Did someone say "Momma"???

Tonight while I was feeding P her baby food before bed, she said IT!!  You know, that 5 letter word that I have been oh so patiently waiting to hear from my sweet baby.....MOMMA!!!  I am not really even sure where  in the world it came from, but she was sitting in her highchair, I was feeding her, and Matt was sitting in his recliner.  Peyton was in a pretty talkative mood while eating, babbling on, and then all of the sudden she just goes "Momma."  I couldn't believe it!  I thought maybe I was hearing what I wanted to hear, but Matt was sitting right there and he heard it too.  Of course, I couldn't let her stop there.  After she said 'Momma' the first time, I kept saying it back to her so that she would keep repeating it.  Now the true trick is going to be getting her to say it again tomorrow haha!

July 4th

This past weekend we packed up what seemed like the entire house and headed to my parents' lake house for a nice long weekend.  We met my parents up there on Friday night, had a nice dinner, and headed to bed hoping for a good night's sleep.  Boy were we WRONG!!!!  Peyton has been sleeping really good at home but at the lake it was a completely different story.  At one point it seemed like she was waking up and crying every hour until we finally gave in and put her in bed with us at 3 a.m.  I swore that I would never do this but during the middle of the night when you are so sleepy and it seems like nothing else is working it seems like the best thing to do.  As soon as we layed her down in our bed she was content and we were able to get a few hours of good sleep in. 

On Saturday, we set up P's baby pool and spent some time outside (in the shade) playing in it.  She sure does LOVE her baby pool!  The only bad thing is that as she gets more and more mobile, the harder it is becoming to keep her in one spot in that pool.  Before I know it, she has pulled up onto her knees and is looking over the edge of the pool.  She is definitely not afraid!  I am scared about what the future holds for us with this active little.  Once we were all cleaned up from playing outside, we headed to church in Trussville and then dinner.

We decided to celebrate the 4th a day early, so on Sunday Jamie and Will came up after Jamie got home from work.  Then mid-morning, Matt's parents came up, as well as Trey, Becky and the boys.  We had a big lunch of hamburgers and hot dogs followed by way too many choices of desserts.  Although all of the desserts were good, I think the most popular one was my dad's homemade vanilla ice cream....YUMMY!   After we were all stuffed from lunch, we lathered up on sunscreen and headed outside.  Everyone seemed to enjoy their time out in the sun except for Andy who came outside for a just a little bit and then decided he wanted to play in side with GP (my mom).  Jamie and Will bought some fireworks, so Trey decided he and his family would stay to watch them.   At first the boys seemed hesitant about the sparklers, but before too long they decided to join in on the fun.  Matt and Will handled the fireworks show while the rest of us, except for Peyton who was sound asleep inside) watched from the deck.  I was worried that the noise from the fireworks might wake P up but she didn't even seem to notice.  Poor Ellie, on the other hand, knew before we even got started what was coming and she wanted nothing to do with being outside.  In fact, when I let her in the house, she went straight upstairs to get as far away from the noise as possible.  After the fireworks show we all headed back inside for some more of my dad's homemade ice cream.  Did I mention that he missed the bottom step when he was going down the stairs from the deck and fell and scraped up his knee.  It's pretty sad that both of his daughters are in the medical field and he ended up with a homemade bandage of saran wrap and tape that he made himself.  I don't really think that the picture shows it justice!

Sweet P hanging out in the shade

Peyton with her Aunt Jamie

Andy and Will with the flags GP gave them

Andy and his WILD hair

Will having fun with the sparklers

Andy..not so happy about watching the fireworks

The fireworks

More fireworks

Becky and Will watching the show from inside

How I found Ellie after the fireworks were over

Will giving Ellie a "hug"

My dad's homemade bandage

It was a really great weekend spent with family!  I just wish that we could have stayed longer!!

Sleeping Beauty

I rarely put Peyton in her swing these days but I was having the hardest time getting her to take a nap this morning so I put her in her swing as a last resort and a few minutes later this is how I found her...

8 Months

Has it really been another month already?? My little baby is changing and growing by the day. She is VERY active these days, always on the move! She isn't really crawling just yet but seems very close. She's not big on sitting still and has gotten very good at scooting around on her bottom. When she sees something out of her reach that she wants she will lunge forward for it, do a little scoot on her bottom, and then repeat this again and again until she gets close enough to get it.  One of her least favorite times to be still is during a diaper change.  She now will immediately turn onto her tummy, even when she is up on her changing table, making it nearly impossible to put a clean diaper on her.  She continues to be very vocal, saying bye bye and dada and a lot of other babbling that I have yet to understand.  She has two teeth on the bottom and is working on cutting one on the top and has just taken to eating puffs in the last week.

At around the 6 month mark, Peyton had worked herself onto a pretty good sleeping and eating schedule that we have been able to continue to do over the last 2 months. On an average day, she wakes up around 7:30-8 and eats a bowl of oatmeal and then takes a 6 oz bottle.  She usually will take a 30-40 minute nap sometime around 9 or so.  At 10:30-11 she will take another bottle, usually 4-6 oz. and then she may take another short nap sometime around lunch time.  She usually eats baby food between 1:30 and 2 and then will take some of a bottle after that. She may or may not take an afternoon nap depending on how her naps went in the morning.  At around 5 she will take another bottle and then between 7-7:30 she'll eat a jar of baby food and take a bottle (anywhere from 3-6 oz), read a book with mommy, and go to sleep.  She is not super consistent with her naps and can take anywhere from 1-4 naps a day depending on the day and the  of her naps.  Most of her naps tend to be short (30-40 minutes) and a lot of times she will take a nap in the car when we are running errands.  When she falls asleep in the car, it is in inevitable that she will stay asleep just long enough for me to get her and and the baby carrier out of the car and into the house before she wakes up.  The same is true if she falls asleep while we are out running errands....she will generally stay asleep long enough for me to get the carrier out of the car and into the stroller and then, as soon as we get inside where we are going, her eyes will pop open!  She is such a little stinker!!  I will say though that the nice thing about Peyton not being a consistent napper is that she is very flexible. We go and do and she isn't bothered if she misses a nap or doesn't get one in at a certain time. In fact, she does some of her best sleeping in the car when we are out running errands. She continues to be a very easy-going, happy baby who brings so much joy to us.  We are so thankful every day for this precious blessing.

Below are just a few pictures of me trying to get P to sit still in her chair for her 8 month picture...

"Dada"

So earlier this week P said her first word, "bye bye."  Naturally, I would think that the next words she would say would be "Momma" and "Dada," in no particular order of course (wink wink).  I was right, except on the matter as to the order in which she would say them.  Seeing as how I am the one who is with her 99% of the time it would just make sense that she would say "Momma" before she would say Dada" right?  Well she sure showed me!  Once again she starts babbling away and before we know it the babbling has turned into another word..."Dada."  Although I would have loved for it to have been "Momma," I have to admit that I really was just so excited to hear her say another word that I didn't care what it was.  I do know though that her daddy sure was proud to hear that word come out of his sweet P. And there is no question that she has definitely got him tied around her little finger!

Big Week

Man, what a difference a week can make.  So if you read my last post about our beach trip, you saw that Peyton cut her first tooth on Friday (June 3) while we were at the beach.  Well on Sunday night after we had gotten back home from our trip, P was fussier than normal when I was trying to put her down to sleep and I rubbed my finger on her bottom gums and I felt a second tooth!  Crazy how over the course of a few days she went from no teeth to cutting two!

As if I wasn't excited enough about Peyton cutting two teeth, the next day, (Monday, June 4) Peyton said her first real word...bye bye.  I cannot tell you the shock I felt when those words came out of her mouth.  The entire beach trip my mom kept trying to teach P to say bye bye and wave and P just kind of sat there and looked at her and then we get back home and she is just babbling to me going bababa and then suddenly the babbling turns into bye bye.  Oh it was the sweetest thing to hear my sweet baby say her first word.  Bye Bye has never sounded so cute!  And by Wednesday she was adding a sweet little wave to the bye bye.  Instead of turning her palm out when she waves, she turns her palm towards herself and then closes and opens her hand, almost as if she is waving to herself.

So in the course of a week we have now gone from no teeth, to two teeth, and babbling to saying bye bye and waving.  But that's not all!!  Today, I saw a little white spot on the top left side of Peyton's gums that looks like a third tooth that might be getting ready to cut through before too long.  This has been one eventful week for my sweet P!

Beach Bound

Every summer my dad goes to a seminar in Destin called Divorce on the Beach. For years, we have let this be a good excuse to take a family trip to the beach and this year was no exception. My sister and brother weren't able to go so it was just us and my parents. Matt couldn't come down until Friday morning so Peyton and I rode down with my parents. I tried to warn my dad that traveling with a 7 month old required a lot of stuff but I don't think that he was quite prepared for just how much I had packed. He ended up driving Matt's Tahoe down because there was no way everything was going to fit into one of their cars. He also had to attach something to the trailer hitch to carry some of the luggage and strap P's stroller to the roof of the Tahoe. I think every single inch of that car was packed. Peyton did awesome in the car on the way down to Destin, taking a nap pretty early on into the trip.  Once we got to the beach and were settled, we used our down time to try on some sunglasses on P and let her try out a sippy cup for the first time.  She wasn't too into wearing the sunglasses but she was definitely all about chewing on them!

                                      

                          

Matt put his request in that I do all of my shopping on Thursday, that way he didn't miss Peyton's first time in the pool. I figured since he was basically telling me to go shopping I didn't need to pass this opportunity up. So before my dad's seminar started on Thursday afternoon, he hung out with P while my mom and I did a little shopping. Later on that night we went to one of our favorite places to eat, Red Bar. For those of you who have never eaten here, you have to try it next time you are in Destin. It is awesome! During dinner my mom decided that Peyton needed to try some of her mashed potatoes. I don't know what it is with this child, but unless it's her jarred baby food, she doesn't like it, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves......

Matt left Birmingham early on Friday and made it down to Destin around 9:30 am. After everyone got lathered up in sunscreen we headed out for Peyton's first time in the pool. I found this great baby float with a canopy and we put her in it and she was loving it. I just wish that the pictures I took could show you how Peyton was kicking her legs in that float. I think that her legs were kicking the entire time she was in it.

Since she seemed to enjoy the pool, we decided to try out her baby pool later on that afternoon. She started out sitting in the pool by herself and then I quickly smartened up and realized that this probably wasn't such a good idea since she can't seem to sit still for more than a few minutes. It turned out to be a good thing I got n the baby pool with her because before I knew it she had gone from sitting to her tummy. That child was all over the place, even putting her head in the water. It was so much fun watching her as she splashed the water with her hands and played with her toys.

On our way back from dinner Friday night, I decided to rub my finger on Peyton's bottom gum to feel for teeth(which I have done many times before and felt nothing) and to my surprise I felt it... Her first tooth!!! I was shocked! My mom had actually felt P's gums for teeth on Wednesday when we had first made it down to the beach and she had felt nothing. Then, less than two days later, here it was. Peyton has been showing signs of teething for a good 3 months so I'm kind of surprised it has taken this long for her first tooth to start coming in. And I'm even more surprised that none of us even knew it was happening. If it would only be that easy for all of her other teeth!

We finally headed out to the beach on Saturday morning. This was actually Peyton's second time to go to the beach but the last time it was the end of March/first of April and it was much cooler then. We were staying in a house across the street from the beach and by the time we got our sunscreen on and all of our stuff packed up, we realized that P was getting sleepy. We still went to the beach but didn't stay long because Peyton wasn't too into it. We went to the pool after lunch and had a good time playing in the water with GP and Granddad.

Sadly, we had to say goodbye to the beach on Sunday and head back home.  At least we had our sweet Ellie to welcome us back!