Life has become two times easier since Curt installed a gate at the top of the stairs too, instead of just the bottom. Now I can do my laundry upstairs without worrying about this little one's obsession with climbing stairs!

she would play on them all day if only....

I love my masked bandit/batman/cowboy.

A little bit of personality

Gymnastics?

We've got more snow.

I guess that means we'll be doing more of THIS:

Imagination

We love Matthew's imagination. It's always nice when child can entertain themselves without complaining of being bored. Oh he gets bored too sometimes, but mostly he's just busy.

He tied a "color" (collar) and leash on Curt (it's the tie to my bath robe) and dragged him around as his puppy. It was pretty dang cute! Curt is such a good daddy!!! Then a little later on they switched and Matthew was the puppy and played fetch for a long time!

PARTY!

"A party for ME?! Oh my!"

Matthew helped me a lot with this party! But I wish someone would have helped me with the cake! It was a disaster! It ended up tasting okay, but I didn't even serve it at the party because it looked to terrible and I was embarrassed. There were plenty of cupcakes anyways and other things I don't think anyone missed out. Curt says he really likes it but he's my sweetie and he always compliments even my nastiest creations. So I got the bright idea to fancy up a red velvet cake by putting some red raspberry syrup in the middle along with some chocolate butter cream and then frost it with regular white butter cream. Sounds good right? My syrup oozed out all party long and it was next to impossible to frost it because it kept sliding around. ANYWAY, besides the cake disaster it was a good party!

I had to wake Hailey up from a late nap when everyone got here so she was kind of grumpy the whole time. She didn't even really enjoy her cupcake.

Kids are brutally honest.

But she DID like going for a walk outside once everyone left! haha

She got three baby dolls and some cute clothes and jammies and sand toys!

But I think so far Matthew has enjoyed the babies more than Hailey! All she does is slobber kiss them and then toss em. Matthew rocks them, dresses them, sings to them and takes them to the moon with him in his spaceship.

My Hero

I saw this tutorial here and thought I'd make it more to my liking. Matthew has been begging me to make this for a while now, since he ripped his old batman cape. Now I just need to show him who Superman is! :)

It was really easy and he really likes it!

Hailey got her one year old immunizations yesterday and we took her to the hospital to get her blood drawn for the lead test. Needless to say she did not have a very good day or a very good night either. She weighs 20 lbs even and is 30" tall. That puts her in the long and lean category, amazingly. "lean" sure is round in the baby world!

In all the distraction of Hailey turning one I only just realized that Matthew is going to be FOUR in a few months. He is growing up so fast! He loves preschool. Matthew's a great helper and loves his sister too much sometimes! One of his favorite times of day is scripture study before we go to bed and his prayers are awesome. He is in the PRIMARY! I can't believe it. The first Sunday that I took him I lingered for a really long time. Matthew sat down with his friends and waved to me standing at the door as if to say "bye mom, I'm fine. You are embarrassing me."

The birthday

Hailey's birthday was mostly a quiet at home normal day. We had my parents over in the evening for pizza and they gave her a whole bunch of books! Later that evening I had a basketball game, but we didn't really do anything else! We are planning on having a real party for her next week when Curt's parents come down too, so that will be the real event. She doesn't know the difference!

Like I said before, these two are interacting a lot more lately. That's mostly good, but it also opens up for a lot more dispute between them! sibling relationships are so funny. It seems like they can't stand to be together some times, but they don't like to be apart either! Needless to say our last few weeks have had some of the most frustrating moments but also some of the best melt your heart moments.

Some more of Hailey's climbing skills.

Here's some more of her walking talent too.

A YEAR?!!!

The princess of our hearts turns one on Friday the 4th. It brings tears to my eyes thinking about how fast she has grown! Aside from Hailey's mamma's girl clingy needs and tendency to wake up every couple of hours all night long, she has been an angel all her life! Such a personality. You never know for sure if you're going to get a scowl mean enough to scare a pit bull or the sweetest crooked tooth scrunched nose grin when you look at her. She keeps us on our toes for sure. She foiled all of Matthew's plans of teasing and ruling by her contagious giggle and easy going nature. Instead she has him wrapped around her finger and I swear he lives to make her happy. She suer has her daddy's heart in her tiny fist. He has been putty in her fingers since the day she was born. And we won't even talk about how she has enslaved me!

Hailey has started trying to walk recently! She can't stand up without holding onto something still, but she crawls over to furniture and pulls herself up and then walks. She's getting pretty good!

Anything interesting that we're doing Hailey has to be a part of. She is one determined and impossible to distract little girl, too! Here's she's "helping" Curt fix the entertainment center so the tv can't slide out anymore.

She is also very proud of herself. She claps whenever she feels like she's done something incredible, which is pretty much everything.

Look out for BabyKong! She's my little climbing lemur! Hailey loves to climb all over everything and has no fear about falling (or JUMPING) off of heights!

Hailey Colette, you're such a doll! This year has been miserably wonderful and bitterly fast! Miserable for the lack of sleep (if we'd go to bed earlier then it wouldn't be so bad!) and wonderful for everything else. I am happy that Hailey is entering the world of a toddler, but I am sad that she is leaving her babyhood behind :(

We love you Hailey! Happy First Birthday!

Another First Day

so this is Matthew's third different preschool he's attended, but each one has been such a different experience and there's been big breaks in between each one. So this is his First Day of Preschool....again.

Matthew has been on a waiting list for preschool all fall. He FINALLY got in and on dropping him off he told me "Bye! I'm going to go learn some new tricks!"

I think he's definitely ready to be back in school.

One day it will be cute

The good news is I have a lot of helping hands around here.

The bad news is they're really not that helpful :)

I'm sure this will be cute one day, but right now it's kind of annoying how every time I open the dishwasher Hailey is right there trying to climb in.

She is lucky she's so cute.

Okay, I'm not being completely honest with you...

This did happen before she figured it out.

Don't mind the snort.

And don't judge, we've all laughed when our kids fall. I knew she wasn't hurt!

at least she knows how to roll with it!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

My Montage 1/13/11 at OneTrueMedia.com

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

My Montage 1/13/11 at OneTrueMedia.com

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com