Payton's 1!!!

Here is the birthday girl sitting in her new chair that Mommy and Daddy got her for her birthday. She looks so big sitting in it.

It is so hard to believe that 1 year ago our little princess Payton Leigh Lyman was born. The time has gone by so fast. Today we had her birthday party at our house. We invited family and friends over for the wonderful celebration. There are a lot of people near and dear to Payton that showed up for her celebration today. She had the best time playing with her cousins and the Finch kids. She got a cozy coupe car, which was the hit of the party. She also got a wagon for this summer, a pricness ball pit, adorable clothes, a couple hoodie towels, a backpack and some other fun toys.I made her a polka dot cake. Mitch was a big help running to the store multiple times for me and helping me knead the fondant. It was a lot of work to make my first tiered cake, but she was totally worth it. It was great to watch her dig into her birthday cake. Once she got going she got real into it. It was so much fun, I had just as much fun as she did. I don't have a little baby anymore, now she is a big girl.
Daddy's little blue eyed girl lovin on him.

Payton's pretty birthday cake!

Valentine's Day

We spent a wonderful Valentine's Day at home. I made a great dinner and dessert. The dessert was the best part. I made chocolate tressure boxes, they were awesome. You dipped the sides of chocolate squares and put them together to make a box and then filled it with pudding and cool whip mixed together. The top had a chocolate covered strawberry and the lid of the box at an angle. It look like the picture even I was so excitied. The amazing part was I was able to accomplish all of that while at home alone with Payton. I did cheat I made the dessert while she was napping and the majority of the meal was made after she went to bed. That is ok though we had a wonderful romantic night at home together. The next morning Daddy made us heart shaped pancakes and Payton got her Valentine's blanket that I made for her. I think she enjoyed her first Valentine's Day too.

Payton's 1st haircut

Today was a big day. Payton recieved her first haircut. She has turned from looking like a little baby to looking more like a little girl. I picked her up from Cheryl's house early today and we came home and had lunch. Then we ventured out to Jennifer's house to get her haircut. Luckily Kristen came with us and took some pictures and video taped. She did great and held very still, talked during the whole thing. I don't know where she gets that from.

NEW words

It's was the greatest hour last week. I was playing with Payton and have been working very hard at trying to get her to say "mama". She has said it once or twice before but for the most part she always says Dada. We were laying on the floor playing with blocks and some of her stuffed animals and out it came. "MAMA", I was so excited I could hardly stop from squeezing her to pieces. Then within a couple of minutes out came "DUCK" and "BALL". What was even cooler is she actually knows what those objects are. You can ask her where her Duck is and she will start crawling around looking for him. She also will go and find a ball, weather it be her ball or the dogs ball. Luckily they share very well with her. It is amazing that the smallest little detail makes you so excited. It just made my whole day, I was so proud of her. It seemed to just come out of no where. You can tell that she has so many words in there that she just can't wait to get out. She babbles on non-stop, I don't know where she gets that from.
Walking is any day now. She walks really good holding on to something and she has pretty good balance. She can stand on her own but hasn't attempted any steps without holding on to something. She cruises well and can move pretty fast behind her little shopping cart. Once she figures out she can do it by herself we are in trouble she will be on the lose.

Winter Festival

Today was the winter festival our church hosted. There were snowflakes hanging from the ceiling, which I helped put them there on Thursday night with Cheryl and Michele. There was also games and prizes all around. Payton for the most part was just slightly a little to young for most of the events. We did get to help her bowl and she liked that. She loves it when she is allowed to hit things and watch them fall down, what baby doesn't find that interesting? There was a soft room that is filled with all kinds of different mats. They are different sizes and small baby slides. Payton had a ball crawling around chasing other kids. It wore her out, she even took an afternoon nap for us. That is a miracle itself since that is not happens much these days. She thinks that she is bigger than she really is and thinks that she doesn't need a nap. I have a completely different opinion. Not that she really cares what I think.
This last week that has been our fight working on taking long afternoon naps. That is what it started out being and then it ended with just hoping she would just take a nap period. One day I got a 20 minute car nap and another day I got a 15 minute nap. Not even close to long enough, and both of those came after she fought it in the first place for over an hour at least. She defiantly has a stubborn streak that runs through her.
I started doing my first practice run with making her birthday cake.. I got the cake made today and then I am going to try to decorate it in a couple of days. For now I just put the cake in the freezer. I am still having a hard time believing that she is really going to be turning 1 year old. It doesn't even seem possible. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. Well hopefully this next week she will take a little bit better naps for everyone concerned.

Tis the Season

Tachy Wacky Christmas Party, doesn't that sound like fun? That was how we started our Christmas celebration. On December 20th we had the Christmas party at our house. It was great to see so many good friends and celebrate the holiday all together. Amy, Lindsey and I made some goodies and we hung out in our Christmas gear. Randi got best dressed, he came as an elf, tights and all.
The following day Lindsey and I threw a baby shower for our good friend Amy. Luke and Amy are expecting their first baby boy at the end of May, and the shower was a hit. She received many of the necessary baby items for becoming a mommy.
On the 23rd a snow and ice storm came through Olathe. We had plans to go to Crown Center for the day with my grandparents but due to the weather that didn't happen. Instead we hung out at the house and my mom brought my nieces and spent the day with us. We made soup for lunch and made Christmas cookies. We played the Grinch that Stole Christmas for the kids to watch. It was a fun indoor family day. Mitch had the week off work so he was even home for the crazy ciaos.
Christmas Eve we went to church service at 5:00 and from there we went to my Grandparents house. Jack stack was there waiting for us for dinner. Once everyone was finished eating we started on gifts for the kids. That was a fun disaster, they enjoyed every minute of it. They all got baby dolls, which they loved. They all got matching Christmas p.j's from Nana of course. Nana always has some surprise for all the girls, talk about spoiled rotten. We enjoyed a wonderful Christmas Eve at the Blanton's. Once we came home and put Payton to bed, we made monkey bread to have Christmas morning and finished our chores we needed to have done before bed.
Santa had finally arrived. Payton woke up and came downstairs to find that Santa had left her a present. She got her first front door. It isn't really a house but a front door to a house. It has a door bell and a door that she can crawl through and push more buttons on the other side. Santa must have know that she loves to push buttons. It lights up, talks, sings the alphabet all kind of fun things for a little person almost 1. She has played with it non-stop so far.
We had breakfast with my grandparents and parents, which was nice to sit and visit. After we were done opening our presents we got ready and went over to Nana and Papa Jim's for their Christmas. Tyler, Erin and the girls arrived shortly after we did. The girls almost immediately started in on the gifts. We were on a time crunch since, the two youngest were approaching nap time. The Blanton girls got a kitchen set and tons of clothes. Payton got a walker and tons of clothes. Uncle Tyler gave her a pony that you ride on and push with your feet. They all got books that Nana made for them about themselves. They really like to see their own picture. Mom and Dad also got a Wii for Christmas so while kids napped the adults had a great time playing. Christmas night is a yearly tradition to go to Austins after the family visiting has ended and there will be many different classes of people who went to South visiting. Mitch and I went up for about an hour and a half and visited some old friends.
The day after Christmas we went to Mitch's parents house to have Christmas with them. We had a late breakfast together and Payton took her morning nap. Once she woke up we opened presents. Payton is learning to grocery shop early, she got a shopping cart. She got a couple of books and a movie from Uncle Sean. Once Payton was finished with her presents the adults opened their gifts. We had a great day and relaxed for a while. That evening once we came home my 3 best girlfriends from high school came over to have some girl time. We all played catch up on what has been going on with each other and did a small Christmas exchange. It was great for us all to get together. We don't see each other very often but when we do we have such a great time.
I love this time of year it goes by so fast but is always so much fun. Even with all the running around and feeling crazy it seems to always put a smile on my face. I feel blessed that we can all celebrate Jesus birthday together. I hope you all had just as good of a holiday celebration as my family did. Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year.

Thanksgiving

This year our Thanksgiving was pretty relaxing. Mitch was a little more relaxed than most people but that was because he was on pain pills. He had his 5th knee surgery the day before Thanksgiving. It was an out patient procedure and went very smoothly. He is recovering very well and we are praying that this will bring him a little less discomfort.

On Thanksgiving day we went to my Aunt and Uncles house in Belton with the rest of my Dad's side of the family. We enjoyed lots of good food and visiting. We watched a couple of movies and had a great time. We even made it home right around Payton's bed time. The day after Thanksgiving we avoided all of the crazy early morning shoppers. We just stayed home and made breakfast. We went to Phil and Karen's house around noon to celebrate Thanksgiving with Mitch's family. His brother came home that morning from Springfield and we ate wonderful smoked meat that Phil made. We watched a couple movies and just relaxed some more. We had a great time, Payton was our main entrainment.

This year was much better than some because we didn't have to cram both of our family celebrations into one day. We got to enjoy time with them separately and on no time schedule. In the blink of an eye it will be time to celebrate Christmas.