Grant is 4 months old

Grant turned four months old last week. At his appointment he was 16 lbs, 7 oz which was actually the smallest of all three kids. Here are some things we love about our baby:

He has big blue eyes! We hope they stay blue, but both Andrew and Claire had blue eyes at this age and they are now both green. He loves to look around and observe things around him. It is really easy to get him to smile and what a big smile he has.

He really likes to kick his feet and wave his arms when he gets excited.

For some reason Grant really likes to stick out his tongue. He will just be looking around the room and he will have his tongue sticking out. It is really funny.

According to Danny Grant also likes to play Tiger Woods golf on the Wii. Here is is wrapped up and playing golf with Danny. Andrew and Claire are very excited for when Grant gets to eat real food like they do. Claire is still enamored by her baby brother and needs to be reminded about personal space - even for babies.

Claire's bed

I just have to laugh each night when Claire goes to bed. Her bed is a rotating collection of various personal belongings. In any given night you may see stuffed animals, dolls (currently there are 4), hair headbands, purses, books, jewelry, dishes, shoes, clothes, etc. In fact, if you are missing something a good place to check would be Claire's bed. She keeps the items piled up on the right side of her bed and she sleeps snuggled up against the wall.

She also has a blanket collection on her bed. There is the comforter, two baby blankets and the quilt I made her. Notice that she is also snuggling with her monkey backpack that is now named Playdough.

Here is a close up of the pile. The Pooh bear stuffed animal is a new addition. It was in Andrew's room and I tried to get rid of it, but she snagged it and added it to the pile. Even if I try to put this stuff away she will just gather new items and start a new pile.

New Year's weekend

My brother Ryan and his family came up for Christmas and invited us to come down for New Year's weekend. They took Andrew home with them on Monday and we drove down on Thursday. They were going to be hosting a murder mystery party on New Year's Eve which we haven't done for a while. Unfortunately my lovely sister in law Mandy hasn't sent me any pictures from the event, so I can't show you our costumes. Maybe she will now :)

We were excited to take the new van on a road trip and especially excited to use the new entertainment system! Supposedly the kids could watch a video while we still listened to the radio or a CD. This was one of the major reasons we got that model. Back in September the dealer explained how to use the system and all the buttons. He said, "please call if you have any questions. Believe it or not, this is the number one thing that people call about after they get their vans home." We of course laughed this off - really?? How hard could it be? Well, much to the chagrin of Andrew and Claire we didn't try to use it until this trip. Ummmm....round about Gilroy I would have paid a lot money to talk to someone about how to use the special @#$%&*#&#!* entertainment system. The issue was getting the headsets to work properly. There is a line in the manual (I know because I read most of it in the car) that says that the wireless headsets have labels on them (L and R) and that they must be put on the proper ears or the sensors won't work. Come to find out after much trial and error, the sensors also don't work in the front seat - only from the back seats. I finally figured it out and we had smooth sailing from then on. And we do really still like the entertainment system - at least until the next trip.

Once we got there, Claire got right down to playing with Mia. They had great fun playing with dolls and her play kitchen. Here Claire is showing Mia her special "load everything you own in the shopping cart" technique. Thursday night we were able to go to a Brazilian steakhouse where they bring various meats around to your table. We met Erik and Lisa there and had a great time chatting and eating too much. We all decided that the one in Provo is better though.

On Saturday we went to lunch at McDonald's and then to a park. All of the kids were thrilled after all of the rain both here and in Southern California. Danny took Landon, Isabel, Andrew and Claire up a hill near the playground. A few minutes after this picture they all headed back down the hill, but Landon decided to run down. Well he just got going too fast and tripped and fell on his stomach. It looked really bad, but he got right up and kept going. We all gasped at the site, but he said he wasn't hurt.

Erik and Taylor. They didn't spend Christmas with us because they went to Utah to go skiing with Lisa's family. I guess we'll forgive them this time. It was great to be able to spend time with them again. We hadn't seen Kenzie since August.

Claire was very excited that she got to swing on the "big kid" swings.

Kenzie was quite thrilled to see her cousin Grant. They are about 10 weeks apart, but Grant is bigger. Grant wasn't so sure what to think of her affection. I love the picture in the bottom right hand corner.

Here is a parting shot of 8 of the 10 grand kids. Left to right: Landon holding Grant, Mia, Taylor, Claire, Isabel, and Andrew holding Kenzie. It was such a fun weekend for everyone!

And here is one of my favorite sights -a sleeping baby. The ride home wasn't quiet the whole time though. Unfortunately Andrew got car sick. Luckily we are prepared and he had a bag in the back seat. Double unfortunately he dropped the bag on the floor. Triple unfortunately it didn't just land on the carpet, but right where the seat in front of him latches to the floor. When we got home this required removing the seat and quite a bit of time to clean up. But we still had fun and can't wait to see everyone again.

January park day

Last Saturday was a beautiful day - so beautiful in fact, that Danny played golf. I decided that it was too nice to stay inside and I asked the kids if they wanted to go for a walk. my intent was to get some exercise, but the kids intent was to go to the park. So I loaded Claire and Grant into the stroller and Andrew rode is bike to the infamous "park by our house".


I like this new stroller that Natalie and I purchased together. It isn't double wide, but still holds two kids. I can also take out the bottom seat and make it into a single stroller.

The kids got to playing and quickly started a new restaurant. It was just so nice to be outside during January and have the sun out!

I tried to take this picture of all of us, but my arms aren't long enough. Grant and Claire were really thrilled about that idea.

Then Andrew thought that it would be fun to take some pictures including this one of himself. He wanted me to delete this picture because he said it looked funny, but I like it.

Andrew did take this super cute picture of Grant. Love the blue eyes and the drool.

A visit from Great Grandma

Last week Danny's Grandma came to town for a short visit. She lives in Santa Barbara, so we don't get to see her very often. Andrew wasn't in town because he was at Landon's house.

Claire was so excited to see Grandma Peterson. We had dinner and a fun visit so that she could see the newest great grand child.

We should have gotten a four generation picture with Danny and his dad included. Why do I always think of these things after the fact? Her visit rounded out a great Christmas time spent with family.

Christmas 2010

As always it seems like Christmas passed by too fast this year. Andrew and Claire were beyond excited about opening presents this year. The advent calendar and Christmas shows helped to raise their excitement.

Christmas morning they actually didn't get up too early - yeah! They got up just after 7:00 am. Claire slept with her Belle doll that she got the night before. Andrew was excited to help pass out the presents. We had to remind them to actually look at the gifts before starting to open the next one. The excitement may just be in opening something that is wrapped. Wouldn't that be great - it would be much cheaper!

Claire got a Beauty and the Beast castle which she loved, although you cannot tell from this picture. This was the look on her face when we told her that she couldn't open the castle right then because we had to go to grandma's house.

Here is Andrew with his presents. He has really liked the game of Life lately, but ours is the copy from when Danny was growing up and it is really out of date. He also got some Star Wars figures and a golf putting practice mat.


Here he is with his Boba Fett mask and gun from Christmas Eve.

Here is Claire with some of her things. Her favorite things were definitely the Belle doll and castle.

We headed over to my parents house around 10:00 am for more presents. The kids had a hard time waiting until Natalie and Pete arrived. Erik and Lisa were in Utah with her family this year.

A cool overhead shot while I started handing out presents.

Here is Isabel playing the guitar that Andrew got. I love that Landon is dancing!

Natalie and I went in on a joint give for Claire and Elaina. This item was originally supposed to be stored at my house for the kids, but we might leave it at my parent's house for a while. It is all wood and Natalie found a great deal on it back in August and has been storing it in her garage since then - thanks Pete!

A picture after church the next day, I'm not sure why Andrew is holding a water bottle, but I couldn't get him to lay it down. Grant actually has a red vest, but I didn't have it on him that day. Overall, we had a fun time with family and did a lot of eating. I love Christmas time, but it always seems to come and go so fast.