Sewing Project #1

Hailey finally got to wear the first dress that I made her! It took a while to complete because of hold-ups with the button holes, but I finally finished it and doesn't she look adorable?!

(Ignore the skinned chin...Poor Hailey fell on the driveway chasing a ball. I felt terrible, but after a few minutes of crying she wanted to do it again. The girl is fearless!)

The Rest of the Weekend

In my last post, I mentioned that my parents came up to Raleigh to help us make curtains for our house. That was Saturday...Sunday we went to church because Ryan was preaching in our main service. He did awesome!
Here are a few pics of Hailey and my parents before church. She's wearing a dress that they bought for her in Italy last year.

Some tickle time with "Das"

and some fun playing in a box while we were working on curtains.

After church on Sunday Hailey and I rode back to Charlotte with my parents because Ryan had a pastor's retreat for the first part of the week.  Here are a few pictures of our time with them.

"Cooking" in the pantry. She did this a lot. Their pantry is a lot more interesting than ours

Early morning fun with the bus. Hailey didn't sleep well at all while we were gone. She's cutting another tooth.

I really wanted Hailey to play in the pool while we were there to help her get ready for the next two weeks at the beach. She wasn't scared of it at all the first day. She even lost her balance on one of the steps and her face got in the water and she didn't even care.

We played in the pool Monday too (her 16 month birthday). She was a little more hesitant and didn't really want to wear her life jacket or puddle jumper. She wanted to be in this float or on a raft with me instead.
 

That night Julie brought Tucker and Mack over to play. I only took one picture of Hailey and Tucker on the couch. She was wanting to play around and Tucker wanted nothing to do with it. He was happy watching TV and didn't want Hailey to bother him. She had no idea! Poor Tucker.

Tuesday we visited Mimi and Poppi and Ryan's mom drove Hailey and I back to Raleigh and spent the night. Hailey was in heaven with her Mimi. She didn't want me at all until bedtime. It was kind of nice to be able to unpack and get laundry done and know that Hailey was loving spending time with Mimi. It was such a blessing! This morning we all went to the park and this is the only picture I took.

Hailey and Mimi playing the drums

Now, Hailey is napping, Ryan's mom is headed back to Charlotte and Ryan is on the way back from the pastor's retreat...I have to start packing for two weeks at the beach! I'm so looking forward to more time with our families!

House Update: New Curtains

This past weekend my parents came to Raleigh to help us make new curtains for the kitchen, our bedroom and Hailey's bedroom. It was a full Saturday of building and covering boards, but they turned out great! They got here around 10:00 and Dad and Ryan got right to work building the window boxes that we were going to cover with fabric for each window.

Ryan definitely didn't sit and watch all of the time. I just happened to take a picture when he was learning to use a certain tool.

After the guys built the boxes we had to cover them.

What a cute, curious little helper we had...

Here are the finished windows!

Kitchen:

Hailey' room: I love that now there's some of her bedding pattern in the room, even though we had to take the bumpers out of her bed. I still love this fabric.

 Our bedroom:

Don't worry. We'll get matching night stands eventually...

 Our bathroom:

A few weekends ago my Mom came up and we made new curtains for the front door. The old ones were disgusting and dingy and dirty.

It was a crazy busy Saturday, but I love how the curtains turned out!

Happy 4th of July

Happy 4th of July! We had so much fun celebrating America's birthday today because Ryan was off of work!

Last night we had our Life Class (Sunday School class) over for dinner and a Bible Study so Hailey wore her 4th of July dress for everyone.

This is what Hailey did when I said I was going to take her picture. You just can't hear the screaming...

a little better, but still not smiling

Today we celebrated the 4th with donuts for breakfast! Someone was a fan!

not a great picture, but I think you can tell that she liked it!

Then we went to the park before everyone else got there!

We went to the airport observation park to play too! We'd never been before but it is so neat. They have a little play area, play runway, picnic area, and deck with benches to sit and watch the planes from. We will definitely go back. Someone wasn't real interested in the planes but loved walking around.

running down the play runway

Then we saw our friends off that were leaving for a mission trip to Ethiopia today. They wanted to take Hailey with them since she fit in the carry-on luggage compartment but we had to say no. :)

After Hailey's nap we played outside in the sprinkler and pool! Hailey did not like the sprinkler. She wanted nothing to do with it after running through the water once. But she did warm up to playing in her baby pool. She loved "cooking" in it. :)

Now it's not even 8:00 and Hailey is asleep so Ryan and I get to enjoy celebrating the anniversary of our engagement 7 years ago. Wow, that seems like a long time! Look how far we've come! What's really sad is that we won't be watching any fireworks this year like we did 7 years ago. My, how a baby changes things. Maybe next year we'll get to go see fireworks as a family!

Imagination and Talking

I LOVE how Hailey's imagination is coming to life. She constantly cracks me up with the things she does. Here are a few examples of her imagination in action.

I mentioned how she loves baby dolls now. Well the past two or three days whenever we've gone somewhere she's wanted to take her baby. Monday I told her that we were going to have lunch with Clara (a friend). She immediately went and got her baby (in the play carrier) and said "shoes" and tried to put her shoes on the baby.

We also had to take a baby to run errands today. And Hailey wanted it to sit beside her in the cart.

Yesterday afternoon I was trying to cook dinner in the midst of post-nap crankies. I was doing something at the sink and hear Hailey taking the pans out of the under-oven drawer. I was kind of glad she had found something to occupy herself with instead of hanging on my leg. I figured I could just wash the pans later. Then I hear her say "night night". So I turned around and saw this:

She had put her baby to sleep in the oven drawer! Her imagination is so sweet!

I've mentioned that Hailey is quite the chatter box too. She is constantly talking and it's so interesting to hear how her mind is working. She is starting to occasionally put two words together.
It's been raining here for the past week, literally. So we haven't been outside much and are going a little stir crazy. Monday during a break in the rain I took Hailey outside because she was begging "side side". She found a puddle at the end of the driveway and said "oah. pash." Translation: "water. splash." She had a blast just splashing in the little bit of water. She would splash and then stomp and say "tomp." Then look at me and say "Mama." and want me to do it.

Hailey loves bubbles and has been asking for them a lot lately. My mom got her a little bubble maker and we were having some fun with it the other night, in between rain showers. Hailey would say "bubble. pop." and chase the bubbles with her finger out to pop them. She learned that she could pop them on the grass and had a great time with that too!

I'm loving this age with Hailey!