For your viewing pleasure...

CHEESE!!

Our little mama loves to help out with her baby sister...even though sometimes Payton isn't always so happy about it!!

But she is a very happy little baby!! We love to hear her laugh!

Is it Christmas yet????

A wonderful and MUCH NEEDED gift!!

Yesterday, my fabulous friend Cassie called and asked if I had plans for today. I told her I didn't and so she said she and Shanah, another fabulous friend, were going to kidnap my girls for the day so I could do whatever I wanted!!!! REALLY????!!!! Could it be true...some time JUST for myself??? This couldn't have come at a better time. Both girls have had sleeping issues lately and so I've been very sleep deprived which doesn't help with all other aspects of my life at this point. It was JUST want I needed.

So this morning, knowing my girls were in very capable hands...I set off to run a few errands that were MUCH easier without two kids in tow. And then I came home and had an uninterrupted nap until these sweet ladies brought my girls home. It was heavenly, to say the least. Although, the entire time, I had feelings of guilt for leaving the girls, combined with feelings of relief for not having them with me....and then more feelings of guilt at feeling that relief. It's a vicious circle!! But it definitely rejuvenated me. So thank you again Cassie and Shanah, you both are wonderful!!

Bathing Suit Beauties!!

Can you tell who is who???

(Top/Left: Alexa, Bottom/Right: Payton)

Some peeps have told me the pics appear side by side on their computer but they're showing up top and bottom on mine??!!! Weird.

I seriously get a kick out of how much these two look alike!!

Summer is quickly passing us by! :-( And it's been a very rainy summer at that. So when a sunny day comes along...we try to head outside and make the most of it. This was Payton's first actual dip in the pool. She's been TO the pool many times before, but this was her first time wearing a bathing suit and actually getting the the water. She enjoyed it for about 10 - 15 minutes and then preferred sitting with daddy on the side. Alexa, on the other hand, would live in the water if we would let her. She's become quite the fish this summer. We might have to enroll her in swimming lessons soon!

Payton's Nursery - Custom Made!!

Here it is!!

When we found out we were having another girl, I decided that it would probably be best to get all new crib bedding as Alexa was VERY attached to her crib at the time. I figured she would adjust better to a new sibling using the crib if it didn't look like her bed at all anymore. And since I LOVE pink & brown together, I wanted to go with that color scheme. However, I just couldn't find anything that I really loved. But I told my mom that pink and brown were the colors if she wanted to make a quilt to go along with whatever bedding I chose.

Days and weeks passed and I finally decided I'd just order or buy something while my mom was here instead of before since we didn't move Alexa from the crib until just 3 weeks before Payton was born. And in order for her to make the move to the big girl bed, we had to completely take down the crib...so I wasn't planning on putting it back up until Payton was a couple months old and ready to move into the girls' room...so we had time.

Well, my mom shows up with this BEAUTIFUL quilt she made, PLUS all the leftover material and says, if I want, she can just make a crib skirt to go with it. And just like that, she whipped up a crib skirt with no pattern!! Amazing. So we got pink sheets to match and a brown bumper pad and we were good to go. I absolutely LOVE my custom made crib bedding. Thank you mom, it turned out wonderful and I know Payton will love her quilt and pillow for years to come.

She's been sleeping soooo much better since we decided to put her in her own room. So that's what we spent last week (Kevin's week off) doing. Getting everything organized and moved around so that both girls could have their own room...and it's worked out great.

See...she already DOES love it!!

Although, silly me, I thought by them not sharing a room, I wouldn't have TWO kids up all night long, but the past several days, Alexa has done just that regardless. Not sure what's going on in her little world these days...but she better start sleeping ALL night long again soon before this tired mama goes crazy!!

And here's the grouping of pictures I put above Payton's changing table. Thanks again Amanda for taking these beautiful pictures. To see more of Amanda's fabulous talent, go here.

Tuckered Out!

I'm....BATMAN!!

Or Superman in this case...at least, that's who Alexa says she is!

(she's got some serious super powers...betcha couldn't tell that she'd just brushed her teeth all on her own!!)

Look at how fast she is!! :-)

A package from Gramma!

Yesterday, Alexa received a package in the mail addressed to HER!! Our mail lady knocked on the door and said she had a package that needed a signature and she didn't know if she was pronouncing it correctly, but was there an "A-LEX-A Mortenson" here. You should have seen Alexa's face!! She was soooooo excited that it was just for her. (Our mail lady sees us quite often so I'm sure she really did know how to say Alexa's name and just wanted to make it extra special for her...so thanks mail lady!!) And thank you Gramma Jenny for sending a package to Alexa. Gramma got Alexa this adorable skirt that Alexa couldn't wait to wear. Here she is before church this morning, showing it AND her wonderful little personality off!! And Gramma didn't leave the rest of us out...she sent me some goodies and she sent a cute pink dress for Payton that she doesn't quite fit into so pictures will have to wait on that one!!

I tried to get a shot of the two of them together, but Payton just can't quite hold herself up yet.

Me and my girls!

I hope they know how much I love them!!

C-U-T-E...

I'm so in love with this little lady!! She makes me smile every day, many times over.

I just can't get enough of her!!

Finally...some real giggles!!

Change of plans!

Okay everyone...sorry for making a 180 degree turn right now...but my friend Amanda let me know that I can add a gadget on my blog that will prevent people from being able to right-click and take my pictures AND she also let me know that when you go private, you can only have 50 invited guests allowed to view your blog (and not to toot my own horn...but with all our family on both sides AND friends from all over the place, I think we'd be pretty darn close, if not over, that amount!!!). So I've added that gadget and VOILA! no picture stealing will take place! In light of that, we'll keep our blog open to viewers...for the time being anyways!

The time has come...

After serious contemplation, we've decided to make our blog private. Seeing on the news this week that a baby's picture was stolen from someone's blog to be used in an adoption scam urged us forward in this decision. So, in an effort to do what's best for our family and to try and ensure our safety, most especially our kids' safety, we're going private. If you would like to continue to enjoy the ongoing craziness of our family, please post your email address in the comments so I can make sure you get to keep up to date on what the Mortensons are up to!! We'll officially go private in two weeks!

Thanks everyone!

Nap time is fun time, apparently!!!

This is what I found when Alexa woke up from her nap today. I put her down at 1:30 and she actually slept until after 3:30, her longest nap in a couple weeks now (yay!!). When she wakes up, she always calls for me "mommy, I'm awake" and waits for me in her bed until I come and get her (I know, it's fabulous). Well, today apparently she wanted to have the company of her friends while she was sleeping...there's Dora, Patrick and Spongebob...as well as MANY more little "friends" that you can't see. But if it helps her sleep longer than an hour and 15 minutes...I'm all for it!

This is the Life!!

What is better than this...chillaxin' in my swing with a full tummy and a clean bum???

Not much, I tell ya, not much!!

So Payton is 3 months old today. Wowza! We don't have a 3 month well baby visit...but we did have TWO doctor's visit and an ER visit last week due to her cold and fever so I think we've filled our quota for awhile!! But she's weighing in at 14 lbs 6 oz now. Not sure what her length is, they only weighed her at the illness appointments, so we'll have to wait for the full stats at her 4 month well baby visit.

Payton still doesn't really like to sleep anywhere other than next to a warm body (aka ME!!). We had a few nights of 7 - 7.5 hours in her car seat and I was starting to feel like a new woman getting all that sleep...but she was just teasin' me!! Even the car seat doesn't do the trick anymore. We're thinking of setting up the crib and moving her into Alexa's room next week but I'm a little nervous to have them share a room. I don't think I'm ready to be dealing with TWO kids up all night long. Alexa is a light sleeper and I know it's going to be a rough few nights until she gets used to having someone else in her room...someone else who doesn't sleep all night long like she does. Perhaps we can come up with a better solution but until then I'm dreading/anticipating moving Payton out of our room.

Despite the lack of sleep still...Payton is such a good baby. She loves to eat, sleep and poop...and BOY can the girl go through diapers!!! (Sorry love, I know you'll be embarrassed by that one day)!! And we're getting lots of smiles these days, along with a few grunts/giggles...she's trying soooo hard to laugh. She loves to blow raspberries and gets a kick out of when we do it back to her. Her hands are her favorite toy right now, they're constantly in her mouth. She loves her big sister and Alexa absolutely loves her. She has been such a big helper and she always wants to make sure "Taypon" is okay.

We love you Payton...happy 3 months baby girl!

Money's Worth

When Alexa was 9 months old, we took a trip to Canada to visit my family. During that trip, a great friend, Holly, gave us this adorable outfit for Alexa. It was sized 24 months but I couldn't wait to put her in it and she wore it quite often even though it was a little big and the capris were more like pants. So here she is on September 6, 2007.

And then here she is with her daddy on February 6, 2008.

And it still fit her the following summer. Here she is again on June 30, 2008.

And it STILL fits her this summer. She absolutely loves this outfit. This is her today, July 27, 2009. So thank you Holly...you definitely got your money's worth when you made this purchase!!! And I'm sure Payton will get her fair share of wearing it as well!!

I can't believe how much my baby has grown...it's so fun to go back and see how much she's changed in so short a time!

It's been a loooooong week....

So we all came down with nasty colds this week, ALL four of us! Alexa started it - not sure where she caught it from (really, it could have been anywhere), Kevin and I quickly followed and then little Miss Payton didn't want to be left out. Here's Alexa at the beginning of the week when she felt the worse...surprisingly though, being sick doesn't slow her down. And this day, she picked out her clothes all by herself. She was so proud of herself, it was cute.

Poor Payton then got a fever on Wednesday night and it was over the temperature they say is safe for under 3 months old. And, of course, the fever hit after regular office hours at her pediatrician so when we called, the after hours nurse suggested that we take her to Kosair Children's Hospital ER to get her checked out. Ugh!! It was so not what we wanted to do, as we knew we'd be there for hours...but how can you not want to make sure your baby is okay??? So we packed Payton up, called our fabulous friend Cassie to come sleep on our couch so we didn't have to wake Alexa up, and we headed to the hospital at 11:30pm. After hours and hours and hours of waiting, she was finally examined and then they did a urine sample and it was determined that we were safe to head home as it was most likely just a virus from her cold. They had been concerned about meningitis and/or urinary tract infections, thus the urine sample. But thankfully neither were the case...so at 5:00am, we finally headed home with our tired little girl (and two VERY tired parents).

We all seem to be coming out of it though, still some congestion in all of us...but we're on the mend! Yay...it's seriously been a very LONG and TIRING week. But here's a little video, mostly for the grammas and grampas, to get to know Payton a little better. We can quite regularly get lots of smiles, some giggles and raspberries out of her...but when we bring the camera out, she gets distracted by it and won't perform. The nerve!! Anyways, enjoy...we think she's pretty darn adorable!

A couple weeks ago, we went to the zoo with some friends from our ward. Alexa had been asking to see the snakes for some time so she was pretty excited about this trip to the zoo. After we had already been into the reptile exhibit and seen all the snakes, spiders, crocodiles, etc...we walked back outside and one of the zoo workers had a snake on her arm for all to see. Several months ago, we'd come across a similar situation but Alexa wouldn't have anything to do with the snake...however, THIS time she absolutely wanted to touch it. The picture makes it look like she wasn't excited about it but it was the sun in her eyes...she wouldn't look up as it was too bright. But she really was so excited to touch the icky thing and was so proud of herself for doing it. Good for you love...you're braver than your mama!!

Well...here's hoping for a healthier week with MUCH more sleep!!!