If there was one word that I could use to best describe Peyton this month it would be AWARE. I guess in the back of my mind I have known that Peyton was probably picking up on things that I do and say, but it seems like this last month she has grown leaps and bounds by the things that she is doing. For instance, she has started "washing her hands" at her play kitchen sink, she shakes her head "no" and "yes" when we ask her questions (most of the time the answer we get is "no"....question: "do you want to go night night?" response: shaking her head no; "do you want to go brush teeth?" response: shaking her head no...guessing you get the picture haha). She also follows commands such as "take it to daddy" or "put it in the trash can."
I am constantly amazed by how much she is growing up. Her vocabulary is exploding, with her saying new words almost daily. She is big into saying "truck" when she sees anything that remotely resembles a truck on the road or when she hears a truck driving by like a garbage truck. She loves to pat, and will pat me on the back when I carry her. She also continues to love looking at "baby" on my iphone (this is her way of asking to either look at herself through the reverse camera or look at pictures of herself on my phone). She constantly is asking to "go go" so we stay out and about a good bit of the time. She has got a mouth FULL of teeth that I have gotten to the point that I can no longer keep up with when she is cutting a new tooth. These days she seems to be staying up later, until almost 8, and sleeping till about 8 the next morning. She still isn't a great napper, but is pretty consistent with wanting to take a 1-1.5 hour nap around 11:30 in the morning, although she is very flexible and can push the nap back several hours if we have something going on at that time.
She is constantly making me laugh and reminding me of how blessed Matt and I are to be her parents. Looking back at where I was a year ago, I remember thinking that there was no way that things could ever be better than they were then, and I was so sad that my 5 month old baby was getting so big. I can now say without a doubt that I was highly mistaken!!! Peyton has grown into a beautiful, loving, outgoing little girl and I am more in love with her every day!
We joined Vestavia Country Club at the end of the summer last year and haven't really participated in many activities up there so when we saw that they were doing an Easter egg hunt this year we decided it would be the perfect time to change that. Only neither Matt nor I were prepared for the competitiveness that an Easter egg hunt for 1-2 year olds holds. They had this little area marked off with yellow tape and inside of it were a bunch of Easter eggs. Everyone was standing outside of the circle waiting for them to say "go" and when they did it was a mad dash for the eggs. I wasn't sure who was worse, the kids or the parents! And Peyton was just standing there eating her chocolate chip cookie, oblivious to the craziness surrounding her. It was as if I blinked and all of the eggs were gone! Matt and I were so naive to think that we could put Peyton in there and she could pick up eggs and put them in her basket on her own. She didn't stand a chance next to these other kids! Poor thing might have gotten 2 eggs in her basket. Not to mention I hear these parents in the background telling their kids "I want you to get as many eggs as you can okay"...I mean really, these are 1 and 2 year olds! 
