Role Playing

Today while I was in my room reading about how to make a roman shade (my next project, I'll let you know how it goes later, it's still in the planning stages), Hailee was in the hall way trying to get my attention. She was wanting to get a game out of the game closet. Lately she has liked "playing" with games like Monopoly or Cranium. She just loves all the little pieces. She sorts them and puts them in different places and has a great time mixing things all around. I usually let her play with one game at at time (so the pieces don't get to mixed up), but I just wasn't in the mood to get one out and then have to organize it again later. I told her I didn't want to get one out right now, then I heard Hailee say....

"That's not what you're suppose to say mom. You're suppose to say 'What game do you want Hailee?' and then I will say 'That one.' and then you will say 'Okay, here you go.' That is what you are suppose to say. Come on mom go ahead. Say it."

I about cracked up. She's done something similar before, but not quite like this. Usually it's when she's 'acting' our one of her story books with me. She'll say things like....

"Mom you're suppose to say 'But Lola why would someone use your toothbrush' and then I will say 'I think it's that lion, I saw a lion with my toothbrush and now he's brushing his teeth with it.' Okay go mom." The we continue on reciting her favorite stories. She is really quick to correct me if I say the wrong thing.

She also had her own dialogs while she's playing with her dolls, but it was the first time she came up with her own dialog for what I was suppose to do. It had Todd and I laughing pretty hard. I know I probably shouldn't laugh when my daughter is ordering me to do something, but it was just so funny to hear her little mind work. What did we laugh about before we had Hailee. She keeps us laughing all the time.

I am always surprised at what comes out of her mouth. Yesterday I was on the computer working and instant messaging Todd when I looked around and saw there were papers scattered that I didn't want scattered. I asked Hailee if there way any way she could play without getting out all the papers. She responded "Shhh...Keep typing mom, it's just fine." I guess she didn't like me ruining the fun. She has been really good about playing on her own, my house get's a little messy, but I'm able to get lots of work done. I guess it's a trade off.

Chocolate

My daughter has discovered European chocolate. They sell chocolate bars at IKEA and they are so much better than the American chocolate you buy here. I've been picking up a few bars when I go to IKEA. To fully appreciate Hailee's new addiction you have to realize that up until I found the chocolate bars at IKEA she didn't really like chocolate. Ice cream is her sweet thing of choice. Now she brings me the chocolate bars and says "Mom I just need some chocolate." This was happening all morning long. I had given her quite a few pieces and told her that was going to be it until we had lunch. Not being satisfied with that answer she would ask for just one last one. Then just a few minutes ago she came and asked for some more. Here is how our conversation went...

H: Mom I just need one more chocolate
N: Hailee you've already had enough
H: I just need one last chocolate
N: You're already have 5 last chocolates
H: But I just need 6 last chocolates.

Well at least I know she can count.

Bed time Routine

Hailee's bed time routine is one of my favorite time of nights. We have a drink, brush our teeth, read our scriptures and say our family prayers. Then I sit by Hailee's bed and we talk about her day and sing a primary song or two. It's such a sweet time of day for me. Thanks to Charlie and Lola we have Hailee on a good bedtime routine. Which is a good thing since she loves her sleep. The other morning when the sun was coming in her window a little earlier then she wanted Todd and I heard Hailee calling from her room "Turn off the light" She was grumpy that the sun was sneaking in through her closed blinds. Anyway she is a child that really enjoys her sleep, but when bedtime comes around she just hates missing out on anything. Lately she's been trying to push her bed time routine to last as long as possible. Once she's in bed she asks for another drink of water. When I tell her she already had her bed time drink she responds. "But I don't want you to be a grumpy mom. I want you to be the nice mom."

Last night she was really excited because I found the temple nigh light that I didn't take with us to Oregon. It's her favorite. Well she was trying to stall again by wanting me to read her more stories, I told her she could read her stories and then I would come back and lay by her. Usually she doesn't want me to leave so she'll read them quickly and be ready for bed. After I left we heard her "reading" her Charlie and Lola books. Then I heard her singing the "I love to See the Temple" song. I went to go check on her and she was sitting up in bed still "reading" and she said "I'm not done reading my books mom." Once she finished then she was ready to go to bed. She called me back in and I sat by her for a minute and she was out.

I also forgot to mention the BYU game yesterday. It was the first home game we got to go to. Hailee loved it and I was surprised by how it really held her attention. She didn't even start to get distracted until the middle of the 3rd quarter. A quick trip to the concessions stand fixed that. In the 4th quarter it started to rain and since BYU was up by so far we decided to go home so Hailee wouldn't get soaked. She did look very cute in her BYU rain poncho. I am still mad at myself for forgetting my camera. The cutest thing is to hear Hailee sing the BYU fight song. She gets so excited when they score a touchdown so she can sing again. She almost has all the words memorized.

Funny Stories

It feels like forever since I have written a blog so I am making up for it today. Last Sunday we celebrated Ruthann's birthday with her. It was a lot of fun. Hailee insisted that she have a Nemo cake just like hers and that we picked out a princess for her to have to. Hailee loved helping with everything. She LOVES birthday parties, even if they aren't for her. It's cute to see her get excited. She picked out a Cinderella doll for Aunt Ruthann. She helped me make the cake and frost it. When it was time for Ruthann to open her present she got so excited. As soon as it was opened she made sure to point out all her favorite parts of the Cindwrella doll, including the glass slippers. THen she explained hot to play with them and the spend the next little while playing. Hailee was in heaven and Ruthann was a good sport.

Wednesday Todd had a bad episode, so I called the doctor. Todd's normal doctor was on vacation, but the doctor on call decided he wanted to see him since Todd was experiencing symptoms that he hadn't before (I promise this story is funny in the end.) Kristy met us at the hospital to help with Hailee and I went in with Todd. The doctor found there was a hair that had fallen on to his ear drum and he thought it might be causing some of the problems on his left side. While he was taking it out I was trying to be the brave wife. But my track record is not very good when it comes to simple procedures. By the time he was done and Todd was sitting up again I knew that I was in trouble. Todd looked at me and said he was ready to get up, by this point he was still needing help walking, but there was no way I was going to be able to help him. I felt all the signs and I knew in just a minute I would be on the floor. Luckily I'm getting better at recognizing the signs and avoiding fainting all together, but this time I was trying so hard to be supportive to Todd that I ignored the warning signs. Well I did catch it early enough to not fall to the floor, but I needed a few minuets to lay down before I could stand up again. I'm sure the doctor thought I was completely nuts when he came to check on Todd and found me passed out. Not one of my better moments. Luckily I recovered quickly enough that I didn't need a wheel chair as well. The good news is no more loud popping in his good ear.

Hailee recently had been enthralled with getting married (she is just so excited about the dress and going to the temple). One day we were talking about and she told me that she wanted to get married. I told her she had to wait until she was a big girl. She responded that she needed to find a big boy too. I told her yes. Well when we were at BYU one day handing in assignments to Todd's teachers Hailee said, "Oh look mom there is a lot of big boys here." Not really remembering our conversation from before. I replied "Yes there are." To which she wanted to know if they were getting married. I don't know how many of those big boys heard, but I definitely got a lot of smiles after that from the people that were around.

We also celebrated our five year anniversary. I can't believe that it has been five years. It seems like just yesterday. We had my aunt babysit and we went out to dinner. It was so nice to be able to go on a date with just the two of us. A perfect way to spend an anniversary. Everyday I am reminded of how lucky I am to have Todd, it was so nice to go out and celebrate it. Hailee had a fun time as well. They watched Charlie and Lola on the big movie sized screen and she was in heaven.

Which reminds me of another funny story about Hailee this week. She decided to start calling her giraffe (pronounced with an English accent) "Butt". Or at least that is what I thought, but she was really trying to say "Bert" with an english accent. Lola had a guinea pig named "Bert" so Hailee named her giraffe Bert, but with the English accent and the "R" being so faint, it sounded more like "butt" to me. After I figured it made a lot more sense, and I've had to explain it to several other people who have heard her calling her favorite new giraffe "butt".

Family Pictures

A girl from the spouse group for MBA program took pictures of us this morning. We couldn't be more pleased. She told me that she wasn't good at taking family pictures, but I thought she did a great job. We went up to Sundance and the lighting couldn't have been better. Here are a few that we took....


Hailee was so excited she was "finally" able to wear her new "party dress." I wouldn't let her wear in until we were getting pictures done. I also didn't let her wear in on the way up to Sundance because I didn't want it to wrinkle in her car seat. When we were done taking pictures she refused to take it off. It looks like I'll be ironing it tomorrow if she wants to wear it to church.

I loved this picture of Todd and Hailee together. We got several that were quite sweet, this one was my favorite.

Hailee and I
Hailee in the flowers, she was so good the whole time we were taking pictures.


Our photographer got a lot of candid shots that I just really loved. I love this one of her on her toes looking over the bridge.
Such a happy family.

So Helpful

Hailee has been the sweetest girl lately and becoming more and more helpful. Yesterday we unloaded the dishwasher together. Her job was the silverware. It was so cute to listen to her. She chatted the whole time "Oh look mom a spoon, where does that little spoon go, it goes right there. Mom look I found a little fork, here it goes right there. There is another fork...." She continued on and on until she had finished all the silverware "all on her own" as she would say. By the time she was done with the silverware I had the rest unloaded and she helped me load the dishwasher.

I was also printing out a case study for Todd and she took him every single page as it came of the printer. Their conversations when like this:

H: Here go dad, here's one more....

She took him all eleven pages. By this point Todd had begun reading and setting the read pages off to the side. Hailee started handing the read pages to Todd as well.

T: Oh I don't need those pages I already read them.
H: You already read them
T: Yes I did
H: What did they say?

Realizing that Todd needed to get some studying done I went and got her so he could study in some peace and quiet. She was helping me clean up the front room when she found the remote that Todd has been looking for the previous evening. She was so excited.

H: Oh I found the remote. I am the winner. I need to go give it to my dad.
N: He doesn't need the remote right now sweetheart.
H: Yes he does he was looking for it, I am going to go give it to him
N: Okay, but then we need to let him study

H: (running into my bedroom) Dad, dad I found the remote
T: Oh thank you Hailee, can you go put it by the TV
H: No it's for you. I found it for you. I am the winner

She loves to help her parents in any way, she is so sweet that way.

Yesterday we also got to see grandpa Cunningham. He stopped by for a short time and Hailee had so much fun. They read stories together and we got to have a picnic outside with him. Hailee also had him running pickle races with her. They ran 4 or 5 times across the open area in front of our house.
With the beginning on the new school year also comes BYU football. I have to say that even though I give Todd a hard time about loving BYU football, I really enjoy it as well. Last year when we went to the games with Hailee she learned the BYU fight song. Yesterday with a little reminding she remembered it again. We had such a good time cheering on BYU as they played UCLA. BYU ended up loosing, but I think it was a good experience for the team. They made a few mental errors that really lost the game for them, but they played a great second half. Overall a great game....afterall it was UCLA in the Rose Bowl. We have tickets to go the rest of the home games and we are so excited to go cheer on the cougars. We LOVE BYU football.

Doctors Appointment

Yesterday we had an appointment with Todd's specialist. It went well. He is keeping Todd on all him medications and expects things to settle down with proper rest and lower stress levels. Todd has been doing really good on all sides, not letting himself get too busy or too stressed out. We are guessing that things will calm down like they were for most of the summer.
On the way home we decided to stop at IKEA. I have to say that I am a huge fan. I went on Monday with Ruthann and Hailee, and I wanted to show Todd a few more things. I think I could literally spend hours in there. I've been there twice and I still fell like I haven't seen everything. We got a couple of pictures frames for our bedroom. I am excited to get pictures to put in them now. It's so fun decorating, especially when things come from IKEA and are such a great deal.

In other news today, Hailee and I went real grocery shopping for the first time since moving back and I was again surprised at the cost of fresh berries. I wish I could go pick blackberries out of my front yard or go to the blue berry picking field. It does feel nice to be getting settled here again. I do love being home in our own place. We're slowing getting unpacked from the summer and realizing all the stuff we really don't need. I thought we got rid of a lot of stuff when we moved to Oregon, but after a summer without much I'm realizing how much "extra" things we have. So now I am moving back in slowly and getting rid of even more stuff. It feels so nice.

Missing Oregon

Well we haven't been home quite a week yet and we are still missing Oregon. It didn't help this morning to wake up to rain. Even though rain in Utah is very different than rain in Oregon, it still reminded us of Oregon. And yesterday I had to fill up the car with gas all by myself. Every state should have the law that you can't fill up your own car with gas. It's so nice to be able to just sit in your car and wait for some nice person to fill it up for you. Last night as Hailee was going to bed she tells me. "Mom I want to go home." I told her we were home and she replied "No mom home to Oregon." I'm really glad she had such a fun summer, and once we get her in some classes here I'm sure she'll settle right back in. She is glad to have her room back with her bed and her kitchen. She has been such a sweet girl.

Todd started school yesterday and had a pretty good day, he was able to make it to all of his classes. We went out to Korean food to celebrate on the way home. We go back to the doctor on Thursday so we'll have to see what he has to say. So far it's looking like Todd's schedule should be pretty good, and not too stressful. In other news the BYU recruiter for HP contacted Todd and is excited about getting him a job at HP. We are really excited. This next year should be pretty exciting deciding where our next career move will be.

Hailee in dress #4 from Susan. (I'll put pictures of dress #5 in a few days. We're going to get our family pictures taken in that one.)

Hailee playing "sudoku" on the iPAQ before going to bed. "I love to play sudoku mom"

We made it home

Well we finally made it home. Wow, what a crazy week. Todd wasn't feeling well so I let him rest and I packed and cleaned like crazy for a few days. The challenge was fitting everything back in our car. We moved to Oregon with just a car load. Then acquired a few larger items, for Todd it was golf clubs, for Hailee it was her bike, and for me it was a 4" memory foam mattress topper (we needed something comfortable to sleep on). Wednesday at 3:00 p.m. I finished packing and cleaning and after all that work I just wanted to start the drive. I was able to get most everything we wanted in the car. The only things we left behind were some camping chairs (but they only cost $5 so it was much better to get the other things in). Overall not too bad. The first day Todd and I were so tired we decided to stop in Bend Oregon at about 7:00. There aren't many towns between Bend and Boise (which was five hours away) so we stopped early. I was so glad we did.

The next day we drove the rest of the way one. With potty breaks, running around breaks, and eating breaks we made it home in 14 hours or so. Hailee was AMAZING. She really gets the price for being the best little road trip. Before this we had never gone successfully even 8 hours with her in the car without a huge melt down. With about 1 1/2 hours left in our trip she told us that two things hurt, (she held out her little two fingers and said) "my back and my bum, that is what hurts." They really should make carseats more comfortable. But we put on her Princess songs and sang so she was fairly happy the rest of the way home.

It was nice to get home and be back in our condo. I had forgotten how much I enjoy having our own place. We miss Oregon and all people we met there, but it's nice to be home and getting ready for school to start.

Hailee in Bend Oregon playing with her sticker books. The best invention for car trips, they kept her entertained for hours. We couldn't have done it without sticker books or Charlie and Lola on DVD.Buckling up. You can't tell but Hailee had stuff piled all around her, I'm not sure how she didn't I would have been so claustrophobic, but I made sure on one side it was all her books and toys.

Taking a nap in the car. Hailee was so good. We asked her what she wanted for a surprise for being such a good girl she responded "a giraffe, just like Lola." (of course giraffe was pronounced the same way Lola pronounces it.)

Tagged

My friend Louise tagged me, here goes....

4 jobs I've had
- Hotel maid (before I was really old enough to have a real job)
- Carhop
- State of Utah National Park Photographer
- Graphic Designer

4 movies I could watch over and over
- Pride and Prejudice - I only have one but I watch it enough to make up for the other three.

4 places I've lived
- Colonial Dublan, Mexico
- St. George, Utah
- Mexico City, Mexico
- Lisbon, Portugal
(unfortunately still living in Happy Valley)

4 favorite TV/Reality Shows
- The Office
- Lost
- Gilmore Girls (my one hour of complete "girl time," so sad it's over)
- The Ellen DeGeneres show

4 favorite places I've been
- Acapulco or Hawaii (really any beach with warm water)
- Tenochtitlan, Mexico
- New York City
- Sintra, Portugal

4 favorite foods
- Real Mexican food (tacos al pastor, but they have to be cooked in Mexico)
- Korean food (dukpokki)
- Indian food (chicken tika masala)
- Chocolate filled croissants

4 websites I visit daily
- Friends blogs
- BBC News
- Gmail
- iStockphoto (for work)

4 hobbies I enjoy
- Reading
- Sewing (or more like collecting fabric, I've transfered my scrapbook paper addition to fabric)
- Home improvement projects
- Spending time with Todd and Hailee

4 friends I tag
- Megan
- Kristen
- Emily
- Jessica