TGIF

It seems like I jinxed myself and tempted fate when I asked at the end of my last blog post if it was spring yet, for the next day (the first official day of spring) it snowed! We actually got about 6 inches last Thursday, it snowed for like 22 hours straight. It was really pretty, just unexpected in late March! I got a late start to work, and Kyle (and Payton) got two snow days, which was fun!

What is this stuff?!

Dad and I made a snowman!

Still checking him out

My mom came and visited this weekend, which was awesome as always! She arrived Friday night, and went to gym class with us Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon Aunt Lindsey watched Payton so that a group of us could go see the Hunger Games! I love all the books (would HIGHLY recommend them), and got several family members interested in reading them, so it was fun for a group of us to go and enjoy the movie. The rest of the weekend we just hung out and played with miss P...

Going for a bike ride in the sunshine!

It was a pretty crazy week for me at work, so I'm definitely glad it's the weekend. It was pretty laid-back at home though thankfully, Kyle was on spring break. Something interesting happened to Kyle this week... it was a few minutes before I got home, Kyle was finishing making dinner. Payton was standing in her kitchen helper (she LOVES that thing), and kept saying "Payton poopoo, potty". Kyle heard her, but was paying attention to two burners and the oven at the time. He turned around to talk to Payton and she was standing there with her pants around her ankles, diaper off, and holding it out to him (poop included)! Kyle was shocked! When I got home I just laughed my head off! I'm glad she's recognizing when she's going though, hopefully that's the next step to potty training...

Cleaning her own tray... nice! :)

The other morning at breakfast, Payton just randomly started singing "twinkle twinkle little star". It was so cute!



This weekend we're going to Melina's birthday party, Payton's second cousin. It's at Chuck 'E Cheese, which she will hopefully enjoy! It will be our first time taking Payton there, so I'll be sure to bring my camera along. Blog soon!

Happy Tuesday!

Ah, Tuesday. One day closer to Saturday :)

This morning I was thinking about some of the hilarious things that Payton has been saying lately, and decided I needed to blog so that I could share them with you (and also so someday I will be able to look back and remember these times and have a good laugh). These days I feel like I'm living in an episode of "Kids Say the Darndest Things" with Bill Cosby. And I'm sure it will only get better!

For example, lately one of her favorite expressions has been "right there". She puts a lot of emphasis on each word, and will point out anything she can. The first time she ever said it I wondered where my phone was out loud, and she pointed to it and said "right there!" I was so shocked! The other day we were outside and she looked up and said "airplane!". I asked her "where do you see an airplane?" and she pointed up to the sky and said "right THERE mommy". Well, this evening I asked Payton if she pooped after she pushed for a minute (more on our little poop issue later), and she turned away from me, bent over, pointed to her toosh and said "right there!" Kyle and I about died laughing!

This morning, Payton was reading a book while I was getting ready. It's a book that my mom and dad made for her for her first birthday, they recorded their voices so all you have to do is turn the page and it's like my parents are reading to her. Pretty neat! There's a certain part to the story about where my mom says something about her "silly wiggly toes", and after she said that Payton looked at me and said "ewww Grandma".

Right now Payton is also really getting into dressing up. She's starting to pick out her own outfits, which is very interesting, to say the least. Kyle wasn't going to let her wear to the gym what she picked out Saturday morning, he didn't think it would be comfortable enough. I told him we just needed to let her express herself, and so she ended up wearing a fancy frilly shirt, but she loved it. She got a pair of silver sparkly shoes for her birthday that are still a little big for her, but that doesn't stop her from wearing them around the house ALL day. She's been acting very girly lately, which is fun! In the next few weeks I really want to swing by Goodwill and pick up a bunch of miscellaneous dress up stuff for her to play with. If she's anything like I was as a kid, she'll love it!

"Pretty dress!"

I took my camera to the Little Gym this weekend to try to capture some shots of Payton enjoying her class. Her favorites are when they bring out the parachute, and she also loves the balls and when they play with bubbles. Another favorite is this big inflatable mat that they blow up and the kids can bounce on (see below)...





Deflating!

Constipation is the most hated word at my house right now. We were doing pretty good with just prune juice keeping her going, but after Payton was sick a couple weeks ago, her being dehydrated seemed to send us back to square one. The constipation was AWFUL! I even got a call at work from daycare because she was in so much pain. We tried more prune juice, two different kinds of suppositories, karo syrup, but nothing seemed to be doing the trick and she was still having to work REALLY hard (and not getting much as far as results). Finally I called her doctor's office demanding a new idea, and they told me to try a little bit of powdered Miralax in her milk or juice. It didn't work right away and I was feeling disheartened, but a few days after we started it things have gotten a lot better. She's able to go at least once a day, and without any straining or tears. I had never been so glad to see a dirty diaper before!

I can't wait for the weather to finally get decent around here, or at least not to pour all the time. We're getting a little stir crazy in the house, and Payton keeps asking to go outside. I am trying to be patient... is it spring yet??

Hope you all have a great week!

My new hiding place! :)

Birthday slideshow

Kyle went and picked up Payton's new glasses today. Hard to believe she's already on her second pair! We decided not to change anything about them, like going to a different color or shape. We thought if we love it, why change it? It's become a part of who she is, and it's how everyone is used to seeing her. Besides, one of the reasons I like the light pink is because it's a little more subtle and doesn't stand out quite as much as some other colors. We didn't realize though how much her other glasses had faded over the course of the year. When we put her new glasses on her tonight, they looked very pink!

Unfortunately, my friend who was going to take Payton's pictures this weekend is sick, so we're going to postpone that until everyone feels better. I got really sick the weekend after Payton's birthday and have been battling a cold all this week, so there's definitely a lot of nasty stuff going around. So that's to be continued!

I created a slideshow of Payton's birthday party using the new software on my computer. Isn't it neat?? I see many more of these in my blogging future... Enjoy! :)

Hello again...

I hope you are all ready for an EPIC blog post! Kyle and I finally splurged and got a new computer, and now I can't wait to use it for all of your blogging pleasure. It was difficult to blog on the mini, and uploading pictures to it was such a pain. Now all of those annoyances are gone, and I'm ready to get back in the swing of regular blogging. I feel like if I don't, too much time will pass and you guys won't even recognize my little gal! She's a big two-year-old now ya know :)

So I'll get right to the good stuff... the last weekend of February was Payton's birthday party. We spent Friday night after she went to sleep getting the house ready, moving furniture and decorating. I had looked forward to it for weeks; we were expecting upwards of 40 friends and family members, and Payton had the cutest little outfit all ready. Well... imagine my shock and horror when I'm awoken at 1:30am by a certain sound in the baby monitor... did she just PUKE?!? I leapt out of bed, rushed into the hallway, and was immediately assaulted with the smell of vomit. My worst fears being realized, I woke Kyle up (by shouting at him "she puked, all hands on deck!") and went into her room. Poor thing looked miserable, she threw up several times all around her crib. It was all in her hair and everything, so I grabbed her and started a bath, which unfortunately left Kyle with the unenviable task of cleaning up the mess. He's such a trooper, we're not typically squeamish people but that was so gross that I was pretty sure one of us was going to add to the pile. We managed to keep it together, and after we had washed Payton and put her in some new jammies, we took her into our bed with a big kitchen pot and proceeded to spend the rest of the night forcing her head into it whenever she threw up. Two more baths and three more pajama changes later, we were exhausted. We all got maybe two hours of sleep tops, poor Payton threw up several times and was upset and miserable. I finally decided it was time to get the day started at about 6am, but I had no idea what to do. Do we cancel the party? We decided to put people on alert, and definitely told our friends with kids that they should stay away. She seemed to be doing a little better, but wasn't interested in eating or drinking anything. Payton is usually a VERY good eater, so you know she's not feeling good if she won't eat! She ate a handful of cheerios and kept it down so we were feeling pretty optimistic, and decided to tell family members that if they wanted to come we would still have the party, but it would probably just be a shortened version. Payton threw up again after I tried to feed her some lunch, and wasn't really wetting diapers, so I spent most of my time worrying about her... We went out and got some pedialyte, but she wasn't really interested. No one seemed to mind that she was sick, so we decided to just go ahead and do a low-key version of her party. She went down for a nice long nap before her party, and when she woke up we were all waiting for her!

It was just so different than what I imagined it to be. I imagined her running around, yelling at the top of her lungs in excitement at her new toys and all the people and excitement. I could imagine her dancing and laughing, bossing people around and being a little charmer. My poor baby though pretty much clung to me and didn't leave my side, and stayed there the whole time. Everyone was very understanding, I just felt bad that people had come out to see her and she didn't want anything to do with anyone but me. Everyone wants their mom when they're sick though :) She looked a little flushed and pretty tired, but eventually she came out of her shell a little bit...





Sweet party girl

Opening presents with mom!

"Baby out, Papa?"





Cutie pie

Haha :)

My new trike!

Aunt Brittney is helping me feed my baby her bottle

Family photo :)

The party turned out to be a great success. Everyone was very understanding, and even though Payton wasn't her usual boisterous self, it was still fun to socialize and watch her enjoy her gifts. Everyone was extremely generous as usual, Payton is the most spoiled little girl I know! :) Thank you everyone!

My parents were able to come down and stay for 4 whole days, which was so wonderful. I only wish that Payton had been feeling better! After the party was over and we put Payton to bed, we just spent the evening cleaning up and catching up. Chelsea and Richard were also able to come down for the weekend, but they had to leave on Sunday unfortunately. So after a nice big breakfast cooked by Grandma Jo (so grateful to have her with me!) they took off that afternoon. Payton was feeling a little better and hadn't thrown up again, but still wasn't eating or drinking very much. We decided to give Payton her big gifts later, closer to her actual birthday. Plus we figured she would have so much to open on Saturday, we were worried that she would start to lose interest in opening presents (like at Christmas)... Anyway, she probably loved it because it made her birthday celebration last all weekend long!

What's in here Papa?



Daddy being silly

I had to help of course!

My new nursery!

I love it!

Kyle and I decided to get her something a little different... I saw it in a magazine and immediately thought Payton would love it. She loves being a part of what we're doing, whether it be helping with the laundry, mowing the lawn, cooking in the kitchen, etc. She always wants up though to see what we're doing, which makes it difficult to get things done. So I got her this thing called a kitchen helper, and it's basically this wooden tower that she can safely stand in and be up at the counter height with us. It can hold a child up until like 6 years old, so I know we'll get a lot of use out of it over the next few years. The only problem is that it's kind of bulky, and takes up quite a bit of space in our (not very big) kitchen, but so far it's been really enjoyable to watch her enjoy it! Her favorite thing to do in it is to wash her hands. I'll ask her what she wants to play with, and she'll say "wash hands mommy?"

I love to wash my hands!



Putting my baby in her highchair!

By the end of the weekend I started to feel better!

Mom even let me finally have a cupcake...

...and I loved it! :)

On Monday, her actual birthday, Payton still wasn't feeling 100% so we kind of laid low. Sue had an idea to go to the OSU lambing barns, which is a part of the college in Corvallis. I think it's part of the agriculture degree, where every year, hundreds of baby lambs are born and the students help study and take care of them. It's open to the public for free, and since Payton loves baby animals we thought she would love it. So we loaded up the car and swung by and picked up Sue (she works at OSU in payroll) and went to the lambing barns. The second we walked in Payton wanted up, and started crying to go home! It was weird! She kept saying "go home, mommy?" and wouldn't let me put her down. For some reason she just wasn't into it, so we were there looking at the babies for about 5 minutes then it was back home to Albany for a nap. Oh well, maybe next year!

The weather has been wonderful lately, so we've been taking Payton out for rides on her new bike.

Daddy helping me get on my bike...

But I thought it was more fun to push him instead! :)

The day after Payton's birthday was her big eye appointment, so Kyle and I loaded up the car and headed up to Portland. Payton was actually really good at the eye doctor, I was really relieved. I wasn't sure how she would react to having her eyes dilated since she already wasn't feeling well, but she took it like a champ without even a whimper. About half an hour later we were called back so Dr. Karr could examine her. Kyle and I were really hoping that her eyesight had improved; we assumed it would as her eyes grow and mature. However, the ophthalmologist said that her prescription looked stable and was the same. She's still about +5-5.5 farsighted (anything higher than +4 is considered severely farsighted). He said that children who are moderately to severely farsighted will actually get progressively worse in the first 5-7 years of their life, so the fact that her prescription hadn't changed is actually a positive thing. At least it hasn't gotten worse! So he wrote her a prescription for a new pair of glasses, but kept everything the same. He also said that on this exam he noticed that for some reason she's developed a minor astigmatism in both eyes. She used to have an astigmatism in her left eye, the one that the hemangioma was on, but that was corrected by the time she was a year old because of the propranolol. So this was something that has developed in the last year, which he said is pretty unusual. Usually those show up within the first year of life, so he wasn't sure exactly why she has them. Either way, he asked us to come back in 4 months at the end of June to take a look at it again, so we will see how that goes!

Last week we took her to the doctor for her 2 year check-up. He pronounced her healthy and very bright! He said that her talking and language skills are awesome for someone her age, and that of course her height and weight were very good as well. Her weight was 31 pounds 8 ounces (92%tile), and her height was 35 inches tall, in the 85%tile! We talked about a lot of different things. He asked if Payton was showing any interest in potty training, and we told him not very consistently. She will sit on her potty every once in a while and sit her babies there too, but when we notice she's pushing and ask her if she would like to go sit, she usually shouts "No! No potty!" He said that she will do it when she's ready, which is what I've heard from most people. He stressed the importance of reading aloud to her every day, which Kyle and I have always done since she was born. I truly believe that's one of the reasons she's able to understand and say so much. It's amazing to me how much she understands! The other day I asked out loud "where is my phone?" and she pointed to it and said "right there mommy!" I was shocked! Tonight we were outside and she heard an airplane. She pointed to the sky and said "I see it! It's right THERE!" She usually says a new word every day that I had no idea she knew, and is always astounding me. It's so neat to watch her actually put sentences together and communicate! She still loves to sing and dance, but probably her favorite thing to do is to look at all of the pictures on my phone. In fact it's gotten really hard to even take a picture or video of her on my phone, because the second she sees it she says "Payton's pictures, mommy?" The really scary thing is she can totally navigate herself around my phone, playing videos, swiping between pictures. Makes me wonder what this next generation will be able to do if they understand technology while they're still in diapers!

Yesterday was "hat day" at Payton's daycare, and she had the cutest little hat that I was excited for her to wear. It's actually not a toddler or even a child hat, but an adult hat that she really wanted to try on when we were shopping at Forever 21 in Portland. Turns out it fits! And is extra cute in pictures to boot :)

It's a hard job, but someone's got to mow the bark!





"Payton pockets"

I thought this looked like she was modeling lol

And of course I had to push mom around too!

I decided to take my camera to gym class last weekend to try to get some pictures of P-Bo in action. She's really blossoming in that class, and it helps so much with her trying new things and not being afraid. Her favorite is definitely playing with the balls and bubbles!

On the balance beam

I can do it all by myself!

Whew! I am exhausted. Again I thank you all for your patience, and look forward to blogging again in the near future. My friend Kate does photography, and I'm going to have her take some official two year portraits of Payton next weekend, so stayed tuned for those! Hope you all have an excellent week!

LOVE this face :)