Thanksgiving 2008 and the Start of Christmas

My little princess standing in front of the Christmas tree before we headed to church. It is really nice right now because for some reason she likes taking pictures. I think I have taken sooo many over the course of her life that she is used to it by now. :) Below are a lot of pictures from the past couple weeks. My computer has been really slow and we finally got it back working tonight. I figured I should update the blog because I have a feeling the second addition to our family will be coming really soon! Last Monday when I went to the doctor my cervix was 50% effaced and I was dialated to a 2. I go the the doctor again tomorrow so hopefully I will hear some good news.

Payten loves her new cupcake dress. She has to like her clothes or there is NO way she will put it on....unless I put my foot down and let her know that I am the boss and she is going to wear what I tell her to wear until she is 18 years old. haha Anyway...funny story. Last week Payten was eating a cookie or something sweet that I had made and as she finished she stood up in her chair, rubbed her belly and said, "delicious" with a huge smile on her face. I cracked up laughing. She says the funniest things.

Where is Payten??? I don't know...but I think I might have a pretty good guess!!!

There she is! And of course she has the cat trapped in there with her. The whole time Matt and I are decorating the tree she wants her and the cat in the box. You can tell that Nala wasn't so thrilled about the whole locked in a tiny space with a crazy three year old thing! haha

Thanksgiving was really fun this year! We had three couple friends over around noon for lunch and the guys played Wii afterwards while the girls sat around the desserts and talked about babies and all that fun stuff. It was a stressful morning for me trying to cook everything and keep the house picked up but was well worth it. I was pretty nervous b/c I have never cooked a turkey, made homemade dressing or homemade rolls. I must say it all turned out really yummy! That night we took Payten to the movies with Brad, Erin, Charli and Avery. She LOVED it! We took the kids to see the Disney movie, Bolt. (About a dog) We got home around 9pm and she crashed. She was worn out from playing ALL day long. It was a wonderful day spent with great friends.

Kitty Nala cannot control herself and stay out of the babies bed. I haven't washed the sheet yet because I know the second I wash it and make the bed she will jump up and get her furr all over everything. She has decided that the babies bed is her favorite place to take a nap. She still sleeps with us every night but during the day you will always find her fast alsleep keeping the babies bed nice and warm. Poor Nala doesn't realize that in 1.5 weeks this will no longer be happening. :)

Payten, Charlie and Avery pretending that they are eating ice cream cones.......which are made out of Play Dough. The girls played non stop and the house was a complete disaster at the end of the day. They destroyed every room in the house. Thank heavens Erin and the guys helped pick everything up.

Here are the girls pretending to be babies. Erin and I couldn't find them and found them in the babies room. We walked in and they were saying, "ga ga goo goo". They were pretty cute!

Here is Payten the morning of her first school Thanksgiving Party. She was extremely excited because Mommy and Daddy were both coming to her party. The party didn't start until 11am so I went and dropped her off like I usually do every Tuesday and Thursday. She found her teacher and said, "Miss Gaynel, guess what? She said my Daddy is coming to my party!" She was so excited to let her teacher know that her Daddy was coming. When Matt and I walked in the room later on she came running and screaming over to us. It made her so happy that we were there. It is so precious that she loves us that much! :)

Here is Payten's best friend, Claire. They love each other and it shows. Payten's teacher says that they are inseperable for most of the day. Whenever it's reading time on the big rug she says you will always find them together.

Payten's Thanksgiving wreath she made at school. Each hand reads what she is thankful for. She is thankful for hearts, baby dolls, butterflies and her blankets. The things that are special to a three year old. :)

This cracks me up!!!!!!! I was in tears when I read this. (Funny tears) She made this place mat at school and if you read this you will know that she really did say all this. A couple weeks ago our good friends had a little girl named Perri. Well Payten is obsessed with the name Perri. She names everything Perri.....her dolls, the cat, and she says she is having a sister named Perri. Anyway this placemat is so dear to my heart!!! She is such a funny girl with a huge imagination.

Payten thought she was a really big girl thie other night after her bath because she got to wear her towel just like mommy does. She enjoyed looking at herself in the mirror. :)

Payten's Homework Lesson

Payten completed her first homework lesson today. She had to trace her name 8 times and tomorrow she will turn it in for a "special treat". She was really excited to do her homework and she did such a great job. She is really enjoying preschool these days. The first couple weeks she wasn't too thrilled about going and then she made friends and that made going to preschool not so bad. Her friends are Claire and Bailey. Every Thursday at the end of the day they get to get a toy out of the treasure chest if they are good that day. So far Payten is 3/5. The first week she didn't listen to her teacher and the second week her teacher told me that her and Claire had a little too much fun that day to get a treat out of the treasure chest. So far the past 3 weeks she has done really well and follows the rules. :) We make a big deal if she is a good girl and listens to her teacher. A couple weeks ago I took her to Wal-Mart and let her pick out a special toy since I got a good report from Miss Gaynel. She picked out some My Little Ponies. She loves them! She is into ponies these days since she got to ride a real one.

Payten got really mad at the cat this afternoon because she was trying to step on her homework and eat her markers. Silly girl. She is so dramatic sometimes. She knows the cat is not supposed to get on the table so she will tell the kitty, "no no" and will spank her. Nala will just look at her like, "hey who do you think you are hitting me and telling me no". It is pretty funny to watch them play together and get into little fights. This morning Payten watched the movie Air Bud in our poppy chair and Nala crawled up next to her. They both watched the entire movie from beginning to end. I was very happy because I got to lay in bed and be lazy. Payten came in our room last night around 3am. There was a big storm that came through and I guess it woke her up. She tried to get me to go sleep with her but I guess I was so out of it I really don't remember her asking me to get up.....so around 5am I woke up to use the bathroom and realized that Matt wasn't in the bed. I went to the bathroom and then found Payten and Matt snuggled up under Payten's covers in her bed. It was really sweet. I guess she gave up asking me and then went to Daddy and he was willing to get up and ly down in her bed. Matt told me this morning she wanted water and a nutra grain bar. Below is a video of Payten doing her homework.

Recent Visit to Oklahoma

When we were in Oklahoma a couple weeks ago we celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas with our families. Memaw wanted a picture of all the great grandkids and here are some of the pics that I took. We could never get them all to smile at the same time. It was pretty entertaining trying to get their little attention spans to focus for two seconds. Then they decided they wanted to play with the candles that were sitting on the fireplace. They finally sat still when they were holding the candles. It was pretty funny!

Payten loved looking at little Brody. He was so little, so cute and so much fun to look at. She was very interested in him. I kept telling her that her little brother is going to be this small too and you have to be extra gentle. I hope she got the concept! :)

Here is Matt getting in some practice at holding a baby.....well a big baby. :) He should be a pro the second time around.....

Once again, here are the kiddos posing for the camera. Well a couple of them are at least. Little people are soooo entertaining to watch...... I think Cole is going to catch up with Payten real quick. He seems to be almost as big as she is in these pictures. She tried real hard to hold him up and be a big cousin. :)

Payten and Grandpa Mike playing around after opeing presents. She loves her Disney Princess cup and wants to use it all the time!

Here are some pictures of Payten and her cousins at the "Pregler Swing Park". (also posted on Brooke's blog) My granny just moved to some apartments for Seniors right across the street. We had gone to the park a couple times and I never saw the sign. It was funny because Brooke was talking about this park and then showed us some pictures of it. I am sure Payten will play at it all the time when she goes and visits Granny.

Halloween night we went and stayed with Chris and Jennifer in Bartlesville. We ate at Jude's and then stopped in a couple neighborhoods to let Payten trick or treat. She really got into it this year. She would go house to house, without hesitation would run to the front door all by herself, ring the doorbell and then say, "trick or treat". She was so excited about her candy and mommy was too! :) I was craving Butterfingers that night and luckily she grabbed a couple for me. I hid all her candy becuase she is a little candy monster. She loves M&M's soooo much! That is by far her favorite treat..... so all the candy is hidden in the pantry and she can have one or two pieces a day.

Payten got to ride horses with my Papa one day. She was thrilled and had a blast riding around on the pony. She wanted to feed the horses so my Papa got out the food and was going to let her feed them. She got a little scared and decided she no longer wanted to feed them. She would just watch them eat from afar. She had just watched the movie, Black Beauty, a couple days before so it was perfect that there were a couple black horses. When we walked into the horse stable she saw a black horse and yelled, "mommy, black beauty". (she was soooo excited) She also wanted to ride Black Beauty.....and got really upset when Papa Paul told her she couldn't ride him. He was not trained enough for anyone to ride.

Payten loves her "Papa Paul". She used to be extremely scared of him and one day she decided that she really liked him. I think all along it was the cowboy hat....but she wanted nothing to do with him. After he took her horse back riding for the first time a few months ago she talked about him all the time. One day we were riding in the car...when we were in Texas and she all of a sudden said, "mommy"? and I said yes.....She said, "I like Papa Paul". and then smiled. It was pretty sweet becuase she must have been thinking about him or maybe the horses??? I don't know, but it was sweet that she changed her mind about him.