His Golden Birthday- 4 on June 4th

Here is Peyton from his first trip to the lake, 2007.


Here he is 4 years later at the lake on his 4th Birthday.
(nothing too exciting, just singing happy birthday)




At 4 years old Peyton is loving, smart, inquisitive, stubborn, demanding, dedicated, beautiful, funny, and sweet. He loves to play with little cars, build garages, bridges, and towers for them with his blocks, use his imagination with his parking garages and pretend car keys, and loves flashlights, boardgames, skittles, cheetos, and grown up coca cola. He loves to listen to stories and helps you create the plot along the way. He loves Great Wolf Lodge. He and his Daddy have become the best of friends and love to golf together, play tennis, mow the lawn, ride bikes, tell stories, and play with the water hose and the slip and slide. He adores his baby brother Nolan and laughs at the shenanigans his little sister gets into. He loves white grape juice, Ritz crackers, and Totinos Pizza.

He still stays the funniest things. Here is a sample of recent "Peytonisms."

"Is the Eeeelarm on? Is this an EEEDult show or EEEdult game"? Eeee currently equals the letter A.
" When I am 10 I will be all grown up"
"I can do it. I am older enough!"
"I do it my Own."
"Mallory hit me. She needs to go to Jail!"
"Nolan is a boy because God knew I wanted him to be."
"God said we are all done having babies." (He came up with this one on his own! I guess 2 babies in 2 years was enough for him!"
"My foot didn't know any better.: (after getting in trouble at school for knocking over a sand table with his foot after he was told not to touch it.)
"I like to chew bubble gummin"
"Did you forget my lunchie box?"
"Is this the movie we watched Last Night?"= Last night stands for any amount of time that has passed. He will insist he went to the lake "Last Night" even though it was really last week, etc.
"Why do I go to school "All the Day?", "I want to play All the Day!". "Why do I go to time out All the day?"

Last week he drew this picture on the white board.

When i asked him what the picture was he said "It's just my Abstract."

Peyton Adam- you are my heart and I love you more each and every day. You are growing into such a smart and wide eyed little boy. Being YOUR mother is one of the greatest joys of my life. Happy Golden 4th Birthday my Baby Boy!

Part 3:Griswold Family Vacation, Hot Springs for Peyton's Golden Birthday!

Here is the last post about our 12 day road trip trip in May. Our final stage was to spend a "restful" week at the lake house in Hot Springs, Arkansas. We decided that we needed a big reward after our long drive so turned it into a mini vacation. Nick, Alice, Ry, Cord, Cael and their nanny Hannah were also there. It was also Peyton's 4th birthday so we had a mini party for him with his cousins. I try to do one big party every other year so this worked out perfect since it was his "off" year.

After a 12 hour drive (you saw how that went in the last post about this) we arrived to Hot Springs. Marshall and I love to reminisce about our time spent there before children. Sleep till noon, drink tons of beer, float all day, etc. That isn't the case anymore but the kids had a great time tubing, playing with their cousins, floating, playing with the lake house toys, and being together. I think I'd choose the latter :)

Peyton turned 4 on June 4th so we spent the morning at a really neat putt putt course. It is an awesome course but was 100 degrees out so we were a little overheated :) After that we went for a pizza buffet then had a golf themed birthday cake back at the house. We were so lucky to get to spend his special day with his cousins. Peyton loves playing with them and they are so sweet to Mallory, they just dote on her and she loves it.

The lake was a great way to end our trek across the country. We had some rough moments- kids screaming, flat tire, up all night in hotels, etc. but the memories truly are priceless and I loved spending that much time together.

And here are all the pictures, all jumbled up and out of order. If I ever have time I will better organize them but this is the best I can do with all 3 kids home this morning. It has taken 2 Popsicles, a box of animal crackers, and 3 PBS shows to get this blog post written so I can't imagine what will happen if I try to organize the pictures :)

Bitten

Mallory started Mother's Day Out for the first time last week. Yesterday was just the 3rd day of her entire school career.

Day 1- Went really well with just a little crying at drop off.
Day 2- She fought her nap a little but had a pretty good day.
Day 3- She was bitten by another child.

My poor baby wanted the same toy as an anonymous classmate and ended up with a bite to the cheek.



This is where being a second (or third) time Mom comes in handy. For a split second I wanted to be very upset that this happened to my poor baby but then I remembered being in the other parent's shoes, totally helpless to what your child had done. Peyton had a school biting incident of his own (after being a little bullied by a bigger kid)- but he was the biter not the victim. At 18 months old they don't know what they are doing and don't have the words to negotiate, so some will bite. It is just what happens. I just hope Mallory doesn't start biting back because knowing her she just might. She doesn't put up with much.

When the teacher said there had been a bite I panicked. I think I feared her being the biter more than the bitten.

Just a little dose of "Mommy Karma". If you have a biter you will probably also have a bitten. So try to be graceful in both situations. :)



Sweet Baby Girl, school will continue to be fun for you, I promise!

Nolan "Nolie" 2 Month Stats

Nolan turned 2 months old on May 28th. Obviously some time has passed since then so the picture taken today is actually him at 11 weeks old. I am guessing there is about a pound difference between these weeks.

Here are his stats from his 2 month appointment on May 24th:

Weight: 14 Pounds, 90th percentile
Height: 25 inches, Greater than 98th percentile (or off the charts)
Head: 15 1/2 inches, 55th percentile

Still a VERY big boy.

He is wearing 6 month clothes and size 2 diapers.

What can I say about sweet Nolie? In the last few weeks he has started smiling a lot. He wakes up all smiles and smiles whenever anyone catches his eye. The past week he has really started "talking" and loves to hold conversations with you. He even started laughing a bit and it just melts my heart. He SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT for the first time ever last night and although I'm not going to get used to it too soon at least we are headed in the right direction. He sleeps the best swaddled, laughs at his mobile, likes his bouncy seat, and enjoys looking at fans. He looks a lot like Marshall but also looks like my brother.

Peyton still adores him and can't keep his hands off him. Peyton loves to push him in his stroller during pick up and drop off at his school. Mallory has learned a new word "Eyes", and , well- you can see where that is headed. I think we may need to buy Nolan some plastic goggles until she learns a new word.

Brobee Outtakes:


Look at this precious smile!

Griswold Part 2, Pippa, Perspective, and 12 hours later......

After Orange Beach we set off for Thomasville, Georgia for the beautiful wedding of Marshall's cousin Laurel. It was wonderful to see so many family members and to see Laurel and Beau get married. Peyton was the ring bearer and although he did a great job at rehearsal decided he would NOT walk down the aisle at the wedding. Thankfully Bebe "pulled a Pippa" and walked him down as an impromptu flower girl. Remember how Pippa walked the kids down during the Royal Wedding? Well you can call Bebe Pippa from now on :)

Photography was discouraged during the ceremony so here is the best I could get of Peyton and "Pippa".


We met up with Peyton's boy cousins at the wedding and he had a great time running around with them all weekend and playing at Aunt Nicki and Uncle Chuck's amazing house out in the country. Laurel was a gorgeous bride and we had a great time in Georgia. I will try to get ahold of some pictures to post later.

Our next stop after Georgia was supposed to be a night in an Alabama hotel on our way to the lake house in Hot Springs, Arkansas. We were pretty tired of being in the car at this point and at one point I strongly questioned my decision to take such a small baby and a toddler on this trip. Here is just a snippet of what was happening in our car: You hear me say we are somewhere near Birmingham Alabama.



Shortly after arriving near Birmingham we were hit with a strong dose of PERSPECTIVE of how lucky we were to be together on this trip. We had unknowingly stumbled across the aftermath of a massive tornado. It literally stopped us in our tracks and we pulled over just to take it all in. Our drive had led us to the doorstep of the tragic and deadly tornado that went through Alabama the previous month. We had absolutely no idea that this was on our drive The devastation was indescribable. Below is a short clip of an entire neighborhood that was flattened directly off the highway.


What you are seeing is a nice neighborhood that is just no longer there. Trees were completely uprooted and split in half, houses destroyed, personal belongings strewn about. We've had our fair share of tornado sirens lately so it made me so thankful for my sweet family, the babies crying and all. I will never forget what I saw in Birmingham that day. Prayers for all of those that have been affected by these horrible tornadoes.

So if you are keeping track we had now driven through Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and back through Alabama on our way through Tennessee and then to Arkansas. Rather than put our kids through another random hotel room we decided to push on through and skip a hotel in Alabama and go on to Hot Springs. TWELVE hours later we arrived in Hot Springs and this is where we spent a week on the lake and celebrated Peyton's 4th birthday. That post will come soon!

Griswold Family Road Trip: Part 1: Orange Beach

I have a lot of blogging to do to catch everyone up on our last couple of weeks. I will be hard at work! But starting off the slew of blog posts will be day 1 and day 2 of our Epic Road trip. Our sweet family of five just returned from a 12 day trip in which we drove through 7 states and spent a week at the lake house. The word "CRAZY" has been hurled at me multiple times in the last month when I described our trip to friends and other moms. It was daunting to take an 8 week old, 18 month old, and 3 year old on a drive that started in Texas and ended in Georgia and in Arkansas, but the alternative was to stay home and miss out on the fun, as well as be alone with the 2 youngest kids. I figured I'd take my chances in the car where everyone could share the fun:) Well, we survived it and although there were stressful times (flat tire, no hotel rooms available, crying children, etc.) we made some great memories along the way.

Kicking us off- here are the notes on Day 1 and Day 2 of our trip. Dallas to Mississippi and to Alabama

We left Dallas late afternoon and planned on driving to Monroe, Louisiana. The kids were doing so well in the car that we cancelled our hotel reservation in Monroe and decided to push it 2 hours further, to Jackson Mississippi. Around midnight we arrived in Jackson and had to stay at the only hotel that had rooms available. A very DATED, thin walled with hard beds, Comfort Inn. We mistakenly thought our kids would sleep through the transition from car to hotel bed. Wrong! It was party time once we got everything up into the hotel room. I knew we would laugh about it one day but we were exhausted, had a full day ahead of us, and Mallory didn't go to sleep until 3 AM. She fell off the bed head first and screamed so loud that I heard the people around us talking about it at 2 AM( thin walls) and this also sent Marshall all the way to the parking lot to get a pack n play since she obviously needed to be confined. (she was fine after the fall, don't worry!)The AC only had 2 settings. Off and muggy or what felt like only 32 degrees. After a freezing few hours of sleep we loaded back up and headed for Orange Beach, Alabama to spend one night on the beach. It was a rough night but I can laugh about it now. Also worth mentioning is that during our midnight check in Marshall tried to open the wrong hotel door and surprised an elderly couple that had just checked in. With that mistake (it was the hotel clerks fault), and the crying kids I'm sure they were glad to see us leaving first thing that morning! Now, off to the beach!

Orange Beach was adorable and a beautiful beach setting. Our hotel was smack dab on the beach. A beach vacation is anything but relaxing with 3 tiny ones but we had a great time. Peyton didn't remember the ocean from when he was a baby so he was seeing everything for the first time and fearless Mallory kept running head first in to the waves. Little Nolan was happy as can be in the baby bjorn with me listening to the waves. We stayed in a brand new hotel with a perfect oceanfront swimming pool for kids and really had a nice time. All Five of us to a small hotel room and we still had a great time :) We did get a flat tire on our way to dinner that night but quickly got it fixed. There were a few tantrums from exhaustion and Mallory pretty much climbed on everything in the hotel room but it really was an awesome way to break up the trip.

Here is a short 1 minute video footage of our kids in the ocean for the first time. Such amazing memories and this beach may be worth a 12 hour repeat drive in our future.


View from our Room:



Wish we could have stayed longer than one night at the beach but next it was off to Georgia for a family wedding and Peyton's ring bearer appearance! Stay tuned for the next chapter of our trip :)

I see a baby, I see a smile, I see a DIMPLE!

Nolan is 8 weeks old today. We will have his 2 month stats after his appointment tomorrow. He is changing daily and today I kind of caught his smiling on camera. Those of you that have seen him lately know that he looks exactly like Marshall, so I am THRILLED to announce that he has a Dimple, which is all from ME. It isn't as pronounced as Mallory's but definitely comes out when he smiles. Here is a first glance at this surprise trait.





I didn't have many dreams about him during my pregnancy but remember one very vivid one in which I had the baby in a hotel and it was a boy with brown hair, blue eyes, and one big dimple. The jury is still out on the eyes but this dimple shows that God knew all along that you were meant for me little baby!

And sorry about the boppy. There is a lot of pink in your world- you can thank being so close in age to Mallory for that. :)

Speaking of Sister- She is a HANDFUL. Still a delight but a handful. Rumplestiltzkin, or Rumple, is her new name. No one knows this better than little Nolan.She actually has been awesome towards him, just wants to get her hands all over him and doesn't know how to be gentle.

Nolan pleading "Can I get some help here!!!!"


It's a dangerous World as Nolan sees it.


Rumple doesn't like to be told "No HIT!"

On the flip side, Peyton is Nolan's BIGGEST fan. The poor baby tries to do some tummy time and work on holding his neck up,

Only to find that his big brother needs to be everywhere he is. So it is Tummy TIme for all!

Whew! All the group tummy time wears him out!


So things are settling in. It has been a rough but rewarding road. I've had a C Section, umbilical hernia surgery, and a sprained ankle all in the last 8 weeks, BUT seeing this baby smile at me makes it all worthwhile. We never know what the day is going to bring but we are facing it all together. Happy 8 weeks Nolan!