We have been wanting to get Parker some sort of rideable toy since he likes to climb on things and pretend to go. So today we bought this little car and he LOVES it!! It plays music and talks and everything...I'm not really sure what I have gotten myself into however, because he pushes the buttons OVER and OVER...of course!
I was really wanting some cookies yesterday and I thought it would be fun to make some sugar cookies with Parker. He really enjoyed it and we had a lot of fun! They were all eaten by last night (there wasn't a whole lot to begin with) so we might just have to make some more tomorrow!
2009 was a great year for us, although not too much happened. Here are some of the highlights from this past year:
We had a pretty good year and are excited to see what 2010 has in store for us. We will be starting off the year by heading to Kansas for another project and will be there for about 4 months.
This year for New Years Eve and Day, we were able to be in Seattle with my family. It was a pretty low key night. Chris, Parker and I went over to Bri and Mike's (my sister and brother-in-law) new house for a couple hours and met some of their friends and talked, ate some great food and played a little Band Hero on the Wii. It was really fun, and I even started to get pretty good on the drums...the guitars, not so much! We only stayed a couple hours because Parker only had 1 nap and was getting pretty tired. We spent the rest of the night watching a movie, but honestly, most of us fell asleep way before midnight. Don't worry, I got woken up like 30 seconds before midnight to watch the fireworks and whatnot. It was a nice relaxing night and New Years Day was fairly relaxing as well.
Chris and I started off the year by going on a much needed date. It has been FOREVER since we've been able to go out just the two of us. My parents were nice enough to watch Parker. We went out to dinner at the Ram and then to see The Blind Side, really good by the way, and then finished off the evening with ice cream from Baskin Robins. It was really fun and a great way to start off the year! I hope everyone has a great year...
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! :)
Parker is going to be a BIG BROTHER on July 11, 2010!
I figured out I was going to be around 12 weeks along by Christmas so we opted to wait until then to tell our families. I also wanted to be creative in how we told them the big news this time around so I googled some different ideas and the two that I chose to use were as follows:
1) For my mom, step-dad, brother and sister in Seattle we bought Parker a shirt that said "Big Brother Athletic Dept." and we put it in a box with another shirt that said "Old Navy" on it and waited until last to open it. Well, normally we are finished opening gifts by 9 or 10, however this year it lasted until around 1 or 2 because we kept taking breaks to eat breakfast, talk with Chris' brother on his mission, etc. So naturally I was very anxious to open the last of the gifts because I wasn't sure how much longer I could wait! Since pretty much all the rest of the gifts were for Parker I just handed everyone a gift and gave the one with Parker's shirts to my mom to open. She opened it and only saw the Old Navy shirt first. I asked if she had opened the gift and she said yes and pulled out the Old Navy shirt again. I said that there was another shirt in there so she pulled it out and after about a second asked if I was pregnant. Now, I can't give the reactions of everyone justice, so enjoy the video!!
2) For my dad, step-mom, sister, and step-brother I bought a card (that said "Surprise! You are going to be an Uncle again!!! He was at his dad's so he wouldn't have found out for a while) for my brother and three little gifts for the rest of my family (baby booties, rattle and bib that reads "I Love My Big Brother"). We also got them a web cam as their main gift. Now, when I shipped them I gave them some very specific instructions...they were to open the web cam on Christmas Eve so they could get it installed and tested and then open the small gifts Christmas morning ALL at the SAME time while using the web cam so that we could see their reactions! Well, instead since or internet was down for a while we just listened on the phone while they opened. They were very excited as well!
We just told Chris' family while everyone was on the line talking to his brother on the mission. They were all excited too!
Now, as far as the pregnancy goes, I haven't had ANY morning sickness, or heartburn (which I had with Parker from the very beginning). I have just been very tired.
This was Parker's first gift that he found...he LOVES it!
We flew in to Seattle on Christmas Eve afternoon and everyone was very excited to see us. We had our picnic dinner under the tree that consisted of turkey frank hot dogs, chips, potato salad, carrots and rootbeer (it's a tradition to do this sometime before Christmas and since Kelsey wasn't here yet we waited to do the big Christmas dinner). After dinner we went Christmas Caroling to my step-dad's home-teachees and then it was time for the present wrapping to begin!! I didn't realize how much I actualy had to wrap, but Kelsey and my mom were in there too wrapping so it was a big fun party! Before my mom and step-dad went to pick up Kelsey at the airport Santa came to visit...
We went to the mall tonight to go visit Santa and as you can tell, Parker wasn't too fond of him!
On our second day of driving we were going to go through Kansas City, MO and realized that Liberty was right there, so we decided to stop at the Liberty Jail since we've never been. It was amazing and we were so glad we stopped. Granted it was a little hard because Parker had been cooped up all day so all he wanted to do was run around (and it's possible that he may have thrown his pacifier into the jail...oops!Luckily it was close enough that Chris could lay on the ground and lean over to reach it, since nobody was allowed to step on the original slab.)
The first night we wanted to find a hotel that had an indoor pool so Parker could go swimming to help get some pent-up energy out. We drove all over town and went to like 6 different hotels checking rates and looking for that indoor pool. Well, we finally found one and so we took our stuff up to our room and got ready to go swimming. There was nobody in the pool, which was nice, except for one small detail...it wasn't HEATED!!! The water was freezing, which made swimming in it basically impossible. He played for a few minutes on the step about waist high and then he decided he was done and climbed out.
We are FINALLY back in Idaho! We left on Tuesday morning from Chipley, Florida and arrived in Rexburg on Friday afternoon. It was a very LONG 2200 mile drive, but actually not too bad. Parker was really, really good and pretty much only screamed when we had to put him back into his seat. Let me just say that the built-in DVD player in the van we were driving was a LIFESAVER!!! He watched movie after movie. We drove on average about 9 hours each day, and ate out every day...which I'm glad to be done with! We tried really hard to eat as healthy as we could by going to Walmart and buying a salad for lunch, fruit to snack on, etc. I'm totally ready for nice home-cooked meals though!!
It's weird to come back, but not really have a place of our own to come back to. It doesn't really make coming home from a long trip feel the same. Oh well, we are still glad to be back and have a little break before we hit the road again for Boise to fly to Seattle for Christmas. Once we get back from Seattle however, it's off to Kansas for about 4 months. I mapquested the route from Idaho to Kansas, and it's ONLY 14 hours!!! I used to cringe when we would have to drive 12-14 hours to go somewhere, but now after about a 32 hour trip, 14 hours is nothing...funny how that is huh?
