Oh Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun...

My girls, sharing a special moment. This picture is worth more than a thousand words...

We have been having a great, SUNNY week! Last Friday Jade and I went to the world-famous Nike Employee Store in Portland. For those of you who don't know about it (people who don't live in Portland or aren't obsessed with Nike), it is the store that Nike World Campus employees and their immediate families are allowed to go to and shop for Nike and its subsidiaries (Cole Haan and Converse) at 40-60% off retail price. It's like an outlet, only the stuff is a season ahead instead of behind. Employees get 5 passes a year for friends to go shop. One of our great friends in our ward gave us a pass, so we went to see what all the fuss was about. I wasn't in love with it. Don't get me wrong, there was good stuff, but it was definitely not as great as I had hoped. The selection was mostly meant for men, which might explain why I was so put off. Of course, I did buy Peyton a really cute pair of shoes...

They're pink, sparkly chucks. Confession: I liked them so much I bought them in every size they had... Sorry Jade. But hey, now they'll grow with her!

After the Employee Store, we went left Peyton with a sitter and went downtown to the waterfront (which is really cool, for those of you who have never been) and went to the fair for the Rose Festival. There was all the usual fair stuff, plus a mini-zoo, a petting zoo, and after dark we ever got to see a fireworks show off a boat in the middle of the Columbia River! Saturday Jade had to work, but it was a really nice day, so I went to the "beach" with a few of our friends. You might wonder why I but "beach" in quotes. It's not so much of a beach as a sandy area on the side of a small river inlet. However, it was super warm, sunny, and a beautiful day. I had a great time, and Peyton had an even better time. For the first little while, she just sat on the blanket, snacking and enjoying the sunshine. Then she oh-so-timidly ventured on the sand and discovered that she actually liked it! She might have liked it too much. She would take fistfuls and shove it in her mouth. I'm not even exaggerating about the fistfuls. At one point my friend Lauri gave her an Animal Cracker, and Peyton put it in her mouth, moistened it, then dipped it in the sand and put it back in her mouth. It was like sand"dip-dip". Another time she was sitting up, then looked at the sand, as if just remembering how much she liked it, then plunged (intentionally) face-first into it, and came up as happy as could be. It was pretty gross. Her diapers the next day were even grosser. Then we went to one of our friends' house for a BBQ. It was such a great day, and I'm so grateful for good friends in Oregon!!

On Sunday we had a family BBQ at JaNea's. It was a great time for everyone, again especially Peyton. I let her try some watermelon (she had only had it once before, several months ago). She was really liking it, so I decided I was going to let her "have at it", but first I needed to take off her clothes, since it stains. She was FURIOUS when I took the watermelon away from her. She balled up her fists, threw her arms, kicked her legs, and screamed. You would have thought I was child-abusing her. Nope, just made her take a 5 second break from the watermelon... Eventually, after a struggle I gave her back the watermelon, and she thought she had died and gone to heaven.

***Notice how her eyes are rolling into her head with sheer delight, and her chest is soaked from watermelon juice***

Peyton is her mother's daughter when it comes to enjoying food. Below is an example:

Exhibit A: Peyton before a meal (that's one cute bib)

Exhibit B: Peyton during a meal Exhibit C: Yogurt everywhere, Rice Krispies in her hair, and plastered on her face and chest
She has no qualms with getting down and dirty to eat her food. It makes me laugh watching her inhale her food. While I'm on the topic, I'd better note some of her favorite foods: she prefers vegetables to fruits, which I hear is not normal for kids - she doesn't love pears, peaches, or applesauce, but goes crazy for green beans, peas, broccoli, and asparagus. She also loves watermelon, yogurt, black beans, and meat, meat, meat. Meat might just be her favorite food. She's not particular about her protein; chicken, steak, ground beef, hot dogs, sausage, fish, turkey, eggs... If it came from an animal, she'll take it (she must have gotten that from her daddy). It's hard for me to believe my baby is almost a year old. She's growing up way too fast. She's already standing on her own, doing the stairs, and mini-tantruming. Also, she's signing a lot, which makes me very happy! I'm hoping her toddler years will be manageable since she's learning to sign. She signs: more, all done, up, down, dog/tink, food, milk, please, hurt, medicine, and I'm sure there are a couple more that I'm forgetting. All you skeptics- take that! As I said, Peyton has mastered the stairs. You can see what her motivation was on this particular adventure... We've still been taking advantage of all the sunshine, hanging out in everyone's yards, making a slide-slip-and-slide combo for the kids (the walking kids), having picnics, and playing in the water. People are right- summers in Oregon are basically perfect (I'm not delusional- I realize it's not yet officially summer, so there will be some more clouds and rain before the sun is here for good). Outside fun makes for dirty kids though! Peyton's cousins Max and Ike wanted to get in the tub when I was bathing Peyton- these kids are so cute!

Peyton LOVES Tinky's kennel. When she first started "pulling up", she loved to practice on it because of all the convenient hand-holds, and she likes the noise makes when the metal hits metal. She likes it so much, we decided to put her in it and see what she thought.

As you can see, she didn't mind it at all. The only thing that could have made it better was: Her big sister in with her! I love my girls!

Our week with Jerai

May in Oregon is infamous for fickle weather. One day we'll have weather in the high 70's, without a cloud in the sky, the next day I'll be wearing my goose down jacket (with a hood) to run my errands. Needless to say, as true Oregonians, we have been taking advantage of every minute of blue skies we can get our hands on. Jerai and Boyd came to town for a whole week (which didn't seem like long enough, actually), and we spent almost every day doing fun family activities. We had a barbeque at Jeremy and Kristin's, where even JaNea and Charlotte, Lucy, and Henry made it. I put Peyton on the grass to play with the kids and she did not like it! She didn't want it touching her body, so she would get on her hands and feet and monkey crawl (or is it bear crawl?) around the yard. I'm pretty confident she'll be walking soon. She is not so confident. She stands by herself but uses her hands because she's a little nervous about walking upright. Anyway, eventually she came to enjoy the grass, which let me enjoy my dinner.

The Bear/Monkey Crawl
We also celebrated Mother's Day together. It was quite a day. In leiu of breakfast in bed, I got a sleep-in, and Jade took Peyton from 7am to 9:30. It was so much better than breakfast. Each of my girls got me a big balloon, Peyton "wrote" me a card, and Jade bought me my favorite flowers, potted, so they won't die (my ever-practical husband) and a lotery ticket (I didn't win).

My babies

Also, Nipper blessed all 3 of his babies. It was really beautiful/spiritual/touching/heart-warming. Then we had a barbeque at JaNea's house for Mother's Day dinner. The other exciting event of Mother's Day was having all 13 of the cousins together under the same roof. This was a first, since the last time everyone was together, Taryn still was in-utero and the triplets were really newborn. Let me tell you, 13 kids 9 and under, including 6 babies under the age of 1, is madness. It was crazy; babies everywhere, kids running around! We managed to wrangle everyone down for a cousins-picture. Adorable. You can't really tell unless you look closely, but the girls (not counting Charlotte and Lucy, who were in their blessing outfits) are all matching. I love matching. It's actually a miracle I don't try to match Peyton every day.

From left to right: Ike (almost 2), Trenton (almost 3), Marley (6), Taryn (3 weeks), Macie (8), Henry (6 mo), Sam (9), Charlotte -although it could very well be Lucy and we'd never know- (6 mo), Boyd (8 mo), Max (4), Peyton (11 mo), Gabe (4), Lucy -or maybe Charlotte- (6 mo)

While Jerai was here we also went to the park, the zoo, and a swimming pool. We had Peyton and Boyd swing together and they actually liked it. And it made for a darling picture. We had a great week with Jerai, and we miss her and Boyd already. Come back soon!!

We're ba-ack

**Disclaimer: This is bound to be a really long post. If you don't want to be bored by all the details of our trip, feel free to just look at the pictures. I will not hold it against you**

Well, it's been quite an exciting 3 weeks for us. We left 3 Thursdays ago for our big adventure. Jade had some work to do in Utah, so first the 4 of us flew to Salt Lake for the day. We were able to go see Jerai, Phil, Boyd, and Remy. It was so great to see them. The girls (Tink and Remy) were a little skeptical of each other at first, but as soon as they realized that it really was their best friend, they were so happy to be with each other. They basically played the entire time they were together (unfortunately we were only in Utah for 18 hours, so we didn't get to see any of our other friends, but we will come out for a real visit soon!) Peyton was so funny- she hated when the dogs would play fight. She would be totally fine one minute, then the second they started to (play) fight, she would start crying. Apparently she's a little sensitive about Tinky. Peyton and Boyd were so funny to watch together. The whole time they just wanted to play with a nasal aspirator and an infant tylenol bottle. They didn't really share them though. Boyd would be sitting there, minding his own business, playing with the toy, then Peyton would decide she wanted whatever Boyd had, then she would crawl over and take it. She was being a bully! My little angel (who is 3 months older and over 3 pounds smaller than Boyd) was being a bully! It was innocent enough though, I guess, she just better watch out for Boyd when he starts crawling... payback! Friday morning we woke up at 4 to drive to Las Vegas. We made a quick pit stop and had breakfast with our friends the Walls in St. George. Then Jade and my brothers went golfing and I hung out with my momma and sister. Jade's favorite part of the day was dinner. We went to his favorite restaurant: Texas de Brazil. Saturday we left for Miami. Leaving Peyton was one of the hardest things I've ever done. It was heartbreaking. Seriously. Although I don't know if my day was half as bad as Jeremy and Kristin's- they had major troubles with their flights, and spent 24 hours in airports. Sunday when Jer and Kris finally got to Miami, our cruise began! We ate lunch, laid out, and ditched the lifejacket drill. Jade and I hid under our bed, so we didn't get caught. Kristin was sitting on her bed when they came to check, so she got caught. Luckily she charmed her way out of it. We also got our first taste of the FlowRider... the coolest invention ever. It's a wave simulator. I can't do it justice in the blog, so if you want a better description, Google it so you can see exactly how cool it is. Each of us gave boogie boarding a shot. The good news is: no one got hurt. The bad news is: my top got a little messed up and I flashed Jeremy, Kristin, Jade, an employee, and about 5 other passengers. Oops. Needless to say, I learned my lesson and wore a shirt from then on. At least it was my top and not my bottoms! We also had a formal dinner and met our waiters; Song from China and Marlon from the Philippines. We basically fell in love with Song over the course of 8 days. I wish I had Song at my house right now. Monday we cruised the whole day. We worked out, laid out, played at the casino, played shuffleboard (I totally dominated), and saw a magician and acrobats. Tuesday was the only day with bad weather. It was overcast with scattered showers and really windy. This became my downfall. I got burned, big time. I was burned so bad that it hurt to bend my knees, arms, even fingers. I was still burned when I got back to Vegas 6 days later. It was awful, and it almost ruined my cruise. But I digress. We got to San Juan, Puerto Rico around 5:30 at night, which was weird for us. Out of the 8 cruises I've been on, I've never had a night port before. I actually didn't like the night port. We didn't get to explore Puerto Rico. We did get to shop around old San Juan and have a great dinner. Oh also we went to an internet cafe and got to check emails and even call home. It was great to talk to my mom and to Peyton, though it did make me a little homesick. That night we also saw a comedian, which almost soothed the sunburn. Wednesday we were in St. Thomas. The port was a little scary, but the beaches were beautiful. Let me go on record and say that I hate snorkeling. I've never had a great experience. It's always cold, and besides that, I've never even seen anything really cool. We went snorkeling on Coki Beach in St. Thomas, and let me tell you: it was awesome. The guys who rented the snorkel gear to us gave us dog biscuits to feed the fish. When we went out in the crystal clear water, by the gorgeous reef, we broke up our biscuits and were swarmed by hundreds and hundreds of fish. It was insane. There were fish literally bumping into me. They ate out of my hands. It was an incredible experience. When we got back to the ship we competed in the ship's "longest drive" tournament in the golf simulator. Jade won first place out of a ton of guys. I won first place too, which isn't impressive as it sounds, considering my only competition was a girl who barely golfed at all, and Kristin, who had never before swung a golf club. But still, a gold medal is a gold medal. We also played mini golf and rock climbed. Then the boys tried their hands at stand up surfing on the FlowRider. It was really neat- surfing on the end of the ship, 14 stories high, overlooking open ocean with a beautiful sunset behind you... Not an experience you get every day. The boys did really well, and were so fun to watch. Thursday we were in St. Marteen. We went to an absolutely beautiful beach and played in the ocean, catching waves and just relaxing. We did a little shopping, then headed back to the ship for our most anticipated activity of the trip: the Amazing Race. The 4 of us competed in the ship's version of the show. We totally dominated. We took first place in every single event except for one, and we won first place (by a long shot, if I don't say so myself). We also went to an ice skating show, and another formal dinner. Friday we were at sea all day again, so we took advantage of all that our ship had to offer. We went ice skating, went on the FlowRider again, the boys played in a dodgeball tournament, watched the Scintas (yes the Scintas from Las Vegas were performers on our ship!), and went to the Battle of the Sexes game show, which Kristin and I participated in (and both of us scored points for the girls). Saturday was a sad day, the last day of our cruise. We did all the things that we hadn't done that we wanted to do before we left. We rock climbed again, went to the arcade and had air hockey tournaments and did Dance Dance Revolution, and did the most fun thing we did the whole trip: rented out the FlowRider all to ourselves for an hour. We had SO much fun!! Over the course of the cruise we became friends with the sports staff, and so they let us do all sorts of fun stuff that normally wouldn't be allowed. We did boogie boarding, surfing, and tandem boogie boarding (Jeremy "rode" Jade). It was great. Sunday was sad because we left our cruise, but really happy because I got to see my baby. I was so excited. My mom pulled up to the curb at the airport, rolled down Peyton's window, I looked in at her, and... nothing. No reaction at all. I was crushed. Then Jade looked in at her and she smiled at him and kicked her legs. She wouldn't nurse either. My little heart broke. Luckily she started liking me again after about a day and a half, and started nursing (well) after about 2 days. That will to teach me to leave her for 8 days again! Jade and Tink left for Portland on Monday night, and I got to stay in Vegas with my family for another week. We did so many fun things; celebrated my daddy's birthday, visited lots of friends and family, and went to a baby expo. We even met Rachel, as in Rachel from "Signing Time with Alex and Leah". So fun! Now we're back, Jade's super busy working, and I'm trying to recover from our vacation. We had such a great trip, but it's good to be home again. A big thank you to my momma for watching Peyton (and Tink). I can't tell you how good it was to leave my baby and not have to worry about her, knowing that she was safe, loved, having fun (and being spoiled) just as much, if not more, than if she were at home with me. You are the best momma.