2009

2009 will be a year I will never forget. By far the best thing that happened this year was having our baby boy! I cannot imagine our life without him and thank God every day for our son. I am amazed how fast he is growing up. James crawls everywhere, is pulling up on anything he gets a good grip on, and even takes a few steps while holding on to the furniture! He is into everything and although it is exhausting at times, I love every minute of it. Everyone tells me just wait until he is walking! James and I spent the day at home together and I took a few self-portraits of us. May you all have a happy and healthy 2010. This year is going to be great!

8 months old

So James Peyton, what are you up to at 8 months old???

You are 30 inches long and weigh 21 pounds

You wear a size 3 diaper

You wear size 6-9 months & 12 months in onesies and 12 months in pants & pj's

You got your first tooth on Christmas day! (front bottom left)

You keep mommy very busy by crawling, opening drawers & cabinets, and pulling up on everything to stand

You crawled into the dishwasher earlier this month while I was unloading it

You love taking a bath & playing in water

You love to try to feed yourself with the spoon

You love apple puffs

You say dada, nana, da, and ooooh

You love any toy that lights up and makes noise

You don't like being strapped in your car seat or high chair although you are a great traveler once we are in the car

You love music and "dance" by bending your knees, bouncing, and smiling

You are so sweet and love to snuggle

You have made us so happy these past 8 months and we can't wait to see what is in store for January!

Love,
Mommy

Merry Christmas

It is amazing what can happen in a year.

Christmas 2008-5 months

Christmas 2009-James almost 8 months

Merry Christmas!

White Christmas

After visting Santa at Northpark we were supposed to go to Fort Worth for the Christmas Eve service at Christ Chapel and have dinner with my family at Joe T's. Since we had planned on going to FW and coming back to Dallas to spend the night we decided to stay home since the roads were bad and it was snowing!I am a little sad we missed out on our usual Christmas Eve tradition but happy that James' first Christmas is white!

Snow

White Christmas

Daddy reading "The Night Before Christmas"
Yes, Coco is his pillow

Santa at Northpark on Christmas Eve

The first question that probably comes to mind is why in the world would I wait until Christmas Eve day to take James to the mall for pictures with Santa??? This last month flew by and I had planned on the three of us going as a family to Northpark to take James to visit Santa. Sean works every Saturday and lately I have been working every Sunday. Tuesdays are Sean's day off but he has been so busy in November & December that he had to go into work. I have to brag on my wonderful husband; Sean was the number one salesperson in the entire dealership and sold 22 cars in November! I am so proud of him. Anyway, December flew by and I did not find time for us to go as planned. So I asked Mildred, our amazing babysitter (she prefers nanny so I will refer to her is that), to go to lunch with us at Northpark and take James to visit Santa. I knew her husband was working and she didn't get to go see her family in Houston for Christmas so I wanted to take her to lunch as a small thank you for all that she does for us. I could go on and on about Mildred. She is not only James' nanny but she is now part of our family and I have no idea what I would do without her. I will write another post on how we met almost 4 years ago and my mom loves to remind me how bossy and pushy I thought she was at first and I wasn't sure if I liked her! (Sorry Mildred if you are reading this, you know I love you now!)

Back to Santa. We got to Northpark at 11:00 a.m. when I knew we could line up for pictures. But instead of lining up I was given a number, 193, and told to come back at 2:00 p.m.! I knew it would be busy but had no idea everyone else waited until the last day too! Luckily we ran into the Jennifer & Trey and kids and their family and we got to visit with them for a while then headed to Maggiano's for lunch. By the time we were finished it was time to go back for pictures. I have never seen anything like it. There was an old man standing on a bench in front of crowds of kids, parents, and strollers. He started yelling out numbers and told us to line up in order and to hand him our tickets when we got in line. He started with 100 and ended with 268 and yes, we were number 193. At this point James was sleeping through the madness. Once again thank God for Mildred (I say that often). We took turn standing in lines and entertaing James. When we lined up we were told it would be one hour until Santa. After about 45 minutes there was a power surge and the digital camera which was hooked up to a computer crashed. After 30 minutes of them trying to fix it and the line not moving I went to ask if we could please take our own pictures with Santa if we had our own cameras? The lady in charge said yes but we still had to stay in line. We were almost to the front of the line and the computer/camera came back on! So after three hours at the mall and two hours of standing in line, James' first Christmas is officially documented with a picture of him sitting on Santa's lap, looking a little tired but that's ok! =) Next year I will definitely take him the week after Thanksgiving, on a weekday, in the morning. I specifically asked the girl that checked us out/printed the picture when is the least busy time to come and that is what she told me. The first picture with Santa is the one the photographer took and the second one is from my camera. I love that James is looking at Santa like "Who are you?" At least he didn't cry or pull his beard! He loves pulling my hair so I was honestly worried that he might think Santa's beard would be fun to pull too.

Mildred & James
Snowing on Christmas Eve!
Mommy & James waiting in line

James & Santa

Who are you?

Holiday Portraits

The last two years Sean's mom and I have taken Simon and Ellie to get holiday portraits taken over Thanksgiving break. This year we took all three kids! We always go to the portrait studio at Supert Target. It isn't fancy or anything but it is reasonably priced and we have ended up with great pictures in the past. I was a little worried when I found out it was the photographer's first day! But once again the pictures turned out great. Below are my favorties.

A red balloon & James-in-the-Box

We went to a birthday party earlier this month and took home a balloon. James loves playing with balloons and as soon as I put him in the car he fell asleep holding on to it. Of course I had to take a picture. So cute! After the party Grandma-ma and Papa came over to visit. While Papa set up my new printer Grandma-ma thought James would like playing in the box it came in. Grandma-ma was right! She pushed James around the house in the box and he had so much fun. I love the last picture of James sitting in the box smiling, looking up at Grandma-ma. You can't see her but that is who he was looking at when I took the picture!

Decorating the tree

Simon and Ellie stayed with us for the week of Thanksgiving. We decorated our tree on Sunday before they went home. Since they spent Thanksgiving with us, they will be spending Christmas with their mom and step-dad but will be back at our house the 26th-30th. James loves when his big brother and sister come to visit! I ordered stockings from Pottery Barn for all of us a couple of years ago. Luckily it is a style that PB still carries because I had to order a new one this year! My friend Lynn suggested ordering one more "girl" stocking and one more "boy" stocking when they go on sale after Christmas; just in case we need another one in the future, and no, we are not planning on James having a baby brother or sister anytime soon!

Blanket picture-7 months old

I am not happy about this.

Are you still trying to take my picture?

I found something more fun to do!

I wonder if I can make it...


Ta-da!

I attempted to take James' picture on the blanket lying on his back but he was not happy about it! He did not stay there long until he was on the move again. He pulls up on everything now! He is strong and it is so fun to watch him but sometimes I turn around for a minute and have to go looking for him. I always find him in interesting places!

6 month pictures by Clarine Smith Photgraphy

We had James' picture taken by Terry Smith of Clarine Smith Photography again on November 7th. She is an amazing photographer who took the pictures of James when he was one month old. Grandma-ma and I took James and met Terry at Curtis Park in University Park at Lovers and Hillcrest. James and I go to our stroller strides class there and I have taken Simon and Ellie to the playground there for years. It is my favorite park! Anyway, James seemed more interested in the leaves and other people there. Once again Terry did a fantastic job and captured his priceless expressions. Above are some of my favorites. I wasn't planning on being in the pictures but she captured a few moments of me holding James, which I love. We will see Terry again in April when James turns one!

Standing up again

I am pretty sure the activity mat is not supposed to be used this way since the arches aren't too stable but James was being creative in how he uses it. Friday evening I was at the computer and Sean was sitting on the floor with James. He said, " Did you see that?!? Has James pulled up like this before?!?" I looked over and saw James standing up holding on to his activity mat. He had only pulled up and stood up in his crib that morning. Sean said he was sitting on the mat and playing then grabbed onto the arches and pulled himself up from a sitting position. He is so strong and now standing up is his new favorite thing to do!

Standing up & Kisses

There is so much to write about this week! Guess who I found standing up in his crib yesterday morning?!?! James had pulled himself up and was standing up in his crib just smiling at me when I walked in his room! As you can see in the first picture he was so proud of himself. Also notice his poofy bed head hair when he wakes up. I love it! He also started peering over the edge watching Coco and Chloe which made me a little nervous! We lowered the crib to the middle setting about a month ago then lowered it all the way last night. When I saw "we" I mean Sean. =) We also haven't taken the bumpers out which I know we need to do soon but he hasn't tried to climb on them yet. I am reluctant because he always rubs his fingers on the bumpers as he is going to sleep. There is a dotted texture on them that is soothing for him to rub. James also started saying "na na na na" yesterday. Do you think he means "ma ma"? Wishful thinking...

Today we went to our baby signing class and the moms sit in a circle while the babies play in the middle. James is the only boy in the class so he is quite popular with the girls. His friend Avery was laying on her back and James decided to crawl over and kiss her on the cheek! It was the cutest thing I have ever seen. He crawled over to her, opened his little mouth and put it on her cheek, just like he gives me kisses! He had all of us laughing. What a charmer!

First haircut

BeforeAfter

Grandma Janie and Mommy took James to get his first haircut on Saturday! The lady cut about an inch off the top and the back. James had lost a lot of his hair around the sides when he was about 3 months old. It has finally grown back but the hair on top and back never fell out so it was really long compared to the sides. It looked like a toupee! He had to sit in my lap but didn't exactly sit. I have no idea how the lady cut his hair as well as she did because he was such a wiggle worm. He was constantly jumping up and down and moving around. I wasn't going to cut it until his 1st birthday but now it is more even all the way around! He still has the wave on top which I think is adorable.