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