Our 10 mo old

Payton turned 10 mo. old yesterday, we're getting to double digits!! She has grown up so much and each day she looks older and older, and prettier and prettier (as if we ever thought that was possible). She has such a funny personality and loves playing games, reading books, watching Barney, and being silly. She is loving the summer and loves to be outside, listens to the birds, and eats grass :) Looking forward to spending the rest of the summer as a stay at home mom with her until I find a Hygiene job! Here are some of her 10 mo. milestones:

*Stands up by herself
*Stands up while holding onto something (this is what occupies a majority of her day lol)
*Scales the couch, wall, table etc...
*loves playing the busted game (this is where we catch her doing something "naughty" and yell BUSTED and quick run to grab her and she starts cracking up and jumps around in excitement)
*Jumps a ton when you hold her by the arms
*Practices walking while we hold her
*Eating soft table foods (and loving every minute of it lol)
*She is playing more independently
*Sleeping through the night still (thank goodness)
*Teething
*Claps
*Waves
*Reaches out for mom or dad
*She LOVES watching Barney, it is her favorite thing ever!

That is all I can think of, I am sure there is much more. She is so loved I tell ya. Can't wait to see what the next couple of months hold, I'm sure we will have a walking baby soon!!

~Mamma Ash

8 months old

It has been quite a while (as usual) since my last blog post so I figured I better step my game up and fill you anxiously awaiting 3 blog readers in on the latest Erickson Family shenanigans.

Our little one is already 8mo, she is CRAWLING...allllll over the place, she is like a little crawling cheetah and she can not be stopped lol. When she first started crawling she would stay on the rug in the living room with her toys for the most part, but now she has discovered, the kitchen, bathroom, bedrooms, entryway...time for some baby gates!!!

She has pulled herself up from crawling position to standing while holding onto the couch, I have a feeling walking is in the near future!!

She is a talking machine, she is so funny because she trys sooooo hard to talk. She closely watches mommy & daddy as they talk, and then she will attempt to copy us. She says Dada, and Baba, and we are working on Mama now.

She is sleeping through the night, she goes to bed at about 10pm and has been sleeping in until about 9:30am. She usually only takes one or two hour or so naps during the day, and I think with all the crawling she is totally pooped out by the end of the day so she sleeps like a champ.

She has started eating some Gerber Puffs now so that has been fun for her to be able to pick food up and feed herself, she thinks she is so cool :) She is still a messy eater and we still battle over spoons, but I know it will only get worse when she discovers how to throw her food, so I won't complain too much!

Her favorite game is to play Hide and Seek right now. The funny part is when she trys to hide herself behind a skinny little toy, or her little hands that are up on her forehead and she thinks we cant see her- she will giggle and giggle and then she will take her hands down and we say "there she is!" and she loooves it and thinks she is pretty funny!

She is getting a lot of hair! I always get a ton of comments by random people while we are out and about- "She has a ton of hair!" Thankfully she will not take after her mamma in that dept lol!

She has a 9 mo. check up at the end of May and we will see how much she weighs, she is nearing 20 lbs, almost too big for her car seat so we have been shopping around for some big convertible car seats for her.

And with her 12 mo. B-day in only 4 m0, we get to start planning a 1 year Birthday Party! FUN!

Much Love,

Ashley

Our almost 7 month old!!

Ok, Im a lousy blogger lets not kid anyone here....but I will try to be better. I have to force myself to blog because these little moments with Payton come and go so fast, and this is a great way for us to look back and remember all the cute little milestones.

Payton these days is such a big girl, she totally acts like a little adult, and in fact that is one of her nick names- "little adult", or really it's "little ee-dult" (the pronunciation comes from one of my nephews and it has somehow melded its way into my everyday vocabulary lol).

Here are some of Paytons many recent milestones:

*TALKING!! Saying "Dada" sometimes she can say "Hey" or "Yeah" but she really doesnt know what any of these things mean yet so Im not sure if it counts or not!!

*Sitting up all by herself

*Rolling ALL over the place, from one end of the room to another!

*Scooting- this is a pretty recent one. She will be on her tummy doing her rolling routine until she makes it on the hardwood floor and she can scoot back and forth pretty easily on it. It is so cute because she kicks and kicks her legs trying to get going, but all she will move is about 2 inches lol.

*Drinking out of a sippy cup. Paytons pediatrician told us to start introducing the sippy cup because they want the babies off the bottle by 1 year. She is doing pretty good with it, she needs a little help tipping the cup all the way up so she isnt drinking air...and she will get a drink of water and make an eewie face and then smile.

*Eating baby food like a champ (almost). We have a spoon situation. We will be feeding her, but the whole time she will be reaching and whining for the spoon we are feeding her with, we can usually dodge her hands and get the food to her mouth for a few bites. BUT if she doesnt get her spoon she will start crying-more like wailing. So I will give her an extra spoon she can hold and chew on in between bites. This usually makes quite a mess but at least she is a happy girl and at least she will let us feed her. Also she loves to pull her foot up to her mouth when we feed her...so by the end we have a food covered baby.

*At her 6mo. check up she was 16lbs.10oz. (in the 60th%), and was 23 and 5/8"(30th percent) but she is growing steadily up the growth chart so that is good. She also had to get 5 shots at her check up, poor thing she was NOT happy. On the bright side she wont have to get any more shots until she is a year old! YAY!

*She is becoming very independent and loves to roll around on a blanket and play with her toys, that is when she is the happiest these days :)

*The other day at Kohls I had her in the baby Bjorn and she was doing her excited leg kicking while smiling and laughing at strangers, waiting for them to give her a reaction.

*Brandon got her on video laughing the hardest I have EVER heard. He would snap his fingers and say "What you talkin 'bout Willis!?" and she would laugh so hard her face turned red lol :)

Hard to beleive in only 5 short months she will be 1! She surprises us everyday with new cute things and her awesome smile and laugh. Couldn't love her more!

~Ashley

4 Months Old!!

Seriously every time I go to update our baby blog, I think "Whhhhat? Our baby is already how old?!"

I got home from a long day at school yesterday and I looked at her- and just when I think she can't get any cuter- she does. She is getting so big. We are going to give her her first solid food of rice cereal sometime this week. She has her 4 mo. check up and shots next week... Here are some recent cuteness facts on P:

*She is a champ at her tummy time now. She is lifting her head up to about 90 degrees and then she looks at you and smiles like she is so proud.
*She loves to use her legs and "stand" as mommy or daddy hold her up under her armpits- and again she will look at you and gets a huuuuge proud smile on her face.
*She is grabbing (this includes grabbing mommys hair)
*She loves to suck her thumb- ok more like her whole hand
*She is laughing so hard now at..well anything...sometimes we just look at her and she will start cracking up!
*She is ticklish now!! She's in trouble!
*She is still working on talking-saying ah-goos and gees etc. However, she recently started yelling her ah-goos and gees. And man she hurts mommy and daddys ears sometimes she gets so loud
*Sometimes when she is sitting or laying back,she will fold her hands over one another and sit there like a little lady- so precious
*She likes playing games (head, shoulders, knees, and toes is a fav.) and getting books read to her
*She likes getting lifted up into the air like a rocket

She is such a big girl, getting cuter and cuter every day!

Payton at 2.5 months old

I cant beleive I have not blogged about our little one for over a month, she has grown so much since then. Just when you think she can't get any cuter- she does. My heart beams with joy just thinking about her. But the thing that has been really getting me lately is when I am holding her in my arms and I am feeding her a bottle, sometime she will stop eating a second and look up at me and smile and coo. Oh man she is cute! Here are some typical Payton things going on lately:

*She is grabbing/grasping things in her little hands- she loves grabbing onto her rattle or Mr. Frog and giving them a good shake (and giving herself the occasional rattle to the eye/face)
*Her favorite toy is Mr. Frog- he's a little stuffed frog with a rattle inside and he has crinkley wings, all you have to do is put Mr. Frog in front of P and she will automatically smile :)
*Mommy and Payton invented "The Paci Game" this is where P will suck on her paci and spit it out and I say "Uh-oh, you dropped it!" and she will laugh and smile, then mommy will suck on her paci and do the same thing....man she laughs everytime. It is so fun to see her interacting more and more and thinking things are funny!
*Peanut had her 2 month shots, she handled them like a trooper, only cried a little bit right after the shots, was sore and a little fussy for a couple days after...but it all went way better than I thought it would. Her 2 month check up went awesome too, she is in the 16% percentile for her head circumfrence, but her weight and length were right around the 50th precent.
*She is talking like crazy saying Ah-goo, ah-gee, ah-gaa, da-goo, hiiii, and a bunch of other silly combinations.
*She is laughing like crazy too! It is my favorite to hear her laugh and squeel!
*She is sitting up- if you hold her around her low back she hold her head up so straight, and loves to sit up like that.
*She is a hungry baby, the other day she downed 7 onces in one hour! She is a growing girl!
*She is loving her baby bjorn, but she is able to face outwards now so she can look around which is one of her favorite things to be able to do.
*As she loves looking around...she discovered the TV (uh oh) So if mommy and daddy are watching a movie she will watch it for bits and peices too- AND will laugh at it too!
*She is immitating! She will watch mommy or daddy click their tongue and she trys soooo hard to do it, but every once in a while she will do a tiny little click, it is so cute!

Lovin our little girl! Can't beleive she will be 3 months old pretty soon!

Our baby is a month old!! (what?!)

How time flies... P is already a month old, and she is growing so fast! Everyday I see her she seems to have grown a little more. I keep telling her to stop growing up so fast, but as usual she doesnt like to listen to Mommy too much. She has been sleeping much better and got up every 4 hours last night (compared to the ever hour or two she was doing before!)

*She still loves her mobile in her crib and even if she is fussing when you lay her down and turn on her mobile she will get super wide eyed and get a huge smile on her face
*She loves to play the game where Mommy and Daddy get her by making a chomping noise and gobble on her neck, she get super excited and starts breathing really fast and flailing her arms and legs around.
*She is ticklish on her feet, tummy, and armpits...but she doesnt laugh when you tickle her...just jerks around and evily glares at you lol.
*She has been super smily and has a cute little laugh
*She is starting to discover her voice and makes lots of "ahhh" noises, sometimes she even yells it out!
*She loves to look at Mommy or Daddy talk and she smiles if we say silly things or sing silly songs.
*She loves "You Are My Sunshine"

She is so pretty...Her eyes are turning a lighter blue color, I though she would be a brown eyed girl- so we will see!! We love her more and more everyday, being a parent is the best gift in the world I can't help but feel overwhelmingly blessed everyday. Sometimes I get butterflies in my stomach because I can't beleive how lucky I am!

3 weeks old and growing fast!!

Payton is 3.5 weeks old today and I can't beleive how big she is getting! It is so true what everyone says that they grow up fast... Everyday that goes by our love for her and bond with her grows and grows. She has such a happy personality and loves to laugh and smile. Last night she was up quite a bit (she thrives at 3am) and she was ssooooo happy with a huuuge smile on her face and was bright eyed looking around. Even though it was 3am and I was dead tired, I didn't care because she was being so darn cute! Grandma and Grandpa Boutain were up babysitting all week while I started my first week back to college. It was so hard to leave my baby girl, I welled up with tears everyday walking out the door, I hope it gets easier because I get such mom guilt. Even leaving her to take a shower I get mom guilt lol...

Some things about Payton this week:

*She attended her first Fantasy Football draft with mommy and daddy this year (will be many more to come!)
*She has been smiling and laughing more and more
*More and more eye contact
*She loves her Bumpa's (Grandpa Greg's) singing- she fusses when he stops singing to her
*She likes taking naps on mommys chest
*She can hold her head up for several seconds at a time
*She started scooting! We laid her down on her tummy on the couch and she pushed with her legs and scooted about a foot!
*She is up to drinking about 3oz at a time- I think she has gained quite a bit of weight since her last appt. She is getting really cute chubby cheeks!
*She loves her feet and head rubbed
*She loves bicycle kicks- sometimes it is the only thing that will get her to quit crying
*She likes being held by Uncle Derek (she smiled 3 times when he was holding her- Uncle Derek is so proud...)

Next week Payton gets to stay home with Daddy while I go to school- it will be an interesting adventure! I am sensing some double trouble coming on!

~Momma and PowPow