Funny Little Guy

As Peyton's vocabulary is growing, he's starting to say some of the funniest things. He cracks me up! I just thought I'd share a couple of funny things he's said recently.

Last weekend, my mom was visiting, and of course we went shopping. We had bags of stuff (mostly for Peyton) when we returned. She and Peyton were playing and Peyton picked up one of the plastic bags. He watches Patrick and I pick up after our dog on all of our walks, and apparently he has been analyzing everything we do. He took this bag and turned it over and over and folded it and kept folding and turning it over until it was all wound up. He then handed it to my mom and said, "Poot!" She's still laughing about this.

Then just this morning, Peyton and I were playing in the living room. Nellie kept trying to make herself comfortable sitting in my lap on the floor, and of course, this meant that Peyton also wanted to sit in my lap. As the two of them pushed and shoved each other, Peyton leaned forward and passed gas. He said, "Nice!" just as Nellie got up, huffed, and retreated to the other side of the room, as if she couldn't take the smell. I'm not sure where he learned that it was "nice" to fart. Boys!

Fireman Peyton to the Rescue!

I started thinking about what we should be for Halloween a couple of months ago. As usual, Patrick pushed for us to be Blue Man Group or Smurfs, both of which involved painting ourselves blue, neither of which I was very interested in. He's campaigned for these themes at least 5 years in a row. Its kind of funny that this is what he wants to dress up as because Patrick can't stand a mess, and I can't think of anything messier than painting myself blue. In the end, we decided to capitalize on one of the Peyton's favorite toys - TRUCKS! He loves trucks, especially his firetruck. So we dressed him up as a fireman, which he loved. Patrick went as a fireman too and I dressed up as a dalmation.
Our festivities started Friday night with a visit to a nearby community that was having kids night, complete with beltie goats that Peyton could get very close to. He was so excited!


They also had a bluegrass band playing. Peyton grooved and showed off his mad dance skills and amused the band. They had over a hundred pumpkins on display, with some really fantastic designs. I haven't had time to carve a pumkin in years, much less fancy ones like these!

Then we had some friends over Saturday night for a kid-friendly Halloween celebration. I made a pot of gumbo from scratch (the roux and everything, no cheating this time!) and we went to a few houses in our neighborhood to go trick or treating.
Its not easy to get 8 adults and 4 toddlers all in a good mood and ready at the same time. But we did manage to take a quick snapshot before we all set out.
Fireman Peyton pushed his firetruck all around and knocked on doors like he was a pro at this whole trick or treat thing. Lucky for him, there weren't really any other trick or treaters around so people were quite generous in handing out portions of candy. Well, ok, lucky for Patrick and me because we don't really let Peyton eat any of it yet.


Then we he got tired of pushing the truck, mom had to push it the rest of the way home.....
We didn't stay out too long. It was quite warm out and meltdowns started to occur throughout the crowd. Maybe next year we'll have to get Peyton a wizard hat, since he took a liking to this witch hat....

Pumpkin Patch

What is fall without a visit to the pumpkin patch? We visited the coolest pumpkin patch a couple of weekends ago with Peyton's pal Amelia. It was actually more like a farm, complete with goats, cows, a corn maze, hayrides, and lots and lots of pumpkins.

Peyton was thrilled to be able to feed the goats "Baaaa!"

We also enjoyed the hayride. Anything with trucks and tractors is really cool!

There was a little maze of hay that was just Peyton's size

And a corn maze with lots of different paths to run through! Here he is with his best gal pal, Amelia

He really enjoyed running with Mrs. Lauren.

What a cute picture of Mrs. Lauren and Mr. Chad!

And we got to pick out our very own pumpkin. We ended up cutting ours fresh from the vine!

Old MacDonald

Peyton loves to sing songs. He's learning how to chime in every now and then. Here is our version of Old MacDonald. I must warn you that it gets a little repetitive. And you have to listen to me sing - sorry.

Poison Control

Well, its another first. My mom had to call poison control for Peyton. She was babysitting while Patrick and I were tending to other important family matters. He was supposed to be taking a nap, and the pack and play was close to a chest of drawers. He opened the drawers, started pulling out the contents and throwing them all over the place. He was intrigued by a little jar of vaseline, one that I had put there with his thermometer for safe keeping. He dug his fingers in deep and spread it all over the place. In his hair, all over his clothes, all over his bed, all over everything he could get his little hands on. We figured he ate some too. How much? We're not sure. My mom went to check on him midway through his nap and found him fast asleep in what appeared to be a very wet bed but turned out to be very greasy. She freaked out, woke him up to make sure he was ok, and called poison control. Not to worry. It may serve as a laxative but otherwise he should be fine. 4 hair washings later, he's still a little greasy, but otherwise seems to be perfectly capable of getting into more mischief soon.

I think it will be awhile before Lollie gets over this one. She was more traumatized than anyone.

4 Generations of Harrells

The Harrell family lost a loved one this weekend. Big Daddy was 81 and lived a great life. When we were home in August, we snapped this picture of all 4 generations of Harrells - Don, Brian, Patrick and Peyton.

There is no doubt that Big Daddy will live on in his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Peyton will know how to hang sheetrock by the time he's 10, tile the floor by 12, and build his own house by the time he's 15. He's already showing a fascination with airplanes. He points to the sky and yells out "plane!" every time he sees one. Maybe he'll be a pilot too someday.

We'll miss you, Big Daddy!

More Peyton Videos

I thought I'd share a few cute videos of Peyton. We've been working on words lately. I realize that you may not understand "Peyton" speak, but I, as his mother, can understand every word.

Here he is identifying Nellie:



The other day I put some strips of masking tape down on the carpet to make a track. All I asked Peyton to do was to grab his trains, and he started "Choo-chooing" away without me even having to show him the track. He's a smart little guy!




Here's a little bit of Peyton's singing talents. If we start the song for him, he likes to jump in with a few words he knows.
At the end, he tells the camera "hi". He definitely knows what this means. We were eating out the other night and the waiter came over to take some dishes away, and Peyton said, "Hi!". The waiter was preoccupied and didn't respond, so Peyton repeated himself. Again. And again. And again. I finally pointed out to the waiter in the nicest way possible that he was ignoring my son. He said hello back and Peyton smiled from ear to ear.



And last but not least, we're amazed at the power of the television and the show "Word World". Peyton gets completely mesmerized by it. Amelia came over the other night to play and apparently she is also mesmerized by it. The kids had eaten dinner and Patrick and I wanted to sit down and eat our dinner, so I put on an episode of Word World so that we could actually eat. Amelia was sitting on the couch and Peyton was sitting in the red chair. The next thing we knew, both of them were sitting in the red chair together. And neither of them was even blinking.