Happy Birthday McKay!

Happy Birthday McKay! January 22nd is a great day in the world! We love McKay as a great husband and dad who does all he can to provide for the family and to serve us! He works SO hard and sometimes we wish he could be home more, but we know he's just doing his job of providing for the family. We're really celebrating on Thursday night because we get to go to the Brad Paisley concert! Yeah! We're excited about that. McKay has accomplished great things in his 28 years of life with many more wonderful times to come! We love you!
















Also, I've been slacking on posting pictures of Peyton lately. Here's a few random pictures...and GUESS WHAT! He's officially CRAWLING! We've moved passed the scoot. I'll get it on our camera and post a little video of it!



















Still a little sick here...but still smiling!




















The flash is starting to get to him more and more now!














Peyton LOVES the bath...and loves to pull the products off of Mom's shelves!




















All ready to crawl!




















I put this one on here because you can see his two bottom teeth! Two of his top teeth are coming in and he's in a lot of pain. Poor bud!

2008 Election

I'm trying to be an informed, responsible citizen for the next presidential election :) I'm realizing if we want things to be run more efficiently in this country, we have to voice our opinion, even if it's a small one in the large perspective. My dad pointed me to a cool little tool on USA Today's Web site. It lets you take a quiz to answer how you would handle some of today's pressing issues in United States and how you align with the candidates. It was really good for me to go through it and read their different platforms and who I really would vote for based on what I think. I recommend we all do it and have the best info we can as we go to vote! Here's the link:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/candidate-match-game.htm

OK...there you have my soapbox on politics. I'm sure everyone will start in soon enough!

What a week...

So I'm dealing with my first full blown case of dealing with a sick child. Next time, can I just be sick...it would be so much easier. It's so hard to watch my little buddy be so sad and not want to do anything besides lay on my shoulder. Uh...it's the worst! We've dealt with a cough issue for about 3 months now, and he just picked up another bug in the last little bit. I may just decide to hibernate the rest of this winter and not deal with this anymore! I'm sure I have many more fevers, coughs and colds to come though. I guess you just make the best of the situation. I should take a picture of Peyt tomorrow as evidence of his illness. Poor kid has the sick look on his face. I'm sure many of you are dealing with this also right now and my heart goes out to you too. This is not fun!

I'm hoping life gets more exciting this next week. I'll make sure to get some new pictures up too!

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone finished off their holiday season wonderfully with a great New Year's celebration. McKay and I had a nice quiet evening at home watching Ocean's 13. And how pathetic are we...we made it to 11:30 and went to bed! Oh well, there's always next year! We hope 2008 is a wonderful year for everyone and we sure plan on it being a great one for us also!

BTW...Peyton cut tooth number 2 and I think more are coming. He's ALMOST completely crawling also. It's been a long time coming but everyone warns me that life gets crazy when they move around so I guess I'll enjoy the moment!

Peyton's First Christmas...

We hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas with your families! We enjoyed this week very much and are sad to see it end. We always know every year we can look forward to this season! Here's a recap of what we did on Christmas!

Every year my parents take us to dinner (usually Olive Garden) on Christmas Eve. It was delicious! They also did something really neat this year and donated money to Project Hope in our names (Project Hope provides life changing items for people living in the highest parts of the Andes mountains in Peru). We had a great little family time.















Next it was off to the Ercanbrack's to hang out. We had yummy treats, opened fun gifts (and PJ's!) and read the story of the birth of the Savior. We got the cutest picture of the three grandkids in their PJ's, but I didn't take one...so I'll post it soon when I get a copy!















OK...Christmas was so fun (but crazy!) We let Peyton open his presents from Santa and Mom and Dad in the morning, then we were off to the Ercanbrack's and Shoell's for more presents. If that wasn't enough, we ended up at the Neiger's for a fourth round...let's just say Peyton doesn't need any toys or books for awhile! I'll just post some pictures from the day and a video of Peyton opening some of his gifts! We had such a wonderful holiday and received our best gift this year...a healthy child!

Thank you to our family and friends who were so generous and gave us so much! We always get spoiled by both sides of the family and we are so grateful for all that you do throughout the year for us! We look forward to 2008 and have lots of plans to become better people! We love you all!














Look what Santa brought me!




















I loved this rocking horse and had to get it. I'm sure those of you who are Costco junkies saw it there!




















Dad bought Peyton a fun fire truck with blocks! He loves it!




















Peyton is an official "Manning" fan now!





















Peyton and "Papa" Claus...Grandma bought him this cute Santa suit. He thought Santa was pretty cool!















Peyton made out with the whole store! He was loving it!



















Tyke and Peyton with Grandpa Pro















My cute family!















Peyton's music table from Grandpa and Grandma. He loves it!

Pens are No No's!

So Peyton is already into the pen thing...good thing I caught this before he got it ALL over and hurt himself (particularly his eyes!) I'm so grateful this was a short-lived toy. My visiting teachers were over and I forget that Peyton can twist himself around faster than I think! Also, I've started trying the "spike" look for Peyton...what do you think? It's just funny because he doesn't have a ton of hair, so it's more like a little mohawk at the top. Oh well. I was wanting a little change.

Only 5 more days until Christmas! Yeah!

Santa Who?

Peyton met Santa for the first time last night...from his expression do you think he thought twice about it? I was hoping for a smile, but at least we didn't see tears! Thanks Grandpa and Grandma Shoell for providing a wonderful Christmas party! Here's a quick recap of our fun weekend!




















Friday night we had such a great time at my friend's Christmas party. Steph...thanks so much for having it at your house! You did a great job as host! We had such a yummy dinner and enjoyed visiting with everyone. Just about all the girls were there, except we missed Sarah, Michelle and Lindsey (I think everyone else made it!) Hopefully we can get a lunch together after Christmas so we can see you guys too! Don't I have cute friends! And if you can believe it, almost all of them have had AT LEAST one baby...they all look so great! Sorry we missed Whit in the picture...we took it a little too late!














Saturday we had two Christmas parties...one at Grandma Shoell's and our ward party. As you saw above, Peyton met Santa and played baby Jesus in the Navity story. He did relatively well for an 8 month old having to sit that still. Poor little Lindsey did so well holding him for as long as she did! Here are some pictures from the evening. Great Grandpa and Grandma have had five (at least!) great grandkids in the last year! There's a pic of all of them in the mix. Also, Peyton put his little arm around his new cousin Alaynah for a picture all by himself. Mine didn't turn out as cute as my sister-in-law's so hopefully I'll get her copies!

Hope You're Having a Great Holiday Season!

We've been busy at our house having fun celebrating the holiday season. December is such a fun month! I love it! Today we were in Orem and Peyton was having fun playing with his aunt Chelsea so I thought I'd post a pic of him since it's been a little while. We also stopped at Grandma's school because we were in Provo and we had to sing the Christmas songs with the kids! We are going to a few parties this weekend so I should have some fun new pictures after Monday or Tuesday.

If you want something great to read about Christ, they reprinted a talk President Maxwell gave in 1976 in the December Ensign (page 44). He shares such a beautiful testimony and it was perfect to read to remind myself of Him and why we have a Christmas season at all. I hope you enjoy it as well!

"For One More Day"

OK...so I don't know how many of you watch Oprah on a regular basis, but I really enjoyed it yesterday. Mitch Albom was on the show who wrote "For One More Day" which is a book about what you would do if you had one more chance with someone (Albom also wrote "Tuesdays with Morrie"). I read the book awhile ago and really liked it, still not my favorite Albom book, but it was good. Anyway, Oprah also had the wife of the man who wrote "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff" on because he passed away last year suddenly (which I didn't know he had!) It was just a reality check for me that we really don't know when, where, why or how any of us will go. Hopefully we'll get to say everything we want and leave everything peacefully as we go, but we just don't know. I'm not saying I think I'm going to die tomorrow or anything, but I want everyone who visits our blog to know that we love you and hope you know we care so much about you! Life is too short to stay angry and not find joy! We really are so blessed and what is there not to be happy about! If you're able to watch Oprah (such as the power of Tivo!) from yesterday, I would suggest it! Oprah also sponsored the making of the film version of the story...it's on Sunday night at 8 on ABC (I think!)

It's Christmas Time!

I look forward to this time of year all year long! I love the holidays and all the fun things that come with it! It's also such a good time to reflect on all that we've been given and remember it's true importance, our Savior. Our family has been given so much...I really try hard not to ever take it for granted. Anyway, we're gearing up for a great season. Thursday night my Mom, sister and I went to the Festival of Trees! Besides bad parking, the evening was great! Thanks Mom for making that a great night! We had so much fun...and the trees were so beautiful. If you've never been before, try to go next year (sadly it's already over for this year). I've also had my decorations up since the day after Thanksgiving and just having posted pics yet...so here you go!















































Also, very exciting news...I felt Peyton's first tooth yesterday! It's not significant enough to take a picture yet, but as soon as you can actually see it, I'll post it! It's fun to see them hit these milestones. He's also starting to want to move his way around. No, not still really crawling yet, but I guess all babies move at their own pace. And I don't mind that he'll just sit there and play!