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.