That's not candy!

How many times do you tell your kids that. I have recently struggled with the concept that cough drops aren't candy even though you unwrap them. Usually I try to keep him away from these non-candies, but last night when he thought a beef bouillon cube was candy and preceded to throw a fit when I didn't give him one, I decided to let him know I was telling the truth. He became super eager as I grabbed one solitary cube from the container and unwrapped it carefully to ensure I caught all the crumblies. It then passed from my hand to his and then straight into his mouth. About 3 chomps and 2 seconds later he got the face. You know, the one where it seems your child's face is shrinking and then suddenly the tongue comes out, along with whatever was in his mouth. Yep, that is exactly what he did, followed by minutes of him making the "gross taste in my mouth" noise. Too bad there are no photos, it was all very spur of the moment. Hopefully, this will teach him a lesson. If I tell you it's not candy, I mean it!

How did THAT happen!

One day you are just living with your parents, the next you are moving next door and renting a duplex, and about 4 days later you are putting in an offer on a house. Yea, crazy. Both us and Nate and Erica have put in offers on matching houses right next to each other in Chehalis. A little silly, and totally unexpected. They are just simple 1,700 sq ft, 3 bed 2 bath homes, but we could get them at a steal. The chances of us getting them are very slim because they are short sales, but it all happened so quick and before I knew it we were getting pre-approved and signing the paperwork. Of course, now we are all jazzed about it and will probably be crushed if we don't get them. We even went out Friday night after we put in the offers to celebrate by watching Avatar in IMAX 3D (which I totally recommend even if you have already seen it.) Keep your fingers crossed.

Yay for the OTHER Peyton!

All week I had been nervous about this weekends Colts game because I wanted them to win so badly. If you don't have a team you are really rooting for, the playoffs and the Superbowl just aren't that exciting. But luckily, Peyton had an outstanding showing yesterday and they cruised to a victory. The Mormon, Austin Collie, even scored the first touchdown. Most of you probably aren't big football fans and don't really care but I am happy. Only one more game to win and then its back to the Super Bowl. The last time they went was when I was prego with Peyton. We had to wait and see if they won to finalize our decision to name our son Peyton. Manning came through and became the MVP, sealing Peyton's name fate. Go Colts!

Nate is so OLD!

Maddy helping the birthday boy pretend to blow out candles.

This week we celebrated Nate's 25th birthday the only way you can really celebrate being a quarter century old...by going to Chuck E. Cheese. If you are feeling old, then going to the place where a kid can be kid is perfect. We did start the evening by going to the very adult Red Robin. Man, their new garlic parm fries are so delish! They did sing happy birthday to him, but somehow Jesse ended up eating his sundae. By the time we got to the Chuck, we were all very stuffed but the boys quickly got over it and started playing away. I mean the kids were there somewhere, ok not really we played with them also. The last couple times we went Peyton has stayed in his booth, just sitting and watching. But this time he finally warmed up and started having a ball. His favorite is to carry around the tickets and steal people's skee balls. Melia is trying to save up tickets for a Polly Pocket, and with a few jackpots we managed to get her over 1000 tickets for the night, only 4000 to go. Enjoy the pics, all of them.

Peyton didn't eat a single fry all night, he mostly just stood on the chair looking around, swinging his necklace.
Yep, that's Jesse eating Nate's b-day sundae!
Nate during the singing, because he was holding Parker they didn't make him stand up.
One of Melia's jackpots as modeled by Peyton.

Peyton and Madison helping their daddys race.


Even Mom got into the basketball, we all did that a lot. Poor Jesse just couldn't beat me no matter how hard he tried. Isabell is trying to imitate Peyton smashing his face against the glass.

Peyton is really...umm...Special!

I need to better about blogging the unimportant stuff. I get so overwhelmed by big events, that I shy away from doing them and in the process miss all the little things. I am fairly good about eventually scrap booking the big things, I need to make sure to write about things I might not otherwise remember. Bring on the Peyton oddities.

He has a few quirks that make him seem quite eccentric to others. For awhile, he was obsessed with standing in stuff. Big bowls, boxes, little containers, anything he can fit his feet into. Whatever he was doing, he would drag said object over and stand in it while doing his activity.


Another weird thing, his security blanket is a beaded necklace. Don't worry he never wears it, he just loves to carry it around. For hours he swings it back and forth, shakes it while talking to himself, and simply clutches it while doing other activities. Even at the doctors yesterday, he had to have his necklace, which was a little embarrassing for me.


One Peyton quirk that is so adorable is Daddy Race. Almost every day he asks for Daddy Race, which is when Jesse races on Mario Kart and Peyton sits in his lap and roots for him. So cute. He pulls him out there, sit him in a chair, says Blankie and Jesse grabs them blanket and he then curls up on Jesse's lap.


Lastly, his new favorite store is Wal-Mart. Anytime, he gets dressed to go outside he asks if we are going to Wal-Mart (pronounced Wal-Nart). If the answer is no, man does he get upset. If we do venture there, of course with necklace in hand, he loves to run around and see if he can lose us. Not such a fun game for me when I also have Brady, but the right candy can get him to sit in the cart.

I love him dearly and he is constantly cracking me up. We just discovered he has strep-throat so that would explain some of his less than pleasurable behaviors, but I hope he feels better soon. Love ya crazy P!

Umm, Nice Try!

It seems that everyone who is going to respond has so I will reveal the answer. Sorry, but you are all wrong. Peyton is boy 1 and Brady is boy 2. I know it is still freaky how close they are, but I do think Brady is starting to get a bit of his own identity. I think he his bigger than Peyton was and he is also less developed. Odd combo but whatcha gonna do. Thanks for playing everyone and better luck next time.

Test #2

I have been hearing recently that the boys don't really look the same anymore, which may be true, but I ran across these two photos and thought I would send another challenge out there. This time there are no surrounding factors to indicate one way or another so you can't cheat (Alesha!)Even if you can tell the difference, you have to admit that is a very similar face! Good luck!
Boy #1
Boy #2

Thank heaven for werewolves!

Believe it or not, but I was actually anxious and excited to see New Moon. Unfortunately, I didn't have the opportunity to do the midnight thing, again, but I was able to go with all of my sisters (and a couple of husbands who couldn't miss out on such a fine movie experience.) We got there a bit early just to be safe and took that opportunity to pose with some real men and a poster for Eclipse since the New Moon one was already down.


It was too bad that Erica and Nate got there so late, she missed out on all the fun photos, but let it be known they were there too. As we watched the theatre fill up and our stomachs (well especially Erica and Alesha's) knotted up in anticipation we began to make bets and predictions. I bet there would be a few screams for Edward's first appearance and a ton for Jacob's first chest reveal. SO I was wrong about Edward (maybe this audience was aware that he isn't good looking) but there were tons of "oohs", "aahs", and shrieks when Taylor took off his shirt for the first time, even from the old ladies in front of us. Of course, this cracked us up to no end. Overall, this movie was much better than Twilight. I am grateful for the wolf pack, keeping to my native roots, they were my favorite part. Like expected there were moments of laughter that weren't intended to be and Edward and Bella still bug me, but I liked it enough to see it again. A huge step up from the last film. There just aren't enough comedies out there that also contain a lot of shirtless men! Looking forward to Eclipse since it was my favorite book by far.

P.S. I don't know if you can tell, but our eyes are sort of red in a few pictures but I decided to leave it cause I think it makes us look like the Volturi.

Melia was Alesha's date even though she did not want to get sucked into the Twilight world.

We'll be coming over the mountain...

Due to Jesse having managers training in Spokane this last week, Erica and I and the kids were able to make a trip across the state. We don't have a vehicle big enough, so we rented a SUV, loaded up the kids and our piles of crap and headed out on a cross state adventure. All in all the trip wasn't too bad, kids are kids but french fries fix everything! It was nice for Erica and I to have lots of visiting time with the grandparents, because we haven't had much the last couple of times we were there. I helped grams make chocolates, though with the kids I didn't get much done, saw some of my cousins, and even took the kiddies to chuck e cheese for the first time. By the end, we were ready to get the kids home, and I am sure grams and papa were ready to have their peace and quiet back, but it was a great trip.


The kids in the back, zoned out to a movie. The space in the vehicle definitely made me want one, but I don't think there is one in my immediate future.


Peyton's favorite part of the cheese was skee ball. He loved it so much he assumed any one else playing was doing it for his benefit and going up and taking their balls was completely acceptable. The kids cared nothing for the tickets and they were hanging out of all the machines.

I really wanted peyton to do the whack-a-mole type game but he only cared for about a second, then he was off running again.

We did get Madison to do this ride, even though she doesn't look to be enjoying it here, she actually liked most of it. I couldn't get Peyton near anything ride like, wuss!


Monica and Brady scoping out the scene. Everyone helped out holding Brady and Parker so we could chase our kids around.


The three boys and their papa. They were all born within two months of each other, but the Cameron and Dylan make Peyton seem like he is way younger than them.


I don't know if you can tell, but to recap this picture, Dylan had just "tackled" papa and cameron was on his way to do the same when they felt the need to tackle each other as they passed by. Peyton got pig piled a few times, but since he had no previous experience with it, he wasn't a huge fan.


This is Cameron showing me his muscles, I just thought it was too cute.

Napkin! Napkin!

To insure that our son is a well groomed young man, we have been working on teaching him to clean himself up, especially after meals. Mostly we have been using napkins as our teaching tool. In a way, this has ended up backfiring on us, because now our son is a pansie! Every time he sees something on himself he runs around saying "Nakin, Nakin!" He is helpful when he spills something because he attempts to clean it up, but sometimes he or the mess can't be cleaned. The other day he looked at his knee and noticed a mark. Assuming he could clean it off, he took mom's finger, licked it, and tried to scrub it off. Unfortunately, it was an owie so it could not be removed and this frustrated him to the point of a slight meltdown. Then he promptly pulled his shirt over his knee so he couldn't see it, problem solved. This begs the question, what happened to my adventurous son who played in dirt and didn't care? I guess now he is my son who accidentally paints himself and screams for a napkin!