Little Miss Peyton

Peyton is now 21 months old, but I haven't posted any pictures of her in a while, so here is an update of what she has been up to. She has developed quite the personality and I thought I'd share some of that with you.

Here is Bella and Peyton. These two little girls are SO FUNNY together! They see each other almost every day, but even so, Peyton will see her and scream, "BELLA!!!!" and start jumping up and down. Bella then does the same thing. She wave her arms and screams, "PEYTON!!!" It is so funny. Brittany and I are scheming on how we can get it on camera. :)

Carter, Peyton, and Bella :)

Peyton found Dave's chemistry goggles really early one morning while Dave was still asleep. I told her they were daddy's and she took them to him to put on. He wasn't all that enthused, but I found it humorous. Peyton then had to wear them around herself :)

The next thing that people need to know about Peyton is that she LOVES shoes! Big-people shoes. She likes her own, but prefers to wear other people's. She especially loves high-heels. She is quite talented in them too! She will put on my high-heels and literally run around the house! I don't think I can even do that! The bad thing about all this is that I can never find two of the same shoes! She wears mismatching shoes all over the house and neighborhood even, then when I want to wear a pair of my own shoes, I can never find matching ones!

Another thing Peyton loves is to "cuddle." If she is tired or just needing some love, she'll say, "Mommy, cuddle." Then she'll run to my room, pull the covers down and climb in. :) Cuddling anywhere else just isn't acceptable in her eyes. Dave and I both adore that she loves cuddling though. In the morning if we just wake up and start doing things right away, it throws her way off. She needs to cuddle in bed with us for the first half hour--we don't mind :) Oh ya, and she usually gets in bed then demands, "chocolate milk" to go with her cuddling. ;)

Peyton has become very independent with her clothes too. She usually wants dresses or skirts and often carries a purse around (she has like 4 of them). Here are some cute pictures of dress-up time.

First time getting into my mascara--I'm sure it won't be the last :(
Brushing her teeth (with my toothbrush), holding two purses, and wearing my high-heels.

What a girl!
This was a cool braid I found online. It is called the waterfall braid or a fall-through braid. I love it. It's not very tight so it's not one that's good to play in, but pretty for church maybe :)

Peyton LOVES the water :) I am so dreading the winter to come again, because she is the happiest girl when she can just go outside and play with friends.

She is not timid about jumping in a pool of water or playing with our neighbors on the slip-and-slide. Here she is playing with our neighbor "Lequis" as Peyton says (it's really Lexi).

And last but not least--her babies. She loves her dolls. She sleeps with them, gives them hugs and kisses, wraps them in blankets, tells me when they are crying so I can cuddle them, feeds them, and pushes them around all day in their stroller. It's simply adorable. When we walk down the street to the mailbox, we can't go without taking her baby for a walk in her stroller. She is such a good mommy--so thoughtful and loving :)

Cousins

Peyton and Jaxton are the only two babies on the Mason side and they are so cute together. Even when Jaxton was first born Peyton would say, "Baby, baby." :) She likes to give him kisses, but I think she doesn't quite understand why she can't play with him a whole lot yet. One day we caught her trying to share her candy with him, what a good cousin--sneaking food to the little one since his mom won't give it to him ;) Here are a few pictures of the two little cuties.

Update on life

I haven't updated FOREVER! So much has happened that I won't go through it all. My theory with blogs is that if you try to update and go back through all the important things and write about them all, then blogging becomes a job. But if I just write down my thoughts and add a few pictures whenever I have time, then it's no big deal. Life is too busy and hectic to add another chore. But an update is overdue :)

My family does a newsletter every so often where we just exchange emails of what has been happening. This post is that letter updating what has been going on for us:

Life at the Bailey home is crazy as ever. I was just telling my mom today how summer was supposed to be relaxing and full of vacations, etc. But summers are probably the busiest time of the year! We both are working and I took a summer class and our church callings... everything just kept us so busy, that our summer has just flown by!

Thinking of that, I don't know if I told you all about Dave's new church calling. He is the new executive secretary in our ward. Basically that means he is the bishop's secretary and is keeps up his schedule and meetings, etc. He is busy every Sunday and Tuesday and sometimes other days of the week. It hasn't been too bad yet and I hope it is no busier than he has been already. I am the Relief Society Meetings Coordinator... long name for activity planner. I have a committee of 13 and we plan each month's activity. I don't choose the topic or all of the activity. The presidency gives me the idea of what they want to do according to the month's topic and I just plan out the details. I like it so far, but my old committee had been in for a year and were burnt out, so my new committee should be better... hopefully.

School is taking FOREVER! I had planned on being completely done by August 9th, but due to work beefing up my hours, I had to slow down drastically. Work wants me 5 hours a day and one class on top of that adds another 2 hours of homework a day and having a child to tend to constantly, planning out dinner and housecleaning, and my church calling... I just couldn't keep up. So I dropped all but one class and might have to take it that slow on my last 3 classes. It sucks to drag it out, but I already have the job I would want if I had my Master's degree, so at this point it is not a matter of NEEDING it, I just will need the Master's degree in case I ever switch employers. The work and debt people go through for a piece of paper that says you've done it is crazy.

Peyton is just adorable. :) She picks up new words, songs, phrases everyday. Her newest obsession is chocolate milk. She asks for it all day. If we try to give her plain milk, she yells, "No, I want chocolate milk!" She's not dumb--no sliding things past her! She loves to sing lately too. We sing all sorts of primary songs all day long. It's cute. This is no lie, the other day she sang:

"I am a Child of God,

and he has sent me here,

has given me CHOCOLATE MILK

and parents kind and dear..."

Yep, chocolate milk comes before a good earthly home in her eyes :) Besides that, the news for her is that she loves playing with friends. I love our little neighborhood. Every evening, we sit a blanket out on our front lawn, and within ten minutes, every neighbor within 5 houses of us is sitting there with us while our kids run around playing. It is so nice. It knocks out any last energy she had left for the day and makes putting her to bed a lot easier. :) She loves playing with friends and gets so excited to see them.

That is about it for us. We had fun at Lake Powell. Dave planned on fishing the whole time, but ended up getting in the water to cool off. His cast got a little wet, so he decided cutting it off would be better than letting it rot in a hot cast all weekend. It was probably a good idea, but I still wasn't 100% pleased. I should have known it would happen though. I don't think it is a big deal though. When he got it recasted, the x-rays looked so good that the doctor just wanted to put him in a walking boot. He told the doctor that last time they did that, he hardly wore it (not good, but honest). So they recasted it. Since we've been home though, he's just put his boot back on. Hopefully no harm was done.

Lake Powell was a blast. I am still sore from wake-boarding. Going in and out of the wake isn't a challenge anymore, so Dave is going to teach me how to switch feet and then jump. :) We are going back with my family probably on Labor Day in September. :) Peyton loved Lake Powell--the water, the sand, the boat--she liked it all! She didn't fight us too much on the life jacket either. Dave and Tyson and JD had fun cat-fishing. They caught quite a few and had a good time together. I am so glad that they have so much fun when they are together. I guess I worried a little that my city-slicker husband wouldn't fit in with the country-boys, but they all laugh and joke the whole time they are together. I love those boys. :)

The rest of the summer sounds busy and fun. I have my class to finish up, my cousin Natalie's wedding, our anniversary and a camping trip we have planned up Cedar Mountain, a trip to the Bailey's for a week for Dave's physical therapy, my friend Lyndsi's wedding, then...school starts again. So much to do, and so little time!

Life is good. Hope this was a good update for everyone.

Love you all,

JaRelle