Cooper's Birthday

We headed to the cemetery to visit Cooper and celebrate his SIXTH birthday.  The night before, Mom told us that we were going to see Cooper the next day and Sydney got all excited and said, "The real Cooper?!" Mom told her we weren't actually going to see Cooper but just go to the same place we do every time. She was totally bummer and said, "Oh, I thought we were going to see Cooper in heaven." She wishes we could see Cooper just like me.

The weather turned out perfect for our visit. It was supposed to rain most of the day, but it was bright and sunny when we were there, so we stayed a long time. Of course we had balloons and flowers for him and then ate yummy chocolate cupcakes that had a Lindt chocolate melted inside.

And it looks like we might end up with a kid in our family who has curly hair. Look closely and you can see little curly tufts on Peyton's head. Now if it would just a grow a little faster. By this age, I'd had my first haircut and Mom was putting Syd's hair in a ponytail!

Last Week

I had my last soccer game for the Spring season on Saturday. I really like soccer, even though sometimes I run away from the ball instead of toward it. And this season I really liked the other boys on my team. They were so funny! Plus, this season I scored my first goal! Even with all that, I sitll wasn't sure if I wanted to play soccer again, but I heard that my next age group gets to play with a goalie! I would love to be the goalie, because you get to touch the ball. Anyway, here are a few pictures from my last game.

Sydney is such a funny sleeper. It's a good thing she has such a big bed, because she moves around when she sleeps...a lot! She also needs lots of room on the bed for all her stuff. She can't go to sleep without a few books on her bed and some play food--oh, and lots of other random stuff too.  Weird.

And Peyton loves being outside. The problem is that she's really fast, and if you're not watching her every second, she gets into trouble.

Dad has been in Alaska all week, so next time I'll hopefully share lots of fish pictures.

The Arboretum

It was such a nice day on Sunday that we decided to head to the Arboretum. It was so fun to run around the paths and take lots of pictures. Mom and Dad say I'm a total poser. Sydney, on the other hand, has a hard time keeping her smile real. And Peyton, well, all I can say is that she's a baby, so you can't expect too much from her because when you set her down, all she wants to do is get moving.

This is our third year visiting the Arboretum as a family, and every time we take a picture in this giant rhododendron.

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?!!