Top 5 - October 2015

Payton Millie

3 Years 4 Months

1 - She LOVES to color lately.  I know most kids this age do but for the past 6 months or so she showed no interest what so ever and now all of a sudden she asks to color everyday.  She is really good at it too.  She colors general areas of the picture and only gets a little out of the lines.  I don't know if that is common for her age but it surprised me.

2 - She is very musical.  She loves to sing and lately she likes to make up her own words to familiar tunes.  For a 3 year old they actually are very creative.  Whenever we go to my parents house she wants to play the piano and she plays songs (not just pounds on it) and sings her own words.  It is so cute.

3 -  She is so excited for Halloween.  For a good two weeks solid she said she wanted to be a doctor for Halloween.  I was so excited because I thought for sure she would want to be a princess.  But I made the mistake of taking her to get the costume with me and then of course any princess trumped doctor.  So she is Ariel this year.  The other day she asked me if she could be three costumes all at once.  Ariel, a spider and a fence?  Where did she come up with a fence.  Funny girl.

4 - She got really sick this past week.  Sicker then she has ever  been.  The past 2 times she has been sick I was lucky if I could get her to take a nap.  If you know Payton you know she never sits still.  She is constantly on the go.   She has taken 2 naps almost every day this week and she asked to take them.  Poor girl.

5 - My absolute favorite thing since Preschool has started is that everyday when I pick her up she says "Mommy I missed you so much at preschool!"  I just love it. 

Cooper Seth

6 Months

1- He can sit up now and he is so proud of himself for it.

2 - He finally sleeps through the night.  Hallelujah.  He sleeps from 7-6 and then I feed him and he goes back to bed until 8:30.  It is glorious!

3  - He was not interested in eating purees when I first gave them to him around 5 months old.   When he turned 6 months and still wanted nothing to do with them I tried an alternative route.  I just gave him big chunks of food that we were eating.  He loved it.  His favorites are softened apples, sweet potato fries, cucumbers, avocado, pears and bananas.  So far he has only not been interested in broccoli and steamed carrots.  He LOVES to eat now.  And the nice thing is that at dinner time I get to eat too and not spend the whole time at dinner spoon feeding him.

4 -  He is such a happy and relaxed baby.  I feel so blessed to have him as my second child.  Especially the past week when Payton has been sick.  He is completely content playing independently while I have been taking care of P.

5 -After he is done eating he starts putting the extra food in his mouth and gumming it and then spitting it out.  He thinks it is the funniest thing ever.  Me not so much. 

Clearwater, Florida

We went to Florida a few weeks ago and had an amazing time.  We stayed in Clearwater which is 30 minutes from Tampa on the west side.  The beaches here are so warm and the people are so friendly.  We loved it.  Our week here went by way too fast.

Our flight there was a red-eye.  Payton slept the from 10pm on which was awesome.  

Cooper did not. But at least he wasn't screaming so no complaining here.  He slept a few hours in Ty's arms.  Great husband award or what?

Tyler's brother's family live out in Florida so they stayed with us part of the week.  It was so fun to have all the cousins together.  That doesn't happen very often.

Kristin and I had matching strollers and carseat covers and we didn't even mean to.  Great minds think alike.

These cuties loved getting buried

and then burying Uncle Brandon

They have a trolley that you can ride all down the beachfront.  The kids loved it....well except Cooper

He was happy by the end though

The plane ride home was during the day and was much better...

Such a fun trip.  I miss it already.

Top 5 - September 2015

Payton Millie

3 Years 3 Months

1 - Payton started preschool this month and she absolutely LOVES it.  She gets so excited on the days she gets to go and talks non-stop about it.  The very first day she came home and told me that Miss Connie taught her how to raise her hand when she wants to talk.  I have been trying to teach her how to not interrupt for months now and bless Miss Connie's heart for teaching her in one day.  She now raises her hand all the time when Tyler and I are talking and she wants to interrupt.  It is so cute.

2 - She just learned how to spell her name and she continually tells me that she wants to spell her name with two P's.  She tells me that her name is spelt P-P-A-Y-T-O-N.  

3 - She loves to dance.  Particularly "ballerina dancing".  She puts on her tutu and has me put on ballerina music and she starts twirling and turning and skipping.  She actually is quite graceful about it.  It is probably my favorite thing to watch her do lately.

4 - She is the sweetest girl and tries really hard to be friends with everyone.  I was watching her interact with a girl she had just met (without her seeing me) and the girl was telling her that she didn't have a mom or a brother after Payton had told her that she did.  The girl then began to yell at her that she didn't have a mom.  She was quite rude and the mom in me wanted to go in and deal with it myself but I just sat back and watched.  Payton folded her arms and scowled and walked away.  Later that day she was telling me about this situation that I actually already knew about and she told me that she made a bad choice and was mean to the girl.  She thought that scowling and walking away was mean.  Bless her sweet heart.  I love that girl.

5 - She is so inquisitive.  I swear she asks "Why?" fifty times a day.  I realized the past few weeks that  explaining the reasons behind everyday things in life is quite difficult.  She is putting my knowledge to the test.  I was showing her all the different colors in the leaves and ended up giving her a complete rundown on all the seasons and what happens in each season.  She loves to learn.

Cooper Seth

5 Months

1 - This boy is always happy.  He is very relaxed and easy going.  I feel really lucky having him as my second baby because Payton has been needing a lot of attention lately and he doesn't seem to mind.

2 - He decided to stop sleeping well again and consistently wakes up 2-4 times a night.  Especially the last few weeks since I'm pretty sure he hit his 6 month growth spurt a little early.

3 - I started to feed him solids and he HATES anything that isn't milk.  I've tried rice cereal, bananas (who doesn't like bananas), butternut squash, apples and carrots and he spits everything out.  I hope he starts eating solids soon.  We'll see...

4 - He discovered how to make the zerber sound (is that what it's called?) and he does it ALL THE TIME.  Payton thinks it's hilarious.

5 - He is a tummy sleeper.  No matter what I do he always ends up on his stomach.  He sleeps so much longer during the day and at night since we discovered this.

Manti Getaway

Oh Manti.  There is something about going to a small town and disconnecting from the hustle and bustle of life in a city.  We had so much fun.  Tyler's mom got this cute little cabin in Stirling close by the Palisade's Reservoir.  We went out on the lake, climbed trees, played countless games of three flies up, golfed a round of 9 holes, walked the Manti temple grounds, went hiking, and so much more.  It was a great way to spend our Labor Day Weekend.