4th of July Festivities

We had a very busy Independence Day weekend. Saturday morning we headed to the Dundalk parade that we go to every year. There is a McDonald's near the parade route and we meet there for breakfast most years. We met my parents, Jeremy, and Jill around 8:00. We ate a quick breakfast and then drove over into the neighborhood to park our cars. Then we walked over to "our spot" where Aunt Bev, Kim, Dougie, Nadean, Vester, and Austin were already seated. They saved us some space for our chairs.

Peyton was very excited to go to the parade. The night before he asked me what we were going to see at the parade, and I told him we'd see firetrucks and bands. He wanted to know what animals there would be in the parade. I told him there would probably be horses and dogs. He argued with me insisting that there would be zebras in the parade. I'm not sure that I ever convinced him that there would not be zebras.

Peyton was so well behaved at the parade. Here he is before the parade started. Kim gave him this flag and he waved it for the entire parade. I don't think he set it down.

Here's Kyle and I.

And here is the rest of the family.

Although the temperature was only around 80 degrees in the morning, it was so hot at the parade! We were seated on the side of the street with absolutely no shade and the sun was directly in our eyes. Everyone was pretty hot, but I was absolutely miserable. Eventually, I decided to walk down the street a bit and stand under a tree. The difference in temperature was dramatic.

The parade lasted about three hours, but that parade is known for lots of long breaks between the paraders. There parade always starts out with lots of firetrucks, ambulances, and police cars driving with their sirens blaring. Peyton covered his ears because it was so loud, but he loves emergency vehicles. There were several high school bands and the Ravens band marching in the parade. I think every politician from Baltimore County and even Martin O'Malley and Bob Ehrlich were in the parade as well. We did see one horse, but that was the only live animal. There was a costumed pig, turtle, and the Chick-Fil-A cow (Peyton's favorite...) too though. But Peyton counted all of those as animals too.

After the parade was over, we went back to my parents' house for a small cookout. Peyton took a nap after lunch. Then he went outside and played in his pirate ship pool. That canon actually shoots water when it is hooked up to a hose. Peyton loves to get people wet.

Kyle got attacked with a water gun, but promptly grabbed one of his own and fought back against Peyton.

After the pool, Jeremy, Jill, and Aunt Bev came over. My parents cooked hamburgers and hot dogs and we also ate cucumber salad, Suddenly Salad, and corn on the cob. We had an ice cream pie for dessert. Yummy. We went home around 6:00 because we were all exhausted from waking up at 6:30 am and being in the sun all day.

Sunday afternoon there was a cookout at Nadean's house. We went over there after Peyton woke up from his nap. He was pretty excited about that party because Nadean has a pool and Peyton couldn't wait to swim. As soon as we got there, Peyton started to beg Kyle to get in the pool with him, but we made Peyton wait until after he ate some dinner. Finally, we let him get in the pool and he had a blast with Kyle, Vester, Austin, Bo, and Dougie swimming and playing with a beach ball.

Eventually Peyton was shivering so bad that I made him get out. He did not want to be removed from the pool at all. I had to bribe him with a chocolate chip cookie, which he thoroughly enjoyed.

It was really hot again, approaching 100 degrees. There was a tent set up in the backyard though, so we all sat in the shade. It actually didn't seem as hot as it did the day before at the parade because we weren't sitting in the sun.

We left Nadean's around 7:30 to drive up to Fullerton to watch the fireworks. We set up our chairs on the field and then Kyle and Peyton took a walk to get us drinks. When they came back, Peyton sat for a little while and read some books. Then he got a little antsy again, so Kyle took him over to the music stage, where Peyton rocked out to the band. Kyle said he was dancing and would have started a mosh pit and/or crowd surfed if he could have.

My parents arrived while Kyle and Peyton were at the stage. They set up their chairs and blanket and then my dad went to get some funnel cake. Yum. Mom brought some Mickey Mouse cards and she and Peyton played Memory while they were waiting for the fireworks to start. I think Peyton beat her every time.

The time passed pretty quickly and then it was time for the fireworks. Peyton sat on Kyle's lap. I don't think Peyton blinked for the entire show, which lasted a good 25 minutes.

It was a good show. Here is one picture of the fireworks.

When the fireworks were over, we walked back to our car and it took us until about 11:00 before we actually made it home. It took a few minutes to get off of the parking lot and then a while to drive because we had to take a detour due to the crowd control. Peyton passed out on the way home, of course. He sort of woke up when we took him in the house, but I don't think he was ever fully with us.

We had a good two days of parades, cookouts, and fireworks. The only downside was the scorching heat.

Busy Weekend

We had quite a busy weekend. On Saturday we headed up to Baltimore for Jill's graduation party. It was at her mom's house, and it was the first time that we've met anyone from her family. Everyone was very nice and welcoming. Everyone also knew Peyton before he was even introduced! We left our house when Peyton woke up from his nap and got to the party around 4:00.

Here is the graduate and Jeremy.

Jill's mom had a nice in ground pool. You know Peyton just could not wait to get in and swim. He begged Kyle to get in with him until Kyle finally did. I would have been in that pool in a minute if I wasn't so ginourmous, since it was so hot that day. Peyton jumped right in.

Then he relaxed on a float....

... And worked on his swimming skills...

... And played with an inflatable car.

We ate a little food, but then left the party because it was just too hot and I was dying. Thanks for inviting us though, Jill!

On Sunday we went down to Virginia to see Kate, Dave, and Noah. Peyton and I haven't seen them since Noah's birthday party in April. Kyle saw them in May when they went to Michigan together. Anyway, it was super hot again. In fact, on the drive down, Kyle's car told us that it was 104 degrees! I don't know if I really believe that, but it was hot.

Peyton did a fashion show for us during the drive. Here's Mr. Cool in his sunglasses. He knows he looks adorable in them.

And for his next outfit, Peyton wore Daddy's Michigan State hat. Still cute.

We spent most of the ride with Peyton figuring out the first letter of about a million different words, based on their sounds. He's getting really good at that. He should be reading by 3. Ha. At Kate's we just hung out, the boys played with toys, and then we ate dinner. Dave grilled some yummy hamburgers, and there was also pasta salad and corn on the cob. Peyton LOVES corn on the cob, as you can see from the following picture.

I had good intentions to take pictures, but I ended up sucking at that. Kate pointed out that this was the last time they'd see us as a family of three. Ahh! As excited as I am for Hunter to be here, I don't think it's really quite hit me yet. I'm nervous about having two kids! But I'm sure it's much easier going from one child to two than from no kids to one. Right?

Daddy's Barbershop

Everyone knows that Kyle cuts his own hair. And he's been wanting to cut Peyton's forever. I finally gave in tonight and let him do it. He set up the barbershop in our bathroom and buzzed away. Here's the after. I think Peyton looks so much older with the short hair.

We'll see if I let Kyle cut Peyton's hair anymore. I'm not sure that I like the completely shaved look. (Of course, Peyton is still super cute!) But at least it saved us $15 + tip, and we all know how cheap I am...

Hunter's Room

I went to the doctor again today, and there still is no progress. Looks like Hunter is going to take his sweet time coming out, just like Peyton did. I officially have 2 weeks until my due date, so I guess I can't really complain... YET. But I am dying to get him out though! We are all ready for him. The car seat is installed, the bottles are washed, and our hospital bag is packed. Now I just need some contractions.

In the meantime, here are some pictures of Hunter's room. We did a transportation theme.

He has lots of clothes and diapers too.

We're ready for you, so come on out, PLEASE!!

Father's Day

First of all, I'd like to wish my own Dad a very happy Father's Day!

Even though Sundays are usually my sleep-in day, I let Kyle sleep in today since it was Father's Day. At least Peyton slept until around 8:30 this morning, which was much better than the 6:30 he decided to wake up at yesterday. Kyle got up around 11:00. When Kyle came downstairs, Peyton excitedly yelled, "Happy Father's Day!"

Kyle cut his hair and shaved his beard this morning. Whenever he does that, Peyton loves to pet his head and face. He says, "Daddy, I like your cheeks."

Peyton gave Kyle his Father's Day gifts. Kyle got a gift card from my parents.

Peyton gave Kyle a really cute card that he made at daycare. The front was supposed to have a sailboat on it, but Peyton prefers the Picasso method of art and there was just two sails, the mast, and the bottom of the boat randomly glued on the paper. On the inside was a picture of Peyton wearing a sailor's hat, his hand print, and the words, "I'd said the seven seas for you, Daddy."

For his real gift, we got Kyle season 7 of the show 24. It is one of his favorite shows and he has all of the other seasons, so we thought we'd add to his collection. I hope he liked it!

Peyton looks quite excited about the gift, even though he had no idea what it was.

Kyle spent the rest of the day doing normal Sunday things - relaxing, folding laundry, and playing with Peyton.

Kyle, you are a fabulous father and Peyton (and Hunter) is very lucky to be able to call you his daddy!

Peyton

Here are just a few random pictures of Peyton that don't really fit with any other posts. Peyton was looking crazy this day in an Orioles floppy hat, his plaid shorts, and blue Crocs. I bought him the Crocs just to wear on his water days at daycare, but Peyton loves them and wants to wear them whenever we will let him. And, of course, he needed the hat to complete his ensamble.

On Friday night, Kyle went to play poker, so it was just Peyton and I hanging out at home. We played with his Sesame Street and Mickey Mouse characters. Peyton is an organizer. He loves to line up the little figures. This time, he put them in a circle and told me, "They're talking!"

Hey Peyton, say "Cheese!" I love his eyes.

Baby Shower

On Monday, my co-workers threw me a baby shower. My boss "organized" the shower by delegating other people to do all of the work. That's how he operates though, so it is to be expected. It was a very nice gesture. My friend Wah-Wah sent out the invitations and was in charge of the decorations. Our department's secretary, Toni, ordered the food from the caterer.

The shower took place at lunch time in a conference room. Everyone wanted to take so many pictures of me! Here I am before the shower officially started.

And here is the food. There was a platter of roll-ups, a platter of sandwiches, Asian noodle salad, potato salad, and vegetables with dip. Everything was delicious.

This cake was great! Notice the misspelling of the word "family." Haha. It was a three layer cake. There were two layers of chocolate cake and one layer of yellow cake. Instead of regular icing, the cake was frosted with Cool Whip. It was so so so good.

After everyone was full, I opened my gifts.

Hunter got three outfits. This one was especially cute. On the onesie it says "Beary Cute" and there is a little bear on the butt of the pants. Adorable.

The whole group also pitched in to give me a gift card and some cash. Everyone was very generous!

We just chatted and hung out for a while. It was a nice break to the day. Thanks everyone for thinking of Hunter and I!

Ultrasound

Today, at 36 weeks and 1 day, I went for an ultrasound. My doctor wanted to check on Hunter's size. I had an ultrasound around the same time when I was pregnant with Peyton for the same reason. At the ultrasound for Peyton, they told me to expect a baby that was around 9 pounds. Well, we all know how that turned out... In order to guess the size of the baby, they measure the size of the baby's stomach, the circumference of its head, and the length of one of the leg bones. Then these numbers are plugged into some formula and the baby's current size can be estimated. Yesterday, Hunter was measuring 6 pounds 14 ounces, which is exactly what Peyton weighed when he was born at 41 weeks. I just read the other day that at this point, the baby is gaining about an ounce per day. I have 27 days left to go, so that would make him 8 pounds 9 ounces if he went to exactly 40 weeks. Ahhh! But neither Kyle or I really believe this stuff seeing how they were so wrong about Peyton's size. We'll just have to wait until Hunter is born.

The pictures weren't that great, but here is Hunter's profile. I still think he's cute though!

And here is Hunter giving us a thumbs up. I hope that doesn't mean that he is super comfortable and ok with hanging out in there for 4 more weeks. I want him out! I can't wait to hold him!

Orioles Game

On Friday night, Kyle's company treated everyone to an Orioles game in a suite. The suite was really, um, sweet! It was hot outside, but inside the suite, there was air conditioning and it was nice and cool. There were several televisions in the suite and a private bathroom (which I used lots of times). Here is the buffet set up.

There was all-you-can eat food including yummy crab cakes, pit beef, pit turkey, hot dogs, Cesar salad, cheesy bread sticks, vegetables with dip and hummus, popcorn, peanuts, Cracker Jack, and giant cookies for dessert. There was also sodas, water, and free beer. Everything was delicious.

Here's another view of the inside of the suite.

And this is what the outside seating section looked like. The chairs were really comfortable. They were padded, had arm rests, and were on wheels.

The O's were playing the Mets. There were definitely way more Mets fans at the park than Oriole's fans. Boog Powell threw out the first pitch. He played first base back in the late 60s and early 70s and owns the famous pit beef stand at Camden Yards.

The Oriole bird was out there on the field too.

I was trying to be optimistic that maybe the crappy Orioles could win the game. However, they won Thursday night, so I didn't really think they could pull out two in a row, since they've only won 17 games all season. Here are the O's taking the field.

Our suite was directly behind home plate. Kyle and I got there quite early, so we claimed seats in the front row of our little section. Great seats! Here's the view.

And here are Kyle and I during the game. Unfortunately the Orioles do suck and lost the game 5-1. Honestly I can't even believe they scored one run. At one point they had bases loaded with no outs and still couldn't score. It is so depressing. I don't know how those guys come to work every day. It's embarrassing. At least we got to eat free food the whole time. I guess that made it worth it. We had a nice time at the game.

Water Fun

As the weather has been quite hot lately, Peyton has been playing outside in the evenings. Early last week, we got his water table out for him to play with. He loves dumping the water into the different toys, but mostly he just enjoys being wet. He can't do anything with his mouth closed though! Don't know where he got that from. Ahem.

Then one day later in the week, we filled up Peyton's little plastic pool. We told him he could go swimming after dinner, but when he saw this pool, I think he was a little disappointed because he couldn't figure out where he was going to go swimming. He still had fun playing in the pool though.

Again, notice his wide open mouth!

Potty Training

After looking into several potty training strategies, we decided to potty train Peyton using the 3-day potty training method. It was my first choice for strategies, and after reading a favorite blog of mine about a family with quads being able to successfully train all four of their kids with this method, I knew it was the best choice for us too. If they could do four, we could definitely do one. Right? We just never had three days in a row to devote to the training. Finally, our chance came over Memorial Day weekend.

Step one of the training is to buy lots and lots of underwear. The author of the method recommended 20-30 pairs! Yikes. So Peyton and I took a trip to the store on Wednesday so that he could pick out his own underwear. He chose some Sesame Street ones and some Cars ones. He was so excited about the underwear. He held on to them throughout the store, and even proudly showed them to the lady in line behind us. That was sort of embarrassing, but super cute too, and she played along with him, so it wasn't that bad.

Step two of the training is to throw away all of the diapers in the house. It seems like overkill, but this step is more for the parents more than the child, because it leaves the parents with no crutch, nothing to fall back on. It forces you to stick out the potty training without quitting. When we got home from the carnival on Friday night, we made a huge deal about throwing away all of the diapers. We let Peyton throw them away. (Ok, I'll be honest - we only "threw them away." I had bought a huge box of diapers not that long ago and I wasn't going to waste them. We put them in a box and put them in Hunter's room.) Peyton knew that in the morning he would only be wearing big boy underwear, which he was so excited about!

I woke up with Peyton on Saturday morning. We took off his last diaper ever(!) and put him in some big boy underwear. The plan is to only wear underwear and a t-shirt. Here's Peyton modeling his new underwear.

The overall concept of this method is to catch the child each time they have an accident, and then run them to the bathroom so that they can finish their business on the potty. The child can't wear pants because that makes it harder to see if they are having an accident. We purchased a huge plastic drop cloth and put it in our living room so that it would contain all of the accidents. And my, were there a lot of accidents. It was just accident after accident on Saturday. He absolutely no concept of being able to tell us when he had to go to the bathroom. A key point of this method is to NOT ask the child if they have to go potty. You need to say "Tell mommy or daddy if you have to go potty." It makes them feel like they're in control. I think over the weekend, Kyle and I said that phrase, oh, a million times. (Um, we're still saying it a hundred times a day!) Saturday was really exhausting since we had to keep an eye on Peyton at ALL times. We couldn't even get on the computer or anything because that took focus away from Peyton. It was such a long day.

On Sunday, Kyle got up with Peyton. Sunday was even worse than Saturday. I think Peyton went through most of his 20 pairs of underwear. We even had to do some laundry too. It was more of the same though - lots of pee on the floor. Luckily, he didn't poop in his underwear at all. Kyle and I were incredibly frustrated by Sunday evening. We had to take turns calming each other down. Another key point to this method is to stay positive at all times. That was REALLY tough!

Monday morning, I woke up with Peyton. He still had lots of accidents but peed/pooped on the potty a few times. He was still no where near being fully trained though. He knew that when he had an accident that he was doing something wrong though, because he would get a really embarrassed look on his face and then apologize profusely to us. I guess that was a step in the right direction? Anyone who said this method works in three days is a liar. Haha. By Monday evening, Peyton was having so many accidents in a row that I had a breakdown. I'm sure it was largely in part due to my hormones. But I started crying and just couldn't stop for an hour! Peyton was in the other room, and I heard him saying things to Kyle like, "Where's mommy? Mommy is so sad. Why is mommy crying?" It was cute (now, looking back on it... but not at the time!) Kyle explained to Peyton that mommy was sad because he was not being a big boy.

We decided to keep Peyton home from daycare on Tuesday so that he could have one more day of training. We knew that daycare really wouldn't be any help. On Tuesday, it definitely did click for Peyton and he went on the potty so many times, telling Kyle that he had to go each time. They would call me at work so that Peyton could tell me all about it. He was so proud. We had a sticker reward system in place all weekend. Each time Peyton went on the potty or woke up dry from nap or bedtime, he would get a sticker. Once he filled up his sticker chart, he got a prize.

I think he's had an accident each day since last weekend, but he tells us all of the time now whenever he has to go to the bathroom. He also wakes up dry every morning and after his naps. So we are completely diaper free! It was a really stressful four days, but it was definitely worth it to have Peyton out of diapers. Now if only Hunter could be born potty trained...