New fort

I got a new office chair and the box that it came it was really big. Peyton has had fun playing in this new fort. He loves to sit in here and read all about his favorite tractors!

Annual Christmas Tree Hunting!

In my family when we were growing up we had the family tradition of going up to the mountains, hiking through the snow (if there was any) and searching for the perfect Charlie Brown tree to cut down. It was always so much fun and something we looked forward to. I only remember buying a tree off a lot once when we were in Wisconsin, but I am pretty sure we always found a place where we could cut down our own Christmas tree. Well, since Craig and I have been married, this has also been our tradition. When we lived in Colorado, we would go up to the mountains with my family and we would spend the morning searching out the perfect tree, then we would have a picnic lunch and hot chocolate. It was so much fun. Well, now that we are in North Carolina, we found a nice tree farm about 10 minutes from our house. Not quite the same as hiking up the mountain with tons of snow, but not nearly as hard, or cold. Plus, the trees are hand pruned, have more than 15 branches, and only cost $15.00. Yep, so this is where we have gone the last 3 years that we have been here for Christmas.

Here is Peyton looking for a tree. He seemed confused as he only has found 2 sticks so far.

Here is our tree. I forgot to get a picture of it before Craig almost had it cut down. Peyton was helping, of course.

Timber. Now the tree is "broken" as Peyton says.

Us with our tree.

Peyton was helping carry the tree, but decided it was too heavy.

Every year I see these strange shrub-like trees that I wonder if people actually cut down as Christmas trees, and we actually saw a family cutting one this year. Anyone know what it is? Sarah, do you know?

We quickly got our tree decorated and have as many ornaments on here as Peyton would allow. I would put them on and he would take them off. Ignore the ribbons on top of my curtain rod, those are for the tree and I forgot to pull them down before taking this picture.

Peyton loves that we have a tree in our house.

An attempted family portrait.

Silly Boy

Peyton loves to be silly. I was sitting on the floor cleaning up his toys and he thought I was there for a piggyback ride. He jumped on and said "Yea-hah! Notice the really sticky sucker mess? No wonder I am always cleaning and never getting anywhere!

I won't be able to do this much longer!

Messy face boy!

But I love him!

25 weeks pregnant

This is me on Thanksgiving. Before all of the turkey eating. I am sure glad I wore my fat pants!

Let us give thanks

Let us give thanks

Let us give thanks for this wonderful day,
For the gift of life and the hope to pray;
The heaven fair and the earth so sweet,
The friends so dear that we chance to meet.

Let us give thanks for the sunshine bright,
The light of dawn and the stars at night;
The springtime rain and the summer breeze,
The mountains, the streams, and the spreading trees.

Let us give thanks for these blessings rare,
For a family dear and the love we share;
The little ones and the smiles they bring,
Such a goodly portion of everything.

Let us give thanks in a humble way
With a peach in our hearts as we kneel to pray;
Our eyes and our souls ever looking above...
Let us give thanks to our God of Love.

---Garnett Ann Schultz.


I found this poem and I thought it suited exactly what I was feeling today. I am truly grateful for all of my many blessings in my life. My family, my friends, the gospel, Craig's job, our house, and the list could go on and on. I am truly blessed and grateful for everything.

Hide

Craig and Peyton love to play "hide" where they both hide under a blanket and wait for someone to find them. Peyton could play for hours. Me on the other hand, I hate to play it. It is so hot under the blanket and I am a little closterphobic. Peyton won't let me have a little airhole. I guess I am letting in too much light? Anyways, this is a great game for Craig and Peyton to play, I will just continue to find them.

Peyton is much better!

Peyton is feeling much better and even wanted to go outside to play in the leaves! Yeah! He still has his croupy cough, and daily bad coughing spell that causes us to have to change our clothes, but much better.

I guess it is time to get out the leaf blower.

Tag and I'm it!

My Friend Crystal tagged me with this survey and since I never do them, I figured that I could possibly do this one, so here it goes.

Five Things:
Five things I was doing 10 years ago:
1- Dating Craig exclusively.
2- Going to Arapahoe Community College (ACC)as a full-time student.
3- Working at a preschool as a teacher's assistant.
4- Living in Denver in a not so great neighborhood. Anyone familiar with Colfax St???
5- Applying for the Physical Therapist Assistant program at ACC.

Five things on my to do list today: Since my day is done, then my list for tomorrow.
1- Hopefully Peyton will have recovered fully from his Croup and we can go for a walk.
2- Go buy more grapes (Peyton's favorite food).
3- Clean bathrooms.
4- Make some phone calls for my upcoming Pampered Chef shows.
5- Work for a few hours on medical transcriptions.

Five of my favorite snacks:
1- chocolate (anything)
2- fruit (apples, grapes, strawberries)
3- carrots with ranch dip
4- fruit snacks
5- granola bars

Five jobs I have had:
1- David O. McKay-Library Assistant
2- Safeway-Deli
3- Concepts-Customer Service
4- Alpine Physical Therapy-Office Manager
5- Back to Action Physical Therapy-Office Manager

Five Things I would do with a million dollars:
1- Travel
2- Pay off debts
3- Buy a bigger house
4- Buy us 2 new cars
5- pay tithing

Five things that made me laugh this week:
1- I snorted last night in my sleep and made Craig jump about a foot. It was really funny!
2- Peyton trying to act like he isn't sick, but really his eyes tell the truth. He looks medicated.
3- Finding Nemo (we watched it 5 times already)
4- Open Season (ditto)
5- The baby has been kicking a lot lately and I told Peyton that the baby was kicking mommy, and Peyton told the baby to be nice to mommy. He said "No kick, baby, Nice Mommy"

Five people I tag to answer these same questions:
1- Jess
2- Jen
3- Heidi
4- Kelly

Poor little guy!

On Sunday afternoon, Peyton woke up from his nap with the worst cough I had ever heard, but I figured that it had to be the dreaded croup cough that I had heard about. Poor thing, he really had a hard time breathing and would even cough so much that he would eventually through up.

Monday morning, after not sleeping much that night, he came down with a fever of at least 100.5, but it was hard to take. I took him into the doctor, who said that he definitely had croup, and that he had a bad case of it that involved strider, which is the wheezing that kids get when they are inhaling. Peyton really was having a hard time. The doctor gave us a prescription for steroids and sent us home. He said if Peyton threw up the steroids, then he would probably admit him to the hospital. So the plan was to get him to take the meds. I went to drop off the prescription at Walmart and then was told there would be an hour wait, so I dropped it off and left. I went home, to find Craig who had came home sick with a stomach bug. I thought I would just leave Peyton with Craig and go back to the pharmacy to get the meds, but Peyton only wanted me. It was rough. I finally got his prescription, and he didn't' throw it up, but his fever spiked to 102 and we stripped him down to his diaper and kept dosing him with Motrin. Poor kid. He slept lousy along with Craig and I.

On Tuesday, Peyton's fever was back to 99 and he seemed to be feeling better, but looked awfully drugged, which he was. Those steroids were powerful. The coughing spells and throwing up continued all day.

Today, is Wednesday, and Peyton is trying to act like he feels better, but he isn't. He woke up at 1:30 last night with a horrible coughing spell, and so I decided to let him breathe some cold air to help with his airway. We bundled up in blankets and went outside. It was probably 50 out there, so really not to cold. We have raccoons that like to come up on our porch, so I had to have the lights on. Well, Peyton's cough went away, and he was breathing better, but then he was wide awake. So, we watched the new Vegi Tales Pirate movie. It was good, although not really something I would wake up in the middle of the night to watch. 4:30 rolls around and it was time for bed again, only to wake up at 7:30. Ugg! So here we are. Peyton is trying to act like he is feeling better by unfolding my laundry and laughing about it, but his eyes tell all.



Not really feeling better, but trying.

Ugg, this is really how he feels!

The one thing that I think is really cute that he learned is when he coughed I would rub his back and ask him if he was okay, so now if Craig or I cough, he comes over to us and gives us a concerned look, rubs our arm, and says "You okay?

Today we went to Pilot Mountain, which is about 20 minutes from our house and halfway to Winston-Salem. I thought it would be nice to go and see all of the beautiful fall colors on the trees and to get some family pictures taken. When we got there, we realized that everyone else had the same idea. The weather was absolutely perfect, about 70 and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. We were lucky that we got there when we did, because when we were on our way down, they actually were counting how many cars were coming down and letting the same amount of cars back up the mountain. There is very limited parking at the top.

These pictures are some of my favorite pictures that we took today.

WOW!

We call all construction equipment, tractors, and other big yellow things "tractors". It simplifies things for Peyton. Peyton loves these huge machines and is always asking for tractors. As soon as we get into the car he will say. Tractor? And I always say "lets see if we can find one." Then the search is on to find all of the tractors that we can. He will say. "We're coming tractors. Where are you?" Then as soon as we spot one, he will always do the sign for more, and then ask for more tractors, and I always say, let's look for more tractors. That's a good idea. All through town. Whew! Anyways, today Craig thought that Peyton would like to stop and see some tractors up close. There is a construction rental place in town, so we stopped by while they were closed to check out the "tractors." Peyton was so cute. He kept running from tractor to tractor saying "Wow! Tractor!" Then he would count, one, two, three, two tractors! It was a fun 15 minutes let me tell you, then it was time to go. Craig had to take him kicking and screaming to the car, but it was worth it.







Yeah, for tractors!

21 weeks prego

I am probably one of the rare women that actually like having pictures taken of me while I am pregnant. To me, although pregnancy isn't at all fun, I actually feel really feminine while I am pregnant. I guess it is because I am so tall. I am 6'2" and not at all petite, so I guess being pregnant and looking pregnant makes me feel like a W-O-M-A-N! Hah! Anyways, here is a shot of me 21 weeks pregnant, and of course my buddy is right next to me.