mini golf

My dad sent me some pictures he took this weekend and I had to share them on top of yesterday's post ...

Notice the flag in the background, can you tell this was set-up?! Its cute anyway ... we were waiting for the memorial day parade to start!



I just love this picture! They just look like old friends ....



I also forgot with all the excitement of yesterday to note that Hailey went mini-golfing for the first time Sunday night. She had fun dropping her ball in the hole and running around. I wish you could see her face in this pix, she has her mouth wide open in awe of hitting the ball!

let summer begin!

This weekend we took Hailey to the beach twice. On Friday, it was around 90 degrees so we packed up after work for some fun and sun! I love the picture above with her and daddy ...

Today was a planned beach day and it turned out perfect!!! 80 degrees with loads of sun!



Below is a picture of Elijah (18months), Sidney (14 months) and Hailey (22 months). At one point in our lives we all lived in the MD/DC area. We actually all got pregnant right after eachother and were sad when we moved away, but now we live within an hour of each other - we are SO excited that our kids can grow up together!







Hailey isn't quite fond of the cold ocean water, but she loves the sand! She is such an girl thought and starts out touching the sand and then pulling her hand out saying - ewww - wanting me to clean it off, but she gets over it pretty fast and by the end of the day she was rubbing it in her hair! That is when I say - ewww!



And a totally unrelated but cute story - Tim and I love our coffee and as we quickly figured so does Hailey, but since I know she shouldn't drink it many times I will make her chocolate milk to keep her content. So Hailey has now learned to say, coffee, when she says it it sounds like "copy". This weekend as soon as we get up Daddy wants coffee, so Hailey runs around the house yelling, "copy, copy" ... This morning as we are getting ready to leave I go to grab my flip-flops and Hailey was by the dining room table, she decides to then grab my "copy" off the table and tip it upside down. As it is spilling out she is standing there, still holding it upside down saying - ewwww! I couldn't believe it! I didn't know whether to laugh or cry!

Hailey's first vacation

I love this pictures above, it was taken the morning we were leaving for our trip. You can't see the baggie in her hand very well, but she was packing her hair clips!

We returned yesterday from our vacation excursion to PA/MD. We had a great time, but realized Hailey does not travel well. This was her first long trip away from home and she did not like it at all. My baby who LOVES to eat decided to refuse to eat. I have never dealt with this before and it really scared me. She also, woke up numerous times at night crying and just thrashed around. We ended up with her in our bed every night.

We traveled Thursday, and then Friday got up early to head to MD (an hour from our friends house in PA) to visit Johns Hopkins etc ... Everyone I worked with was amazed at how great she looks and she defintely put on a show for them. Sadly, most of the nurses that took care of her in the NICU were not working the day we went to visit! She also completed the study she was in, but she wasn't very cooperative to say the least. It was after we left the hospital that she had her meltdown. I thought she was going to make herself sick so we cancelled further plans and headed back to the house ...

The rest of the trip was much more relaxed! Saturday we spent the morning relaxing, and then we ended up going to Dutch Wonderland in Lancaster with Wayne, Kim and Travis. We didn't make it to Sesame Street Place because the weather was on the cooler side with showers. That afternoon while having lunch we noticed part of the reason Hailey is refusing to eat. The night before we left Hailey fell on Meme and Papa's gravel driveway and cut her lip, it bled for quite a while, but I thought it was just on the outside of her lip, I didn't realize how bad it was inside! We had a paramedic at Dutch Wonderland look at it and he said it didn't look infected so we have just been keeping an eye on it, but that could be part of the reason she is not eating so well.

Here are some pictures from Saturday's trip to Dutch Wonderland!





They were celebrating character days at the park and had all kinds of characters including Santa. For some reason Hailey loves anthing dressed up and was running around the park screeching. It was really funny!



Sunday we went out to breakfast with Jason, Mihaela and Kalyn (3). Mihaela is 32 weeks pregnant with a little boy!!! They just moved into a beautiful new house the day we arrived so we didn't get to visit them for long with all that was going on, but it was great to see them! That afternoon, we went to the Strasburg Railroad. Travis loves trains and had a great time. I think Hailey would have enjoyed herself more if it wasn't for her lack of sleep. Notice how tired she looks in the pix below. Not a smile in sight ...





On Monday we headed home and stopped in MA to visit some friends who just moved to the area from DC. We are so excited because they are now only 45 min away and their daughter Sidney is only a little younger than Hailey. They will have lots of fun growing up together!



So, all in all, it was a fun trip and we had a blast seeing our friends (thank you Wayne, Kim and Travis!), but our little angel didn't take the travel so well. She will have many vacations ahead so lets hope she grows out of this stage! The good news in the nighttime crying is done with - I think she was just relieved to be in her own bed :-)

sleep update

Sadly, the nighttime crying is not short lived. It has become an every night event, but I am learning from my mom tips and tricks. I have a really hard time just letting her cry it out. I never had this problem when she was little so its all new to me, but I have learned from her first few nights of doing this that nothing is wrong she is just trying to get away with not going to sleep. So with moral support (aka mom) who came over to watch a movie Friday night we let Hailey CIO (cry it out). 45 minutes later after crying like I have never heard her before and lots of "mommy, mommy" she feel asleep. Saturday night the crying was a little shorter and the past few nights have gotten progressively better. We also have re-vamped her nap schedule as well. At my mom's she would sleep from 7-10am and 1-3:30p (I don't get it since she will never sleep that much for me when I am home ;-( Anyway, we shortened the two naps as of yesterday and I think it is helping because last night she only cried for about 5 minutes if that and was out! She does sleeps alot lighter than she used to as well and when I go in to check on her before going to bed myself she occasionally wakes up enough to stand up in bed and give me a hug. Then again, the crying starts when I put her down. I guess I need to stop checking on her. Another habit that is not easy for mom to break!

Well, we leave for vacation on Thursday so who knows how this will affect her sleep schedule and crying fits. I guess this all comes with growing up. She is learning early how to manipulate the system ;-)



Also, a short vacation update ... we leave Thursday as I said above - we can't wait! We are driving (about 8 hours) so wish us luck. Thankfully, my sister-in-law, let us borrow her dvd player for the car. On this trip we will be staying with great friends of ours in PA and will be visiting the NICU, and the physicians/nurses I used to work with at Johns Hopkins. I can't wait for everyone to see how big she has grown! Also, she was part of a study in the NICU to see how preemies of all gestations develop from birth to age 2. She will be getting an evaluation to end the study. I think she will amaze them all!

Then Saturday we are taking Hailey to Sesame Street Place and of course she will get to meet ELMO! I can't wait to see her face! We will be back in town Tuesday so I am sure I will have lots of pictures and updates.

stages

Looking back over Hailey's "almost" 2 years I realized I have loved every stage of her growth and it just seems to get better! Right now she is at a fun stage, where she can really understand what I say and verbalize back what she wants. She also has a funny personality that justs gets more and more developed as she grows. She is outgoing and just so darn cute! I couldn't be more blessed as a mom.

Part of this new stage is repeating EVERYTHING! You look at her and say something, she will repeat it. She also copies many of our actions. Her newest is to pretend to give you something and then when she gets close to giving it to you she takes it back, opens her mouth wide and laughs! When she does this I look at her and say "meanie" and so now she looks at me and says it back with a smile on her face! It is quite cute, but I can just see her doing this to the wrong person or another child. I don't think they will think its so cute.



She also has reached the stage - maybe you want to call it "terrible twos" - where she isn't as easy going as she used to be ;-) This past week she has decided she doesn't want to go to sleep at night. I have never had this problem. Even when she was first home from the NICU she slept so well. So when this pattern first started I would go in, rock her, lay her back down and come out again. Eventually she would fall asleep. Then the next night she would push it further, I would go back in, hug her lay her down and she would cry again ... after a couple nights I noticed a pattern. Last night was the worse. 45 minutes of on and off crying and "mama". I had a hard time with ignoring it (but I did), because I knew this would only get worse as the nights progressed. Lets hope last night I made a point and tonight she settles down.



Hailey loves to "cook" so for her her 2nd birthday we were going to buy her a kitchen set. Last weekend we were driving around and went by a second hand children's store and they had a kitchen for a really good price, so we gave it a home. I thought about waiting till her second birthday, but living where we do there isn't much room to store anything. So when she came home from Nana's last week it was waiting for her! She was so happy and now serves us breakfast, lunch and dinner :-)

and potty update ... Hailey now tell me when she has to poop, so I put her on the potty, when she decides she is done she gets up and I put a diaper back on her. She then proceeds to really poop! I guess its a good step that she warns me when it is coming...

Happy Mothers Day to all the wonderful mom's I know!

Jordyn's Ride 2007

Today Jordyn's Ride 2007 took place. Jordyn's Ride was founded by my brother and sister-in-law in an effort to support my niece and her family as she battles cancer. Each year they will hold the ride and donate the money toward helping other families fighting a similiar battle.



Daddy headed over early in the morning to help, but since I couldn't find a sitter for Hailey we ended up going to watch the riders go by with Tracey, Taylor, Tyler and Jordyn. What an amazing sight to watch them ride by and know the purpose behind it!



After watching them ride by we ended up going over to V-Twin Cycle to help in anyway we could. Thats pretty hard with an (almost) 2 year old so it ended up that Taylor, Hailey's 9 year old cousin became an impromtu sitter and did a great job!!!! As we were pulling out to leave later in the day Hailey is yelling "bye laylor, bye"! She can't say the "T" yet, but she does a good job of pronouncing her name. Before we left Taylor told me she needed to go home and rest because its hard work taking care of a baby :-) She is so right!!!!

enjoying SPRING!

Today was a beautiful spring day. It was around 60 degrees and sunny. Hailey and I went out to dinner with my friend Valerie and her son Wyatt. After dinner we walked to the park. Notice the flowers!!! A real sign of spring ...


Hailey didn't want to share the swing so Wyatt decided he was out of there ...

to Meme's house we go

We stopped by Meme's today and we were able to see Taylor and Jordy again. Hailey had loads of fun playing with them.

I love these pictures because Hailey does not usually sit, but for a good half hour today she took turns sitting with each of her cousins.





And when she wasn't sitting and playing with her cousins she was running into the kitchen every 5 minutes for cake or cookies. Oh the joys of Meme's house!

Meme asked me tonight if I felt like all we ever do at her house is eat ... and I said yeah, I do see a pattern, but the big question is does she feel like all she ever does is cook?! Thankfully she loves to cook and is great at it, the problem is being married to her son I will never live up to the standard she has set :-) I guess that is what Meme's are for ...

e-i-e-i-o

Hailey comes up with new things everyday. You read her a book once and the next day she is repeating it. She has a book about Old McDonald's Farm and it has a push button where it actually plays the song. I have read it to her once or twice, but thats it and I forgot about the book. Well, last week she started singing in the car e-i-e-i-o. I couldn't figure out where she learned this from until yesterday she carried the book out for me to read it to her. Its amazing the memories these kids have!

She also is at the stage where she repeats everything we say. This can be cute as long as we watch what we say ... Lately when eating crackers she will pretend to give us one then take it away and eat it. So while laughing I looked at her and said "meanie" well, now she looks at me and says it back.

Now for some cute pictures from the past week ...

Below is Hailey in her babies crib ... notice the baby laying beside the crib.


Hailey decided if she couldn't get a ride in her car she would push Elijah around in it. She did a good job too.


Starting last week I decided it was time to wean Hailey from her binky and banky. I have realized how attached she is to them, but didn't worry about it because she was still little, but with the big "2" coming up I figure its time. Let me just say this was not expected to be an easy task, but it has turned out just fine. Surprisingly, as long as binky/banky are out of sight, they are out of mind. The only time she asks for them is if she sees them, is tired or hurts herself. She has always hated car rides so they were always a must, but this week I just didn't bring them with us and maybe the first time in the car she asked for them, but the rest of the week she has been perfectly fine without them. I do let her still use them to sleep though. For right now I see no harm in that and you better believe that next month on our 8 hour trip to Maryland they will be the first thing I pack :-)

This week I am starting to wonder if binky/banky are more for her sanity or mine? Maybe I need to devise a plan to wean me from needing to give them to her when she is upset or just being loud!

Happy 3rd Birthday Alyssa!

Today was Alyssa's 3rd birthday party! It was a beautiful 70 degree day and fun was had by all. Her theme was a bugs life and they had an live exotic animal and bug show.



I love watching Hailey grow up and be able to interact more and more with her cousins and other kids. She loved the bubble machine ...



Waiting patiently for cupcakes!!! UMMM ...



Alyssa's big gift was a Dora jeep, Luke was the chauffeur giving each kid a ride around the yard. It was very cute, but Luke wasn't very impressed. He wanted to know why it didn't go any faster :-) He has a need for speed!!!

to the circus we go ...

Friends of ours, Tim and Elita, gave us tickets to the circus so we took Hailey today. She had lots of fun and lasted about an hour which I think is pretty good for someone her age. She isn't afraid of the dark, but did cring when the lights went out and clung to me for most of it while watching the show. Her favorite was the clowns, it is funny how much this child loves anything dressed up - santa, easter bunny, clowns etc ... She just screeches and runs up to them. One of the acts she saw was a flying trapeze act and she kept yelling "monkey, monkey". She thought the lady was a monkey. HA, HA! Sadly, most of all our circus pix came out blurry. Here is a cute one though ...



After we left the circus we headed to a park to let Hailey run off some energy ...



Notice we are enjoying the outdoors again. Yes, it hit between 60-70 degrees today. Hailey LOVES the park. Its great to watch her run around and play because last year during the summer she wasn't walking yet.



Then I had to throw this pix in for good measure ...

much better!

We are feeling better and ready for the weekend - yeah! Daddy has 3 days off this weekend - Thursday, Friday and Saturday so we are looking forward to spending quality time together. Best of all its supposed to finally warm up - yeah! We might even hit 70 degrees! Come, spring, come!

Hailey has really been having fun dancing lately. She recently decided twirling would be fun and has started doing this when dancing. It is so funny to watch. She also likes to hang upside. Go figure ...

We also got our first "love you's" out of her. What's funny is she knows just what it means and decides to be selective on when to say it. We can say it to her and she will repeat back at some points and other points just grin at us a walk away. She knows exactly what she is doing!



Tonight Wyatt came over to play. They both have strong personalities and bullied each other around. They have been friends since they were babies so its fun to watch them grow and see what each stage brings :-)



Also, Jaimi (Mae-me) as Hailey calls her, came to visit for a few minutes tonight. Hailey loves Jaimi and kept jumping in her lap every few minutes to give her a hug and if she wasn't in her lap she was saying her name to get her attention. This child is so social I swear she wouldn't even care if mommy and daddy were in the room. I guess that can be a good and bad trait :-) It makes me wonder sometimes how she can be so social when she the first year of her life she hardly ever left the house. I amstarting to think its just something built in her personality, just like her daddy.

sick again

Arghh! Can someone say sick again? We have had 3 stomach viruses this winter, that is a record for me. That is actually a lifetime record for me. So much for me saying I never get sick. Yesterday I started in and early this morning Hailey started with it. So far Tim has been safe. My mom came yesterday and thankfully helped me with Hailey! Thank you mom! Lets just hope she doesn't get it.

Right now it seems Hailey and I are on the mend so lets hope it stays that way.

holey, moley

Today we went to a train show with daddy. Yeah, how was I suckered into that one? I still don't know. On our way home daddy was talking to Papa on the phone and said "holey moley" - not sure where that came from because I have never heard him say that before, but from the backseat all of the sudden I hear HOLEY MOLEY in a little baby voice! We couldn't stop laughing ...



Also, notice in the picture above she is holding keys. Her newest obsession is getting the mail. We have a separate key chain that holds our mail key and Hailey knows right where they are and from dawn to dusk she yells for them - mail, mail, mail. Once at the mailbox she kindly hands the keys to me to check the mail and then off she runs with the keys once more.

And just for fun I was looking at Hailey's easter pix from last year compared to this year. Notice the same facial expression. She defintely has grown up alot since last year and I am very thankful I now have hair to style! YEAH!

who stole spring?

Busy, busy, busy ... what more can I say? Work has been crazy, being new to the finance department is crazy enough, but what makes it more crazy is having only two others in your department, one on maternity leave and the other out sick with the same virus we had last month. Needless to say she was out all week - YIKES! Thank God its Friday!

Hailey has been her usual silly self. Potty training is pretty much non-exsistent right now. She would much rather stand naked on the potty looking out the window than actually sitting on it :-) I have great blackmail pictures for when she grows up. Her language skills are exploding. She repeats alot of what we say and comes up with new things each day. We have "book" time before bed and she loves to read. The other day she was reading her books by herself in her room and I walk in, she doesn't even acknowledge me, but keeps reading and points out a page that is pink and says "pink" - I was in shock. She then proceeds to another book of animals opens it and says "pig" - then turns to the cow and says "moo".

In the picture below she is reading mommies potty training guide - I hope she learns alot from reading that book :-)



April 11th was Meme and Auntie Tracy's birthday's! Happy Birthday to both of you - we love you! On their birthday they went out to dinner together, but when I talked to Meme she said she never got a cake so the next day we surprised her with a cake. No birthday is complete without cake!



Sadly, this is April 12th on the way home from Meme's house. Notice the railroad tracks (courtesy of my husband). We ask (as a store sign states near my house) who stole spring? And note the weather is calling for MORE snow Sunday. Florida here I come!



And lastly, tonight after some shopping fun Jazzie came over to play for an hour. She was visiting her Meme (our neighbor) because her mommy is in the hospital with her new baby brother Kendrick. Notice her new shirt that says I am a BIG sister!