Easter Pictures

What a difference a year makes! This was Hailey last Easter, on her 1 month birthday...

and look at her now!

Her dress is one that my Mom saved from when we were little. I just love that she is able to wear such memorable things.

saying "cheese"

Me and my girl on Easter. (It's a little harder to get family pictures when Daddy is a pastor and is at church so early)

Hailey loved my sweater this morning. She kept touching the white beads on it and saying "Pretty" (which sounded more like "Prea".

And if you're thinking she looks a little tired in these pictures, she is. She fell asleep on the way to church this morning. Ha! Luckily, they said she went back to sleep in the nursery.

Here is my favorite part of her Easter outfit

Her bunny bloomers!

It was our first Easter away from family. That made it a little hard, but we had an amazing day celebrating the resurrection of our Savior with our church family at Providence!

First Easter Egg Hunt

Yesterday (Saturday) we went to Hailey's first Easter egg hunt. It was put on by our neighborhood. We walked down to the park with some friends that we met on our street and had a blast. There were tons of people there and Hailey loved just being able to walk and walk and walk outside. She's going to love when the weather is warmer and we're outside all the time.

Waiting for the egg hunt to begin. Can we say impatient?!

She got the hang of it pretty quickly. We thought she would just pick up one egg and be happy with it and not want any more. But Hailey ended up picking up about 6.

She got tired of Daddy holding her basket and wanted to do it herself. Surprise, surprise...

Look Mommy!

Ohhh! A sticker!

Towards the end she started giving her eggs away. What a good sharer.

We put Hailey in the stroller to come back home after we had a picnic lunch at the park and she was not happy. She wanted to walk more. So after we dropped off our friends at their house we let Hailey walk the rest of the way home, fully expecting her to get tired and want to be carried. Nope! She walked a long ways home.

Isn't she just precious walking with her Easter basket?! After all that walking, Hailey took a good nap in the afternoon and then we played outside some more. Bring on the Spring weather!

This Past Week

I've been meaning to post for the last week, but Hailey's been sick, I've been sick and she's cutting a molar so life around here has been a little blah. But for the few faithful (shout out to Mitsey!) here are a few pictures from the last week or so...

We went on a walk the other day when it wasn't too cold outside and Hailey was fascinated with these balloons. Every time we walked away from them she turned around and walked right back. I finally had to carry her away because I was afraid the people would think we were crazy just standing beside their mailbox.

Hailey was pushing around her shopping cart with her bunny in it all morning. It was so cute. She would pick up things and put them in the back too!

Pulling her telephone from Uncle David and Pat that she got for Christmas

Standing on the Star Wars Trilogy box to reach more DVDs. Why, you ask? Because it's taller than the rest. Ha!

Praise Baby trance with Daddy

First taste of an Oreo. She was a fan of the creme in the middle!

All is right with the world when Bear comes out of the dryer. (She's giving him a kiss)

Waving to Daddy as he mows the grass. She stood there for a long time, just watching. She would then go play a little and then come back to watch again.

Little Mommy

Hailey has really gotten into playing with her baby dolls lately. She likes to put them in the stroller and push them around,

We're working on putting them in the right way :)

give them kisses,

lay them on a blanket and have me pretend to change them,

and (my favorite) lay them down, put a blanket on them (or give me a blanket to put on them) and tell them "night, night" (more like "ni, ni") as she pats their back.

One day she even climbed into this box that she had put her babies and bear into! (I swear, one day we won't have boxes laying around anymore)

It's so sweet to see her learn to use her imagination and play!

The Living Room is "Done"

I have to put the quotation marks around done because there are still a few more things to do in the room but it will most likely be a few months before they happen so it's done for now. (Those things will be curtains and a picture wall above the couch.) I don't have a good before picture of the living room because it was just an empty room with dirty carpet and cream walls. One of the big things along with scraping the popcorn off of the ceilings and painting that we did before we moved into the house was to have new carpet installed. The previous owners had pets, probably a cat, inside and it showed in the carpet. There were tiny little hairs everywhere that were impossible to get up. So we decided to have new carpet installed and absolutely love it!

Here are a few pictures of the living room and foyer:

As you walk in the front door. You can see the doorway to Hailey's (messy) playroom and the kitchen.

Above our front door we put a picture that has Philippians 4:8 on it. It's a good reminder as we walk out the door each day. We're going to have to replace the curtains that are on either side of the door at some point.

Looking into the living room from the foyer...The windows that you see are on the front of the house. We love all of the natural light they let in.

Close-up of the DVD case you see in the above picture. One of Hailey's favorite pass-times is taking all of the DVDs off the shelves. When we hung up this picture she got so exciting and kept telling it "hi". It has the scripture from 1 John on it "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the Truth" and has two pictures of Ryan and Hailey and me and Hailey in it.

Another view looking in from the foyer...in the other direction.

A closer look at where Ryan mounted our TV above the fireplace. And yes, we have bunny ears...no cable. We are cheap. (We just use Netflix thru Apple TV)

This is the opposite side of the room from the couches. Our stairs overlook the room as you can see. The doorway that you can kind of see to the left of the picture is to Hailey's playroom and leads into the kitchen.

View from the landing of the stairs. We love the vaulted ceiling in the living room. It makes it feel so open and big. The big open space above the couch is going to be a picture collage wall. But I think it's going to take a while to get up...

And just for laughs here is what Hailey figured out today...

She realized she could stick her hands thru the spindles on the stairs and reach the flowers on the cabinet. Smart girl! Although now she's learning that she's not supposed to do that...

Anyways, there's the living room! Things are slowly getting "done". Next up, the half bathroom!

Busy Busy Weekend

We had a jam-packed weekend at the Epley house!

Friday, Ryan's parents came to Raleigh to see the new house and keep Hailey because we had an event at church that night. We had a "March Madness Chili Cook-off"! It was so much fun! We had the ACC Tournament games on a big screen, corn hole and Wii games on the sides and tons of yummy chili. It was great to get to hang out with friends and know that Hailey was having fun with Mimi and Poppi. Of course I didn't take any pictures of Hailey with her grandparents or during the March Madness fun, but here are a few of the room before we got started.

Dessert table with the festive cake

Chili table before all of the chili arrived

Voting table- sadly I didn't win...

Saturday morning we started working on the house bright and early. Since Hailey had her personal entertainer, namely Mimi, Ryan and I could get things done. Ryan's dad stripped the ugly wallpaper out of the last bathroom and we got to work in there. Unfortunately our front porch looked a little (lot) like we lived in a junk yard for a few hours...

It "had" to be moved...and sit on the front porch

The last of the ugly wallpaper, and the vacated toilet spot

Thankfully, the toilet was returned to it's rightful place as soon as the wallpaper was gone and that section of the wall was painted.

We also did some rearranging / decorating in the living room. Ryan and his little helper mounted the TV on the wall over the fireplace and then we rearranged the furniture. It's coming together but still not decorated yet. (It needed another coat of paint on the walls, which is happening as I type. Love my hubby!)

Hailey having fun on the step ladder. Don't worry, I was right behind her, except when I stepped back to take the picture. And yes, she got up there by herself...Monkey.

Saturday afternoon we went on a walk in the neighborhood and ended up playing at some friends' house and having an impromptu dinner party, complete with 4 kids under the age of 5. I love living in a neighborhood with friends!

Snack time on our walk

She was fascinated with this play lawnmower. Ryan was excited!

By the time Sunday rolled around we were exhausted! I helped in the nursery Sunday morning and had a blast seeing Hailey interact with kids her age. That afternoon Ryan and Hailey took a nap and I got to go to the grocery store alone! It was wonderful.

We had a busy, but oh so fun weekend. Can't wait for Spring!