REPOST...Fast Five Years

Tomorrow, December 18th, Clark and I will celebrate our 5th anniversary. Its been a real quick 5 years and only after I started to look for pictures of us before our babies, did I realize how it has zoomed by...I also realized how terrible I was at taking pictures before we had our first toot! Here is a quick recap...

2004

Honeymoon in Durango, this picture was taken on Dec 21, 2004...3 days after we were married. FYI, if you have never been skiing, don't go on your honeymoon!

2005

Thanks to mom, she sent me one of the only pics that she could find of us in 2005!

2006

San Antonio with baby CJ. This was taken on December 8, 2006. It was our tradition to visit San Antonio and the Riverwalk at Christmas and so we must have not wanted to leave CJ even for our anniversary but who could really blame us! We haven't been back due to too much garb to take while flying with more than one baby.

2007

Again, no pictures of me and Clark but a ton of CJ. So here is CJ at Christmas at Nana's standing by me, pregnant with Mark.

2008

We added our sweet Marky in 2008 and when this picture was taken, we were expecting Peyton too...

2009

...and here is us in 2009. We have been so blessed with these three sweet little boys! We never knew what blessings God had in store for us when we married in 2004!

Marky and Peyton

We had Mark's 18 month visit and Peyton's 6 month (really 6 1/2 months) visit on Tuesday.

They are growing boys that's for sure.

Mark gained two pounds and grew 1 1/2 inches for a big 28 pounds (75th %) and 34 inches (90th %). Dr. Eley asked if he was saying around 20 words and I couldn't count that many...needless to say she gave me some paperwork on early childhood intervention but I am not jumping to conclusions yet. He does mostly the jibber jabber thing versus actually talking. I told Clark about this when he got home and he said, "I don't think he'll ever say much. He'll be the guy that walks around not saying much and everybody thinks he's mean but really he's the gentle giant." Who was he really talking about, humm? I am really trying to read to Mark more but he just does not sit for long at all, I guess I just need to keep trying!

The doctor also asked if he was using a utensil to eat with. He is trying to use spoons and forks but not real successful at yet. We tried to let him eat his oatmeal with a spoon this morning but every time we would help him he would throw a huge fit and start pulling the oatmeal out of his mouth in protest. I guess he thinks if he throws it on the floor it will make me mad but really it just leaves him less to fill his belly with. So I guess I am just going to try not to help him as much and let him learn on his own...this must be the middle child syndrome, I seem to think I was the exact SAME way.

This is Mark all cozied up on his daddy's side of the bed. He has never slept with us, unlike CJ so to find him all cozied in our bed was pretty cute!

Peyton gained a whopping 4 pounds and grew two inches for 21 pounds (95th %) and 29 inches (97th %). Dr. Eley was beside herself when I said that Peyton is crawling (has been for several weeks) and pulling up on things. This morning I saw him pull up on Marky and try to wrestle with him, I couldn't get the camera fast enough. Maybe he thinks he is missing out on all the playing the other boys do.

Peyton pulling up on the massive elephant that Ben and Jeni gave to him when he was born!

Marky and Peyton are both starting to enjoy their bonding time while CJ is at preschool on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I think I am going to keep Mark home with me for at least another semester so that the two of them have some alone time to play and also to give Mark some "rule the house" time!

So the boys are certainly not average in the way of their physical stature by any means, and I guess it makes sense considering their parents were never average either!

Decorating Dance Party and seeing Santa

Last Tuesday we decorated the inside of the house but before the decorating began, the boys and Clark had a little dance party...it was Clark's wish that I not post the photo of him dancing so I guess I should describe it...arms above his head, flailing side to side, shirt tugged up showing his midriff, quite a sight I must say but fun. We were told while in a restaurant once, that we have a bunch of comedians, this was before we added Peyton, now for sure we have a house full!

Also Sunday we took the boys to Bass Pro Shop to see Santa...terrible day to go, we waited in line for an hour, no child can be happy to see Santa after waiting in line forever. Nevertheless, we got

our 2009 photo for our collection.

CJ's dance moves...

Marky's dance moves...

Photo I took from the side. The boys had on their Christmas shirts that Grammy gave them with their plaid shirts underneath. They looked VERY handsome.

They were happy to be in the car headed home!

Sweet Peyton was happy most of the time!