Santa is coming to town....

Christmas Eve we went to church during the sleeting storm. Once we came out of church it was blizzard snow outside. We piled in and slowly drove to Mimi and Pepa's house to join the rest of the Blanton family. We all ate and the let the kids open their presents and stockings. It was getting late quickly so they were losing patients. We loaded up presents and said our good bye's and headed home so little ones could go to sleep so Santa would come.
Christmas morning came. The Lymans came over first thing so they would be at the house before Payton woke up. She walked down the stairs and was so excited when she saw there were presents under the tree. Of couse Santa left her a gift next to the tree too. We had breakfast together and then distributed presents. We enjoyed the cold day inside where it was warm and was great that we didn't have to leave the house. During nap time the boys cleaned off the driveway and did the neighbors across the street, then ventured to Mitch's parents and did their driveway too. Once Payton got up from her nap we went out to play in the snow and take her sledding. She loved it but it took us longer to get all dressed warm than we spent outside. We enjoyed a great Christmas day. That evening we took Payton over to spend the night with my parents. Nana had a 3 granddaughters spend the night together. We spent the night at Austins visiting with our friends.
The next morning was Christmas with Mom and Dad. We loaded up the car with presents and went over to have breakfast. Once we ate then the kids were ready for another round of gifts. They had a great time opening up their presents. Roxanne tore through hers like a tornado and even opened a couple of the the other 2 girls I think. After visiting and eating dinner we headed back home. My couple best girl friends were stopping by for a quick Merry Christmas while we were all in town together. We had about 45 minutes together and then it was time for me to go to work for the night.

Payton, Aubrey, and Roxanne getting their goody out of their stockings
Done with pictures and ready for bed

Payton pulling things out of her stockings
Payton's new babies that cry and cooo
After nap time playing in the snow
Saturday celebrating Christmas with Nana and Papa

Tyler and his girls

The girls for a quick Christmas visit

Payton...Makeup...

Yes you guessed right Payton got her first experience putting on her own makeup. Well actually she used mine. I was trying to leave to go to the dentist yesterday and Payton was coming along. She has started ignoring instructions given to her when she doesn't want to obey. So much fun I know. I went downstairs and told her I was leaving and she better hurry so I didn't go without her. That didn't really work to my advantage because she didn't come running like I had hoped. I counted to three and told her she would be on time out if I had to come upstairs to get her. Again not working in my favor. We are about running late for the dentist by this point. So as I ran up stairs to carry her down instead she had moved from the dogs bed, where she was laying when I walked downstairs. Now she was standing in the bathroom over my makeup bag with my Charcoal black eye liner all over her face. In a time period of 30 sec she used my entire pencil and pressed it nice and hard into her face. Of course I was thrilled now to have no eye linear and have to clean off her face so we can proceed to the dentist office. To add to the fun she hadn't slept during nap time so I was going to take a 22month toddler with no nap to the dentist office and expect her to sit still. RIGHT like that was going to happen. They told me to start bringing her so she can see it's not a big deal so she isn't scared when it is her turn to sit in the dentist chair. She actually behaved very well during my appointment thank goodness. Hopefully her next encounter with make up will be less eventful

Weekend Christmas Fun

Last night we had our neighborhood Christmas Party next door. We had a great time visiting,drinking and play a friendly gift exchange. We came home with a cake serving plate and truffles from Harry and David. YUM!! I loved my pick, Mitch wasn't as excited. His choice was Bailey's or Jack Daniels from the different liquor bottles floating around. pre party family pic
Today we ventured to Bass Pro Shop today for our 2nd attempt to visit Santa. We have been watching Polar Express and Payton has been very excited about Santa at end. So we have been asking if she wants to see Santa again. She says "YES" even though I don't think she really gets what she is agreeing to. So we thought we would try one more time. Bass Pro has a great set up and you get one picture free, which is all we need. So we got her dressed up and went this morning. She loved the train and all the Christmas decorations. It really helped because we ran into our neighbors so she got to watch her friends talk to Santa. When it was finally her turn I set her on his lap and stepped back, thank goodness no tears. She didn't exactly smile but no screaming was great. I am so excited we at least got one good Santa picture. Christmas is almost here!!!

In front of our tree before going to see Santa

Payton and Logan watching the train

Payton with Santa

Embarrassing moments

Today I got to experience the joy of being totally embarrassed in public by your child. Yes I knew this moment would someday come when your child embarrassed the heck out of you. Today was errand day and it happened to be 14 degrees outside. When we arrived at the doctor's office today I decided I would just carry Payton since we should only be there for about 10 minutes. The streets were covered with slush and ice and I though getting the stroller out and trying to get her buckled in would be more work than it was worth. So once we got in the office I signed in and had to set her down. Mind you usually when we do this she is in her stroller so she can't go anywhere unless I push her there. So needless to say once I placed her on her feet she was running around crazy. She stood nicely for about 2 minutes and then took off ran through the back room and I had to go after her. So I came back out to the waiting room and made her sit on my lap and wouldn't let her down even though she was desperately trying to. At this point came the high pitched loud screaming. She thought to show she was ticked off she would scream at the top of her lungs continuously. I tried to calmly ask her to quite and turned her around to face me. Everyone in the whole office is of course starring at me probably thinking what is the woman going to do with that screaming child. I even covered her mouth with my hand to try to bring down the noise just a little bit. I now know how terrible all those mom's feel when their child is acting up and causing a scene. Well it was my first time and I know it won't be the last.

'Tis the Season

We started off the Christmas season with a fun filled day on Thursday. I made some sugar cookie cut outs to be decorated later that night. It was our Thursday to have my niece. Their arrival got delayed because I had to rush Payton to the hospital to get x-rays from her throat to belly because I thought she swallowed an ornament hook. Praise Jesus, she did not and we came back home and then the girls were dropped off. They played while I got dinner ready. After dinner we went to the neighbors house because they had planned that night cookies with Santa. So off we went for the girls to see Santa. Didn't really go over to well. That nice big jolly guy apparently also can be scary. The girls wouldn't sit with Santa or talk to him. Payton did the best out of the three of them but they were excited once we got back home to say they saw Santa. They even got to wear the shirts and Santa hats that Nana bought them.

Once we came back to the house we got out the icing I made and had already colored and the cookies. We got them situated at the table and gave them 1 cookie at a time and helped them decorate. They had a ball icing everywhere, liking their fingers, dumping sprinkles. I new it would messy but they had a great time. Once they were done decorating they got to eat the last cookie they made. In Payton's case it meant that she was free to only eat the icing.

Our matching shirts and hats

This is as close as we could get

cookie making station

Father and daughter cookie making

Roxanne hard at work

Thanksgiving #2

We got the pleasure of getting to eating wonderful Thanksgiving dinner two times. Friday we celebrated Thanksgiving with Mitch's family. This year his mom had to work on that Friday so I got to have my first Thanksgiving cooking experience. It all went very well actually, I didn't burn the turkey thank goodness and everything was ready at the right time and warm. I was most afraid of having something be cold. It was really fun actually. Of course preparing the meal is much more fun than cleaning it up. We spent a great evening together with Payton being center of attention of course. She enjoyed her meal too. Watching 101 Dalmations waiting for dinner
It's turkey time!! Papa Phil and his little helper

My little princess

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! I am very thankful for my family and friends and spending quality time with them all. Our Thanksgiving was full of fun. The day before we spent the day making 4 pies to take along with us. We loaded up the car and drove to Belton to celebrate at my Aunts and Uncles house. The whole Blanton crew was there. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving lunch and ate way to much. That is what you are supposed to do on Thanksgiving. All the kids ran around crazy and wore themselves out. After lunch settled we moved right into dessert. Everyone said they loved the pies, hopefully they weren't just trying to be nice. That evening we headed down to the plaza to visit with some friends and watch the lights and firework show. It was great Josh and Lindsey have an apartment right on the plaza so we ate and stayed inside for a while, then walked down stood there for about a minute and then the count down began, lights came on, and off goes fireworks. After all the fun was over we walked right back up to the apartment and visited some more. It was great timing. We were very Thankful for Josh and Lindsey to invite all of their friends down for the evening. We had a great time together. Payton and Kobi had a good time too. The girls with Aunt KK and Amanda

Nana and the girls

Daddy's girl

Jessica Kobi

Our Family

The girls

holding hands

Dress up

They are so much fun to watch. The other night I was putting away Payton's laundry and she pulled out a dancing outfit that one of our neighbors gave us for playing dress up. She insisted on wearing it. "Put on dress, Please". She asked over and over while I was putting other clothes away. When I was finished I got her all dressed in it and she had to wear the hat too. She had this outfit on for 3 hours running all around and spinning in circles to watch to skirt move. She would twirl around until she was dizzy and fell over. She had so much fun. She is such a girly girl, she loves dressing up. I tried to video tap but she wouldn't perform when I was holding up the video camera so a couple of pictures will have to do.

I love Lady Bugs

We had a great fun filled day of Halloween on Saturday. We all had pumpkin shaped apple cidar pancakes for breakfast. Then we spent the later morning carving our pumpkin. Payton sat paying very close attention to her daddy carving her pumpkin for her. She didn't want any part of touching the pumpkin but wanted to sit close. That afternoon after nap time we got dressed in her lady bug costume. We ate dinner at our neighbors house, we all brought halloween themed food and ate before going trick-or-treating. The kids had a great time and then it was finally getting a little dark so we can start heading out to fill up their buckets. We went mainly up our main street by our house. That was enough for Payton and then we went up to the church for trunk-or-treat. Mema, Poppop, Tyler and the girls.

Hope everyone had a great Halloween!!

Treats as far as the eye can see

I spent most of Friday along with Payton's help making Halloween treats. We had a great time, she loves trying to help you mix anything you put in bowls. I had found some fun looking witches and Dracula's to make. We also made some pumpkin-doodle cookies. Everything turned out good and we took them to our friends house Friday night and shared with the neighbors on Saturday night before trick-or-treating. What a great day

Indiana Trip

Last week Payton and I took a road trip. We picked up Nana and Mema and Poppop along the way. The five of us piled in the Tahoe and 7 hours later arrived in Indiana at Uncle Dave and Selena's house. My cousin Megan and her husband Chase along with their beautiful baby girls were there visiting from California. Megan and I last saw each other when we were pregnant so it was so great to catch up. The girls had so much fun together. We aren't friends with anyone that has a child so close to the same age as Payton. Layla is 3 months older than Payton and they got along so good together. We ate lunch at a girlie little cottage. There was even a little play inside for the little girls to play at.

The girls did everything together for the short time we were there. They played dress up, ring around the rosie, watched a couple of movies, and read books.

Payton learned how to saw Layla's name the first day and would chase her around trying to give her hugs. Layla wasn't real interested in hugging but it was entertaining to watch. It was great getting to visit and we had a great time together. Hopefully the whole family will get together again in May when one of my cousins graduates high school. I can't wait!

Love for a daughter

It still amazes me everyday how much you can love someone. I got my Christmas present early this year. We had family pictures and pictures of Payton taken by a friend of ours that Mitch and I went to high school with. She is amazing, instead of getting anything for Christmas I really wanted get her pictures taken along with a couple family shoots. It was so much fun and she captured great expressions on her. You will all get to see a couple when we send out our Christmas cards. Once you are a mother it is funny how what is more important to you changes. I used to look at clothes and items for my self that I might want. Now when I am out and about I usually see cute things and toys that I know Payton would love and hardly anything for myself. It is so much more fun to give your little one something new to play with or dressing them up in a new outfit. I wish I could do it everyday but love the days that I am able to. Thank you God for allowing me to be a mother because it is the greatest gift ever. I love you Payton.

Big Girl Payton

Yesterday was big day. Payton became and even bigger big girl. She used the potty chair twice all on her own. She had told me that she had to poop, and she hadn't gone yet. She has been telling us lately that she has gone poop after she goes but never before she has gone. So then I asked her if she wanted to sit on her potty chair and she said YES. So we went and sat upstairs on her princess potty chair and she did both. Later that evening before bath time she sat down again and went potty before getting her bath. This will be awesome if she about trains herself to go potty. I am not holding my breath that it will be that easy but you never know. Amazing what you get so excitied about when you are mom.

Pumpkin Patch

Yesterday we went to Johnson Farm pumpkin patch with Grammie and Papa Phil. We picked up Payton from spending the night at Mema's and Poppop's. It was a pretty cold day outside, so we dressed Payton like an Eskimo. Payton loved it, she saw baby pigs, chicks, donkey's, mini horses, goats, and camels. We all had a great time even though we froze to death. Payton also got to go through a hay maze, and went down slides. Payton really enjoyed the pig races they had going. She found the perfect size pumpkin just for her. Once we got out into the field it dropped even colder.

WEEEEE!

Hay ride

This is how you ride to get pumpkins

Baby pigs

Feeding the goats with Lexi

Pig races

It's cold

cheeeze

Big girl!