Another Soccer Season in the Books

Hunter played soccer again this fall.  He really enjoys it so we're just going to stick to it for now.  I think tee ball would be too boring for him right now.  He's quite the little scorer, but has also learned how to pay defense.  He's so fast and can run ahead of the person with the ball and defend the goal.

breakaway and a score

The goal dance and one proud Dad.

Our team minus one.

Trophies!

Lots to blog about this week... Halloween, a baby shower, maybe even a tutorial for Clothespin Babies.  You'll have to come back to find out what those are!

14 months

Dear Peyton,

You are speeding past a year old and are already 14 months.  I'm trying my best to document the things you're learning.  It's hard to keep up sometimes!

• You are 20.5 lbs (50^th percentile)
• You are 30 inches tall (75^th percentile) – This is probably the highest percentile in height you’ll ever be.  (Just trying to be honest.  You don’t come from tall genes.)
• You YELL a lot.  You know what you want most of the time and because you can’t say words you yell.
• You can say mama and dada, but you don’t use those words much.  You say hi, ball, and nigh-nigh (night-night).
• You can clap, wave, blow kisses, and give kisses.
• You can do the signs for ‘all done’ and ‘more’.  We’re working on please.
• You go to bed around 7:30 and wake up about 7/7:30.  You nap at 10am and  3pm.  You don’t require as much sleep as Hunter did so I see you moving to one nap in the near future.  You are very easy to put to bed.  We rock for a few minutes and then I place you in bed.
• You have a ‘dog’ just like Hunter.  It’s a Disney dalmation puppy with pink ears.  You LOVE it and have to have it to sleep.
• Last month, just after you turned one, we left you for a whole week with Grandma and Grandpa while Mommy and Daddy went on a cruise.  You did just fine without us and Grandma really enjoyed having you all to herself.
• You make some of the funniest faces.  Daddy and I laugh at you all the time.  You are one animated little girl!
• You are a great eater! (Halleluiah!)  You won’t eat EVERYTHING, but you eat a lot of things.  Enough that it’s not stressful for me to figure out what to feed you.  And you’ll try new things.  Sometimes you don’t like whatever it is, but at least you try it.
• You are standing unassisted.  You can even drink from your sippy cup while standing.  But you won’t walk.  You did take one step the other night in order to get to some chocolate Daddy had, but that hasn’t happened again since.  You will walk behind a push toy, but after about a dozen steps you’re ready to move onto something else.  You’ll do it in your own time I suppose :o)
• You had an ear infection this month.  It’s pretty easy for mama to tell.  A high fever usually means something is not right.  You don’t normally run fevers, even with teething.  It’s so pitiful to see you not feeling well.
• Speaking of teeth, you have the two bottom teeth and now 3 teeth on top.
• You love to be outside.  Now that it’s cooler in the evenings we spend a lot of time outside with the other neighborhood kids.
• You aren’t afraid to get dirty.  You’d dig in the dirt if I’d let you.
• You’re a crib chewer.  I finally had to make rail bumpers to stop you from doing it.
• You know that socks and shoes go on your feet and you’ll try to put anyone’s socks or shoes on your own feet.
• Anything that resembles a necklace you will put around your neck….even cords.
• You are into EVERYTHING!  You’ve dumped comet all over the bathroom floor (TWICE.  Apparently mama didn’t learn her lesson on that one.), you constantly empty the tupperware cabinet (it’s allowed), you pull the toilet paper off the roll (Whenever it’s reachable.  We learned our lesson there.), you dumped colored sand all over the playroom floor (with the help of your brother), and you pull thread off my thread rack ALL.THE.TIME. (Poor decision on my part to put it where it is.)
• The other day Hunter came up to me as I was sitting on the floor and gave me a great big hug.  Seconds later you crawled over and onto my lap and wrapped your little arms around my neck.  *melt*

Love, Mama

My Pumpkins at the Patch

I love the cross in the background.

Embrace the Camera: Oct 28

We finally made it to the pumpkin patch.
Here's one with my babies.
I'll have more to share soon :o)

Pumpkins

So, here was our first pumpkin that I already shared.  I say was because it rotted in no time in this Florida heat.  So, it's all gone.

But we got another one and Daddy decided to get fancy with his technique.  He used a dremel and did the technique where you just carve off the first few layers of the pumpkin.  We were thinking that this will 1) look better and 2) last longer.

Pretty awesome if I do say so myself.  I'm sure you're wondering why it's practically glowing.  Candles just weren't cutting it so Heath put a light bulb in it.  Yes, I said light bulb.  Our pumpkin plugs in.  This makes me scared for the days when the kids have school projects.

TROUBLE

This particular mess was a combined effort from both of my children. (Typically it's just Peyton making the messes.)  What you see here is colored sand.  All over my floor.  Hunter made one of those multilayered sand crafts at his school's Fall Festival.  The sand was layered in this little plastic pumpkin.  I leave the two of them alone for 2 minutes and come back to find Peyton dumping the sand out of the pumpkin.  But what happened was Hunter (his words) decided he didn't want it anymore so he threw it down and broke it.  That was evident from the crack and hole in it.  Then Peyton grabbed it and tried to empty it... all over herself, my floor, and some innocent toys.  Good times!

Did I give birth to a beaver?

Peyton started off just biting her crib rails.  She had 2 bottom teeth and the 1 top tooth at the time.  I put on my list 'make crib rail bumpers', but I wasn't in a huge hurry for some reason.  Better things to do I guess.

Until this....

(thankfully this damage is on the side rail which will not be 

used when the bed is converted to a full one day)

I made Heath immediately cover the rail with a towel and tape until I could get something a little more cute made.  (I can't deal with a towel and tape for the next year or two!)

I can't have her chowing down on wood chips!  I got them made and so far they're deterring her.  She only chews in this one corner.  She stands, looks toward the door, and chews.  So far she hasn't moved to other parts of the rail.  If she gets smart I'll be making more.

Hunter

Now that's it's no longer pool weather (Well, not for us.  The temperature of the pool is unacceptable even though it's still 85 every day, but I'm sure the northerners would be all over it.) we're outside almost every evening.... working on soccer drills with Daddy, playing baseball, running around with the other neighborhood boys on our street, taking bike rides and walks.  Pictures come out so much better outside so I've been taking a lot lately.

Embrace the Camera: October 21

I think I fell off the embrace the camera wagon, but I'm back on!

Peyton loves to put things around her neck....beads, necklaces, cords, and my camera strap.  

And a pretty one it is!  She's got good taste.

(If anyone is interested in a cute ruffly camera strap, I won in it in a blog giveaway and it came from Eclectic Whatnot.)

       

Almost 14 months

....going on 14 years!  This one wants to be a part of everything.  I guess that's what happens when you have an older sibling.  You just want to do what he does all the time.  Apparantly that doesn't apply to walking because she's STILL not doing that yet.  That's one thing I'd like to push along....walk already!

This girl is animated!  She has A LOT of different faces.

It's Fall!

Well, the calendar says it's fall.  At least it doesn't hit 90 anymore here in central Florida.  The evenings are pretty comfortable minus the mosquitos....yuck!  We need a good cold snap to kill them.  We're still wearing shorts and flip flops, but we're pretending it's cooler than it is.

I put up the few fall decorations I have.  This is about the extent of it.  Much easier than decorating for Christmas.

And Daddy carved a pumpkin.

Hunter picked out the spider design.  It's already about to wither away in this heat.  We'll be doing another one soon with a different technique.