Long Time, No Post

I can't believe that summer is almost over. I seriously don't know where it went! We have been doing all sorts of fun stuff, but since I haven't gathered all the pictures yet, I am posting in non-chronological order...

Peyton's best friend "Big" Peyton was in the hospital for 2 weeks, fighting Ecoli. Thankfully, she's totally better now, but when she was in the PICU, Peyton couldn't visit. She was moved to the regular pediatric unit for her last couple days, and Peyton was finally allowed to go see her best friend. The girl was so happy to be able to see Big Peyton! When we visited, Peyton was getting an EEG, and still to this day, my Peyton talks about "Peyton Janeck Hospital" and "Peyton hat. EEG" (They put a gauze "hat" over all the EEG wires).

Peyton still wears a pull-up to bed since once in awhile she doesn't wake up dry. Unfortunately for us, Peyton likes to sleep (and hang out all day) totally naked. So, she was stripping off all her clothes and pull-up every night before she would fall asleep. I tried seriously everything I could think of (zippered one-pieces- but she could unzip them, layering her clothes, having her wear a 1 piece swimsuit under her jammies so it would be much harder to take it off, etc.) and nothing I did worked. She is so tiny that all her clothes slide right off her shoulders, plus she knows how to unzip and unbutton. When I was telling my family about the problem, my brother-in-law Justin said I should duct-tape the pull-up to her. I laughed it off, but then Ashley said that they had to do it when Macie was a toddler. So we tried it, and... it worked! We don't actually tape the pull-up to her skin, we just make a duct-tape "belt" around the top of the pull-up and it makes it so the pull-up doesn't stretch and she can't pull it off.

Jade played in Pumpkin Ridge's Member-Guest Tournament a couple weeks ago. He and his partner didn't win, but they had a good time, and Jade played pretty well. At the end of the tournament, they had a big dinner and the wives were invited to come.

With my friend Kate; her husband Joe played in the tournament.

The weather in Portland was beautiful this weekend, and supposedly the weather at the coast was sunny (which is rare), so Justin, Ashley, Jeremy, Kristin, Jade and I brought all our kids to the beach. We apparently picked the only beach that wasn't sunny. I don't know how that happened. We all had a great time (especially the kids), and it wasn't too cold if you used your towel as a blanket and sat where the wind was blocked.Peyton and TarynPeyton playing with the "big boys", Trenton and Max

The kids wanted to dig a big hole, and soon enough the dads took over and the project became the dads'. Mostly they just stood around and talked, but eventually they did dig a deep hole- deep enough that they couldn't get out without a hand from someone outside the hole.

The kids each took turns being thrown into the hole with Jeremy. They thought it was the coolest thing ever.

Peyton got super messy gorging herself with Red Vines.

I am officially nominating myself for mother of the year this year. Or not. We've had so many little accidents and incidents that I feel astonishingly under-qualified to be a mom. Last month, I was buckling Peyton into her car seat, and I put the car keys in the cup holder of the car seat so I wouldn't lose them when I was buckling her. Well I forgot to take the keys with me when I was getting into my seat, because I shut Peyton's door, walked around the car, and while I was walking I heard a click and a honk. Peyton was playing with my car keys and I was officially locked out. Without a cell phone. I was looking in her window with my hand on the driver's side door watching her play with the keys; just hoping she would press the unlock button. I didn't have to wait long- she pushed unlock pretty quickly and I was able to yank the door open before she locked it again, but I felt pretty helpless. Then a couple weeks later we were getting ready to leave storytime and she was standing by the door. Somehow she pushed the heavy door open just enough for it to catch her little fingers and shut again. Luckily I was able to get to the door right away and there were no bruises or broken skin (or blood). Then that same day we were at Target and I was letting her sign my name on the credit card pad at checkout and she fell out of the shopping cart. I couldn't believe it. I cried, she cried, we were a mess. And then, to cap off our traumatic day, Peyton fell off the chair in my office when she was coloring. Again, no injuries, but seriously I felt like such a bad mom! Then yesterday, we were having dinner at JaNea and Nipper's house and she was playing with her cousins on the play structure. She is pretty fearless and she climbs really well, so she's been able to climb up the stairs and the slide for a long time now, and she's never fallen off. Apparently this time she was trying to climb down the stairs facing outward, and she fell from the top stair, hit her head on the 4th step down, then landed on her back at the bottom of the stairs. I thought I was going to have a panic attack. Our friend Marshall saw the whole thing happen, and he was able to get to her just a couple seconds after she fell, and with the help of daddy and grandma (and a popsicle) she calmed down fast enough for us to realize there was no serious damage- just a tiny bite on the side of her tongue, a cut on the side of her eye and a goose-egg on her head. It was one of the scariest moments of my life. About a half hour after she fell, she wanted to go play again, so we let her, and the first thing she did was run to the slide and climb up it. Apparently she wasn't too traumatized. Like I said, Mother of the Year (at least this month).

She was already feeling lots better by the time bedtime came around. To this day, she'll point to her head and say "Gabey's house. Bonk."

Like I said, the girl loves to climb

We went berry picking and ended up being in-between berry seasons, so there were slim-pickings (literally). We ended up just buying what the farmers had already picked. Peyton loved it all the same.

Like I said (again), the girl loves to be naked.

And now a few Peyton stories for my memories...

A few weeks ago in nursery, Peyton got a little cut on her ankle. She insisted on wearing a band-aid every day for 2 weeks. Since the ankle is a hard place to keep a band-aid on, her band-aids would keep coming off on one side, and every time she would about have a panic attack. She would say "MOM. BAND-AID OFF" and repeat until I re-affixed it or put on a new band-aid. One day I was downstairs and Peyton was playing upstairs with her shoes. I heard her whining, but I could tell she wasn't in pain at all- it was a frustrated whine. So I didn't go up to her right away. The whining persisted for about 5 minutes, so I went upstairs to find out what she was so mad about. I found her standing in the doorway of her room, frozen in place, clutching onto the door jamb for dear life. When she saw me she started repeating "band-aid off". She wouldn't move because her band-aid was off. I had to try so hard not to laugh.

We went to a neighborhood festival-type party that the strip mall by our house put on. All the stores opened their doors and there was a band and food and all sorts of stuff for kids and adults. Peyton had a blast, except when she saw the person in the bunny costume walking around. All of a sudden she started pulling on my skirt and crying, so I picked her up and she was saying "No bunny mommy. Scared." I had no idea what she was talking about, but I looked around and sure enough, there was a bunny, but it was no where near us, and it wasn't even looking at Peyton. She just did not like it one little bit. It was pretty funny.

Peyton has lately been aware that her mommy doesn't have the most beautiful singing voice. She will now tell me "no singing mommy" when I start to sing along with a song she likes. Also, if I start to dance around or even clap along with music, she will tell me "no dance" or "no clap mommy". I didn't know they started this so young!

I can't bring myself to throw out her artwork, so I take pictures. Here are her latest paintings.

She narrated this note for Jade.