An Actual Bubble Bath

For Peyton's birthday Bryan and I got her a bubble machine that suction cups to the side of the bath tub and blows bubbles into the bath. Her two favorite things right now (besides cell phones and remotes) are bubbles and bath time. We knew combining the two together would be too much fun for her! She does love it. And every time I turn it off or it runs out of bubble solution she starts blowing with her mouth and says "bubbles, bubbles"!

Maddie enjoys it just as much, if not more, then Peyton!

Making Muffins

Maddie and I made some coffee cake muffins for breakfast this weekend. They turned out just OK. With the help of my little chef we had muffins of various sizes and some of the smaller ones burned. But, they were still edible and we enjoyed the process.

The house smelled great!

O'Christmas Tree

Because we had Thanksgiving at my sisters this year we were able to start decorating for Christmas on Thanksgiving! I love the house at Christmas time. The lights and decorations bring a warmth, especially in the evening when everything is all lit up.

Maddie was especially excited this year to get to work decorating the tree.Peyton was especially excited to take all of the ornaments off the tree!When we got home from my Sisters Maddie knew the tree needed just a few more ornaments, so she worked on it a little longer.Peyton was happy to continue to take the ornaments off the tree that Maddie put on. I'll bet you know how Maddie felt about this situation. :)

The finished tree... love it!

Our Family Thanksgiving

We went to my sisters house for Thanksgiving. All of the family came over and we had a traditional Thanksgiving meal with turkey, stuffing, veggies, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, etc.

Then ,of course, my family does the most non-traditional games! Last year my sister, Caitie, made up a bingo game with all Thanksgiving theme words and people listed on the bingo card. It was titled GOBLE (only one letter B, due to room on the bingo card). So this year to top the GOBLE Bingo we had Turkey Twister! Yes... Twister. You know the traditional game of spinning a color and putting a right foot, left hand etc. onto a colored circle on a large mat on the floor until you get so tangled up you fall. Well, my sister, Caitie (once again), put pictures of turkeys, pumpkins, corn and pilgrims on the floor mat and spinner and this is how we played: "put your left hand on a turkey, put your right hand on a pilgrim. It was fun to watch. We are a little weird. No traditional game of cards are ever had at our family gatherings...and I wouldn't change it for anything. It's fun!

A New Attention Getter

O.K. I need some ear plugs and some suggestions on how to stop an unwanted behavior in a one year old. The past couple of days Peyton has started this screaming at the top of her lungs thing! It is driving us all crazy. She is not hurt or needing attention (maybe wanting some, but she often has our attention while/before screaming). She will just sit and look at you and an let out this very high pitched scream. What is up with that? My dad says she is just discovering her voice. Which I feel is very true, but I wish she would do it in a little nicer way. Last night in a restaurant she would scream over and over. To the point I took her to change her just to get out of the main eating area. Then my sister took her out while I payed and gathered up everything. My sister, Caitie, says she remembers Maddie doing the same type of screaming thing. I don't remember, I must have blocked it out because it was something I didn't want to remember. Any ideas on how to get her to stop? I have tried ignoring, whispering with a finger to my lips "shhhh", and talking to her in a quiet voice to show her what I mean when I say quiet. Maybe tape? JUST KIDDING! :)

A Little Toddler!

Peyton has really caught on to the whole walking thing. She is on her feet more then on her hands and knees. She is so much more sturdy and only wipes out when she trips on a toy or slips on the hard wood floor. She is very proud of herself.

Peyton is also a little talker. She says, Mama, Dada, baba, bubbles, hi, hello (she says hi-lo), balloon (she says boon), thank you, peek-a-boo, and instead of oh-oh she just say "oh", and she says "moo" for cow. She has also said a few words just a couple of times like: pumpkin and Ashley (our cat's name.) These words are not in her regular daily vocabulary. I will have to say currently her most used words are bubbles, Mama, and hi. It is so fun to listen to her talk. She also has a vocabulary all her own that I am still trying to figure out. I'm sure she knows exactly what she's talking about. :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PEYTON!

One Year Ago...

TODAY...My little one year old! My baby is officially one today! I can not believe it. I am happy and sad at the same time. It feels like just yesterday we were heading to the hospital to have her (3 weeks early).

I am so happy with the little toddler she is becoming. She is such a happy and loving little girl who makes me laugh and smile everyday. I get to wake up each day and enjoy silly grins, big waves and the word "hi" every time she sees me or anyone that looks at her, babbling conversations, hugs, kisses, and laughs that are contagious. I have enjoyed watching her change and grow in so many ways this past year. The first year of Peyton's little life has had so many "firsts". It is hard to believe she was a tiny 6 pound baby one year ago. I am so blessed to have this little angel in my life!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PEYTON! I am proud to be your Mommy and I LOVE YOU VERY MUCH!

Autumn Leaves Are Falling

"Autumn leaves are falling, Autumn leaves are falling, Autumn leaves are falling down upon us now." This is the little song Maddie was singing while jumping in the leaves at Grandma and Grandpa MacKender's house. The leaves have been falling and Maddie has been asking to jump in them since the first leaves started to fall. So...you can only imagine how excited she was when Grandma and I said "O.K." to her request. The weather finally took a break from raining and we went outside to play in the leaves. Maddie had fun raking, jumping, and singing in the leaves. I love the Autumn colors!
Peyton, on the other hand, was not so sure why we were placing her on the wet ground in a bunch of leaves, and wanting to take her picture. She hung in there for awhile.

We had a good time. Maddie's final poem while playing in the leaves went something like this:

It's raining big,

It's raining small,

It's raining Autumn leaves in fall.

It's raining gold, and red, and brown

It's raining leaves all around.

I thought this was a cute little poem that she learned at school, and she said and signed it at just the right moment. The perfect Fall day!

Talk About Birthdays!

Bryan's Mom, Jan, and my Sisters, Caitie and Errin, all have birthdays in early November.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY LADIES!

Peyton's Birthday Party!

SO BIG!We had a big first birthday party for Peyton this past weekend! I had the theme of a "chocolate" brown and pink polka dot party. It all started with a little dress I found for her that said my first birthday on it. It's main color is pink and the bottom skirt has brown polka dots. The theme grew from there. I love to plan and carry out parties. It is so fun for me to try and be creative and stick to a theme. We had appetizers with all round food... grapes, cantaloupe balls, round chips and salsa, meat balls,olives, tomatoes, carrot rounds, and broccoli, etc.. The table cloth was brown with pink carnation flower arrangements, and pink pom-pom balls. I decorated the walls and table chandelier with pink and brown paper polka dots. I made large cupcakes with pink and brown M&M's on them.

All of the family came over to help celebrate. We played a couple of games... guess the number of cheerios (one of Peyton's favorite foods) in the sippy cup. We also played guess the age of Peyton. I put up pictures of Peyton at various milestones in her little life, i.e. eating solid foods, crawling, sitting up on own, pulling herself up, digging in the sand for the first time, etc.. People put their age guess and their initials on a little sticky note and place it under the picture. It was fun to see all of the various guesses. There was a three way tie with 5 out of 13 correct guesses. Bryan's Mom won the final prize with a tie breaking question of "How many teeth does Peyton have?" (the answer is 8).

One other thing I had at the party was a picture matte for people to sign an write a little birthday wish to Peyton. It turned out really nice with a 5 by 7 picture of Peyton. I am going to frame it and hang it in her bedroom as a little keepsake.

Peyton REALLY enjoyed her cupcake. I made her a white cupcake with cool whip, instead of frosting. She looked a little in shock when everyone sang to her. She tried to blow out her candle but just needed a little help from her big sissy. Then she dug in and ate the ENTIRE thing. Even licked her fingers in the end! She has never had anything sweet like this before and I really think she ate it all, and as fast as she could, because she was scared someone would take it away from her.

When it came time to open gifts she was not to into what was in the wrapping as much as the boxes, bows, and tissue paper. A true one year old! She received some really cute clothes, toys, a polka dot bean bag chair (that matches her big sissy's) and diapers.

It was a fun day! Thanks to all of the friends and family that made it a special one!

Time has gone by so quickly!

Card #1

Peyton received her first birthday card in the mail! Her Great Grandpa sent it to her. She looked at it as if she was actually reading it and then put it in her mouth, where everything goes these days. The arrival of this card just makes me face the fact that my baby is almost 1 year old, where has time gone? :(

Where Are The Letters?

O.K., so Peyton's birthday party is on Saturday. I have been searching the Internet for ideas for her Polka Dot Party theme. Anyway, I found this cute happy birthday banner on line at Pottery Barn Kids for only $7.00 (clearance price, or I wouldn't have bought it). Anyway, it looked so sweet. It was shown as polka dot and stripe fabric triangles with the letters spelling happy birthday, one on each triangle. I thought how perfect, I do not have time to make one this nice and for the price it is worth it, so I ordered it. I was so excited when it came today, I opened it right away and there were the cute little triangle pennants all in a line, but there were no letters on the triangles. Humm....I think they forgot something a tad bit important on a "happy birthday" banner!
I called and they do not know what happened to it and why there are no letters on it. They also said I could send it back and the soonest they could get another one to me would be on the 11th. TOO LATE! So much for trying to save time. Argh!

Puzzles

Maddie has always loved puzzles. She can sit with complete focus for a very long time and work on one. Tonight, since Bry went to work for a while, she decided to leave him a surprise on the table. She put together all of the puzzles she could find that were downstairs. She started working and did not leave the table until she completed all 7 puzzles. A couple of them were 63 pieces and one was 50 very small pieces. The others were in the 24 - 35 piece range. She worked very hard and was so excited and proud to leave this surprise for her Daddy. What a sweet little idea!

Happy Halloween!

HAPPY BOO TO YOU!This year we had our families and friend Tracy over for dinner and then went trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. The weather was PERFECT for trick-or-treating! No heavy jackets needed this year! It was raining off and on all day and then in the evening it cleared off and you could see the stars in the sky.

We went around to some houses after dinner, and Maddie just continually asked to go back home and trick-or-treat at our own house. As she put it, she didn't want to miss any of the customers that came to our door.:) I think she liked handing out the candy more then the trick-or-treating this year. She would just stand by the door and wait for "customers" to come knocking. My Little Pumpkins

Peyton as Flounder with Grandma

Maddie as Ariel the Mermaid

Trick-or-treat!

Tracy came over in this black wig, I had to feel it to make sure it was not her real hair...it looked so real. I was a doctor this year. It is always a comfortable choice. I dress up for school every year so my costume choices are always on the fun and not scary side.

Halloween comes to an end and Peyton is all tuckered out on Grandpa's shoulder.

Pumpkin Carvin'

I think Bryan is the best pumpkin carver around!:) He looks forward to the challenge each year of picking the perfect pumpkins, deciding the perfect design to carve on the pumpkins, and then of course carving them. In the years before we had kids he would carve skeletons, howling wolves, spider webs etc. into the pumpkins. Now since we have kids, the past three years the pumpkins have been Dora the Explorer, Diego, a cat, and this year Cinderella and her Castle. Maddie is always very excited to see the pumpkins lit up. They are a surprise to her and she sees them when they are done.
This year Maddie did help out by getting her hands dirty and getting all of the "muck" out of one of the pumpkins. She also made her own Pig pumpkin, Peyton's Puppy pumpkin, and a Bear pumpkin all by herself! :)

Now, Bry really gets into the pumpkin carving thing...
I, on the other hand, like to carve a simple classic jack o' lantern face...however it turns out when I am finished free handing it is just fine. This year I didn't even carve a pumpkin. Instead I picked a white pumpkin and painted black polka dots then tied raffia on the stem. I really liked how it turned out.