The Petersons: 2011

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Birthday Braden!

We had a ton of fun at the fire station for Braden's bday this year! We invited some friends there and they all loved it. They gave all the kids hats, let them hold the hose-nozzles, climb in the truck, etc. It was such a fun time!

Climbing up on the pretend roof! They thought this was an especially cool treat!

All the cute little fire-fighters!!!

Braden asked for a rainbow-colored cake for his birthday, so we went as colorful as we could!!!

My boy is just growing up and it is so amazing to see the who he is growing into. He most definitely has a stubborn streak and a mind of his own much of the time, but he can still be so sweet and kind. He is so loving and has a big heart. He gets worried whenever he thinks someone is sad, and he loves his little brother so much. In the morning Braden gets so excited when I tell him he can go in and talk to Cameron - he climbs into his crib and they play and laugh together. It is the sweetest sound and I hope they just keep becoming better and better friends. I love my little Brado boy, we have so much fun playing and going on adventures together. He certainly loves his mischief, but he wants to make us happy and loves being our big boy. He is so smart and so funny - always making us laugh, sometimes even when he is getting into trouble! Sometimes when he is amazed by something he'll say, "Holy Ghost!!!" (with the same voice of Robin on the old Batman show..."Holy Exploding Cats Batman!") - he really means "holy cow", but has gotten the phrases mixed up! I try to correct him...and it I would probably consider it sacrilegious in most other instances...but he is just so innocent and it is SO funny! I try to correct him, but honestly no matter how hard I try I just can't keep a straight face! Oh, I love this little boy!

I'm so glad I get to be his mom and share these wonderful sweet memories with him!

Happy Birthday Braden!!!

December fun...

Some pics of some of the fun things we've been up to this month...

My last bouquet of flowers from our yard this year - they made me so happy. We still have a few blooming - it's been so nice and warm this December, a full week in the 70's!

While watching some big machines taking down a big tree on our street, a sweet, old man who lives by us brought over this big teddy bear to give to Braden! Both the boys loved it. I love when people are just so generous to us. It just touches my heart. Every time I look at this big, cute bear I just feel it again warming my heart.

"ginder-bread house!"

Amazingly cool train display at an arcade downtown - for free, which made it even better! Then we rode the "big train" around (lightrail) town. It was a fun train day!

And of course making lots of holiday goodies together (me and Brado) and enjoying licking the beaters together. It works out so well - one for each of us! :)

7 mos and on the Go

Cameron is 7 months old and apparently he connected a lot of gross motor synapses between his 6th and 7th months of life! He is everywhere!!! One day he decided to crawl for real (instead of his funny fake wormy crawl - I have to be honest it was hilarious to watch!), which was so fun - particularly because Justin was home that morning when it happened from working an all-nighter. In the week after that he realized he can crawl most everywhere, push himself up into a sitting postion, learned how to pull himself to standing at almost anything, and started officially getting into everything! It has been hilarious to watch. Although 7 mos just seems a little too young to be able to get into the garbage and pull everything in it out!

He is one busy little boy, but he sure has fun! We are going to have to baby-proof the house a lot more than we did with Brado. We didn't think we could get a busier little boy than Braden around the house, but we were apparently wrong. :)

He is such a busy little guy that it seems he just burns off everything that he eats. He is in the 70th percentile for height, but only 15lbs, making him in the 5th percentile for weight. He certainly eats plenty, but apparently uses it all up really fast!

Look, Mom! One hand!

I love the "I've been caught!" look on his face in that one!

He is still so sweet and fun. He still loves to be held, sleeps pretty well, loves sucking his little thumb, loves food now, and is such a happy little guy! We sure love him!

I wish he'd stop growing up so fast so we could just take it all in. I just can't get enough of him and his sweet little self!

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving! Great people, great food, spending great time together all day long...it just doesn't get much better than that!

We had such a great Thanksgiving with the Goldades! They are so kind and have us over every year and it is so wonderful to spend the holiday with them! They are such great friends to us, always treat us to such amazing food, and the boys just love them too!

Justin was thrilled, as always, for his one day of the year he gets to play football. We dropped him off and stayed for a bit so Braden could see the big guys playing football. Justin ran a touchdown one of the first plays, so we were all happily cheering in the car. :)

The food was delicious, as always, and we feel like we are at home with their family.

Coulton was Braden's hero and took him out back to play ball and have fun in the leaves (the weather is still quite warm here, which we are loving!). Braden had us all running and jumping into the big pile of leaves and we were all acting like little kids again for a bit!

Cameron, of course, loved everyone - especially Janeece and Juston

(not to be confused with my Justin, lol)

Sadly I didn't get any pictures of Janeece, but this is Juston and Cam hanging out on the floor together and having quite the time!

So, we again are so grateful for our family away from family! Thanks for making us feel at home our dear friends! We love you!!!

Christmas Light Parade and Swinging

We went to the Illumination Parade this year and had such a fun time! Braden has fallen in love with parades and thinks they are pretty amazing. He loves Christmas lights too, so that just made this parade even cooler. :)

We had a great time!

Cam is such a different little boy than Braden. It is so fun to me to see how they are the same and how they are different. They are both busy little boys, that is for sure, but one big difference is swinging. Braden, though a very adventure seeking boy, for some reason has always been a little skeptical on the funness of swings. In the past 6mos he has finally come to like them and think they are pretty cool, but he still takes a few swings before he wants to go high or anything.

Cam however, blew me away at the park the other day. I put him in the swing just for fun, seeing what he would do - expecting him to get upset like Braden would when younger. But no, not this boy! :)

He loved every minute of it and was going nearly as high as Braden the entire time with a big smile on his face!! It was so funny! Braden enjoyed Cam swinging, too, which made it even more fun. Although he seemed a little disappointed when I told him that Cam was a little too young for underdogs just yet!

I love how in even though he is going fairly high he still manages to keep those fingers in his mouth!

This little boy loves his fingers and thumb!

And, while speaking of new things for Cameron, he has his first tooth! He is just growing up too fast - eating real food, getting teeth, crawling, standing at the couch, trying to pull himself up to things....how do you get them to slow down and just be little babies for a minute???

Even though they are growing up fast, they sure are a lot of fun and the best thing in the world for me and Justin. Families are so much fun. Hard fun, but good fun. :)

Monday, November 14, 2011

Update overload...

So...I haven't blogged...in a REALLY long time....so here are a boat-load of pics for those of you (ahem, grandparents) who have been missing your cute little boys on the other side of the country!!! :)

(sorry not all of them loaded right, but with that many pictures I wasn't about to fuss over the ones that didn't load!)

What have we been up to? Well, a month in WA, then a month home, then a month in UT, another month home, then a week in UT (for my brother's wedding!!! Yay!!!), and now home...whew!

A brief update on us all:

Justin - well into his third (and craziest) year of med school. He's doing great, loves surgery, and is sad that for the rest of the year he will not get to be in the OR anymore! He is working hard to become one amazing dr. He's a blood and guts kind of guy and is pretty certain that some kind of surgery is what he wants to end up doing.

Me: I am trying to make life slow down a bit! I am now a self-proclaimed expert at flying across the country by myself with two little boys. :) I have done it 5 times in the last few months and I can tell you some people are just angels in disguise!!! One sweet little angel was a sweet grandma from the middle-east who didn't even speak English - but she had a mother's heart and seemed to know everything I needed and somehow managed to tell me without saying one word of English. I fell in love with her. :)

I just got released as the YW president, so hopefully that will help with the life slowing down stuff!

To all my friends and family I got to see, Thank you so much!!! To those I didn't, I'm so sorry and sad and hopefully I will get to see you again next time!!!!

Braden: Has been loving all these airplanes and that is pretty much all he pretends about these days! "Mommy, come get on the airplane with me. We're flying on the airplane!!!"

He loves to sing all the time right now. My personal favorite is the Farmer and the Dale

"The farmer and the dale, the farmer and the dale, Fi Fo Fummy, the farmer and the dale!"

(a perfect blend of farmer's dale and mickey and the beanstalk...it is so funny and cute!)

Braden somehow has this amazing imagination and we are always running away from the "tend" (pretend) dragon or monster, taking rides in the car with his "tend" friends or making up some fun story

Cameron: Is 6 months old!!! So crazy! He is a sweet little baby who is learning all sorts of fun tricks and is now mobile! He gets around all over the place and is pretty content as long as there are people around him. He hates to be alone - must get that from me and Braden...

He loves to be held most all the time. Doesn't quite love food like I thought he would, but he tolerates it. :) He sits up for a little bit, stands at the couch for a little bit, tries with all his might to crawl, but can't quite figure out the arms, so ends up scooting everywhere and is just so cute and fun!

Braden made him into a "flower"

This is what happens when I go to the bathroom and Braden and cousin Katie are with Cameron

Braden and new Aunt Amy!!!

Justin and I go to escape to a hockey game. It was so much fun!!!

Braden decided one morning while I was asleep that he was going to dump out lots of things...namely two bags of flour, a bag of sugar, a box of cereal and a bag of cornmeal. (everything else had a clip on it that he couldn't get off) Needless to say I was aghast when I walked into the kitchen that morning!!!! It was quite the event. One that hopefully will never happen again...