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.

Peyton's Song

Peyton wanted me to sit in his fort with him yesterday morning and play music with him. His music set consists of a set of drumsticks, a tambourine, some bells, and a shaker. As I obliged and played both the tambourine and bells simultaneously (I know, I'm multi-talented, right?), he came up with the words to a song all on his own.

"Mommy, Mommy went to town; On an airplane on vacation; Hooooo, hooooo, hooooo, hooooo....."

By "airplane", he meant a G6, and "vacation" clearly means a trip to New Orleans because that's the only place we ever go on vacation.

I didn't have a video camera to capture the actual moment that the song was composed, but we did encourage him to recreate it later. Not quite the same, but you get the idea:

Halloween

We had a fantastic Halloween weekend! Friday night, we went to a nearby community that has a big pumpkin festival - all of the workers carve pumpkins and then put them on display. It was really very cool.



It put me in the mood to carve a pumpkin, but there really wasn't any time....maybe next year.
Peyton had a great time listening to the live music and running around to touch all of the pumpkins. I even caught him blowing out the candles inside of one. I think another kid showed him how to do that.

Then Saturday night Patrick and I got dressed up and went to party! He was an artist and I was his painting. Peyton helped him paint my shirt.



Trick-or-treating in our subdivision is usually pretty quiet, so some friends invited us over to their house in a neighborhood full of kids. It was worth the 45 minute drive! There were tons of kids running around in costumes. Lots of Buzz Light Years, Princesses, Harry Potters, etc.




Peyton was the only pilot, and he had a blast. He got the hang of the trick-or-treating thing pretty quickly. He would run up to the door and yell "Trick-or-Treat!", but more in the tone of "Gimme some candy!" At one point, he turned to me and said, "No, Mom, you stay here (at the end of the driveway). I go by myself." Alrighty then. He's 2 and he's already embarrassed by me. I was hoping I had another few years before that would happen!


After he was completely exhausted from trick-or-treating, we let him pick out a piece of candy to sit down and eat. He chose the M&Ms. And then thankfully he had no idea that the rest of the candy completely disappeared right to Daddy's office. (I had to sneak a few pieces for myself too, of course!)

I think by next year, he'll be a little wiser, and we won't be able to get away with that.