she picked the Movie Night card. This is what we did...

Michelle wanted to watch Tangled so we centered the whole night around that movie.

We had dinner at the Snuggly Duckling. Don't my artistic skill rock?! Lol!

 While we ate we listened to the movie's soundtrack.

I also decorated a little with the purple sun banner that you see in the village celebration scene of the movie.

 For dinner we had angel Hair spaghetti, and braided bread sticks. We also had apple juice from Maximus' apples, and a green salad to represent Pascal. 

 After dinner the girls got their movie tickets and a voucher for popcorn! 

 Then we all sat down on the floor, which was covered with blankets and pillows of course, and watched Tangled. It was a really fun night!

FEBRUARY

 For Valentine's Day Bryan took the girls out on a hot date! They went to Chick-fil-A for a special Daddy-daughter night. The girls had a blast! They got to play in the play-place, go for a carriage ride, and even got flowers and a goodie bag before they left. Bryan is such a good Daddy!

 This picture is in here because I love it... that's pretty much it. 

 We also had Clayton and Cami over and decorate heart cookies for Valentine's day.

 Cami thought the frosting was especially yummy! Lol! 

MARCH

 We announced some pretty big news in March...

 ...but I'll do a separate post about all that! ;)

Our special night in March was a family camp-out! It was raining and pretty windy that night so Bryan took all the furniture out of the living room and set up the tent for us inside. 

 We broke out the camping chairs, and sparked a "fire". For dinner we had hot dogs and chips. 

 Then we roasted marshmallows over our camp fire. 

 We took tubs in the "lake" and headed back into the tent to play with flashlights and tell spooky stories.

 Michelle even held the flashlight under her face to make it especially spooky! 

APRIL

 Grandpa came over this month and helped Michelle plant some daisies and a tomato plant. Michelle loves to grow things so this was pretty special for her to do with Grandpa.

 She was also invited to her first birthday party. It was a princess party so, of course, she loved every minute of it! 

MAY

 We took our family vacation in May. After a few months of planning, we packed up the car, and headed down to Sea World in San Antonio! 

 Day one was perfect weather! We got to the park and fed the ducks, and then headed out to see a few of the shows.

 It was so fun to see the girls faces light up as they saw dolphins jumping through the air, and people swimming with whales. 

 The girls were even great sports when they got splashed by Shamu. To be honest though, Bryan was the one who was a really good sport- he got SOAKED! Lol!

 Day two was full of seeing the animals up close. Our first stop was to feed the dolphins where Michelle even got to pet one! It was pretty dang awesome.

 Tina wasn't too thrilled about feeding dead fish to the dolphins, but I think she still had fun.

 To get Tina back into the spirit of Sea World we stopped at the aquarium. She LOVED it!! Seeing sting rays, sharks, and tons of different kinds of ocean animals was definitely the highlight of the trip for her.

 We also spent a good amount of time at the Bay of Play. It's the Sesame Street area of the park, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who has kids!

 The girls even got to meet Abbi Kadabi and Grover! 

 It was an amazing trip! We will do it again for sure!

JUNE

 Happy Birthday Michelle!

 This year Michelle got to have a bunch of her friends over for her birthday party. It was all Mermaids and Under the Sea themed.

 We made fish sun catchers...

 played in the "ocean" (You can see it, but Bryan and I decorated the ceiling with tons of streamers to give the "under the sea" effect.)

 and even broke open a pinata! 

 ...well, they tried to break it open. That was one tough pinata though, so we let Daddy take a few swings to get it to bust.

 everyone got LOTS of candy!

 Then we sang happy birthday and ate cupcakes.

 After that we headed outside to play in the sprinklers and the pool.

 The kids were pretty exhausted at this point so we came back inside to open presents and watch The Little Mermaid.

 Happy birthday baby girl!

And that brings us back to today! I'll post another update with more info about baby #3, and a few other things in a later post. I think this one is long enough though! ;)

Family Pictures

Before Christmas Katie took some pretty rockin' family pictures for Jessica and I. They were supposed to be for all of the siblings (Jessica, myself, Ryan, Daniel, and Katie) and our families, but between Daniel being on his mission, Ryan working crazy hours, and trying to keep it secret from the parents, it just didn't happen. The plan was to get super cute "number" pictures (see my drawn out picture and description below) and put them all in frames to give to my parents as a Christmas gift, but since everyone couldn't be there, and the communication to Daniel was, obviously, flawed, we decided to scratch that idea and just do regular pictures.  Here's the picture and instructions that I sent to Daniel, along with a fairly detailed letter explaining everything that was supposed to happen.

Here are the pictures Daniel sent back to us. Remember, we're supposed to be using these pics to edit him into our group picture....

Yep, that's my brother... dork! lol! So, like I said, we decided to nix the number idea and just do regular shots. Here are a few of my all-time favorite pics from that day!

Cami would only smile when I was holding her. That's love!!

Isn't she SO sweet?! Love my niece!

Now that is one handsome little man! Look out ladies!

All the grand-babies. Don't Tina and Cami look so happy to be there?! Lol! 

My FAVORITE family picture!

<--Grant Family/Jones Family--> Two of the greatest families EVER!

My favorite "typical" family picture.

I'm not really sure why I love this one so much, but I REALLY do! *Tiny Boots*

Cousins, and Best Friends

Sisters

Even though Cami is pretty upset in this pic I still love it! My sisters really are my best friends in the world. 

Didn't Katie do an AMAZING job?! It's not easy trying to get little kids to cooperate and take a bunch of pictures, especially when it's cold out side!  Oh, and these are all BEFORE she was able to edit them! Good job Boo-boo! A+, Gold Star! Now, get ready for next year because I definitely want more of these! Next time, though, I think we'll get Mom and Dad involved so we might really get the pictures we originally planned. Ok, Peterson family, put it on your calendars, more amazing family pictures in 2013!!