Halloween Celebration...

We decided to make the most of October and pack it full of Halloween festivities. 

We "boo'ed" a few of our friends with our favorite Monster Mash Treat...

Let me tell you Booing people and trying to do it secretly is super tricky with a four year old. 

 He loved it though, especially ringing the door bell and running like crazy.

 (Deakon getting his boo face on.)

Then we went to Pheasant Farms and picked pumpkins, looked at farm animals, and even found a cute little lady bug. 

Deakon's heart broke when we wouldn't let him bring his lady bug friend home with him. Like, as in had a little meltdown in the middle of the pumpkin field. He even tried to put it in his pocket thinking I wasn't paying attention 

(I'll be checking pockets apprehensively from now on). 

...and of course he was more excited about the Ladybug than picking the perfect pumpkin. 

A week later we carved the pumpkins, The middle is Deakon's. He put his hands in the pumpkin and said "ewe grwoss" after that I ended up carving it. Lame. He did want a mean face though, which I may be a little biased but I pretty much nailed it free hand. Preston's is the creepy one, let me tell you pumpkin carving is not for the faint of heart. By the time I was done with Deakon's my hand hurt so bad. Half was due to a long week of work but by the time I got to my pumpkin I clearly gave up and carved a lame heart. 

Finally Halloween came. His latest obsession has been Planes. If you couldn't tell from his birthday party.  Deakon's costume was his favorite so far. He told me he wanted to be Duddy Duddy Crwop Hopper. So preston and I put this little diddy together. 

He loved the costume so much he went around all night making airplane noises. SO cute. The look on his face made the work completely worth it.

Deakon fell asleep in the car before he even started.  We woke him up and took him to a little suburb and let him go from house to house.  Then we went to our ward trunk-or-treat. They had cars all lined up in the parking lot and a fire in the middle where everyone hung out and visited. 

We then went and treated ourselves with a good dinner. 

October is over. Whew! Happy Halloween. 

A Plane Party...

Deakon's 4th Birthday wish; a "Duddy Duddy Cwrop Hopper party."

If you have seen the movie Planes then you would know that Duddy Cwrop Hopper is actually Dusty Crophopper, which happens to be Deakon's newest favorite thing. So we had a little party to celebrate our guy turning four. He did much better this year at sharing his new toys, taking turns during the games and playing with his friends. (last year, was a different story) Whew! 

What a difference a year makes. 

Team Payne's Summer According to Instagram...

Our first summer in Washington was great! The weather was amazing (I'm told it hasn't ever been this good), we worked a lot and played a lot. Including two trips to Idaho. Whew!... Now we are gearing up for Fall; family pictures, rain boots, hot chocolate, warm hats, pumpkin everything, preschool, and Seahawks Football! not going to lie, it's kind of fun having a "home team" to root for. 

I used the awesome Simple As That 6x12 insta templates and Project Life Blush Edition Digital Paper Packs to make these collages. I print them out and put them in our project life album at the beginning of each month. Love 'em.

"Happy Balentimes..."

That's how my tender hearted three year old says it. Pulls at the 'ol heart strings every time. There have been a lot of happenings in our home since we made the move. All of which could be a post all on their very own. Which I don't have the patience for, nor do you have the time to read that many posts. I've never been the type of blogger that feels like I have to keep up on our lives in chronoloigical order. If I fall behind, I fall behind. If it's that important I'll write about it anyway. Catching up with everything that goes on is burdensome and takes the fun out it. I just pop in here and there and document things as I feel. It can cause for some inconsistency on the blog, but whatev. I'll mention all the changes eventually.

 Until then we celebrated Valentines day like everyone else... a day full of chocolate, pink, red, hearts, and love.

That cute subway art was a birthday present from Lyssie. She made it herself, she's graduating soon with a major in graphic design. You better believe I'm going to take full advantage of that. :] 

Home made tortilla chips and nachos for dinner. 

 

This little man stole my heart from day one.

Merry Christmas...

He was a pro...

By the end of the night our little Fire Man was a pro at saying "trit o tweet", batting those baby blues and smiling his way through the trunk or treat lines. Then saying "tank ewe" when the candy had reached his bucket. Halloween 2012 has been the best so far. Deakon really got the hang of it, I'm sure all the practicing a few days before and the motivation for candy helped. but really he kept his costume on the whole night without a tantrum unlike last year. He was quite a trooper with all the stops we made; two trunk or treats, a stop at Grandma Suitters, Boppa Stacia's and Aunt Sissy's place. Then the hubby and I treated ourselves to Cafe Rio. We had a blast.

Monster of a Third Birthday...

Whew am I glad that birthdays are only once a year, and I only have one kid to throw a party for. The past two years for Deakon's birthday I was smack dab in the middle of grueling midterms. I was stuck in school all day and when I was home I was stuck with my nose in a book memorizing terms and conceots and such. My heart ached for those two birthdays because I wasn't able to throw a birthday blast for my little one and even worse I wasn't even able to soend the day with him making sure he knew how special he was to me. 

This year however, I planned an entire two days of fun foe the birthday boy. He woke up to a living room full of balloons and we wnet to breakfast at IHOP. He got his very own smiley face pancake and was sang to and given a bowl of ice cream (at ten in the morning). We then went to the movie Hotel Transylvania, and had popcorn. About half way through Deak was over the movie, he ran up and down the stairs and played with his toys. thank heavens we had an empty theatre.

After nap time deak woke up and played and played. Preston was done in the spuds and was able to be home all day, a lot of wrestling ensued. After dinner we had a cupcake and presents. This birthday was fun because dEakon is starting to catch on. He knows about "berfdays" and "pessants" and "party cake". 

Saturday we had all family and friends over for a little monster bash. In my mind I pictured a well mannered birthday boy taking turns and sharing his toys the house decked with the cutest decorations cutest and an amazing cake that were all handmade by me, blah blah blah.

Boy did reality smacked me in the face. The cake turned out to be a nightmare. Now amount off sprinkles could make that thing cute. It was just a good thing it was supposed to be a monster. It was so ugly it was cute. Deakon spent most of the time bawling because it wasn't his turn with the pinata, or the kids were playing with his new toys (ya we are still working in sharing) So did the party turn out to be like the ones you see beautifully pictures all over blog land?...NO. Was it memorable? yes. Did it make Deakon a happy little three year old?...sure did.  Deakon got spoiled rotten, had a blast with his friends and at the end of the night he was cuddled up with his favorite friends babbling on about "berfday" cake and "pessants". 

It was all worth it. 

We Have a Birthday Shout Hooray!

Well the Birthday Boy is wrapped snug in bed, with new toys (Bulls-eye and Woody) in each arm. A full day of celebrating being three years old under his tiny little belt. Man he's cute, being his Mom is the best thing that has happened to me.

Three years full of hugs and snuggles, growing and learning, and dare i say it...Sass. This kid is a spit fire ball of energy. Three years old is especially fun, because he's getting the birthday/present thing down pretty good. I love that he gets excited for things now. Although I have heard that the terrible two's don't stop at two. That we could use a break from.

We have a weekend full of partying planned, but while that is happening I'll just post his three year old pics. Bryana Likes took them and we love every one.

Happy birthday sweet boy!

Excited to Celebrate...

With the recent freedom from school, we are excited to celebrate the 4th of July as well!

Bring on Summer!

A Busy Weekend...

We had a busy Easter weekend, enjoying the weather, hunting down eggs, and scarfing down candy.

We did however make time to pause and celebrate our Savior Jesus Christ, and all that he has done for us. 

We're so grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Hope your Easter was just as great!

Love, Team Payne

ho ho ho-lidays...

I was looking for last years Christmas blog post and realized i didn't even post about it. Sure there are some random pictures here and there though, at least we have those to look back on. Like usual I find myself scouring through the Christmas pictures to find blurry snapshots of Deakon, and random pictures of holiday happenings. I don't know why but with big holidays and memories I seem to busy taking it all in then trying to get those sweet moments captured. It's kind of  annoying really, seeing how I love to blog stalk all the blogs that seem to capture every last waking moment of Christmas and put it all together in a beautiful narrative blog post. oh well, I'll get better eventually and in the future my kids will be rolling their eyes every birthday or Christmas because their mom is a pathological picture taker.

Christmas this year was great. we finally were able to enjoy the holiday we were so busy preparing for and Deakon wising up to what's going on made it even better. We spent Christmas eve with my mom's did of the family and had dinner and Santa came. Deakon was the first one up to Santa, i think he was more curios this time. at the ward party you wouldn't have known that Santa was there. he didn't care a bit. then all the littles got to take a whack at the Santa pinata. that was entertaining ;] Santa gave Deakon his cute little reindeer hat that he kept on his head for a total of ten minutes.

My favorite part of christmas eve is going home a prepping for the morning, crawling into bed late into the night and drifting off to sleep. I was awake at like 6:00 am becasue our nieghbors stupid roosters were crowing. being the grown up i am i auto matically thought "it's christmas!" and i couldn't really fall asleep since. so I tossed and turned and rolled into Preston a few times hoping he"d wake up and sure enough he did. He rolled over and said "merry christmas" amd i knew it was game on. :] So we got up and opened our presents to one anoher whil we waited for our kid to wake up (i know we're terrible). We had to wake deakon upand bring him downstairs. As soon as he saw the lights he ran downstairs. We got him a trike, he loves it and it's still a little big for him so until he can really ride it i can push and steer him. we're going to love it on our walks come this spring.

The rest of the holiday was a whirlwind of church, Family, food, getting spoiled and feeling loved. What's not to love about the holiday's.  The season is officially over and we're prepping and trying to get back into the routine before i go back to school on Monday. Ugh, we won't talk about that.

our halls are decked...

The tree is up, the stockings are hung,

and this mom is still running up to town, braving the crowds and making final purchases...

My favorite thing about Christmas other than spending time with family and remembering our Savior is decorating for Christmas!

 I consider shopping to be one of my great talents but right now I could do without the crazy crowds and gift searching.
 
We can't wait to just be able to enjoy the holiday season we're so busy preparing for.