My BABY is ONE?!?

We started this birthday the same as usual, with a birthday donut!  He wasn't sure how he felt about it at first, but he quickly decided that he LOVES donuts!

I made this banner for his party...can you tell that this is the last baby and I am desperate to savor every single moment?

He started to get into the party about the time the cake came out!  He was ok with the people, better with the presents, but the CAKE!  That was the real winner!  This is a mild kid that is not the first to chat, smile, or giggle, but this finally got fun for him!  He destroyed the cake, which made this mama VERY happy!

I love remembering his story.  It always makes me smile to remember that this baby is full of surprises!   Remembering that day a year ago...so much has changed!

He makes me happy every single day!  I LOVE YOU SO MUCH ISAAC ALLEN!  You make me so happy my little "Miracle Man."

December 2012

 Tori had her first elementary school choir concert (yes, they sang at Veteran's Day, but that was not an official concert...).  She had been looking forward to it for so long and was so thrilled to finally perform.  She sang the songs so often and for so long.  I am pretty sure that most of our family could have performed with them.  

Tor and Lil

Angie and Tori

I am super sentimental. so I am all about traditions!  I post every year about the decorating of the tree, the cooking making, etc.  I don't think that I have ever remembered to post this tradition.

We usually decorate our tree on the Monday night after Thanksgiving as part of our Family Home Evening for the night.  After we finish decorating the tree we turn off all the lights except for the lights on the tree and we eat donuts and drink egg nog while we sing Christmas Carols.  I LOVE this tradition!  I always feel so happy to hear my kids sing those beautiful songs!

November 2012

We got to spend a little time in the mountains over fall break.  We love our little mountain getaways!  The kids and I had a little adventure while Daddy and Zac took a nap.

Tori had her first elementary school choir performance at a special Veteran's Day breakfast.  She was pretty excited.  It was a little gathering, but surprisingly touching.

The Whitmill side of the family had some great pictures taken!  Talitha was fast and great!  With a group this size and this make up, there isn't a lot of time to get a good picture, but she snapped several, and we were so grateful!

(Three generations)

The "Petermill" Family

All the cousins in age order Hunter, Jake, Lily, Tori, Brayden, Marlee, Sophie, Lizzie, Logan, Makenna, Owen, Gavin, (looping back to the beginning) Liam, and Isaac

Mom and Dad

Sisterly love

The Whole Clan--DANG! There are lots of us!

One of the MANY reasons why I adore my husband--the way he loves our children!

October 2012

This guy is learning SO quickly.  Look what he learned to do!

We have an awesome couple in our ward that my girls both had as primary teachers.  I first met Kaye at a scrapbooking night, but really didn't know her very well.  I ended up on bed rest with Miss Liz shortly after that and Kaye was the first one to stop by with books and movies.  Then she came by with a handmade gift to help me through my days in bed.  Fittingly Liza was born on Kaye's birthday.  We love Kaye and Charlie!  My kids always thought that we were joking when we told them the Charlie had REAL robots in his basement.... one Monday night we took our FHE to them and proved it to them. Charlie even made it talk to them!  They were so excited!

Halloween is fun, but it is even better when you have a Grammy that is SUPER into pumpkins and craziness and all things fall!  We carved pumpkins together, made every pumpkin recipe you can imagine, and even ate "pumpkin barf."

Halloween was fun this year too!  The wee one even enjoyed himself!  It was our first Halloween not dressing the entire family as a theme.... I made it through ok!  Just kidding.  The kids picked their costumes and were pretty excited.

September 2012

The month of September was kind of a blur!  My baby has officially spent more of his life living outside of me than he did in... SO OLD!

The O Man started his last year of preschool, and with a very sad Mama.  I got to teach his 3 year old preschool class, but he was having trouble differentiating between "Mom" and "Ms. Jenn" and I wanted to give him a preschool experience without "Mom."  He was still at Smarty Pants, but with Ms. Angie instead.

Nana got to come to Owen's Grandparents' Day at school!  He had fun, and I hope she did too!

We took another trip up to Garden of the Gods because we just had to show it to Daddy!

Tori and Lizzie spent some time with Grammy and Grampy out in Utah.  They got to fly out all by themselves, which gave Mommy a heart attack!  I wasn't sure I was ok with it, and neither was Liz.  After a lot of reassurance, some prayers and a missed earlier flight to get her on the plane to visit, but I am pretty sure she was happy she went!  They even met a special "new friend" at breakfast.  For those of you that don't recognize this very special man, his name is L. Tom Perry, and he is an apostle in our church!  He is a great man with an amazing spirit!  I was so jealous!

August 2012

I am almost a full year behind, but I am NOT a quitter, so here comes August...of last year!

My littlest man hit 8 months.  I am having a hard time watching him grow up!  I want him to stay a baby forever.  Unfortunately for me, that doesn't seem to be a part of his plan.  What's with the shiner?  Well, this little guy took a header out of his car seat in a store.  Mom of the year moment!  I felt SO bad.  I actually ended up taking him to the ER because of the aftermath, but he is just fine!  He is not a big smiler, so any time I can get a picture of the tiniest grin I am absolutely thrilled!

We FINALLY got rid of the PEPTO pink room!  I have been ready to repaint this room since the day we moved it.  Unfortunately my girls were young enough that pink walls and a princess border were their dream come true.  At six and eight years old they finally gave in and agreed that they were ready for a more "grown up" look.  I don't know if it is really more "grown up" or not, but most importantly it is not PINK!  (Excuse the messy bedroom in the before and in the after shots...I didn't make it beautiful, but you get the idea.)

 It was our FHE activity one night to take down the border.  It was kind of a pain, especially when we realized that the people who had done it before had kind of made a mess of the wall, but it was DONE!

Finally time to paint.  Want to know the best way to paint?  Ask someone else to do it!  This lovely lady was SO forgiving of our chaos and so willing to make it right!  I am SO grateful!

I know the video doesn't do justice to Vanessa's wonderful work since all the furniture is still in the middle of the room and there are drop cloths everywhere, but it gives you an idea.  Since I am posting almost a year too late, that will have to do.

The kids have been curious lately about rocks, gems, geodes, and such.  We thought it would be fun to give them a chance to see a geode for themselves.  We bought a kit and let the kids break them open.  They were so excited and it was such a cool little science lesson!  They all had a blast.  (Nearly a year later I may or may not have regretted this...wait until I do my June 2013 post for the end of that story. ;) )

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!  My beautiful girls started first and third grade at the end of the month.  Tori is an old pro at this, but I LOVE that she still wants me to walk her to class, and stand with her in line!  I still think of her as my little princess, and I probably always will, so it's nice for this overly sentimental mom to still have those few moments to squeeze my little ones and remind them that they are still my babies.  

This year was a first for us with Liz.  Her teacher "looped" with the class, so her whole kindergarten class stayed together and the teacher went with them up to first grade.  We haven't ever done that before, and we weren't sure how we felt about it.  Looking back I can say it was a gift from Heaven!  Liza is a truly tender heart, and this couldn't have been more perfect for her.  She loves Ms. Katie, and so do I.  We are so lucky we got her for two years, and so thankfully for how much she understood and helped my little angel as she hesitated, and even cried a little on this first day of school.  She is such a little love bug!

 We also have an amazing blessing of having our best friends and cousins at the same school.  Tori and Lil have been inseparable since we moved to Colorado almost nine years ago!  Liz and Soph have been in the same class for four years in a row now both in church and in school.  They are only three weeks apart in age.  Since I didn't grow up knowing my cousins very well I truly feel like this is another amazing gift!

We had a couple of other firsts this month (in addition to school and black eyes) including:  a trip to the Denver Mint!  SO cool to see how our country makes money and hear about some history too!

a lost tooth

and the Colorado Springs mining museum and Garden of the Gods!