Last week of January

We had a "snow" day on Wednesday and all of my patients cancelled, so the Payne family got to hunker down and wait out the snow/ice storm. It ended up not being that bad in our town, so it was just a lazy day at home. Except for the whole shoveling the cars out before it all turned to ice overnight making it impossible to shovel out the next day thing. But, I think Jeremy has gotten the hang of it:) I am so glad that is a "boy" job!!!

Hanging out, reading Luke's favorite book, making his "say cheese" face. Priceless!

So cute! In the winter, Jeremy goes weeks without shaving, so it is a rare site to see him with shaving cream on his face and obviously, Luke hadn't seen it in a while either! :)

"Extended Family" Scrapbook

This is my newest scrapbook project....It is not quite finished, but you can get the idea. It is divided by the Murphy side (mommy's side) and the Payne side (daddy's side). These are just a few sample pages, but the whole idea came about because we live so stinking far from everyone and I want Luke to start learning everyone's names. I still have a couple of pages left of great aunts/uncles and cousins, but my side is essentially done and Jeremy's side will get done when we are down in GA for Jeremy's spring break. I think it turned out pretty well and not only will Luke learn family names, but also relationships (i.e., mom, great grandmother, aunt, cousins, etc.)

Luke "playing" with Leo

As you can see, Luke is trying to "play" with Leo, but he is less than happy about it... And Luke is not fazed in the least! You can also see that we had to put our table on the other side of the gate because of the climbing (see "Crazy climber" blog post if you didn't already).

Do we have a democrat in the house?......You decide!

Can Luke say Obama?....yes, he can!

Martin Luther King Day

Guess where we decided to spend our Monday off..............Yep, the Chuck E Cheese!!! Who knew that this is where the Payne family would end up on the holiday! It was so much fun watching Luke in this hyped up environment. Needless to say, I was even overstimulated by the time we left 3 hours later, but it was awesome and Luke had a GREAT time. 

Luke loved dancing with Chuck E and he actually wasn't scared of him at all, which I was really surprised at since he HATED Santa just a little over a month ago. I guess he is used to the oversized NY rats!  JUST KIDDING! I have only seen ONE rat on the tracks of the subway and I have NEVER seen a rat at our house, of course, we do have 3 cats!..!..!.. Ok, moving on.....

Waiting for the pizza and bread sticks. Yes, we both have on striped shirts, but I seriously didn't plan it that way :)

Luke absolutely LOVED the slide, but he needed a little help going FEET first.

Giving Chuck a ride home. Chuck E was exhausted from all the singing and dancing earlier. Good thing Luke was there to save the day.

Luke's FAVORITE thing today was the skeet ball! Every time he would throw the ball, he would make this little growl/yell. RAH!!! It was TOO funny. (Too bad we didn't have the flip with us.) Although none of his balls technically made it up the run way, he had a grand time trying.

My baby boy is getting TOO BIG!

They even had a green screen that you could stand/dance in front of and it put you up on the tv. We all had a great time and it was so much fun having the day off. We signed up for coupons, so I am sure we will be going back to the "Cheese" some time in the near future!

Baby Kaitlyn is here!

Baby Kaitlyn was born this past Thursday. She was 7 pounds and 19.5 inches! We went to see them at Greenwich Hospital in Greenwich, CT---the same hospital where Luke was born. Mom and Dad are doing great, considering how sleep deprived you are those first few weeks  :)

As I said when Baby Braydon was born just a short week ago, I LOVE holding these newborn babies!!! They are just the sweetest thing! I hate to say how cliche this sounds, but it takes me back to when Luke was this small, although I know he was, it is hard to remember him THIS tiny!

Luke was EXTREMELY shy when we went into the hospital room on Friday night, but as soon as he realized that it was his Annie, he climbed right into bed with her. He leaned back and took it all in. It was the cutest thing, but nothing was cuter than this precious little girl!

A washing machine casualty...almost!

Jeremy found Luke's Elmo i pod at the bottom of our washing machine AFTER it had been washed with a load of blankets. I had scooped up the blankets from the couch in our den and put them in the wash just like I always have, but this time there was a little something extra. Luckily, even after the washing, it still played music and after Jeremy took it apart to let it dry the screen even started working again. I guess I will have to look through the laundry more carefully from now on! :)

Baby, it's TOO cold outside!

This was the temperature at about 10 this morning. When we got up, the needle was right at 10 degrees! They said the wind chill this morning was -7! Brrrr!!!

Sweet Baby Braydon

Braydon Charles Hill was born to our great friends, Stephanie and Jeremy Hill this past Friday 1.9.09. He was 8 pounds 10 oz. and 20 inches long. I got to meet him on Sunday afternoon, while my Jeremy kept Luke at home.

Mom and Dad are old pros this time around!

Look how sweet the siblings are being! I am sure they will ALWAYS play this nicely :)

Braydon was so small and yet so big at the same time. He is so small compared to Luke now, but so big compared to Luke when he was born. Luke was 2 pounds smaller when he was born and got down to 5 pounds before he started to really gain his weight back. It was so much FUN to hold a newborn again! (And, no, we are not planning another little one just yet ;)

Crazy Climber!...

Yep, we've got a crazy climber on our hands. His newest trick is to use the base board/ heater to give himself enough leverage to pull himself up onto the window ledge to get up on the table. I just hope this doesn't mean that climbing out of the crib is just around the corner. Boy, are we in trouble! Check it out!

More snow!...

"WOW!" (I am actually saying that word now!!!) We finally got out to play in the snow, but since it had sat overnight, it had a little layer of ice over it by the morning. So, no snowman this weekend, but maybe next time it snows.

Mom and Dad tried to get me to pull the snow off the tree, but I really wasn't into it. The snow was OK, but I wasn't really into taking pictures this afternoon either.

Well, maybe I will pose for one...

Weekend Randoms

I will try to climb on ANYthing! 

I love to put on Mommy and Daddy's shoes and gloves! 

Riding the carousel at the Mall! Even Mom rode with us!

One if my favorite things....playing music with Dad!

Spaghetti Night!

I love spaghetti night! I ate such a huge portion tonight that Mom and Dad were afraid I was never gonna stop and with blue berries for dessert, it doesn't get any better than this!

More Tricks and Chicken Pot Pie!....

Lukie does more and more fun things each and everyday! Some of our favorites of the moment include: 1. Making this really funny "cheesy" smile whenever we get the camera out. This just started this week and we don't know where it came from. He scrunches up his face and does the above "smile" for the camera ALL the time now.

2. He said his second 2 word sentence today all on his own. When Jeremy came into his room this morning , he said "Hi, Dada!" I about had a fit. The other 2 word sentence he says is "Get down" in reference to the cats. He has heard us tell the cats to "Get Down" off the table thousands of times and Luke started saying it about a month or two ago, but his sounds like "Git Down" in perfect southern drawl! Love it! We may be living in yankeeville, but we are still raising him up right! :)

3. He does the monkey sound now (he learned it from a zoo toy we have.)

4. He will sometimes get this plastic box with a handle that carries some potato heads in it or his Elmo computer that has a handle and walk over to the front door and tell us "BYE!" It is so funny. It's almost like he is going to work or something. It cracks us up every time. These are all I can think of right now....Mom, if I have forgotten any that we talked about on the phone this morning let me know and I will add them to the list.

Mom/ Liz/ Everyone, here is the promised easy breezy chicken pot pie recipe. Thanks for the recipe, Christy! This has been a Payne family staple ever since you gave it to us and Luke LOVES it!

Ingredients: 

2 cans cream of chicken soup

1- 15 oz. can of mixed vegetables

1/2 cup of milk

salt and pepper to taste

2 cups cooked chicken

2 pie shells plus 2 for the crust top

Directions: 

Mix 1st 5 ingredients. Pour into pie crust. 

Top with pie crust. Cut slits in top. 

Bake 40 minutes at 375. Cover edges with foil to prevent 

browning and remove foil for last 15 minutes. 

Thats it! SUPER easy! AND it makes TWO pies. 

(Cook's notes: I usually buy 2 frozen pie shells in the freezer section for the bottom crust and the pillsbury crust in the refrigerator section for the top crust. (It just seems easier to me.) And since it makes 2 pies, I usually cook one and freeze one. It tastes just as good after its been frozen and I love that I get to cook one night and get two nights of eating out of one recipe. This is probably a known cooking fact, but approx. one pound of uncooked chicken is a perfect amount for this recipe.) Enjoy! 

Eating Guacamole!

Just a short video of me eating guacamole. Dad had football on in the background that was keeping most of my attention. (P.S. This is the first video posted from our new Flip video recorder that Jeremy got from Mimi and Doc. Jeremy was actually taping this video himself, which is why it's kinda jumpy. And this outfit is one of the one's that Mamaw and Papaw sent for Christmas!)

First 3 Project 365 pics...

1/365: Eating pizza with Dad on New Year's Day! 

2/365: Watching Alabama get spanked by Utah in the Sugar Bowl! At least I could make the touchdown sign even if Alabama couldn't.

3/365: Playing with the empty box that held all of our Christmas presents from Mobile that wouldn't fit in our luggage. It was almost like Christmas all over again!

Happy New Year and a new project...

Today is the first day of 2009 and I am starting a new family scrapbook. It is called Project 365. Becky Higgins is the creator of this cool concept. You can read/ watch videos all about this kit on her web site/ blog www.beckyhiggins.com  Basically, it is taking a picture a day and journaling each day of the coming year. Sound overwhelming?....Totally, but SO MUCH FUN at the same time. I am super excited about it and have already taking pictures and journaling...Check it out....it went on sale today. I can't wait to document all of the little things about our family's little life. 

12.31

There was a little excitement at the end of Eckar street while I was at work. Apparently, we have a new UPS man and he didn't know that the best way to get to end of our street is to back down. You can't tell from the picture but there is a fence just to the left of his truck and a car in front of him. From what we could tell, we think he slid in the snow exactly sideways. The guy literally only had about 2 inches to spare between the side walk and the car. He eventually had to get a tow truck to pull the front back pointing the right way because there was not enough room for him to get out. As you can see, we got about 1-3 inches of snow while I was at work. Leave in the snow and come home to snow....gotta love NY in the winter...NOT!

12.29 and 12.30

Monday was Mom's birthday and this is the first time in a LONG time that I have seen her both for Christmas AND her birthday! The kids went in and pooled resources and gave her a chest for her silver, which she was really excited about. I was glad that we actually thought of something to get her that she needed, but hadn't already bought herself.

GREAT grandmother Marion was a trooper and came over again to babysit while we went out to, yep, you guessed it, dinner!  She played around with him, fed him dinner and then put him to sleep. She spent the night and even got up with him on Tuesday morning so that Jeremy and I could sleep in a little and get stuff packed up! Thank you so much, Grandmother!

Another fun family dinner to Celebrate Moma's birthday! Happy Birthday!

It was very sad times having to leave after enjoying 10 fun filled days in Mobile. (Yes, that is a random person in the picture, but I wanted to make sure the plane was in the picture and didn't think I could ask him to move out of our field of view.) We left Mobile at 3:50pm and didn't get back to Irvington until 1:30am after the drive from Hartford, CT. (Why Hartford?....see 12.19 post!) I have to be up by 6:30am tomorrow for work.....YIKES!

12.27 and 12.28

Saturday night was the Nutcracker Ball which is a charity ball that honor's young ladies making their debut into the community. It was a fun night out and this was the first time Luke was baby sat by someone other than family. Her name was Pam and she works at the church.

Our cousins, Callie Cunningham (above) and Mary Kate Murphy (below), were both honored. They both looked beautiful!!!

The Greats enjoyed their night out on the town as well!!! There was also a silent auction and mom won a 3 day vacation to Grayton Beach and a USA college of medicine desk chair. 

The boys were having fun, but I think they enjoyed the late night pizza we got when we got home best of all!

Sunday, Mom and I sang in the choir and then we all went down to eat lunch at the hospital, since Doc was working. That night we left the baby with Mimi and Jeremy and I actually went to a MOVIE! I cannot remember the last time we went out by ourselves to the LATE movie! It was SO much fun. We saw Australia and it was one of the BEST movies we have seen in a very long time. We HIGHLY recommend it!