Fun with Mimi

Hailey and I went to Charlotte this weekend for me to attend a workshop to keep up my teaching license. But of course we couldn't just go for the workshop...we had to have a little fun with family too! On Sunday we went apple picking with my family, more on that later. But on Monday Hailey stayed with Ryan's mom, Mimi, and they got to go to the aquarium!
I didn't even know Kathy was planning to take Hailey and last week she wanted to check out "Curious George Goes to the Aquarium" from the library so it worked out perfectly! Hailey was sooooo excited to go. I got these pictures while in my workshop

Kathy (and Hailey) said she had a blast. She never stopped moving, running from one exhibit to the next looking for fish, starfish and eels. When I asked Hailey what her favorite part was she said the eel. "He hid in the seaweed". She also told me about the "hammer shark", the sting ray, seahorses and fish. Ryan's mom got her a stuffed dolphin and dolphin bracelet in the gift shop and neither have left her sight since. She's slept with the dolphin at nap and bed time and asks for the bracelet as soon as she gets up.
This girl loves animals! This was the perfect treat for her and she loved it! Thank you Mimi!

Hailey Lately

Lately my little busy girl has loved...
reading to her stuffed animals

 taking care of her babies (She came downstairs and said "Mommy I can't find my baby's bottle anywhere. She is so hungry."

making bracelets (beads on a pipe cleaner...I had no idea how good her fine motor skills were! She didn't hesitate to try and didn't drop any beads!)

making Mommy take a thousand pictures just to get one good one

keeping Mommy on her toes!
Do you see that the water is running?! Last night I told Hailey to go upstairs and get ready for her bath. I ran into the kitchen to get her some juice. I head her throwing toys into the bathtub, and then the water turned on! I ran upstairs and saw this. She smiled at me and said "I ready Mommy!"

Life is never dull with this one!

Grandparent's Chapel

Last week Hailey and I went to Charlotte for Grandparent's Chapel at HGCS, the school where my mom is the principal. Each year she likes to bring the grandkids on stage to open the chapel to show them off. :) The chapel was on Thursday but Hailey and I went a few days early.
We left Tuesday after out first LAMBS (Bible Study) for this year. Little Stinker was not being cooperative for pictures but oh well...

 After LAMBS we got lunch with Daddy at Chick-Fil-A and hit the road! Hailey slept about an hour and as soon as she woke up she asked "Are we at Grams yet?" She was just a little excited!
When Grams got home from school Hailey had a ball playing with her. My mom had gotten Hailey some plastic animals (she's totally into farm animals right now) so little miss had to put them in the cradle, read to them, let them nap and then we built them a farm where everyone had to have their own fence.

She also watched a little TV...this cannot be comfortable!

On Wednesday we went to the park in the morning and then Hailey was dying to get in the pool...the only problem was it was barely 70 degrees! So she settled for putting her feet in the water and a picnic beside it, where she insisted on eating on the placemat. ;)

That afternoon Grams brought Tucker home with her and he and Hailey had so much fun! They rode bikes, kicked the soccer ball, ate a snack and then we took Tucker back to church for Awana that night.

As soon as we walked back in the door to the house Hailey asked Das (my dad) is she could go swimming. So we stripped her down to a diaper and let her get in but it was too cold! She didn't make it past the second step!

Thursday morning we played around the house again, tried taking a dip in the pool and then got ready for Grandparent's Chapel! Hailey, Tucker and Mack did great. Hailey had been asking if she could walk around on the stage with Grams and I kept telling her no, so I was a little worried she would attempt to crawl under the pulpit like she did last year.

 My mom had Tucker say the Bible verses he's learned at Awana and then Hailey was dying to say something in the microphone so my mom asked her about what she had learned this week at LAMBS...What did David take care of? She answered with a loud "sheep!"

 Right after they were done on stage we left to go pick up Mimi and head back to Raleigh. She stayed with Hailey Friday and Saturday while Ryan and I went on a retreat with one of the Life Classes at the church. It was such a blessing to get to spend time with grandparents and we are so thankful for the ways that they love us all!

August Picture Catch-up

Not really in any particular order...

We took Hailey to the Raleigh Farmer's Market. I thought she would love it, seeing as how she loves gardens and holding vegetables. Not so much...but she did love the flowers and the cookies!

Each summer our church does an outdoor baptism service at a local Christian camp. We all have a picnic dinner then go up to the pool to watch baptisms and the kids can swim afterwards. I didn't even tell Hailey about the swimming but somehow she knew as soon as we pulled into the parking lot...and she had never swam there before! Needless to say it was a long (for her) baptism service with a little girl "whispering" in my ear every few minutes "Time to swim Mommy?" She was so excited. Thankfully, Daddy let her swim for a few minutes before we headed home for the night.

"waiting" for the baptism service to finish

 It was beautiful one morning and Hailey asked to have a picnic lunch, so we did. She actually did pretty well and ate a decent amount. Then, of course, she got distracted by the flowers, mulch and dirt. ;)

Dr. Hailey giving her animals a check-up one morning in her "office" (tent)

Hailey's imagination never ceases to amaze me! This morning we had watched a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse about Donald being turned into a frog prince and Daisy having to kiss him to turn him back to a duck. A while later we were playing in Hailey's room with her princess castle (I was putting away laundry) and she came up with this all on her own! Belle and Cinderella are in the tower giving kisses to the turtle prince (I did have to help her with a turtle prince because she couldn't find a frog), Ariel is taking a nap on the bed and Daisy is playing in the curtains (behind the blue door). She is beginning to make up more and more stories like this on her own and I love it!

Taking care of her "pet". She fed him lunch, got him water and took him on a walk

We went to Target one morning and after I had gotten what I needed Hailey played in the toy section. She found this display of animals and began separating them into "families" (sorting by animals) on her own! It made my teacher heart so proud!

"Patiently" waiting for "her turn" with Daddy's screw driver while he fixed the door to the playhouse

At least once a week Hailey asks Ryan to play the guitar for her. She plays in the case, dances and gets to strum a little too.

This night we decided to show her my flute too. She was pretty impressed...for about 3 minutes.

This is actually from today but oh well...we went to the library for the first time in a while and Hailey was so excited that they had Curious George books. We sat and read several of them before we had to leave. I finally got a Wake County library card after not having one since the move and let her check out 2 books. She was so excited! And we've already read them about a thousand times

Shew! I think we're caught up. I was doing so well for a while...maybe September will be better...