Christmas fun

This year Mimi gave Hailey a little Christmas tree to put in her playroom and Hailey has loved decorating and undecorating it. She is very particular about what ornaments are allowed on it.

We had a friend take a picture for our Christmas card and I love how it turned out! I think this is the only picture Hailey has ever smiled for!

Hailey wanted to help me with our Christmas cards this year. She was begging to help me lick them shut. Be my guest.. She really did help! She also helped me put the stamps and return address stamps on them. Such a good helper.

A few weeks ago Ryan and I took Hailey to the mall to look at decorations and see Santa. Well the line for Santa was really long considering it was the middle of the day so we skipped that but Hailey loved the decorations.

 She was just dying to touch Mickey. So we went in the Disney store and played for a while. Ha! We stopped at Panera for lunch because that's about the only place Hailey will sit and eat something. She loves their mac and cheese. This is us trying to get a selfie before our food was ready. Hailey kept yelling "Cheese!" at the top of her lungs. Oh well! Memories.

And my cutie in her Christmas dresses

This is one my mom made for us when we were little

 

George had to make the picture. Have I mentioned her love of stuffed animals?!

We've done a few other fun Christmas things that I'll have to update later. I'm getting better!

Picture Dump

I am SOOOO behind. Life has been moving at warp speed around here and the blog has definitely taken a back seat. So here is my attempt at a catch-up.

Thanksgiving: We traveled to Charlotte and had a great time with both families. Unfortunately I didn't get any really cute pictures of Hailey dressed up and with her grandparents but here is what I got...
playing/bouncing on the pool cover with her cousins at Grams and Das' house

her first game of Candy Land with Grams (it lasted about 3 minutes)

 having Das push her around in their new rolling ottomans

holding the new puppy at Ryan's family's Thanksgiving

 Getting sick with her second ear infection at Mimi's house

Poor thing. She definitely didn't feel like herself for our trip home and she and I stayed home from church the next day to rest. I was going to take another pitiful picture of her to send to Daddy at church but this is what I got instead...

Silly girl!

Well, we went all in with potty training which was nearly the death of me, and had lots and lots of laundry to do. One day as I was folding it, or attempting to, someone decided to burrow in it because it was still warm.

We now sleep with thousands of stuffed animals, as many as she can fit in her bed. And sometimes I even hear her talking to them to "move over" because "there's not enough room". Girl loves her animals!

We traveled back to Charlotte for Mack's birthday party and had a little fun at Grams' house with her shower cap.

 and in her new toy box full of, you guessed it, stuffed animals.

 I didn't get any pictures of Hailey with the birthday boy but it was Thomas the Train themed and there was a big ride-on Thomas in the living room. Hailey loved riding on it and had to take Curious George on a ride too.

!

She had a ball at the party!

Hailey and Daddy have been playing horsey after dinner a lot recently and Hailey decided the other night that she wanted to be the horse and let her baby doll ride on her. Precious!

Well, I think that about catches the highlights: Thanksgiving, sick, potty training, stuffed animal love, Mack's birthday...I'll try to do better...

First Haircut

Well I guess I should put first real haircut that Mommy didn't do. I've trimmed Hailey's hair a few times when she was a baby because it was growing uneven but this was her first time actually going somewhere to have a haircut. We took her to one of the kid's salons here in Raleigh because we had a half off coupon. She was a little nervous when I was telling her we were going to get her haircut. I think she was worried it was going to hurt.
She was so excited to get up in the tall chair when they finally called her name. She just kept looking at herself in the mirror and smiling.
Ryan took a picture of me explaining to the lady that I really didn't want much cut off, just a little to make it healthy.

 She thought the spray bottle to wet her hair tickled and laughed about the clip the lady put in too.

 She watched the TV in front of her for a few minutes but then saw the basket of lollipops. Then that was all she wanted to play with. She didn't even really want to eat any of them, just play with them and pick out one for everyone else she knew.

 That kept her occupied the rest of the time.
Here is the after shot

Can't even really tell a difference...but it is less tangly and even. She was so excited that she got a prize and has been pretending to cut our hair at home ever since. I need to keep the scissors out of reach of this one!

Fall Leaves

Ryan raked the leaves in our yard last week. For the last month, it seems, Hailey has been begging to jump in a leaf pile so this was the perfect opportunity.
It was pretty chilly that afternoon so I made Hailey wear a hat and she was so proud that she put it on by herself.

At first she just wanted to stand in the leaves and throw her bear in them.

Then Daddy threw her in. She was not a fan of that!

She said they were "too pokey"! Ha!
After that little adventure she decided that she wanted to help Daddy so she put on his work gloves and tried to dig some holes with the shovel.

Sweet girl. Too bad her dream was crushed about the fun of jumping in leaves...

Fun with a Box

We got a package in the mail the other day and I purposefully saved the box. Isn't that what you do with a toddler?! I knew it would easily be used for a thousand different things from a "car" for her toys, to a "car" for daddy to push her in, to something to hide in...the possibilities were endless.
Hailey decided to make it into a rocketship this time. I got out the crayons and stickers and she went to town, mostly with the stickers.

Here is my imaginative girl flying her rocketship, notice she had to bring a friend along on her voyage.

Then it turned into a car that they were taking to the grocery store, but she couldn't ever seem to find a "parking place" for it. Hilarious!

Then it became a car for all her animals...except she ran out of space.

I love her imagination!

Grateful Garland

Last year a friend posted on her blog about a new family tradition they were doing for Thanksgiving. They were going to make a "Grateful Garland" to display things they were thankful for. Then they took the garland and put it on their Christmas tree as a reminder of God's blessings. I loved the idea and decided that we were going to do it the next year. So for a year I've been thinking about how and where we were going to make our own family Grateful Garland. On November 1 I just couldn't wait any longer, ours went up...

I am so excited to make this a family tradition every year now!

First Dance Class

We signed Hailey up for a month of dance classes through our local community center. After doing gymnastics for a month this summer I wanted to see which she would enjoy more. Monday was her first class. She was SO excited. I don't think she really knew what was going to happen, she was just excited to do something new.
Waiting while her teacher set up the room

 Standing on her "spot" waiting for directions

There were 8 girls in her class and each one got a rubber spot to stand on as their own space. Hailey did really well staying on hers...at first. Then she got a little wild...

dancing with scarves

 

After the first two songs the teacher kept having to remind Hailey to go back to her spot. She was so excited she just kept wanting to run around. I was laughing so hard I was almost crying...
The hard part for Hailey was when they had to take turns doing things. Two girls would go at a time. Hailey didn't try to go every time but she wanted to walk beside everyone when it was their turn. So I had to go sit behind her.

At the end they did one more group song where they got to dance around in a big circle. Hailey kept wanting to go the wrong way.

She had SO much fun and is already asking to go back next week! I love seeing her experience new things!