Craig turns 40!

Couples Halloween Party

This is the second annual Halloween couples party that us and a few other couples started doing. It is so much fun to get all dressed up and party! This year, I decided that I wanted to try to be Martha Stewart and create our costumes. I have always thought that Craig looked like Fred Flinstone, so I decided that that was what we were going to be. I went to Goodwill and lucky me, I found a ton of orange fabric, just waiting to be made into this costume. It was meant to be. I also found a white sheet for my costume. Price for all this $3.00. Then I went to the fabric store and found some black felt for $2.00 for Craig's spots, and some leopard print fuzzy fabric for my shawl. Price $5.00. I found a can of red hairspray at Walmart for $2.00 and borrowed the beads for my necklace and bracelet. I also just happened to have a strip of blue fleece in my fabric box for the tie. So, I went home to create this creation. I don't claim to be handy with a sewing machine, or claim to know how to create something out of nothing, but that is exactly what I did. I found a pattern that I had brought years ago for some scrubs and used that as a guideline, but by no means, did it fit what I was making. I am pretty happy with how they turned out. Craig loved his costume, and I did too.

These are our friends Kevin and Alison Quinn, aka Prince Charming and Snow White. The crazy thing is that they put this entire costume together in just a few hours!

Jackson

Random cuteness, which is Jackson....

 

Who is also my skinny kid. I am constantly having to pull his pants up because they don't fit around his waist. Craig calls him "pants on the ground" because that is what happens all day, or he just resorts to taking it all off!

 

Library Halloween Party

Peyton and Jackson have been going to our local library on Thursdays for story time and each week they have a different theme. Peyton LOVES story time. They usually have show-and-tell at the beginning each week and Peyton loves it. If we by chance forget to bring something, he usually can find something that he wants to talk about. He loves to have someone to talk to. Today's story time was all about Halloween and they had a party afterwords. The kids got to dress up. It was so much fun seeing all the costumes. Peyton was Darth Vader and Jackson was Yoda. They had a blast.

Too bad I didn't take anymore pictures. These don't really do much do they?

Pumkin Patch

Going to a pumpkin patch, and we're going to get some pumpkins....

Today, a friend of mine arranged for us all to go to a pumpkin patch that was near her in-laws house. The farmer had already sold all of the pumpkins that he had wanted to sell and opened his field up to his neighbors to come and get as many pumpkins as they wanted. This is not a open to the public type field, but more of just a regular farmers field. The day we went it was super foggy and drizzly with rain, but that didn't stop us from finding some great pumpkins with our friends. The boys enjoyed going out and finding the perfect pumpkins. I think we ended up with about 10.


















This is Jackson with his friend Griffin. They had such a blast sitting in the wagon together. One of my friends brought the wagon for the pumpkins, but Jackson was pretty sure she brought it for him.






I mean, he really loved this wagon. We might have to get one some day.



































Look at how foggy it was and how many pumpkins there were still!


Not a great picture of Jackson, but this pumpkin was his buddy.

Can you all hear Peyton say "HEAVY!"?

Jackson wouldn't sit on a pumpkin for a picture, but Peyton was game for it!

Now a silly face!

Attemted fall pics

Peyton loves when I spike his hair. His hair has a mind of its own, so it is such a good thing that wild crazy hair styles are popular. his hair is getting a little long, but it is still cute.

Downtown Mount Airy, they have this great Fall/Halloween display, so I thought that after storytime at the library today, I would take the kids over to take their pictures. Well, I should have been clued in that it wouldn't work after the time at the library we had. Jackson, at 18 months loves to run and climb on chairs, tables, etc. I spent the entire hour chasing him around. I probably wouldn't bother going to the library for storytime, but Peyton absolutely LOVES it. The teacher does show-and-tell, and Peyton starts thinking about what he is going to bring days before we go. Anyways, after the exhausting storytime we walked over to the display, only a few blocks, and I got the kids set up. Well, Jackson wouldn't sit down, even for a few seconds. Even after I gave him some pringles to hold onto. After he almost made it into the street, I called it quits. Maybe I will try again with Craig.

This is the best picture I got. If only Peyton were looking. I may try photoshop.

Jackson running off.

I tried to put Jackson on this haybale and he wouldn't stay.

Its 4 am...

what are you doing? This is what Jackson and I were doing...

Jackson and Spartacus on the table, as usual. This is why I keep the table pushed up against the wall. I am so afraid that someone will fall off.

Yes, its 4 am, and Jackson has his shoes on. First thing to get put on in the morning and last thing to come off at night.

I'm not sure why 4 am is Jackson's preferred wake up time, but it has been for the last 2 months.

Building a house for Mort

Who is Mort? Well, Mort is a little lemur from the movie Madagascar, who is also on the TV show Penguins of Madagascar. Mort is Peyton's best friend. Mort is tiny, and fits in his pocket, he is three just like Peyton, but he also goes to work, school, the store, because Lemurs can do that when they are 3. Mort sometimes gets in trouble though, because he runs away from Peyton at the store sometimes and Peyton has to go looking for him, which in turn gets Peyton in trouble. Mort has a special place in our car inbetween Jackson and Peyton's carseat and he has a tiny seatbelt that fits him. Mort has been a part of our family for more than a year. I think it was about a few months after Jackson was born, when Mort first showed up as Peyton's imaginary friend. He is also often accompanied by Mort's friends King Julian and Maurice. Tom and Jerry, Curious George and the Man with the yellow hat have also been to our house lately. Once they all came to the park with us. Once I heard that if your child has an imaginary friend, then that means they are very smart, well, with this list, I am pretty sure Peyton is going to be a genius!

So, with all that background, here is Mort.

Mort doesn't have his own room here, so Peyton decided that maybe Mort needed his own house, so we built one during Jackson's nap.

This lincoln log set belonged to Craig's oldest son Justin (who is now 18) and I have just had it in the basement. Peyton has loved playing with it and building things.

Jackson woke up and destroyed it not long afterwards.

Jackson recently learned how to say Peyton. He says "Peyta"

Peyton being silly for the camera.

Family Picture

I realize it has been forever since I have updated my blog. I really have no excuse.  Here is a current picture we took before church last week.  I will try my hardest to get a few more pictures on here soon!

Its no fun being sick…

Some of you may know already, but some may not know that Peyton is in the hospital.
We have been here since Monday morning. He started to complain of his leg hurting on Saturday, he said he scratched it on the coffee table, but by that evening, his leg was really hurting and he was limping. That night he wouldn't even walk to the bathroom and had to be carried.

Sunday he woke up and said his back was hurting and both legs hurt.

On Monday he wouldn't even turn his neck and stiffened up like a board when I carried him to the bathtub, so it was time to go to the doctor. We should have taken him in Sunday, but we waited until Monday. Well when we got the the doctors office, Peyton told the doctor that everything hurt. She did a strep test which came out negative. She said that she was worried about Meningitis, which I was also concerned about. She told us to go straight to the hospital.

Well, the Spirit was looking out for us, because my good friend Shanna happened to be at the doctors office with her kids at the same time we were and she was coming out of her treatment room at the same time as we were, and I filled her in on what we were doing with Peyton and she offered to take Jackson with her for a while and then my other good friend Jess would watch him the rest of the day.

What a blessing to have such good friends. Josh who kept me company while Peyton was sleeping, Susie who brought me all kinds of goodies to keep me and Peyton busy, including this laptop. And to Jim who came to visit us today and answered a lot of medical questions we had. And Jess who has had Jackson for 2 days now. We are so thankful.

Well, when we got to the hospital another pediatrician examined him and decided to go draw blood and do a hip x-ray, and those results all came out negative. Then he decided to go ahead with the spinal tap for the Meningitis. He sedated Peyton which was really good, because it looked really painful. One of the results came out negative right away, but we are still waiting for the last culture to see if he has Meningitis or not and whether it is viral or bacterial. If that comes out negative, then the doctor really doesn't know what it is. He has a few ideas, and he said he might order a few more tests tomorrow. So for now its me and Peyton stuck quarantined to this small hospital room.

He seems to be feeling better. He did get some strong antibiotics yesterday and then today broke out in a rash, so they changed his antibiotic. I know the doctor will probably test for some arthritis, for a 3 year old. Crazy.

I am looking forward to tomorrow to see what diagnosis Peyton is going to get. They will probably send us home to wait it out. If he just has a strange virus it will clear up in 5-7 days. I will keep everyone posted as I find out.

I realized that I haven't blogged in a really long time, but I wanted to post some pictures of our latest professional photos. We really slacked on getting professional pictures taken this last year with Jackson, but at least we tried. We are in Utah right now visiting with my brother and his family and we thought it would be the perfect time to try to get pictures taken of the boys and even to get some cousin shots. Well, as it turns out getting 4 boys ages, 3, 2, 1, and 3 months to all smile, and not cry all at the same time is difficult. We weren't able to get a picture of all 4 boys at the same time, but once Grandpa jumped in the picture, then they all were happy. My Dad is living in Utah near my brother right now, so my brothers boys know him really well and are really comfortable with him. Anyways, here are the pictures.

My Dad, my brother Dustin, Zach 2, and Logan 3 months.


Jackson's birthday cake. We discovered that he doesn't like cake. He just poked at this and started crying.


Peyton, this is my favorite background.

Jackson.





See how happy they all are with Grandpa around!

My cute Nephew Zach

Zach and Logan

Logan

Jackson and Peyton

All in all, I would call this a sucess. I can't wait to get home to put my new pictures on the wall!

We love parks!

These boys love playing at this park.


It was such a beautiful day!

Jackson loves to climb through this tunnel.

Peyton loves to go down the slides.

Jackson could live in a swing if he needed to.