Catching up with Peyton

Peyton is two months old now and she is definitely getting bigger. But she is also getting happier. She will actually hang out by herself in her Boppy, bouncer, or the swing for a long time without fussing. Yay! Now if we could just get her to smile more. She's so serious. Grandma de Jong says she doesn't smile much because it takes so much effort to lift her giant cheeks!

So here's what Peyton has been up to in the past few weeks. Sydney has helped Peyton make some friends.

We pulled out the Bumbo and Peyton does a great job sitting in it.

She loves to watch TV. When she's laying on her Boppy, she will always turn her head toward whatever show is on. But she also likes watching with Dad.

Peyton loves to face out when you're holding her so she can see everything that's going on, but she also still loves to cuddle.

Sydney loves Peyton and will give her kisses and hugs every chance she gets. Every time Mom brings Peyton into a room, Syd says, "Ahhh, she's so cute!"

And here's a rare pic of Peyton smiling. She is soooo serious, just like I was as a baby. You have to work really hard to get even a little smile out of her. The only place that she will smile a ton is when you change her on her changing table. For some reason she loves that spot.

She also loves taking baths. She doesn't smile much in the bath, but you can tell she likes it by how much she kicks and splashes water everywhere.

Peyton was blessed last Sunday. There was a big wind storm the day before which knocked out the power at our church building, so church was cancelled and we had to go to another ward in another building for her blessing. But it didn't really matter where we were because the spirit was still strong. Grandma and Grandpa de Jong were able to come up for the blessing.

Grandma has the magic touch.

And here's Grandpa. If you look closely, maybe you can tell that Peyton has blue eyes!  We're so excited to have a blue-eyed kid in our family!

Halloween Hoopla

Halloween is so fun! Candy and pumpkins and costumes. Awesome!

The Saturday before Halloween we dropped off a pumpkin for Cooper. Unfortunately, Syd and Peyton fell asleep on the way to the cemetery, so I'm the only one who had my picture taken there.

We carved a pumpkin for ourselves a few days later. Normally I hate the gooey stuff inside, but this year I got brave and scooped some out.

Sydney loved it.

This was our finished face.

On Halloween, my class at school didn't have a party or anything, but Mom still made these fun treats and dropped them off for my class. There are Hershey miniatures inside.

Mom made a special Halloween dinner with mummy dogs, monster jaws, and mad scientist potion. Yum!

Dad made me an awesome costume this year--a Lego minifigure missionary!

It looked really cool, but was also pretty hard to walk in those legs. So I took them off for actual Trick or Treating. Sydney was a witch.

And Peyton was just plain cute. She stayed home with Mom while Dad took us around the neighborhood.

We got over 8 pounds of candy!

See why I love Halloween?!!

Introducing Senator Ty Johnson

That's right. I am a senator...for Talbot Hill Elementary.

My school has a Microsociety program which means we run our school a lot like the real word: we have a President, VP, Senate, House of Representatives, and students create and run their own businesses. Well, since I'm in first grade this year, I got to actually run for office if I wanted. They told us that people in the senate and house get to go on a field trip to the Capitol so I decided I wanted to run. Each class chooses one student to represent them in the house an each grade level elects two senators to represent the grade in the senate. I decided to run for 1st grade senator.

I made two campaign posters to hang on the walls before the Primary election at the beginning of October and I gave a speech to the k-2 grades asking them to vote for me. And guess what! I made it through the primary and into the general election. There were 25 first graders running for senate and only five made it through.

The general election was two weeks later, so the day before voting I handed out campaign stickers and on the final day I gave another speech.

And I won!!! I feel bad for the other kids who didn't win, but I'm so excited that I won! Our first senate meeting is next week. I can't wait to find out what we're actually supposed to do.

Go Huskies!

Dad and I got to go to a Husky football game last weekend with his boss. It was so AWESOME! And it was in the brand new stadium at UW. Very cool.

The Huskies were playing the Idaho State Bengals, so at the game, I drew a picture of a tiger and put a big fat X through it.

Do you like the cool stickers under my eyes? They're like the ones the players wear to keep the sun out of their eyes. And that cool hat I'm wearing is my empty popcorn container. The three kids behind me are Dad's boss' sons. They were so much fun to play with.  Poor Dad didn't get to watch a ton of the game, because he and his boss had to try and keep tabs on us.

The Huskies beat Idaho State by A LOT. Go Huskies!!! I loved going to my very first football game and can't wait to go to another.  But it sure was exhausting cheering for my team.

Starring Peyton

This post is loaded with pics cuz I know my family is dying to see tons of Peyton.  So brace yourselves.

We'll actually start with a few of Syd.  Grandma and Aunt Kari were here for a long time to help Mom with Peyton. I was in school all day so I didn't see them much, but Syd sure got a lot of play time with them.

After school on a really hot day, I got to play sponge bombs with Aunt Kari.

Of course, they also had lots of chances to hold Peyton since she will cry if you put her down.

Syd loves to hug and kiss Peyton.

And we love to hold her, even when she's crying.

We both try to keep Peyton entertained and happy.

And Syd has started practicing her Mommy skills since that's what she wants to be when she grows up.

Peyton loves to cuddle with Mom.

Dad has already introduced her to Slurpees.

Fun pics of Peyton:

hmmm, I just realized that most of them are with Daddy.


Peyton's umbilical cord finally fell off and she had her first bath. She loved it.

Of course, Syd and I were so excited to help.

We sure do love our new baby sis!