Merry Christmas 2009

Hope everyone had a great Christmas. We had a really nice one despite the fact Haylie had a temperature of 105.1 on Christmas Eve with strep throat. Luckily after a few doses of antibiotics she was almost as good as new by Christmas morning. My family all came out Christmas Eve and spent two nights so everyone could see Haylie's Christmas. She's the only little one now on either side of the family, so as you might imagine she cleans up when it comes to presents!! She was really into it this year which was really fun. We went and saw Santa and she hopped right up on his lap--when he asked what she wanted for Christmas she shouted "Presents!!!!", nothing specific just presents in general. Which of course she got lots of.

Her "big" present from Santa was a talking, bouncy horse on springs which she is wild about. She rides it constantly and has already about worn out the button which turns on its talking/singing/neighing. Her other favorite gifts are a toy guitar which plays 6 or 8 different songs (very loudly unfortunately) and a really neat talking doll house (from Aunt Lisa). Also, for some reason Haylie LOVES any type of "blower" including furnace blowers, lawn blowers, hand blowers in public restrooms and hair blow dryers. My mom found a toy blow dryer that makes noise like a real one and Haylie is crazy about it.

My house is now overflowing with toys--I need to go thru them and get rid of the old ones, although she still plays really well with all of them. I swore before we got her, we wouldn't have a gazillion toys, but here we are now with my living room overrun. Not as bad as some, but worse than others I suppose. Stupidly, before she came I bought one little storage box that I was sure would hold all of her toys. That thing now doesn't even hold all of her books, and I just had to buy a 3rd storage bin for all the toys that will fit in it!!! I know I shouldn't complain, and just be happy we are so blessed to be able to have so much. I can't help but think of what kind of Christmas she might have had if she was still in Russia. Luckily, since God sent her to us, both Rich and I & Haylie have much better holidays than we ever did before, for which we are so very grateful.
Enjoy the slideshow & Happy New Year

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Santa Visit

I'm playing catch up with my posts. Here are some great pictures of Haylie with Santa this year. I'll post Christmas pictures tomorrow.

Halloween 2009

Haylie had a blast for Halloween. We went to trunk-or-treat at our church on Friday night, which was a BIG success. She loved seeing everyone dressed up, getting her candy, and the games that they had set up. She also loved her costume...she was the cutest little elephant you've ever seen. My neice Julia had used the same costume when she was Haylie's age, so it made it even more special to see Haylie in it. Since there was a home UK football game on actual trick-or-treat night, she stayed with Gram-Gram and didn't go trick-or-treating while we went to the game. She didn't even know she missed it. She got a whole pumpkin full of candythe night before. Luckily, she is not a big candy eating girl. Unluckily, daddy and I are, so we certainly didn't need anymore to eat.

In other news, Haylie moved up at her preschool into the big 3 year old room this week. So far so good. They had been keeping her in the "transitional 2's" room since she still isn't completely potty trained. The whole poo poo on the potty thing still eludes her. She does really well with the pee pee thing. But isn't doesnt' bother her a bit to poop in her pants. We've tried everything I can think of like M&M's, stickers, books, big girl panties, etc. but nothing seems to work. Hopefully she'll get the hang of it before we get to kindergarten!!!

I'm trying something new with these video's. Hopefully you can see my sweet little elephant in action.

Pumpkin Time

It's my favorite time of year!!! We've been to 2 different pumpkin patches now and still can't get a really good picture of Haylie with the pumpkins. I always see all of these cute little kids smiling and posing with the pumpkins, but my girl absolutely refuses to sit still to pose. She actually seems to look the other way on purpose. The ones on the bottom are some we tried to get at home in her adorable Halloween outfit. The sun was really bothering her eyes, and again she refused to pose. Her shirt says "Happy Boo to You", but she insists it says "Happy Boo-Hoo to you!!". She is getting pretty excited about Halloween and keeps saying "lets go trick-or-treating" even though she really has no idea what that means.

Two Years Ago Today....

Haylie THEN

We met Haylie for the very first time. I can't believe how fast these 2 years have gone. In some ways it seems like it was just yesterday, and in other ways it seems like she has always been part of our life. Boy has she made a lot of progress in these 2 years. She was 15 months old when we first met. She couldn't walk, but was crawling and pulling up. She didn't speak at all and wouldn't eat any solid food. She did smile a couple of times while we were there, but mostly just had a kind of blank stare. Her personality has changed so much, she is hardly even the same child. She is now such a happy, outgoing little girlie. She is now 31 pounds (was only 18 pounds then) and is 36 inches tall!! She eats anything and everything--she even ate chicken livers yesterday!!! She talks and/or sings constantly and can actually carry a pretty good tune. Of course, she has totally changed our world for the better. We are eternally grateful for our precious girl. Just looked how she has changed......

and Haylie NOW

Forever Friends

Two Swinging Girls

Renee & Aileen

Renee, Haylie & Aileen

Me & Aileen

I've not been a very good blogger, so thought I would try and get caught up on some posts I've been meaning to get on. A few weeks ago, my best friend from high school Aileen came to visit from Florida and brought her beautiful daughter Renee. We've been best friends all these years, and even though we go long periods of time without seeing each other or even talking, seems we can always just pick up like we've never been apart. It was sooooooo good to be able to spend some time with her. It was my first time meeting Renee who is absolutely delightful. We met up at my favorite park for our 2 girls to play for awhile. Renee played so sweet with Haylie. Haylie immediately fell in love with her. After the park, we made a trip to Mickey D's and the girls played for awhile in the playland--Haylie also fell in love with playland and of course didn't want to leave!! We spent the rest of the day just visiting and getting caught up. She's the absolute best kind of friend...not only have we been friends forever, but we know we'll always be Forever Friends. Love you Aileen!!!

Our Mini Vacation

Last week Haylie's daycare was closed all week for "cleaning", so I took off all week to spend some time with my girl. Rich, Julia (my niece), and Haylie took off for Louisville for a little "mini vacation". We spent the first day at the Louisville Zoo. Haylie got sooo excited when I told her we were going to the zoo...which I thought was hilarious because I really wasn't sure she even knew what a zoo was. We have a book we read called "Zoo Day" so that is really the only point of reference she had, and we had Never really talked about what a zoo was. Anyway, she sure was excited to go. We talked about all the animals we would see and she was most excited to see the giraffes before we got there. However, once we actually got there, she wasn't overly impressed with any of the animals. We went up to the giraffe area where they had a cute little baby giraffe and its mommy. I thought she would be sooooo excited--but just about as soon as we got up to the fence, she said "All done". She repeated this phrase of "all done" with just about all of the animals. Her favorite part of the zoo was the big playground they had. She could have spent the entire day there and cried when we finally pulled her off the slide to go see more animals!!

The following day we drove up to Santa Claus, Indiana to go to Holiday World. For those of you not familiar, it is a really nice little amusement park with a great water park included in the admission price. I had taken Julia there 2-3 years ago, just the 2 of us, and we had a blast. However, having a 3 year old and a 13-year-old together there at the same time, was not the best combo. Of course Julia wanted to rip and run and ride all the big rides, while Haylie had to ride the little kiddie rides, and Julia wouldn't ride anything by herself. So, I don't think Julia had the best of times and thought Haylie was holding her back. We tried to take turns with one of us riding with Julia, while the other took Haylie to a kiddie ride, but not always successfully. Anyway, I think we did have a good time when all was said and done, even if Julia didn't get to ride all the cool big water slides. Haylie absolutely LOVED the kiddie rides, however the whole waiting in line business was not her thing. She couldn't understand why she couldn't walk right up to the front of the line and get right on. We actually waited about 1/2 hour for one ride, but that was the last long line we waited in--Haylie was not happy with that long of a wait. Luckily most of the rides for her weren't that long.

We spent a total of 3 nights on the road and then spent the rest of the week at home, just me and my girl and her Daddy. It was nice to be able to stay home with her for a change--she really is a homebody and likes being at home.

I'm trying something new and doing lots of pictures on a smilebox video show. Here's hoping it works--enjoy the pictures!!

Happy 4th of July

Daddy in his favorite position but Lucy had other ideas!!
Cute picture of Haylie--horrible picture of Mommy

Haylie with Aunt Lisa

Miss 4th of July

Kisses for her new best friend

Posing with Lucy (and an asleep Julia in the background)

Say Cheeeeeeeese

We've had a busy July, so I'm just now getting around to putting our 4th pictures on. The entire family (Rich, me, Haylie, my mom, my sister Marcia, and Julia my niece) drove down to Charlotte, NC to visit my other sister Lisa. She just moved there a couple of months ago, so none of us had been down to see her and her new home. We left on Thursday before the 4th and stayed until the following Monday, so we had a nice long weekend. It's about an 8 hour drive, so it was Haylie's longest road trip by far. She did amazingly well. She is not one of those kids who immediately goes to sleep the minute you put her in the car seat. In fact she rarely sleeps in the car unless she is utterly exhausted. So that said, she was really well behaved both going and coming home with really no meltdowns. She played with her toys and sang and sang and sang. I think I've got a future professional singer on my hands. She now knows all the words to most of the church and kiddie songs, and actually carries a pretty good tune for a 3 year old.

We didn't get to Charlotte til almost 9 pm Thursday night, and then ate dinner after we got there, so didn't get to bed til late. Of course Haylie was all off her normal schedule all weekend, but still did pretty well. Lisa has a gorgeous new HUGE house, so there was lots of things and places for Haylie to run around and get into all weekend. They also have 2 dogs which Haylie just loved. She is hilarious around animals--she gets all excited to see them, but when she actually gets close to them, she squeals and runs back and says "Hold me, hold me". So it took a couple of days for her to actually warm up to Lucy, the little Papillion dog that they keep inside. As you can see in the above picture, she really loved Lucy and kept saying over and over "See Lucy, see Lucy" the entire weekend. In fact now that we are back home, she still says she wants to see Lucy!!! Their other dog is a german shepherd that stays outside--Haylie kept going to the windows, lifting the blinds, trying to see Ogie outside. Whenever we would take her out to see him, she squealed like crazy and wouldn't let you put her down.

We went to downtown Charlotte to watch the fireworks on the 4th. It was Haylie's first time to see the fireworks--Rich and I were on a cruise last year and my mom kept Haylie while we were gone and they didn't go see the fireworks. So, I wasn't sure how she would do with the loud noise. But she did great--wasn't scared at all. Actually excellent for a little girl who was petrified with loud noises when we first got her home. She wasn't really too impressed with the show. I kept saying "Look at that Haylie" and she'd just say "Yeah". She was more interested in crawling around on the blanket everyone was sitting on on the ground and jumping into every ones laps. I finally put her in her stroller and belted her in so everybody else could enjoy the fireworks. She sat and watched them for a little bit and then covered her ears with both hands saying "it hurts my ears". Luckily they were over soon after that.

But we had a really good time visiting Aunt Lisa, and hated to start the long trip home. Thank you sweet Lisa for a great weekend!! We did see the strangest thing I have ever seen on the road driving back thru the mountains of North Carolina. We passed a car that was towing a little trailer with--can you believe it--a coffin bungee corded on the trailer!!! It was kind of rusted looking, so don't know if it was used or occupied or what!!! It was a first for all of us--we were rolling we were all laughing so hard.

We just got back from a little mini vacation to Louisville and southern Indiana, but I'll put a new post on with the those pictures, so stay tuned...

She's 3 Years Old!!!

Happy Birthday Haylie!!!

Haylie teaching Maddie bad habits--Haylie is a finger sucker and here she is being a bad influence on Maddie while they play in the bed in the camper during the big rainstorm

More playing in the bed in the camper

Swinging with daddy at the campground (before the rain)

Haylie and Maddie Jo enjoying a cold one before the the big storm

It's hard to believe, but our Haylie is now 3 years old. We actually celebrated her birthday, which is May 30th, a week early over Memorial Day weekend. My sister Lisa was up from North Carolina that weekend, so we decided to have her party while she was here. Unfortunately, the party didn't go quite as planned...it turned out OK but definately not the way I had envisioned. We had taken our new camper down to Boonesboro Park to camp for the weekend. We had planned to have a cookout for her birthday on Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. We got balloons & streamers and decorated around the picnic table for the party. My dear friend from work Bobbi Jo and her family came down, along with my mom, 2 sisters, and my niece Julia. I had just put 16 hamburgers on the fire, when an absolutely torrential downpour/thunderstorm came up. It poured rain, with lots of thunder and lightening. I was trying to finish cooking the burgers with an umbrella, but as fast as the rain was coming down, the charcoal was drenched and the fire went out. Todd, Bobbi Jo's husband was wonderful and tried to help me, but we both got drenched in the process. We ended up taking the hamburgers off the grill and finished cooking them on the outdoor gas stove on the camper which was under the awning. However, there was soooo much rain that I was literally standing in about 5 inches of water while grilling. It was just like there was a small pond right out the door of the camper. Once they were finally done, we ended up--all 12 of us--in the camper eating and having cake and ice cream and presents. Needless to say it was close quarters, but we actually had fun. Bobbi Jo's little girl Maddie is just a few months younger than Haylie, and they had a blast playing together. A memorable birthday for sure. The above pictures were taken by Julia on her new camera, because silly mommy forgot the camera. I did get it all on video, but not on film, so thank you Julia for sharing your pictures.

Climbing into the big bouncy room

In ecstacy after coming out of the bouncy room
Climbing up the big slide
Getting ready for the big slide down
WHEEEEEEEE

The following Saturday was her actual birthday. We had decided just the 3 of us would spend the big day celebrating. We went out to lunch at Garden Cafe, which is always a great time. Then we had promised Haylie we would take her to Bounce U, which several people had recommended. We'd been telling her all day we were going to go bouncing, and she was really excited, even tho she really didn't know what it was all about. However, when we got there, were found out it is only open to private parties on Saturdays. I was so mad--I never even thought to call to find out, just assumed it would be open on the weekend. So, we had to punt because she just kept saying "lets go bounce". We decided we would take her to Shillito Park which was nearby. She had never been to this particular park, so we thought it would at least be someplace new, and she's never met a playground she didn't love. Lo and behold as we pulled into the park, they were having a little fair in the park and had 5-6 blow up rides including a bouncing room and big blow-up slide. She was really too little for the other things they had, but she had a blast on the 2 rides she could go on. She went on the slide probably 5-6 times--couldn't climb up the ladder by herself, but sure tried hard. She really had a hard time in the bouncy room cause she was the smallest kid in there and the big kids were jumping so hard, she couldn't really stand up...she was bouncing around on her rear end like a ping pong ball, but she loved every minute, and didn't want to get out when her turn was up. So even tho she didn't get to Bounce U, I think she had a good birthday and really had fun.