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!