How Embarrassing!

Kids are often brutally honest and don't have much of a filter. I've heard horror stories of the inappropriate things that kids say out in public. Now I'm getting to experience it first hand. And for whatever reason, Peyton has taken to calling people out on their weight.

As he and Patrick were grocery shopping the other day, they passed someone that Patrick admitted was on the larger side of size. Peyton suddenly belted out (not so quietly), "Dad! That guy is FAT!" He's pretty sure the guy heard him. This led to a discussion about the things that are not so nice to say to people. But trying to explain where this line is to a 3 year old is not exactly easy.

Then this week, Peyton's class had a Christmas party for all of the parents to attend. Another little boy in his class has a dad that I've met and chatted with on a number of occasions, and as we made small talk at the party, Peyton interrupted, "You have a big fat belly!" This led to my mumbled explanation of how we've been joking about my big growing belly as I totally avoided eye contact, apologized, and slinked away. This guy wasn't huge or anything, and he took it in stride, "Oh! That's from all the cookies I've been eating!" Thank God Peyton didn't say it to his wife that gave birth to their child a few months ago now. As I tried to control my rising blood pressure and red face, we had a discussion about how we don't say things like that to people.

So, I would like to apologize in advance to anyone out there that my son insults. We're working on the issue, but I can't promise he won't be perfectly blunt with you during your conversation with him. He's certainly not learning these bad manners at home!

Heaux Heaux Heaux

Our Santa Picture - 2011. Isn't Peyton so handsome in his argyle sweater vest?!

A comparison

I'm now 29 weeks along, which means only 11 more to go (more or less). After a round of steroids, my back is a little better, and I'm able to tolerate sitting and/or standing for longer periods of time. I'm not ready to do cartwheels or anything, but I"m thankful to have a little more function back. The physical therapist told me that it may not be until after the baby is born, possibly not until after I'm finished breast feeding, that I actually feel fully recovered. But I can at least sit through a meal now without having to choose between laying down for some relief and getting enough food in my belly.

One side effect of the back issue is that I waddle a little more than a normal pregnant woman, apparently causing the woman at Sam's last week to ask me if I was due on Thursday. Uh, no, I have 3 more months to go. She responded that I must be having twins then. Uh, no, there is only one. She told me she thought one might be hiding in there. Gee, thanks a lot! But I wondered whether I seem to be smaller, bigger, or the same size this pregnancy as with Peyton. So I pulled out a picture from 29 weeks with Peyton (left) and took another picture today to compare (right).




















I don't know...maybe I was bigger with Peyt? I will say that I don't think I've gained as much weight this pregnancy. However, today I was measuring 30 weeks, which is about a week ahead of schedule. According to my 32 week post with Peyton, I was measuring 32 weeks....who knows. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how big this little girl is .....in 11 weeks!

Halloween!

Halloween was a little quieter this year. Unfortunately, no trip to the pumpkin patch :( But next year, we'll go back and have a great time! These days, our activities are limited to things where I can find a place to lay down so we strategize before we do anything. I was feeling up to going to Trunk or Treat, though, so we did get to have a little fun. Families decorate the trunks of their cars and kids go around and collect candy. I knew some friends of ours would have their trunk decorated so I would be able to sit in their car for little breaks. There was also a little green space where the kids were running around so I was able to lay down in the grass. Because I'm now visibly pregnant, it seems to be slightly more socially acceptable for me to lay down in strange public places.

Several months ago, I asked Peyton what he wanted to be for Halloween. We discussed several possibilities but he seemed to settle on being an astronaut. I'm not really sure where he came up with the idea or why that was what he wanted to be, but I was happy to honor his request. A little shopping on amazon later, I found a few for him to choose from and he picked the one he wanted. As soon as it arrived, he wanted to put it on. He even posed in front of the fireplace for a picture. (He's not too much into taking pictures these days).

We usually like to do some kind of family theme, so Patrick and I thought about how we could complement Peyton's costume for the Trunk or Treat event. I settled on being "outer space" and Patrick was an alien. We managed to get a family picture, although certain participants were not willing to look at the camera.

Trunk or Treat was a week before Halloween, but I assumed Peyton would be an astronaut for Halloween as well. The day before Halloween, a friend asked Peyton what he was going to go dressed as for Halloween. I fully expected his response to be an astronaut since that's what we talked about for months. Nope. A pirate. I reminded him that he was going to be an astronaut. Nope. He was an astronaut last week for Trunk or Treat. He needed to wear a different costume. Like he's 16 and can't wear the same dress to a second prom, even though no one was going to see him twice in the same costume -there's totally different crowd in our neighborhood!
I know my son well enough to know that when he has an idea in his head, there really isn't any changing his mind. Luckily, I had a pirate costume in the closet from a kindergarten teacher friend that had a bunch of extra dress up costumes that she passed on to me. I'm not sure I could have pulled off buying a pirate costume with less than 24h notice.

It poured down rain in the early evening on Halloween, but it finally stopped long enough for us to walk around our neighborhood and gather some candy from a few houses. There aren't many kids in our subdivision, so we only saw two other families out and about, but Peyton still had a fun time. And I was happy to get to see him run around in his pirate costume gathering candy that I would subsequently get to steal and eat myself.

23 Weeks and Counting!

I figured I haven't compared my growing baby to any fruits or vegetables yet during this pregnancy, so I'm way overdue! I'm at 23 weeks and at this point, an average baby is about 11 inches long and weighs about a pound, about the weight of a mango. But then again, I don't have average sized babies, apparently, so who knows how accurate this is.

The other night, Peyton put his ear up to my belly to see if he could hear the baby. Whatever he heard, he thought it was the most hilarious thing he'd ever heard. We caught a little of it on video.




I'm still living life confined to the floor, unfortunately. The consensus is that I have a herniated disk in the L4-L5 region of my spine. Because I can't have any imaging done while I'm pregnant, its unclear how bad it is. But at this point, imaging won't tell us anything that would change the course of treatment of a pregnant lady. There are a few more options once I have the baby if its still a problem. But for now, chiropractic care, physical therapy, and depending on how much longer this goes on and whether anyone will write me a prescription, possibly steroids to help reduce the inflammation of the disk. Its still unclear to me whether this will get better anytime soon. When I initially started seeing the chiropractor, she said it would take about a week and a half to help me feel better. I'm three weeks in to the chiropractic care, and I would say I'm only marginally better. And a lot of that may be that I've really given up on trying to have any kind of a life and I pretty much just stay off of my feet. I will start seeing a new physical therapist on Tuesday, one of only 2 in the area that has a special training in spine health. I guess as long as there are options and possibilities on the horizon, I should remain optimistic. But I'm 6 weeks into the back pain and everyone thought I would be better by now. I'll continue with the combination of PT and chiropractic care for now, and see where that takes me. I'm managing to get myself back and forth to work everyday, sometimes driving myself, other times depending on the generosity of my hubby and my fantastic coworkers. I have a mat and a pillow on the floor of my office, so I'm able to stay comfortable most of the day. The students that I meet with sit at a table and we discuss the task at hand with me on the floor. They're all pretty used to it and don't find it odd at all anymore. Some days are better than others, but here's to hoping there are more better days than bad days to come.

As for our house, we didn't have any luck selling it. The market is especially slow this time of year in our neighborhood. The time to sell here is March - June. We just felt like it wasn't worth continuing to lower our price, so we've decided to take it off the market. We had already decided not to build a house in Apex, as we had planned earlier this year. Patrick's new job in its new location didn't warrant such a long commute for both of us. But we still have our hearts set on living in a bigger house, both for our expanding family and to accommodate guests and visitors. With me on the floor and another little one on the way, we especially need our family's help now, so we'll need a place for them to stay! We've decided to put our house up for rent and hope that this will be a much quicker process than selling it. We'll go ahead and rent a bigger house for now as we consider school districts and ponder trying to sell our house again in the coming years.

Stay tuned for exciting updates from the Harrell household...

The Name Game

I guess I'm about 20 weeks now and that means we're halfway there! I had a great pregnancy with Peyton, but I can't say I'm having as much fun this time around. I'm typing this sideways with one hand while lying down because I'm having so much trouble with my back that I can't sit or stand comfortably for more than 15 minutes. Its a problem that started about 4 weeks ago and has gotten progressively worse. Its hard to know exactly what is causing the issue since I can't have any imaging done, but it could be anything from my scoliosis, sacral instability or a bulging disk that is causing it. My physical therapist is banging her head against the wall, as is Aunt Di who has spent a lot of time on the phone with me trying to talk through what might be going on. Patrick is being so awesome, I couldn't ask for a better husband, but he's really having to do everything around the house and with Peyton because I can't do much of anything. Quite frustrating. Peyton is being such a sweet boy, it makes me very proud. He asks how I'm doing and gets ice packs for me and "checks everything out" while I'm laying on the floor. He's being quite caring and sweet. I just hope I get some relief soon and I don't have to spend the next 4.5 months on the floor.

Onto more fun topics, we're in the process of choosing a name. We're going to keep this one a secret like we did last time. Thats for a number of reasons. 1. Its just fun to keep everyone in suspense. But more importantly, 2. We want to reserve the right to change the name and 3. We don't want to be influenced once we've decided.
That being said, we're taking suggestions. Here are our loose criteria:
1. We don't want it to be the most popular name out there - that automatically discards the Olivias, Sophias, and Isabellas.
2. We would like for it to have some kind of family connection. Peyton Christopher has a lot of family meaning to it - Peyton is a variant of Patrick and Christopher is a family name from my mom's side of the family. So if any of you family members have some good names in the family tree, let us know.
3. It has to work well with "Harrell". That means no Hannah Harrell or Laurel Harrell.
4. We don't want the name to subject our daughter to years of teasing on the playground.
5. We don't want the name to remind us of people we'd rather forget.

Our baby name book is somewhere in a box in storage so that won't be any help, so let us know in the comments if you have some suggestions!

The Big Gender Reveal!

So, here we are; almost mid-way through the pregnancy. And I wish I had more time to update the blog. But life just gets in the way sometimes. Peyton certainly keeps us busy!

We had our big ultrasound the other day. I was around 18 or 19 weeks, so it was time to find out the gender! Something inside of me told me this one was a girl. I don't know what it was. Something very similar inside of me told me Peyton was a boy, so I kind of hoped my instincts were right. I thought it will be totally awesome to have one of each. But statistically, those Harrells like to make boys so I questioned whether my instincts were right.

Here is an updated picture of the baby:



And this picture apparently shows that its a girl! (But I had to take the US tech's word for it.) What I do know is that I couldn't see anything that indicated that it was a boy:



As part of what is becoming a tradition with some girlfriends from graduate school, we all got together for a big gender reveal. I bought both pink and blue balloons and the idea was that Peyton would present the right color at the right time.

This isn't the best video because my finger kind of covered the lens (oops), but Peyton tripped as he was coming into the kitchen for the reveal, which kind of dampened the fun as we worried more about whether he was ok rather than what color balloon he was carrying. But most of my friends were surprised as many of them had guessed it would be a boy.




It was at this point that we explained to Peyton that the baby in Mommy's tummy was a girl. He had been telling everyone that it was a boy. I wondered if he had some kind of connection that I didn't know about. But my friend Rebecca caught a later conversation on film where we were still trying to convince him that it was in fact a girl in my tummy.




The good news is that he seems to have come around and will admit that the baby is a girl if you ask him now. He tells everyone its his baby. So I'm happy that he has taken the news well and is excited about the new addition to the family.

My Mommy is a Teacher!

Explaining what I do is a little complicated. I don't teach courses anymore; instead, I work more in an administrative role with our Biological and Biomedical graduate students at UNC. I still teach workshops from time to time, but for the most part I work one-on-one with graduate students enrolled in our program that need to improve their critical analysis, or their writing and oral presentation skills - skills that are important for becoming a successful research scientist. I like my job at lot - unlike teaching 200 students, I get to know my students very well and I'm really proud of their accomplishments as they improve throughout their time working with me.

Anyway, I had never really had a conversation with Peyton about what I do, but I guess in a sense I would still consider myself a "teacher". That seems to be the simplest way to explain it to him, as opposed to the 100 words or so it usually takes me to describe what I do. He has come down with strep throat (poor little guy), which means Patrick and I have to juggle our schedules so that one of us can be at home with him. Today I happened to be teaching a couple of workshops to our incoming graduate students, as this is orientation week, one of our busiest times. So, I went to work in the morning to teach the workshops and came home at lunch so that Patrick could go to work. When I came home, Peyton asked me "Where you went?" I told him I had been at work. "What you do at work?" was his next question (I'm always prepared for a series of them). Hmmm...."Well, I'm a teacher". "A Teacher?! NO way! .....Daddy, is Mommy a teacher?" Yes. "Whoa!" Suddenly, I had become really cool in the eyes of my three year old. "Well, what you did at school today, Mommy?" Funny, I ask him this question everyday. His usual reply is, "I don't know". Again, wanting to keep it simple, I told him that I taught some students some math. "You taught your friends?" "No, students" "You mean friends?" "Yes, yes, that's what I meant." I guess in his mind, friends are the people that go to school and sometimes its just easier to agree than to explain. "Did you go outside to play, Mommy?" This was my favorite question. Ahhhh....to be 3 again where I could just go outside to play for awhile as a necessary and integral part of my day. I didn't have the heart to break the news to him that he will eventually outgrow the recess part of his day.

The strep throat came on pretty quickly, starting with severe stomach pains and eventually progressing into a fever and sore throat. We caught it relatively early and got him started on antibiotics. He's feeling a lot better already, and claimed the ice cream that Mrs. Lauren and Amelia brought him to help him feel better (aren't they sweet?!) made his throat feel better and made all of the germs go away.

Someone Wants to Say Hi!

We have hopefully made the rounds in announcing our big news to mostly everyone. But for those of you that may have missed it: We're preggars!

We're very excited, and are happy to have made it through the first trimester. Things have been going well so far, and all the memories of being pregnant with Peyton are coming back.
Things like:
I find Patrick's jokes way more funny when I'm pregnant. (Why? I have no idea.)
My emotions have the ability to swing one way or the other at a moment's notice. And they swing big.
Food is a very central component of my day. All day. Every day.

I had forgotten a thing or two about being pregnant. I have been very, very, very tired during the first trimester. I really don't remember being this tired with Peyton. Patrick says he remembers that I was. And apparently, my labor wasn't so fun. I obviously don't remember it being all that bad because I've signed up to do it again.

I do remember that I had a large baby. Indications so far point to another big baby. I started getting a belly at 5 weeks and quickly had to abandon my normal clothes. Hiding it until I was ready to tell people was a challenge. Not to mention that the ultrasound tech told me yesterday that the baby is measuring a full week bigger than it should be at this point. Yep, sounds about right.

We haven't explained the situation to Peyton yet. No need for him to worry for 28 more weeks about all of the attention he will be deprived of with the addition of a new baby in the house. Patrick did teach him to tell me that I have a big fat belly, so perhaps he will start questioning the reason behind my enlarged abdomen soon. So far, he's content to just laugh along with his daddy.

As I mentioned, I had an ultrasound done yesterday. This was part of a screening they do for trisomy defects when you're around 12 weeks. It was a little too soon to tell the gender, but here are some pictures that were taken. The baby waved several times and the tech was able to get some great shots.

The head is on the right here and the baby is on its stomach:




He/she flipped onto its back:


A good closeup of the arm:


He/She looked at the camera and waved!


The heartbeat. A solid 165bpm (For those of you keeping score, I looked up Peyton's heartrate around this time period and it was 178bpm). These days, no one believes there is a correlation between heart rate and gender.

Upcoming Trip

We're planning a trip home for the week of the 4th of July, and unlike every other trip we've taken down there since Peyton was born, we'll be driving instead of flying. Peyton is clearly a routine-oriented child, and he likes things to be done the same way each time. So the conversation about driving to Nola didn't go very well:

Me: So, we're going to New Orleans soon and we're going to drive in the car to get there.
Peyton: Is it far far away like Disney World? (Everything is measured according to DW distance now)
Me: Well.....its a little farther than Disney World.
Peyton: No, that's not how we get to New Orleans. We get in the car and drive to the airport. And then we take a bus to get to the airplane (he's talking about the shuttle bus from the parking lot). We take an airplane to the airport in New Orleans and then Lollie comes and picks us up, Ok, Mom? That's how we do that.
Me: Uh...well, we're going to do things differently this time. We're going to drive all the way there.
Peyton: NO! WE'RE NOT DRIVING! WE'RE TAKING AN AIRPLANE! (and, yes, he's pretty much yelling at this point).

Oh, this is going to be a longgggggggg car ride.

Treme

Some of you are probably familiar with the HBO series Treme, featuring a unique neighborhood in New Orleans and the musical side of the city. Patrick and I have just finished watching the first season, and the theme song is quite catchy. We taught Peyton a few lines.....(don't worry, we don't actually let him watch the show, he's a little too young). Looking forward to seeing season 2 when it comes out on DVD.

Peyton's New Friend

Peyton has a new friend. His name is Christopher Harrell.

I had been holding on to a Build-a-Bear gift card for some time, waiting for the right time for Peyton to appreciate the process. I decided it was time for us to take a trip and let him create his new friend. It had been awhile since I had been to Build-a-Bear, but the process is pretty simple: You choose the "skin" of whatever you want to make and there are lots to choose from: bears, monkeys, rabbits, dogs, cats, frogs...if you can stuff it, you can make it. Then you decide if you'd like to put some kind of sound inside of your new friend, you stuff it with stuffing to the desired fluffiness, warm a little heart, make a wish, and put it inside to make your friend come alive. You also add a tag to the inside that can be scanned if your new friend is ever lost so that they can reunite it with its rightful owner. From there, it gets all sewn up. You can take it over to the bath tub to clean it all up (with air and brushes), then you give it a name, and print out your new friend's birth certificate.

Peyton picked out a puppy dog (one of the more expensive skins, I might add), and I steered him away from adding a sound like a yippy, annoying dog bark, although the sales lady tried her best to sell Peyton on the idea. We stuffed him all up, making sure he could stand on all 4's but not too much so that he would still be soft and cuddly. We added his heart and Peyton made a wish (who knows what went through his head at this point, but I secretly made a wish for him). Peyton spent a lot of time and care with his new puppy at the bathtub, making sure he was nice and clean. As we filled out the birth certificate (and I took great care to remove my information from every marketing email list), I asked him what he wanted to name him and he said, "Christopher Harrell". Hmmm...interesting choice in names since Christopher happens to be his middle name. I guess he has just a small repertoire of favorite names at this point.

Although we had pretty much maxed out his gift certificate at this point, I thought I'd let Peyton spend a little of his birthday money on an accessory or two. I thought the dog collar and leash would be a cute addition, and we could leave it at that. Nope. Peyton liked the dog collar and leash, but then he wanted the puppy to be on roller skates so that he could actually drag him around. But now I have to buy two sets of roller skates because our animal walks on all fours and they only sell two at a time. Fine. Let's go. Well....you can't put on the roller skates unless you buy shoes too. Once I agreed to the roller skates, there was no going back. I couldn't tell Peyton that we couldn't get them anymore or else I would have to deal with the wrath of a 3 year old when I went back on my word. And you guessed it, those only come in pairs as well, so now I need two sets of shoes for my 4-legged friend in addition to the two sets of roller skates. Well, we're still spending birthday money here. Finally, puppy dog, collar, leash, shoes, and roller skates later (for all 4 legs), we were on our way out the door, with me swearing that it was a very dangerous place for 3 year olds.

Peyton was so excited to get home to introduce Christopher Harrell to daddy and Nellie. I didn't think either of them would react favorably. Daddy took it better than Nellie, but I think she'll warm up to him eventually. Once it was time for Peyton to take a nap, I knew he would want Christopher Harrell to go with him. However, I didn't realize that Christopher Harrell was going to need a bed. Silly me. And a blanket. And you have to take his leash and roller skates and shoes off for him to take a nap. Of course. After finally doing the nap-time routine for both Peyton and Christopher Harrell, I said "good night Peyton" as I was walking out the door. "But MOM! You didn't say good night to Christopher Harrell!" Oh, dear.

Naturally, I could still hear Peyton up in his room playing after about 30 minutes so I went up to remind him that he was supposed to be taking a nap. I pointed out that Christopher Harrell was still in his bed taking a nap like he was supposed to be. But then my son pointed out to me that in fact Christopher Harrell was not sleeping because his eyes were not closed. How do you argue with that?

I managed to snap a picture of the two new best friends post-bath tonight. Peyt is wearing his PJs and his Mickey Mouse hat. And, yes, the bed time routine now includes putting Christopher Harrell to bed too.

The Lowdown on the House

Its finally time to share the details of our house! We're building a house in Apex, NC, south of where we live now. Patrick and I both have good jobs and we have good friends here, and we have a made the difficult decision to stay in this area for now. We miss our family and friends back home terribly, though, so we've chosen a house with what we think will be a very comfortable guest area for visitors (hint, hint!). Check out the floor plan - one modification will be that there will be a full bath downstairs for the guest bedroom. (See - comfy!)

The house is in a brand new neighborhood that is being built so we've had the exciting opportunity to pick out our cabinets, counter tops, flooring, exterior paint color, etc. Here is a peak at our cabinets (bottom left - espresso), floor (top) and counter tops (bottom right).

Thank you to everyone who voted for our exterior color and passed along their comments. Patrick and I have gone back and forth trying to decide between the two. One some days, we were leaning one way and on other days we were leaning another. This evening, we were both leaning Timberbark, so Timberbark it will be.

This is a sight map of our neighborhood, and the arrow points to the location of our future house. It will back up to an open space, which will eventually have something like a playground or gazebo or something in it.



The neighborhood is near the railroad tracks, which we're not exactly thrilled about, but we think Peyton will think its the coolest thing ever! The street in front of our house isn't cut yet, so this building process is still going to take some time. The sewer and water lines need to be run, and the lots need to be graded, and this will take about 4 months. From there, they will start building the houses in Phase 2 (of which ours is one of them). This will take about 3 months. So, we're not expecting to be able to move in until October-ish. That gives us plenty of time to sell our house. We're going to start meeting with Real Estate Agents soon, and our plan is to have the house on the market by the second weekend in April. There are a few other houses in our subdivision that are up for sale, and they've been on the market for awhile. We're keeping our fingers crossed that someone looking for a good starter home will fall in love with our house and everything we've done with it. Hopefully they'll be as happy here as we've been.

Our New House Exterior

So, I promise a post is coming on the details of our new house. But, quickly, I'm taking a survey to get people's opinions of the exterior color of the house. We've narrowed it down to 2 choices - as you can see, one is a brownish/green color, the other is a blue color. The pictures above are the design of our house, and I have colored in the different colors (I know its not the best coloring job, but you get the idea.) We can't do anything like white trim with the blue house or change the color of the shutters, etc. Once we choose the main exterior color, the trim and shutters are predetermined. There were lots of colors, and we've narrowed it down to these. Please choose your favorite in the survey on the right. Feel free to leave comments to explain your choice.

(There are a couple of other houses in the neighborhood that are the brown color, but there isn't a house in the neighborhood that is the blue color yet.)

***Disclaimer****We are in no way obligated to choose the most popular choice for the exterior of our house :)

Disney

Peyton's first trip to Disney was a lot of fun! It had been about 15 years since Patrick and I had each last been to Disney World, and many things have changed. Neither of us had ever been to Animal Kingdom, and a lot has changed in Epcot and Hollywood Studios too. I wouldn't say much is different about The Magic Kingdom. The parks were a little more crowded than we anticipated they would be, but we eventually figured out how to get the most out of our experience. There is always something to do in Disney, so we tried to get as much out of our time there as possible, without compromising Peyton's nap and sleep schedule. I think we did pretty well overall, with a minimal amount of melt-downs on his part.

We left home on a Friday night after work and drove to Savannah, GA, which was about 6 hours. We had anticipated that Peyton would fall asleep in the car and it would give us a chance to do some decent driving in peace and quiet. However, Peyton had other ideas and stayed awake asking about Mickey Mouse until about 10:45pm. He finally fell asleep and we drove a little longer. Once we settled into the hotel, Patrick and I crashed. I think I had just started to fall asleep when I heard, "Mommy? I want to get back in the car and keep driving to Mickey's house." It was 1:30am. My memory is a little foggy but I think I ended up sleeping on the floor that night to try to get Peyton to settle down in his sleeping bag. He was up again at 6:30am, bright and early! We drove on the next day to Gainesville, FL to see our good friends the Boones and the Harris's. We had a great time grilling and hanging out, but our little one was of course anxious to get to Mickey's house. We promised him it would only be one more day.

We finally arrived at our hotel and got all checked in on Sunday, eager and bright eyed to start exploring Disney. We weren't going to go to the parks until the next day, so we decided to head over to Fort Wilderness, a Disney campground, to catch the Chip and Dale Sing Along and Campfire. We took a bus, a boat and another bus to get there (2 hours later). Good thing we left our hotel with plenty enough time to spare (so we thought!) We had a great time singing songs, dancing, and making smores, so it kind of made the trek there worth it. (Although next time I will just get in my car and drive to Ft. Wilderness 10 minutes away).

All Peyton could talk about on our loooooong drive down to Disney was when he was going to get to see Mickey Mouse, so the first thing we did in the Magic Kingdom on Monday was look for Mickey Mouse. We weren't sure exactly how he would react when the actual meeting time came, but Peyton walked right up to Mickey and Minnie and gave each of them a big hug. As the week progressed, he met Donald, Goofy, Pluto, Buzz Lightyear, Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Eyore, and Snow White. His favorite thing about visiting the Magic Kingdom? Riding the monorail. The rides, they were ok. But the monorail - that got him excited!

Epcot has an amazing show in the evening called Illuminations. Its a laser/fireworks show and Peyton loved it.




He also loved the Finding Nemo ride. Especially all of the aquariums that you can see after the ride. Maybe its time he gets an aquarium..... Anyway, we also took Peyton on the Fast Track and Soarin' rides in Epcot, both of which were rides that we weren't sure he would like. Fast Track is a test track simulation by GM, similar to the types of tests the cars they manufacture go through. It goes up to about 60 miles an hour towards the end. He wanted to go back on it after it was over. Soarin' was definitely my favorite ride. It simulates a ride in a hang glider over mountains, water, etc. You're actually looking into a 180 screen and feel like you're flying. Peyton thought it was pretty cool too, although he's not talking about it like he talks about the monorail.

We did a character breakfast one morning and Mickey came by our table to say hello. We also got to see Goofy and Donald. Minnie and Pluto were nearby as well.

The Safari ride in Animal Kingdom was definitely one of the highlights. We got to see giraffes, gorillas, and elephants. It was raining quite a bit that day, but we got our Disney ponchos for an absurd amount of money and kept on going! We actually went back a few days later to ride some of the other rides and see more of the animals. Peyton's favorite part about this park was the Dinosaur playground. Lots of slides, and a sandpit where he could dig for dinosaur bones!



Overall, we had a great trip. We learned a lot about how to do Disney and we'll do some things differently next time. But until then, I think all that Peyton will talk about and remember is the monorail.

Christmas

Hello! Its February - where the heck is the Christmas post? Who's in charge of this blog anyway?!

I guess its been a busy couple of months for the Harrell family. The blog just hasn't been at the top of the priority list. I could promise to do a better job of keeping up, but I don't want to make any empty promises. And I certainly don't want to put anything in writing that could be held against me. So, I'll do what I can. And maybe I'll try to talk Patrick into helping out with a post or two. I think he's more entertaining anyway.

So here is the Christmas post!
Every year we take Peyton to see Santa and he's done a really good job of sitting on his lap. I figured at some point he might get scared of Santa or be uncooperative. Although he told me he was only going to sit next to Santa this year, he actually did sit on his lap. I think he figured if he didn't, he might not get the airplane he wanted for Christmas. So, here he is sitting on Santa's lap, just after telling him that he wanted an airplane.

Santa was very good to Peyton. He brought him the airplane he asked for and a recorder (which I actually haven't seen since Christmas, and I didn't even hide it on purpose), as well as a table and chairs set for our kitchen for play-doh and arts and crafts activities.

We also went to Nola for Christmas, something Patrick and I were apprehensive about. Peyton had a hard time the last few times we travelled, so we anticipated more of the same on this trip. But once again he proved us wrong and he was very well behaved and had a great time with all of his cousins. It was so good to see our families and we had a great time catching up with friends in between as well.

We do a Christmas marathon starting on Christmas Eve morning through Christmas Day evening. Its pretty much non-stop for two days, but after doing it that way for so many years, Christmas wouldn't be the same without it. I posted more pictures on Facebook, but here are a few highlights:
Peyton opened lots and lots of presents. He has had a great time with all of his new stuff...if only we had a place to put them. Oh, yeah, we're buying a new house. Post on that to follow....



Me and my Paw-Paw, one of my favorite pictures from this trip:




Peyton followed Will around everywhere he went. Will is a big kid himself, so I think he had a fun time playing with Peyton.