Easter Sunday

The kids had a very fun, very special Easter Sunday. Grandma & Grandpa spent the weekend here after last week's trip to their house. The day started with Easter baskets, then breakfast, then off to church. Peyton's favorite part of church was recieving a Jesus balloon (balloons are a favorite toy these days). We had a traditional Easter ham lunch at home. Peyton discovered how to peel boiled eggs and worked very diligently to get every last piece of shell off. It was fun to watch how seriously he took the task and how much he seemed to enjoy it! After lunch it was time to take Grandma & Grandpa to the airport. Our house was not grandparent-free for long, however. Grandmommy & Grandaddy arrived a short time later for dinner and a quick visit. Peyton hunted Easter eggs for the 4th time this year while they were here.

Spring Break at Grandma & Grandpa's

Reagan, Peyton and I spent last week at Grandma and Grandpa's house in Pawnee. Here is a summary of the week:

Sunday - Reagan, Peyton, Mommy and Daddy drive to Brett & Stephanie's house in San Antonio. 6 hours from McKinney to San Antonio in the car. Both kids over all were pretty good. Peyton says every 15 minutes, "I need to go to Grandma and Grandpa's house." Play and Brett & Stephanie's house and neighborhood park for a little while. Take Daddy to the airport to fly home. :( Eat dinner at Joe's Crab Shack. Peyton enjoys the spinning disco lights, music, and dancers. Reagan enjoys flirting with the people at the table next to us. Drive to Pawnee - another 1 1/2 hours in the car. Peyton immediately identifies the closet in his room (Grandpa's office) as his "i-let-ler".

Monday - Lazy morning after a long day on the road. Peyton finds all of his favorite toys at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Eat lunch at Dairy Queen - Peyton's request. Go to the grocery store. Spend a quiet evening at home.

Tuesday - Another lazy morning. Peyton, Grandpa and Mommy go to the Co-op to buy medicine for Grandpa's cows. Peyton is very curious about the fork lift moving around sacks of feed. Eat lunch at RJ's Hamburgers (RJ is a childhood friend of Brett's). Reagan stays at home with Grandma and takes a really long nap. Reagan, Peyton, Grandma and Mommy dye Sesame Street Easter eggs. Later in the afternoon, Peyton and Mommy watch real cowboys on real horses round up and pen Grandpa's cows. Peyton is concerned about the cows hurting him (he's starting to develop a real fear for animals), but is convinced that they can't hurt him as long as they are in the pen or on the trailer. Peyton and Mommy take a walk, and Peyton finds a cow bone which he takes back to the house.

Wednesday - Playdate at Linda & Ed's house with cousins Kennedy (7), Kyle (5), Reese (6), Rylie (3), and twins Reid and Ryan (6 months) and their moms Ky & Kerri. Hunt Easter eggs with them and take pictures. Peyton gets a haircut from Grandma's stylist. Run into Mommy's friend Kim and daughter Brooklyn (4) at Wal Mart. Eat dinner at La Familia with Grandma, Grandpa, Peggy and Bobby. Peyton smears butter all over his tortilla, hands, shirt, face, the table, etc. Reagan is facinated with a plastic straw.

Thursday - Another lazy morning at home! Take pictures in the very few bluebonnets that actually came up this year. Peyton gets bit by ants. "Ant bites very itch" is his comment. Peyton and Mommy play at the school playground - on the same playground Mommy played on nearly everyday when she was a little girl. Peyton and Grandma take a walk and see an "Easter bunny" up close. Spend the rest of the day playing and packing our stuff.

Friday - Peyton, Reagan, Grandma, Grandpa, and Mommy leave home at 6 am. Drive to San Antonio to drop off a car at the airport (Grandma and Grandpa are flying home on Sunday). Drive, drive, and drive some more. Every 15 minutes Peyton says, "I need to go to Peyton's house." Arrive in McKinney at 4:15pm - 10 hours and 15 minutes on the road and that's all I have say about that day!

Saturday - Less than 24 hours at home and Peyton says, "I need to go back to Grandma and Grandpa's house."

Riding the 'I-let-ler'

Peyton favorite game/activity lately has been to pretend that closets and small rooms are elevators. He walks in (usually with an animal or two), closes the door, and pretends that he is rinding the elevator up or down. Sometimes he asks for Mommy or Daddy to ride with him. While we were waiting for our pictures to be printed at Portrait Innovations last Friday, the dressing room became the 'i-let-ler'. We "rode" it up and down so many times! It was great entertainment while we waited! Fortunately, the studio was almost empty at the time! As of now, our house has four elevators - his closet, the playroom closet, the water closet in our bathroom, and, tonight, the utility room became an elevator. He said, "Mommy, come ride the 'i-let-ler' with Peyton and Bunny, please." When we walked in his said, "The 'i-let-ler' is loud, isn't it?" (The washer was going at the time). He continued, "This is like the 'i-let-ler" at Ikea." (I'm recording everything he said to prove that speech classes must really be helping!) What's really funny is that he always remembers if he is up or down. We'll get in the first time, and he'll say, "We're going up." We'll get out, play for a little bit, and then he'll say, "Time to ride the 'i-let-ler' back down."

And speaking of Ikea, there was a new Biblical character was discovered at our house recently - Ikea-us. That's right, Ikea-us climped up in the tree to see Jesus .

Peyton got on the school bus today with no problems at all! Yeah!

Easter/Spring Pictures

More Snow!

It snowed again today! This time Peyton and I got to watch the very large snowflakes pouring down all afternoon. I don't know who was more excited - him or me! It was beautiful. When he's asked, "Who makes the snow?" he says (yells, actually), "God did!" Today Peyton decided to "mow" the snow. He tried pushing his little lawn mower around in the yard for a while, but it kept getting stuck.

Peyton's first bus ride to speech class was yesterday. There are no pictures of this occasion because it is impossible to take pictures while forcing a kicking and screaming 3 1/2 year old into the arms of the very nice and understanding lady bus driver! The driver did report that Peyton stopped crying immediately after taking a seat and was a perfect angel the rest of the way. When I showed up after speech class to pick him up, Peyton said, "I want to ride the bus home." He also said, "I go up and down like in the song." (We've been singing the "Wheels on the bus" song a lot lately in preparation for this big event!)

Reagan's First Snow

It snowed last night! Peyton was so excited to wake up this morning to a yard full of snow. We dressed quickly and ran out to play before it all melted in the quickly warming sun! Peyton enjoyed stomping around in the several inches of snow. He got cold pretty quick, though, and asked to go back inside. Reagan had no opinion about the snow. We really only had her out long enough to snap a few pictures, so she really didn't have time to complain about how cold it was.

(Pictures under Winter 08)

Weekly updates

Peyton's speech classes started last Monday. He did really great both days, and got "excellent" reports from his teacher.

Grandaddy was in town for a few days this week and came over on Friday and Saturday evenings. He babysat on Satuday evening so we could go out to dinner! Thanks Grandaddy!

Peyton went to a birthday party at Animal House (a big warehouse full of bounce houses) on Saturday morning. He and Daddy had fun going down the big slides. He even told Dustin, "I need to slide lots of 'one more times'!"

Reagan went to her first shower Saturday morning with Mommy. Apparently. she didn't think it was all that exciting - she slept though most of it!

The kids also took pictures with the Easter bunny on Saturday. Neither was afraid, and both really liked touching the Easter bunny's soft fur.

For the first time today Reagan actually picked up a puff (like cereal) and put it in her mouth. Grandaddy tried and tried the night before to get a video of her feeding herself for the first time last night, only to get lots of near misses recorded! Of course, we had no camera nearby when she actually did it!

Reagan also drank from a sippy cup tonight for the first time. She did pretty well.

Peyton prayed a very sweet prayer tonight at bedtime. After climbing into bed, we read a lift-the-flap book about the Easter story. He called the tomb a tunnel (he's very into tunnels these days-always wants to go in one!) After reading the book, it was prayer time. Without any prompting from me at all, Peyton prayed, "Dear God, Thank you for Jesus coming out of the tunnel. Amen."

Peyton's favorite activity this week: cutting paper with scissors.

Reagan's favorite activity this week: ripping a magazine apart!