My baby is 4.

My baby boy turned 4 on August 10th.  The last 4 years have been the best and worst of my life.  Jack has been my son, my best friend, a companion, and a life jacket when I feel I am drowning.  This child is my life. I don't know how to put it more simply.  God gave me this little boy to help me through my father's death.  To think Jack is not a baby or even a toddler anymore makes me want to stop and grasp hold of every second of his life.  I still remember, vividly, the waddle into the hospital when I was going in to have him.  I remember those first weeks of being a new mom, his first giggle, the first time he told me he loved me, his first kiss and hug.
To my little boy,,,Jack you are the love of your daddy and mommy's lives.  Every day I thank God for you.  You know how to test us, but we are better people because of it.  I pray that you continue your rebellious and outgoing nature.  You are very direct in what  you want, and won't rest till you get it.  You are not shy, and make friends very easily.  You are an amazing child.  I love you, baby.  -Mama.

Jack went to the dr to get his wellness check, here are his stats...
Weight: 36lbs 44%
Height: 40.5in 53%

Looks like he is slowing down in the height department, he use to always be in the high 80%'s, but the dr said it is normal.  He is too active to keep any type of weight on.  Especially since he has started running 2 miles with me in the mornings.  He loves his protein shakes, drinking about two a day.  He is also in love with  pancakes, waffles, orange yogurt, goldfish, hotdogs, and hamburgers.  He refuses and gags on pasta and cheese.  He is obsessed with the solar system and knows trivia on every planet.  He can count to 30, is starting to sound out words, and has started to add and subtract.  He loves robots, baseball, soccer, his trampoline, playing the Wii with daddy, going to Lagoon with mommy and watching Real Steel and transformers.  (Are you seeing a robot re-occurrence?)  He loves to wake up and cuddle every morning with mommy, and still tells daddy that he is his best friend.  Happy birthday my Jack attack.

Better late than never...

This summer has been one giant blur.  Between traveling to MN for my cousin's wedding and meeting my nephew for the first time, my best friend's wedding, my son's 4th birthday, throwing my other friend her baby shower, and my sister's upcoming wedding, life has been complete chaos.  Let us start back in the beginning of July where my dear friend got hitched.  Jess has been one of my best friends since I was 18yrs old.  We met at my first job at Fashion Bug (oh the memories).  She is the one that introduced me to my husband, Vic.  She has been a rock in my life, and I see us growing old together.  After a amazing bridal shower, us bridesmaids threw a pretty rockin' bachelorette party.  I won't go into details here, but lets just say we had us some great conversations by the pool, followed by the premier dance club in Park City...haha (total inside joke there.)  We party rocked the entire night, with our own personal bartender, and just kicked back.  It was a blast, and we all agreed to have a girl's weekend every summer to replicate the awesomeness of that weekend.  The following weekend she got married to a great guy, Mace.  The wedding was beautiful, even in our mauve brides maid's dresses.  :)

After getting through all the wedding festivities, my mom celebrated her 53rd birthday on July 12th two days after my dad would have turned 55.  I didn't get a chance to do this, but someone told me to have all the grandkids hold a bouquet of balloons, sing happy birthday and then release the balloons so we can send Papa a present up in Heaven.  I want to always celebrate my dad's birth and try not to think about his death.  For my mom's birthday, my grandma and grandpa took the family out to dinner, and we loved spoiling my mom rotten with gifts.  After the last few years, she  deserves being showered upon.  On Juy 17th, my little JaidyBoo turned 3.  This little girl is such a spit fire.  I love her tenacious personality.  There is no doubt in my mind, she will give my sister a run for her money the older she gets.  Jaidyn is 3 going on 16.

Next came my little man's 4th birthday.  I have been planning and scheduling this sucker for months.  He is now at the age where he wants all his friends around, and of course Vic and I want to celebrate with all the family.  So, two parties it was.  His first party we held at a big water park called, Cowabunga Bay.  We are lucky enough that it is located between our house and his school, so most of all his buddies were able to come.  Jack told me he wanted a robot and solar system birthday.  I went with robots for the water park party and space for our big backyard BBQ.  I think about 25 people showed up for the kid's party.  Jack had the time of his life.  He loved all the water slides, and the lazy river.  He has asked to go back every day since.  I think I will have to take him one more time before schools starts just so he stops asking me!  The next evening we had a huge party at our house.  We grilled, had some drinks, made some s'mores at the fire pit, and had all our friends and family here to celebrate with us.  I think the hit for the kids, was the glow in the dark balloons I found and the giant inflatable water slide uncle Tad brought over. It was such an amazing night.  I even had my mom here with me for the entire weekend to help me out.

 Mom's birthday at Kobe

 My mom and grandma.  Vic and I got her a Kindle Fire.  At 53, I finally got my mom to have a love for reading.

 Grandpa, my uncle Scott and Vic

 Jaidyn's birthday.  The kids loved the pinata!

 Vic and Katchie at the groom's supper for Jess and Mace's wedding

 Me and my Katch!

 The bride

 Vic at the reception

 I look like a secretary

 Jess and Mace

 My birthday boy.  How can he already be 4!

 I told him he could have whatever he wanted to eat on his birthday.  He chose gold fish for breakfast.

 All the Waterford mom's and their kids at Cowabunga Bay

 My mom took the day off of work to help me with the parties.  She picked Jaidy up on the way!

Lunch break!

Sneak Peak of family pictures 2012

I have a lot of blogging to catch up on, but here is some recent news...Last night, we got all dolled up and took our family photos.  We have them done every two years, with the same photographer.  She has a way of getting Jack to smile, and we love how the pictures turn out every time.  If you want to see a little sneak preview, head on over to:

 www.staceypetersen.com/blog

A little preview of the preview.  My little stud right before leaving for our photo session. 

Hunter is born!!

May 16th, 2012 my first nephew was born.  Hunter David East.  He is such a beautiful little boy.  Krista did amazing, and had a natural delivery.  Chad was freaking out, like every soon to be dad.  We got the news that Hunter was born and was perfectly healthy.  Jack was very excited to meet his BOY cousin.

Jess's bridal shower

One of my best friends, Jessica, is getting married this year...in like two weeks.  So it is probably time I actually blogged about her bridal shower that I helped throw.  Her sister, Celina, is awesome and pretty much took charge of everything and came up with the idea of going to Color Me Mine for the shower.  It was such a success.  Everyone had a blast.  Next on the agenda, the bachelorette  party...that post to come.

 Just part of the set up

 Celina's best idea ever!  A blow up cardboard cut out of Jessica as a toddler.  

 Celina Sue

 Me and my mama

 Jess opening up her gifts

We got roughly 30 women in here 

The month of May in a nutshell

2012 has not been the year of the blog for me.  I am so behind, it is just ridiculous!  Being a mom is so time consuming.  Even when Jack is napping, I find myself being backed up on just about everything in my life, that blogging has taken a back seat.  So...I have about one hour free right now, and even though I have laundry to do, bathrooms to wash, dinner to prepare, and a lawn that needs mowed, I am dedicating my time to you...my probable one reader.
I think my last blog was the beginning of May, so sad, and that was when Jack was in baseball camp.  He LOVED baseball, and continues to tell me that he needs to go back and play.  I am a little worried about his upcoming football and soccer camps, I don't know how well he will respond to those, now that he has clarified baseball to be his favorite.  I know most kids would just go with it, but my son is a total control freak and hates change.  Once he has made a decision, that's it, regardless if he really likes what he is doing or not.  Case in point.  About a year ago, Jack made a decision to hate cheese.  Just up and decided mid quesadilla, cheese was not for him.  He has refused cheese to this day.  Even when everyone around him is eating pizza, and I know he really wants some, he just won't give in and I am not the kind of mom that will force him to eat pizza.  So I guess time will tell on the sports front, how he will respond.
After getting through with sports camp, I had Jaidyn for a weekend.  I love my little Magoo.  Her and Jack are so close.  The love to go and play in the backyard, which makes me a happy mama since that means they are not in the house driving me crazy.  On a different evening when Vic got home from work, he decided to go out and try to fix our gas fire pit.  I was inside making supper, and Jack was trying to be "helpful" and give daddy his tools.  I look out the window and find that Jack has pulled down his shorts and underwear, and while I start to yell "NOOOOO", Vic turns around and we just end up watching Jack take a dump in the back yard.  He yells back at me, "its ok, mommy, it is just boy poop!"  Of course Vic couldn't stop laughing, and I just stood there with this dumb look on my face thinking, "did that just happen?"  In a nutshell this was our month of May.

 Jack on a field trip to Thanksgiving Point with his preschool class

 At this time, this was a really fun idea.  It wasn't until we got home that I realized, with two swollen eyes, that Jack is allergic to horses!

 He was a bumblebee in school

 Getting ready to play

 This kid is never too far away from Mario Kart

 Taking turns with Jaidyn, riding around the yard

 My little girly tom-boy

 Jack wearing his "working" hat, while helping daddy

This would be right before the "boy poop" took place

Itty Bitty Baseball

Today was Jack's first day of baseball camp.  Needless to say, I was a little nervous.  Two months ago when he was in Itty Bitty Ball, he was a little out of control the last day, and I had to take him home early.  I cannot believe what a difference two months make in maturity.  He was one of the most well behaved kids there.  He kept turning around to make sure I was watching him, and I would smile and give him a little thumbs up to encourage how well he was doing.  That was all it took.  He is at the age that he loves it when I tell him how proud I am of him.  He always asks me if I am happy, or he tells me how he doesn't want to be naughty.  Haha.    I think, by far, Jack's love in sports is baseball.  I was hoping for soccer, but he just lights up when anything baseball comes near.  I guess we will see, he has three soccer camps this summer and one football.  Can you tell I am slightly biased when it comes to sports?  Haha.  Truthfully, as long as he stays active I will support him in whatever he wants to do.  He already goes running with Vic and I, and has been asking if he can learn how to swim.  So I think I might have a future athlete on my hands.

 Doing some exercises before class starts

 Running the bases

 Learning how to bat

 Putting the ball back

 Being taught how to catch with a mitt

 Taking a hoola-hoop break

He loves to hit the ball