Well I am a huge slacker. The whole family has been so busy. Chris and I went a cruise without Paige and Peyton in September. It was difficult to be without them but enjoyable. Nana and Papa enjoyed having quality time with the kids. It was nice to have quality time with Chris since it hard to come by with such busy lives. We were able to get over to the condo at Ormond Beach and spend time with Aunt Sarah, Uncle Troy and Abbie. We didn’t catch any sharks this time. We were able to go see Memaw and Papa at their house in Fort Meyers. My Aunt Penny from Maryland was visiting and we wanted to spend some time with her. It was nice to see their new house in south Florida. Our biggest trip by far was to Virginia the end of October. We went to a timeshare resort called Massanutten. The drive was too long and fairly miserable. The resort was very nice. We made sure to have many family meals. Nana is a great cook! The leaves were beautiful and we got to feel some nice cold weather. We missed snow by one county. At the end of the week Chris and I went to Richmond for a burn conference. We really got to see a lot of Virginia and made some important decisions about the big move to Virginia. We picked up the kids for a night drive back to Florida. (Thank you daddy!) We decided driving during the day with kids is too miserable for words. So many life changes on the horizon…all positive but scary!

Most recently we all went to daddy’s fire station Christmas party. Paige and Peyton both got a book form Santa Claus. Paige had her first boyfriend. She and the same boy played together all night. It was quite cute. There were so many kids there and everyone seemed to have a good night. We have the Christmas tree up and the kids helped. Paige and I put together a ginger bread house the other night. She enjoyed eating the candy!

The kids are doing well. It feels weird calling them kids but Peyton just isn’t a baby any more. He is huge. He has had so many changes since I last posted I am not sure where to begin. He is going to college next week. Oh, I guess it hasn’t been quite that long. He doesn’t sleep. He still gets up at night once or twice and wakes earlier than I would like in the morning. He only takes one nap of maybe 1 ½ hours. Meanwhile Paigie still takes a three hour nap daily. They are such different children. He is eating table foods and eats anything we give him. He loves to feed himself like a big boy. He does this whole body shake with a huge smile when you give something new. It starts at his head and moves to his toes. He has starting exacting revenge on Paigie for all the torture thus far. He pulls her hair and loves to see her react. If anyone lies on the ground he will attack! He is like a little bulldozer. His favorite song is ‘If Your Happy and You Know It’. If it starts to play or you start singing it he will immediately smile and start clapping. Obviously I love this instant mood elevating tactic. He has 7 teeth and likes to bite. He said his first word…..mama. He still says it to me only when I try to leave a room and he disapproves. Babies are very strategic in how they operate. He had his 9 month check up and all was well. He was huge. 29 inches and 21+ pounds. We went ahead and made him forward facing because he was too long for an infant seat. Now Paige and Peyton have matching car seats in both cars that will last them until they are in high school. Peyton has gone from cruising and standing very well to walking. He will walk a couple of feet then decide to crawl because it is faster. He is very good at transitioning from sitting, kneeling and crawling to standing. He seems to understand that it is cute when he is walking because he will start clapping as he walks with a huge smile on his face. He can waive bye-bye. Baby proofing for him was a must! He would not stay out of the cabinets. He is so fast that I couldn’t work in the kitchen without putting him in baby jail. I like him to be out and playing so we had a company baby proof the cabinets for us. They did a great job and now I can let him play in the kitchen while I work.

Paige is such a talker! She can carry on a conversation with anyone anywhere. She will frequently ask strangers their name and then talk with them at Publix. She talks on the phone so well. She listens and responds with appropriate comments. Her length of memory has expanded and she can remember things from even weeks ago. She has great insight into topics and asks such smart questions. She recognizes complicated shapes, many letters and numbers and can count to 25. She has finally started calling herself Paige instead of Sage or Sheshe. If you call her either she will correct you and tell you her name is Paige. The early sibling rivalry has continued and we keep it in check as much as we can. She loves her brother and that is why she has to beat him. She enjoys any park time with mommy. She has really blossomed at the new school. While we enjoyed the last school, this school is definitely a major improvement for Paige. She is fully potty trained in the daytime and wears a pull up or diaper for sleeping. She is growing into this little person right in front of me. We have started doing more arts and crafts at home. She seems to really enjoy them at school so we invested in all sorts of glitter, beads and accessories. Her love for Elmo has stayed in place and she carries her baby around with us frequently. She knows who a lot of the commercial characters are in the toy isles but I have kept her from watching Nickelodeon and other commercial TV channels. She watches PBS and Sprout shows.

Chris has been working a lot of overtime and has had some huge checks. That will help us get our bills paid! We are all very excited and stressed preparing for Christmas and both kids birthday parties. There is a lot of work to do and I know Paige cannot stop talking about her party. Then mommy has to take her boards in February. So many things to do with very little time to do them. We will post soon.

Height 29 inches
Weight 21 lbs 13 oz
Head Circumference 46 1/2 cm

Well another month has flown by. We have been busy with all sorts of stuff. The kids and I have been going to Gatorland on weekend mornings. I have lived in Florida since I was a kid and had never been. Now that I have kids I have been twice in the last month. It’s a nice little half day if you get there early. They have a playground, train and a water area that Paigie really loves. Not to mention alligators, turtles and snakes of course.

Chris’s fire station has started a tradition of doing a barbecue once a month rotating between different peoples homes. The first was in Port St John near Cocoa. It was a fun day. Paige played in the pool with their daughter Maddie. We also went to a one year old B-day party for another firefighter at Daddy’s station. George has 4 boys and they are hilarious and the food was great.

We had family pictures done. (see the photo section) It only took three settings to get it done. Yup….that was fun , glad it is only once a year. Paige and Peyton started at a new school this month. They are going to the same preschool that Chris went to when he was a kid. There are a lot of adjustments for mommy but overall we are happy with the change. The major benefits are it is closer and they open earlier. Paige’s behavior seems better at the new school. Now if I could only get her to nap consistently. The second day of school was canceled because of Hurricane Faye. Faye really didn’t bring much to Orlando but a lot of rain. It rained really heavily for five days and we had to keep wasting the water from the pool.

Daddy got his degree from Valencia…I am so proud. I have a copy of it hanging on my door at work. He is taking this semester off school and has been working a lot of overtime. While the paychecks are good, we miss daddy. Mommy had a minor surgery this month. I was happy to be done with it; I got a hernia when I was pregnant with Paige.

Peyton has been very busy changing this month. He started the month by sitting very well. Then he was pulling up and now he is cruising. He can crawl up the step in the living room and even more impressively down the step with only minor traumatic moments. He is trying to climb Paige’s bathroom step at the sink….mommy’s not ready for that yet. He is very strong and can move almost anywhere he wants to. He is eating everything in sight and is about to start protein. He continues to eat at night but is very efficient. He is all business; he eats and then goes right back to sleep. We had a problem with him standing up in his crib and not being able to get back down this month which I seem to remember with Paige as well. While it only lasted a week or so it was very painful for Peyton and mommy. He can get down form standing now without any problems.

He is very talkative and babbles in a conversational manner. It is very cute. He thinks he is talking. The new school seems OK for Peyton. They don’t seem to show as much affection as the previous school caregivers. We miss the baby room at Friends’ Academy . He also got a GI bug (pukey dukies) the first week at the new school. It didn’t seem to bother him much except he didn’t eat his solids…just milk and a lot of diaper changes. He still doesn’t seem to have any desire to have teeth. I will miss his gummy smile when he does finally get teeth. I truly love Peyton and we seem to have a great bond.

Paige has been busy becoming a big girl. Mommy got her ear pierced this month. Paigie got to watch. She loves to play with it and is very curious. When asked if she wants her ears pierced she says “later”. She was taking a ballet class one day a week and decided she didn’t want to continue. So we played at the park and haven’t been back since. We were going to stop in a week anyways. She continues to speak well and is really showing a deeper understanding of things. She keeps asking about the pretty girl they keep showing on the news. (Casey Anthony) She asks why she is on the TV. I told her that they cannot find her because her mommy is a bad mommy. She paused for a good 30 seconds and says, “mommy…you are a good mommy.” And just when they break your heart they try to break your spirit. She has thrown a few good sized temper tantrums this month. She is not napping at the new school consistently. We continue to work on her behavior. She is very smart. She can count to at least 25, recognizes and can write many letters. She understands that she is two but doesn’t seem to understand what that really means. She is an adventurous eater and is very strong and brave when she plays. I continue to see so many excellent qualities in her and love her so much.

Height 26 3/4 inches
Weight 18 lbs 6 oz
Head Circumference 43 1/2 cm

Well I guess we are going to have to go to monthly updates because weekly updates just aren’t going to happen Fathers’ day went well. Daddy got a smoker and the first recipe was smoked chicken. So yummy. I finally got to take Chris out to celebrate his promotion. We got a sitter and I think Chris had fun. We also got to go to a wedding the same weekend for two of Chris’s firefighter coworkers. It was an outside summer wedding in Florida at noon….enough said? No seriously it was great and the bride and groom couldn’t be happier. We had a visit from my cousin Mike with his wife Donna and their triplets. They live in Maryland and spent two weeks in Orlando doing the tourist stuff. We were very happy to have them over for the day and everyone had fun. Mike, Allison, and Natalie had all grown so much since we had last seen them and Paige loved playing with the big kids. My parents (MeeMaw and Papa) visited last weekend. The stop was brief because Peyton and I had a mild version of the plaque that made all of our plans get canceled for risk of contamination. Everyone seems better now. Chris’s parents (Nana and Papa) came for a visit this weekend. Sadly they are headed back to NC this week much earlier than expected. We hardly got to spend any time with them. As of today, Daddy is done with the summer semester and his AS degree. He is only going to take one or two online course in the fall which means the family will have a lot more time together this fall. His long hours have been difficult on all of us and it will be nice to have more family dinners.

Over the last month Peyton has changed so much. He is now sleeping in his own room for all naps and nighttime for about a month. He seems to sleep better without mommy and vice versa. He is now on a schedule for bedtime and waking but he takes naps as wants. He pretty much moves where he wants and how he wants. He started the month scooting and doing this cute belly turn thing where he looked like a whale at SeaWorld. At the same time he would get on all fours to crawl and then kinda look around like “now what”? Of course now he is an all out crawler. He doesn’t make it across the room yet but that is coming soon. He did crawl to the French doors today and just stared outside…it was cute. He has had two significant growth periods over the last month. One of the times I swear he got bigger while I was at work! His hair has changed so much since he was born. He has lost that plush dark brown hair and it has been replaced by a fine light brown/dark blonde hair. The biggest change is probably his food…he actually eats now. We started early in the month with that runny cereal; he wanted nothing to do with it! Gave it a break and tried again. He seems to like thick consistency so that’s what we give him. So now he has tried cereal, blueberries, mango, banana and avocado. Loved the mango, not so much for the avocado. I haven’t seen it yet, but apparently he feeds himself from a bottle. He will lay on the floor at daycare and can hold his own bottle. What a big boy. The daycare now has a cart called a bye-bye buggy that can wheel 4 babies/kids around at once. Peyton loves the trips outside in the fresh air. We only have three weeks left at this daycare and then we will go to one a lot closer to mommy’s work. We will miss everybody quite a bit. They take such great care of my babies.  Peyton went for his six month well babies and everything was fine.  70% for height and weight.  Dr Hayne called his ‘solid’ when he saw how strong he was.

Paige is doing very well. Her language and sentence structure skills continue to grow by leaps and bounds. She understands some basic timing and uses words like soon and later to chronologically order her preferences. She started ballet classes with her friend Jeniah. They seem to have fun and they look so cute in the dance clothes! Daycare is having water day on Monday and the kids get to play in sprinklers and wading pools. They seem to have a great time because Paige talks about it all evening afterwards. Paige even got to go to Aquatica with her friend Jeniah and her mommy Allison. Allison was kind enough to give me a break on a Saturday when Peyton and I were sick and she took the girls for a couple of hours to the water park. They seemed to have a great time. Paige is doing excellent with potty training. We are going to undies in the next week to be her to the final step. Paige also finally calls herself by her name. She pronounces her name ‘Sage’…took me forever to get this. She was calling herself sheshe for the last six months. Paige can identify all colors and basic shapes. She is doing really well with letter recognition but we haven’t really started number recognition. She is a typical two year old and has dramatic mood swings. We try to control these and she has her time out moments. Overall she is growing quickly into a little girl in front of our eyes.

The next month holds many changes. Mommy has to go in for a minor yet painful hernia surgery in a week. It needs to get fixed as it is causing quite a bit of pain. I don’t know how the kids or mommy will handle the postop period. Also on a really great note, mommy got promoted. I was promoted to senior physician assistant at my hospital. Essentially this just recognizes that I have attained enough knowledge to be more autonomous and a leader. The best part is it came with a 10% raise….woooohoooo!! So since everything else we buy has risen more than 20%, we are less broke these days Well until next month…..

This week was very boring. Peyton continues to grow and get stronger overall. He slept in his own room and bed for the first time. He seems to prefer the bed to the pack and play in mommy’s bedroom. He is still not sleeping through the night Paigie continues to add to her repertoire of songs. She has developed a love for Barney the purple dinosaur that I can do without. Paigie and Peyton now interact in the back seat. She loves to make him laugh. He tries to talk with her in their secret language. We are preparing for Father’s Day. We hid daddy’s present at the house and hope he doesn’t find it. Mommy continues to experiment in the kitchen…mostly good. Daddy is very busy with school, clinicals, and his new job. Mommy has been having some health problems recently and I am finally going to see a doctor to get checked out. I will keep you informed…see you next week.

Well I am so late I make no excuses at this point. I have however been spending lots of quality time with my babies. Instead of doing three separate blogs I decided to make one big blog. Peyton has changed a lot over the three weeks since I have written anything. He is truly reacting to his environment. He enjoys his showers now. He has started squealing with delight in the shower to the water. He has gone from holding objects with two hands without using his thumbs to using his whole hands now to grab things. We are working on sitting up unsupported. He still needs a bit of work in that department. He has chosen how to get from point A to point B. He likes scooting. He scoots backwards and forwards pretty well. He has also taken to exploring his bed and I always wonder where I will find him after naptime. Now he mouths as he watches us eat…it is really cute. He seems to really want everything that we are eating. Mean mommy is going to try to hold out until 5 and a half months before solids. He is still acting like he is teething and enjoys sucking on his bottom lip. It’s cute when he does it because he looks like a geriatric when they take their dentures out. Peyton is officially 4 months now and he went for his 4 months pictures with mommy. They are adorable of course. He has also taken his first nap in his bed. He seemed to enjoy his bed. First thing he did of course we prove to mommy he needs bumpers for the rails. Mommy also bought him a jumper. He likes his jumper at school so much that we decided that he should have one at home as well. His babble is adorable. Sometimes it is a lot of squealing other times his just kind of continuously consonant noises.

Paigie got to give her second bottle to Peyton. She really likes interacting with Peyton and they amuse each other well. Paige has lost about a pound with the swim lessons and how active she is at school. Her face is changing into a girls face instead of a baby face. She is growing so fast. She loves to sing nursery rhymes with mommy as we drive to and from school together. She requests songs from her toddler CD rather firmly. It’s cute because she still has her toddler speak and I am her best interpreter. She likes to be a big girl and help mommy around the house. We finally cleaned the backyard nicely and she was a big help picking up rocks and throwing them in the pool. Her swim lessons have finally ended. I say finally because they were painful to our schedule. She does really well. She flips to her back and instead of floating swims on her back to the side then flips again and gets out. I didn’t thing we would make it to the stage we did back at the beginning. I must admit she impressed me. Paigie continues to grow and shows how well she understands her environment. Then she expresses these things very clearly. We had a lizard in the office about a week ago. Paigie was nicknamed Paige the lulu hunter. She calls lizards lulu. She started tearing her toys apart to get to it and I asked her if I could help. She says “Lulu hiding!” We found it, trapped it and took it outside. She thought that was cool. Paigie also has a fascination with airplanes, helicopters, fire trucks and school buses; Basically anything transportation. She yells with joy whenever she sees them and we talk about the parts of the vehicles and the colors.

Mommy has been busy too. I had to take a few classes over the last few weeks that I am required to stay current and I procrastinated as always. Daddy started at his new fire station since he was officially promoted to engineer. It is a lot busier then he was used to at station 70. He doesn’t get as much sleep as he was before. It is just another transition for us. We had a great time at the beach for Memorial Day. Mommy and babies drove to Ormond over to Nana and Papa’s condo. Chris had to work unfortunately. Paigie enjoyed digging in the sand with her cousin Abbie. She seemed to have a great time for many hours while Peyton slept on the beach under an umbrella. Memaw and Papa came to visit while they were in town for a wedding. I was happy they were able to see the kids because they grow so fast. Now we are planning for Fathers’ day and I thing we have some good ideas of how to surprise daddy. Well goodbye for now…talk to you next week.

Height 24 3/4 inches
Weight 15 lbs 8 oz
Head Circumference 41 3/4 cm

Well, mommy’s post is really late.  I’ll blame fatigue and ACLS.  (I’ll discuss that in week 16’s blog)  Busy week as always.  Paige had her 3^rd week of swimming lessons.  They seem to be going well.  Paige, the instructor and I all swam together.  We took turns having her swim back and forth between us.  Her skills have increased every week.  Our swim instructor, Hope, had an auto accident this week.  She was hit a few miles from our house after she left the lesson.  She is doing well and we are grateful she was not injured.  Work has been busy and home life even busier.  Mother’s day was fantastic.  Chris really shocked me.  I thought he did the typical card and chocolate routine.  I was happy to have cards from the kids and excellent chocolate.  Then I got to work on Monday and found he had set up a digital photo frame with 100’s of family pictures in the nursing station for me to find.  I was brought to tears.  It now sits on my desk and I love it!  Paige’s vocabulary and sentence structure amaze me daily.  She is truly doing well being around other children her age in a fixed environment.  While she is making so many other great strides, I am worried she will lose her Spanish skills.  It might have to be a small price to pay for everything else. 

Peyton is growing and changing too fast.  He continues blowing bubbles and is drooling like there is no tomorrow.  I think the early teething symptoms have started.  He is doing well.  Very little pain.  He is developing some hair loss on the back of his head like Paigie did.  He rubs his head on the car seat and swing causing a balding pattern.  They are crazy babies. He seems to have erratic eating patterns.  He will have a few nights of waking one or twice like he is supposed to and then will have a night or two of ravenous eating every three hours on the dot.  I don’t see a set schedule for him in the near future. He is also very talented.  He has already perfected throwing toys out of his car seat and bouncy/swing.  He has quite and arm for a three month old!

On a final note….drum roll please…..Chris was promoted to Engineer!  Orange County had been screwing around with his paperwork for the better part of a month and he is now officially and Engineer for the fire dept.  We couldn’t be prouder of him and can’t wait until we can announce he is a paramedic then nurse then nurse anesthetist!

Sorry for the delay, Hope had issues this week with the website software.

Well another week has gone by. The second week of swim lessons seems to keep Paige tired. She cried the whole time still. Mommy was sick again. This time I lost my voice for a few days. This only added to my usual level of fatigue. Daddy was on spring break and enjoyed his much needed rest. Mommy and Daddy went on their first kid free date. Mommy’s friend Allison was kind enough to watch the kids for a few hours. It was nice. Peyton is so social. If you laugh he laughs and his first true giggle came out. It was rather cute. On a sad note my friend Melinda lost her battle against cancer this week. She is survived by her husband John, her mother, brother and sister, not to mention more friends than anyone can count. She was a beautiful smart woman who will be missed dearly.