Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving day we went to Grandma and Grandpa Stevens house. We had a nice time watching football and eating turkey of course. Here are a few family photos and a sweet video of Payton playing.


The family plus Joey

Joey, Suzie, Ricky, and PayPay

PayPay on a Pumpkin (the things mom makes her do for a pic)

PayPay on Grandpas rocker

She's so sweet...


Giving her "knocks" as usual...and it's still cute!

Story Time Turkey

Today at story time we made a turkey craft project. Payton really enjoyed the glue stick. Artist in training!

working her glue stick magic

Inserting feathers in the turkey

Turkey (missing his feathers)

Playdate!

Monday was the start of our weekly play date at Eliana's. We had a great time! Payton needs to work on her sharing skills so perhaps this will be good practice. Payton obviously enjoyed all of Eli's snow globes and assortment of toys as I had to pull her out of the house screaming! See you next week girls!

Payton and Eliana

Paytons Playland

Payton outgrew her toddler bed pretty fast. I would check on her at night and she would have limbs hanging off the bed every which way. This is due to the fact that the girl likes to s-t-r-e-t-c-h when she sleeps. So being the craigslister that I am I kept an eye out for a big girl bed for her. It took a lot of searching through princess beds and other girlie things until I found this really COOL bed. She loves it!(what kid wouldn't)? She eventually does go to sleep and even seems to sleep better now. Score!

Shakin her sillies out

Here is some more dance stuff. I can't usually watch her but they had parent observation day and we got to bring our cameras! It was too cute but Payton did spend a lot her time just standing there...I know she is learning things however, because all of a sudden she started doing moves at home like plies and saying "plie..". Also she claps "up..." then "down..." and marches in place "march, march". I was very excited!

Twinkle Toes

Payton has some new shoes she wants to show the world! We picked up these little silver sparkle shoes at a steal and now she won't take them off. She even wears them to bed! What can I say? The girl loves shoes and I have to agree with her these are quite chic.

Payton in her sparkle shoes


A close up of "the" shoes

Tommy and Jennifer...3 years and many more to come!

Nov. 12th was mine and Tommy's anniversary. It has been three years now! These three years have been so eventful and so much has happened it almost seems like forever! We are enjoying every minute of it though and look forward to many more to come. We celebrated with dinner at Lotus sushi bar and intended to see a movie which we NEVER do but absolutely nothing was playing worth paying for! So we bought a couple DVDs and went home for a movie night in.

Payton's Makeover

Well, I did it. I finally gave up trying to grow out these unruly bangs of Payton's and we got her hair cut today. She did better than I expected of course that was largely due to the bribe of a sucker (as pictured). I think her new look is very sophisticated!

Payton's before picture


After picture

Toddler Time Wednesday

Every Wednesday (almost) Payton and I go to Toddler Time at the local library. They sing and dance and read short stories. Of course we can't forget the all time favorite part, bubbles! Over time Payton has become better and actually participating instead of running around the room. She can be moody though. Today she kind of felt like observing more. But here are a couple short videos.

The horses beside the library

My Tiny Dancer

Payton goes to dance class every Tuesday. She is in a class with other 2 and 3 year olds. It took a few weeks for her to stay in the class without crying for me but she is much better now! The parents are not allowed to stay in the studio and now when I leave she just smiles and waves . She is quite the little dancer. She like to "shake, shake" and her favorite is the "choo choo". We are preparing for the Christmas recital, hopefully she will go on stage without me this time!

Payton watching other dancers


Circle time..bye mommy!

Holding her costume

Happy Birthday to me!

So I am 28 now. Not really much more to say about that. We celebrated with an evening at On the Border followed by cake. I got some scapbooking materials and am finally putting about 2 years worth of pictures together. I am having a lot of fun and accomplished 2 scrapbooks and one photo album thus far. This is one major accomplishment as it was one of my goals this year. I love accomplishing things it is such a great weight lifted off of shoulders! Even better is the lifelong memories I am creating (assuming Payton does not tear them apart)!

Girls just wanna have fun!

Payton and I went to see Audrey and her girls Kylie and Jordan on Thursday. Payton loves to go see "ky" and "JoJo". It is an event full of blanky trading, dolly napping, and food fighting toddler frenzy! Kylie is now potty trained, good job Kylie! Payton decided that she thought is was cool that kylie sat on the nifty singing potty and insisted on sitting on it for about an hour......still no potty! She did however remember to get some toilette paper, wipe, and flush (with no potty). She is a detailed little girl, if only I could get her to tinkle!

Training session

LuLu and Payton are becoming quite the pair. When one is not harassing the other they are cuddling or whining for each other. Payton loves to torture LuLu and vice versa. Payton also loves to feed LuLu and treat her like a baby. Today we found out apparently she also likes to train like LuLu. Tommy was working with the puppy and Payton played along. Please don't judge us......

Falling for Fall

The colors of fall in the Carolinas are amazing and I enjoy the season so much. Payton can play outside without getting bitten by bugs to death or sweating. She likes to play outside with LuLu, Sketcher, and Bubba our family canines. This Halloween Payton was a dragon. She adorned her costume to a Halloween party and also her first year trick or treating! She really got the hang of getting candy in her basket after about 3 houses. She would point to the next and say "more, more!". I could not get her to say trick or treat however.

Hello All!

Here at last is the Isrel families attempt at a blog. We hope this can keep everyone posted on our current happenings and fast growing kids. Jenny got a new camera for her birthday that is a little more portable than her huge monster and also does video so she is very excited. Here's to hoping she can keep up with this!