Family Vaca Getaway

Aaron had a week off in January so we decided to plan a last minute trip to Corpus Christi Beach. We realized this was our first family vacation that was actually just us, and not a "vacation" going to visit family. We had a good time. The weather was colder and windier than we had planned for, but we still had a good time. We rented a little condo on the beach and the girls had a blast. My camera battery died so I don't have many pics, but here's a few (most are from my phone so not great quality).

We had fun building a sand castle. Peyton would not touch the sand. Even with shoes on she would not have it. Hallie had a blast playing in the sand. She played forever and helped us build this sandcastle. She got tired as well as Peyton and they just wanted to sit in the car and eat candy/sleep (you can drive your car on the beach so it was right by us.) Well..Aaron and I being kids at heart were not ready to go until it was finished. It was so fun to make.

Hallie begging me to take her pic by the pink wall.         

Hallie was SO terrified to be by this shark. It was so funny.

No matter how many times we told her it wasn't real,

I don't think she quite believed us.

Horrible attempt to get a picture on the beach

Peyton was WIRED at our condo. Seriously she was hilarious and was quite the entertainment. Her favorite games of running around with clothes on her head, playing with the phone, putting Hallie's puzzle and remote control in the toilet, etc...kept us entertained and exhausted!

A few from my phone. Sorry for the quality.

It was so great to have a little getaway and spend time with Aaron and the girls. We definitely enjoyed our time together and had a great time!

We're Going on a Leaf Hunt

Today I was getting into my jewelry box and saw a little leaf awaiting me. I smiled and placed it on my dresser, only to realize I had five other leaves sitting there too that my little Hallie had given me earlier. It made me smile to think how such small things can make a child so excited and happy. It will be a sad day when these types of days are gone. Finding a tiny  flowerweed drowning in a cup of water by my bed, pictures, leafs, etc. will all be missed. I am enjoying it while it lasts. Hallie LOVES leafs. Everyday at least a couple times Hallie will find "the perfect leaf" and say, "Mommy, I have a surprise for you! Close your eyes, hand out!" I learned my lesson fast to make sure I keep them around for awhile because Hallie would ask me days later, "Mommy, you still got that little/big/shiny/cruncy leaf I gave you?"

About a month ago we went on a leaf hunt with the girls (crazy that in December the leaves are finally falling) . They loved it. Peyton thinks she is just as big as Hallie. She doesn't want anyone to touch her or help her.

We made a couple art projects with all the leaves they collected.  The girls had a blast. I love being a mom! Today was a reminder for me to cherish the small little things because they will be gone before I know it.

Sidewalk Chalk Bodies

The girls had a blast with the sidewalk chalk! They were out here forever tracing bodies and coloring them. Being outside makes my kids so happy!

Hallie and her sweet crooked glasses.

She ALWAYS has to wear them when she's outside. It's hillarious.

Hallie's buddies. She loves to play with these cute girls.

Hooray! Nursery here we come!

I have been waiting for this day for quite awhile now! Sundays are supposed to be a "day of rest" etc, etc...but I will be the first to say that I have dreaded Sundays pretty much since we've moved here. Aaron hasn't been able to come with us too often, which in itself is hard trying to get me and two kids ready and out the door to church.

But ATTEMPTING to teach a sunday school class full of 10-14 boys with a napless, sassy menace (AKA Peyton) and a missing husband has been anything but enjoyable. If you wanted to see entertainment, this would be the class to come to. Every week, someone in the class would say, "when does she go to nursery?". This proved the point that it wasn't all just in my head.

Well...she turned 18 months and I shipped her off! Hooray!!! I was quite nervous to see how she'd handle it. I took her in, ripped the bandaid off fast and left. She cried for a few minutes but then did great. I peeked in at her once and she looked so cute just sitting in her little chair watching everything going on. It's like she felt so big. She loved it!

Hallie is like the little mother of the family. She just started Primary and LOVES it! When I go to pick her up, she is like the little adult. She will say, "How was class mommy? What did you learn about?". Well, I think she was more than pleased to talk to Peyton about how it would all go down in nursery. She told us that we needed to have Peyton pratice drinking through a big girl cup so she wouldn't spill it in nursery. And told Peyton what toys she should play with, which teachers she liked, etc, etc.

It was so cute to hear Hallie talk to Peyton afterwards.

(all in a little motherly voice)

"Peyton, did you have a good time in nursery? Yea? Yea?" (Peyton nodding her head)

"What toys did you play with? Did you play with the babies like I told you to?" (Peyton nodding her head)

"What snacks did you eat?" "Did you spill your water?" "What did you learn about?" "Did you say the prayer?" "Is this your picture you made? Oh good job Peyton!" "Do you like nursery?" "Good job Peyton!"

She even let me take a quick pic! My girls are getting SO big! Hallie and her are so cute together.

Hallie's Jan. Captured Sayings

Hallie’s Captured Sayings
January 2010
(3 1/2 yr.)

• Calls hand sanitizer “hanitizer”
• “I wish I could be a bird cause then I could fly high in the sky. That would be WAY cool.”
• “This is the greatest night ever!” (said this 4 times on our short 5 min. drive to get ice cream)
• Hallie: “I really miss Iowa.” (silence for a little bit while her little brain is thinking.) “But no people live in Iowa anymore. All the people moved to Texas!” (silence) “So…it’s okay.”
• “My nose is kinda crunchy. Crunchy means there’s lots of boogies on the side.”
• Loves to hold hands in the car with Peyton. Several times I have looked back to see them holding hands and smiling.
"I have the greatest idea!" (says this alot)
• Ever since I read her a book with Cookie Monster in it, she totally has incorporated the word “meself" into her talk. “I’m going to get meself a drink.” “I can do it by meself.” “Peyton and meself are just playing.”
• I had just turned on a Disney movie for her and the castle at the beginning of all the movies came on. She yelled, “There’s the temple! They have a temple in this movie!”
• Quite the tech savvy girl!
“Mommy, I just sent you an email on my computer.”
“You’ll need to order it online.” (talking about a dress she wants)

Peyton's Jan. Captured Moments

Peyton’s Captured Moments

January 2010

(17 months)

• Waves and says “bye-bye” at everything.

• Still into ripping her diaper off.

I went to get her one morning in her crib and she was butt naked. She had managed to get all her buttons undone, rip all her clothes off, diaper off and pee all over. She just had a little smirk on her face like she was so proud.

• New words: “cook cook” for cookie, “cece” for cereal, “beebee” for binky. She has been talking a ton more. Every day I find her trying to say new words.

• Finally got rid of the binky! I thought it was going to be awful, but she has done quite well with it.

• Loves to hold hands with Hallie in the car
• Loves to be sneaky. If I haven’t heard her for more than a few seconds, I know it only means trouble. Toilets, getting into the pantry, pulling out all the DVD's, finding a treat to eat in a hidden place, etc.

(example: Found her sitting behind the island eating a tootsie roll that she had managed to get out of the advent calendar)

• Loves wearing her sweet sunglasses. Most the time they are upside down, but she still loves it.
• Miss Independent. She is fearless at the park and has me on my toes. Will go down the tallest/windiest slides all by herself. Tries to climb the ladders, stairs, walk up the slides, etc. Hates the swings because she is trapped and can’t run around.
• Loves to do naughty things to get a rise out of me and Aaron.
• Toilet obsession is back. She crawled inside the toilet. Also on our vacation decided it would be fun to stir the water with the remote control and dump Hallie’s puzzle pieces in the bowl too.
• This month Aaron and I noticed that she is all of the sudden acting so much older.
• Started nursery!!!

• Is getting better at letting me get her dressed. Now she is into wanting to wear layers of clothes (of course only the ones that SHE has picked out. Might I add she knows how to throw a tantrum until she wins the battle of putting them all on.) Example below.

Missing Peyton

Remeber the whole toilet obsession? SEE HERE if you have forgotten.

I had just said yesterday to myself, "I'm so glad Peyton is over the whole toilet obsession thing." Well...I EAT MY WORDS! I also eat my words when asking my mom, "how the heck did you manage to let me crawl into the toilet?" because...

This is where I found my missing Peyton today...

She was pretty sneaky seeing that she walked straight past Aaron who was on the bed reading and didn't hear her crawl into the toilet to just chill for a bit with her hot dog. It was pretty funny. I ran to get the camera as soon as I saw her and she just smiled and said, "cheese!" Too bad I didn't snap that pic in time. It was hilarious. When I saw her she just looked at me and grinned, like she was saying, "Ha Ha I did it! You didn't catch me! What are you going to do about it now?" She just sat there chillin until I pulled her out. Good thing Hallie has learned to flush and the toilet had just been cleaned yesterday! (P.S. Peyton did her own hair in this pic, not me :))

FIRST Christmas at Home and FIRST Family Visit

So behind...where to begin...I guess I'll start where I left off.

This Christmas was by far the most different I have ever had. It was bittersweet. Now that we are in "the real world", Aaron does not get the breaks he got while in Medical School. Unfortunately for us, he just so happened to be on Trauma during December (which is one of the busiest). And even more unfortunately, luck would have it that he was oncall Christmas Day (30+ hour shift).

So, we had our first Christmas here in Texas. It was SO WONDERFUL that my parents, brother Jordan, Chels and Jared came here! They will never know how much this meant to me. We missed Dustin, Natalie and her fam and all of Aaron's fam though. With Grandpa passing away in March, this was the first Christmas to not have either Grandparent with us. I think it was helpful for all of us that things were changed up a little bit this year so it didn't have to be as hard. We sure did miss them though.
To sum things up, here's my bitter/sweet list:

SWEET:
Not having to pack, trek and fly our fam to Utah
Not having to try and lug all the presents back home :)
Having my parents, Jordan, Chels & Jared come stay with us
Seeing our kids experience the fun of Christmas in our own home.
Having WARM weather
Starting some new family traditions
Aaron having Christmas Eve off so we could celebrate Christmas then.
FINALLY buying our first Christmas tree (after being married 6 years, we have never needed a tree until this year. isn't that crazy?)

BITTER:
Aaron working like a madman (on call (30+hour shifts) every 2-3 days, other days still super long)
Having this be the first Christmas without both my Grandpa and Grandma.
Missing the Briggs Family Christmas Eve Party!!!! Jordan missed "SANTA" (bingo) and couldn't believe I didn't have the game here to play at my house. I just didn't even want to try and compete with Aunt Dicksy's prizes :).
Missing our usual family tradtions
Missing our families at home
Hallie so dissapointed when Christmas came and she realized she wasn't going to be able to build a snowman (for so long she thought that Christmas meant the snow would come and she would be able to)
Hallie and Peyton getting the flu (possibly Swine) really bad (I haven't seen Hallie that sick since she had RSV when she was 9 months), Jordan puking all day, mom and me both getting nasty sick too, me losing my voice completely...pretty much, we all got sick!

Well...I am overwhelmed with how many pictures I have of Christmas and my family here. This is partly why I just haven't blogged about it. But...this is the best I'll do at my family journaling these days, so bring on the pictures!!! (thanks Cho and Dad for some of these pics.)

Merry Christmas Eve/Sea World

On our “Christmas Eve”, we spent the day at Sea World with my parents. Chelsey and Jared happened to go the same day with Jared’s family so it was fun to see them there too. They gave Hallie a shamu stuffed animal they had won and Hallie was seriously IN LOVE! She would not put it down and has had to sleep with it almost every night. We went on a perfect day there! Wonderful weather and not too crowded. (thanks Dad for these pics. I forgot my camera.)

(yes my mom and I thought we'd half close our eyes for the pics. lovely.)

Peyton and Hallie loved the Sesame Street Christmas Show and Polar Express 3D movie. During the Elmo show, Hallie looks at me, waves and says, "Bye Mommy!" Then walks all the way down to the front and starts dancing. She was the ONLY one down there. I was shocked. It was so funny/cute. Shortly after, many followed her lead and got their groove on too.

Aaron and I convinced my Dad to go on a ride with us. Halfway up it he said, "I can't believe you talked me into this :)". We were front row and got soaked! Don't you love my look? I stole Hallie's jacket and put it on my hair. I know, I am lame! Hello, I just straightened it though :) ha ha.

Hallie wanted her turn on the rides and informed us that she wanted to do it all by herself. These pics make me laugh. This kid was like trying to crawl out and Hallie was just looking at him like, "What the heck are you doing?"

I love my sisters and Mom! They're the best!

Interesting Santa Visit

Well..after a long day of Sea World...

Santa came to visit us! Our neighbor came over to our house and decided to inform Hallie that Santa called her on the phone and told her that he was coming to visit her! Hallie was so cute. Just so in awe and barely said a word. Her eyes lit up and she was just so angelic.

He had Hallie (and me) tug on his beard to show that it was real.

Peyton pushed his hand away as soon as it got close to her.

Telling Santa that she wanted a rolling pin and a drum

I'm with Peyton on this one :)

The best part was to have my family here to witness the whole thing. It was pretty comical. He just kinda stood there, barely cracked a smile and barely said much. Hallie loved it though. It was a nice gesture of my neighbor.

After Santa departed, Hallie, Grandma and Grandpa :) made yummy sugar cookies to leave out for Santa!

Nativity Story~Times 10

We had to follow tradition and act out the Nativity Story that we always do at our family parties. Hallie was SO excited for this. She had planned for days what she wanted everyone to be. She of course had to be Mary because "Mary is a mommy, just like I am a mommy." Well...she had so much fun doing it that she wanted to do it again and again and again. My family were all good sports. Jordan's flight got super delayed (poor guy) and he missed our Christmas Eve, so Hallie had the greatest idea that we could do it again the next day too! He was nice to play along and be the "angel". So if you are wondering why our costumes are just a little interesting, well...we were improvising quickly!

The only way to keep her happy was with this sucker. (they do wonders :))

Even Shamu was lucky enough to be involved as the angel!

Can you tell we were all "done" with this and pictures? P.S. Sorry Dad, that Hallie kept you as the donkey!

Sweet little angel

After this was all said and done, they opened their new PJ's, set out the milk and cookies for santa and were ready to hit the sack!

Hallie made a little bed for her and my mom to sleep. Nice try Hal!