Paisley is out too...and an update

Well, maybe I am not decisive at picking a name, so the process of elimination may be our only hope! So, not only is Quincy out, but Paisley is out now too. I just know that I would hate having a Peyt and a Pais. It's just too much alike. I love the name Paisley, but when I think of all the names, I don't honestly give Paisley a real consideration. It has always been Joslyn, Tenley, Lucy, and Ellie. I have a feeling that one of those may be out soon too, but for now, no one vote on Paisley and if you want, you can change your vote if you did vote on it.

Sorry my blogs are only about baby names lately! We have been up to a lot, but I need to upload some pictures before I blog about them. In short, Dave has been busy working full time at a new job at Red Sky Solutions doing sales. He really likes it so far and is learning a lot. He is also going to school full-time online. He is one busy boy! We love him for all his hard work for us though.

I am busy with work, and it has been so nice having Lauren babysit Peyton in the mornings so I can get some good hours in. :) She is so sweet with her. The baby is getting big and I am starting to feel the discomforts of pregnancy. I'm trying hard not to whine about it though. Like Elder Holland said, "There is no situation that whining won't make worse." So I just try not to think about it.  I love feeling her move everyday and even though I have only gained 20 pounds so far (at 33 weeks), she is in the 75th percentile! But big babies seem to run in the family, so it was expected. I just hope delivery goes a little easier this time and that she isn't too big by next month. We have almost everything ready for her arrival (except a name of course), and can't wait to meet our second little princess!

Peyton is Peyton. She is crazy in love with the water and such a daredevil! She watched Dave do a flip off the diving board, and next thing we know, she walked up to the board and instead of jumping off like she normally does, she did a front flip off it! ah! I couldn't believe it! Watch the video below. This wasn't the first time she did it, but since she did it all evening long, we got some good video footage. :) I love that little daredevil, even if she does periodically scare the pants off me! She says the most random things and makes me laugh everyday. She got lost for about 20 minutes last week and after not being able to find her that long, I started to lose it. Luckily a neighbor found her playing in someones back yard, but it made me realize that if anything ever happened to that little girl, I would never recover. She means the world to me and I just adore her so much. Naughty and nice--I could never live without that dress-up wearing, chocolate-milk drinking, messy, loud princess!

We spent last weekend at the cabin at Island Park with my sisters Lana and McCall and their husbands. It was so nice to be up in nature just relaxing. I turned off my phone almost the whole time and didn't take my computer (the two appendages that I usually have connected to my body). It was so nice to have a break. :)  I love spending time with my sisters. We all loaded up in a suburban with Jaxton and Peyton in their carseats and went to Yellowstone, went river-rafting (well sort of--there was no current so we paddled the whole 5-miles down the river!), went to Bear-World, and ate lots of good food. I'll post some pictures if I can get some from Lana. I forgot my camera! Who does that?!

Anyway, hope everyone is doing well. I'll try to post pictures soon!

Baby Name Update

No one vote for Quincy. Dave hates it, so it's no longer in the running. I can't take it off the poll since it's already been voted on. Also, if you did vote for that name, you can change your vote to something else if you would like.

Thanks!
JaRelle

Baby Names...HELP!!!

I don't know why, but this time around we are having the hardest time deciding on what to name our little princess! We have gone through so many names. The ones that we really like, we will call the baby that for a few days to see if it feels right. Usually, after a week, I'll decide it's not right and change it to something else. With Peyton, it was so easy. Linda suggested it and said, "Dave, JaRelle, and Peyton. That's cute." We sort of had this instant feeling like, that's it. But with this one, we just can't seem to make a decision! So to the right on the blog I have a little baby poll set up. Please select the one that you like most. These are the 4 that seem to have stuck through all the trials.

Joslyn is a name that I have just always loved. On my mission I found a Joslyn and she was just adorable which made me love the name even more. The meaning of Joslyn is "joyful and happy." :)

Tenley started out as Tinsley, but it seemed to be a mouthful, so it is now Tenley. It's sort of fun and different. I hate names that are so popular that my daughter will have 3 others girls in her class with the same name. So I sort of like unusual names, but not so unusual that they are just plain weird. My name was always misspelled and mispronounced my entire life, so I sort of like easy names too (thus the reason I can never pick one! I like unusual names AND common names!)

Lucy will most likely be Luciella or Luciana, but we will just call her Lucy for short. Lucy has a lot of history with wonderful women in the past and some that are even in our family name. It's a fun, happy name.

Ellie started as Ella, but there are so many Ella's these days! I love Ella, so we switched it up to be Ellie (like the cute little grandma on UP). Lately though, I've heard that it is becoming really popular as well. All the E names are. Ella, Ellie, Emma, Emily, Ethan, Evan, Evalyn, etc. I love the way that Peyton and Ellie sound together though and Ellie just seems to fit in so well with all of our names.

Quincy is a name I heard just the other day and I am just starting to consider that one (I don't even think I've mentioned it to Dave yet, so he'll be surprised to see it on the poll.) Quincy Bailey just sounds good together. Peyton and Quincy? I like it :)

Paisley is one we considered in the past, but I had my reserves about it because 1) I have a cousin who's daughter is that name, but we really only see them like maybe once a year, so I don't think it really matters, and 2) Peyton gets called Peyt a lot. Will having a Peyt and a Pais be too confusing around the house? and 3) I love Peyton and Paisley, but if I have another girl, do I have to keep going with the P's? I've never been a huge fan of naming all your kids with the same letter--and there definitely aren't enough P names out there to name all my kids that way! Do I worry too much or should I just go with Peyton and Paisley because I love the name?

So there is the history on these names. Pick your favorite on the right side. I'm not saying I will go with whatever name is the most popular in the poll, but I'm just throwing it out there to see what other people think too. Feel free to leave comments telling me why too! Naming a baby is hard! It's what they will be known by forever! I want it to be cute, but still sophisticated enough for when they are adults. I don't want it to rhyme with our last name. I want it to be spelled and pronounced right. I don't want there to be a million other kids in school with the same name though... seriously, I know I am anal, but it's her name that she'll be known by forever, something you have to take seriously!!!

HELP!!!

Mother's Day Bike Ride

The day before Mother's Day, we went on a big bike ride down the canyon trail that starts at Big Rock Candy Mountain. Along with us three, Lana, Tyson, Jaxton, McCall, JD, and two little families that were friends with Lana and Tyson came. It was so much fun. The weather was perfect--warm with a little breeze. At first Peyton didn't love riding in the little trailer, but she soon settled in and enjoyed the ride. I love to run and bike, but being 7 months pregnant, they had to assure me that it was all downhill. :) The last half mile was uphill and it ended at a rest-stop. That did me in. One of Lana's friend's had just had a baby two months ago and she and I ended up walking the last part of the hill. Before the ride we left our vehicles at what we thought was the end of the trail... but it was really 3 miles past the end of the trail. So luckily our sweet husbands went the last three miles alone and the wives and kids stayed in the shade at the rest stop. We went 7 miles, the boys went 10. (Well the boys + McCall--fit, little overachiever!) 

We had so much fun. The trail goes down the canyon with beautiful scenery all around. We got to see a huge snake or two, an old train tunnel, and even a few deer. It was fun and relaxing--something I definitely want to do again. (Maybe not when I'm as big and pregnant though, since I had to peddle out away from my belly instead of just straight up and down. I'm sure I looked ridiculous!)

Here are some pics. Thanks Lana for sending them to us!

Peyton's Self-Haircut!

About a month ago, I was helping with Sunday dishes, assuming (never assume anything when you have kids!) that someone was watching Peyton. Pretty soon Dave asks where she is, and I said, "I thought you had her." He starts calling for her and she calls back from upstairs. Mind you--she is not allowed upstairs in the other kids' rooms. Every time she goes up there, something bad happens, such as painting her entire body with nail polish, smearing make-up all over her face, getting into Uncle Ty's cologne, etc. So when she answered from upstairs, I instantly started worrying. I heard Dave start walking up the stairs... then he stopped... and said, "Peyton! Did you cut your own hair?!" I had my hands in soapy dishwater and froze instantly. I just closed my eyes and though, "Please no, please no." One by one, I hear other people go to the stairs and gasp! I knew it was bad, so I tiptoed over there and sure enough, it was chopped--pretty bad! I just stared at her, unable to say anything. 

Can I just tell you how much I have loved her long hair? She has been my real-life barbie since she was born with that thick head of black hair. I was having so much fun braiding it in new braids every week, doing twists, weaves, spider-webs, all sorts of creations. I took pictures of lots of them, thank goodness. At that moment when I saw her hair chopped off, everyone kept looking at me for a response, and I seriously couldn't move! It's like I wanted to cry or be mad or just laugh or something, but my mind couldn't decide which, so I just stared in disbelief. Luckily, her hair had been put back into a spider-web weave that morning, so she didn't chop off the front, just the whole back left side. We had Grandma Connie's birthday party that night and since it was Sunday and no salons were open, we just went with her hair half chopped off. It's just one of those things that you can't do anything about and that you pray never happens, but deep down, you know it probably will. So I just took pictures and decided to laugh about it (after I warned her that if she ever did that again...)

 This was her hair that morning. I thought it was so cute in her long ringlets, that I took a picture.

 This was her just after she did it! You can't see it well in the picture, but there are choppy pieces all through the left side. One that is like a half a centimeter from her scalp!

We took her to Cookie Cutters the next morning and the girl who cut it just laughed and said she would do her best. Since she wasn't able to cut the front off, we were able to do a little A-line cut on her. It wasn't completely even in the back, but we layered it to make it look the best we could and now we just have to trim it up every 6 weeks or so until that piece that was so close to her scalp catches up with the rest of it!

            

       

As you can see from the pictures, she was way less stressed out by the situation than I was! But it is cute, and I do love it. My hair grows fast and I always have a tendency to chop mine off after it's been long for so long, so maybe she was just bored and wanted a change too. :) The bob fits here little personality really well, and had she not chopped it herself, I probably wouldn't have done it. So it's fun, and definitely a memory!