Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas everyone!!  I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday.  We had a very nice Christmas.  (Except for the fact that Payton was sick the entire time!  More on that in a bit...)  I think Payton has gotten the hang of this presents thing!  He was trying to open up everybodys presents.  Even some that I had left under the tree that I need to mail to Iowa.  We all received some wonderful and thoughtful gifts from everybody.  Thank goodness for our play room, because I have no idea where I would put all of the toys if we didn't have it!  On Saturday the three of us celebrated with my mom, my sister and Kellen and had a great time.  I have a few pictures in the photo album, but I can never seem to remember to take very many.  Maybe I should put someone else in charge of being the photographer!  Since mom is still in an apartment we had it at our house.  So I took Friday off of work to prepare!  Mom's house at Christmas is always filled with homemade goodies, so I tried to do the same.  I made lots of cookies, fudge, chocolate covered pretzles and lots of food!!  

Monday morning (after Santa had came) we had Christmas at home with the three of us and later that day my mom and Justins sister, Kristin came over.  We had a big dinner and played with new stuff all day.  (And ate lots of cookies and candy, etc!!!)  Now tomorrow is back to work.   Justin is very happy that the holiday season is over.  He is now back to working normal hours.  It has been a long month for him.  Payton is also very happy to have daddy home more often.  Yesterday he was a daddy's boy and would not let Justin too far out of his sight. 

 

Saturday when we woke up Payton was sick with a really bad sore throat.  And he has had it since.  So needless to say he was not a happy boy most of the weekend.  He would perk up throughout the day (mostly because of new toys and all of the people coming and going) but nighttime has been pretty bad.  So today I took him to the doctor, along with every other child in Kansas apparently, to find out that it is not strep like we had thought.  So that is good news.  Basically it is just a virus and it just has to run its course. We are now on day four, so lets hope it is almost over. 

Our goal was to get mostly potty trained these 4 days that we were home, but with him being sick, that took a back seat.  He has been doing pretty well and is doing pretty good at day care, so hopefully it won't be too long now.  Kristin helped a lot with the potty training yesterday.  She works at a day care, so she has the hang of it! 

 

Payton has now moved up to a toddler bed.  I was a little apprehensive at first.  I had visions of him roaming the house at night.  But he loves his big bed.  He has not gotten out of it once!  The first night I thought it was just a fluke, but it has been over a week now and he is still doing great!  I will continue to keep my fingers crossed!

Payton is now 2 years old!!

Sunday was Paytons birthday!  I can not believe he is already two!  Payton had a lot of fun on his birthday.  He loves trains, so we did a Thomas the Train party.  Everything was Thomas!  Even his cake had a little train on it that moved around on a track.   Payton loves to act silly when other people are around, so he was having a blast showing off to everyone that was here!  My sister even came down from Iowa and my Grandma even flew up from Florida!   He was so exhausted by the end of the party, he could barely hold his head up.  But he was so good the entire night.

We got his 2 year pictures done on Saturday.  I really feel bad for the people working at the portrait studio!  He will be really good in the waiting room, and the minute we go in to the studio he has a complete meltdown!  For some reason he gets scared.  He loves to pose for the camera at home, but this is different. It happens every time, so I shouldn't be shocked.  We did get a couple of okay pictures, not the ones I had in mind, but they will work.  So be looking for them in the mail in a few weeks!

 

He moved up to the two year old room at day care a couple of weeks ago.  So now he is a "big boy".  They have projects to take home and even have show and tell once a week! 

 

He is growing up so fast.  He is starting to talk a lot more and put a couple of words together.  I can usually understand what he is telling me.  He is very good most of the time, but he does have his typical two-year old moments.  Luckily they don't last long and he forgets pretty easily why he was mad or frustrated.  We have started introducing the potty chair.  Nothing real serious yet, but just getting used to the idea. They do it at day care too, so that will help.  I think I will wait until after the holidays before I get to serious about training him. 

Hope everyone is doing well and staying warm and I will try to update this a little more often!

Halloween Fun!

Halloween was over a week ago, so this posting is a little late.  But better late then never, right??

Payton had a great time this Halloween.  As you can see by the pictures, he was a lion, again.  He was one last year as well, but that is what I get for waiting until less than two weeks before Halloween to buy a costume!

The Friday before Halloween we had a party at work for all of the kids.  There were over 100 kids there!  I went and picked up Payton and brought him to the party.  At first he was a little frightened by all of the people, but then once he figured this trick or treating thing out, he was okay!  Then on Halloween day they had a party at day care where they had snacks and got all dressed up in their costumes.  That night I took him trick or treating around our neighborhood while Justin stayed home and handed out candy.  Payton would dig through the baskets to find suckers!  Sometime if they didn't have any he would just say "no" and not take any.  At least we got him to say please and thank you everytime.

Update on other stuff:  We have finally got Justin a new car.  I really dislike car shopping.  It is not very fun when you have to buy a car in a limited amount of time.  At least mom was on vacation for a week, so we had her car to use.

Mom is now all settled in her apartment.  Lindsey came down this week with a truck-load of moms stuff.  We miss her here at our house, but she is pretty close, so we can see her often.  Hope everyone is doing great.  I just realized that Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away!  Where is the time going!

October 21

On Monday Justin was in a car accident.  Luckily he is okay and it was not his fault.  Another car was coming at him and failed to yield and turned in front if him.  But the car is totaled.  So it looks like we are going to need to go car shopping this weekend.  When I saw the car I was pretty shocked that he was not more hurt.  Both other than being pretty sore and having rug-burn type things on his hands due to the airbag, he is okay.

 

Things have been going great with mom living here.  She is really enjoying her job and we are loving having her here.  Every morning when Payton gets up he runs into her room to look for her!  It is pretty cute.  He even recognizes her car now, so when we get home at night if gets excited if he sees her car.  I think Justin has really enjoyed it as well.  Mom has already made him a pie and his favorite, her homemade vegetable soup.  It has been very nice having help with Payton as well.  Last Saturday Justin and I got to go out to dinner by ourselves!! 

School pictures

Payton just got his school pictures back.  He is so handsome!!

 

Busy.... Busy....

I haven't updated our blog in a while, but we have had a lot going on around here!  My mom has decided to move to Kansas City!  We are all so excited that we are going to have Grandma Joy so close!  She starts her new job on October 9, so she will be moving shortly.  Her house in Long Grove is on the market now and she has been very busy getting everything in line in order to move.  She will be staying with us for a little bit until she gets settled.  It will be nice to have inhouse help with Payton!  And Justin seems to think that she might make him a pie or two!!

The other main thing that has been going on around here is it has been determined that Payton has asthma.  We pretty much thought he did before, but now we have a treatment plan and can be proactive about it so hopefully we will not end up staying in the hospital again this winter.  He has an inhaler that he has to use daily throughout the cold months and then we use his nebulizer when he is sick or is wheezing.  (We were already using the neulizer, so that is nothing new to us).  The doctors say chances are he will outgrow it by the time he goes to school, especially since Justin or myself don't have a history of breathing problems.  But we just have to wait and see.

 

Mini vacation in Iowa

We are still trying to get back to our normal routine after our mini vacation in Iowa last week.  Last Friday we left home and headed to my moms.  On Saturday we went and visited Grandpa Gene and had a wedding to go to with my mom and sister.  Payton looked adorable and actually behaved himself the entire wedding!  I was shocked.   Then after the wedding I got to go and have a few drinks with some old friends.  (Not old as in age, but old as in known for a long time!)   It was so much fun.  We decided that we need to get together much more often.

On Sunday we got together with my mom, sister, aunt and cousins and went golfing for the first annual June Sievers Memorial golf tournament.  I had never golfed before so I was not sure how it was going to go, but it was actually a lot of fun.  And I don't think I did that bad.  (Not good, but not that bad!)  While we were golfing, Payton was at my friends house and he had a great time playing with Norah.  When we got there to pick him up, they were both running in circles screaming and giggling.  And it sounded like they did that most of the day!  He had such a good time that we were not even a few blocks away and he was sound asleep in the car. 

On Monday we then loaded the car back up (not an easy task) and headed for Western Iowa.  We were all coming in to town to surprise Justins mom for their wedding anniversary.  We got to see their new cabin and go out on their boat.  On Tuesday, Payton got to ride in a tractor with Grandpa Randy and see some baby pigs. 

Then on Wednesday, we loaded up the car one more time and headed home.  Although, we did not come straight home, we went through Omaha and spent the day at the zoo.  The Omaha Zoo is really neat.  We got to see lots of animals and Payton (and mommy) got to ride the carousel.  Then we finally headed home.

Vacations are wonderful, but it always feels great to be back home!