Tuesday, July 29, 2008

California Dreamin'

On Sunday July 13th, the girls and I flew down to San Diego to spend the week with my parents and my niece, Alexis, at their timeshare in Carlsbad. We had a BLAST! We spent a week going from the beach, to the pool, to the hot tub, only to repeat it all again the next day. Tuesday we drove down to La Jolla and visited the tide pools. Ryan and Alexis had fun looking for tiny crabs and Peyton just had fun hanging out. Dad wasn't paying very close attention and a wave totally got him! Wednesday afternoon we hit the farmers market for the best kettle corn, too bad they weren't there again on Saturday! Friday morning we all went to see Mamma Mia. This was the BEST movie. Peyton slept for the first half and then I stood in the back with her for the second half. This ended up being more fun because Ryan and I were having fun dancing and singing together. The girls liked it so much that they kept asking for the music after we'd left, unfortunately we didn't have any. On Saturday, our friends Greg and Audrey came over to spend the day with us. They have a little girl, Gia, who is 8 months old and a total cutie! We had fun day hanging out together. I was really good all week about putting sunblock on, but then on Monday, the 21st, our last day at the beach, I got FRIED! The back of my legs were the reddest they've ever been. They've even started peeling today. Tuesday morning, Dad and Alexis had to fly back to Arizona. Mom and the girls and I spent some time in San Diego and then made our way up to Irvine. We spent the afternoon shopping at South Coast Plaza and scored some great deals at Bloomingdales of all places! On Wednesday we drove up to downtown LA to get some fabric for Kristen and some other random things in the ghetto!
We then drove up to Sacramento to spend the rest of the week with my brother Dave and his family. Wednesday was my nephew Cameron's 8th birthday. Cinda made a great dinner and we enjoyed catching up. My nephew Cordon has a bunch of creepy crawly pets, some type of boa snake, a leopard gecko, some poison-dart frogs, hermit crabs and fish. I was told I'd be sleeping in the animal room. I refused to sleep with the snake so they very generously moved that into their master bedroom. Wednesday night when I tried to put Ryan to bed, she was insistent that the boys would be sleeping in this room. I told her no, her and I were sleeping there, she then started crying that she didn't want to sleep with all the animals. Needless to say, she spent four nights sleeping on the floor in the room my parents were in. Thursday morning, two of my nephews, Hayden and Carter, flew up from Arizona. This brought the count in the house to eight kids. (Poor Cinda!) Cinda threw a joint birthday party for Cameron and Katelynne that afternoon at Bounce U. The kids had such a great time playing. I got adventurous and took Peyton on one of the slides. She LOVED it! She kept laughing any time we'd get close to the slide or start climbing up the was to go.
On Saturday, I took my girls and drove over to the San Francisco area to meet up with an old friend of mine. Growing up I was best friend with a girl named Ryan, yes my Ryan is named after her. Her parents split up in 6th grade and I hadn't seen her mom, Kandi, since. After reconnecting this summer I was able to go see her and spend the afternoon with her. It was so nice to spend time together and have her get to know my girls. It's funny because Ryan is now the age I was when my friend Ryan and I became friends. We had a great time at the park and Kandi spoiled my girls with presents. I won't let another 18 years go by like that!Sunday was my nephew Cameron's baptism. It was so fun to be a part of and have Ryan there to see what it was all about. She hears about being baptized at church, but she hadn't been to a baptism before.All good things must come to an end and the girls and I flew home from Sacramento yesterday. Oh and what a surprise, it's RAINING today! It's nice to be back home with Troy.
Thanks Troy for letting us go and thanks mom and dad for a great two weeks!

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Happy Birthday Peyton!


Yesterday was Peyton's first birthday. I can't believe my baby is now a year old, my how time flies. Peyton is a very happy, smiley baby. She loves to play with her big sister and now that she is standing and can push things around, she thinks she is such a big girl. She loves to crawl up the stairs and go play. We can usually find her in Ryan's room "reading" books or playing with her toys. She is VERY vocal, takes after her sister, and is constantly squealing. She HATES riding in anything where she is strapped in and I'm the bad mom that lets her ride around in the back of shopping carts, standing up! We walked into a store yesterday and because she was buckled in her stroller, she started SCREAMING so horribly that a store employee came around the corner to make sure everyone was okay. I'm beginning to wonder if people think I'm beating my child. All in all, we LOVE having Peyton in our family. She brings so many smiles to our lives, plus she's just so darned cute!
After our crazy weekend, we just had a mellow day together. The four of us went to dinner at Zephyr in Kent, Peyton didn't seem to care what she ate. They gave her a cupcake with a candle in it and a scoop of ice cream for dessert. As I reached for my phone to take a picture (since I'd forgotten my real camera), the brilliant child stuck her finger in the flame and after burning herself, it went out. Needless to say, she wasn't very thrilled by it and there were a LOT of tears! I felt bad, but sometimes, you wonder how they are ever going to learn! We then took Peyton to Target to get her a birthday present (how's that for planning)! We let her crawl around the toy aisles and she got fixated on Fisher Price Laugh and Learn Song and Story Learning Chair. Every time Troy would move it, she'd SCREAM at him. So that's what she came home with. Being the good parents we are, we brought it home and opened it and let her have five whole minutes to play (very generous considering we didn't get home until 10pm)!

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Peyton's Party


We had a birthday party for Peyton yesterday. Her actual birthday is tomorrow, July 7th. We decided to have a Patriotic Family Barbeque. Lucky me, it POURED ALL DAY! Seriously, all day. Poor Troy was outside pressure washing the deck in the puring rain. We potted some plants/flowers in the rain. It went on ALL DAY! Anyways, the barbeque was moved indoors and it was a good time. The party was set to begin at 5pm, so after stalling all day decorating, I finally threw up some decorations in the dining room and hung the balloons around the family room at 4:45pm. Peyton spent the whole time eating. She LOVES watermelon and was happy to sit in her chair and eat during the whole party. She loved the cake once she figured it out. I thought she would be sick last night after eating it all, but she was fine. We had a great time hanging out with our friends and celebrating our little Peyton.
After most people had left, our babysitter Melissa was playing with her and she took her first steps! It started out as a couple and she got more and more brave. Then as I had the dishwasher open and was loading up some dishes, she took about 10 steps to get to the dishwasher.
It was such a great day despite the weather. Thanks to all our wonderful friends who helped us celebrate this memorable time!

4th of July



On the evening of July 3rd we went to the Emerald Downs Horse Track for fireworks. We found out about this last year from our friend Nicole. It is a great show and it's FREE! Even Peyton seemed to like the fireworks, she never even complained. Then, for 4th of July, we spent ALL day cleaning house. We then went to our neighbors, Will & Nicky's, for a barbeque. The kids had a great time drawing all over themselves with tattoo pens thanks to our neighbor Jenn's parents. (I don't recommend them. Even though they say they are washable, they're not.) We spent some time out on the street in front of the house shooting off some fireworks. Troy was apparently designated as the lighter! It's so weird to live somewhere where they're going off for a week before July 4th. There are stands set up everywhere to buy them and they go off all day and all night. Thank goodness we didn't have to deal with that growing up! We then went over to the elementary school behind us and watched the fireworks from Lake Meridian. The kids had a great time and it was nice to spend some more time with our neighbors.