Friday

We've had a busy Friday! Fridays are always fun because Ryan is home from work but this one was nice because last weekend we were on the retreat so we really got a chance to relax this week.

Hailey has been loving cooking in her kitchen lately. But I've noticed she only "cooks" food in the microwave. She doesn't really use the oven or stove. It makes me laugh. And wonder if I use the microwave a little too often, although it's usually to heat up frozen veggies...

Isn't that ponytail precious?!

This afternoon Ryan took Hailey on a Daddy-daughter date. They went to a friend's farm to see the goats and chickens. Hailey was so excited! Too bad Ryan didn't take any pictures. :( But he said she had a blast and she talked about it a lot after they got home.

As I was cooking dinner, I looked at the refrigerator and see this...

Hailey had opened the drawer and was picking grapes off of the bunch and eating them! Silly, hungry girl! So I decided we were going to forgo the normal dinner-at-the-table thing and have a picnic in the living room. Here's how it went:

pretty good at first

very interested in Barney

someone decided to dance instead of eat

notice the blurry feet in the top corner...

dinner is officially over when you start sliding

Oh well. It was a memory. I'm sure it was just the first of many picnics.

Our night ended by Skyping with Mimi and Poppi. (And just a side-story: The other morning Hailey was sitting on our bed playing Elmo on the iPad. Ryan and I were getting ready in the bathroom. All of a sudden we hear the Skype calling sound. Ryan looks at Hailey and says "What are you doing? Who are you calling?" Without missing a beat she says, "Mimi". Sweet girl knew what she wanted. Although she was really calling our friends in the Middle East...)
Anyways, skyping with Mimi before bed turned into playing Ring-Around-the-Rosie with Mimi.

Poor Mimi.

Fridays are so much fun!

Fun Times this Week

We haven't done much this week. We've been recovering from the weekend and catching up on laundry and house work. But of course a few cute things have happened that I have to document...

Hailey is obsessed with this shirt of Ryan's. The front has the pig face and the back has his hiney. Every time he wears it Hailey says "pig!" and when he turns around says "hiney!".  She opens his drawer and tries to find it for him to wear. It's just cute. So yesterday I was holding laundry and she found it and started hugging it and putting it around her neck like a scarf. I put it on her and she had the best time in it. She wore it for like 30 minutes!

Hailey is such a good helper with Abbie (the baby that I keep during the day). This is her entertaining Abbie during tummy time. She is playing peek-a-boo through the door of her play house.

Yesterday I took out the bumbo for Abbie. I think Hailey liked it better than she did. She kept looking at me and saying "too big?" because when she first tried to sit in the bouncy seat I told her she was too big. Her memory is incredible.

 

 

Poor girl was so sleepy in the morning she fell asleep on my lap when I was talking on the phone to a friend. I tried to wake her up and then sat her on the floor and she laid down and went back to sleep.

 

Hailey was watching Elmo and say Ryan's blanket that he uses on the couch and said "Blanket. Daddy's. Hailey." She is really starting to put words together to get her point across. Notice the Abby Cadabby doll she has. We are really racking up the Sesame Street dolls and she loves and plays with them all.

We went over to a friend's house for a play date today. Hailey had a blast playing with someone else's toys. She loved putting baby dolls and stuffed animals down the slide.

And playing with Clara's dishes and little table in the play kitchen. Those are on the to-get list for Hailey soon. She kept saying "dinner". All meals are dinner right now. It's kind of cute. And she loves to wash the dishes in her play kitchen too.

She LOVED Clara's purse. She picked it up, put it on her shoulder and said "home". She walked around with it for a long time. That is going on the Christmas list too.

Okay, maybe that was more than I thought to write about. I guess we did more than I thought!

 

Potty Time

Yesterday I bought Hailey a little potty for when potty training time comes. Right now she's not ready but starting to get interested and asks us to change her occasionally. So I got the potty just for her to get used to. I left it in the hallway upstairs and of course she found it and wanted to play with it. Here's what happened.

testing it out

Ohhh! I can use it as a stool to reach things on the sink!

Oh well! At least we have a while to get used to it!

Leadership Retreat 2013

This weekend we had our Singles / Young Adults Leadership Retreat at a beautiful cabin in Virginia. Just for reference, this was Hailey at the retreat last year.

so little!

 This year she was much more, let's say, active. Ha! That would be an understatement. She had a blast playing outside and with all of the people on the council. By the end of the weekend she was asking for them by name and they had fun playing with her too.

The cabin we stayed in had this plush bear statue that Hailey fell in love with. She constantly went over to "bear" and read to it, gave it kisses and hugs and tried to feed it her food. It was precious!

She loved being in the middle of everything! She helped set up a volleyball net,

 
played outside (far away) while Daddy and the other shot guns,

safety first!

 LOVED throwing rocks into the pond,

and making "noise" on these windchimes. She would say "noise. Mimi." because Mimi has one at her house that she lets Hailey touch. It was so neat to see how she related the two.

She loved when Aaron played his guitar and would keep saying "more. more". But when he tried to let her play it, she wouldn't.

She read the Bible with  Daddy (LOVE this picture) She climbed up on his lap while Ryan was preparing for one of the sessions and said "Daddy. Bible. Read." Melt My Heart!

And when we weren't playing outside during Daddy's meetings we ate some snacks and watched a little Elmo. We had to take a break sometime!

We had a great time at the retreat and are so looking forward to serving with the leaders that God has brought to us!

We got back from the retreat on Sunday afternoon, just in time for Providence's Picnic and Baptism service. It was outside at a local Christian camp. This is the only picture I took because I was chasing and holding a busy yet very fussy girl. Ryan got to baptize several people that night and it was so wonderful to watch what God has done in His people at Providence.

Eating dinner. Daddy improvised on the bib.

Slide. Weee!

Yesterday we got a huge box of diapers at BJs and Hailey has been playing with the box ever since: putting toys in, taking them out, standing on it...
This morning she made a slide out of it. All on her own! Ryan said she climbed on it and sat down and said "Slide. Weee!"

Putting Baby to Bed

Since we've started keeping Abbie, Hailey has become even more interested in her baby dolls and taking care of them. This morning she even gave her baby "tummy" (tummy time) propped up on a pillow like I do for Abbie! It is so sweet to watch her nurturing instincts. She has been really good about sharing toys and bringing Abbie her toys to play with. The only thing we're having trouble with sharing is books. Hailey loves her books and doesn't not want Abbie to look at them with us. We still have a little work to do...

The other morning Hailey put her baby to bed. It is so cute to hear her describe what she's doing so I know how her little mind is working.

"Bed. Tuck. Hug. Kiss. Night night."

Veggies

My sweet child asked for veggies this morning for a snack. Yes, yes you may dear girl. Even if it's not snack time.

Just Another Monday

Before I share my pictures from Monday I need to share this one from church on Sunday night. Our church had "Celebration Sunday" this week to celebrate all that God has done in our church this past year. It was amazing to hear and see stories of how people have listened to God's call and followed it. Although there were lots of amazing stories to hear, all Hailey cared about this week were the balloons...They were every where! And we had to stop and touch every. single. one. (I'm not exaggerating.)

pointing at the balloons out the window Sunday morning

playing with the balloons after service Sunday night

Well our friend Andrew gave us a handful of balloons to take home so Hailey could play with them. Ryan blew one up before he left for work Monday morning and Hailey had a ball with it!

She even drove it around the house in her shopping cart!

And in case you were wondering, this also happens at our house on a daily basis, sometimes several times a day. I wasn't kidding when I said she loves to hide.

Just another Monday around here!

Our Week in Pictures

This week has been busier than normal for us because I started keeping a neighbor's baby when she went back to work. It is such an answer to prayer for us because we were looking for a little extra income while still allowing me to stay home with Hailey. God provides! So needless to say this week has been adjusting to having a little baby in the house again and me learning to juggle my time between two. Hailey has had her jealous moments but overall did really well.

Anyways...here is our week in pictures.

We have been:

coloring (although this only lasted a few minutes because someone took a chunk out of the brown crayon. We're working on not eating them :) )

 playing in the water table,

spending the morning in the park "locking" the gate,

"Lock it"

 practicing riding on the horsey, (yes it was cool enough to need a jacket here a few mornings this week. Fall is coming!)

learning new ways to play to let Mommy make dinner (although this was a big fail too),

 

drawing with chalk for the first time,

helping Daddy clean his car,

"hiding", (Hailey will find anything to put over her head and say "hide" "wrisshe" (Where is she?) and wait for you to say it before giggling uncontrollably. It is precious. This particular time she was wanting Daddy to find her, who was in the kitchen, so she walked like this all the way into the kitchen laughing the whole way.)

feeding Zoe a pancake for breakfast,

and "hiding" for Mary Katherine via face time. Check out Hailey in the top corner with a box top over her face. She did that all on her own and said "hide". MK played along and Hailey loved it. She also put the box top over the phone for MK to hide and said "Wrisshe?" then moved it to find her. Precious!

Nothing super exciting this week but I thought I'd share the pictures just the same. It's just a little peek into our daily life!