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.