Little Moments

Yesterday marked Peyton's nine month 'birthday'. I can't believe he is already nine months old but I say that every month. He is such a beautiful boy and every day, I thank the Lord for blessing me with such an amazing gift.

So what has Peyton been up to? He's been crawling...everywhere. And I love it!! It is so much fun to follow him around and see what he tries to get into. He is learning so much every day. In our house, the kitchen/dining area and living room are separated by our couch and off of the dining area is a hallway which leads to the main bedrooms and the main bathroom. If I go and start his bath, he will hear the water running and crawl as fast as he can from the living room through the dining room, down the hall and into the bathroom. He LOVES his bath time. He likes to play in the water while it is still running and loves to play with his rubber duckies and his pirate ship. I love bath time almost as much as he does, just because he is so entertaining.

The day before his 'birthday' was Thanksgiving. We spent Thanksgiving at home (Jay and Debbie's) and all of their kids were able to come for the holiday. Let's just say that my little mister loves Thanksgiving. He enjoyed several foods, but his favorites were turkey, mashed potatoes, Grandma Debbie's rolls, and some ham (as long as it wasn't too chewy). But his absolute favorite ?? Banana cream pie. He ate half of Poppa Jay's slice and three or four bites of mine. And then I can't figure out why he was in 18 month clothes at 8 months, haha. He wasn't quite sure what to think of all the noise of some many people in the house but he sure enjoyed the food.

Since Jayson's sister, Jen, was able to come down for the holiday, she agreed to do his nine month pictures. We have only done two sets at this point (finishing the other two tomorrow, the 27th) but they are going to be so cute! I can't wait to see how they turn out. We also did some really cute family shots for my Christmas cards this year. I love Jen's work and can't wait to get them all back.

Jayson and I are still working on our sealing. We've had another minor setback but in a way, I'm glad that we did. It gave us the opportunity to better communicate with each other about the problem and our expectations. I think that it brought us not only closer together but closer to solving the problems we are facing right now. I am actually thankful for the incident because I truly think we are getting better at being married...and who doesn't like that feeling?? :)

The semester is almost over and I can't wait. Since we are going to St. George for school right now and our first class is at 8 a.m., we have to leave the house by 6:30...and I'm getting pretty sick of getting up at 5 to get ready for school. We have registered for our next set of classes for the spring semester and that will be the last semester we are at Dixie State. After next semester, we will have enough credits to transfer up to Southern Utah University. We are only taking 13 credits at Dixie right now but once we are up at SUU, we plan on taking more so that we can get done as soon as possible. I would love to take more right now but it is so hard being at a school that is an hour way (so that means two hours of driving, three days a week). Next semester, we are only in class two days a week, for about the same time; but it will be nice cutting down back on our driving.

As for my own personal goals, I set one for myself to read the entire Book of Mormon by the end of the semester. I stumbled a little bit along the way but I have finally (after two months) made it past Alma and I'm hoping the rest will be a little bit easier. I have about two weeks before the end of the semester, so as long as I apply myself, I should be just fine. I'm happy that I should make this goal. However, as soon as I'm done, I'm just going to turn around and read it again. They say that you get something different from it every time that you read it so I hope that is true. There are still so many things that I don't completely understand but I'm just glad I have the opportunity to read it. I'm also very thankful that I have Jayson for a husband and Jay for a father in law that I can go to with my silly questions and have them explain more to me.

Anyway, that catches us up for another month. We are so excited for Christmas and I am really hoping that we can spend it with my family (it's contingent on their quitting smoking). We have some really cute things for Peyton and I'm sure he will just love the tearing through (and probably trying to eat) the wrapping paper. Heck, he may even like that more than the presents!

As always, my note to Peyton:

Mister Man,
I love you so much. You bring so much happiness to my life. A few weeks ago, you were able to stand up in your crib and I was so afraid that you would fall out onto the floor. Before Dad was able to lower it for me, I had to rock you back to sleep in the middle of night so that you wouldn't try climbing out. We sat in the rocking chair, in the dark, with no noise but the space heater that I keep in your room. You laid on my chest, wrapped your little chubby legs around my waist and snuggled into me. As I sat there, tickling your back and telling you that I loved you so much, I heard you giggle. At first, I thought you were still awake so I quietly said to you "What's so funny?" but as I looked down to your sweet little face, I saw that you were asleep. I laughed to myself as quietly as I could but it was so cute. You had a little smile on your face and every few seconds, your smile would get bigger and you would just giggle. It made my entire night. At that moment, it didn't matter that it was two o'clock in the morning and that I had to be up in three hours. It didn't matter that I had two tests that day in our classes and that I could use all the sleep I could get. All I wanted to do was sit there and hold you. You didn't laugh for very long; it couldn't have been more than a minute or two. But it was that moment in time that made me so thankful I am your mommy. I thought to myself how much I am going to miss those days when you no longer want or need me to rock you to sleep at night. I know that you will always love me and you will always be my little man but it makes my heart sad that someday you will be growing up. I know that it needs to be done; you need to grow up, serve a mission and find a good girl to be sealed to in the Temple; but right now, I just want you to stay like this so I can have more of these little moments with you. Your crib has since been lowered down so that you can't fall out of it and most days, you sleep completely through the night. Sometimes, you will wake up in the middle of the night and if you cry for more than five minutes, I will go and rock you back to sleep. Most of the time though, you cry yourself back to sleep and all I can do is go make sure you have your blankets. But I do cherish those moments I have when it is just you and me. I love you so much. Words cannot ever describe how much I feel for you. I don't even know if you will ever understand a mother's love. Daddy loves you very much too but there is something different about our love; not bad by any means...just different. I love you so much my little man and I can't wait until Daddy can take us to the Temple so that we can be sealed as an eternal family. We have struggled on this road, as we are supposed to, but just know that we are trying so very hard to be sealed to you. I love you sweetheart, more than you will ever truly know and I can't wait for more of our little moments.


Love you honey,
Mommy