Hailey's Birthday Party!

We had Hailey's birthday party on Saturday, her actual birthday. We did a Minnie Mouse theme and Hailey really seemed to like it.
We were so blessed to be able to have so many family and friends here to celebrate our sweet girl! She had a blast and so did we!

Here are a few (ok, maybe a lot) of pictures of our day!
Decorations:
Party hats...Like my models?!

 Birthday wreath that will be used for all birthdays now. The "2" is removable so I can change it out every year.

This picture got photo bombed by the birthday girl herself!

Present time!

She loved this stuffed dog as soon as she opened him. She named him Pupcake (the dog from Strawberry Shortcake) and then showed him all of her presents. Later he took a dive into her cupcake...

Singing Happy Birthday. Hailey did not want to blow out her candle. She asked me to do it.

We had a great day celebrating our birthday girl. We felt so blessed to be surrounded by those that love us, and her, at her party!

Hailey is two!

Hailey turned two yesterday! It was a wonderful day filled with celebrating with family and friends. But more on her party later...Here's what Hailey is up to at two years old.

We go to the doctor on Wednesday but she weighs about 25 pounds and wears 24 month or 2T clothes. She wears a 5 1/2 or size 6 shoe. She still has a wide foot, poor thing. Hailey goes to bed around 7:30 and wakes up around 6 in the morning. We don't get her out of her bed until at least 6:30. She just plays, talks to herself and sometimes goes back to sleep. She takes a 2ish hours nap around 12:30 everyday. I am not looking to drop that nap anytime soon.

About a month ago we changed Hailey's bed from a crib to a toddler bed and she has done phenomenal with it! She has only gotten out of bed once during a nap because she was trying not to go to sleep. She got out to get her paci which she had thrown on the floor and then got back in. We told her the first night not to get out until Mommy and Daddy come to get you in the morning and she has obeyed. Sometimes when we out her down for a nap or bed she will remind us of this. "Stay bed. Mommy and Daddy come get you." Precious!

Haily still loves to play with her babies (or stuffed animals) to feed them and put them to bed. Lately she's been reading to them too.

She still loves to read. She has so many books memorized now that she can recite them to us. I.love.it!

As I've mentioned on here before, she definitely has her opinions and likes to let us know them. ;) It's mostly come out in clothes and accessorizes lately.

Clothes...or lack thereof...

Hailey loves to pretend with anything. I've mentioned her "house" on here before. You remember the box that our new ottoman came in...that has now been in our play room for about 4 months...Well last week it became an elevator. Hailey was playing and pretending and she got in it and said "Elenator (elevator). Go see Daddy. See rhino too."  And she had her purse in her hand too, and bracelets and sunglasses! I love this kid! (luckily our friends got her a little tent to put in her play room instead so now maybe we can get rid of the box)

Hailey's favorite foods are probably hot dogs and chicken nuggets. She loves macaroni and cheese and any kind of potato too. She is really good about eating veggies usually. Her favorite right now is probably broccoli. For snacks she loves Pringles (terrible I know) and "PJs" (ritz bitz with cheese. I have no idea where that name came from.) She loves the squeezable yogurt and cheese too. She still doesn't like milk but will drink it (and pretty much anything) if we give her a straw. The girl loves lemonade!

The last few weeks Hailey has done MUCH better with going to the nursery on Sundays and Tuesdays for Bible Study. She has even walked in by herself! As soon as we leave for church she always says, "Mommy come back get you." As if she's reminding herself that I will. I found out today that her Nursery class got to go out to the playground for the first time today and walked using the rope for the kids to hold. My baby is so big!

I think Hailey's speech, vocabulary and connections are what amaze me more and more everyday. She is always coming up with new words that I didn't know she knew or stringing 5 or 6 words together to make sentences. It's incredible! Yesterday we were leaving to go somewhere and she wanted to take her new Daniel Tiger and Trolley with us. My sister was bringing them to the car and Hailey said "Don't forget make sure Daniel Tiger in there" I was amazed! She makes tones of connections too. Like the elevator thing...she knows when we go see Ryan at work that she gets to ride on the elevator and see the rhino. Or that everytime we talk to Mimi on sykpe that she gets to see Bobo and "give" him a treat. Or that when she talks to Aunt Kristin who lives in the Dominican to say "hola" instead of "hi". Her little mind is incredible!

I am so thankful for a sweet, healthy little girl! She has changed so much in two years already, I can't wait to see what's next!

Time Flies

How is she going to be two in only a matter of days? Wasn't she just a little baby?

A Mind of Her Own

We all know that Hailey is a little ahem, determined, shall we say. She definitely has her opinions about what she likes and doesn't like. In fact, I'm pretty sure her favorite phrase right now is "don't like it"...even if she's never tried or seen it before. She's pretty good about trying something new though.

Lately I'm seeing her opinions about clothing coming out more and more. She is in love with this particular Hello Kitty necklace as of late. She calls it the "beautiful necklace" and wants to wear it all the time. She wore it this week to Bible Study on Tuesday because she wanted to wear a necklace like Mommy.

Then one morning this week I was getting ready and she brings her new bathing suit top into my room while trying to take off her pajamas because "wear it". So I let her wear it for a little while before making her put on real clothes...choosing my battles...

She also found Daddy's toboggan to try on this week.

On Wednesday she and Abbie were playing in her room and Hailey decided they both needed to dress up. It was precious!

Hailey's also getting strong opinions about bath time. She prefers Mommy's "big bath tub", bubbles and thousands of toys. Sometimes these demands are met, other times not. She sure loves bubbles though...

Another thing Hailey loves: lemonade! Anytime we stop anywhere for food she assumes it is Chick-Fil-A and that I have lemonade. Lucky for her it usually is. But the other day we stopped at Bojangles, mostly to get lunch and keep Hailey awake in the car. I got lemonade and Hailey not only wanted to drink it, she wanted to hold it too.

We stopped at the grocery store earlier this week and picked up some grapes among other things. At first Hailey wanted a grape so I picked one off, rubbed it (because of course that removes anything dirty on it ;) ) and let her have it. By the end of our shopping trip this was happening in my cart

Stinker was picking the grapes off herself and eating them!

She has a mind of her own! I wouldn't have it any other way but boy do we have our work cut out for us!

A Trying Week

It's been a trying week around here...just being honest. Hailey got sick Monday night and Tuesday night throwing up (while Ryan was out of town mind you) Then I got it right before he got home on Wednesday night, and today he came down with it. There's been lots of laundry, lysol and cuddling going on. The cuddling I love, laundry and lysol not so much.

But even in the midst of the sickness there have been a few sweet moments to remember:

Yesterday Hailey and Abbie were playing in her playroom and all of a sudden Hailey gets a book and says "Read Aps. (That's what she calls Abbie, her own little nickname) Look Aps. God made colors." It absolutely melted my heart!

See the laundry basket in the background... ;)

Ryan brought Hailey back some maracas from the Dominican Republic, which she LOVES and is constantly shaking. It's precious. But what was really sweet was that his sister's coworkers sent a shirt home for Hailey (and a magnet for me and Ryan). Hailey tried it on today and wouldn't take it off. See her cheesy smile?!

Today Hailey and I had to run to a friend's house, who we were supposed to have dinner with tonight with a group of people. Well I had already bought the salsa and didn't really need it sitting in my house so we ran it over. This was the sweetness in my backseat

Don't you love the upside down sunglasses?! She wears them like that every.single.time. After we ran our errands we made a quick stop at the park so as to not completely miss this amazing weather we're having.



Even in the trying times I love how God gives us sweet moments to remember. But here's to hoping this next week bring wellness to our home. ;)

Weekend at Grams and Das'

Since Ryan was out of town in the warm, sunny Dominican, Hailey and I went to Charlotte! We waited until noon on Friday to make sure the ice was melted and the roads were safe and we were off! I only have a few random pictures from the weekend because we were super busy. We made some things for Hailey's 2nd Birthday party and I learned how to make ruffle pants for Hailey. Here's what I've got:

We went to Old Navy and Hailey was obsessed with this dog mannequin. Like wouldn't leave it obsessed... had to pick her up and carry her away obsessed...had to give the dog a kiss goodbye obsessed...

One night I was getting Hailey ready for her bath and she started running around saying "Nakey baby come here"...when did she start to look like a little girl instead of my baby?

How to keep Hailey and Tucker contained outside...put them in the back of Das' truck. Just kidding. But they had a blast back there for like 15 minutes!

Hailey loved playing in the cabinet under the TV. She would hide toys in them, play peek a boo, and try to crawl in them

Das took Hailey on an escalator ride, or two, before we left church on Sunday. Hailey was so excited. She was waving the whole way down. It's the little things.

Monday before we left to come back to Raleigh I got Hailey dressed but she kept saying her sock was "hurting you". So I took it off to see if anything was inside it and she wouldn't let me put it back on! She rocked one sock for most of the morning.

We had a great weekend in Charlotte! I am so thankful we live close enough to family to make a weekend trip!

Snow!

Little did we know we were going to get about 5 inches of snow with ice on top! Enough to shut things down for a few days here in Raleigh. It started snowing at about 11:30 on Wednesday afternoon and by noon when Ryan got home the roads were already terrible. We have friends that were stuck in traffic trying to get home for hours! I was so thankful that I had my little family all together.

The snow piled up quickly. By 4:00 that afternoon we already had about 3 inches. We took Hailey out but she didn't really enjoy it. It was so powdery she had a hard time walking and it was still snowing hard and hitting her in the face.

The next morning we had about 5 inches of snow with a thick layer of ice on top. That's a lot for here!

We started the morning with chocolate chip pancakes made by Daddy.

Someone was sneaking chocolate chips!

Hailey had more fun playing in it then and we tried sledding again. It worked much better in a clothes basket! (We totally need to buy a sled so we don't look so silly next time but I wasn't about to let my baby miss out on sledding!)

She had much more fun than last time! She just laughed the whole way and then said "more. more'"

We only stayed out about 20 minutes in the morning. Ryan went back out that afternoon to shovel the driveway and Hailey wanted to go back out too. I enjoyed watching my loves from inside this time! I love watching them together. It is absolutely precious.

Ryan taught her to make a snow angel

And then Hailey's dream came true...they made "Frosty"!

Crazy thing was that Ryan was supposed to fly out that day to go to the Dominican to visit his sister. Obviously with the weather that didn't happen and I am so glad we got a snow day together.