Watch Me Grow!

Tidbits

I feel like I have so many little tidbits to blog about, so here it goes: My totally random post.

First of all, for those of you who haven't been to our home in Oregon, Jade and I each have our own rooms. Mine is a craft room and Jade's is his Man Room. This is the room that is totally, 100% his. He is able to do whatever he wants to this room. He doesn't have to clean it, or put things away in a certain place, I don't nag him to clean it, I don't nag about decor, nothing. Well, awhile ago I mentioned this around his dad and brothers. That was my downfall. The bold statement caught their attention, and so the search for animal trophies began. First was Jade's pheasant, then a small deer head that he shot in Germany, then his dad's (huge) deer head, then his brother's goose, then his brother's bear rug. Well, a couple nights ago, Jade's brother Justin came over with a little surprise for me... All the taxidermed animals from their Northern California hunting trip. 8 exotic sheep and goats in total, plus 2 coyotes. I really should have gone with my first instinct and made that into a second guest bedroom.

While he's busy driving me crazy at home, Jade is also busy doing great at work. He got the "big dog" award for New Agent of the Month at New York Life again for May. He also got the Agent of the Month award for May, out of the whole office! He's definitely on a roll. Great job, babe. Thanks for working so hard.

Peyton and I have been having some seriously fun adventures, too. A few weeks ago we went with Peyton and Brittney Janeck to Rose City Ceramics, a place where you paint ceramic things, then they put them in the kiln, and voila- you have a ceramic something that you painted yourself. We had the girls paint mugs that said "I love dad"

We also went to a place called "Pump it Up, Jr." It is a warehouse full of inflatable play structures. They have a "Pump it Up" for older kids, but this whole place was for kids 6 and under. They had a bounce house with balls in it, a big slide, a 2-slide slide that you race down, a huge obstacle course, and 2 smaller play structures with different things inside. The day we went, it was toddler-only, so there were about 10 kids ages 11 months-3 years. Peyton wasn't so sure about it in the beginning, but after a little prodding, she really liked it. She didn't like it quite as much as the older kids because she can't run or jump, but she would stand up and bounce, and she loved crawling on the obstacle course. We'll definitely be going back.

Tinky has been busy being super pathetic. She's a traitor to her species. If she were ever in the wild, she would be shunned by all the "real" dogs. She's still sleeping under the covers, riding in the front seat of the car, and she sits on and lays on us. She loves us to give her love-bites on her chin and cheeks. She also loves kissing Peyton, especially since Peyton gives her open-mouthed kisses. Peyton loves crawling all over Tink, and Tink loves the attention. She's a little needy, as one might observe. The other day, I was cleaning my room when I noticed that Jade had left the shirt he had worn the previous day on the floor by our bed. Since I was busy, I didn't pick it up. A few minutes later I walked into our room and found Tink laying on our bed, with her head cuddled up on... get this: Jade's shirt! She had seen it on the floor, and smelled Jade on it, and decided she wanted to use it to cuddle on! So cute. In the picture below, Jade was laying down talking to me, then Tink laid down right next to him, and put her head on his mouth, so he could bite her. It was so cute, and just a little pathetic. By the way, Tink is scared to death of the new animal heads. For 2 days after we got them, she would not leave my side. She refuses to go in that bedroom, and she starts barking when the door is open. The last thing I'm going to blog about my oldest baby is that if given a choice, she would prefer not to sit or lay on the ground. She will always choose a chair or couch over the floor. One night we were in the office, and Peyton's pack-and-play was open. Tink decided to make herself a little bed, and she stayed there for a good hour before she got up.

Since Peyton and I are going to be out of town for Father's Day, we decided to surprise Jade and celebrate Father's Day early this Sunday. It happened to be a fast-Sunday, so he had "presents in bed" instead of breakfast in bed, then we let him sleep in for a change. We had a fun little "Father's Day" with Dad and his 3 girls.

Jade has been working late a lot lately, so when he was home for Peyton's bedtime routine on Saturday, I thought it would be nice for him to get to do the bedtime thing with her. Well, I'm sure it won't surprise you that Jade got a little creative with his job. I was cooking dinner when I heard Jade over my shoulder, "Peyton stuck her finger in a light socket." (All my sockets are covered, so I knew he was trying to scare me, and I intentionally didn't turn around.) Me: "Oh. Which one?" Jade: "One that's not covered" At this point I turned around...

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!!