Peyton's First Birthday Party

We had Peyton's birthday party at Stafford Park in Redwood City yesterday. We chose it because it's a beautiful park, not because it shares our name...

Peyton enjoyed seeing and meeting our friends. While I was talking to Sandra and Jim, Peyton was looking at Daddy.



James was the host with the most yesterday. He prepped and cooked all the food, even grilling burgers to order! My hero!



Our friends the Gumberts and Rinaldis chatting.



My Mom and Dad enjoyed themselves (there was another party in the grass next to us).



We ordered cupcakes from the Love Bites Bakeshop. I've tasted quite a few cupcakes, but these are the BEST. Better than Kara's Cupcakes and WAY better than Sprinkles. We first tasted these cupcakes at Dominic's birthday party in March and I knew that I had to get them for Peyton's. Kathryn was a dream to work with (she bakes out of her home) and is a true professional! We ordered three dozen: Carrot.

Snickerdoodle (I think these are my new favorites).

And Peanut Butter Cup (James' original favorite, he now likes the Snickerdoodle ones best). I now need an excuse to order cupcakes at least once a month. Cupcake of the Month club anyone?

Everyone grabbed a cupcake and sang Happy Birthday. (Jenni and Jim brought their dog Pico - he was a huge hit with the kids!)

Peyton wasn't sure what was going on, but he really liked all the singing!

Dominic was eyeing the cupcake boxes, waiting patiently.

The patience paid off - he got to taste a Snickerdoodle cupcake with Mom and Dad!

Peyton was pretty tired after the party (he refused to nap yesterday), so I took a picture of him with a leftover Snickerdoodle cupcake this morning. He manged to scoop some frosting off and played with it.

I kept the cupcake as far as possible on the highchair table and he tried his very best to get it.

Sadly for him, I didn't let him taste the cupcake (Mommy's breakfast!), but I figured I would let him look at it. :-)

We'll be opening presents tonight. Peyton was just too tired to open them after the party yesterday (he was asleep within an hour of getting home).

Peyton is ONE!

Well, my baby is technically a toddler now, I suppose!

Yesterday, Peyton turned ONE! James and I cannot believe how quickly the past year has flown by.

Peyton is such a fun little boy! He loves to play and sing and dance. And while he knows how to stack things, he prefers to tear things apart: stacked blocks, the classic Fisher-Price stacked rings, everything!

He's eating meat, fish, and chicken now too. Now that it's Spring, peas are in season. As I have time, Peyton and I had fun tasting different varieties of fresh peas. His order of preference: snap peas, English peas, and snow peas. I'm still cooking all of his food using organic fruits, vegetables, and meats (grass fed steak, home ground; organic air-chilled chicken breasts; fresh-caught Petrale sole). This kid eats better than us! And, I started introducing cow's milk, which he didn't refuse. So things are great!

We took Peyton in for his 12-month checkup with Dr. Glinder this morning. Dr. Glinder continues to be thrilled with Peyton's development. As he walked in, Peyton was standing on the examination table with one arm leaning against James (to hold himself up). Dr. Glinder was amazed because he said he doesn't often see many one-year olds who are able to do that. :-)

Peyton is taking a couple steps here and there but hasn't mastered the art of walking just yet. He can go very short distances as long as he knows there's something waiting for him on which he can hold. That's A-OK with me as it's hard enough to chase him around the house as he's a very speedy crawler. He can crawl from the front door to the kitchen in about 25 seconds. He definitely keeps me on my toes!

Here are his 12-month stats:

Height: 29 inches, 25th percentile
Weight: 22 pounds, 11.5 ounces, 50th percentile
Head Circumference: 46.5 centimeters, 54th percentile

And just a few pictures of my little man!

Mama and Papa are Home!

My parents spent five weeks in South America and returned last week! Five weeks is a long time, but after a couple of days, Peyton was just as in love with his "Papa" (my Dad) as before. I swear that besides me and James, my Dad is Peyton's absolute favorite person in the world!

My parents came over on Monday afternoon for a visit and my Dad picked up Peyton to give him a hello hug. Peyton stayed in his arms for 15 minutes! These days, anyone is lucky to hold him for 2 minutes....







Sitting with Mama and Papa. Yes, he calls my Mom Mama. He calls me Mama, Mamama, Mommy. I have many names. :-)

Standing

Peyton has been practicing standing on his own a lot recently. I managed to grab the camera after he was standing for about 10 seconds.



One minute later...



And then, it was over!

Reading

Peyton loves reading books. He actually cries when a book ends because he wants to hear more. So in any sitting, we usually end up reading 15-20 books!

When we're not reading to him, Peyton will randomly pick up a book and flip through it.

Hopefully, he'll keep this up and we'll end up having to build him a library. Something I really don't mind doing! :-)

Swinging

After weeks of cold and rainy weather, it was finally sunny today!

I took Peyton to my parents' house to play on the swing. Peyton loves to feel the wind in his face, and I'm guessing he also enjoys the butterflies in his stomach while swinging. :-)



Happy boy!



The sides of his hair are starting to curl!



The back of his hair is all curls!



Wheeeee!

Just hanging out.

He kept turning around in the swing to look at the trucks by the sandbox.

Silly boy!

Just a few more random happy pictures for your enjoyment.

The Tooth

It took a couple of weeks, but I managed to get a picture of Peyton's first tooth today.

A Tooth!

Peyton woke up yesterday morning with a sharp pointy tip of his first tooth (bottom left). At 10 months and 3 weeks, we were getting a bit nervous that he wouldn't get any teeth before he turned one. I haven't been able to take any pictures yet, but will post one when I get a good shot of it.

I really have to apologize for the lack of posts over the past two months. I promise that I will backfill posts. I have hundreds of pictures and videos to share!

To explain the absence of posts. My job got incredibly stressful at the beginning of the year. By February, it became evident to me and James that I couldn't continue working as it was starting to affect my health. I quit and spent March getting healthy. I am now a full-time Mom and am enjoying every minute of it. But, it's left me with little time to update this blog. :-(

More Swimming

James took the day off so that he could take Peyton to swim class.

They had a ton of fun in the pool!



Peyton even started kicking for James!



So much fun with Dad!



Hi Mom!

Peyton is 9 Months Old!!

It still amazes me just how quickly this year is flying by. It feels like we just brought Peyton home from the hospital a few weeks ago, and he's now 9 MONTHS old! Incredible.

We went to see Dr. Glinder today for his 9-month check up. He continues to be thrilled with his development. Peyton showed the "right" amount of stranger anxiety when he came in. And, he kept looking at James for reassurance while he checked out the doctor.

Dr. Glinder was surprised to hear that Peyton is standing up and cruising already, but given that James was an early walker, we're not too surprised ourselves. He was more surprised to hear that Peyton has already started "talking". His vocabulary is expanding and is bilingual! He now says "Mama", "Dada", "Daddy", "Papa" (my Dad), and has switched to calling my Mom "Abu". In addition, he says "Atta" which we finally figured out means "Alli esta" - Spanish for "There it is".

Dr. Glinder agrees with us that we're going to have an extremely active and, it seems, smart little boy, so we've got our work cut out for us (I wouldn't have it any other way!).

The visit started out with his measurements, so here you go!

Weight: 20 pounds, 9-1/4 ounces (52nd percentile)
Height: 27-1/2 inches long (25th percentile)
Head circumference: 44.5 centimeters (27th percentile)

He's getting so big - we had to upgrade him to a bigger carseat last month. We opted for the Britax Roundabout, a convertible carseat that holds babies from 5 pounds to 40 pounds. It converts from rear-facing to forward-facing, so it should be a while before we need to replace it (or rather them - we bought two; one for each car).

And, here are a few pictures to show you what Peyton is up to these days.

He just LOVES it when James throws him up in the air.



He loves to play with his blocks. (More on that below.)



And, as he's teething (no teeth yet), this is extremely typical for him: He'll pick up a toy.....



...and it immediately goes into his mouth!



He loves to play with his talking Cookie Monster. He picks it up by the eyes because it talks when you open his mouth.

He can stand up really quickly now. He can do it all in just one action. From his knees...

...to his feet in less than 2 seconds!

He likes playing in the kitchen. We got a new refrigerator last year that has a reflective black finish. Peyton is fascinated with his reflection in the freezer door. We've nicknamed his reflection "Pedro". Here he is kissing Pedro. Peyton loves giving kisses.

As I mentioned above, Peyton really enjoys playing with his blocks. We have confirmed that he can stack the blocks, but he doesn't really like to. He much rather prefers to knock them down. It makes it a fun game for us all as James and I will stack the blocks into various shapes and sizes, and Peyton bulldozes them!

As you can see, we're having a ton of fun. :-)