Happy 3rd Birthday Sidney!

From Mar.09

From Mar.09

From Mar.09

Cinderella

From Feb.09

Last weekend we took a group and went sledding. Hailey had a blast and even went down the hill by herself a few times as you can see in the pix above.

From Feb.09

One of the guys who came with us brought his ice fishing boat and we used this as a sled. Can you say FAST?

From Feb.09

This weekend Jordyn turned 8! Unbelievable! Happy Birthday Jordyn!

From Mar.09

From Mar.09

Jordyn had her party at Build A Bear and Hailey made a puppy which she named Daisy. She loves her as you can see.

From Mar.09

While at the party Hailey decided she was tired and then she proceeded to throw up on Alyssa. I felt horrible! Needless to say we headed home and the rest of the evening and today looked like this ...

From Mar.09

From Mar.09

Thankfully she is now feeling better so lets hope the rest of us stay that way!

valentines day

From Feb.09

Meme had a "wild" valentines party Saturday night for the kids. Above Hailey is making heart shaped brownies for the party. They were a hit. You can see below the kids were wild dancing to Hannah Montana and sugared up. Meme even had a table in the "kids" room with chips, cheese doodles and other snacks.

From Feb.09

As the night wore on they tired out ....

From Feb.09

And eventually were almost passed out which meant time to go home!

From Feb.09

bathroom play and PT update

Lately, Hailey has taken to playing in the bathroom. Why, I do not know, but here is her party on the bathroom rug in front of the tub.

From Feb.09

When I came in to check on her she was sitting up on the little table in the bathroom. She looked so cute I couldn't resist taking a couple pix.

From Feb.09

From Feb.09

Later, she decided to have snack time. Notice her "friends" sharing snack with her. Her dog is sitting in her chair and she other animals around the table. Of course they need real crackers as well.

From Feb.09

Hailey is still in PT and doing great! We actually will now be going every other week. What we have been working on is loosening up her upper leg and strengthening other areas, such has her abs and calf muscles. She has been doing great and she now sits crossed legged. Skills we have been working on are climbing stairs without crawling or tripping, jumping with both feet and landing on her feet and standing on one foot. She is improving in all areas. It is amazing what a little push in the right direction can do.

A funny side note, she is given exercises to do at home, but of course she does not like to do her exercises for mom so what does a mother do, use mind games :-) ha, ha

She, like most kids does not like bedtime and will do anything to get out of going to bed so I schedule bedtime with a little wiggle room because every night just as I am putting her to bed she decides it is a great time to do her exercises and she does a great job because she is so excited to be getting out of bedtime. Its quite funny, but works wonders!

stories

We are finally feeling better - yeah! Now if the snow would stop we would really be on the right track.

From Jan.09

Today we are due for 8-14 inches on top of the tons of snow we already have, its unbelievable and I didn't think anything could be worse than the end of last winter! And yes, Hailey wants summer so badly she is making sand castles in the snow! Truly, she asks me every couple of weeks if she can put on her bathing suit and go to the beach.

You know those classic moments when your child unrolls the whole roll of toilet paper and you have to smile because every child does it. Well, Hailey is 3 and has never done that - until this week. Her nose is still mildly running and she has been obsessive over wiping it. To the point where I was wondering if it was sensory issue (that is another subject all together). So a couple days ago I went to check on her in the bathroom and found her all entwined in the toilet paper. I ran to get the camera as I was laughing, but she was already unwinding by the time I got the pix.

From Jan.09

She also fell in the toilet for the first time which I thought was hilarious (though she didn't think so). It was bedtime and she had to go potty before going to bed. She is perfectly capable of going all by herself so I waited in her room. All of the sudden we hear a scream and loud cries. We both run in and she is just climbing out. She must have thought her seat was on and just sat back. After she looks at me and told me "mommy, I didn't want you to flush it while I was in there." Ha, ha Thankfully, she is not afraid of the toilet after that incident!

From Jan.09

Back a while ago our laptop crashed. Just this week we hooked back up our desktop and because it is a desktop it is much more accessible to Haileyand we let her play a few games on it with us. Yesterday, Tim was home with her in the morning and she was climbing into the chair, Tim asked her what she was doing and she responded, "I am checking my email daddy." When he told me this I burst out laughing. She must hear us say that so often she thinks its just the thing to do!

From Jan.09

From Jan.09

how are we doing?

Still sick! Hailey has an awful cough and runny nose that will not go away and now I have caught it. I also had to go back for another strep test (just in case). The tonsillectomy word was brought up. No thanks! I will find out the results tomorrow.

So now on the 22nd day of January all I have for pictures is us at home trying to recoup.

From Jan.09

I love this picture below. Many of you who know Tim, know he likes chinese food, but I am not a big fan so he usually only gets it with his buddies at work. Well, when Hailey was in the NICU one of his friends from work bought her mini chopsticks. In preschool they are learning about the Chinese New Year and will be having a party complete with chinese food and chopsticks. So to help her out I pulled out her chopsticks and she practiced on what else, but waffles :-)

From Jan.09

Here she is tonight playing her first video game. We went to Circuit City tonight to buy a wireless router and found this game for $10. Since it was Sleeping Beauty who could resist for the price.

From Jan.09

As far as preschool, other than the germs Hailey is doing great and loving it! The teacher has all good things to report and Hailey comes home very happy at the end of the day which is a good sign. Also, I am already noticing a difference since she started PT which is great. Thankfully all it seems to take with her is a little nudging in the right direction and she seems to excel.

Lets hope my next post has more to share than sickness!

germ sharing

Welcome to germ sharing, I mean preschool ... in the last couple of weeks we have had strep, bronchitis, colds and now Hailey has conjunctivitis! Is it spring yet?

preschool

From preschool

Hailey started preschool on Monday! I found a great preschool in my town. She goes on M/W/F. From 8:30-11:30a is the actual preschool and then after that is more of a daycare format till I pick her up at 3:30p.

I have to admit I was a little nervous leaving her for the first time with someone other than family, but she had a great time. She actually cried when I told her she was not going back the next day, which made me feel good because she had a good time.

The teachers feedback was that ... "Right now there are a lot of new things and getting to know the schedule can be overwhelming but Hailey seems to be able to go with the flow!" Talk about changing times, I was able to email the teacher during the day and get feedback without even a phone call.

Tomorrow she has her first PT appointment. She is still complaining of leg pain so I am hoping the PT will help with that.

Happy 2009

From New Years 2009

From New Years 2009

Christmas 2008

From christmas.08

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From christmas.08

From christmas.08

From christmas.08

From christmas.08

From christmas.08

From christmas.08

From christmas.08

SNOW!

What should I wear?

From Dec.08

Lets go!

From Dec.08

Winter wonderland

From Dec.08

Warming up!

From Dec.08

Realizing daddy just dropped the camera we just spent $100 on to get fixed!!

From Dec.08

PT and Preschool

I had to share the pix below ... Hailey, Laura and Karen sleeping in the "infamous" box
This morning we had a PT evaluation for Hailey per my request. As many of you know she has been in gymnastics and I have noticed subtle things that caught my eye. I also noticed some small, some bigger differences between her movement and that of her friends.

Sure enough Hailey has some "tightness" in her upper legs (which is where she is always complaining of having pain) ie, when she had strep and I took her in for upper leg pain. She also has issues with climbing stairs, sitting cross legged, jumping and posture in general. She did notice Hailey cannot sit/stand still and believe this could have to do with muscle tone, but only time with tell. Its nothing life changing or anything that can't be fixed with a little PT. Her PT said she is about a year behind in some general areas that I mentioned above. We will be going once a week for 6 weeks and then re-evaluate.

She will also be starting preschool January 5th and we are quite excited. I think both these things will help her alot in general areas. Her preschool was actually a suggestion from her PT and the teacher is actually a certified occupational therapist so all in all she is well covered.

Tomorrow we are going to the preschool for two hours in the morning for a test run before the big day.

All in all, for being premature we have been VERY blessed with how well Hailey has done. I am slightly nervous with Hailey starting preschool (and how bad she did at gymnastics) to see if any more physical or learning issues come up, but I think at this point we are doing the best we can to make sure she succeeds!

its beginning to look alot like christmas

From Dec.08

Per Hailey's (numerous) requests she had her ears pierced last weekend. It was funny because here and there a few people stopped to watch how this little 3 year old would handle it and believe it or not she didn't even cry and she tells me they didn't hurt. Maybe she has a high pain tolerance or maybe the excitement was more than the pain, but either way she now believes she is more beautiful than ever. In the pictures above she is trying to mimic me putting on makeup.

From Dec.08

On Saturday Hailey's friend Sidney, and her baby sister Riley came up from Mass for a visit. Elijah also joined us and the kids had loads of fun playing as usual. Sidney ended up getting her ears pierced as well!

From Dec.08

This past week the area where we live was devasted by an ice storm. Many of my family and friends are still without power and it was a week ago from Thursday. On Sunday, Meme and Papa were still without power and Jon was in the hospital so daddy and Hailey decided to make them some homeade meatballs to cheer them up!

From Dec.08

Hailey requested I take this picture tonight of her and "her" christmas tree. She loves to hug, yes, hug her tree and all ornaments are fair game. In the past years we have never had a problem with her taking ornaments off or messing with the tree. This year I cannot keep an ornament on the tree. There is a pile of them by our recliner and I still do not know why?!

From Dec.08

Lastly, a story I won't soon forget. On Sunday we were doing our usually laundry, washing sheets etc. Well, our sheets came out of the laundry and felt gritty, like dirt was smeared all over them. I couldn't figure out what had happened, but I knew the load needed to be re-washed. As I was putting them back in the washing machine a pull-up had fallen out! Hailey who is potty trained now, wears pull-ups at night for safety sake and is so used to putting her undies in the laundry basket she must have thought that is where her pull-up should go! It was gross at the time, but looking back now I thought it was quite funny!

home for the holidays

From christmas tree

On Thursday night we went to get our tree and first thing Friday morning we decorated it. Hailey could not have been happier. First thing when she wakes up in the morning she asks if she can see "her" tree. She also loves to take the ornaments off and use them as toys.

From christmas tree

Last night in our little town they had what is called "Home for the Holidays." It is a great event where you can "shop and stroll" through town and they have lots of christmas events going on for the kids. Hailey was able to paint some stars for the tree, visit Santa, make a necklace, get her face painted and write a letter to santa that will be send to the North Pole directly. All of the shops downtown, the bank, the medical office all participated. It was great fun!

From christmas tree

From christmas tree

From christmas tree

From christmas tree

From christmas tree