Alayna's Secret Corner

Welcome to Alayna's favortie corner of our home. It's right next to the radio...which she is LOVING having it play Christmas music nonstop. She knows exactly 100.3 will play Christmas music. From morning till night this girl is singing, dreaming, thinking, traditions, music, family, cousins, Christmas, etc. Let's just say that she has a harder time doing her jobs when the music is on...It used to help her clean but now I find her just sitting and listening!

"Please no tomato"

Alayna's family prayer tonight...

"Dear Heavenly Father, we thank thee for this day, that it was a nice day. Thankful my Aunt Shanny & Toddy could go on a date, to eat dinner. That my Aunt Angela and Grady could go watch a movie about a horse and a secretary. We pray that they will be safe, and especially my daddy that he will be safe coming home to us, from working all day long at work. We pray that my cousins can have a sleepover and not just a late over, because I love them so much. And we pray their won't be an earthquake tonight or .......(really long pause).....a tomato....in the name...Amen."

After the prayer Kierra and I looked at each other and then asked Alayna "what a tomato" was and she said, "I can't remember what it's called...it's rain and wind in a long circle!" We then guessed a tornado...not a tomato....hilarious!

Let's just say that we all laughed hysterically! She is developing a love for prayer. I have come to appreciate children that truly ponder and think about things to ask for and to be grateful for. I just love this girl!

Favorite things.

Caleb. Simply said, he is a favorite. Then there is his vocabulary that is just taking off! I remember just reading this book with him and him just staring at the pictures. Now, it's an interactive reading time! I love it. He is talking non-stop...Mommy, Daddy, Pappi, Nanna (Banana), Ruff-Ruff, Doggy, Ssssock, Shoes, sissy, Ali (for Alayna), Baff (for bath), bye-bye, Gampa (Grandpa), Cheese, Bahbee (Baby), oh and how can I forget...Night-Night...his true love his blankie. Really, I think I could go on and on. I know I'm missing some, but I just had to snap a photo of this cute kid reading his favorite book!

Ok, Jacob's smile. He calls this one his "Mommy Smile" because I love to see it! My other favorite part about this kid is how messy his face gets! We are into drinking "green smoothies" and he LOVES them and so does his face!

And who can't love kids who dress themselves. Yes, these two have quite the sense of style...I mean seriously, who wouldn't want to wear so many different pairs of socks in one day? Oh, and should I remind you it's cold outside and Jake is wearing his swimming suit? Yeah, it's these long winter days that I love. The kids use anything to entertain them and have a great time playing! Really, that is what life is all about.

Just another one of those darling smiles. I think I tell this kid to stop growing up everyday, but he always tells me, "I can't mom, I'm growing up everyday to be like my daddy!" Well, at least you have picked the best guy in town to be like! Loving these smiles each day really makes me grateful for the simple things. Alayna of coarse is another favorite. But she is currently doing what she loves. And that is spending every waking moment with her cousins while she is off track. She wouldn't stop and pose for a picture...they are too busy making arts & crafts, playing school and anything else their little imaginative minds think of next! Have I mentioned before I love off-track time???

Train them young...

Here's to Jacob giving Caleb a fun new ride.

Caleb thinks he's big enough to start doing jobs!

Or he'd rather have Jake work extra hard and vacuum and give him a ride at the same time.

Jake gets frustrated because Caleb just gets in the way. So we have decided to only vacuum when Caleb is sleeping.

Halloween 2010

Happy Halloween



Jacob = Buzz Lightyear to the rescue...

Alayna = Jesse the yodeling cowgirl...

Caleb = The cutest Bumble Bee ever...

The boys wanted to be matching Tigger's at the elementary school parade...

Halloween 2010

All the grandkids visiting Gr. & Gr. Perry for their BIG size candy bars!

Alayna was also a dog on Halloween because it was RAINING and FREEZING cold so her Jesse costume didn't work while being cold.

Jacob and Olivia...(Cleopatra)

The Peck Family wins the award once again for going ALL out for Halloween...The King, Queen, Princess and her frog.

Halloween 2010

The Bishop aka Hot Toddy...and Baby Hot Dog Blake

Angela also WON the award for the most hilarious costume. She looked awesome and oh so wide!!!

Jake so excited to go back out in the rain.

Hot Toddy and Shandra passing out Hot Dogs...

Snow Canyon Half Marathon

#3 - Half Marathon! I am glad to say that the last of the year was the VERY BEST YET! We had a GREAT time. It was short and sweet. We left Friday afternoon for St. George. Then we ran Saturday morning, showered and returned home by 6:30pm. Just in time for Sunday! I think the 8 hours of driving was TOTALLY okay because there were four fabulous ladies in the car and we never got bored of chatting.

Krista, Diana, Amanda, Holly, Amber (Camille & Alissa I need our other pictures to post you there too!)

Here was our good luck fortunes from Emily...who couldn't make it to the race this month. We SO missed you! But she was cute to send these darling fortune cookies.

Here is to the biggest trooper of them all, my sister Krista. She decided on Friday morning to run with me. So we enlisted in some childcare between our sisters and she joined me. It made the race the best. I had a buddy to talk and chat with the entire time. I was totaly impressed by her abilities. Who needs to train for a half marathon...not her! She even improved her time by 12 minutes from her last one in June. Now, as for me I LOVED this race. It was primarily down hill which ONLY helped my time. I ran this race in 2:09... My first race in June I ran it in 2:32, then my 2nd in 2:17, so for me to meet my goal of 2:10 I was stoked. The other ladies I ran with did AMAZING...They left us in the dust by finishing between 1:40-1:54...Seriously, amazing! But the best part of the race was that at the finish we had ALL met our individual GOALS. So it made for a perfect ending of running in 2010! I know for me, waking up and not HAVING to run was an early Christmas present! My house finally gets the cleaning attention it's been in need of! Oh, this journey has been amazing. I can't wait to do this all over again.

Best Buds

Jacob and Isaac

Cute boys...

Caleb

I just think that these little guys are adorable! The fun thing about having these close up shots of these two is to realize how different they look. Would you even think they are brothers? I don't see a resemblance, but maybe you will?

Jacob

A few of my favorite things...

Fall time. Halloween costumes. Happy little girls. Fall leaves. Hot Chocolate. Outside activities in cool weather. Family parties. Smiles. Joy School. Really, so many things right now have been so fun. Busy, but fun.

Today after church we had a few visitors. The Madsen parents had a busy after church schedule so the kids needed a place to go. So why not come over and spend time with their cousins. A few of my favorite things was listening to all the cousins watching a family video of our trip to California/Disneyland last week. The cousins were SO excited each time a picture of somebody came up. It was so fun listening to them giggle and be so excited to see one another. The other favorite this is seeing Alayna enjoy some good ole "girl" time. They set up a hair salon. I loved watching them! She came to me today and said, "Mom, will I ever have a sister to do girl things with?" At some point I'm sure, but heaven decides that choice! But until then I told her cousins are probably the best sisters out there. Every time you are together your having FUN. She loves these two girls. So thank you Madsen girls for being so darling with Alayna.

Here is handsome Jared doing what he does now on Sundays...Staying busy but being HAPPY while he does it. I have to add in and looking as cute as ever.

It's Joy School Time...

Seriously, is Jake old enough to start Joy School with his cousins and friends? You betcha! He has talked about going to school ever since Alayna started Preschool last year. Finally, it was his turn! Let's just say that this morning he was beaming from ear to ear. The kids were DARLING! I was the first mom to teach the kids and I was totally impressed. I had the six little monkies and they were great. My personal favorite part was teaching them a poem to memorize. I was cute. Next week I am getting it on camera and I will post it all for everyone to enjoy. But here is to really one of my favorite parts of being a mommy. It was a complete delight. Reading books, being super animated, happy, laughter, giggles, choo choo train rides, oh, it was wonderful! Anyways, I can't wait until next week and neither can the boys...and our one princess girl.

Herriman Fire- What we did.

Well, I'm sure everyone has read all they want to about the Herriman Fire, so I'm not going to re-cap everything. We simply packed up our goods that meant something to us. And that we sat in camping chairs outside and watched the fire burn down the mountain till about 2:30am. We had a great time visiting with our neighbors, family and friends. We eventually decided to just go to bed because we felt we were safe. It honestly was an amazing blessing and miracle that so many homes were saved. With that being said, the very next day the kids were working on "thank you" cards for the fire fighters. We consider them our hero's around here. So for Family Home Evening the kids wanted (I promise it was their idea) to make cookies and bring them to our heros. So that's what we did. Alayna brought her card and off we went!

"Police, Firefighters, Soldiers...Thank you very much for saving us."

We decided to bring the cookies to the policeman and soldiers that were stationed just up the street from our house. I figured the Fire Fighters at the station were well taken care of by all the other mom's and kids out there so we decided to take it to them. Anyways, they were GREAT to the kids. They let them turn the lights on in the cop car, the siren, climb in the Hummer, shake their hands and just visit with them. It honestly was wonderful to tell them "thank you!" It was a great experience of service and gratitude. I loved it and so did the kids!

Dilemma of being a girl

Welcome to Alayna's 5 year old little life. What shoes will she wear? We were on our way out the door the other day and I found her in the corner looking like this. Who knew picking shoes would be so difficult and take SO LONG??? Certainly not me! I have two pairs of flip flops, 1 brown and 1 black. (Currently, my black is missing so, it's the brown where ever I go.)

I made her smile just because she has such a cute little face when she's smiling.

As I am warning her that she will have to go with out shoes because she's taking too long she finally picked her favorite pair. Her brown Reef sandals that were given to her. They are finally getting too small after being worn for two years in a row, but they are her first choice. Oh, I think she is the reason our oh so unsightly shoe basket is exploding everyday!