My Funny Valentine

Hope everyone had a great Valentines Day. I know I'm a little late but I had to post these adorable pictures of Haylie taken the day after Valentines for church. She looks so grown up in them and her adorable personality really comes through.

We had a really nice Valentines Day. My sweet hubby got me flowers, chocolate covered strawberries and a sweet card. He also took me out for a wonderful meal at a little place called Metropol in downtown Lexington. It was a fantastic meal, which for us was unusual. We have historically not had good Valentines meals--Rich always tries hard but for various reasons, seems like the meal part is frequently lacking, even though he always takes me to really nice places. Seems like even fancy/schmancy places try to make a big buck on the day, but the quality is usually pitiful. But not this year!!! We decided it was our best Valentines meal ever. Of course having our Haylie as our favorite Valentine ever made it an even nicer day. The whole thing was really made even better since my sweet mom babysat so we could have a nice quiet dinner alone without the previously mentioned 2 year old around.

We've Started Daycare!!!

Check out these hairdo's!!!

Well, we broke down and put Haylie in daycare the first of the year. I know it's much more traumatic for me that it is for her, and I hope we both are eventually going to make the transition to smooth sailing. It actually hasn't been that bad, but there have been a few bumps along the way. My dear sweet 76-year-old mother has been taking care of her for the last year. Of course with Haylie being your very active typical 2 year old terror, it was really wearing my mom out. I kept asking her if she wanted me to put her into daycare, and she just kept saying "no, I want to do it as long as I can". Well one Friday after a particularly crazy week, I asked her again and she said "Yes, I'm ready." While I really didn't want to do it, I also don't want to kill my sweet mother. I'm just soooo grateful she got one whole year staying at home with GramGram, who is the best Grandmother in the whole wide world.

Of course it's not as easy as you might think finding a good daycare. All of the "good" ones have long waiting lists, especially if the child is not potty trained (which Haylie is still not). Some had up to 2 year waits!! Two of my patients recommended this place to me where their children go, and luckily they had an opening after the first of the year. So we officially started on Jan 7th and only left her for a 1/2 day the first day. Of course she screams "Mommy, mommy" still everyday when I leave her, but I know she stops before I even get into my car. It seems that they take good care of her and are kind and caring with her. The one thing I hate about it is that they don't give any kind of report at the end of the day, like if she ate, slept, pooped, etc. When you ask, they say they don't know because they have a morning shift that leaves at 2, and its the afternoon shift there when we pick her up. They don't have any kind of written report, which evidently most places do have. I know for a fact she is not napping well, because she will not just lie down and easily slip into dream land. At home she cries for 2-3 minutes, then plays in her crib for about 1/2 hour and then finally falls asleep with her music on. She will nap for 2 1/2-3 hours at home, once she finally goes to sleep. At daycare, she has to lay on a little cot on the floor and only has from 12-2 to sleep. Most days she comes home so tired looking. At least we can get her to bed a lot earlier!! Anyway, we've also of course all been sick since she started. She actually got a sinus infection the first week she was there and missed that Friday. I put her on antibiotics for a week, and it came right back and now she's back on antibiotics because she had a probable pneumonia last week. Luckily, she is much better today. But now I've gotten a terrible cold, as has my sister, and mom. We're just waiting for daddy to get it--of course that will be the most tragic, as he just knows he is going to die everytime he gets a cold!!!

Speaking of Daddy, he actually did an amazing thing this past weekend. He kept Haylie overnight for almost 26 hours straight, so mommy could go out of town. My dear sister Lisa got my mom, my other sister Marcia, and I all tickets to see "Wicked" in Louisville on Saturday night. We had a wonderful weekend just us girls and of course the play was wonderful (it was only my 3rd time seeing it!!). We shopped and then ate at the Old Spaghetti Factory. Since the play wasn't over till 11:00 pm we spent the night at the Galt House, and then got home around 2:30. Rich watched Haylie the entire time and lived to tell about it. He actually had to change 3 poopie diapers, which is 1 more than he has changed the entire previous year!! To be honest, my niece Julia who is 12 also stayed with him and helped out a lot. But Daddy did live to tell about it, and so did Haylie with only minimal collateral damage. She did take all of her clothes off during her nap, including her diaper. (That's what she does quite often during that 30 minutes she is playing before she falls asleep I told you about earlier!!) She then proceeded to pee in the bed and then fall asleep. Daddy left her sleeping buck naked and then just wiped the sheet with a papertowel when he got her up. Luckily, she didn't poop everywhere!!

Anyway, I know this is a long post, but I haven't updated for a while. Above are some cute pictures of what they do with Haylie at daycare. She has come home 3 times now with her hair french braided or in cornrows. There is a cute little Hispanic girl who works there who says she does it while they are sitting watching TV. The first day it happened when I picked up Haylie, all of the little girls in her room had their hair done. It was adorable!!

One Year Ago Today...

One Year Ago

And Now ... See How I've Changed!!!

Haylie became ours forever!!! The previous day we had gone to court and the judge granted us permanent custody and legally changed her name from Nadzehda Skripova to Haylie Ann Holl. Then bright and early on January 15, 2008 we drove from Kemerovo, Russia to Novokuznetsk to the orphanage and picked up our girl and started our new lives as a forever family.

She has changed so much in the past year, she hardly looks like the same child. She was 18 months old and is now 2 1/2. She has gained 10 pounds and grown at least 6 inches (maybe more, it's been a few months since the last official measurement). She was wearing 9 month size clothing and now is up to either 2 or 3T. She couldn't walk by herself the day we picked her up, and now she never stops running. She didn't speak at all, although she constantly made interesting noises, and now she talks constantly. She was very serious and seldom smiled the first few weeks, and now she laughs constantly and is such a happy girlie. She is very loving and always wants "hugs, hugs", "kisses, kisses" and says "nuggle, nuggle" (snuggle) all the time. We are so blessed that God chose us to be her parents.

Today here in Kentucky it is very cold for us--it's about 11 degrees and is supposed to get down to -1 tonight. One year ago today deep in Siberia when we went to the orphanage it was -34 and there was 4 feet of snow. I tried to remember as I was freezing today walking into work that our weather is positively balmy compared to where I was last year and we really shouldn't complain, although of course we do.

The past year has absolutely flown by and I know we'll turn around and Haylie will be grown. I try to enjoy every minute of these precious days of her childhood as I know they too will fly by. Although I won't lie and say she has been a perfect child or everyday has been smooth, I can say her sweet smiles, hugs and kisses have been a dream come true. Happy "Gotcha Day" Haylie--we love you so much.

Haylie's First Christmas

She loves to turn her cart over and pour all the toy food in the floor

Check out all the goodies Santa brought!!
I LOVE my toy kitchen

Working hard to put together my new Clippo's

I hope everyone had a great holiday, even if I am a little late. We had a wonderful first Christmas with Haylie. She wasn't really sure what it was all about, but seemed to have a great time with it all. She loved tearing open the packages, and really loves playing with her new toys. She walked into the living room with all of Santa's gifts and had the greatest expression on her face and just said "Oh my!!". She got a new wagon, a toy kitchen and shopping cart, a tricycle, among MANY other things, including a whole box of new clothes from Aunt Lisa. My mom, both sisters, and niece Julia came and spent Christmas Eve and Christmas night at our house. It was a really nice holiday, and my sweet family put together all of her hard-to-assemble toys (especially the kitchen which literally had about 1000 small pieces that Lisa spent hours putting together). I didn't get a lot of good still pictures because I was too busy videotaping the whole thing. Someday, I'll figure out how to download videos to the blog. I couldn't help remembering last Christmas when we were soooo disappointed that we hadn't been able to go get Haylie before the holidays--she was certainly worth the wait and sure made the holiday special this year!

The Sunday after Christmas, we flew to Florida to visit Rich's parents. Haylie was great on the plane and it went as smoothly as it could have. It was only a short visit, but the weather was great and we got to take Haylie for her first trip to the beach. At first she was scared and said "All done" as soon as the first little wave came in, but then didn't want to get out. The water was a little chilly so we only stayed about a half hour. But she is still saying "ocean" and "big water" wanting to go back. She sure was a cute little beach bunny. She got to meet her Aunt Carrie and Uncle Doug from Hawaii for the first time, and thought "Ug Doug" as she called him hung the moon. He played with her for hours at a time and she just ate it up. Everyday since we got home, she still asks for Carrie and Ug Doug.

Me and my Daddy at the beach

Happy Birthday Aileen!!!

Me and my girl


See my pretty Christmas dress!!

One of my all time favorite pictures of my girl

I love my white coat (she didn't want to take it off)

I wanted to wish Aileen, my best friend from high school, a very happy birthday. We've actually known each other since 1st grade, and even tho she lives in Florida and we don't get to see each other very often we can still just talk once or twice a year and it feels like we just talked yesterday. It's great to have that kind of friend and I just wanted her to know how much I appreciate her friendship and love. Today is a "milestone" birthday, although I won't say how many (especially since I'm 2 months older!!!) I don't know how we got this old--it still feels like it was only a couple of years ago we were at old Woodford County High School. Anyway, hope you had a GREAT day.

I'm also posting some new pictures of Haylie I took after church this past Sunday. She had on her Christmas dress I had our Christmas cards made in. She looked so cute in it. She won't say "Merry Christmas" only either "Merry" or "Christmas" but will not say both...same way with Santa Claus. She is saying lots of 2 word combos but for some reason, she doesn't want to put those combos together. We are going to go see Santa this weekend so that should be interesting. If we get a good picture with Santa, I'll post them soon.

New Pictures of My Girl

Pretty blue eyes
She refuses to pose for pictures but will say "cheese"

I LOVE my little table and chairs

She loves to sit on the counter while momma gets ready in the mornings

I love to dance!!!

I'm going to post a few new pictures of our girl since it's been awhile. Can't believe it's already been almost a year since we brought her home!!! You'll notice she is not wearing her glasses in any of these pictures. That is because she now absolutely refuses to leave them on for more than 5 minutes at a time. She has already totally broken one pair ripping them off--don't know what we are going to do about it. The eye doctor just says keep trying...oh well. We are looking forward to her first Christmas, even though she really has no clue what that means. She can say Santa Claus now and we are going to take her this weekend to meet the old guy in person. I'll post more later, but wanted to put some pictures up so you can see how big she is getting.

Professional Pictures

I took Haylie yesterday to get her picture made for Christmas Cards. This was a MUCH better experience than our previous try at professional pictures. Yesterday, a friend from church who has started her own photography business took Haylie's pictures. She has her sister play with the kids while she takes the pictures. She has a professional studio set up in her garage. While Haylie still wouldn't sit still and "pose" for pictures, it was much less painful. Stay tuned and I'll post the Christmas pictures when we get them.

We actually went to a Portrait Innovations in Lexington a month or so ago now. What an ORDEAL!!! I made an appointment for 1st thing in the morning thinking she would do better. However, she had other ideas and refused to pose or even smile, little alone sit still long enough to get any good pictures. Can't say I was too impressed with the photographer...she just stood there and said turn her this way, sit her over there, etc. Finally after about 45 minutes, she said "Why don't you just reschedule?" I had driven into Lexington on my day off just to get these pictures done and really didn't want to have to reschedule. So she said lets wait awhile and see if she will cooperate. So, after about an hour of waiting while they did other kids (who mostly were also not cooperating) she tried again. Still not great success, but did get some decent pictures. The big ordeal came next. They immediately put the pictures up on a big screen TV and you pick out your pictures right then. They then print them, and you have your pictures within 2 hours of getting done, which was nice. Problem was, they had taken 168 pictures that I had to narrow down, all the while Haylie was ripping and running around the studio. Literally, at one point she had her hand in the toilet while I was trying to look at pictures. So, long story short, I picked out 6 poses, several of which I would not have picked if I wasn't loosing my mind while trying to pick them out. Anyway, see for yourself. They give you the disc with all the pictures on it (well, not exactly GIVE--of course it's included in the "package") so I'm posting some of my favorites.