Rod & Karen's Wedding!

Sorry for the delay in posts lately...I actually started this one a couple weeks ago and just never finished up my December posts except our Christmas.

Kenny's older brother was married on December 18th! Kind of ironic it was that date too because that was the exact date Kenny proposed to me 6 years earlier! Their wedding was so much fun and it turned out great! We had the rehearsal dinner at Logan's Steakhouse and we met a lot of Karen's family and friends from Texas.

The big girls let Peyton hang out with them at the rehearsal...I think because Peyton had snacks! Haha

Would you like some chicken with your ranch?The morning of the wedding Theresa and I went by Albertson's to get some snacks while us girls got ready at the venue. My other brother-in-law works there and he was playing "Santa" so I had to get a picture. Excuse the way I look, I didn't plan on taking a picture with him:)Here was Peyton during the ceremony. It was the only thing that kept her from crying and Kenny had a perfect view while he was standing up there and it took all he had to not laugh out loud! She missed her nap that afternoon so she wasn't being very cooperative when I wanted her to sit. At the last minute before the ceremony started I switched seats and sat on Karen's side in case I had to slip away with her. Otherwise, I would have been stuck and the only way out would have been down the aisle in the middle of it...um, no thanks!She was waving to everyone that drove by while we waited for the wedding party to get their pictures taken. She's so friendly!Me and Nonni!Paige and Peyton goofing around!Peyton didn't like sharing her Nana with Paige! Kenny: Hey P, these moves are how I stole your mama's heart!
Peyton: Oh Daddy, you are embarrassing me! Let me show you how it's done!

Christmas!

I am happy to be back in the blogging world again! The holidays always make for a busy time, but it's even harder with a toddler! So needless to say, blogging was put on the back burner for the month of December! I have so much to blog about, and sooner or later I will post about everything else going on in our lives, but until then here's our Christmas post.

We made sure to finish all of our Christmas shopping a little earlier this year so we didn't have to go to the crazy stores on Christmas Eve! We were out late on Thursday but got most of our wrapping done that night too. We also baked that night! Yes, "WE" baked! Every Christmas I want to bake and I made sure this year I stuck to it. Kenny helped me and it was a lot of fun! We made peanut butter cookies, chocolate chip cookies, fudge and another recipe (courtesy of Katie;) ) with pretzels, rolos and pecans! They taste like the candy bar, Take 5, which in my opinion is the best candy bar because it's the PERFECT blend of sweet and salty! Mmmm! We made a lot, but this is all we kept for ourselves.I made this for Jake and Katie. It was delicious and its the easiest ever! I got white chocolate morsels and melted them in the microwave. Then I got peppermint candy and crushed them up in a bag and strained it over the bowl of white chocolate so the really little peices fell through. I stirred it up, then poured it out on to a baking sheet lined with wax paper, pressed the bigger peppermint pieces into the chocolate and let it sit for about an hour. After it was hard, I broke it into pieces and bagged it up for them! The night we took it over to them, Peyton played with all of their gifts under the tree. She is her mother's child...look how neat and lined up they are :)On Christmas Eve day, before we went to visit my grandma in the hospital, we went over to Nonni's and visited with her and Uncle Tim for a little bit. She was having fun playing in the yard! She picked a little lime off the tree and liked throwing it around.We also went to Kennys parents' that night to carry on the tradition that Kenny's parent's started when their boys were young. Every Christmas Eve we get new pajamas. Every year they say we are getting too old for it, but it's really one of the things we look forward to! Here's Kenny opening his.Santa came to town!Peyton checking out a new toy Santa brought! Looking at this picture makes me a little sad...it makes me realize how fast she is growing and thinking just a year ago she could care less what a present was. She got the hang of opening presents, but didn't care too much after the first rip. She liked handing the presents out to anyone near her:) She's such a sweetheart. Trying to teach her how to ride her quad! She got a little scared of it and wanted nothing to do with it after she went to get on and accidentally hit the button and it took off! She didn't get hurt and it only goes a mile and half anyway.Daddy and Peyton Christmas morning!

After we opened our gifts at home that morning, we got ready and headed to my parents for breakfast and more presents before going to the hospital for my grandma. Here's a baby she got from my parents.After we left my grandma's we went to Kenny's parents' for dinner and gifts! She's making sure Paige isn't going too far with her new baby. She LOVES this baby! It came with a lot of accessories to and Peyton loves using them especially the stroller! One night when we were getting ready to eat Peyton put her baby in her high chair. When I put Peyton up in it she freaked out and wanted her baby to eat with her. So I sat her baby in the chair too and Peyton started to feed her own food to the baby. It's amazing the stuff they learn from us! Paige telling P to ride her quad.She would push hers into a wall, table, and in this case the bush, probably hoping she wouldn't have to ride it ever again! She wanted to play, but I wanted a picture of us! It was the only one with all three of us that day and I was determined to take it!I guess I could have cleaned her face before I took this picture, my goodness she was dirty! Peyton was spoiled of course! And we had such a great time with our families that day. We couldn't have asked for anything more!

Where to begin...

November was a busy/crazy/fun/exhausting month! The most exciting news was learning that Peyton is going to have a cousin! My sister and Thomas are having a baby! We thought the pressure was off of us, but when someone hears the news they ask us, "so when is your next one coming? Wouldn't it be fun if you were pregnant together?" I'm just so happy Peyton will have a cousin close in age and one she can see often! Her other cousin, Paige, is 9 and she lives in Canada:( But we will actually be seeing her this weekend! Even though it's only been a couple of months since we last saw her in person she sounds and looks so much older whenever we skype with her!

Our thanksgiving was great too! Kenny had a turkey bowl early that morning so we dropped Peyton off with my parents because it was early and thought it might have been too cold. His team won the whole thing with a 60 yard touchdown Kenny threw to my cousin Josh at the end! After the game we went to visit my grandma in the hospital. She had heart surgery and is recovering, but has had some other complications along with it. Please keep her in your prayers and we hope she can be home for the holidays with us so she doesn't have to spend Christmas in there like she did Thanksgiving. After the hospital we headed to my aunts for Thanksgiving Feast #1. Later, we went to Kenny's parents' for feast #2! We were stuffed and definitely "thankful" for the delicious food and fun times with family that day!

Kenny had another flag football tournament Thanksgiving weekend in Avondale. We were there pretty much all day and even though they didn't win the whole thing, we had fun! They went 3-2 for the day and both losses were to the same team. They were really good and have played in leagues for years! I'm not sure if she is biting Kenny here because she wanted to run off and he wouldn't let her...it kinda looks like it...hmmm we better nip that in the butt! She was exhausted by the end of the day! After their tournament we went to the hospital to see my grandma and my mom loaded her up with snacks to keep her content...I promise, we do brush our child's hair, it just has a mind of it's own!She's got some other pretty sweet hairstyles too! And an attitude that goes along with it!>And for some reason this one spot seems to grow really fast! Ok, just kidding, it's one of my extensions!

Leave it up to Peyton to fall into any wall, door jam, or flat on the floor to make her nose bleed profusely! I swear God made her with knees of steel too because considering how much she falls on them it's a miracle they aren't bruised more! Look at her poor nose...this was the day after she face-planted into the rocks after tripping over the curbing in the backyard. I felt so bad because I was right next to her looking the other way and Kenny saw it coming, but was too far to do anything before it happened. Of course it was the day before I took her to the doctor to make sure the little cold she was getting wasn't anything serious. (I know we are worry warts, but we will gladly pay for some reassurance from a professional when it comes to her) Kenny was worried what the doctor was going to say because it swelled up a little and looked even worse that morning. But I don't think he thought we abuse our child even though he did ask what happened.She loves sweeping and it's cute even if she does scatter my dirt/dust piles all over again. She also likes when I chase her with the vacuum. She used to be afraid whenever she saw it, but now she likes it. I know her hair looks awesome, right?! She loves helping me with dishes too! Especially unloading and loading the dishwasher! You can see her poor little swollen nose here too:(Peyton is infatuated with trash cans! If you are missing anything, just look in the nearest one. We find everything in ours! Shoes, toys, towels, food, you name it!We are still learning to keep things out of her reach...like the powder!We also celebrated our 26th birthday last month by going to Red Robin! And Peyton thoroughly enjoyed my free birthday sundae! A while back my sister and Thomas had an engagement party at my grandparents. As you can see Thomas is super excited! So is Kenny-they get along really well!The bride to be and her precious little flower girl!I also had my soon to be sister-in-law's bridal shower/bachelorette party! They are getting married next weekend and I am so happy to have her for a sister-in-law! She is so sweet and fun to be around! Peyton is growing up so fast and just keeps getting more fun! She loves giving high fives and pounds and thinks she can get whatever she wants with a hug and a kiss. She still LOVES dancing and sometimes gets so excited when her favorite song comes on (or the beginning of Jack's Big Music Show) She jumps and claps and stomps her feet so much that she constantly falls to the ground because she is dancing before she's even got her balance back from falling the last time. It's hilarious! Some of her newest words are bath, hot, yeah, pup, dog, "ruf", done, gone, and the other night she said purple so loud and clear in the tub that me and Kenny looked at each other and started laughing because it was so funny that it was so clear! Then she said it a couple more times and we continued to laugh! She only talks on her terms though and usually it's when we are driving or reading a book together. She uses gestures more often like when she wants to put the little dogs in their kennel she pats her legs like "c'mon dogs" or when she answers no she will shake her head. Or if you ask her where something is she will put her hands up and look around like "hm, I don't know" if she doesn't know where it is. She also tries to sneak into the pantry for snacks and I think she gives most of them to Winnie and Ethel. She gets into the desk drawers and likes to play with the cards and then leaves them for mom and dad to play "52 card pickup". One of my memories from when we lived in Gilbert in our old house was the first and only time I told my dad I would play that game. Of course he helped me pick them up though:) We also started the process of potty-training. Only because she would almost always tell me when she went potty in her diaper. I thought it was way too early so we kind of put it off, but we got a potty chair and now when she picks at her diaper we just sit her on it. Or in the mornings I will take her in there. We aren't pushing it at all, but I started reading up on it and those are the first little signs that let you know when to start. And I know of a few girls that were potty-trained by the time they were 18 months! Crazy, but that will be nice when the time comes. We will see how it goes! Nothing else too exciting going on...just getting ready for Christmas! We finally got our lights up and our house decorated. Our tree looks funny too because all of the ornaments are on the top half of the tree. The night we were putting it up, Peyton decided to take one off the able and throw it like it was a ball. Kenny and I were looking the other way when it hit the tile and shattered. We look over to see her with her arm up and a look like, "what the heck, why didn't it bounce?" LOL This year is going to be so much fun! We are going crazy for her when it comes to Christmas shopping, but after seeing all the stuff we have for her, we agreed she is done! We are about half way done with our shopping and hopefully we will get the rest of our families and friends done this friday! Kenny took the day off so we are determined to finish! It will be a lot of fun too! Happy Holidays to everyone!

Halloween Weekend!

Friday night we took dinner over to Jake and Katie and once again I didn't get a single picture of Ryker! But let me tell you, he is so cute and such a good baby! He didn't cry once while we were there! Saturday night we had a wedding, and Sunday was family and football! We didn't do anything too exciting this year for Halloween. We watched the Cowboys lose...again...then watched more football with my family afterwards! I know we are lame for not taking her out, but she doesn't understand the concept quite yet. We were going to take her to Trunk or Treat at the park on Saturday, but we had a wedding to go to that night. We weren't too sure what she was going to be this year and then when we were at the hospital for Ryker last week, Katie's sister offered a pumpkin costume that her daughter wore! We were going to dress her up as "Flo" from the progressive commercials (Peyton is OBSESSED with her), but we procrastinated with that costume. I like this one better anyway! Isn't she the cutest pumpkin you ever did see! At the wedding! She is getting so big! Where does the time go?!?!She was stirring whatever was in the cup with the wedding favor bubbles...Kelli's infamous "Ha I got your camera and snapped a picture when you weren't looking!" picture! Last Thursday we went to Carrabba's with Kelli and Thomas and Peyton was in a pretty good mood. I was surprised for it being last minute planned and a little later than when we usually have dinner! This has got to be the best picture I have ever gotten of them! But who isn't happy after eating a big plate of The Chicken Trio from Carrabba's! Yum!!! And then topping it off with The John Cole ice cream! Heaven!!! Peyton gets into everything! She opens my makeup drawer and likes to play with my elastic headbands. (I actually had to take all my makeup out or she would get into that too!) I think she must put them on like a shirt because they end up around her chest. Then she got a second one over her head and it looked like a little halter top.She got into Kenny's drawer the other day and came out wearing these shorts of his! Have a great week everyone!