Dear Santa....

Tonight we took Payton to sit on Santa's lap at Southpark Mall. She was completely enthralled with him, looking back at him and staring. She didn't move a muscle, other than her neck! She would grin, then look back at him. It was quite funny to watch!!

Saturday we went to a Christmas tree lot and picked out our tree. I (mommy) spent part of Sunday decorating the house and tree, while watching football, of course. Brian (daddy) was at the bar with some friends watching their games. The Tophams and Boughmans came over to hang out and let the kids play. Poor little Raegan did not want to miss anything, thus never taking either of her afternoon naps. She's a little trooper!

In the coming weeks, we have lots of Christmas parties, birthday dinners, and celebrations, including spending a long weekend with Granby and Grumps in the mountains. I FINALLY will get to snowboard, assuming there is snow....and with it being November 30th and 70 degrees outside with a tornado warning, I'm guessing there is a good chance the conditions will be less than favorable. BOOOO! One can hope!

Happy Turkey Day!!

We have so many wonderful things for which to be thankful....first and foremost, is our beautiful daughter, Payton Delaney! As her seventh month of life comes to a close, we reflect on the many wonderful memories we've made with Payton. In the past month, we have gone to a friend's surprise birthday party, played with BFF Raegan & Sam, received flu shots, watched lots of football, mommy went to Dallas for work, and we are currently in Radford, VA, visiting Granddude and Jana....and starving ourselves in preparation for a wonderful Thanksgiving meal with family and friends, of course! Going to Dallas was hard, since it was the first time I've been away from Payton for any "real" time, but we both survived, and she remembered me when I returned ;) Jana and Granddude came down to Charlotte and kept Payton one day while I was gone, since Granby and Grumps were in the mountains. They've enjoyed getting to see her so often and watch her grow and change.

This month in Payton's life....she is crawling very quickly, pulling up on EVERYTHING, eating "real" food such as green beans, rice, fruits, peas, avocado (yes, she came around a little), carrots, squash, and the list goes on. She'll be weaning herself off of baby food quickly, now that she knows there's good food available! I guess I'll have to start cooking (that is when Uncle Dan doesn't feed us, but he tries to feed us ALL the time! Thanks, Dan!)

Enjoy the pictures....we are getting prepared for Payton's first Christmas, where I'm sure there will be toy overload for the Sweet P! We will be spending a long weekend in the mountains, and I'll FINALLY get to go snowboarding (if there is snow, of course!) We are going to attempt to get pictures taken of Payton sitting on Santa's lap, so keep checking in!! HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!!

xoxo

Winter Swimming!

I don't want to lose the progress we made in the pool this past summer over the winter, so Brian and I took Payton to Marion Diehl indoor pool on Saturday. Payton didn't skip a beat. I can tell she's a little more apprehensive about the water....perhaps learning that breathing it in isn't such a great idea, but that's a good thing! She eventually was relaxed and all smiles. I am working on getting her very relaxed on her back, in order to teach her the survival float...i.e.-if she was to fall in the water and no one was around, it teaches her to surface and roll over onto her back until help arrives. And yes, you generally start teaching this technique around 6 months old! Well, every time I placed her on her back, she'd grab her feet. This isn't exactly the ideal way to float....as a matter of fact, it has quite the opposite effect. Anyway, she did a great job, didn't mind going under and me letting go of her, but we still have a long way to go! She loved that she could touch the bottom on the ramp into the big pool, and she loved she could sit and splash by herself in the baby pool. We purchased a pass, and plan on taking her many more times over the winter :)

New Teeth!

Okay, so I'm cheating on the whole "only updating once a month" thing....but I wanted to get these new toofers posted while they are BRAND new! The first (left incisor) broke through on Halloween, followed by the right one in just the past couple of days. Payton was just fussy that one day, day and a half, and didn't drool too badly, although there is still drool apparent! She'll be 7 months on Sunday....so stay tuned for the next SEVEN month update within the month!