Dear Peyton

Dear Peyton,
Oh my Sweet P! How fast has this year gone by!! If I could, I'd hold you down and want you to be this age forever. You are such an amazing child! Tomorrow you will be 3 and we will celebrate with the whole family at Chuck-e-Cheese's with a Little Mermaid party.

This past year we have definitely had our struggles and as much as I think I have helped you along the way, I know that you are the one that actually helped me along the way. You have been amazingly resilient through it all, and know just when I need to hear my favorite words, "I love you Mommy!"

You are head strong and independent. (Imagine that!) I know that I am spoiling you, but I just can't help myself. You are hilarious and I never quite know what is going to come out of your mouth. You definitely keep me on my toes. You light up the lives of so many people around you and embrace everyone you meet. You are so smart and really impressive at puzzles and the details you remember. There is no fooling you, even though I may try! You mastered potty training this year, like it was no big deal. I was so proud. Watching you learn and figure out how to do stuff by yourself is amazing. It's like I can actually see the lights turning on inside your brain. We are going through an "I can do it!" Phase and I have to admit I am proud to see you want to do stuff for yourself rather than be waited on. But don't get me wrong, you pretty much demand milk/chocolate milk as soon as your eyes open in the morning. You ask "why?" for just about everything I say. But I know you are inquisitive and will be a force to be reckoned with as you get older. You have developed and share my love of all things Disney. We are quite a pair and can watch The Little Mermaid or The Lion King continuously...and we do!
Your are the light of my life and love you to the moooon!!

I love you my sweet girl!
Love,
Mommy

Halloween 2013

This year I let Peyton decide on her costume! Well around August/September she was REALLY into Minsters Inc. so she decided she wanted to be Mike Wazowski, as in the little green ball of a monster with one eye. Well, Jilly found this girly version of Sulley and Peyton was convinced. Although, the week before she was pretty insistent on Ariel.

Presenting, Peyton as James P. Sullivan or if you asked her Kitty!

The inspiration

She was soo excited to go with Avery and Brady! 

I need to get the rest of the pictures from Jill because they were so cute all dressed up.

After hitting a quite a few houses, I took the Littles home and Jilly took Avery out some more. Peyton and Brady play so well together. She was very excited to hand down her talking zoo to him, so she was showing him how to use it. 

Staycation 2013 - The Children's Museum

On Wednesday, my Dad came with me and Peyton to a trip to the Children's Mueseum in Houston. She had a blast and kept Grampa chasing her the entire time.

She informed Grampa that she was making a rocket ship with the magnets and it was going to blast off! 

ONE...

TWO...

THREE...

BLAST OFF!!!!!

Pretending to be a Policewoman....

And arresting Grampa! 

She kept telling me that she was saving his life! 

Staycation 2013 - Galveston

With the end of year chaos, just around the corner, I decided to take off a week and spend some quality time with my P. I got us a room at Moody Gardens for Monday night and we drove down that morning to enjoy some time away. We started off at the Moody Gardens Aquarium. I think we were two of five people in the whole attraction, so we had the place to ourselves, which actually made for a fun experience. We were in no rush, so P was free to play.


Posing at the Sea Lions
Mommy and P
At each Shark exhibit, P got to stamp a little book, which she did, in addition to her arms...

Locked in a Shark Cage

Apparently she doesn't share her Mama's crippling fear of sting rays

When she is a bit older, we will definitely have to see the 4-D Wizard of Oz.

On to the Rain Forest Pyramid, where it would have been nice to know that there were birds just flying around...no cages, or netting...nothing. I also have a crippling fear of birds (of which I have totally passed to P!! Oh well!) 

Ready to catch a butterfly!

They were everywhere and she absolutely loved seeing them! 

This is when she was telling me, what she would do if the giant snake got out.

Parenting 101: Here P, stand on this ledge and don't move, so I can take a cool picture! 

The next day we ate room service for breakfast which was a hit! (I am raising a DIVA!)  And we headed to the Sea Wall. Since it was the middle of the week, the Pleasure Pier wasn't open, but we still had fun walking along the beach and went and sat on the porch at Murdoch's to enjoy the ocean.

Possibly one of my new favorites of us!!

When you are 2, chasing the sea gulls never gets old!
We hung around Galveston for the day, before heading back to Spring and continuing our Staycation.