Weldon and Randa Payne and our little family: letter 2/17/2016

Life is going great at the Payne house, I have a bit of a cold right now and feel kinda crappy but it just makes me feel grateful that I normally feel fine and don’t deal with all the little aches and pains. We have had so much family down on the Skinner side as well as the Payne side and it sure has been fun to visit with everyone. I am grateful for the good families that we come from. Weldon played a song for me that he heard on the radio the other day and it is so good, it is called “humble and kind” by Tim McGraw. I love it, it is how I hope to live my life and hope to impart that wisdom to my children. Kindness is so important and seems to be overlooked so often these days.

It snowed just up the road from our house so we just had to go play in it! this is back behind Mt. Graham off the back road to Willcox and it was so pretty. We all had a good time, but Preston didn't really like the cold snow!!

Colton is still doing great in school and he loves it. His teacher is wonderful and when watching the children interact with her you can tell that they all really love her. Her name is Miss Monaghan and this is her first year out of school. We are so glad that Colton got her as his teacher. Colton is so smart and I am amazed at what they are already learning now in first grade. I am glad I put him in school as he really enjoys being with other people. He fell in “love” with a cute little girl named Lanae at the beginning of the school year and I thought he would be over her by now but he is nothing if not committed! Weldon met Lanae’s mom one day while picking up Colton and she said “oh, you’re Colton’s Dad, yeah Colton really likes Lanae.” Haha we got a kick out of that, turns out Weldon used to work with her when he worked in the ER. Colton says he thinks Lanae is starting to “be with love with him” because she sits by him at lunch and the other day she gave him some candy. He has high hopes that she is anyway. He also got new glasses today that are red because now red is his favorite color and not blue anymore and he is excited about that. Earlier this week we took the kids down a dirt road for a walk and there was a sandy wash that we said they could play in so Colton took off and was digging in the dirt before any of us got there. All of the sudden he started screaming and running towards us so that we thought he had been bit by a snake or something but when we got to him we saw that while he had been digging in the sand he had accidentally grabbed a whole section of jumping cactus and it was so imbedded in his hand and fingers in so many places that he couldn’t even open his hand. We felt so bad for him and it made us cringe just to look at it but he did so good and held so still for us to try and get it out. We had to grab some spare diapers to wrap around it so we could pull it out and even through those we were getting poked so I can’t imagine how bad that must have hurt for him. We finally got it out though and went home to put some ice on it. We called him Cactus Colton for the rest of the day.

Kaci is still as fun and silly as ever. She sure is a sweet girl and is always doing her best to take care of everybody. Weldon had gotten a bipod for his gun a little while ago and while they were expanding and collapsing the legs she got her finger pinched and made it bleed and made her cry. The next day Weldon went out coyote calling and did the same thing to his finger, when he came home he was showing Kaci and they were comparing their bandaid covered fingers and she said “did you cry?” he said no he didn’t cry and she said “well then mine must have hurt worser, because I cried!!” haha what a funny girl. She is such a help to me in everything I do and is a good little girl. She will be starting kindergarten this fall and is so excited to get to go to school with Colton. Colton is excited for that too so she can play on the playground with him at recess. Oh and she got engaged this week. I thought I had a few more years before I had to worry about stuff like that but I was wrong. She has been talking about how when she grows up she is going to marry Dawson (our six year old neighbor boy who is just a cutie) and a few days ago while they were playing hide-and-seek Kaci and Dawson were hiding behind the stroller and I heard them decide that when they grow up they are going to marry each other. They told me later that at first Payson (Dawson’s little brother) wanted to marry her too but since they both can’t marry her and Dawson is older that he gets too. I about died, it is funny and a little worrisome too! She has been drawing the cutest stick figures of her and Dawson getting married. She says she wants a purple dress with pink flowers and she wants to wear makeup too. I honestly would be thrilled if she married him when they grow up, they are a nice little family and are fun neighbors. I have made a few dresses for her lately and she sure is fun to sew for because no matter what I do her response is always “I love it so much! Can I wear it right now!?” and it makes it really rewarding.

Preston, oh man I could write a book about what that boy has been up to lately! It sure is a good thing he is funny and cute because he can be a pill sometimes. We call him our honey badger because he can be so tough and ornery sometimes and so sweet and snuggly other times. A few weeks ago he got into my nail polish and painted his toes and when I got after him he said he didn’t mean to and it was an accident. Luckily he didn’t make much mess and as it was in the bathroom it was easy to clean up. The next day he and Kaci were in my bathroom where the carpet is currently pulled up because they are fixing a leak in our toilet and Kaci comes out running and saying that Preston must have stepped on one of the carpet nails because she could see blood on his foot and Preston is following behind her crying and wont hardly walk on his injured foot at all because it just hurts that bad. I kneel down and look at the blood on his foot that they are all worried about and say “Preston this is just a tiny spot of leftover nail polish I didn’t get off, it’s not blood.” And just like that the boy was healed. He said “oh you’re right!” and then immediately ran off to play without any limp at all. He is a goober. This past Sunday was Ezra and Natalie’s baby blessing so I was pouring a bath for myself to get ready and go and as I was walking out of the bathroom to get my clothes that I was going to change into he walked into the bathroom saying he needed to go pee, I didn’t think anything of this as there is a toilet in there, until I came back from the closet and see him peeing over the edge into my bathtub. He had to stand on his tippy toes just to manage it, I mean what on earth possessed him to do that! I am just glad I saw him and was able to drain the tub and start over and not just bathe in it. When I got after him for that it was another case of “I didn’t mean to, it was an accident!” you just have to shake your head and laugh. Last night I found him dumping a whole bottle of argon oil in his hair and saying he looked like a ninja, I washed it three times and it is still oily, there was so much stuff in there that the shampoo wouldn’t even lather. Well I got that cleaned up and was getting everyone else ready for bed when he tells me he wants to clean his boots and he has Weldon’s boot brush in his hands I say sure you go do that because I know that the boot cleaner and oil and stuff are put way too high for him to reach. I can hear him vigorously scrubbing his boots in the other room and I walk back there to check on him and find him with a canister of Weldon’s hair pomade (that I had just bought earlier that afternoon) and it is slathered all over his boots and he is in there happily cleaning them the way he has seen Weldon clean his. In Preston’s defense, he did ask first, and after looking at it the hair pomade container does look remarkably like the boot cleaner container. He isn’t naughty on purpose, he just so busy. He has the cutest little voice and loves to talk and if he feels I am not listening to him well enough he will put his hands on either side of my face and say “mom, are you listening!?” and likes to sit by me and snuggle and tell me all about power rangers and spider man and stuff. He talks so funny we like to have him say things for us and my new favorite is ‘The Plincess Blide” (the princess bride) pretty much every word with an ‘R’ as a second letter he switches for an “L” and it is so darn cute. He keeps us on our toes and never lets it get boring around here that’s for sure. Preston cut some huge chunks out of his hair and there was just no saving it so we had to buzz his head. When Preston saw himself in the mirror he started crying and said "but why is it ALL gone!?"

Owen is so close to walking. He cruses around the furniture and along the walls but won’t let go yet. He is trying to say a few words too. He says mama and dada and waves and says hi. And is just so cute. He also says “nite nite” which to him means he wants to nurse. I make myself laugh because I told him “you keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means” and then seriously giggled at my dorky joke for like ten minutes. But yeah, when he wants to nurse he flops on my lap and says nite nite. It’s cute. He loves it when I vacuum and will just sit there and scream to see if he can be louder than the vacuum and he is fearless. He will choose a spot to sit, usually right where I need to vacuum next, and just sit there and watch and scream and not move, so I have these little squares in each room where you can tell Owen was sitting and I had to vacuum around him. He has also learned how to throw fits and he is getting pretty good. He screams and yells and kicks his legs and shakes his head and arms and sometimes will make himself fall over, which works out better for him anyway because then he can carry on with his fit throwing while rolling around on the ground. At this point they are really comical to watch. We went to a restaurant the other day and as we were getting ready to leave these two older black ladies stopped me to tell me how cute and sweet he was and how pretty his eyes were and stuff. They were so nice, and the whole time he is looking at them and smiling at them and really playing it up. I think he liked the attention. He has also started nodding his head very emphatically when we say uh hu uh hu and then we laugh and he laughs and it’s just so entertaining. He is also a loud eater and if he likes his food he moans and grunts and makes ‘happy food noises’ (think mister Collins from pride and prejudice or Bob from what about bob) and if he doesn’t like it he just promptly throws it over the side of his tray. We love him and think he is growing up way too fast. Owen turned one and he was supper grumpy on his birthday but we still got some pics!

Pictures from a fun day trip up the back way to Morenci.

And we also got a dog. We all love her. We were going to wait until we had a yard before we got a dog and then were going to get a miniature schnauzer, but they are very expensive, anywhere from $500-1200, so it would be a while before we wanted to do that. Well I happened be scrolling through facebook and saw this lady trying to find a home for a stray puppy that she had found and couldn’t find the owners. The lady said she guessed she was a schnauzer terrior mix of some sort and in the pictures she looked so cute. The lady was so nice and had even groomed the dog and everything. We went and met her that night and wanted her so we brought her home with us. I took her to the vet the next day and they said she definitely has schnauzer in her and is about 4 months old. We named her Pepper and the kids love her so much. She doesn’t act all annoying like a puppy and is actually really really calm and quiet and I am grateful for that. She is smart and doing good potty training. Owen thinks she is all his and when I take her outside to go to the bathroom he gets so mad and will stand at the door screaming until I bring her back in. I thought I would regret getting her a few days later but I really haven’t, she has been pretty easy and I am glad we got her. Here are some pictures of the dog and us out picking poppies. I love poppies so much!!