Easter Party

Payton wanted mommy and Ian to come to her Easter egg hunt at school :) It was held on her playground and afterwards, Ian played with her class for a little while.

What a beautiful weekend!

The weather this weekend was fabulous! The trees are in bloom. Everything is greening out. The birds and bees are chirping and humming. All we need is James Baskett to come and sing Zip-a-dee-do-dah to us and Spring would be complete.

We played outside, ate outside, made the children run around in circles outside :) Daddy tried to teach the kids how to fly a kite.

Payton made a house for her and Ian to sit in.

(Family) Date Night

Yesterday evening the YMCA offered a Parent's night out. It's such a sweet deal. For $15, Payton and Ian get to play on a bouncy house, eat pizza and do arts and crafts from 5 - 9 pm. Scott and I did it one Friday in March and the kids were wonderful! They had such a great time. So we thought we would enjoy a dinner out at the Village Tavern without kids. This time Ian was pretty fussy when we dropped him off, but we thought he would get over it once he was at the bouncy house. We were about to be served the beers we ordered when we got a call from the Y saying that Ian would not settle down and 'Would you please come pick him up?' Ugh... We picked the kids up less than an hour after we dropped them off.

We were all starving, so we stopped at Pizza Hut. This was at 7 pm. We didn't get out of PH til 8:15 pm. There is something wrong with it taking an hour and 15 minutes for one pizza! Scott posed the question, 'Was it just because that we were so hungry that it seemed to take so long?' I don't think so. It took our waiter 10 minutes before he even came to our table. I was so frustrated with the PH experience, I don't know if I'll go back to that one. (Of course, it doesn't help the situation that when my blood sugar drops I GET GRUMPY :) I told Grandpa that story and his comment was that he was proud of Ian for turning Date Night into Family Date Night.

Dan Nicholas Park

Payton is on spring break this week, so we filled the time today by going to Dan Nicholas Park. It's a very nice place with a huge playground, train, carosel, petting zoo, and paddle boats. We met our friends Samuel and Sara there, took a picnic lunch, and took advantage of some decent spring weather. We didn't attempt the petting zoo and paddle boats, but we stayed busy enough with the rest.

Guess which Ian's favorite part was......

Chickens, Pigs and Ducks

'Why did the chicken cross the playground?' I heard Payton say to herself as she was cleaning up her room. Then she answered herself, 'To get to the other slide.' :)

She cracks me up.

Payton and I will be doing some activity together and she will narrate the proceedings like we're in a story book. We'll be coloring and she'll say, 'Mommy, I want to color this book.' and then under her breath she'll add, 'as she takes the book off the shelf.'

This afternoon, we tried to stay busy. We couldn't go outside because it rained ALL AFTERNOON! So Ian started launching a pig and a duck out of his car launcher.

And Payton was practicing her photography skills.

We made pizza and then took about an hour to clean up all the toys played with today.

Payton's first steps

I was blessed with a gift today. Our friend Tomi found a video of some of Payton's first steps. I used to go to a bible study at his church with his wife, Debbie. Tomi and Debbie's children were Payton's favorite friends and companions. She loved the child care there. Anyway, Tomi happened to have his camera handy this morning when Payton discovered she was OK to let go. It really made me smile today :)

Payton went to the pediatric ENT doctor today. She's always been a loud breather at night, but recently, she just seems to be worse. So we were referred to and ENT doc. Payton was an excellent patient and listened to the doctor very well. Then while I was listening to her prognosis, she jumped around the examination chair. She doesn't understand what surgery means or entails yet, but she will. Payton will have a tonsillectomy and adenoidectemy on April 23. I think Payton's case was pretty much a no brainer for the Dr. Doctors rate the size of tonsils on a scale of 0 to 4. Zero being having no tonsils at all and 4 being a complete blockage of the throat. Payton was a 3. Then her adenoid are providing 100% blockage in her sinuses. The doctor seemed pretty impressed. She'll be under general anesthesia for the surgery. It's an outpatient procedure, but there is a chance she will be kept overnight. At least I was able to schedule her surgery after her birthday.

My friend, Robin, kept Ian while I took Payton to the Dr. (Scott is in TX for a conference.) Ian was super good for Robin. After the Dr. appt., Payton was sooooo excited to go play at Robin and Bill's house. The kids have such a great time at their house. They decided to play dress up today. At one point, Payton was dressed as a race car driver and Ian was dressed up like a fairy, wand and all :)

Like I mentioned before, Daddy is in Austin, Tx for a conference. The weather here had been very wet and rainy. We're hanging in there, but I'm thinking we might go to the gym tomorrow so Mommy can have a couple of hours to herself. Our big flat screen TV was finally fixed today after being out of commission for 2 weeks! So tonight we're having 'Big TV Movie Night'! Daddy comes back Monday night late....