Obsession

My latest pregnancy craving, bordering on obsession, is peppermint ice cream by Blue Bell! I don't have it EVERY night, but close to it! 34 and a half week check up today went great! Thankfully, I only gained 1 pound in two weeks, considering my almost nightly date with peppermint ;) this is a miracle! Baby is doing great and despite waking up 3-4 times a night and the swelling in my legs/feet I am doing good. One last ultrasound on the 28th and then I will be going every week! Wow, I really am in the home stretch and am counting down the weeks!

Cheers to babies and ICE CREAM!

Happy Friday!

Happy Valentine's Day 2011

I hope Luke has as much fun handing out his Valentines at school today, as I had making them!

Happy V day to all our family and friends, both near and far!

XOXO

The Payne Boys!

The Payne boys all dressed up for Church! I love the picture of Luke looking up at Jeremy! Luke LOVES his daddy!




As I've said before, Luke is SUCH a big helper! The most recent Payne boy chore: fix the broken hand rail! Good job guys!

Christmas Vacation

Wow, I have to say that I was surprised at how much down time there was to fill in when Luke was off from school. His Christmas vacation lasted 2 weeks and I have to say that I am so happy that we are getting back into our schedule again. He is a handful on a normal day, so school has been a good release for him. Here are a few ways we kept our busy body busy:


PAINTING:
Luke loves to paint and I love to do any kind of painting project that involves hand prints. We got caught up and did some handprint turkeys for Luke's Thanksgiving scrapbook page and we did a cool finger print on mini canvas ornament.


CHORES:
Luke's new favorite chore is to put the silverware up! It is so funny to hear him name each one, "spoon, knife, fork, spoon!"


OUT DOORS:
One day we went to Gran Jack and Gran Betty's house to pick oranges from his two gigantic orange trees. They were delish!


MAKING COOKIES:
I decided to be a good mom and we made home made cookies for santa this year. Luke had a blast rolling out the dough and cutting out the shapes. His favorite was the teddy bear.


NEW COUSIN:
Although Baby Collin can't technically "play" yet, we still had fun getting this cousin shot for Mimi's birthday.


PLAY DATES:
One of my oldest friends came by for a visit to meet Baby Collin and it was very interesting to see how Luke and Thomas "played" since this was the first time Luke has had someone over to play with his toys! It went as well as it could for a three year old and a 14 month old. I can't believe we all have kids now and that MMGK and I have another on the way. Luke predicted that MMGK was having a girl and we will see in a few weeks is he is right!


CHICK-FIL-A
No vacation would be complete without a few visits to Luke's favorite lunch place!


ORGANIZING:
I don't know if it's too early for nesting but Jeremy and I have been on clean up and clean out mode! We are gearing up for a huge multi-family yard sale in the spring before the new baby arrives, so we are cleaning out closets and our storage building. Luke loves to put the items the "yard sale/ giveaway/ trash boxes.


FIREWORKS:
Uncle Kyle bought some fireworks to ring in the new year, but Luke only likes the "quiet" ones. If any of them that made too much noise, he ran inside to hide!

Here's to a healthy, happy, and simplified new year!

Full circle....

Santa brought some brand new bedding for Luke's big boy bed. So, Monday after Jeremy got off work, Luke helped Jeremy take his beloved crib down! Luke is such a big helper these days. We were excited that Mom kept Uncle Paddy's old bunk beds and that the bottom "bunk" was the perfect size for Luke's first big boy bed!



Luke was so excited about his bed that he couldn't resist trying it out before it was completely made up! (And yes, that is my 6 month pregnancy belly, and yes, i have 3 more months to go, and yes, i am as HUGE as a house already!)


As soon as we had it made, he jumped in the bed and got in this pose all by himself and said "Now THIS is a big boy bed!" He is such a ham for the camera!

He FINALLY did it!!!.....

Last Monday morning, it FINALLY happened..... I was awoken at 7:45am to the sound of Luke saying "I did it!" and it WASN'T from the monitor... Luke was standing right beside my side of the bed. He said "Mommy, I was calling you! I climbed out and I didn't bump my head!" Up until this point he would never even try to climb out because he didn't want to 'fall and hit his head' (not sure where he got this, but we were happy to keep him in his crib as long as it lasted.) He has been asking about a big boy bed for a few weeks and we had already decided to move him to a BIG BOY bed after Christmas, so timing couldn't be more perfect. He has done amazingly well with his new found night time freedom and only had one night in two weeks where he kept getting up. Just one more milestone to mark off his list and it's always bittersweet :)

MeeMaw and Papaw's Visit

MeeMaw and Papaw came to visit us from GA this weekend, so they could come to the This is Christmas presentations at our church. I was so excited when they pulled up in the drive way!


Since it was so close to Christmas they came bearing all of the Christmas gifts from that side of the family! On Friday night, we went to the mall and I got to pick out a $15 dollar toy from Granny Plank. I decided to get a Cars plush Lightening McQueen and have slept with it every night since. On Saturday morning before we headed up to church, we had the Payne side Christmas. I got a cool new kitchen like my cousin Emily has!


I was also totally excited about my Cars themed underwear!


Aunt Alyssa, and my cousins, Madison, Jared, and Emily got a huge goodie bag. I LOVED the snoopy clock and silly bands, and my Cars hat and gloves. I also got a Cars chalk board and crayons and Snoopy kleenex!



My Aunt Christy also got me a goodie bag! I was excited about my new dinosaurs and my Snoopy lamp! I had my mommy set up the lamp in my room as soon as I opened it!



I was so happy to spend some time with Meemaw and Papaw and I was especially glad they (along with GM) were able to take me to the first This is Christmas performance so I could see my Mommy, Daddy, Mimi, and Doc sing! Even though the performance was over an hour and a half, I was a perfect angel the whole time!

Another one of the highlights of the weekend was watching Home Alone for the first time! As you can see, Mommy didn't know who was enjoying it more, Papaw or Me!

Thanks to all of my family for the wonderful gifts and getting Christmas started off right!!!