Our Valentine Baby turns 5, Happy Birthday Paisley

Paisley turned 5 today. Five years ago we brought the most wonderful Valentine present into our lives. She has been full of energy and life since the day she was born. Paisley is still our little one. She is tiny in size but sure makes up for it in sound and strength. She is stronger and more agile than most kids her age. She still loves to hang on everything and anything she can, and her muscles are quite developed because of it.  I am that mother this year who seems to cry at every "last" she has before going to kindergarten next Fall.  It just amazes me how fast time has gone by for her to already be this age.  Thankfully, she tells me that she will be my baby forever.  We sure do love you Paisley.

 

Paisley has known most of these girls her whole life.  Love all the smiles and giggles they had at her party. L-R: Lily, Paige, Anneliese, Camille, & Cali

 

I made 8 layers of pink and purple cake in descending shades.  It was so fun to cut into and see how it all came together.

 A little duck duck goose at the party

 Thank you to Great Granny for the $5. You can see the smile on her face!

Grandma made this beautiful quilt for Paisley.

Cutest little monkey made by Nana.  Paisley thinks she looks like a ballerina and has been dancing around with her all night.

1st bike!!!

She even looks adorable in a helmet

Ready to ride

Luke Having some snuggle time with Maverick, who thinks he is a lap dog.

Aren't they both just adorable!!!!

Ethen is just about to finish up his first year of basketball. It has been really fun to watch him grow as a player.  This boy of ours had some serious spring in his feet and was awesome at rebounding.  He has been getting up at 6 in the morning without complaining all year now.  I don't know what he will do with another hour and a half of sleep.  He is hoping it will mean more growing to reach his goal of making it to 6 feet tall.  Today he played in a district wide tournament and they got 3rd place.  These boys play hard and we know them all by name now.  It has been a great season.  

Our New Addition

The kids worked really hard and put together a garage sale a couple of weeks ago in hopes to raise enough money to get a new dog for our family. The plan was to wait until summer when they were out of school, but plans change. Scott had his heart pretty set on wanting a German Shorthair Pointer this time and I have been looking at Craigslist daily to see if the right puppy would surface. We were going to go with another Lab or a Pointer. I just so happened to come across a listing one day and texted them asking if they had any girls left. The reply was that only 3 boys were left and so I thought that would be the end. A little later the owner sent me a link to video of the pups and I was a little taken with them. I never wanted a boy dog, have always preferred females, but this little boy was cute enough to warrant a visit out with the entire family. We all fell in love with him right away. He had the best temperment of the 4 pups that were there (including a little girl who was already sold) and the kids had made just enough money to work out a little deal for him. SO we are happy to have 4 paws back in our house and he is getting a lot of attention. Meet Maverick our new baby boy!  It took a little while to all agree on a name, but Phoebe came up with Maverick and it seems to fit and we all like it. Pretty good for 6 people to agree.

 Maverick 7 week old little stud!

He has a little bleach spot on his head, but that will go away when new hair grows in

there aren't enough hours in the day for everyone to cuddle on him enough

A Teenager in the House

Ethen had his golden birthday and with that he also became an official teenager! He turned 13 on Friday the thirteenth 2012. Scott and I spent an hour and a half blowing up around 200 balloons and filled his room with them while he was sleeping. He is a pretty hard sleeper so we were not worried about him waking up during the process.

He had to dig down under the balloons to find his basketball clothes he had laid out for practice.

We got lucky and were able to get a cake from The Cake Stand (thank you Tina) and I thought it would be funny to just put his BBall on top. It worked.

Happy Birthday Ethen. We sure love you!!!!

A Wedding!

We were soooooo thrilled to be able to attend the wedding of my brother John to Liz in the Salt Lake City Temple. They are a beautiful couple and we feel blessed to have gotten to know Liz so well and have her join our family. She is just perfect for John and we love her so much. Paisley was taken with her the second they met and we are happy to have them so close to us here in Texas. They both looked incredible on the wedding day and so so happy.

 

All the Perriton kids, we were just missing Alana who recently had a baby and it was a little early to travel so far from Australia

 Mom and Dad with the bride and groom.  Ethen and Graeme are in the corner there.

Cousin boys Graeme, Ethen and Max were in charge of the hot chocolate and drinks at the reception

 

Cousin girls Claire, Annie, and Phoebe were in charge of the french toast and other food to be refilled.  (And Look at my baby bro James all grown up and hott)

 

Paisley eating some cheesecake after getting out of her dress

Lots of Perriton Cousins were able to attend. It was so good to see everyone

Scott was sure to have the car decorated a little for embarrasment factor, and yes he spelled incorrectly

 Off they go :)

Christmas Morning 2011

This year we spent Christmas in Utah at my parents new house.  We headed there the week before to see John and Liz get married in the Salt Lake City LDS Temple.  It was a beautiful day that I will blog about later.  My parents house is giant and we had such a great time with so much family visiting. Nathan and Jen and kids all came and stayed there too so the cousins could get in as much together time as possible.   Christmas morning was all full of excitement for the kids as we had them line up at the top of the stairs and wait til all the grownups in the house were settled in the family room.  It was good torture as it is every year, but they finally were able to come down and we had a great morning together.  We were only missing Alana, Brian and new baby Hailey.

Waiting at the top of the stairs to be told they can come down

Luke in StarWars Heaven

Some sweet headphones from Nana and Papa

A super thoughtful gift to Ethen from Graeme. He made a longboard for himself and bought one his teacher made for Ethen.  It is so cool!

Thank you Grandma Bergen for the sewing kit

Christmas Eve 2011

Jen reading a story to the kids

The kids in new Christmas jammies 

Graeme rocking out some tunes

 Cousins reenacting the Nativity

 Mom helping Toby get some of his costume off

 

Dad taking pictures with the tripod attached :)

James' beautiful picture of the Christmas Tree