Hailey's Favorite Day of the Week

Grass-cutting day!

What?! That's not your favorite day?

Well, it is for Hailey! She absolutely loves to play/watch Ryan cut the grass every week. This morning she asked him "Grass? Play?" It was so cute. Here she is enjoying the fun.

Gotta hydrate first!

And then because they were on a roll...

she decided to help him vacuum too!

She'll always like the help like this, right?!

(And yes, I have an awesome hubby who will vacuum for me :) )

Grandparents Chapel

After Hailey's doctor's appointment on Wednesday we headed to Charlotte for Grandparents Chapel, which was on Thursday. She was super excited to get to Grams and Das' house because my mom told her that she had bubbles for her. As soon as she woke up in the car, still about 45 minutes away, she said "Grams. Bubbles. Das." She wasn't too happy that we weren't there yet.

When we got there she found plenty of ways to entertain herself. Surprise, surpirse...

peek-a-boo

playing with her new purse

Can you tell she was a little excited?!

reading books in her new boots

and the highlight: bubbles with Das!

Hailey slept terribly on Wednesday night, but we were up bright and early to get ready for Grandparents Chapel. All morning Hailey kept asking for Grams and couldn't quite understand when I told her Grams had to go to work. She was excited when we got to the church for chapel and she got to see Grams.

not too happy waiting for chapel to start. Actually just really tired.

playing with Mack

Tucker showing Das the lion on the screen.

 Mom brought Hailey, Tucker and Mack up on the stage first thing to introduce everyone to her grandchilden. Mack and Tucker did awesome. They were just content to stand and be introduced quietly. My little curious girl, not so much.

As mom was talking about each of the grandkids, Hailey decided to explore the stage a little.She crawled under the pulpit!

I guess she thought it looked fun?! She was none too happy when I had to pull her out either.

pictures after chapel

After we walked around the church and said hi to old friends and Ryan's coworkers we made our way to the park to play with Lillian and Charley!

someone took a cat nap on the way, while reading her book

I am so glad that Jackie and Irene were willing to meet us at the park. It was so fun to finally get all of our girls together!

I hope to have many more pictures like this one

When the girls were finally worn out, we made our way to Chick-Fil-A for lunch and then began the journey back to Raleigh! I am so blessed to have friends who will meet us at the park, in the heat, just to hang out and let my busy toddler get the wiggles out!

18 month Dr. Appointment

Hailey had  her 18 month doctor's appointment on Wednesday. The doctor was amazed at her speech and vocabulary. She mentioned several times that it sounded like she was a two year old! That made this mommy proud! She said she is doing great with the developmental milestones and she is a determined little girl. I think I already knew that!

Hailey weighed 22 lbs 9 oz (50%). Her was 31 inches long (25%) and her head circumference was 45 cm (25%). All of her percentiles stayed pretty much the same from the last visit.

Poor thing had to get two shots but did ok with them. Daddy took her to see the fish and get a "Rella" (Cinderella) sticker afterwards and that helped. :)

Who Said Pools Close After Labor Day?

Not at this house!

Hailey had lots of energy this afternoon and it was hot, so I got out the baby pool. It had been awhile since she'd been in it, so she started like this

But soon made her way to this!

Ahhh! It's the little things...

18 months

I cannot believe that my baby is 18 months old already! We will be planning a 2nd birthday party before long. That. is. crazy.

We have Hailey's 18 months doctor's appointment next week so I don't have official weight and height. But, here's what she's into:

Hailey goes to bed around 7:30 or 8:00 every night and sleeps until around 6:30 in the morning. The past few mornings it's been closer to 7 which is awesome. She doesn't want us to rock her at all anymore. We just read a few books and then she says "bed" and we put her in bed. Usually she plays a bit before she falls asleep. She takes a 1 and a half to 2 and a half hour nap in the afternoons.

She still loves to read. Her favorite books to read before bed are "Sleepy Squirrel" (which was a book my mom gave me from when I was little and said that I loved) or "Bible" which is a touch and feel Bible story book. Sometimes we read Strawberry Shortcake or Zoe from Sesame Street too. She is starting to look through books and tell the stories from memory too.
A few weeks ago she was looking at "Tumble Bumble" and turning pages was saying things like "Oh well. Friends. Horray." It was absolutely precious.

Hailey likes to draw now. I have to watch her like a hawk when she does though because she still tries to eat the crayons. Yuck! (Although, I found a cheap Magna Doodle the other day at TJ Maxx and that might've solved our problems!) (And yes she is wearing socks, she asked for them...)

Baby dolls are a favorite toy. She loves to feed, change, burp and take their clothes off. The other day I saw her doing this in her kitchen. She said "Baby. Bottle. Ready." and then took it to her baby. (Just for the record, this is not how she sees me warm Abbie's bottles. I do it on the stove, but we've already mentioned how much she loves the microwave in her play kitchen.)

When did she get big enough to sit on the couch like this?!

She still loves Sesame Street. Elmo and Zoe are her favorites. She also likes to watch Curious George, JoJo's Circus and Barney. She still likes Praise Baby too.

Hailey knows her colors and will tell you them if she wants to. But usually if you ask her what color something is she says, "blue" without looking at it. Then if you say no, she will say "greet (green)" without looking at it. She also knows several shapes: circle, heart, star, triangle, oval, diamond, and square/rectangle (she gets those two confused). If you start counting Hailey can help you count to 10. But silly girl, will only say the even numbers, except three, she'll say that one too.

Ring Around the Rosie with Zoe

She LOVES to sing, well for you to sing to her. She asks for "sing" every time we get in the car (and now she asks for "air" too...) She loves "Jesus Loves the Little Children", "Happy Birthday", "Good Morning" (a Grams original) and "Ring Around the Rosie". She is starting to pick up on other words in each song and will interject them as you sing too. It's precious. For example, she'll ask for "Jesus. Children." And then as you sing she'll say "Black. Precious" Too bad she doesn't pick up on any of the other words yet... :)

Hailey still loves to pray before each meal and then several times during it. I love how she folds her little hands! Usually before we pray, she'll pick up her food and take a bite. But when we're praying she'll always put it down and fold her hands. Makes me smile every time!

Hailey picked up my Bible as we were leaving for church this morning and said "Bible. Read."

She loves Abbie (the baby that I watch) and asks for her every morning. She loves to bring her toys and help me burp her. We had a picnic for lunch the other day and she wanted Abbie to sit on the blanket with us.

I love my sweet girl and can't believe how fast she is growing up!

Closet Fun?

So I was working in Hailey's closet this afternoon. Looking through her fall clothes and seeing if we still needed anything, pulling out bigger pajamas, blah, blah, blah. Well she just decided that it looked like a fun place to climb and play in and this is what happened.

She found her "Storybook Bible" that I had put away for when she didn't tear book pages quite so much...She recognized it was a Bible and said "Bible. Read." Makes my heart happy!

Just about that time, Daddy got home and being such an amazing daddy that he is, he knelt down and started to read.

And just before all of the closet fun, this is what we were doing...

Someone wanted to put on all of her hats. And of course, I obliged. It was too funny. But, being the teacher that I am, we at least counted the hats as we put them on. That makes it educational, right?


Silly girl. But oh how much I love her!

Park Fun!

We finally made it to the park this morning. We haven't been in a few weeks because of the weather and general busyness so Hailey was super excited this morning when I told her we were going to the park. She talked about it all morning while we got ready. When we finally left the house she talked the whole way there. "Park. Sand. Make. Elmo. Slide. Swing." It was so sweet.

She wanted to carry her sand bucket by herself. "Self." (That's the new word lately.)

Digging in the sand. She would get a shovel-full and then carry it across the park to the swings and dump it out.

 

She went down the big slide all by herself and loved it! "Self."

 

Happy girl on the swing! She laughed and talked the whole time.

I'm looking forward to cooler weather and more park days!

The Rest of the Weekend

Unfortunately I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I should have / wanted to this weekend. We didn't do a whole lot, just enjoyed being a family but there were still a few cute moments that I didn't get to capture. Oh well. Next time.

Here's what I did get:
Hailey was putting her baby to bed the other night and I guess she didn't want her to get lonely. Obviously she wasn't worried about smothering her either... I promise there is a baby doll under there.

Drawing on the driveway is quickly becoming Hailey's new favorite pass time.

Sunday morning before church I was trying to take a picture of Hailey and this is what I got. I told her to say hi to Grams and she did this!

 And then she smiled sweetly.

Maybe I'll be better at pictures this week...