Please move to the front of the class!

I haven't really updated everyone on the status of swimming lessons. Well, we are still going! After that one day when we really just let guide the show the whole experience was 100 times better. Oh the joys of raising a strong willed child!

Well last nights swimming lesson was amazing! She was the star student for sure! Sure helps that the skill we were working on was going under water.... something she has only wanted to do from day one!

The other kids would cry and she would just look at them like what is your problem and then just sit under the water. At one point we were supposed to hold them, count 1-2-3 and then dunk them...well, Peyton would immediately say three after I started and dunk herself.

We had a blast and she was so excited! Auntie Ashley will be going us at swimming tonight so it should be interesting. Peyton is always extra silly and wild around her Auntie. I think they pick up on each others craziness! Tonight will actually be our last lesson (unless we get rained out and we have our last one Friday) since Thursday we are having a Canada Day party!

Here is Peyton on the way to swimming eating her foot! Then on the way home....she would say, "eat, eat, eat," while moving her foot to her mouth and then once it got there, " NOOOOOOO." She did that about 50 times...louder and louder! Silly!

Everyone is moving....

This weekend was full of moving! My sister moved from her apartment in Pearland to one downtown so we helped her all Saturday move and then our good friend's had a good bye party before they left for Saudi Arabia!

Saturday we moved Ashley and that was so much work! One of our friends from our small group came and helped and I am so thankful for his willingness to come and help my sister (someone he doesn't know). My parents watched Peyton for us so John and I could help move boxes etc in the morning so we started at 8 AM and finished moving in boxes and furniture close to 2:30 PM. My parents met us at the new place and Peyton was confused at what was going on! The boys then left and took Peyton home for a nap and then my mom, dad and I stayed around and unpacked, organized, hung pictures until we stopped at 7:00 PM and finally had dinner. I was exhausted, stinky and have bruises everywhere!

Then Sunday, Grandma Martha met us at church at then came over for the afternoon and Peyton had a blast playing with her and even had her clean the living room! Watch out guests...you know have to dust when visiting! Also during her visit Peyton wanted John to play with her and be a little more wild than I would. So, this is what they did....a human swing! She LOVED it! I think she is starting to like to know who to ask to do what with because if it is anything dangerous or a little more wild she always asks John because she knows he won't be as cautious as I am!

After much convincing Peyton had a nap and when she woke up it was time to head over to a good bye party for her friend Gavin and his family. It was at a park by their neighborhood and we actually had a nice breeze. It was a nice time of fellowship with friends and we will so very miss the Perry's. I can not even begin to explain how much the Perry's have meant to us and how incredibly blessed we have been to do small group with them. We are so blessed to have such a great group of community to do life with and also for Peyton to be around and see other strong families who are raising their children to love God and to love others!

Some friends took some adorable pictures of John trying to play football with Peyton so once I get those I will have to post them but the other amusing part of the night was Peyton's fascination with the tree! She saw older kids climbing the tree and so John helped her (as I was panicking). This kid has no fear...which doesn't go well with her strong opinions! She would get so frustrated towards the top when John wouldn't let go and let her continue by herself!

We ended up coming home around 9:00 PM very tired and very dirty! She managed to have a bath and was way too energetic but she crashed shortly afterwards and actually slept in until 7:30 AM!

This week we are busy! I am trying to get everything together for our second annual Canada Day party on Thursday, getting things together for our trip to Canada next week, finishing projects around the house and catching up on cleaning!

And we have our last week of swimming lessons and since I have to take her myself today...I am praying these rain showers keep going! Just kidding...kind of!

Rest of the week

We have had a busy couple of days! Yesterday (Wednesday) I had some important errands so my sister agreed to watch Peyton for me. Well earlier in the week she decided she wanted to take Peyton somewhere fun so....they went to the zoo!

I tried to get a picture of them before they left but I was promptly told "no."But I did get some pictures of her playing while we were waiting for Auntie Ashley to come pick her up. I loved that whenever I asked her if she was excited to see Ashley and go to the zoo she would run to the door to look for her and when she wasn't there she would put her arms out like, "where is she?"

Well she finally arrived, packed the car up and off they went. From what I heard they had a blast. They saw some animals (Sea Lions were her favorite), played on the slide (like a thousand times), pet a goat, and played in the water sprinkler area in her diaper! Around 2:00 PM I hadn't heard anything and was a little worried since she normally naps from noon to 2:00 but when I called I was told that they were having a blast, no temper tantrums and were off to meet some of Ashley's friends for lunch at Chuy's. I want to eat at Chuy's! There Peyton had four tortillas and two whole plates of rice and beans! She was hungry (of course she was not impressed earlier with the lunch I packed for her)! They finally made it home around 4:30 and I had a tired pumpkin! It was awesome though because I was done with my stuff around 2:00 and had a couple of hours to shop, relax, read a book! It was great! I loved that they had so much fun together and that Peyton just had a blast! I LOVE that Peyton loves her Auntie's....and yes, Shannon....she loves you too even if you are in California...I weekly have to answer the question on where is Shh?

Well, since she was so worn out from her day out and only napped for about 30 minutes, we decided to skip swimming....we were so disappointed...you can't really get sarcasm across in a blog! But we did go today and it was so much better! Mostly because we allowed Peyton to pretty much lead the show. Lessons started and we were still playing with the fountain and then she decided to join them and do some stuff. Then she wanted to practice getting out of the pool and jumping in so we let her and then used that time to get her to practice kicking to the wall etc. Overall it was so much better! I will be taking her myself Monday so I praying this new strategy works!

This weekend is busy with working on finishing painting our armoire, cleaning, friends coming over for dinner, helping my sister move into a new apartment, Grandma Martha coming to visit and a friend's going away party....but...I am hoping to blog about some of the projects I have been working on around the house and an interesting parenting book I am almost done with so hopefully I find the time!

Swim Lessons....or something like that

So, last year I blogged about Peyton and her first set of swim lessons at the YMCA. Well we had so much fun with those that I decided to go ahead and register her again to do two weeks of swimming lessons at our YMCA. I figured it would be good to keep her interest in swimming going and also have some good parent-child bonding.

Well, times have sure changed and hence our experience has changed significantly!

This was her then....

And this is her now....

Note that the only picture I could get of her was her trying to rip off her shoes to run into the pool immediately.

Well, not only has she grown up significantly, her ability to vocalize opinions and her knowing what she wants to do and how has changed! Last year we did the lessons at a different YMCA and were in a lap pool. This year we did it closer to our house and this pool is the family fun pool with slides, sprinklers, fountains and so many distractions. This new pool and her nature is a recipe for disaster in an organized class structure at this age!

There are several things going wrong with swimming lessons this year, one, Peyton has no fear of the water and loves to sit under the water until you pull her up and then she laughs. She holds her breath, blows bubbles but constantly wants to be under water! Second, she wants to do it herself and the word, "MINE," is used constantly. She does not want to be held, she wants to do it herself including swimming in the deep end. Third, she is way to distracted with the fun parts of the pool and does not want to participate as much as I try.

So, swimming lessons are not going well. Monday night, I took her myself and barely survived the lesson but it had its good moments and the bad moments, I was hoping it were a one time thing. But last night I made John come too just to have some support and we both couldn't corral her. She was off doing her own thing and had no desire to listen to us, participate or do anything besides play with the fountain or sit under water. We seriously look like those insane parents who have NO control over their toddler....and mostly because we really didn't! I am sure to most people it would be very amusing to watch but we are not amused in the slightest.

In conclusion, I am debating whether we can endure another 6 days of swimming lessons! I hate to quit something once we started something but honestly this is not working. The reasons we did this was to help her get used to water (I think that is accomplished) and have some nice parent-child bonding (not working). I know that a large part of it is her age and ability to differentiate between play time and lesson time and the highly distracting pool is not helping and well, the other part is her strong willed nature which I love but am struggling with learning how to encourage it while corral it when needed!

John has agreed to take her tonight while I lead our small group and then we will try both of us tomorrow and then evaluate whether we want to try next week!

I did tell John last night that it would almost be amusing if we did pull her out of swimming and she became an Olympic swimmer and I could tell the news how she had to quit swimming at 2 because she couldn't pay attention....hmm!

Happy Father's Day!

I was so bad yesterday and totally forgot to take pictures of our Father's Day celebrations! It was John's second Father's Day and we are so blessed to have such a wonderful man in our lives! We started the day with a breakfast casserole I made him and gave him his gift of a new coffee maker. We only wish we could have spent some time with Papa. He is in California with Shannon and my mom and we are counting down the minutes until they come back!

We then lounged around the house and while we were hanging out, Peyton walks up to the laundry room asking for it to be opened, when I opened it she asked for the windex and some paper towels and immediately started cleaning! I didn't think our house was that dirty but apparently Peyton thought differently. She has always enjoyed helping me clean around the house but she has never gone off and initiated it. Either way we ended up dusting the living room and her room! Score...I have a maid!

We headed to church, relaxed some more and then went for frozen yogurt that night and on the way home Peyton feel asleep so we put her in her bed at 6:00 PM and she didn't wake up until this morning at 6:30 PM! I decided to lay down for a small nap and also didn't wake up until this morning. So poor daddy was all by himself and didn't get his burgers I planned for him.....well, at least he had some much needed alone time!

And this was her this morning....the opposite of cleaning! And yes, the mess is still there as I figured as soon as I picked it up she would want to do it again so it will stay like that until tonight!

I need a drink!

This weekend has been busy but so much fun! Lots of cute Peyton pictures!

On Saturday we spent much of the morning outside playing with the water table, watering plants, running through the sprinkler (both mommy and Peyton participated) and then Peyton decided to mimic Titus drinking out of the hose and drinks some water herself. Needless to say she was a little wet! This was the third outfit of the morning! That kid is a fish!

She starts swimming lessons on Monday and I am excited to see how she will do. Hopefully her love of water will continue and she won't be too shy with all of the new faces!

Houston Children's Museum

Yesterday we made a visit to the Houston Children's Museum and Auntie Ashley joined us!

I haven't taken Peyton to the Children's Museum since her first birthday so it was so much fun to see how much more she could experience and how different she interacted with things.

As soon as we got there and Peyton say Auntie Ashley she was so excited! She loves her so much!

We started with looking through an exhibit on life in Vietnam. She was very interested in the altar in the hut replica that is made when family members pass away. She was very busy in making her own version of it!

We then went to this area which essentially a mini kid city. It has a bank, grocery store, restaurant, vet office, police station and news station. Pretty much the kids are supposed to work at jobs, earn money and then put it in the bank. Peyton LOVED the vet area and had a blast taking care of the fake cats and dogs. She would brush their hair, give them pretend water and she just loved it. Maybe there is a future as a vet for her?

After the vet, Peyton practiced being a police officer by driving the car and promptly arresting Auntie Ashley. They had a blast with each other.

We then spent our "money" at the art studio coloring a picture. It was pretty cute...Auntie Ashley said that they should make a picture of Max, her dog, and as soon as she said that Peyton started looking around for him! On a side note...she is starting to say some version of, "woof, woof," which is adorable! I love it!

We had a great afternoon and loved spending time with Auntie Ashley....yes, Peyton is in this picture...look down!

Backyard Camping

I would love to take Peyton camping. I think she would have such a fun time and John and I love camping so it would be a great family trip... however I really don't know if she is old enough to do that. I could see the sleepless night!

But since Spring, I occasionally set up the tent in our backyard and bring out blankets, books, snacks and we hang out of there and pretend to camp out! She LOVES it!

Once we were completed, Peyton was trying to blow me kisses in appreciation! I love it and I love her! I am looking forward to the day when we can go camping as a family!