January in Photos...

After all the craziness of the holiday's, January was a wonderfully slow and lazy month! It started out so beautiful! It totally frosted over, and while I am totally sick of the cold and snow, it makes for some beautiful mornings waking up to this:

This is down our street one morning...

Luckily, by the end of the month, it looked a bit more like this, so we have hope that this won't last forever! :)

But we took advantage of the snow while it was here, and had some pretty good snowball fights and made a snowman who stayed with us until just recently. The last little ball of him finally melted away!

Poor Tucker, getting clobbered by daddy...

We mostly stayed in, hunkered down and became hermits!

We cooked a lot together, Taylor loves to help me:

Did a lot of art projects:

This girl spent the majority of the month in her undies.

This picture looks normal enough:

But I had to get a shot from behind, so you could see what I got to have fun doing this month. This is how she was dressed one day when we picked up Tucker from school:

And a lot of this happened:

The girl loves to lounge in her undies! Potty training is going so-so. She was SO good for a week. She had one accident in the first week that I trained her. I stayed in the first few days, and she would go on the potty all by herself without even telling me. After a few days, we ventured out to run errands or to lunch with friends, and she was so great. She would tell me wherever we were, and we would stop and go on the big girl potty. After about a week, there was one day that we stayed home all day and in that one day, she had three accidents in her undies. (one of them poop-gross!) After that she never wanted to wear her underwear again. I force her every now and then, and when she wears underwear, she is really good at going on the potty, but some days she just throws a fit and she wears a diaper, and she goes poop and pee in that. I don't know what to do! I am just too tired right now, too to even do it right. I know I need to be more strict and consistent, but I am too tired to fight, and usually just end up giving in. What am I going to do with this girl? Like my mom said, well, she'll probably be potty trained before she starts high-school-- and that day can't come soon enough! :)

We made a few forts to eat lunch in:

My belly continued to expand. Here I am at 18 weeks:

And at 20 weeks, the day of the Ultrasound to find out the GENDER!!!

That was definitely the most exciting news of the month. If you are friends with me on facebook, then you already saw this picture. But in case you missed it:

Our good friend from the branch, Sonia's, daughter got baptized this month and asked Ben to do the baptism, and asked me to speak at it. It was so fun to be a part of Jazmin's baptism day and we have just grown to love this family!

President Condon (our branch president) & Jazmin:

Jazmin & Ben after:

Ben surprised us with a trip to the Silver Mountain Indoor water park! He was leaving the next week for a week in Alabama to help his parents with some things around their house, so he wanted to have a little family get-a-way before he left! It was perfect, and so much fun! We left on Sunday afternoon, hung out in our condo and in the hot tub all night, and woke up the next day and played all day in the awesome indoor water park! The kids had a blast (and so did we)!

Here we are in the hot tub. We had it all to ourselves, and it was a rooftop one, on top of our hotel. And since it was outside, there were a few inches of snow on the ground all around us. We had fun seeing who could go out in the snow the longest, and lay in it, and play in it, and then get back in the hot tub! It was a perfect evening!

The camera steamed up a bit on this one:

We made home made pizza in our condo that night, and watched a movie with the kids. Ben showing off his skills:

The view from our balcony:

The next day we hit up the water park, and even though I didn't get too many pictures taken while we were there, we had a blast! Taylor's favorite was the hot tub! The only other thing she really enjoyed was just riding around the lazy river in a tube with me. :) We did a family tube ride right at the beginning of the day, and it was SO MUCH FUN! All four of us were in a huge tube, and the slide was completely covered, so it was dark! Me and the kids were screaming the whole time, but it was so much fun, definitely the high light of the day! Unfortunately they didn't ever want to go back and do it again! :) I kept on even offering Tucker money if he would do it again with us, but he refused! :) Tuckers favorite was the basketball pool. Him and Ben spent hours in there, shooting hoops. It was just his height and he loved it. He also loved the kid slides, we had a great time having races, and going over and over and over again! :) Ben's favorite was the wave rider:

They both got to do some boogie boarding. Ben asked them if they could just sit and let the water push them back and up the wave and they had a fun time doing that a few times. It was so cute, Tuckers shorts would fall off every time he did it, and I tried so hard to get a good picture of it, but his cute little bum would show every time he went and he would always come up just laughing and smiling so big! :)

Here we all are just chillin' in the hot tub:

It was a wonderful evening and day with my little family! Thank you Ben for the great surprise!

And thank you January for letting us relax and rejuvenate after the holiday's, it was exactly what we needed! :)

NEW YEARS!!!

We had so much fun on New Years! My friend, Katrina invited us over for a little family party with the kids, and one of her good friends was there who is an artist and does face painting! It was perfect! The kids had so much fun! Ben went to a movie with my brother so we didn't even spend the evening with him, the party pooper!!! But we sure had fun with friends!

Taylor loves Katrina, and I'm pretty sure the feeling is mutual!

Maggie & Taylor watching a movie with their matching butterfly faces, while the adults played games. 

I had planned on coming home around 10, right about the time when Ben would be getting home, and I thought that that was late enough for the kids. But man, they were party animals and didn't want to leave, and were STILL UP at midnight, so we turned on the TV and counted down and watched the apple drop, and Taylor was my midnight kiss that night! :)

It was so much fun. Katrina does this every year, and we are usually in Alabama, so we have to miss out, but I am for sure going to try to make it from now one. Those McLuskies sure know how to party! :)

Chrismas with Grandma Kelly...

My mom came into town a few days after Christmas to see everyone who was here, and to have a little Christmas celebration with her. She decided not to stay with us, and to get a hotel, like she's been doing the past few times she has come up to visit. (I don't think she likes our house!) And she wanted to do the celebration there at the hotel. We had a great time with her here, and of course, got spoiled again!

Her & I had gone to Target the day before to get a little tree for the hotel room, and luckily it was after Christmas, so everything was on clearance! :)

Keyton is such a sweet boy:

Cute little Chase. We didn't know what we were having at Christmastime, but this little guy made me hungry for another boy!

Taylor and her excitement for EVERYTHING, once again! :)

Even at just a pair of socks. I can assure you she doesn't respond like that when she is with me in target actually buying the socks! :)

But it was so great, because I think at one point, one of the gifts was inside a box and before she saw what it was, she screamed, 'A BOX!!!!' It was so funny!

These girls got matching crayon aprons. They are so cute!

And, of course, Grandma had lots of help when it was her turn to open gifts:

Grandma & The Pyper kids:

And Grandma and all of her grandkiddies:

These two are good buddies:

One of the great things about having Christmas at the hotel was getting to swim after. It was fabulous, and the kids all had so much fun!

The gang getting ready to head out the door:

And of course, we all had fun in the pool:

I forced Kenzie swim with me in the pool. She wanted in so bad, but didn't have her swimsuit, so eventually her mommy let her come in in just a swim diaper. I grabbed her, and swam with her, and may have dunked her a few times, and then she wanted nothing to do with me after that???

 

The week between Christmas and New Year, we somehow ended up going out to eat like 15 times, I swear! :) All of us siblings were in town, Papa was still here, my mom got here, Ben had a birthday, and it just seemed like we hit up every restaurant in town! :) The kids LOVE their grandma, and it is always a fight as to who gets to sit with her, or by her, or on her! :)

Grandma stayed an extra day after we begged and begged her to. Everyone had already gone home, so it was just us and we wanted to take her out for once, to the Onion, one of her favorite Spokane restaurants.

On Ben's birthday, we went to Twigs for lunch with the fam. My cousin John and his family also made it into town that day to join us:

The cousins:

John & Becky stayed with us for the night and it was so much fun having them here! I didn't plan it very well on my part and it was Ben's birthday and I didn't know that my dad had promised him a dinner at the all you can eat seafood buffet out at the casino! So we had to leave them for a few hours and I felt bad, but we got to enjoy them for most of the next day. It was so much fun to see them and I am grateful they made the trek up to see us!

This is what you get when you try and put 5 kids under the age of 6 together for a picture. :)

Sweet Lucy snuggling on Tucker:

And this picture cracks me up, because I am sure that this is the same kind of face/attitude that John had as a child with all of his girl cousins--like you are crazy-- and now it's payback time with our children! :)

It was so much fun with so much family in town! I love that we live in a central location and can usually always see family during the holiday's!