Happy New Year!

Well the new year, to me, marks the end of the Christmas season. I take down my tree and all of my decorations, and this makes me kind of sad. Luke was born less then 2 weeks before Christmas and so I would sit and snuggle him on the couch and sing Christmas songs to him. This year he still would let me hold him on my lap and sing, but it was on his term...as everything is. But my favorite song to sing to him is Mary's Lullaby (Tonight you are mine). I tried to find it on youtube or anywhere actually but there is a different Mary's Lullaby and thats the only one I could find...but the words to the chorus are so sweet:

All mine in your loveliness, Baby, all mine;
All mine in your holiness, Baby Divine.
Sing on herald angels in chorus sublime;
Sing on and adore, For tonight you are mine


Oh let me enfold thee, my baby tonight;
While legions are singing in joyous delight.
A new star has risen to hail thee divine,
For you are a king, but tonight you are mine.

That's how I felt on Luke's first Christmas and that is how I feel on Ryan's first Christmas as well. My 2 sweet little Kings.

And these are my thoughts of sadness as I un-christmas my house. Call me a sentimental fool. I'm just an emotional Mom!

All I want for Christmas is my 2 front teeth

Well that is just what Ryan got! Well his 2 bottom teeth. He was sucking on a cookie last night and he got it down to a small piece so I took it away and swept his mouth with my finger to make sure there were no pieces to choke on and...I felt something! So I rubbed my finger around and found 2 little tiny baby teeth! I was really surprised because he never got grouchy! Not once did I see swollen gums, not even a hint of a fever and no sign of teeth coming in at all! I am so happy! Not for the teeth, cause I have already been bitten, but that my sweet chubby, happy baby wasn't in pain for his teeth! If the gypsy's had been in town when Luke was teething he would have been down the road (not really, but it was bad).

YOU'LL SHOOT YOUR EYE OUT

I don't think much needs to be said about this. Luke's Grandpa and Grandma Cate got him a BB gun for his birthday. There could not be a happier 3 year old in the world!

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Ours was good! It was really fun with Luke this year, he understood about Santa and that being naughty would get you rocks in your stocking instead of candy. We kept it small and simple as far as the presents go. Our boys are little and we want them to appreciate the things they have and not have the gimmies. All total, (i am quite proud of this too...) there were 10 presents under our tree this morning. There were a few that Grandma & Grandpa Cate brought on Tuesday that got opened cause Grandpa said they could...lol. But we had a very enjoyable Christmas, it is nice to focus on family and being together rather than fighting the crowds and stressing over money.

I think that my favorite thing that my boys got were slippers that my mom made for them. When we were little my mom would crochet us these same slippers and it brought back lots of memories of running and sliding on the kitchen floor!

A Ryan post

Well we thought that it was going to be hard to keep Luke out of the christmas presents this year, but boy were we wrong! The other night I walked into the living room where I had left Ryan laying on his blanket and found him unwrapping a present! He was so excited by the noise the paper makes when he plays with it!

Caught red handed
(a deer in the headlights look if I ever saw one)

Luke decided Ryan needed more pillows than the 2 I put in back of him....what a helper he is

He played with his boots for like an hour after church, it was so cute

Those eyes are gonna get him out of a lot of trouble some day!

3 Years Old

Well today is the day my Lukey turned 3! I can't believe it. It seems like only yesterday that I was laying on the operating room table after being induced twice in one week and finally going through labor for 12 hours, just to have an emergency c-section!




It was a week I will never forget, just like almost every day of Lukes life! He has kept us hopping! At 4 weeks old he was hospitalized with RSV for about a week and every day since has been an adventure! We sure love our Luke a whole lot and don't know what we would do with out him.

For his birthday he got a hunting bow! Spoiled rotten. It was a comprimise on my part. Caleb wanted to buy him a .22 rifle when he was born but I said no.

We went out to get our christmas tree today, its a tradition we started for Lukes birthday. It is usually alot of fun but the wind was horrible nasty today and Luke wasn't feeling well....come to find out he has the croop....er......

After the christmas tree we had a birthday party with some of the cousins and Grandma and Rex and also Mickelle, Jarom and Colton came. They are some of Lukes favorite people in the whole world! He loves to 'go to kels house' to get babysat, which means he gets to play with Coltons toys! But he got some fun stuff at his party, and we had a PINATA (hand made by his awesome mamma)!! Some of the loot that he got was; walkie talkies, a chain saw, and a lightning mcqueen car that talks! AWESOME! He even picked out his own cake and frosting and what shape it HAD to be! Its so hard for me to let him grow up, but it is kind of fun to let him pick the things that he really wants.

Pictures!

Oh my gosh! We had a friend take family pictures for us a couple of weeks ago and I just got them back today and they are SO AWESOME! Luke was such a ham for the camera, as he is for everything, but she got some really cute pictures of Luke being Luke! Ryan was still a little young to interact but he so just fat a happy so his were cute too. But what I really love is that she made me look good in them! She probably junked the ones that I looked bad in (thanks!) but I just can't stop looking at them! They are so good, I can't decide which one to use for our Christmas card this year! So if you get a Christmas card from us with a thousand pix on it, you know why! Here are just a few of them, enjoy!

Oh and if you want to hire this genius photographer, her name is Tiana and I'm not sure how she feels about me posting her phone number on my blog.....so I will post her blog address and you can get a hold of her there! Anyway, its coupleofhunts.blogspot.com.

Thank you so much Tiana! You are amazing!

How fast they grow....

Well on Wednesday my little Ryan was 6 months old! I can't believe it! I just barely brought him home from the hospital with tiny little bird legs and a car seat that engulfed him, now I can't hardly pull pants up over his chubby little thighs and his legs hang over his car seat! I love every stage they grow into, its fun to watch them change, but dang he is so good at being a baby I would just love to keep him the snuggly, happy, adorable baby he is! But I can't.

Anyway, my boys have the best grandma! My mom started this silly little 6 month birthday party for my oldest nephew who is now 6. So even though Ryan was treated to squash we celebrated his 6th month! Caleb thinks it is so dumb so we did it while he was at work! I think its cute, we usually put a little candle in a chocodille and everyone gets a bite or something. But I think it will be something fun to tell the boys about when they get bigger, they may just roll their eyes and think it was silly but they will always know that Grandma thinks they are special and loves to celebrate her grand kids.

Turkey day with the TURKEYS!

It isn't very often that we get all of my parents grand kids together all at once, so today when Cole brought his girls over we took advantage and tried to get 9 kids under the age of 6 to hold still and smile at the same time.....Let me tell you before you attempt this.....ITS IMPOSSIBLE! But they had fun and are now full of marshmallows! But it is fun to get have all my brothers together, I just wish we would have gotten a sibling picture, oh well!

All the Packard grandkids (plus grandpa and my sister in-law)
Left to right: Egan, Payden, Aften, Tyrel, Riley, Ali, Blake, Luke, Ryan

The twins would not sit without screaming so we had to get Carrie to sit in....and my dad, well he wouldn't quit screaming unless he was holding the baby, so, well we let him sit in too...lol

All the boys, Will has three with mine

Tyrel, Egan and Luke, These three are T-R-O-U-B-L-E!

Ali, Ty-ty, Egan and Luke. This little girl is so prissy but yet she is always in the middle of wrestling with the boys! She is a Doll!

Anyway, it was a good thanksgiving. Its always fun to get everyone together and have food. We really have a lot to be thankful for, I hope everyone takes a moment and thinks of all the things that they are blessed with. And remember, Our worst day is better than a lot of peoples best day!

I was jinxed!

Less than a month ago my dad was riding in my car with me taking Luke to go get stitches and he told me 'welcome to the life of having boys'. Well I thought about that last night about 10:30 as I was driving to meet our family doctor, Dr. Dewitt. (Awesome guy, we absolutely LOVE him.) In the last 3 years I don't know how many house calls or times we have met him at his house to check on one of my boys (caleb and luke) so we didn't have to go to the ER and sit for hours. So he seemed to not be surprised to get a call from me so late last night and told me he would see me at the clinic in 3 minutes.


Luke was sent to get a pull up on his bum and decided to play in the hall closet instead. He hit my ironing board and it knocked binoculars off the shelf and he now has 3 stitches and a bald spot on top of his head. I'm kind of concerned that this is his second set of stitches in less than a month! I hope that these emergency visits to our favorite doctor slow down!

SNOW!

Wow, it snowed last night! And to make it even more exciting, it is still here at 8:30 this morning! I love it! Its November so I guess its allowed to get winter-ish. And can I just say, I am SO glad October is over? What a horrible month it was for me! I guess it wasn't all bad but it was very stressful but good things did come out of it. Caleb got laid off from his job at the paper mill but he did get a call back so he has a job even though he was out of a job for 2 weeks. It was a lot of fun to have him home. We had no money and he felt bad that we couldn't do anything for my birthday, but he was sweet enough to make me a birthday cake (with the help of our biggest boy) it was so yummy and it was cute to watch them master the kitchen! Now they are ready for Thanksgiving!

Flags should be lowered to half mast

As I sat at my computer tonight, watching John McCain give his concession speech, I couldn't help but think about the future of our country and what a dark, horrible time this country is going to go through in the next 4 years. I want to set the record straight. I am by no means racist, I am a patriot and I would not even support a natural born white citizen of this country if he would not sing the national anthem or stand with respect and pledge allegiance to our flag. I am not looking forward to the horrible things that will happen to our country with this new president. I do not respect him, I never will. I am very ashamed of the people of this country that voted in someone who shows such disrespect to those who have fought and died for the freedoms he will try to take away, when they could have (SHOULD HAVE) voted for someone who fought for our country, was a prisoner of war and came home with HONOR when he could have very well revealed secrets and trashed his country but endured such torment and pain. I am very ashamed, and its so sad that we all have to pay for their mistakes and stupidity. May God have pity on them.

Boys will be boys

Saturday night Luke went head to head with a bowling ball and ended up with 5 stitches! Can you believe it? He isn't even 3 years old and he has had a concussion! He looks pretty rough but the only thing he can think about is showing it to his cousins! He is one tough boy too, I would have been bawling if it was me (I was on the verge already) but he laid on the table while our Dr. sewed him up and he was helping me tell '3 little pigs'. Oh and after wards we were talking about what to look for in a serious concussion and Luke is jumping up and down on the table and saying 'catch me'! I hope this isn't a sign of what is to come! Crazy boy!

Halloween! a little late i know!

Halloween was so much fun this year! Usually Caleb is out hunting so its just me and Luke. This year Caleb decided to head out a day late and stay with us for Halloween! Soooo.....since Caleb was home, he made our costumes! Well we bought most of Lukes and Ryans but Caleb made Luke a 'real' Pirate hat. Then he got going on our costumes, he is so funny, and handy to have around! He really was excited for Halloween this year because he remembers only one time growing up that his family was not hunting and he actually got to go trick or treating, sad huh?

In our neighborhood we have been hit really hard in past years, so I was super prepared this year, I had 15 bags of miniature candy bars, we had 8 kids come! What in the world am I going to do with all this candy!?!?? We only took the boys to a few houses, mostly family....And luke STILL made out like a bandit with candy! Spoiled kid!

What a cute pirate huh?
The inspiration was the veggie tales 'pirates who don't do anything'
(favorite movie of the week)

Ryan was our adorable Bumble Bug.
He had no wings so we can't really call him a bee!

Isn't this awesome! He spray painted a hat and broom for his helmut!

I was cleopatra, Caleb made this one too.

Tonight Luke had way too much energy (what else is new). Ryan was laughing so hard at him for like half an hour and so I finally got the camera out and caught the tail end of it.


Again, this kid has waaayyyy too much energy! Seriously, he and his dad do this for like half an hour, but I think the only reason they stop is because Caleb gets tired of it! Luke is still begging to him to throw him on the couch.

Flavor of the Day

Ok this is so gross, it makes me gag (almost) to even post this but it was too funny not to! Luke usually begs for scrambled eggs ever morning, and I HATE eggs, so i try to get him to want pancakes, so lately he has been asking for pancakes. If I don't make syrup to go on them we usually just eat them with peach jelly (homemade of course), well this morning Luke wanted ketchup on his pancake! I thought maybe he just thought the jelly was called ketchup but no, he went and got the ketchup out of the fridge and threw a fit until I gave in and put it on his pancake! And to make it even worse, he asked for another one! With ketchup! My brother always tells me, 'don't knock it til you try it' this is just one of those things I can not bring myself to try. Gross.

Pumpkins!

Today we took the boys to our Bishops pumpkin patch to pick out a pumpkin, which turned into 3 pumpkins! Its always so fun to go there, every year the town has a harvest festival where there are wagon rides out to the fields and you can pick your pumpkin. This year it was too cold and windy and yucky to go so we went today, what a beautiful day too! For our 3 pumpkins that weighed 30 + pounds, we only paid $11!