4 1/2 months ... and sitting?!

One thing that has surprised me is Payton is already getting really good at sitting on his own. He is still a little tippy sometimes, but he has really gotten good at it. This seemed early to me, but I guess every mom thinks their child is advanced.

Life is Good! Auntie Kendra always calls me monkey so my grandma had to get me this Life is Good shirt when we saw it.

A lot has happened since I posted pictures last. One of the big milestones for Payton was he got to start eating solid foods. He absolutely loved it. So far we have introduced rice cereal and carrots and he can't get enough of either. The very first time he got to try them, both of the Grandmas were there to witness it and it was hilarious. He was like a little duck grabbing and shaking his head trying to get the food faster.

Here is his first time with rice cereal...and even better (and messier) his first time with carrots.Decked out in A's gear (we have to do one of these every once in a while)

Another great thing that has happened recently is we got to go up to visit some of our friends in Couer d'Alene. Mason's family has a "cabin" there and so we met Mason, Lindsey, Tim, Ashley and Brandon for Labor Day weekend. As you can see there was a beautiful view of the lake from the living room. It was really an awesome time. I have missed our friends from Oregon so much since we have moved to Whitefish. We pretty much just played games and ate the entire time we were there :)

Payton suck/chews his thumb and I think it is absolutely adorable. Gregg is worried that he will be one of those Kindergarteners that sucks his thumb, but I encourage his thumb sucking :)

This is a football outfit that I thought wouldn't fit him until this winter, but he is growing like crazy.

Photo shoot

Our last staged photo shoot was when Payton was only 2 months old, so we decided it was time for another one. My brother took all of the pictures. Here are some of the pictures from it.

For some reason it wont let me add any of the ones I edited, so these aren't the ones that are cropped or adjusted, but you get the idea.

After a few months of debating and discussion about what color Payton's eyes will be (right now all of the boys in our family have blue eyes), here is the proof they are brown.

I have been tempted to start feeding him solid food because he stares at us while we eat and tries to steal food off our plates. We have given him little tastes of banana and that kind of stuff so when he has his check-up next week, we are going to ask the doctors what we can give him.

How many weeks?

So I am not sure exactly how many weeks, I think from here on out we will just do months because the week are getting to hard to count. He is about 3 1/2 months. So I already posted that we were staying in Whitefish and renting a house. Gregg went to La Grande last week to get our stuff. He was actually gone on our fifth anniversary, but it was the only time when he had 2 days off in a row to drive down. He and my dad had to pack the truck and the trailor so full to get everything to fit. I am so happy I didn't go with them or I would have probably panicked while we were driving. It is nice to have all our stuff moved here now and be in our house.

We went to Glacier Park today because my Grandparents are in town. We hiked up to Avalanche Lake which is about 2.5 miles each way. It was fun. Payton enjoyed the front pack and even fell asleep in it while we were hiking. I can't believe how big he is getting.

As you can tell Payton is in a drooling stage right now. It is down right ridiculous sometime how wet his shirt can get. I was puting a bib on him to keep his shirt dry, but he just would put the bib in his mouth and chew on it, drooling even more. Some times when you tickle him, he starts laughing out of control. It is so funny that we keep doing it but it usually ends him puking or getting the hiccups so I restrain myself.

Rolling over!

This week Payton has rolled over from his back to his tummy a few times. He is so proud of himself when he does but usually gets stuck on his arm and then he gets mad.

I know he is too young to start talking, but his first word is definately "hi." On a fairly regular basis when someone says hi to him he says it back. It is so weird to hear that we just keep saying it over and over to him so he will say it back.

We got a front pack (that can also be a backpack) to carry him in because he doesn't like how constricted he is in the sling. He never did like to be swaddled and in this thing he can kick his legs around. We use it when we go to the lake and we are going to use it to hike in Glacier too. It is actually surprising how much easier it is on your arms and back then carrying him. Sometimes when he is fussy I put him in it because it calms him down.

Here is an outfit that Aunt Lisa got for him when he was born. When we got it, I couldn't believe that he would fit in it during the summer, but summer is only half way over and it already fits.

Going for walks in the stroller is a sure-fire way to put him to sleep.

Almost 3 months already!

Payton is going to be 3 months old on the 23rd. I can't believe it has already been that long and on the other hand I can't remember life without him. He is so fun to play with now. When he is on his stomach he can hold his head and upper body up really well and he moves his arms and legs like he is swimming but his stomach is still on the ground so he can't go anywhere.

Here is a picture of him trying to sit up on his own. He can do it for a little bit, but he is still kinda shaky as you can tell.

On the mornings that I work and Gregg is home, they usually go back to sleep for a little while after I feed Payton. I got this one as I was leaving for work the other morning.
This shirt has a monkey playing guitar hero and says "Daddy rocks!"
He now laughs a lot. All it takes is making a funny face and he giggles away. Here is him and my mom making facesa and laughing

Gregg really likes his job at Best Buy and thinks he might like to make a career out of it so we are staying in Whitefish for the winter. My boss at work has a 3 bedroom house in town that he is going to rent us at a generously low rate and we get to move in August 1. Even though it has been nice staying at my parents, it will be nice for our little family to have our own place.

4th of July and giaffe blankey

On Friday we all dressed up in our Old Navy 4th of July shirts. It is tradition that my Grandma gets all of the kids, grandkids and now great-grandkid a flag shirt from Old Navy. They didn't have the flag shirt in Payton's size so his is a little different.

Here is a picture of Payton with my Oma and Papa. This is actually from a few weeks ago, but I couldn't find my camera until now, so I wanted to put it up. This is Payton's favorite lovely, his giraffe blankey. He loves cuddling it when he is falling asleep. It is the softest little blanket with a giraffe head on it.

Another thing he loves is music, especially his uncle Keaton playing the piano for him. He sings along while Keaton plays. When he gets upset he will calm down if I sing to him or Keaton plays the piano. Keaton is so great with Payton. He loves holding him and taking care of him. The other day while I was working Mom and Keaton had Payton at the Art Festival and mom was working the face painting booth so Keaton was taking care of him. He pushed him around in the

stroller and feed him a bottle. Here they are goofing around.

10 Weeks

Tomorrow is the 4th of July and my mom's birthday. This week I started working and had mixed feelings about it. It was fun to sell jewelry and make a little money, but it was hard being away from Payton. Every once in a while I would forget about being a mom and just be in work mode and it made me sad when I relized that. It should be ok though because I am only going to work 3, 5 hour shifts a week.

Sleeping in my new capNew outfit from Great-Grandma

Tiny little crocs

I got my hair cut off yesterday. It was kind of on an impulse to get it so short. I had talked about it, but then wasn't going to do it. Then I thought, it will always grow back. I actually really like it and now Payton can't pull it as easily.

9 weeks

We are in Whitefish now for the summer. Payton got to see his Grandma Susan and she was surprised at how much he had grown since she saw him over Memorial Day weekend. I feel like I am surprised everyday at how much he has grown. He is so fun now! He smile and laughs when anyone talks or make faces at him. He loves being read to and looks at the pages smiling.

Payton did so good on all of his long car rides. Especially to Whitefish. I was worried because I had to drive with him by myself for 8 hours, but he slept until Tri-cities where I woke him up to feed him. Then he slept to Couer d'Alene where I woke him up to eat again. When we were about 40 minutes from Whitefish, I had to pull over and feed him again. Other then that he just slept. I was so happy. Speaking of sleeping, he has been still sleeping about 8 hours straight every night. I am really spoiled!

We got his picture taken at Walmart, but they weren't ready to pick up when I left. Gregg stayed in La Grande an extra day to finish up cleaning out our old house and when he went to pick the pictures up, they wouldn't let him because they were in my name. He tried to talk the lady into it, but she couldn't because of Walmart policy. I am really sad that we won't be able to get them until we go back to La Grande in the fall. But it is not worth driving there to get them. I just got the promotion pack so it only had costed $3.99 anyway. Since we couldn't get the other pictures, we decided to do our own photo shoot. He got really upset about the outfit changing, but some turned out ok. We are going to get some bigger ones printed at Costco.

Payton got a box of clothes from his cousins: Adam, Charlie and Logan. Some of the stuff will only fit for a little while, but I have a friend who is having a little boy soon so we will keep handing them down. There were some really cute clothes in there. Thank you guys!

Here is some of the pics we took.

8 weeks old - Trip to Cali

This week and next week we are visiting my grandparents in California. We drove down here with my mom and Keaton and then the rest of the family met us here. I always love coming here, but this time is especially special because both of my sets of grandparents got to meet their great-grandson for the first time.

Last night was my mom's parents 50th anniversary party. It was an amazing 50's themed party complete with soda shop food and bar, a dj that played 50's and 60's music, a huge room with a dance floor and 50's styled costumes. We had a blast dressing up and dancing. Over 170 people came. Here are some pictures of our time here so far.

This is Payton with his Uncle Keaton and my cousin's son Kaleb. Kaleb loved Payton and held him a few times. He is going to be a big brother to twins any day and he kept asking if this was the baby that was going to come and live at his house. He is going to be a great big brother.

My brother Keaton is really good with Payton. He holds him a lot and make Payton laugh by making faces at him and talking to him.

Here is a family picture of us at Round Tables pizza. It is with in walking distance from my Grandparent's house and we have to walk there for lunch at least once every time we visit. Here is Payton "swimming" in my Grandparents pool. He loves taking a bath but didn't like how cold the water was in the pool. This is right before he started screaming.

Another family picture. This one is at the party and we are all dressed up in our 50's clothes.
This is my grandma (Payton's great-grandma). She definately doesn't look like she has been married 50 years or should have a great-grandson.

6 weeks

We finally broke down and got a swing and it has been amazing. Even when he is screaming as soon as we put him in it he calms right down. It is the best $50 we ever spent!

Payton got some new clothes from his grandma and I can't believe they already fit him. Look at how big he is in his carseat.

This is Sunday. Our last church service in La Grande until after the summer.