Barnes & Noble

Last week I needed a way to get Hailey's energy out. Since it was cold outside, the park was out. So we called up our friend Hope and the girls she nannies for and met up at Barnes & Noble for some fun!

I thought Hailey would be fascinated with all of the books to choose from but instead she loved all of the stuffed animals. She would pick one up, walk a few steps, drop it and pick up a different one.

Her favorites were the Sesame Street ones, most of which she already has at home...

We did manage to read a few books while we were there but mostly Hailey was just excited and overwhelmed at everything there was to see. We'll definitely go back again!

It's Never Too Early...

To play with a Nativity, right?!

One of our sweet friends gave this Veggie Tales Nativity set to Hailey and I had hidden it in the closet to take out closer to Christmas. Well, someone found it and would not leave it alone. She was so interested in the animals and the star on top of the stable. So I took it out of the box and told her the Christmas story as we played with it this morning. She loved the wise men and the donkey best. :)

It's not too early to teach the Christmas story, right?!

I Can't Look Away for a Second!

Yesterday on the way home from Bible Study we stopped by McDonalds and got some french fries to help keep a very sleep Hailey awake on the way home ;) She ate a lot in the car and when we got home I carried her and the bag inside and put them down then walked back to the garage to carry Abbie inside. When I walked back in this is what I saw...

Hailey had gotten the rest of the fries out of the bag and was chowing down! (Don't worry, I did give her something else a little more healthy to finish her lunch.)

Today we were playing in the playroom. I was talking to Abbie on the floor and look over at Hailey who was sitting on her car to see this:

Little stinker had stood up on her car and was putting things in the microwave. I guess it was just a matter of time before she figured that one out...

Learning Tower

For Christmas, which is still over 2 months away, my sister got Hailey a Learning Tower. Mary Katherine said she couldn't wait any longer to send it to her because she was so excited about it. ;)
Basically it's a chair/tower that Hailey can stand on and help me cook, do projects and just be at my level while I'm working in the kitchen. She loves it! It's like it has given her a whole new perspective that there are things up high that she can reach and do.

The first time we used the Learning Tower I was making vegetable soup in the crock pot. Hailey helped me dump the vegetables into the crock pot and then I cut up the already cooked beef and let her put it in piece by piece. She thought she was hot stuff!

I moved the tower over by the back door just to get it out of the walkway in the kitchen and Hailey climbed right up on it and started looking out the window for "jumpy" squirrels and just commenting on what she saw.

This morning I was cleaning up breakfast and again Hailey climbed right up and started playing with her Tigger and Eeyore toys and this cooler. She played for like 20 minutes! It was awesome and really allowed me to get a lot done in the kitchen when normally she at my feet or grabbing my hand to "go" play in the playroom.

It has been so much fun already and we haven't even had it more than a week! Thanks Mary Katherine for our fun toy! We love it already!

Marbles with Mimi

Since Ryan's mom was here this weekend she and Ryan decided to take Hailey to Marbles for a fun morning on Friday. Hailey had a blast as usual, and these are the pictures I got.

showing Mimi the fish

Mimi said she loved this plastic cow!

Hailey got to paint for the first time! Ryan said she LOVED it and at least 10 times a day since Friday she has brought me over to the fridge, pointed to her picture and said "paint". I think we're going to have to get some watercolors...

Such a fun morning with Mimi and Daddy!

Date Night!

So I already posted about the beginning of our week and how Hailey makes me laugh constantly, but the rest of my week was pretty good too! :)

Ryan has been telling me for about a month that we were going to have a date night but wouldn't tell me what we were doing. I hate that...I am the boring person that doesn't like surprises. I like to plan and know what's going to happen. But God gave me a man who loves to plan surprises. I'm working on it...

Well Thursday night was our big date. Ryan's mom came up to keep Hailey and to hang out for the weekend so I knew that Hailey wouldn't miss us a bit. Ryan had given me some clues during the week about where we were going but none of them made sense to me. When we got in the car to go eat dinner I begging yet again for him to tell me where we were going. And he caved! We were going to the State Fair to see Sister Hazel in concert! We had seen them in concert 10 years ago as one of our first "big" dates when we first started dating. And by "big" date I mean I was in Nashville, TN with my family and he asked my dad to let me fly back home to go to the concert...Pretty good when you've only been dating like 2 months.

Needless to say I was excited and we really enjoyed the concert. It was fun to hear the old songs and reminisce about our life at the time we were singing them. Plus it was just fun to be together. :)

After the concert we walked around the fair and gawked, I mean, looked at all of the crazy things. To top it off, they were shooting off fireworks because it was the first night of the fair. I love fireworks!

Front Yard Fun

Well, when we were finished I don't think "fun" is the word that we would use but, oh well...

Ryan's mom came up this weekend so that Ryan and I could go on a date (more on that later) and to just hang out. Ryan and I really wanted to do some yard work and let's face it, it's kinda hard to do with a busy 19 month old who loves to be outside but also loves to "walk" and explore outside. So generally when we're outside we don't stay in our yard for long...So the plan was for Ryan's mom to watch Hailey and for Ryan and I to work in the yard. We had some ugly, big, overgrown flowers that needed to be pulled up and just some general care that needed to be done (well, really lots more than that but that's all we were going to tackle). See, we bought our house in January when everything was dead, so we didn't really know what needed to be done to the yard until this spring/summer when things really started growing.

Anyways, somehow pulling up the flowers turned into let's pull out some shrubs and replant pretty flowers in their place. I swear, these shrubs in the front of our house have been there since it was built, like 15 years ago, and they were extremely overgrown and not taken care of. This is what we started with:

Yes that is Ryan's truck tied to the shrub so that he can pull it out. He was way too excited about that.
But, it didn't work with that strap. You see, the shrub was so heavy and the roots so deep that it broke the strap. So, Ryan's mom cut back the branches, we tried to break up the roots with a shovel and water it so that ground was soft and Ryan went and bought a chain. Then this happened:

It worked! Ryan was SO happy! Then he had to do it again to the other shrub.
Then we, and by "we" I mean Ryan and his mom, got to work digging up the rest of the roots, laying new soil and stones around the outside. Then they planted the new plants.

Ryan had a cute little helper with the flowers. And yes it looks like it's getting dark in the pictures because it was. This took all afternoon...
Here's the finished product:

You can actually see the pumpkins on our porch! We love how it turned out! We still have 5 more that are double that size to pull up on the other side of the walkway but that's not happening by our power. We tried the same method this morning with them and ended up with tire holes all in our front yard because we couldn't pull them out because the truck couldn't get traction. Boo! :( But we are happy with this side!

And in case you were wondering how Hailey entertained herself during all of this here's a peek:

She moved the potted flowers from the porch to the sidewalk and back again at least 10 times. 

 And at the very end she realized she could make faces by pressing her face against the glass of the storm door. These make me laugh every time I see them... (and please excuse my basket of clean laundry yet to be folded in the background).

Being a homeowner is fun, right?!