I can't believe it's been almost 3 weeks since I last blogged! It doesn't seem like that long, so I was taken aback when I checked the date of my last blog, and realized I needed to blog ASAP. I hadn't even blogged about our trip home to Gig Harbor for Memorial Weekend!

We left early Saturday morning, right after breakfast. It was actually a great car ride, we cruised! Made it in only 3 hours and 15 minutes, no stops. We put on the DVD player in the car, and didn't hear a peep out of Payton the whole ride. I felt kind of bad about letting her watch so much TV (I usually am pretty strict on how much she watches), but figured she wouldn't be watching a lot the rest of the weekend, and it wasn't a big deal if it kept her happy on our long road trip. In our opinion, it was totally worth it!

It was so nice to be home! Payton, who had never really noticed the dogs before or taken an interest in them, was ALL about them this time. She wanted to feed them, walk them, boss them around! She would start to cry if she thought my dad was taking them outside without her. She kept saying "this nice puppy" and going "Come on Kimi! Come on Kirby!"It made me kind of want to give her a puppy of her own, but Kyle pretty quickly squashed that idea. He said he would only consider a pet when our kids were old enough to take care of it... so no pet for the Hall house yet!

Soon after we got there Saturday I left Miss P with the boys so that my mom, Chelsea and I could go shopping for Chelsea's wedding dress. It was such a fun shopping trip! Everything she tried on looked amazing, but in the end she picked the one that was my favorite too. It was very exciting that she found the perfect dress on our first shopping trip, and I am so excited to see her walk down the aisle wearing it next summer! She will look a-maz-ing!

Saturday afternoon I got my hair done by my dear friend Elena, and it's always so good to see her. After Payton went to bed Kyle and I went out for some drinks with her and her husband Daniel. We had a blast! Kyle and I really treasure those moments when we get to have "couple time" with friends. We had so much fun!

Speaking of couple time... I don't think I've mentioned this yet, but Kyle and I are leaving this weekend for our first vacay since becoming parents! VEGAS BABY! We decided to take the plunge and book this trip several months ago, and it's just so weird that we leave in 4 days. We are so excited! We'll be gone from Saturday morning until Tuesday afternoon, so about 3 1/2 days. We have a lot to do to get ready! Well, mostly get Payton ready :) She will be staying with Grandma Sue Friday and Saturday night, and my parents are coming down Sunday and will take over until we get home. We feel very blessed to have such generous parents! Kyle's last day of school is this Thursday, so it will be a nice little celebration for his first full year of teaching. Plus neither one of us has been to Vegas as "legal adults", so we're excited to finally experience it. We won't be hitting the clubs or anything, we're too old for that (lol). We're just looking forward to relaxing by the pool, catching a show, eating good food, sleeping in and being lazy. We're staying at the Mandalay Bay, which I actually decided on because of their pool. Kind of random, but their pool is like a beach! I thought that was neat. They import sand from California! We're already booked for one show, on Saturday night; we're seeing Ka, which is the Cirque de Soleil show at the MGM. I've always wanted to see a Cirque show, so I'm really looking forward to it. We don't really have set plans for the rest of the time. We plan on having one nice dinner out, and the rest of the time just exploring and doing whatever we feel like. We've got lists of things we'd like to do, but there's no way we'll get to them all. I will try to take lots of pictures to show all our adventures!

Back to our weekend... Sunday was family day. We got to see almost everyone, which was wonderful. It was nice to just hang out and catch up. I will post pictures from our visit later, sorry about the delay. My computer is freezing on the page where I upload my photos, so as soon as I figure out how to fix that I will post pictures!

Payton is getting SO BIG! She's wearing a 4T in most things, and a size 8 shoe. She is really loving dresses right now. She keeps wanting to wear them to school, and I end up having to wrestle her into a sensible pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Her hair is getting long enough that I can put it all the way up into pigtails or one ponytail! She looks older when her hair is like that, much less like a baby. She is talking so much, and imitates EVERYTHING. There are some moments that are so sweet, like this morning when she was pretending to change her baby's diaper (she informed me that her baby had "poo pooed"), and then there are moments like this afternoon when I hear her reprimand her father by telling him to stop picking his nose :) We all died laughing when she walked into the pantry at my mom's house and said "let's see, what do I have?" I don't even know where she picked that up, although it must have been from us! We are officially done with her high chair, and she is now eating at a booster seat at the table with us. She calls it her "big girl high chair". We found that she kept wanting to climb up there to be with us, and she is actually eating a lot better now too. She is VERY independent, and wants to be a "big girl". She wants to push the cart at the grocery store, sit on the big girl toilet, talk on the phone, put on her own shoes... you get the idea :) She is so much fun though. As much as I'm looking forward to my vacation, there is a part of me that is also dreading it. I hate being away from her for even a day, so I know I will really miss her. But I also think it's important that Kyle and I take the time for just the two of us, to reconnect away from the stresses of everyday life. It makes us better spouses, and also better parents!

I apologize again about the picture uploader, and will try to post some before we leave. Hope you are all having a great week!