New School Year

Annalyn started school on Wednesday with her new teacher, Mrs. Bowman. Declan started today. They both have been getting more and more antsy for school to start. Luckily, the time is finally here. Annalyn already likes her teacher and has been acting better at home having school again.

On Monday, they both had appointments with the dentist and it was the usual...Annalyn had 2 cavities and Declan (our little candy lover) didn't have any. Sometimes life just isn't fair. It ended up being about twice the cost too from what we were expecting, so we'll be looking for a new pediatric dentist.

Rachel can now enjoy a little quiet time when the kids are at school and Walter goes down for a nap. We're both hoping that it will relieve some stress that the crazies have been building up all summer.

Welcome Back

And life continues onward. Family has grown, and hopefully so have the individual family members. 

Just a couple of months ago Rachel and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary. Annalyn is 6 years old and preparing to start 1st grade this week, Declan is our lively 3 year old, and our newest addition is our son Walter, who just reached his 1st birthday just one month ago.

For the Independance Day weekend we went out to Utah to visit both sides of our family. On that Saturday was the Peck family reunion, and Sunday was the Jones family reunion. It had been three years since seeing everyone.

Now, we're gearing up to move, most likely in the spring. We're freshening up the house and looking a little at homes in St. Charles County at hopes of finding a top-notch school for the kids.

Recently I have started working at the St Louis temple as an ordinance worker, a choice experience for service, spiritual fulfillment, and enlightenment.

Our ward was recently combined with our previous ward, the Hazelwood Ward, and 2 weeks later we were part of the organization of a brand new stake, the Hazelwood Stake. 

Looking forward, I hope to keep a better record of our completed clan, the Peck family.

Hello...?

 I guess it's been a while.

Declan loves to climb on everything and Annalyn is growing so fast! She's been in dance classes and is now taking swimming lessons (Declan too!)

The pursuit of becoming an actuary has been put by the wayside. Family has just become so much more important that any new changes just haven't been worth it. It's time to just settle down.

Rachel loves sewing, and has such a knack for interior design. She has been revamping our living room and our basement to make it much more vibrant and enjoyable. She is the love of my life!

I figure a few updated photos will help close out this update. Hopefully I will return again soon.

Do You Wanna Build a Snowman?

  Annalyn has found a new toy to play with around the house. On the surface it may seem like an interesting choice for a 3-year-old, but considering how she's playing with it, it's not all that surprising. Annalyn loves playing with doors. But not just opening and slamming them anymore (we thought that would never end). It's actually quite cute to see her sing to them the same way Anna sings to the doors in the movie, Frozen.

  In the movie, for those who haven't seen it, Anna, a little girl of about 5, is singing to her sister Elsa through her bedroom door trying to her her to come out and play with her, singing, "Do you wanna build a snowman?" It's a cute montage showing them growing up into young adults and still she won't come out to play. 

  Annalyn has picked up on the key words of the song, namely snowman, door and play - the rest kind of sounds like gibberish, but having seen the movie, we know what she's doing when she's singing through an imaginary keyhole, and hanging from the knob.

  Maybe she's just in desperate need of friends and she can relate? Hopefully as soon as this wicked cold front is over we can let her out of the house to play.

Happy Birthday Annalyn!

  Today is Annalyn's third birthday! All month she has been increasingly excited to break off links on her paper chain leading up to her birthday, and finally the day has arrived.

  A couple days ago she was quite distraught when Rachel took away her pacifier...for good. She had to grow up a little bit. And after a few tantrums, she realized she's never getting it back. As hard as it was for her, and as difficult as she's been for Rachel to handle, the biggest surprise came to me when I realized she is growing up! I couldn't believe it - I had my first inclination to want to keep her as a little girl. Alas, she must grow up, and I certainly don't want her still attached to it when we send her off to college.

To kick things of for her birthday we all went to The Magic House on Friday. She's been before, so she knew what we were talking about when we told her we were taking her there.

  Luckily she's a bit older now, and she wanted to explore more things that she was too afraid of before. She's always loved slides but was too timid to go through with actually sliding down many of the ones they have. Not this time. She loved every slide she was old enough to go down! She also enjoyed her favorites: the sand table and the water table. She also wanted to tackle the giant 3-story beanstalk that they have, but once it got crowded, she panicked and wanted out. Maybe she's a little agoraphobic?

  And she found her little mouse house again too!

  We then took her to the attic, which is a cosy little nook where she can have tea time with Raggedy Ann. That little girl loves playing tea time!

  On her actual birthday, it's been freezing. Yesterday we woke up to a blizzard and the high was 19. Today it was just as cold and windy. 32 degrees felt like 2. To make sure she didn't have to wait till an hour before she went to bed  to get her presents when I got home from work, we woke her up to open them before I left. She got an art easel and Rachel wrapped a bunch of markers, chalk and paint to go with it. It took her a minute of waking up to realize what today was.

  For her cake, Rachel got a little creative and made a giant cupcake out of lots of individual cupcakes, complete with her own cherry on top!

  Yes, we spent her birthday as a family, but I think it made all of us enjoy each other all the more. Annalyn is growing up. She's talking more, listening more (thank heavens), and she's getting along great with her growing baby brother.

Where's My Binki?

  Most mornings our sweet little Annalyn isn't so sweet. There's no middle ground with this child, unless she's not feeling well. She's full throttle, either happy or upset. 

  The other day, Annalyn woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Her usual grumpiness screamed for us to come turn on the light for her and open her window. Eventually she came out of her room, like a slug, wondering if she had made the right choice to take on another day. She spent a little time by Rachel's side, following her around the house. She got some juice in her, and was starting to wake for the day.

  Evidently, she was still quite groggy when in a bit of a panic: she was asking for her binki. "Where's binki!? Binki!" We didn't have to look far though, for one hand was clutching her favorite blanket, and the other was holding her pacifier! Once we pointed this out to her, she laughed, and thought it was the funniest thing! She was wide awake and happy for the rest of the day...mostly.

Resolved

It's time to return to the blog. It was unexpectedly placed on hiatus while adjusting to becoming a parent of two. Now we are more adjusted (just not all the way), at least to the point where I can justify returning here to update, and occasionally stand on my soap box.

Since last post, we both had family come out to visit with the new baby - Rachel's mother two weeks prior to Thanksgiving, and my parents the week of. We had a very good Christmas. Annalyn was very excited about opening presents, so we made sure to wrap as many individual things we could for her to unwrap. Even then it wasn't quite enough, as she got into opening our presents too.

New Year's Eve was fairly uneventful. I had to work all day to finish up our year-end inventory, and we fell asleep on the couch watching movies once midnight rolled around. But at least we were together, enjoying one another's company.

Now we stand on the threshold of a new year. A new beginning. Among my few resolutions this year, I'm tying to commit to witing here much more regularly, as I had originally anticipated. So here we are catching up, during the worst cold snap the Midwest has seen in over two decades. We're in the middle of a 2-3 day streak of being below zero, with wind chills dipping into the negative 40's. We all have faith and prayers that it'll pass, and that this isn't a curse that'll stick forever. In the meantime, we're hunkering down, doing our best to stay warm.