Happy Mardi Gras!

Mardi Gras is an annual event in New Orleans, and one that Patrick and I have fond memories of growing up. I can always remember going to the parades every night leading up to Mardi Gras, standing on Veterans across from the Pontiac dealership. On Mardi Gras day, we'd get up early, put on our costumes and head out to the parade route, ladder in tow, where we'd set up our spot between Causeway and Bonnabel. It was an all day event, we'd walk up and down the street, seeing friends and family who had staked out their own pieces of grass on the neutral ground. The parades would take several hours to pass and we'd catch lots of beads, cups, and stuffed animals. Once home, we'd get to play with our loot until the evening ended with complete exhaustion.

I would imagine that I crossed paths once or twice with a cute boy and his family that were dressed as Indians, dalmations, or cows, among other things through the years. Little did I know that I'd one day be a part of that family that were hanging out at the Harrells! And now we have a little one that we'll bring to Mardi Gras one day.

Even though we couldn't be home for Mardi Gras this year, we did a few things to celebrate the occasion and help Peyton get to know a little about this New Orleans tradition. We went to a Mardi Gras party with the LSU Alumni association Saturday evening and ate king cake and jambalaya. Lollie and Pops came to visit and brought lots of beads to play with. And Mrs. Lauren and Amelia taught Peyton all about the Second Line. Apparently, Peyton was a natural. He was holding the scarves when the second line song came on and he started waving them around like he had done this hundreds of times before.

Here's the video. He takes a couple of seconds to come around the corner, but he makes it!

Be My Valentine

Peyton finger painted a masterpiece that I think will sell for millions one day. He gave it to me for Valentine's Day. I think Mrs. Lauren helped him with it a little bit. Just a little. While mostly abstract, you may notice handprints as part of this beautiful work of art.

Learning How to Walk

Over the last few weeks, Peyton has been working on his walking skills. He's gone from resembling someone that's had a little too much fun on Bourbon Street, beginning to walk but deciding it might be easier to crawl, to someone that just had a few too many at the neighborhood bar, and can manage to stand for considerably longer periods of time.

This first video was taken last Tuesday. Of course his ever faithful friend Nellie is by his side. By the end, he decides that he's more interested in playing peek-a-boo. And, yes, I know his shirt is too small. But changing him again after I had him dressed would have been way more effort than it was worth.



In the next video, taken a week later, you can see how much he's improved. He's pretty much into everything now. I guess he'll start climbing on everything next. Oh boy!




Poor baby needs a haircut. He's starting to look a little scruffy. But I'm not quite sure how to get a vibrant, curious 10 month old to sit long enough to cut his hair because I'm sure that he'll want to eat the scissors.

Peyton's First Snow

Monday evening we went to bed with the promise of snow the next morning. Sure enough, the neighborhood was blanketed in white when we woke up. It snowed throughout the day - Patrick estimates that we got about 4 or 5 inches. We bundled the family up in layers upon layers of clothing and set out to take a walk. Nellie kept running up to each of our neighbors' porches hoping someone would let her in from the cold. She was not interested nor amused by the white stuff. She was just darn cold and wanted to go inside. Peyton didn't have much use for it either. We sat him down in the snow, betting that he would take off crawling, examine the snow, try to eat it, something noteworthy. Instead, he just sat there, apparently too cold to want to do much of anything. We took the hint and brought him inside, but not before we snapped a few pictures. After all, you only experience your first snow once.

More snow pictures and other January events are here.

Peyton's First Steps

Peyton had his 9 month checkup last week, and he's doing really well. He weighs 23 lbs, 14 oz which puts him in the 90% for weight, so that means he's back on the charts after soaring above 97% there for awhile. The doctor was pleased with his developmental progress: he's clapping, crawling all over the place, pulling himself up on furniture, picking up objects and moving them from one hand to the other, eating all kinds of foods, picking up food and feeding himself, drinking out of a sippy cup, mimicking sounds (he loves to make raspberries), babbling like crazy, and overall a really healthy kid. On Friday, we noticed that 4 of his top teeth are coming in all at once. He has let us know that this makes him quite unhappy.

We told the doctor that Peyton would stand on his own if he was distracted and didn't realize that he wasn't holding on to anything. She suggested putting some objects in his hands so he would think that he was holding on to something. So, this was Peyton last Thursday:





And this was Peyton this evening (5 days later):




Pretty soon, he'll be running all over the place!

Where did he come from?

Conversations with people about our son often go like this:

Person: "Oh! What a beautiful little boy!"
Us: "Why, thank you very much! We realize that we are biased, but we think he's pretty cute!"
Person: "Would you look at those beautiful blue eyes and blond hair - where did he get those from?"
Us: "Yes, we think its quite remarkable that he has blue eyes and blond hair."
Person: "Well, are you sure he's yours?" (This is usually directed to Patrick)
Us: "How could anything that cute not be ours?!"

While we are certain that Peyton is 100% Ragas and Harrell, the jury is still out about who he looks like.

Peyton's First Christmas

Peyton enjoyed his first Christmas. We traveled to New Orleans to spend the holidays there, flying not only with Peyton but with our dog, Nellie, as well. We were those people in the airport that other people look at and wonder, "What were they thinking?!" All in all, it wasn't so bad. We figured that even flying through Atlanta's airport on the weekend before Christmas was better than spending two days driving from North Carolina to Louisiana.

We packed in visiting with as many family and friends as we could, and Peyton enjoyed the boxes and wrapping paper the most, although he did get some pretty cool presents.

We had an early Christmas lunch with the Ory's on the Sunday before Christmas, and Peyton enjoyed playing with his cousins (well, during the time that he wasn't snoozing.) Then the Christmas festivities revved up on Christmas Eve morning at Patrick's parents in Robert. From there, we traveled to Metairie to see my Dad's family. Then we took a small break back at my mom's before heading to Big Mama and Big Daddy's Christmas party that evening. Before we made it back to my mom's that night, we stopped at Aunt Di and Uncle Bill's Christmas party. Patrick and I agreed later that we may have done a little too much that day. I'm exhausted just writing about it again.

The next morning, we woke up to see what Santa Claus had brought to NO (even though he had made a stop in NC before we left for LA and brought Peyton some toys there too)! The thing Peyton liked the most was the shoebox full of wooden spoons. He got lots of new outfits and PJs and toys that make lots of noise! Overall, it was a very exciting Christmas morning. Then we traveled across the lake to see the Wedigs for Christmas at Mimi's. We finished up our day back at my mom's for Christmas Supper with the Sehrts.

It was good to see everyone, and we enjoyed seeing Peyton play with all of his aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends. He even got to see his friend Aubrey, who lives in TX. It was also nice to have lots of people around who wanted to help out so his mommy and daddy could have some free time too!


I've posted some pictures of our week home here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jharrell528/Christmas2008