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Monday, December 29, 2008

What a great Christmas holiday!

We had the best Christmas holiday ever! Brad, Peyton, and I went down to DeFuniak Springs, Florida the weekend before Christmas to visit Brad's parents and his brother and his family. We did an early Christmas Saturday night and everyone opened presents. Peyton got some adorable toys and lots of baby einstein videos. I am definitely looking forward to using those to help entertain her since she has a rather short attention span! Mama C and Grand Jack (Brad's parents) were super excited about seeing Peyton and had a great time with her. Peyton loved playing with her grandparents and her cousins Hayden and Alaina. I think Alaina is ready for Peyton to start crawling and walking around so she can have a playmate!

I had to work Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (Christmas eve) nights, but I was able to spend Christmas morning and day with Brad and Peyton. We all went over to my parents house for the day and opened presents and drank mimosas with them and my brother. My sister and her little girl Evans came from Oxford, MS later that day and we had a fabulous Christmas dinner. Fried turkey is truly heavenly (although probably not the healthiest)! My parents gave Peyton fantastic toys including an octopus that squeeks when you squeeze his legs and this huge dinosaur that you can put the baby in and it is filled with balls (I can't describe it well - it is a minature form of those playpens that you see at McDonalds or Chickfila, with those balls and you can jump in....) Anyways, Santa sure was good to Peyton! Brad gave my mom and me the best gifts ever. He gave each of us a picture frame that has several small frames within the large one, so that you can put several pictures like a collage. He put the most perfect pictures of Peyton for me and for my mom he included pictures of the dogs, her parents, Peyton, and my sister and I. My mom and I both burst into tears when we opened them. Truly perfect gift.
Brad also got me an incredible video camera which is going to be fantastic to use as Peyton grows older. This was also the first time Brad and I actually spent the entire Christmas day together. Usually he travels out of town for the day to see his family and I spend the day with mine. This time we were able to enjoy the holiday together and with a little one too! It truly was one of my favorite Christmases ever, despite it being 65ish degrees outside.

Anyways, that is a brief update for now. I will post pictures soon. Peyton turned 4 months old on the 27th! She has her 4 month check up on January 6th and I am curious to see how much my little chunky money weighs! I know that two weeks ago when she had to go in for a check up since I had a contagious form a pneumonia (I had exposed her to it before realizing that I had it, but she was healthy and still has not gotten sick, thanks to her daddy's immune system!) that she weighed 14 pounds!!! She doubled her birth weight in under four months! Babies aren't really supposed to do that until 6 months. But oh well, she loves to eat and she is healthy!

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Quite inconsistent...
















I am not doing the best job with keeping this blog updated, my apologies.










Peyton is doing absolutely fantastic. She will be four months on December 27th, I just cannot believe it! She has been sleeping through the night consistently since she was 8 weeks old. We are truly blessed to have such a good sleeper! She is still growing at a rapid rate and now weighs 14 pounds meaning she has just about doubled her birth weight, something she is supposed to do closer to 6 months of age. What can I say, she loves to eat! She has her official four month check up in January and will be receiving her secound round of vaccinations (although I am a bit nervous now due to poor Frances' reaction to the shots). Brad and I think Peyton is starting to teeth a little bit. She is rubbing her jaws together and trying to put anything and everything in her mouth. We are seriously dreading teething but I am going to stock up on Tylenol, Motrin, and those refrigerated teething toys (although she is not a fan of them at the moment).










Two weeks ago we purchased an exersaucer and a swing that goes in the doorway. The exersaucer is the baby einstein model and she seems to enjoy it to some degree. I am honestly a little surprise on how little came with the model (there are hooks on the crossbars to hang your own toys though), but she likes the spinning frog and the music. She is still a little small for the swing and we are a bit reluctant to put her in it before we put padding in the doorway since she can easily swing into it and bump her head quite nicely. We have some serious baby-proofing to do around the house in the very near future. Peyton hasn't rolled over quite yet and that is my fault - I don't put her on her belly enough. When I do put Peyton on her belly on the playmat, a very short amount of time passes before she starts screaming. We need to enjoy the bit of free time we have before she starts crawling and we won't be able to take our eyes off of her but for extremely short periods of time. However, I think Ranger will definitely help out with this. He is absolutely dying for Peyton to start crawling and walking so she can play with him. Ranger has some australian shepherd in him, so he will be good at herding her around the house.










Let's see, what else. Peyton is doing extremely well on the similac sensitive for gasiness and fussiness (lactose free), although she does require Mylicon for some feeds. We just started using the Playtex nurser bottles with the drop-ins and they are a blessing! I highly recommend them, especially for babies who have colic and gasiness. And the clean up is much quicker since you throw away the drop-ins after the feeds. So nice!










I have been paying close attention to Peyton's hearing skills by shaking toys behind each ear and seeing if she turns toward the noise. It was at six months of age when my parents realized I had hearing loss and I have been wearing hearing aids since I was 8 months old. We aren't sure if I was born with a hearing loss or if it occurred after birth. I spoke with the pediatrician about Peyton's hearing and my experience with hearing loss and she instantly decided that we should schedule a hearing test for Peyton when she is six months old. I was very impressed and relieved by the pediatrician's quick response regarding this issue. I think Peyton will not have a problem with hearing loss, but it is always better to be on the safe side.










Alright, I think I rambled quite a bit. I will try harder to update this blog more often but working full time and taking care of a little one definitely keeps Brad and me busy!