9 months

Today is Payton's 9 month birthday! I can't believe he is that old. I think he is by far at the most fun stage we have had so far. His personality is really starting to develop and he is such a happy, goofy, social, fun little person.

Here's the checklist:

28 1/2 inches

21 lbs

Has 4 teeth

Takes 3 to 4 steps in a row and can stand for a period of time

Gets into everything!

Super fast crawling

Knows what a lot of words mean and can follow simple instructions

(Give mom your cup, Come over here, No, Do you want water...cherrios...up?)

Points at objects when you say Where is daddy.. the kitties...giraffey...etc?

Says a few words

Yells at us (or strangers in the store) to get our attention

Uses his toys to try to climb up on stuff

Dances when ever he heres music. If we are watching tv while he is playing and there is music on the commercial he bops his head and dances

Willing to eat anything. I really haven't found any food he does not like.

Loves other kids. We are working on how to use our hands nicely to play with our friends :)

A lot of other things

Haircut

Here are a few pictures of my new haircut. I haven't had it this short in a LONG time!

Settling into the new year

The new year has had a good start. Now that Gregg has been full time for long enough our health insurance through his work will start. We only have to pay a portion of the plan which is much better then the plan we are currently paying for and costs us much less. The amount we pay is taken out of his check before taxes so this is a huge blessing. Another benefit of this job is he has guarenteed hours and holiday pay.

Here are my boys relaxing on the couch. They really are such a blessing to me. Here is a new outfit Payton got from my friend Honey for Christmas.

Payton is now standing on his own (for short periods of time) and he will take a step without holding anything to get from one thing to another. Maybe he will be walking by the time he is 9 months!

His hair is really filling in and I am planning on getting it trimmed around the ears when I get my hair cut tomorrow. He is so precious and I don't know how I lived without him!

Christmas

Here are some more pictures from the days around Christmas.

At the piano ... again. This is where Payton goes all of the time. He is content to stand there forever and reach up and hit the keys. Keaton used to do this all of the time when he was little.

Payton decorating cookies with Grandma...

then he discovered what frosting was!

Payton getting caught opening one of his presents early.

Payton, Papa and the Christmas Chicken. When ever we turn the chicken on and the chicken dance starts to play Payton dances along.

Payton trying out his new tooth brush. He has two on the bottom that are almost completely grown in and the two on the top have just broke through.

Christmas sweaters from my Grandma. We decided that Payton will call my moms parents G.G. and Gramps.
Trying out my new sled, jacket, hat and gloves.

Christmas Eve

Here are just some pictures from Christmas Eve. I will hopefully post the rest and some of Christmas tomorrow.

What do you think he likes more? The paper of the jammies?

You can guess who had everyone's attention

In the traditional Christmas eve pjs. I wonder who these are for?

Give thanks in EVERYthing!

So this weekend we went to Oregon to visit Kendra and Gavin and attend a wedding of some friends. We left Whitefish on Thursday moring and the drive there was pretty uneventful. It took us about 9 1/2 hours and Payton probably slept 8 1/2 hours of it so that was great. Friday we hung out with everyone and helped decorate for the wedding. Saturday moring, Kendra, Payton and I went to coffee with Kylee and Greg before the wedding which was fun. We haven't seen Gregg since he was like 6 months old and now he is 13 month, so it was fun to get the boys together. They were adorable "sharing" cherrios and clapping and chatting with each other.
After that we went to the wedding and reception. The wedding was beautiful and the reception was a lot of fun.

That night there was a lot of snow, so the highways were closed and Mason and Lindsey didn't even get to leave town until late that evening. We all had dinner together and hung out.

In all of that time it was easy to be thankful because we were having such a great trip.

Sunday morning I woke up tired. Payton is still teething (now working hard on the top teeth), so him and I spent the night sleeping together on a twin blow up mattress. I wasn't too worried about being tired because I was excited to see everyone at church. At church I started to feel a little sick and really tired and by the time we got to Tim and Ashley's after church I felt off. Needless to say I spent the day with the flu worse then I have ever been sick I think.

Give Thanks!

Poor Gregg (who I am thankful for) spent the day and night taking care of us, then got up on Monday morning in sub zero weather and packed all of us and our stuff in the car and started driving us home. After a three hour detour because of weather, we were finally in Montana and though it was below zero again the roads were good. So only a few hours to go we were driving on a dry road between St Regis and Plains and a rock falls off the cliff and smashes out our back windshield. It sounded like an explosion and we both panicked and reached for Payton. He had been a sleep in his carseat and despite being covered with glass, he wasn't even cut. We managed to tape a garbage bag over the back window and drive the rest of the way home, shaken up but all fine.

So even though I no better then to think of what could have happened, I have enough to know it could have been so much worse. So we Thank God for His protection over our family, for our health and safety!

Crawling like a big boy! - 7 months

I forgot to post that Payton now crawls up on his hands and knees now and he is getting pretty fast at it.

Christmas Stroll

This week we went down town Whitefish to the annual Christmas stroll. While we were there, we took Payton to sit on Santa's lap. Santa, was actually my boss at the jewelry store. Every year he dresses up and they set up a place to get your picture taken. There was also a booth that the humane society had up where you could adopt dogs. Payton liked this. He calls all dogs (and pretty much anything that is hairy and moves including tickle me Elmo) "kitty" Its pretty cute. There was a person dressed up as a dog so Payton and Papa had to get a picture with him. Payton was far more intrigued by the dog then Santa.

He is getting really daring in his pulling himself up on things, which also produces a number of falls and bruises. Here he is after he pulled himself up on the cat scratcher and reached over to the jumperoo. As he was "walking" around it he was kind of wobbly as the jumperoo swung back and forth but he is doing really good. He will even let go of something and try to grab something else as he is cruising around the furniture.

Don't worry Great-Grandma, I am not really a Giants fan. Just posing for a picture!This is what happens when I fall asleep while sitting up.This is a much better way to fall asleep!Matching with dad on Sunday.Watching football.

Thankful!

We really have so much to be thankful for! Our family will soon be getting full health benefits through Gregg's job, Payton is growing up to be a healthy little boy, I have been able to stay at home and take care of him and the list goes on and on. Thank you God!

Payton is pulling himself up on everything now. Its cute and fun sometimes and other times is just frustrating. Like in the middle of the night when he wakes up, instead of just laying there and going back to sleep, he immediately sits up or stands up and starts screaming. Doing this makes it a lot harder to go back to sleep.

Between that and teething we had a rough week of sleeping at night. I was spoiled up until this point because he generally sleeps through the night, but this week he was up every hour or two. Finally at the beginning of the week two of his teeth popped through on the bottom and it looks like another two are just about in. Last night, he woke up and was fussing, but he was pretty quiet so I left him to see if he would just fall back asleep. He was so tired, he actually fell asleep sitting up and when I looked at him a few hours later, he was asleep sitting up slumped forward. I wish I would have taken a picture, but I was too tired to think of it.

I thought his picture was kind of funny. Payton had put his duck "little quack" in one the holes in the scratching post and so Sammy and Stormy had to find other places to lay.

I had to put these pictures to compare how much he has grown. In the first picture he is 3 weeks old.He is over 7 months old and has almost grown out of this carseat. We got a bigger one that is a convertible one that he has started using in my car.
I have some pictures of Thanksgiving with the family, but they are on my mom's camera so I will load them soon!

A bunch of new tricks!

At almost 7 months old Payton has a whole new list of things he is doing. For one he is scooting/crawling. Sometimes he will get up on his hands and knees and then nose dive forward, but in the last few days he has gotten really good at army crawling to get what he wants. Especially if its something we don't want him to have. Here is a video I took of him this morning:

He is also started clapping and waving hi/bye. It is so cute now when we are leaving somewhere and people wave bye to him and he waves back. If we say "yeah" or he gets excited, he claps.

He has started to get a little more clingy to me then he used to. He will still go to almost anyone, but especially when he is tired he whimpers and reaches for me. He is drinking out of a sippy cup with his meals and he can hold it and drink it on his own. Right now I am only giving him water in his cup. Its less messy and he gets plenty of fruit, so he doesn't need the sugar in juice.

He likes to try to feed himself both with a spoon and with his hands, but this is what happens when he does, so most of the time Gregg or I will feed him.

Auntie Kendra is coming to visit for Thanksgiving and she is going to be shocked at how much he has changed in the past few months.

Here's Payton's new snowsuit. I looked at some online and in the stores around here but anyones I liked were at least $25 or $30. I found this one at a second hand baby store here in town for $10 and in looks like new. I like it because the hand and feet can be either folded in or out. Kyler says he looks like a starfish in it because of the pointy hat.

We are trying to teach Payton to be nice to Sammy but so far Sammy has lost a lot of hair and Payton has been scratched. Now they are only supposed to have supervised visits but its getting hard with Payton being mobile

The last days of fall...

Here is one of the last days before the rain and snow came. Wasn't it beautiful?