Merry Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!





I hope everyone has as good of a morning as we did.

Peyton is 9 months

On the twenty first, Peyton turned 9 months old. She is all over the place now. After three months of army crawling, she finally crawls on her hands and knees. She still can't go very fast so when to wants to get somewhere quick, she resorts back to army crawling.



Here she is trying to climb up the stairs. Lucky for me , the first stair is a little too high for her to get up.



Peyton trying to be like her brother.
After all, Aidan is her favorite person.

Peyton has such a personality all her own now. She is very determined and doesn't like it when I stop her from doing what she is trying to do. She lets you know she is not very happy, that's for sure. She is a funny little girl. She likes to play around with us and Aidan. She is a mama's girl. If I am in the room no one else matters. She likes to cuddle and give hugs, which I love, of course. I can't wait to see what the next nine months with Peyton brings.

Gingerbread house

One of the things I wanted to do with the kids this year was to build a gingerbread house. So I rounded up Nick and Aidan and told them all about what we were going to do. They were both very excited and eager to get going. Especially when they saw all the candy.


They started off with both decorating a gingerbread man and a Christmas tree.
Aidan and Nick were having fun putting all the candy on the house and then this is what happened. The roof started sliding down and no matter how much icing I put on it would not stay up.
The boys didn't seem to mind, they just kept on decorating.
Even though the gingerbread house ended up looking like this, the boys had fun. That's all that matters.

Raleigh Christmas Parade

A couple of weeks ago Emily and I took Aidan and Blake to the Raleigh Christmas Parade. In the freezing cold, I might add. So we all bundled up with three layers of clothing and headed out. This was Aidan's first parade and he LOVED it!


Halfway through the parade Uncle Joe and Bronte showed up to join in on the fun.

Aidan loved all the different marching bands and danced to every one.

One of his favorite thing that was in the parade was this monster truck. He was amazed by how big it was. Every so often it would stop and rev the engine really loud. Aidan thought it was great.

Here is Aidan showing me the ambulance, another favorite of his.

We stayed for almost two hours and still missed Santa. Even though it was freezing it was totally worth it. The boys really enjoyed it. We can't wait until next year!

I'm in trouble!

For the past couple of weeks Peyton has been working on learning how to pull up on things. She started off slow, but all of the sudden she is pulling up on EVERYTHING!


There isn't anything that she won't try. I was eating dinner on a T.V. tray and she managed to sneak a peek .


She loves the gate even though it has fallen on her a couple of times.
Of course she like her activity table which plays music. She loves to get up and dance to the music. It's very cute.
Her all time favorite thing to stand up on is the train table. She actually has to pull up on the lego box first and then turn and grab the table. Very complicated. Oh, Aidan is not very happy about this one. She can now reach his trains which were once safe out of her reach.
I don't have a picture of this one , but every time I go in and get her from a nap she is standing there smiling at me from her crib.

She is growing so fast. I cannot believe she is almost 8 months already. Soon she will be walking and I will really be in trouble!

The big move

My mother, sister, brother-in-law, and nephew are moving to NC! In two weeks! Holy cow. We all are very excited to be together again. I have lived here for five years, and since then we usually only see each other twice a year.

I am really excited for my kids too. My mom will get to see her grand kids grow up on a daily basis instead of through photos. They will have another Aunt and Uncle to love on them.


Most of all I am excited about my nephew Nick. Aidan and him are like two peas in a pod. They play together so well. Last time we visited...


they played men together...
played at the park..
and danced.

Congratulations Tracy and Paul

CONGRATULATIONS!

Jon's cousin Tracy got engaged a couple of weeks ago to her long time boyfriend Paul. I wanted to say congrats and we are really happy for you two. Can't wait for the wedding!

Happy Halloween

Aidan had a blast tonight. At first he was shy about going up to houses and saying "trick or treat." He told Jon or I that we had to say it. Once he got the hang of it and knew he was going to get candy he was a pro. By the end of the night he was running from one house to another telling us "I go by myself." He would go to the door, knock, and then proceed to grab the candy out of the bowl as soon as the person opened the door. We had to tell him many times to wait until they handed him the candy. It was very cute though.



Here is Aidan a couple nights ago after we carved his pumpkin:



Aidan and Peyton in their daytime Halloween outfits:


Aidan was Mickey Mouse..
and Peyton was Minnie. (at Aidan's request, or should I say insistence)
Mickey and Minnie together. (love Peyton's scrunchy face)

Aidan going trick or treating all by himself
Both attacking the candy as soon as we got home.

Peyton had a great time too. She loved checking everybody out and watching all the kids running around.

Fall Festivals

Last weekend our neighborhood had a fall festival. Aidan painted a pumpkin....

and played some games.
This is his spider ring he won.
This Sunday we went to another fall festival with Joe, Bronte, Michael, And Grandma.

Aidan was very excited to be able to ride a pony again.
This time Bronte was riding the pony in front of him.
We even had fun waiting in line to ride the ponies.
Bronte and Aidan are ver y happy to finally be next to ride.
Aidan played some games...
and won candy for prizes. He was very excited about that. He kept trying to eat it while waiting to play the next game.
Peyton had a great time too.
People watching got tiring after awhile so she took a little nap.
Aidan loved the fact that we had to ride a bus to and from our car. This is us in the back seat of the bus.
Aidan also went down a huge blow up slide that I did not get a picture of, and we went on the craziest hay ride ever. It was really fast and bumpy. The driver turned a lot and at the end went up a big hill. We then had to come down which was really fun. All of this in the dark was crazy, but fun.

The fair

Last Monday we all went to the NC State fair. One of the first things we did was go into the UNC TV kids tent. Aidan made me take a picture of him in front of all the wooden figures.



Here are just a few:










We looked at some baby animals...

Aidan and Jon played a couple of games...

Aidan rode a ton of rides...



but his favorite thing of all was riding the ponies.
We all had a good time, but Aidan had a blast. I can't wait to go next year when Peyton can get in on the action.