Busy Bee

My have we had a busy, but very exciting, week!!
We kicked off last weekend with my parents coming in town!! It was my Daddy's Birthday and we had a blast!! We grilled out, had cake, and played with a NEW HELICOPTER...All the men in my family love flying objects...especially if they have a remote control! Which definitely includes a friendly competition where they have created some sort of obstacle in which they have to accomplish it without hitting objects, walls, etc, or getting caught in air currents, in addition to beating each others time. It is in fact, a site to see! They have used blimps in the past...large, slow, and hard to maneuver. This time, a helicopter. Which by the way is not fun to untangle from your hair if in fact someone looses control of the helicopter and it drops on your head while the numerous blades are still spinning...But this pilot will remain nameless because it was his birthday. :) (sorry, no pics of the helicopter)
In addition to my parents being in town, Peyton had a big Sunday! She was dedicated to the church. It was a fast, but a very meaningful event!! (pictures below)

And today, Mimi came in town!! Mimi is Peyton's favorite babysitter. She had watched Peyton at least once a week since Peyton was 8 weeks old until we moved to Athens. She truly has become part of our family and is like another grandmother to Peyton! We LOVE our Mimi!! Mimi also brought Peyton a couple Christmas presents!:) She received a wonderful talking tea set and teddy bear that sings "Jesus Loves Me," and from Mr. Bob (Mimi's husband) a CALCULATOR!!  Peyton LOVES Mr. Bob!!  She would go sit with Mr. Bob in his office an play on his calculator and make VERY LONG receipts. And so, from Mr. Bob..a Calculator!! :)

Here are pictures from our week!
More to come...Busy Bee's in December!!

Dad blowing out his candle!

(I had NO clue where all my candles were...so he got 1)

Peyton being dedicated

(she was trying to take off my name tag...she succeeded a couple seconds later)

Dedication

Mimi and Peyton:)

Mimi and Peyton having a tea party with her new tea set!

Peyton's CALCULATOR!! (Thank You Mr. Bob!!)

Thanksgiving

What a wonderful word...Thanksgiving! We are very Thankful for MANY MANY things... We are truly Blessed!

We had such a wonderful Thanksgiving. We started out with Pre-Thanksgiving at my parents house in Kennesaw. It was a wonderful time with friends and family and my mothers wonderful sweet potato casserole! As Peyton would say "Num Num"! It is truly my FAVORITE thing for Thanksgiving. Then for actual Thanksgiving we headed up to Cashiers, NC to spend Thanksgiving with Paul's Dad and Stepmom. We had a wonderful time just hanging out! Deborah made an AMAZING Thanksgiving meal and we all enjoyed it! Peyton however was a little squirrely so after a couple of bites, she went down for a nap. She was...let's say...having issues. Who knows what got into her. Could have been the car ride. Could have been that she was a little sickly but she was giving me a run for my money! We did however have a wonderful time and visit with them!! The only thing that I would have changed was our choice of car. We brought the Accord... which would have been a great choice at any other time of year, but this was the end of November. One thing that North Carolina offers, is great Christmas trees. Christmas tree farms where you can go and pick yours out, cut it down, and bring it home. I really wanted one but as we did the math...5ft roof...9ft tree = Miserable car ride home. However, we went to take a look anyway. We went to Tom Sawyer's Tree Farm, which Tom and his family were friends of George and Deborah.  They had a wonderful Elf village for children where they could dress up as elves and wonder around to each little house and do little activities. We peeked in one and there was an Elf having story time. So Paul, George, Peyton and I joined story time. It was actually very fun! I felt a little big sitting inside a small house in child size chairs, but Peyton enjoyed it. :) We had a good time and learned a lesson for next time...Bring the 4-runner!
However, as luck would have it...on the way home, about 20 minutes outside of Athens, we saw signs for a tree farm. So on Saturday we piled in the 4-runner and followed the signs to 7 G's Farm. It is a wonderful tree farm that grows Leyland Cypress trees. It was great! It was a little overwhelming though with so many PERFECT trees to choose from. However, after about an hour we found our tree, had the man come chop it down, brought it home, and on Sunday decorated it. It is a little over 10ft...BIG...But perfect! See pictures below:)

Tom Sawyer's Tree Farm with George

Pey running at Tom Sawyer's

7 G's Tree Farm

Timberrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!

Our Christmas Tree:)

Halloweeneeeeeee

What can I say...I LOVE HALLOWEEN!! We had the best Halloween this year.  Peyton was a Fairy Princess...ALL DAY!  She wore here little costume from the moment she got out of her Jammie's in the morning to the moment she had to get back in them for bed. She loved it!

We joined our friends, the Harwell's for Trick-or-Treating, and they had a little fairy as well.  Their three year old little girl, Molly, was Tinkerbell. The girls had a blast being toted around in their little red wagon and going door to door.  Molly would say "Happy Halloween" and I taught Peyton to say "BOO"....but it sounded more like "Baah"...

We had a great day and the only down side is that I now have glitter ALL OVER THE ENTIRE HOUSE from Peyton's costume. But besides that, it was great!

She knows where Daddy keeps his candy!

Her daily regimen of playing the organ.

Please notice the second pumpkin's eyebrows...they are a little singed!

Cruisin' in the wagon!

Could they look any more alike?

Happy Halloweeneee:)

P's Adventures in St. Simons

Well this past weekend we had the privilege to go to St. Simons Island for a youth retreat for Clermont FL, UMC. Paul lead music for the trip and Pey and I were along for the ride. We had a great time. We were able to visit with Paul's parents and brother in Savannah Friday night and then the weekend was action packed with lots of eating, fun at the beach, and Peyton's FIRST time eating S'mores! Here are some pictures from the trip. ..And yes Peyton was in the ocean in OCTOBER!...Not my choice...but she was VERY persistent and she LOVED it. As you can see, I am not in the water. It was too cold. But luckily she only put her feet in.

Pumpkin Patch

Last Friday we had the pleasure of visiting Washington Farms. It is a great farm about ten minutes from our house that has a pumpkin patch as well as a corn maze and other activities. I had always gone there for the corn maze while I was at UGA and never realized that there was also a pumpkin patch and so many other activities to do. They had a petting zoo, corn box (like a sand box just with corn), cow train, hayrides, pig races, playground, etc. Peyton had a BLAST! Here are some pictures from the eventful day...

Daddy and P with the Bunny

P is not too sure of the goat...I'm teaching her what the goat says..maaaaaaaaaaa

P is kinda frightened of the pig

P and Daddy on the cow train

She decided that she wanted to ride with me instead.

She still was not sure of the whole thing.

P being funny.

P likes smelling the pumpkins.

P feeding Daddy a pumpkin.

Our fun day at the farm.

64

Well, after many weeks of pondering about this, I have decided to start a blog. Mainly so my much loved family and friends can get a small snapshot into our lives...or shall I say Peyton's life.

You may be wondering why "Losing Buttons"? Well I can explain... I'm sure many of you have a pile of buttons, like I do, from clothes that were given as the 'just in case' buttons. If one fell off you had an extra to sew back on. Well luckily I have never had to do that. Thus leaving me a pile of buttons. Well I have always kept them in this old chapstick tin that I have had in my closet since high school. Well when we moved last month my closet downsized and this left me to find a new home for my buttons. The logical person would have placed them in the box beside her sewing machine. Well, I just never got around to that. So I placed them in my lower bathroom drawer. A drawer where my beautiful and curious daughter would one day find and fall in love with the colorful tin of buttons. She loves to shake the tin and hear all the buttons clink and clank against the sides and she especially LOVES taking the buttons out. She plays with the buttons like she is playing in a sand box. She runs them through her hands dropping one by one, tosses them behind her like she is a kitten tossing kitty litter, she was even making snow angels in them earlier today and not to mention that she takes handfuls across the room and places them in her play stroller and then strolls them around the house. SHE LOVES THOSE BUTTONS! (pictures below)

I kind of cringe every time I see her with the buttons because they go everywhere. So I counted my buttons earlier today just because I was curious....66. 66 buttons in my tin.

Well as Peyton continued to play with them I looked at her...(which might I add I ALWAYS SUPERVISE her when she is playing with the buttons, and she NEVER puts anything in her mouth) well she had two in her mouth. She spit them out in my hand, and just to be on the safe side, I recounted.......64. 64!

Well they could have been lost in the 3 minutes she was running around the living room with them, making snow angels, etc. Or she could have swallowed 2. But I had my wonderful husband check her diapers last night since I was out...and NO buttons.

...down to 64.

(Mom: don't worry...She is grounded from playing with the buttons...for a little while, at least)