No more dinosaurs!

Peyton's favorite Dinosaurs are leaving our local museum, so it was time to visit one last time. This time we went with our playgroup from church. We all loaded up our kids and off to the dinosaurs we went. As we were pulling up, I groaned at the sight of all the school buses in the parking lot, but Peyton cheered at the sight of the building that he knew had his dinosaurs in them. He said "Dinosaurs Roar! Yeah". It actually was a really fun day and the school groups went through the museum really fast so it didn't seem that crowded.

Peyton loves playing with this big stuffed dinosaur. He would lift it up and say roar, but I couldn't get a picture. He is going to be so sad the next time we go back and find that a new less exciting (for him) exhibit is there.

They have this section for little kids that is usually packed and Peyton had this all to him self. He enjoyed taking all the food off the shelves and "shopped" for quite a long time before he had to share with anyone.

We had to talk about pretending to bite the food. He kept saying Pie, yum, yum then proceeding to try and eat it. By the time he was done playing with the play food, I think he understood pretend eating!

Here he is working the cash register.

Peyton and Joseph loved rocking on this boat!

Peyton's favorite piano.

Eww! This giant snake was shedding its skin. It was so gross. My friends and I were fascinated by it though. I think we watched it for like 5 minutes all while saying eww, that's so disgusting, yet we couldn't stop watching it. I don't think that I have ever actually seen a snake shed its skin before. He had a huge chunk of skin still on his nose. Yuck! I got a video of this as well!

Here is Joseph, Peyton, and Noah. Joseph is 4 1/2 months older and Noah is 4 months older. I think Peyton out weighs them both by at least 5 or 6 pounds, and is taller too. These boys play so well together and loved this museum.

Plus it was fun to get out of the house and hang out with my friends and let our children run wild. Afterwards, I headed over to Once Upon a Child, and Babies-R-Us, and then we headed home. I thought that Peyton would be exhausted and take an awesome nap, but he wouldn't. He kept blowing raspberries, and smacking himself in the face on the 40 minute car ride home. Silly boy! Maybe early bedtime!

Outside!

It has been a little while since we have stepped outside to play. Peyton had a stomach bug for 5 days, and then it has been too cold, but finally today, it was warm enough that we headed outside. Peyton has been working on riding this bike with the pedals and actually can do pretty good, although I couldn't get a good picture of it. Pretty soon he will be riding it all over the place! This was a much needed time outside for both of us. Plus, I still had about 30 strands of Christmas lights in my bushes that needed put away. So, now at the end of January, Christmas is officially put away at our house! Whew!

Now this is a nice cat!

Peyton loves his cat Spartacus and has lately tried to ride him. What does Spartacus do? Nothing! He just lets him do it. He was getting ready to bolt when I got this picture, but that is only because this had been going on already for a few minutes. Cats usually aren't this easy going. Peyton sure is lucky to have such a nice friend to play with>

More Bread!

I have to tell the set up on this one first. Since I asked Craig if he thought I was looking bigger than I did with Peyton I decided to pull out my scrapbook where I had the pictures of me pregnant with Peyton.
Anyways, we were looking through the book looking at pictures of Peyton as a baby and he saw a picture of us with my parents touring the bakery that Craig works at.
I thought it would be fun to add the pictures that I am talking about here. A blast from the past that is for sure!

Here is Peyton with his hair net on.

Peyton recognized the bakery, which he calls "more bread" because Daddy has to go there and make more bread everyday. Peyton and I go to the bakery about once a week to bring Craig some lunch so that Peyton can have a little bit more Daddy time. Every once in a while, Craig will put a hair net on Peyton and they will go around the bakery looking at all the machines and bread which he loves. Well, anyways, looking at those pictures made Peyton want to go to the bakery and make more bread with Daddy. He grabbed both of us and drug us to the door asking for the car keys so we could go. I asked if Craig maybe had a hairnet that Peyton could wear and maybe they could make some cookies instead. That worked. Peyton was really excited to be able to make more cookies with daddy!

Peyton loved to wear the hair net on his head, but occasionally it worked well over his entire face.

Yummy! I only had a little bit of premade cookie dough left, so they decided to make more cookies.

Craig soon realized what a challenge it is to make anything in the kitchen with a 2 year old that loves to say "No, Peyton do it!" Lets just say, it was quite the mess!

32 weeks

Yeah! 32 weeks for some reason seems like a milestone. Don't know why, but maybe it is because I am just 2 months away from becoming unpregnant! Craig swears that I am as big now as I was when I was just about ready to deliver Peyton. Hmmm. He thinks I am having a 9 pound baby. Peyton was 8 lbs 6oz. Big enough for me!

So here I am being crazy. I decided to make this post really interesting by pulling out my last pregnancy photos for comparison. Hmm....I know, most women don't like pregnancy pictures taken and here I am analyzing them. Just trying to figure out what I am in for!

This is me currently...

and this is me with Peyton at the same stage.

And here I am in the same sweater at 39.5 weeks!

Hmm... interesting!

Peyton's birthday party!

Craig ended up having to work all day today, which was a bummer because he really wanted to have a huge party for Peyton. Craig loves to make homemade root beer, but for some strange reason here in NC the only place you can get the dry ice is in Winston-Salem, which the place is 45 minutes away. Round trip of 1 1/2 hours is a bit much for dry ice, but he wanted to do it, but then ended up having to work. He rolled in our doors at 5:15 and our party guests were coming at 6:00 and he still had to decorate the cake. I thought he was going to make just one cake. He had baked 2, 9 inch round cakes last night and then said he would decorate them when he got home. Well, he decided he wanted to make one Curious George cake and one Cookie Monster cake instead of 1 double layer cake. Fine and dandy if you have the time. Remember our guests were arriving in 45 minutes. He decided to make up the frosting and do both. I have to say, I was impressed. He did a great job with the cakes and really didn't make too big of a mess. An added bonus was that Peyton knew exactly who the cakes were supposed to be. Last year Craig decorated Peyton an Elmo cake for him to eat and it was such a mess with the deep red frosting, so this year, with the blue I assumed it wouldn't be much cleaner.


Here are the awesome cakes that Craig quickly decorated.

Having 2 cakes worked out great too. The kids all wanted the blue cookie monster cake and so that is the one that I put the candles on, and that is the one that all the spit went on to. All of us "smart" adults took some unspit on Curious George cake. Yummy!

Here is Peyton after eating his cake. Not too bad. At least he is over putting everything in his hair. I am wondering how his socks got covered in frosting. Maybe a new napkin?

Peyton was so cute, he kept saying "Cookies, yum, yum, yum"

Happy Birthday Peyton!

My baby turned 2 today! Wow how the time has flown! We just had a small party for Peyton (just us 3) since we are having a party for his friends on Saturday. I decided to make him a car cake for his actual birthday. Craig is the cake maker and decorator in the family, but he has been working crazy hours, so I knew he wouldn't have time to make a cake, so here is my attempt.

Peyton was so exctied for the chocolate "car" cake. I told him to not touch it.

Hey don't touch the cake!

I guess he really is 2. He isn't "touching" the cake with his hands. "Does my tongue count?" Good thing this was only for us to eat.

Here is my cute birthday boy, oh and the amazing decorating job I did on the car. I guess you could call it a car that was a little bit muddy! (Maybe I could have tried to plaster Peyton's hair down. It is a bit wild!)

I think we must have lit the candles 3 or 4 times for him. He loves blowing out the "fire".

He kept saying more fire please!

Craig luckily made it home before Peyton started to wind down for the night. Poor kid waits for his Daddy to come home at 8:30 or 9 and then won't go to bed until 10 or 10:30.

I love this little boy!

Ok, so this entire side of the cake is now yours buddy!

This kid sure likes the cake I made!

Too bad my eyes weren't open for this one.

What?

We decided to have Peyton open his presents that family had sent in the mail and the ones from us tonight, then for his party on Saturday, he can just concentrate on the gifts from his friends.

This kid made a haul. It was sort of like Christmas morning all over again!

Lots of cars and tractors, including this cute farm from his Uncle Dustin, Aunt Jen and cousin Zach. Peyton loved all his new toys. I will have to take a picture of all the tractors he has now!

SciWorks

We love going to the local scienc museum in Winston, so we planned a day trip. The museum only takes about 1 1/2 hours to see all of it, but Peyton runs the entire time, so it is a good workout for him and he is usually exhausted afterwords. We timed it so that after the museum we could go and get something to eat, then hit up Sam's Club. You might think crazy, but it works, because I pushed the stroller with Peyton in it, while he slept and we did all of our shopping while he took a nap. Currently Peyton is horrible to take to the store, unless I take the stroller. If I just need a few things, he will sit in his stroller and eat a snack, just as content as can be, but he won't get anywhere near a shopping cart. Kind of hard to pick up many things this way, but it works. Anyways, this was a perfect day.

They have an awesome dinasour exhibit which Peyton loves. The first time he saw it he was really scared. It is usually the last thing you go to when winding around, but Peyton always wants to start there first.



Looking at all the fish.

Having fun with Dad.

Peyton loves this thing.

Haircut time!

I have been cutting Craig and Peyton's hair now for a year and a half, and each time with Peyton it gets a little bit more challenging. This time, it seemed like he wanted to help, so here he is, combing Craig's hair while I cut it. It seemed to work and they both got nice haircuts!

Craig just wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to give Peyton the scissors to try. Now I wouldn't do a thing like that...or would I?