Taters faces...

This girl cracks me up! There is seriously no other little girl like her! She has attitude! She yells and grunts and screams and throws her toys and throws her food and she makes the funniest faces! :) I always tell people that my favorite stage is between 9 months and 18 months. They are so much fun, learning to much and, my kids anyway, always made the best faces! She is finally just starting to crawl! Right before we leave for Hawaii, of course, so my mom will have fun keeping her out of things! :) Sorry mom! Her crawl is hilarious, she has a dead leg. She drags one leg behind her. I need to get it on video!

She also loves bath time and is trying to pull herself up in the tub! Here are some of her cute faces:

{I love her big ol' round head!} :)

{And she is getting teeth like crazy! She has 7 or 8 now! They are all coming in at the same time. Which, I'm kind of glad about, but it makes for some sleepless nights! But at least they are all coming in now and we can be done with it, right?}

Finally, a smile and it's focused on her hand! :) I had to move the camera away from my face for her to actually smile, and I didn't see what it was focusing on! :)

I love me some bath time babies! :) So cute!

Keytons birthday!

My nephew Keytons 4th birthday was on January 15th. While they were here in December for Christmas, he invited Tucker to come and spend the night for his birthday. So, we made plans to go to Quincy (about 2 hours away) on Friday morning, spend the night, celebrate his birthday on Saturday and head home Saturday afternoon/eveningish. My mom, after learning about the plans, decided she wanted to come too, and meet us there. It was going to be a full blown party! :)

Little did we know that Kelli really just lured us there so that we could watch their kids! (I'm kidding!) :) Her and Allen planned an escape that night to a local resort, since they had some babysitters who would be there anyway! :) My mom and I stayed with the kids and together, I think we handled the 4 kids just fine! :)

Allen & Kelli before leaving for dinner:

I brought some pj's for Taylor that I knew Cassidy had and grandma gave Keyton & Tucker brand new matching Batman pj's. We had to get a picture of the matching kids. Too bad Taylor wasn't too happy! I don't know what I'm going to do with this girl-she has such attitude!

The next morning, Keyton woke up to a HUGE doughnut, just for him! :) Kelli told us that she had gotten him a cake the Thursday before for his little preschool friends, but he refused have a piece of it or let them sing to him because it wasn't his ACTUAL birthday! :) That is so Keyton, I love it!

And some presents. He got to open one from his parents, the presents from grandma, and his present from Tucker. We waited to open the rest for when his parents got home. They got home shortly after breakfast.

Taylor got to taste her first bite of a doughnut! If she is anything like her mother, she loved it!

Keyton, of course, was so excited opening all of his cool toys! :) I think Tucker was a little jealous!

I thought that this was so cute, the bag was almost bigger than him!

After Allen & Kelli got home and opening his presents, we headed to McDonalds in Moses Lake where we met up with two of my cousins and their families for lunch and then headed home! It was a fun quick little trip! I am glad we got to stay with the kids to give Allen & Kelli a little break! Those are always SO nice! :)

silly kids...

Here are a few I forgot about.

Taylor will eat anything I put on her tray! She has a never ending pit for a stomach, I swear! :) I am just glad she's not picky because I have a hard time finding new things for her to eat. She just devours her food! I guess I should be grateful that I have good eaters! I was cutting up some celery for Tucker, he loves celery, and decided to give her a rib of it.

Surprise, surprise, she loved it! My mom is staying with the kids while we are in Hawaii right now (more on that later!) :) and told me that she won't even take her bottle any more! She just smacks it away! What am I going to do with her? :)

Since Ben got his mustaches for his birthday, they've been a popular thing to play with around here. Tucker was wearing one one day and I got out the camera to take his picture, and he totally did the A-OK hand symbol on his own! :) We were dying!

Some random January...

January 10th was a special day in the Pyper household. 'The BEST day ever!' as quoted by Ben. Surpassing that of our wedding day and the births of our two children.

Auburn WON THE NATIONAL COLLEGE FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP!

Yea, we know who to root for! :) Now, I know we live in the Northwest and the Oregon Ducks WERE in that game as well, but you see my husband is from the dirty dirty south and that blood will ALWAYS run thick in this veins. Anyone from Alabama knows that you either bleed crimson or you bleed blue & orange. My husband happens to be a blue & orange fan. And that, by default, makes us Auburn fans as well!

We can FINALLY wear our blue & orange with pride! :) Thanks for making my husband a happy man, Auburn!

We wore our gear all day!

This is a common sight in our house. Ben will find anything and try to make it something he can workout on or with! :)

My smart little boy! I am so proud! I found these in his room one day after quiet time in his room. He loves to learn, he really does! Even on his own!

He also loves to help me bake. I don't do it often, but when I do, you can be sure that I have a little shadow by my side! I had been wanting to get him his own cooking utensils for a while, but didn't want it to be 'girly'. I was so excited to find these on clearance at target after Christmas; it's a children's cooking utensils set. That's a giraffe whisk and an alligator rolling pin and also an apron, and it comes with a spatula and two little cookie sheets and a bear shaped cookie cutter. He was so happy to have his own stuff!

You can see that we make quite the mess when we cook together! I love my cooking buddy, though! :)

I'm a winner!

SO, like over a year ago, in November 2009 I got an e-mail from an old friend of mine. Her sister was starting an etsy shop and selling the cutest things. To get things up and running, they were trying to generate some buzz by having a givaway. Now, I usually don't really bother with things like that. I never win anything, and I don't always have time. But I did look at her stuff, and I fell in love! She makes the cutest hand stitched shirts for kids. I loved them, and I thought that maybe I had a chance! :) I entered and found out a week later that I had won! I got to choose from some of her cute stuff! I was so stoked! I was still pregnant with Taylor at the time and since we didn't have a definite name for her yet, I asked Alison if I could wait until after she was born to order something, because I wanted a monogrammed onesie for the baby. Well, Taylor was born that February, and you know how life gets with a baby...crazy! A few months went by and I would tell myself that I needed to e-mail Alison, then a few more months would go by and I would think about it again. But it never happened, until a YEAR later! I was so embarrassed! :) But I am SO glad I did, because look at what I got in the mail a few weeks ago! :) Matching Big T and little t shirts for Tucker & Taylor! I love them so much! :)

I tried to do a little photo shoot with them but since there was like a foot and a half of snow out, we had to do it inside. Of course, Taylor immediately ripped off her bow! :) But you can see how cute this stuff is! I am SO happy!

Thank you so much Alison! You are amazing! Seriously, check out her etsy site by clicking on the link above! You will fall in love!

Here's the link, again:

New Years Eve...

After having so many visitors, this is what I did a lot of on New Years eve:

folding and folding and folding! It was never ending! :) It was very exciting; forget the parties and the celebrating, I was so happy to get through this baby! :)

But I did make a little time for a dip in the hot tub, some bubbly and snacks with the hubs and a movie! It was a great evening with sleeping children and snuggling with my husband!

Doesn't get much better than that!

Happy New Year everyone! 2010 for us was a roller coaster! The highlight (obviously) being Taylor Rae joining our family. We love her SO much! There are a lot of questions right now as to our future; (where to live, where to work, how many kids, the list goes on!) but one thing for sure, is that I am so happy to be doing it all with my little family! I couldn't have asked for anything better. I know we will be taken care of and I'm excited for the journey! :)

Aunt Kayla's baby shower...

We had a baby shower for my little sister while she was here for Christmas. It was so much fun. Angie, her mother in law, and I threw it for her up at my dads house. It was so much fun decking his house all out in pink! :) Angie is excited, she has four boys; this will be the first official Croskrey girl in their family! :) (can you say spoiled!) Also, Angie is so talented and cutesie, I knew that things would turn out great for the shower. Here we are filling up the balloons. You can be sure that Carter was right there just WAITING to get his hands on one of those babies! :)

Our cousins, Kristin & Stormee drove all the way up just for the shower! Love these girls so much! :)

I decided to do a craft instead of play games. That way everyone could just hang out and eat and chat or chat and do a craft. My mom and I went to Hobby Lobby and just got a ton of stuff to make bows for baby Viv. (We got used to calling her baby Viv, because her name was almost 100% sure of being Vivian, now they aren't so sure about the name, but we still call her that!) :) Anyway, the bows were to make for Kayla for her to take home, but we had SO much stuff, a lot of people were able to make some for themselves, which was just fine!

The gift table. My mom always does a huge gift basket for each of us at our showers-for the first babies. Thats that huge thing at the back of the table. Mine for Tucker was so cute, a little wagon full of a few boy items. Kelli's for Keyton was a little bigger, Angie's for Carter was even bigger and now Kayla's for Vivian was HUGE. The biggest thing I have ever seen! And she had to get it all back to Milwaukee! :) They had to get all of this back to Milwaukee-they actually did it, which I was pretty shocked about!

The food table. I love my dads marlin that he caught in Mexico on the wall behind the food. It totally adds that feminine touch! :)

We had a great spread, if I do say so myself! :) Thanks for the help everyone!

Kayla's mother in law made these delicious and totally cute cupcakes! She is SO talented! Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate ganache & Vanilla frosting. Divine! They even say, 'it's a girl' but you can't read it in the picture.

And she also made these cute 'Thank you' jars. Filled with pink m&m's. And you can't see it in the picture, but each jar had a little charm with baby foot prints on it! So cute!

Kayla and some of her friends...

Stormee & Kristin...

Me & the Taters...

The preggers...

She is so cute pregnant! Here huge belly sticking out like a basket ball. You can't even tell she is pregnant from behind! She is due to have her baby girl on February 17th, which is Taylor Rae's birthday. I am praying that she has her on that day. I would love for them to be birthday twinners, exactly a year apart. But something tells me that she will come early.

I am so jealous of this quilt! I love it! :) Another Mother in law made quilt! :)

The boys were banned from this party, but since my uncle drove my aunt all the way up here and didn't really have anywhere to go during the party they all stayed. Seriously, my Uncle Scott, Ben, Tucker, Nathan, Carter & Jason all went downstairs and watched football and ordered a pizza while all of us ladies were upstairs. It was actually fun having them here. Every now and then a child would wander upstairs and get some attention.

Grandma & Carter...

My Aunt Kathy, Angie, Nathan & Kayla. Aunt Kathy drove all the way up just for the shower! I am so glad she did, it was SO good to see her! We love Aunt Kathy!

Amanda, Angie & Kayla...

Aunt Kathy & my mom...

Me and my mommy and my sissy! After the party was over and the clean up was finally done, we were ready to go home and relax! :) (don't you love my sponge bob band aid?) :)

Ok, now you can officially come, baby V! :)