Payton's First Tooth

For the past few weeks (seems like FOREVER) Payton has been teething. She drools through cloth bibs, her clothes and even onesies. I am constantly wiping a gross nose and a slobbery face. She has been pretty miserable. Yesterday was a happy day. One of the two teeth trying to come through finally made it. And, for the first time in many days, Payton slept through the night. Hooray! I don't have a picture yet because it is still too small to see. But I can feel it when she bites my finger. Now if we can just get that other one to pop through!

Sydney the Good Fairy

Sydney, and probably every other young girl in the country, loves to dress up. Usually she's a princess, but sometimes she adds wings and a wand to become a fairy princess-- much different than a regular princess.You'll have to excuse the immodest outfit. She is modeling a 2T slip that she refuses to get rid of! Oh, well! Such is life.

Sister, Sister

I have a wonderful friend, Diantha, who is always full of wonderful ideas. She suggested that Payton give Sydney a present at the hospital so Syd didn't feel left out when the baby got a lot of gifts. I searched the internet for ideas and found a website that personalizes t-shirts. I decided to get one for each of the girls. Sydney's says, "I'm the big sister!" and "Sydney", Payton's says, "I'm the little sister!" and "Payton". Both shirts have a picture of stick figure girl standing in flowers. They are too cute. Unfortunately, the smallest size they had was 12 months. When I washed it, I decided it looked a little small to be a 12 month shirt. I was right! The shirt fit Payton at six months. Here are the cute sisters.

Photography by Sydney

One of Sydney's favorite toys is my old camera. It requires film and so I never use it. The batteries are dead, there's no film in it and so it is perfect for Sydney. She snaps pictures of practically everything from bugs to toys to people. Sometimes she needs to take a real picture. We are working on technique. Here are here latest photos.

Peek-a-boo, I see you!

Sydney and Payton love to hide. Sydney is finally learning that when we play hide and seek laughing, talking and jumping out defeat the purpose of the game. But, sometimes she still thinks she is hiding in plain sight.
Payton has a different view of things. A blanket can hide anything! Then, when she's done 'hiding' she can pop out at any time.

Swing, Glorious Swing

Both of our girls have loved the baby swing. It is a wonderful thing to put Payton in the swing in the kitchen and be able to cook and clean to my heart's content. Syd loves to play with Payton while she's in the swing. It will be a sad day when the swing goes bye-bye.
P.S. Payton is sitting in her swing right now while I blog!

Grandmas are the best!

Sydney and Payton love their grandparents. This is Grandma Hillman with the girls at our house.

Make Up Artist

Sydney loves to put make up on. She gets out her lipstick, eye shadows, blush and fingernail polish and spends a good hour trying to get it just right. Sometimes I swear she came straight from a Cindy Lauper Music Video!

Baby Friends

My best friend from High School had a baby six weeks before Payton was born. It's one of those things that we always talked about growing up. You know, "We'll live next door to each other" and "All of our kids will be the same ages", etc. Although unplanned, it has been a lot of fun having babies together.
Desiree is so cute and petite. Payton is huge compared to her.

Scrapbooking Helpers

Sometimes I get in the mood to scrapbook. On this particular day, I had all my stuff spread out in the family room. I went upstairs to get something and came back down when I heard Syd and Payton laughing hysterically. This is what I saw...

Dinner Time

Payton began eating baby food in January. The poor little thing got so plugged up that we had to stop for a few weeks and let her system adjust. We started again for real in February. She still has a hard time, so she eats prunes or drinks prune juice every day. Even though her little tummy has a hard time, she sure loves to eat.

Idaho Winter

For those of you who have lived in Idaho, moved away and think you know what winter is like here in Idaho, think again! We've had more snow this year in the valley than I can remember since I was in elementary school. In fact, I am creating this post on March 31 and it snowed last night! Sydney came out of her room crying this morning. She prays almost every day for the snow to melt and spring to come. These pictures were taken in January at Brian's parents' home to send to Brian's sister who lives in Arkansas.

Spong Roller Fiasco

Sydney is very rarely willing to let me do extra cute things with her hair. So, when she is willing, I jump on the opportunity to curl or braid or crimp. This time, it didn't work out so well. I honestly didn't think I did anything different than I usually do. However, the pictures prove something went terribly wrong. By the time it was all out of curlers, I thought I'd have to wash her hair to make it look ok. In the end, I just put it all up in a pony tail. (Her hair stayed really curly for about 3 days!)

Sydney and Dayna... On Ice

This was Sydney's first time ice skating. She was really nervous at first, but she got to the point where she would actually let go of my arm and just hold on to the side. We went around and around the rink for about an hour. It was a lot of fun, but we were stiff and sore the next day.

Sleepy Payton

Payton is a totally different baby than Sydney was. We love both our babies, but it sure nice to have a baby that sleeps! In fact, Payt will sleep basically anywhere.

TIny Tutus

Sydney has been in a dance class that Melaleuca provides at their new gym. It is a lot of fun. The teacher is great, in fact, I'd like to set her up with my brother! Anyway, the class had a recital in December. Sydney is in the back center wearing a pink leotard and a black skirt.

Matching dresses

Until you have girls that you can dress in matching clothes, you'll never know how fun it is! I sure didn't when I was growing up! Now I know why my mom bought matching outfits. This matching combination, however, was not on purpose. Syd has had her dress for months, Payt's is new. Funny how it just worked out!

Halloween 2007

For weeks, Sydney could not decide what to be for Halloween. She changed her mind literally every day. Finally, the day before Halloween, she decided... a witch. Now, why it took weeks to decide to be the most generic of all Halloween costumes, is beyond me, but so be it. She is the cutest witch around! These are our Jack-o-lanterns. The big one is Brian and Dayna's, the middle one is Sydney's and the baby one is Payton's.

It's Autumn Time, It's Autumn Time!

Great-grandma Johnson took all the great grandkids to a pumpkin patch to pick out Halloween Jack-O-Lanterns. It was a lot of fun. Sydney, Christian and Taylor Jo loved sticking their heads through the holes in the picture.

We have the Internet!

Just to let all of you know, we have been living in the dark age for the past six months. But, as of today, we finally have the internet at our house. This means we don't have to use our parents' internet. This means we will be able to post more often and email more. This also means that Dayna has connection with the outside world again. Thank goodness!!