How's she doing?

Hailey is 20 months old now and doing so great!! She has been a busy little girl lately :) She is constantly into something. Whether it be "cooking" in her kitchen, or dancing to "Choo Choo Soul" She loves to be go go going! I recently enrolled her in a great program at "The Little Gym" It is for kids 4mo-5yrs I belive and they get to do gymnastics. Since she stays at home with me all day and really only has interaction with other kids through church and here and there playdates, I really wanted her to be able to get out and play with kids her age. This is the PERFECT thing for her. She gets to interact with kids around her agea and she gets to run around without socks and shoes on and climb all over the gym! What kid wouldn't want to do that. She goes once a week for 45 mins. Her teachers name is Charolette, and even though we have only been twice, she already gets so excited when we walk through the door and she sees her! They learn a new skill every week and this week it was the balance beam.. Hailey wasn't scared a bit and was the first one in line to do it! She did so great and put her feet right after the other with a little help (video to follow soon!) I can't speak highly enough about this program!
Another exciting thing that she has been doing lately is potty training! She has been interested in it for about a month and doing pretty good I might add. I know it is just like a mom to go on braggin about her child's "#1 and #2's" haha. but I am so proud of her. If I might add, she has done her #2 business ONLY on the toilet this whole entire week.. six times straight!! Now that is worth braggin about :) She even surprised me on thursday and told me she had to go "tt" while she was in the tub and GOT OUT to do so!! WOW! I know some adults that don't even do that ;) JK!

She, of course like her mommy, is talking up a storm now! Half of the time we understand her and half of the time we don't! She has gotten a couple of phrases down: "Get out/off/down" which she learned from me telling the dogs and will now tell you if she doesn't want you in the room.. or holding her hand! yikes. "I said no" which she has heard me tell her numerous times when in trouble.. guess I had that one coming. She told me the other day.. I said "Hailey would you like a banana" and she said "no" and i said "are you sure, you havent ate much" and she said "I said NO!" haha.. it was actually pretty funny :)"dad bye" we tried getting her to say bye bye daddy but that is what comes out! And even though not a phrase but I find funny "dodo" which is dozi the dog. She will walk around saying "dodo, kkkkkk(like she was calling her..dont know how to spell that!)

She has gotten a few new obsessions... and the main one is CHAPSTICK. You can not mention the word or even let her catch you doing it without a melt down to have one. And YES, for those of you that know anything about me, it is ALL my fault as I am a chapstickaholic myself! She knows where all of them are in the house and it is now part of her nighttime routine before bed! haha. At least she will have soft lips :)

She is in the process of learning how to jump and it is soooo funny! We will say 123 JUMP! And she will bend all the way to the ground and come up so hard and fast you think she is going to go 2 feet up in the air... but then... she just gets up on her tippy toes. It is hilarious. She tries so hard and just can't figure out how to get those feet off the ground! I hope to video tape it soon as it is too funny not to share.

We so enjoy laughing and charishing these funny and sweet moments as we know that they pass all too quickly. I hope that you enjoy following along with us as we watch her grow! Until next time..

May God Bless Your Family :)
Love,


(ps. hope you like the new look too!)

For those of you still hanging on!!

I will have to admit that I have been pretty slack about keeping updates on the blog this summer... I took full advantage of the relaxation!!... well actually of keeping busy!! We have had such a great summer and did all kinds of fun things... one being Hailey's first birthday.. and I STILL cant believe it!! She had her first beach trip too and as you saw from the last post, had a mostly great time!! Since then we have kept pretty busy just doig things locally :)
One of the major projects we decided to take on was building HB a playroom... now it sounds like a whole lot, and sort of was, except that we had a great builder.. my dad!! For those of you that remember, when you walk into the front door, normally you would see a sitting room and could walk through to the living room. Well now there is a wall there and it looks like a hall way!! And on the other side is a fun playroom for HB that she is LOVING and so am I! For numerous reasons, but my favortie is that I can shut the door on the mess and leave it for another day ;)
Here is HB supervising the construction..
and here is one of her and how EXCITED she was to go in (FINALLY!)

(more pictures to come when finished decorating) The room seems like it has filled up already and one of her favorite toys is a kitchen set that we got from our friends at church.. look she even bakes us cupcakes ;)

She is def. a summer baby and loves being outside... ALL THE TIME!!!!! She will walk to the door.. and almost understandable talk say "outside" .. or sometimes just "this"! haha. We usually go outside every night for 30 minutes or so before bath, books, and bed. And sometimes it is a fight and the tears break out because we have to go back inside :( The other day it was raining here, so I decided to take the opporunity to get some cute pics (no, not me!) and put her in her rain boots and umbrella (yes I bought the umbrella just for the pics! ;) (hush!) They turned out very cute, but as you will see, she didn't really want to take pictures, she wanted to play in the rain! The sun had already came out by the time her BF got there, but they played together and got some cute pics anyways :)

She is doing ALL KINDS of new things. It just amazes us how quickly she can catch on to things and how quickly she learns to say new words! Some of the new things that she says and does now are: she can say, moo for cow, her version of quack quack for duck (and the word duck) ;) bock bock for chicken, i can spell how she makes the pig! lol, tickle tickle, shoes, hi (along with hey), fish, dog (and dozi) and she can do: kick the soccer ball (:D), run, blow bubbles in the water, blow kisses bye bye, make a smackin noise when she gives a kiss, push the button on her four wheeler, climb onto and off of the sofa! haha, and points at everything!! There is so much more that she is doing, but these are the main ones :) (ps. the last pictures are her having her first blow pop today!! she LOVED it :) ) Enjoy!

14 months

(click for album)
I know this was a heck of an update, and a novel for your evening... but I do hope to start blogging regularly and even getting back to my menu mondays (which yes i did miss yest!) I hope everyone is doing well and had a great summer! Let that Fall air blow in the decorations, shopping and UGA football baby!!

11 Months

I have been pretty busy lately (with mothers day) and just now have had the time to upload the few pics I got of Hailey for her 11 Month photo shoot. I hope to get more sometime this week, but this is the few that I did get! As you will see, she isn't really easy to take pictures of anymore!!

11 Months

She is an absolute ham now. She is walking EVERYWHERE and is getting so good at it! I still can not believe my eyes when I see her just walking around the house. She cuts corners, is trying to bend down and grab toys, and even carries things around with her!! It is a site to see :) She "talks" to us all the time and has full out conversations! It is so fun ad sweet to listen to her :) She can say a couple of different words: mama, dada, dog, juice (sometimes,) hey there, out, and THAT is her favorite word. She points at something and says "that". haha! It is hilarious! Everything in sight has now become that. We can't believe that her birthday is now less than a month away! I have got the invitations done and you should be receiving yours soon ;) Hope to get more pics up soon!

10 Months

Hailey is 10 Months!! and WOW I can't believe that I am saying that! She has become quite the big girl, and in a hurry! She believes that she can do anything she wants, including things that she can't! She thinks that she can go up and down the stairs, let herself off the sofa (will literally lunge off of it!) and now even lets go of the furniture and takes one step as if she is going to walk across the room before falling to the floor... then looks at you like 'why did that just happen?' She has learned to do so much in just the past few weeks, and really while we were at Disney. She can now wave bye bye, pat her mouth and make noises, clap for herself and let me tell you she is proud, drink through a straw, and just cut her fifth tooth! She also surprised us this past tuesday and took 3 steps without falling! Of course I was SO EXCITED, but then sat her down and said ok lets take a break! haha I am not quite sure if I am ready for this or not!!! My name has FINALLY converted from nana to mama!! Praise the Lord. But as people warned me, she was dadadadada, and now it is mamamamama! But I do adore it when I hear my name and then get a big hug when I come over to her.
She has just started getting a little stranger anxiety and won't go to a lot of people that she use to right now. She is very unsure of men, which just makes me laugh! I am glad to know that it will only be a phase, but it does make church nursery a chore! She is eating so well and ABSOLUTELY loves our food. She will eat pretty much whatever you give her as long as it comes off your plate and not that slimy stuff from a can! And don't try and trick her cause she knows the difference! haha This is something that we are working at ;) Every month I am amazed at the beautiful, fun and smart little girl that we have. God has truly blessed us with a wonderful child :)

10 Months

9 Months

Another month has come and gone... and way too fast. Hailey amazes us everyday with all that she can do and is learning. She is getting so good at crawling... and esp. crawling away! She is a little speed demon now and is out of sight in no time. Her favorite thing to do is try and chase the dogs. She will start after one of them and then of course they are too fast for her, so she turns around and looks at me like where did they go?? It is too funny. She also thinks the stairs are the coolest thing and we have to keep a doggie door in front of them. She has been giving all kinds of lovin lately. She will wrap her arms around you and give the biggest hug that a little 9 month old could give. And it is something that can just melt your heart :) She also gives plenty of slobbery kisses... which sometimes can feel more like she is about to eat your face for a snack!
Everyday she wants to be a bigger girl than she is. She wants big girl food, off of a big girl plate, and wants to stand up like a big girl to eat it! She will crawl over to me on the floor while we are eating dinner (yes in front of the tv!) and pulls up on my knee to a standing position and then looks at me like ok I am ready to eat now!
Two days before she turned 9 months, she finally broke her 3rd tooth thru. It was the top right and gave us a heck of a Saturday. She was sick to her stomach on both accounts and was very fussy. It is still making its grand appearance... but can def. hurt you if you stick you finger any where near it!! The past 9 months have been such a blessing for us and we are so thankful that God gave us such a miracle in Hailey :)

9 Months

8 Month Pics

You can only imagine (and see!) how hard it is to get these pictures accomplished now!!

8 Months

8 Months

Well here it is... it has totally snuck up on us! Hailey is now 8 months old. She is changing more and more everyday, looks, attitude, and accomplishments. She has really taken off in the past couple of days and week. Starting the Sunday before last she up and crawled over to me. It was he most amazing thing that I have experienced in a while. It is so powerful and makes you feel so accomplished for her. You could just see it all over her face that she was so excited to be coming over to me without any help from anybody! She has been up on her knees and looking like she was doing push ups since way before Christmas, and started moving one hand about two weeks ago. She got sick last week and was not doing any better on Sunday, so I decided to keep her home form Church to not get any of the other kids sick (and there are a lot of them!). She was still very happy and all smiles. We were sitting in the living room watching t.v. and she, like always, got up on her knees... well this time she started moving her legs AND arms! I was so happy, but also upset because Dustin had already left! So I immediately grabbed the camera and started shooting. She has now gotten good enough to get into things before we can get over to her. She has gotten into the dog food, the dish washer, and the DVD player in the living room (all harmless!)
She is also saying "hey dada" all the time, and the funny thing is, she has yet to do it when "dada" is in the room! haha, but at least others have heard it so I am not just being 'that' mommy! GG swears that she says "hey there" every once in a while... and you can hear it if you listen real closely. She now thinks that naps are overrated and for the weak hearted. She has been letting them get shorter and shorter and sometimes only taking one long or two short naps a day. Of course mommy wishes this could go back to the 2 hour naps... because that is the time a mommy lives for!
Her adorable chubby thighs keep growing and somehow get even cuter. I keep telling her to enjoy this now, because it is sure to be short lived. She is now up to 17.5lbs (thanks to a sick visit) and is right there in her %'s. I think she is one of the only kids that I see get so excited in the doctors room. Now I think this is mostly because she is almost naked and LOVES it! That and the fun paper that rattles everytime she slaps it.
She still loves her bath time and gets so excited every night when we go in there to start her bath. She sits on my lap and watches me get it ready. I hand her the bath toys and she throws each one of them into the tube. She splashes and laughs the whole time she is in there. She is the most excited right when she gets out. She kicks and yelps and starts hitting notes we haven't ever heard! It is a site to see.

Hailey loves hanging out with other babies and kids. She just smiles and laughs at them. As I have said before we have a lot of babies in our church that are the same age as her, and we get together every other wednesday and Sunday for church, so she gets to have her play time. She has gotten close with a boy already and dad is keeping his eye out!
We bought her a walker for Christmas, and it didn't exactly work out because it was too tall. So I found one on Craig's list that was in good shape and HB LOVES chasing the dogs around the house in it, banging into the walls, and getting into everything she can find. She has gotten really good at walking in it, and will all but run to you when you put your hands out and tell her to come to you! She gets so excited, but like crawling, it is because she is doing it all by herself... such a big girl! The flower in her hair in this pic is one of my most recent projects. I have made her a couple of hair bows like this and plan to buy some waffle head bands to attach them too. She looks so adorable in these big hair accessories!
I am going to be taking her 8 month pictures on Wednesday, but these were some of her most recent ones :)

7 Months

My baby girl is now 7 months old and I can not even believe that those words are coming out of my mouth already. She wants so badly to be a big girl already, which makes it even harder to watch her grow so fast. She still hasn't quite mastered the art of crawling, which I am both anxious to happen and also glad has not happened yet. I know that once she gets going, there will be no stopping her. At this point she just wabbles and does what looks like a push up.. haha. She hasn't figured out that to crawl, she has to move her arms to get going. She has everything but that down. She is still saying "da da da da da" all the time, and now says "na na na" when she is upset, which I think is a version of "mama" ;) In the past 3 days she has master the art of saying "ut oh". The very first time she was sitting in her Exersaucer and dropped one of her toys and I said Ut oh and she said it right back the exact same way. Now she says it over and over and it is very funny. We can't always get her to do it, but we def. know when she is saying it.

I am happy to report that we now have a food loving baby!! It took quite a while for her to get use to it, but mommy hung in there and kept trying and now she LOVES all her food. We started with fruits, which I know some people maybe skeptic about, but the doctor recommened this to help her get the taste for it. Her favorite so far is bananas. I have now started indrucing more than fruits, green beans, sweet potatoes, and two days ago mac n cheese. I mixed it with a little apple sauce first so she would like it. It worked and she now loves her mac n cheese! It is funny to watch her eat cause she opens her mouth real big and leans into the spoon. She also loves her puffs. They are like little fast dissolving crackers... she could eat the whole jug. We are looking forward to the new year and all it has to bring.

7 Months

6 Months

Hailey is now a half a year old! Wow, 6 months has flown by. We have so much to be thankful for in having a happy and healthy baby girl. She has been so much fun watching grow and all the things she is starting to do as well. She is now getting up on all fours and pushing off just a little. She hasn't figured out how to move those arms at the same time she is moving her legs. She starts to inch forward and just falls over because her arms go behind her. Sometimes it looks like she is trying to do a push up! She is doing really well at sitting up too. She still topples over sometimes, but for the most part, she is sitting up by herself. We are so excited for Christmas to come because we know that it is going to be such a joyous time. She already wants to open up the presents that I have wrapped!! Anytime we give her wrapping paper or tissue paper, she goes nuts over it and starts throwing her arms around. The Christmas is going to be the best yet :)

6 Months

5 Months

Well I am just now getting HB's 5 Month pics up. She turned 5 mo's on Nov 8. As always the time is just flying by. She has been doing a lot lately. She loves to play with her toes and even tries to get them all the way up there to her mouth! She is doing really well with sitting up and we try and practice with her everyday. The only problem is she wants to stand up all the time and never wants to bend. Once she gets her feet going, you won't be able to stop the girl! She still loves Pooh and Tigger. She has been a little fussy at night because I think she has more teeth coming in (crazy!!) so she will be in her jumper and start fussing and soon as I turn them on she just stops and looks at the tv with amazement. She loves to watch it and I can usually count on a babysitter for about 30 extra minutes! If that doesnt work, I just bring the dogs around her. She absolutely loves the dogs! She just watches them and breaks a neck if they walk out of the room. Tues when we got all the bad rain, we found a puppy and had to bring him in. It was so sad and he was terribly skinny. So of course I made Dustin go get him and bring him in the garage. I have been trying to find a good home for him, but no luck yet. I just can't bring him to the pound, won't do it! He is so sweet and dozi AND angel both like him, which is so hard to believe. He has to stay outside but loves it when they come to play. So HB has a lot to look at now a days. So if you know anyone that wants a sweet dog, just let me know :) Enjoy the pics....

5 Months

4 months

As always, I took Hailey's pictures since she is now 4 months! I got some really cute ones. The funny thing is, I didn't realize until about half way through that I had been using the blocks that said "3 months" instead of 4. So when you look at the pics and see 3 months, just laugh at my "mommy brain" haha. There were some cute ones, so I didn't want to delete them!

4 Months

3 Months

3 Months

Hailey has turned 3 months today!! Wow.. I can't believe that I am saying that. Not to be the typical parent, but I really do feel like we just brought her home. She has been so much fun lately. Laughing and just being a ham ball. She has just started a new thing with her eating. She gets about 1 oz. down and then thinks it is time to play and talk. So we have to sit there and have a little conversation with her, give a couple of smiles, and then back to eating. The 1 more oz and repeat step one! haha. It brings a smile to your face, but also takes a while. Sometimes up to an hour, which we usually don't have, but of course, she's the boss.

I got a great video of her yesterday just chatting away with herself in the mirror. She loves to lay on her play yard and gab away in the mirror and lets out a couple of laughs every once in a while. I have had some trouble uploading video, but I am going to try a different route, so hopefully I can get it up on the site. It is amazing how in one month they can change so much. She def. knows who mommy and daddy are, and is now getting familiarized with the grands. She will give a big smile to GG and Granny Anny, and of course it just melts them :)She is also very aware of when you are in the room and not in the room. I have to be very sneaky when she is napping and loses the paci. I have to duck down, walk up to the crib, feel around for the paci, then give it back to her. If I look over the crib, she is sure to spot me and then starts laughing! Sometimes I let her see me cause it is just hilarious.

The dogs are great with her now and know that she is here to stay. Angel is her protector and dozi gives her baths ;) lol They love to lay right beside her play mat when she is on it. Every once in a while she will get to playing so hard that she kicks or punches them. They look are her like 'what was that for'. Either that or start licking her foot or hand. We are having so much fun being parents and can't wait for all the milestones to come (well we won't rush things of course!)

10 weeks

10 Weeks

I cant believe that our sweet baby is 10 weeks old!! As I always say, it is going to quickly. We are having so much fun watching her change and become a happier baby. She is constantly smiling and laughing. She can def be a little ham. She is the most fun in the mornings because she is well rested and just full of joy :) Her hair just continues to grow and has become so pretty. Some days it is darker and some days it takes on a blond tint. Her eyes are still bright eyed and blue. We are really thinking that they are going to stay this way, she is def. going to be a heartbreaker if she has blonde hair and blues eyes. Daddy is already worried about it, but says he is preparing his tactics.. haha. I uploaded some cute pictures that I have taken this week as she is about to turn 10 weeks old tom.

2 Month check up

Well this is a bit belated since Hailey is about to be 10 weeks, but better late than never right?!? She went for her 2 mo check up this past tuesday and we got great news. She is looking and doing perfect. Well maybe a little over in the weight, but we love those chunky legs! haha. She is now 11lbs 13.5oz and 22 3/4 inches long... and we cant believe it. As everyone says, she is growing so fast! I took some 2 mo pics for everyone to enjoy....

2 Months

My one month pic

So it is a bit behind (bc I am 6wks today!!) but here is my one month picture with that crazy bear

Can you believe that I am one week old!!!

I am already growing up and turned one week old today. Mommy and Daddy can't believe how time has already flown by. They know it will be a matter of time before they wake up and I am 16 and driving. But we will take it day by day for now and mommy will get as many pictures of me as she possibly can. Speaking of pictures, mommy is going to take my picture each month with the big bear that daddy gave her and watch how I grow. I got all dressed up in my cute outfit that GG gave me and took my first pictures with the bear as I turned one week old. I was not so sure of this big bear that was above me and made sure I kept my eye on him the whole time!