Peyton's list of thanks

I asked Peyton what she was most thankful for this year. Her response:

"You and daddy and grandma and grandpa and Abuelita and Papa and Aunt Ginger and Uncle Jim and Scott and baby Charlotte and all of my family. And my tricycle."

Peyton enjoying Thanksgiving in Albuquerque last year.

Thankful

I've seen people posting on Facebook things they are thankful for each day. I don't have the patience or the memory to post one thing each day, so instead, here are the 15 things I'm most thankful for (and as with everything on this blog, please take it with a grain of salt...it's meant to be funny).

I'm thankful for:

15. Queso and margaritas. You can never go wrong with that combination.

14. DVR. I honestly don't know what I did without it.

13. Wine. Really, this could be number 1, but I figured I'd at least save the top spots for my family.

12. My job. I love being a working mom, and I'm lucky to have a job that gives me balance and a good paycheck. Win win.

11. Gossip websites. How else would I pass the time during the day at that awesome job of mine?

10. Google Maps. I use it at least three times a day. Sometimes just to get me to the nearest Starbucks. How did I not end up in Mexico before I had this?

9. Monthly girls nights. I look forward to them, enjoy them no matter what we do, and am sad when we don't have them.

8. Nordstrom. It never disappoints and I gotta spend that paycheck somewhere. And even better than Nordstrom, Nordstrom.com or any other online shopping.

7. Texting. It's the laziest way to communicate and I love it. I get giddy each time I hear that little "ding" go off.

6. The increased popularity of leopard print. My fave.

5. Modern medicine and smart doctors who saved my dad's life this year.

4. My friends. All of them. I've made a lot of new ones in the past two years, and I'm lucky to still be close with the old ones. My life feels full every day.

3. Being home. Living five minutes from my sister and seven from my mom and dad is a gift and I know I'm lucky to have it. The warm weather is an added bonus.

2. This guy.

1. And this girl.

God, country, Notre Dame, and cold

Because I'm so successful and let's face it - a little bit famous in the PR world - I was invited to speak to a group of PR students at the University of Notre Dame. Okay, it just so happens that the professor of the class is one of Martin's best friends from college and he invited me to come out as an excuse to get Martin out for a football game.

Whatevs. We packed up our cold weather gear and headed to South Bend. I took care of business and impressed the eight students that showed up to the Thursday night class, and then we played the rest of the weekends with the Family Robinson and their four kids.

Traveling in style



 

Visiting Grandpa's favorite Chicago spot - Superdawg.



Enjoying her Superdawg, making Grandpa proud.



On Friday, we spent the day touring campus - seeing all of the famous sights from the Golden Dome to the Grotto to Touchdown Jesus. Yes, this was the official indoctrination of Peyton, and Martin did his best to brainwash our little three year o

ld about the benefits of going to ND. One small problem - Peyton was not impressed. She was cold. She was TERRIFED of the Leprechaun. And she hated the gold helmet.

You can almost hear echos of the fans chanting "Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!"

"How many 'sights' on campus do we need to take our picture in front of?"

"I can deal with Santa. I tolerate the Easter Bunny. But this creepy dude had better back off. NOW."

On Saturday, Martin thought taking in a Notre Dame football game would for sure turn Peyton into a die-hard Domer. And she was really jazzed about her new Notre Dame jersey with the pink "1" on the front.

Posing pretty on game day.

Game face.

Touchdown!

The only problem - it was snowing with record low temperatures. And our little Arizona girl was freezing to death. We bundled her up best we could. But her 19 layers of clothes were no match for the windchills and snow. After about 15 minutes in the stadium she looked at me with sad eyes, "Mommy, I'm just so cold." We left shortly after.

All smiles INSIDE. She has no idea what is about to hit her.

She cried on the way home "I'M FREEZING!!" And although we thought she as being dramatic, we soon realized her toes and fingers were literally ice blocks. A warm bath and some hot chocolate later, she was playing happily by the fire.

The rest of the weekend saw Peyton playing in the snow with her new friends, a nice adult dinner out for us grown ups and lots of laughs with good friends who we don't get to see often enough.

The Four Horsemen

I'm not sure this trip will go down in history as Peyton's favorite, nor am I convinced that Martin succeeded in his mission to plant the Notre Dame seed in her brain. Oh well, better "luck" next time.

Power of imagination

I couldn't upload the whole video because I'm not very good at the internets, but below is an awesome snipet of Peyton reading to us. And making sure to show us the pictures after each page. And getting easily distracted by the tv. Classic.





For the love of Benihana

Let's just say Peyton is beyond her years. After forcing her to smile perfectly in an uncomfortable dress in the heat for family Christmas photos, we bribed her continued good behavior with the promise of dinner at a restaurant of her choosing.

Peter Piper Pizza? No - that's for babies.
In and Out Burger? No way jose - that's for peasants.
Zipps? Please - and waste this perfectly beautiful blue dress on that hole?

Without hesitation she asked to go to Benihana.

She smiled like I've never seen her smile before (hey! maybe next year we'll have our family pictures taken AT the restaurant...), giggled at the silly chef, and delighted in all of the theatrics of the man cooking our food on the table.

Worth. Every. Penny.

So the Devil took over Peyton's body the other day...

I'm not just saying this because she's mine. Peyton really is a good kid. She listens, eats her veggies, and rarely throws fits of any kind.

But then Sunday, November 10 came around and someone kidnapped my sweet, loving, perfectly behaved kid for thirty minutes and replaced her with the devil child from hell.

Here's how it went down. Martin went for a run. I needed to take a shower. I told Peyton she could keep playing in her toy room while I showered, and if she needed anything to come into the bathroom to get me.

Within moments, I heard blood curdling screams making their way down the hallway, getting louder as she got closer. With shampoo stinging my eyes, I asked Peyton what was wrong. Thinking she had likely lost a limb, was bleeding profusely from somewhere, or some intruder was about to kill us both, I braced myself for her tearful explanation.

"I need you to rewind my show. I missed some of it," she uttered through sobs and tears.

Calmly, I told her please don't cry, I will come rewind the show as soon as I'm done in the shower. In my mind, this was a perfectly logical response. But instead of being patient and understanding like she usually is, Peyton threw her body on the ground and shouted repeatedly, "REWIND MY SHOW!!! REWIND MY SHOW!!!"

WTF?!?!

Still standing naked in the shower, I did what any good mother would do. I yelled at her to get her ass in time out. She didn't listen. I gave her five seconds. She ran into our closet and threw her body under Martin's work shirts in a fit of rage I have never before witnessed.

 

Good mothering tip 101: Take a picture of your kid in the middle of her fit because it is just too damn funny not to, and because you know in the back of your mind this is going to make a fucking hilarious blog post.

 

I got out, dried off, and let her cry for a few more minutes (Martin is still on his run, BTW). And then we talked. We made up, said we loved each other, and she apologized.

But then mean old Mommy had to take it one step further and enforce a punishment. I told her because she acted so poorly, she wasn't allowed to watch any more TV today.

Cue temper tantrum number two.

View from the monitor of Peyton unable to bear the thought of no TV for the day.

Finally, after crying hysterically in her room for about ten minutes, she sheepishly walked back to my room and, once again, apologized. She promised never to act that way again.

"No shit," I thought to myself. "If you do, I will put you on the street corner with a "free" sign around your neck."  

And although I was seriously traumatized by the chain of events and am still replaying how I acted (Did I overreact? Was I too harsh? Was I not harsh enough?), within minutes my happy go-lucky child returned. Just in time for Martin to come home from his run.

"So, what'd I miss while I was gone?"



I'm pretty sure she meant to have her middle fingers up in this one.



Shamelss bragging

Warning: Some may view this post as a complete and utter brag about Peyton. And those people would be correct. So, if you don't want to hear me rave about how exceptionally talented Peyton is, come back tomorrow.

For those of you still here (hi Mom!), I'm pretty sure Peyton is going to be an Olympian. At the age of 3 years, 10 months, she got promoted to the "Champs" class at swim school. Her coach told us she is the youngest person he has ever passed to Champs. He went on to tell us that she is well ahead of other kids her age, shows incredible promise in swimming, and he loves coaching her. He asked us to make sure we got her into one of his Champs classes because he wants to continue working with her because she is the bomb.

This is my ticket to the Olympics!

Proud mommy moment over - back to regularly scheduled posting tomorrow.

Happy birthday Amber!

Peyton's bestie turned four last week. Although we couldn't be there for the celebration, Peyton and I talked about the things we love the most about Amber bo bamber. Here's what made the list:

1) Amber is perfect mix of sassy and sweet.

2) Much to her mother's dismay, she loves to wear her ugly ARIZONA shirt to school.

3) Singing the "butt butt" song at bath time will never get old to her.

4) She loves pink. And purple. Just like PK.

5) She absolutely hates getting water on her face. In the bath, in the pool, wherever.

6) She isn't afraid to tell you how much she hates getting water in her face.

7) Her favorite song is Jesus Loves Me.

8) This:

9) And this:

10) No one will EVER be her best friend except Peyton. And she tells all of her other friends exactly that.

 

Grandpa's birthday

We celebrated my dad's 65th birthday a few weeks ago. He's a pretty simple guy - for as long as I can remember, he has requested a small celebration at home. He wants to eat chicken noodle soup (his grandmother's recipe) and bread with a nice glass of wine. His favorite dessert is carrot cake.

It's nothing fancy or fussy. It's just dad. And I can't tell you how thankful we all were to be in that same dining room, eating the same soup again this year.

Getting a little help blowing out the candles from two eager participants.

Halloween extras

I would be remiss to not include some other gems from our Halloween celebrations this year. First and foremost, Peyton learned a new song. Daddy is so proud. And yes, this was taken after trick-or-treating a dinner of snickers, lollipops and starbursts.

Peyton also carved her first pumpkin, and just like her Mom, was totally grossed out by the "icky guts." She did insist on me carving Tinkerbell's face into the pumpkin (I am not an artist) and Martin spent at least three hours painstakingly carving the Notre Dame logo into his. I just made a simple shape smiley face in mine.

Tink is the new black

I shamelessly stole the title of this post from my hashtag loving friend Jen, who appropriately captioned Halloween's most popular costume as #tinkisthenewblack.

Peyton, Simryn, and Gabriella. Three musketeer Tinkerbells.

If you remember, Peyton was thisclose to making the biggest fashion disaster of the year by dressing up at Rapunzel for Halloween. Luckily, she realized that her choice was so 2012, and her sparkly Tinkerbell costume arrived just in the nick of time.

"It's here! It's here!"

Peyton assumed the role of Tink with gusto and pride. And, after emptying almost an entire can of hairspray on her head, I managed to get her uncooperative hair in a sort-of Tinkerbell bun. And then I came at her with both the iPhone camera and the heavy duty "Mom means business so you better smile" camera. And we assumed our position in the courtyard by the fountain for her pose off.

I swear I did not bribe her with candy and soda to get her to take such a pretty picture.

That's more like it. Gangsta Peyton.

Goofball.

I must have found some extra treats somewhere...

Picture taking victory!

While Madrid will never out-do Sullivan Circle in terms of neighborhood togetherness, there was a nice pre-party for all of the families to enjoy, which allowed the moms to hang out and gossip with each other while the kids ran amok eating candy.

The real housewives of Madrid.

PK ruling the neighborhood bash.

Aunt Ginger outdid herself with her Cruella de Vil costume - and Baby Charlotte as a dalmation!







Accessories are a must!



"Alright let's blow this popsicle stand. I'm ready to get my trick-or-treat on."

Of course Peyton had a great time trick-or-treating. She really is at the perfect age for it. After being a bit hesitant at the first house, she became much more confident and was telling Martin and me that she could "do this by herself" and instructed us to stay at the end of the driveway while she flittered up to the door to get her goodies.