Bored….

i grow extremely bored of themes, thus i update the format of the blog every few months.  I apologize if this weirds people out, but you should see my firefox browser.  It changes it’s theme and skin about every other day.

I have found a solid contender for use over the next few weeks…..cookie monster.  definitely one of my favorite characters.  If there was a cookie monster theme for wordpress, i’d be using it.

Learning how to sit up…

We’re working on our posture this evening.  Fortunately, maddux is working on slobbering on her face and the camera.

Mom’s favorite new outfit….

This outfit got a lot of acclaim at Christmas and it made its debut today.  As you can see, the hat is the real kicker.

More pictures of Christmas Holiday

A few pics of Jess and Payton, our family photo, and my sister.

Happy New Year

While we weren’t able to make our new years party thanks to some terrible weather, We were able to take a picture with Payton’s Happy New year hat……

The Joys of Christmas and beyond

Christmas is by far my favorite holiday.  I love everything about it, especially the tree(if you haven’t noticed that already).  The family, the food and the decorations all combine for memories we’ll have forever.  The best part of holidays is that very little goes as planned.  While it lends to very tense moments at times, looking back on each event usually brings laughter and fond memories.  Our 2009 Christmas certainly had its moments, but we’re all whole and ready for the new year.  Looking back however is always a fun time….

The trip back to Walla Walla to see Jess’s family was easy.  Payton slept the entire 5 hours and we encountered limited weather conditions.  If any of you have ever driven that highway during the winter, you would understand what a blessing dry roads are during the winter.  The rest of the trip home was not as smooth.  Upon our arrival, Jess came down with some sort of stomach flu which then made its way around to her mom, dad and finally to me.   I don’t get sick.  I get a headache once in a while, but overall i’m flu free.  The last time I remember having any type of “flu” was over 15 years ago.  Unfortunately for me, the bug came around 4am on Christmas eve.  Not only was it Christmas eve, but it also was the day we were driving back to Boise.  I can tell you, being sick and driving 4-5 hours is not fun.  My flu lasted through all Christmas eve and part of Christmas morning.  Happy Holidays eh?

Lil Miss Payton, or Master P as many of our friends call her, came out like a bandit.  It was her first Christmas, and I never could have imagined the haul a kid gets.  Between grandparents, great aunt’s and uncle’s, aunt’s and uncle’s and a few friends of the family, Payton is now considering opening a Baby’s R Us.  We certainly have the clothes section covered, and I won’t even get into toys.  I figure it’s a good start to her college fund…ebay…here we come(i’m kidding of course)…..Payton enjoyed her time home. She met many of my friends and another of her great grandparents.  I will mention this story as it’s funny in context.  Jess’s grandmother has dementia which is not funny, but some of the experiences are.

At this point, Payton doesn’t really show any gender features unless she’s being changed, thus many people get in the uncomfortable position of guessing the sex(which i kind of enjoy watching the squirming).  We, or me, try not to dress her in Pink everyday, which makes the game even more enjoyable.  Jess’s grandmother thought it was a boy from the first moment we walked in and it stuck all week.  I kept thinking, if she really thinks Payton is a he,  I wonder the shock when i change the diaper right in front of her….Instead of ruining her time, we just started referring to Payton has Harold.  Payton resembles “Harold and the Purple Crayon” so we thought why not?  So Harold did a good job of hanging out with her great grandma.  Great Grandma’s are wonderful to watch.  It’s amazing the amount of love they have for a child they have seen for 1 minute.  Jess’s grandmother spent the whole week trying to make sure Payton….errr Harold was warm, in a good mood, and fed.  I’m certainly thankful both Harold and great grandma had time together.

Prior to the wonderful flu, I was able to see many of my good friends at home.  Most of the time we hang out at my friend Jason’s house which is littered with people.  Between all of our friends, Jason’s wife has two brothers and a sister who usually hang out at the house.  It may sound like a lot, but it’s one of my favorite times of year.   We spend the majority of our time eating(a lot) and playing video games.  It’s been years and years of video games.  It’s amazing how we’ll all play till 2 or 3 in the morning without even noticing the time.  It’s sad for me that I’m not able to see these people more often than I do as I consider all to be family.  While each of us has different lives, families, jobs I know we’ll always be there for each other.  Not many have that in their lives and I consider myself lucky.

We made it home to spend Christmas day with my family.  While I spent the day recovering from the flu, we were able to have a great time and spend some quality time as a family.  My sister was in town from LA, which made our First true Christmas in our house extremely enjoyable.  We opened a few gifts(mostly paytons) and enjoyed a relaxing day watching movies.

I will say, as far as Christmas goes, this was one of the best I’ve had in years in terms of presents.  Jess and I don’t do a ton of presents, but we do get a few things here or there.  This year, she hit a grand slam.  First off, I love slippers(aka house shoes). I’ve had two pair so far in this winter, and neither lasted over a week.  For whatever reason, our two dogs loved eating my slippers.  Both lasted less than a week in our house,  so apparently each was whispering eat me.  I had all but given up and Jess decided to give it one last try and got me some really nice slippers.  They even have arches!!! Another common issue in our house is blankets. I love a good blanket, but none ever fit me.  Somewhere she was able to find a king size throw(yes, k/s throw is an oxymoron).  Lastly, and my favorite, is something which is a bit odd. Everyone has their little things they want to do if they win the lottery. Well, after the normal buy a house, etc etc, i have an odd one.  Never wear socks more than once. I love the way new socks feel.  We haven’t won the lottery, but Jess decided to get me enough socks to go at least a month(ended up being 6 weeks) w/o wearing old socks.  I’m sure you all don’t find this as amazing as I do, but I love it.  Overall, it was a great Christmas.
Here are a few pictures of the family over the holiday.  Check out my sisters blog for more. She put a ton on there.  I’ll post more when I get on the other computer.  I’ve also got some great pictures of my sisters FREEHAND painting on Payton’s wall.  It’s quite amazing how someone can be so artistic, and her brother can be….abstract…yes, that’s what i’m calling my artistic ability b/c you can’t say it’s ugly!!!

Chocolate’

Payton made her first move to junk food last night.  I tried giving her cookie dough and apparently that’s bad form, so I grabbed chocolate sauce to substitute.  Honestly the reception wasn’t as warm as I thought it would be.  Either way, it made for some good pictures.

I certainly have trended toward a Payton only blog of late, and I’d like to venture out into more of our family.  Not saying people are interested, but why not toss out more useless info on the net.  I’m not really sure of the content yet, but something will come to mind.

In light of new subjects, I did have a fun adventure today.  I came home and let the dogs in from the wonderfully crisp winter weather as per usual. The problem became when I looked down at my hand and saw blood.  Apparently one of my dogs was bleeding. I followed them around until I found out it was Barkley. Problem being, I couldn’t find the real source of the blood. I found a few spots here and there but nothing really “bleeding”.  Eventually I gave up and started cleaning the floors, walls, and sheets which he bled all over. As I was finishing, I looked behind me and found out he was still bleeding everywhere.  What a waste.  All in all he’s fine, but I have yet to find the real source of the blood.  He’s always been the dominate dog(even though he’s a year younger).  Maddux seems like one of those personalities which bubble and bubble till it’s too much.  Barkley likely crossed that line today.  I certainly hope it’s more of a brotherly spat than a true butt kicking.

I had another doctor appointment for my hand today(one day i’ll recant that story for the sake of self depravation).  Looks like i’ll be going for my third surgery sometime in the near future.  I need the surgery, but I haven’t been able to get past the mental part of the first two.  This should be the last surgery however. The procedure is where they’ll cut the tendons permanently so that I can’t bend my finger past the middle knuckle. It sounds worse than it is, I can’t bend it now.  The big difference is that I’ll go from being a stand in for Captain Hook, and go back to actually holding up a “we’re #1″ digit.  Hopefully that coincides with UW sports doing anything positive.  I won’t hold my breath.

All is well with Jess. She’s ready for class to break, as most teachers are.  We’ve had to swap staying home with payton this week thanks to some tough sledding for our Day Care.  That’s been a fun adventure for us so far.  Even when we have day care, we’ve taken off more time from work than we ever have.  We both enjoy spending time with her, it’s just another experience we didn’t expect.  Fortunately we both have jobs where we have that flexibility. It’s just a weird feeling to be gone from work so much.

Alright all, enjoy your days and make sure you thank your lucky stars Jake Locker is coming back next year.  Start the Heisman Campaign now.

Payton Jolly lil’ Christmas Laugh

Payton has been more and more frequent with the laughs this month and it’s starting to get pretty hilarious.  She will laugh for 10 minutes at a time if you keep her going.  Here is a quick video of one of her outburts…Jess loves to make her laugh as you can see in the video. Hope you all enjoy.

Stay safe all, it’s been mighty cold in our neck of the woods. We are thankful to have a roof over our heads and heat pumping through the house.  I should be reflective and thankful all the time, but especially around the holidays and the dreadfully cold December/January’s, I seem to realize how lucky we are.  We feel fortunate to have everything we do, and to have our family’s health.  Please take some time to look around your house and find any unused shoes or coats as this is the PERFECT time to donate to a local food bank or shelter.

Griswald Family Christmas….

As has been tradition in our family for many years, we regularly begin the holiday season with a National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation movie showing.  For those of you who haven’t seen the movie, i’m sorry, for those of you who have, go watch it again b/c it never gets old.  The national lampoon series, specifically the first movie, has a special place in my heart thanks to a few very very long road trips as a family.   National Lampoon’s Vacation depicted many of the transgressions which a family finds themselves in very well.  The christmas version continues down the same path.  Much of what happens with families at holidays is stressful, frustrating, a bit annoying, and at times surprising to the point of utter shock(enter cousin eddie).  However it is all done for one reason, and that is to be together.  All the pains regularly lead to great memories, and each memory leads to many hours of laughter…..after the fact….sometimes WELL after the fact….just ask our family if you had ever joined us on a christmas tree cutting tromp through the snow.  I think we’ve finally reached the 10 year cooling off period and we’ll be able to laugh about it this year…i hope.

Anyhow, much of the christmas vacation movie hits close to home for good and bad.  This year I decided to do my best “big tree” attempt….little’ full…lotta sap…moment.   As you can see in the picture below i tried my best to find a tree well over 10′.  This particular tree boasts 11′6″ top to bottom.  I may have gone a tad overboard, but i’m a sucker for Christmas.  Payton could care less about the tree from what I can tell.  The only thing which seemed to garner a reaction was moving the tree in front of the TV for too long…apparently she’s more like her mom each day.

Look how Tall I am

On to some other fun items going on in our house.  Payton took her first run at food this week.  It was only rice, formula, and water, but hey it was a start.  Here are a few pics from her first attempt.

Look how Tall I am

This goes back to my “i wonder” series, but I wonder what it’s like to get all your food out of a bottle and then have someone force a spoon down your throat.  It also has to taste like paste too.  It’s not like i’m shoving down ice cream or lobster tail.  She’s getting split pea soup and rice.   As you can see in her pictures, she felt the same way eating it as I did describing it.  Let’s just say she wasn’t looking for a hug from me after substituting her regular dinner menu with scraps from the recycle bin.

Payton had her four month shots the other day. She handled it very well other than one little outburst, but overall she took em like a champ.  While at her appointment the doctor takes her weight and height, just like they do for adults.  This is where I’m a bit confused though.  Everything which happens the first year seems to cost money. They want you to buy something for every “first”, or buy 18 different ways to change a diaper, etc.  There is a limitless amount of junk sold.  Considering this, i’m trying to figure out why they aren’t selling growth/weight %.  I know some parents would actually believe that their kid being in the 75th percentile at 3 months actually means something and would buy a chart or to prove it.  Maybe it means they will excel in sports, who knows. I’m just surprised that it isn’t sold by someone.  Payton has moved into the 97% for height for her age, which doesn’t really mean anything.  She could take a month off from growing and move back to the 50% so the whole thing is a sham.  I’m living proof considering how short I was starting high school and how I ended up.  Wonder what my % ranking was as a Frosh.  Would have been entertaining.   Payton is now over 26″, which if you’re counting at home, is already halfway to her great grandma cassaday.  Should be entertaining around her third birthday when she’s already patting Great grandma on the top of the head.

We’ll have more pictures and posts coming soon.  We plan on putting together some sort of holiday card and shipping it out soon.  If I don’t have your address please feel free to send me an email or post it in the comments.

Merry Christmas all and Happy Holidays

Random Pics

She's mine...

I'm feeling reallllly comfy now....

She loves to slobber all over Grandma

Maybe not lady like, but it sure is comfy

It's my baby and if you mess with her I'll eat you

I finally love bath time...

Here are a few random pics from the last week. A quick run down of a the random pics.  First we have a few of our lovely boxer Barkley following around his favorite person in the world(Payton).  He follows her everywhere…in the bath, when she gets changed, etc….whenever we leave the room with her, he follows.  At times he’s a lot to handle but most of the time he’s a sweet dog that is very family oriented.

Another picture is Grandma(my mom) and Payton.  Payton is doing her best to slobber all over my moms shirt.  Of course grandma doesn’t care and always enjoys time with her grand daugther. Check out both shoulders as they are both soaked.

One of the other pictures is Payton passed out on the couch.  She moved herself down the couch and somehow moved her clothes all the way up her body.  On the plus side, she looks rather comfortable.

Nothing too abnormal going on around here.  Payton got sick today and has another nasty cold.  I was able to stay home with her today and hope that she starts feeling better soon.  There isn’t a more helpless feeling than watching an infant sick.

This week marks a big step in our household.  Payton moved from her pack-in-play in our room to her crib.   Payton never slept in our bed, but she’s been in our room since she came home from the hospital.  It was a tough moment for Jess, but they held up very well(Payton and Jess that is).    Payton seems to love her crib, or at least that’s what i’m going to assume since she isn’t getting another one.   We’ll certainly enjoy having our room back but the last 3 months have been a fun experience.

One major drawback I must mention in moving a child from your room to her room is fists in the middle of the night.  Last night was “my night” to get her up, and apparently I didn’t move fast enough upon her waking up.  Jess decided to make sure I knew it was my turn and punched me in the arm…it was likely more of a push than a punch but when you’re sleeping it seemed a bit harsh

One other note….the megaphone that is apparently attached to the baby monitor needs to be crushed with a baseball bat.  Not sure how this happens, but Payton is ten times louder when she’s on the other side of the house than when she is in our room.  I have no idea why the baby monitor maker decided that a baby needs help amplifying their voice…I’m unsure of other parents experience, but Payton has no problems vocalizing her displeasure with lack of food or a wet bum.  She certainly does not need any help from the monitor.  Oh well, just another thing you learn in the baby process…..buy ear plugs…