Thinking...

We had a funny day yesterday. Todd was at school late taking his last midterm/final. For dinner I was making avocado, tomato, and chicken sandwiches. Hailee informed me that she didn't want a sandwich. She just wanted a tomato. I don't know of another child that will eat a tomato like an apple. I discovered this when she was about 18 months old. I had her on the counter when I was making dinner. When I turned around she had two tomatoes in her hands eating them. She loves them. So for dinner last night she first ate an entire tomato and got very offended when I suggested I cut it up for her.

Hailee at 18 months eating tomatoes. I had to be careful in the grocery store as well she would just grab them and start eating.

After dinner we still had a while before we could go pick up Todd so Hailee decided she wanted to play in her kitchen. She wanted me to come in her room with her. "Come on mom we need to do some making" I was wondering what we were going to be 'making.' But then she informed me that she was the "Maker." Instead of baking she was calling it making. It was so cute watching her 'make' things from macaroni and cheese to cookies. Such a funny little girl. Then since she was the 'maker,' she was also the mommy and informed me that I was 'hailee claire.'

It was quite late when we went to go get Todd and I was sure she would fall asleep in the car. But I think she was just too excited to see Todd that she couldn't sleep. When we got home I let her stay in bed with Todd so she could have a little bit of dad time before Todd left for New Jersey. Todd had a few more things to do before going to bed and I was getting laundry done so he could pack. I told Hailee to lay down and start thinking about going to bed. After a couple of minutes she jumped up and said "I'm all done thinking about going to bed mom. I want to get up." She got up to grab a few toys to bring back and share with Todd. Well we were all able to get everything done and then I got her to bed. Hailee slept really well, she was SO tired. But I was glad she got a little dad time. Just before going to bed she snuggled up by Todd and asked him to tell her a story. It was so cute to watch him tell her a story. He always comes up with fun little stories where Hailee is the heroine, who always out smarts the dragon. They have such a cute little relationship.

Growing Up

2 days old

1-year-old

2-years-old

3-years-old

My little girl is growing up. It's a sad thing for me, but at the same time I love seeing her do and learn new things.

Todd wasn't feeling well this weekend so we stayed home and had a nice quiet weekend. By Sunday afternoon Hailee had had enough of our nice quiet weekend and wanted to do something fun. Sundays are hard days to keep her occupied while still having a quiet Sunday. Well she decided she wanted to play a game. She loves to get the games like Monopoly and play with all the little pieces. So I decided since up to that point she had been such a good girl I decided to let her pick. She picked the Uno-Attack game. So as we got it out I decided to see if she could play. She loved it. I was very excited because it's a good way to practice numbers. I was really impressed with how quickly she caught on to the concept. The only thing that was a little off was she loved it when she got to press the button and tons of cards would shoot out. But she would always manage to get a "switch hands" card when she would have a lot of cards. I usually was a turn or two away from winning and then she could get a switch hands card and win. She loved the switch hands cards. I always knew as soon as she got one, she would get so excited and say "Mom I got a red switch card." She would play it down and demand a switch. She is such a funny girl. She loves to play and she got excited when I would win or when she would. We ended up playing 8 or 9 games.

After playing Uno it was time for bed and Hailee has come down with a little cold. She is really quite sweet about it, and doesn't really complain. Sunday night she woke up quite a few times and was wanting a drink of water. I was a little concerned that she would have a little accident since she was drinking so much water. I hoped that it wouldn't traumatize her. She has never had an accident at night before. (Hailee was really easy to potty train, at a very young age (6-8 months or so) she was waking up dry and she usually only had 3 or so wet diapers a day. It took a day and a half to potty train her and that was just because she wanted to stay in diapers so every time she needed to pee she would beg me for a diaper.) She woke up fine on Monday and then last night again she was drinking a lot of water during the night. At about 1:30 I heard her from her room saying "Mommy" ... "Mommy" When I went in there she said "I need to go potty." I carried her into the bathroom and put her on the potty while she was still half asleep. She went and then I carried her right back to bed and she was asleep instantly. I was impressed that she could wake her self up to go to the bathroom. What a big girl.

Like I said at the beginning, it's amazing to see her growing up and doing so many big girl things, but there is still a part of me that misses my baby. I guess that is why we have pictures and videos because they don't stay small forever.

Playing in the leaves

We have been enjoying the warm fall days in Utah. I think weather in Utah in the Spring and Fall is the craziest time. It can snow one day and the next day be in the upper 60's. Well I'm not complaining about the warm weather. We've had some beautiful days and according to the weather man it should be nice for at least another week.

I wanted to take some pictures of Hailee out in the leaves so I got her all dressed up in her cute little dress from Louise. I just loved the purple and orange. Well I just wanted her to pose, but she had other ideas. There is a pile of leaves out in front of our condo and anytime we are coming or going she likes to run and jump in the leaves and then run and catch up. Well as soon as we got outside she ran and jumped in the pile of leaves. Luckily the dress is just fine and we did get some cute pictures of the leaves. Hailee loves to play in the leaves and we are taking advantage of the nice warm weather before the snow really comes.

Happy Halloween...a little bit early

Yesterday we had our church "mom and tots" group Halloween party. Hailee had a blast. We were kind of lazy when it came to costumes. I just pulled out the Halloween box and let her choose what she wanted to be. She had a great time trying on all of the costumes and she just couldn't decided what she wanted to be. Luckily most of the costumes still fit her (they are just a little bit shorter).

Going around the witches hats for the cake walk. Hailee loved walking around to the music.

Nichols was helping Hailee go fishing for spiders. Nichols is in my Primary class and was just so sweet with Hailee.

Hailee and I at the party.

At the ward party she decided she wanted to be the queen of hearts. She was even more excited when I put on my card costume and started singing the "painting the roses red" song. She had a great time at the party. They decorated cookies, colored spider picture, had a cake walk , went fishing for spiders, and had a M&M toss. She loved the cake walk and fishing for spiders.

Hailee's Ballet class. Her teacher is really cute with the little girls. Hailee just loves her.

After the party we had ballet. For ballet they were suppose to dress up for class in their halloween costumes. She chose to be Cinderella for her ballet class. It was really cute to see her whole class dress up. She loves going to ballet.

Todd was out pretty late last night so this morning when she woke up she came into our room and told Todd everything about the church party and ballet class. It's so cute to hear her explain things. Here is an example of their conversation about decorating cookies.

Hailee decorating cookies

H: First I told my mom I wanted to make a cookie so she got one and put it on my plate and then I took the knife and put it in the at pink thing (the frosting was orange, but it was really light so she called it pink) and put that pink stuff on my cookie and spread it all around.
T: Then did you eat it
H: No dad! (shocked) We don't eat the cookie yet. Next we have to put on the chocolate. (they had little chocolate chips to decorate the pumpkin cookies)
T: Oh, okay
H: Then we get the chocolate from the bowl and put it on our plate.
T: then did you eat it
H: No we don't eat it yet we have to put the chocolate on the cookie. So we then put the chocolate on the plate and then put the choclate on the cookie. That is how we do it dad.
T: Then do you get to eat it.
H: No not yet. we brought them home to share.

It's so cute to hear her describe her day to Todd. For ballet she has to demonstrate what she learned and showed the prizes she got at the Halloween party.

Painting

So while Todd is in the middle of finals (for his block classes) and midterms Hailee and I have decided to keep busy painting. This evening we finally got a significant amount of paint on the wall. This past weekend was all the prep work. Hailee was such a cute little helper and was quite pleased to have a little roller all to herself. The only rule was it was mom's job to put the paint on the roller. There weren't a lot of low spaces for Hailee but she had a good time doing it. She would say "Mom we are doing a phenomenal job." She picked up "phenomenal" from listening to Todd. After we decided to call it a night I was washing the rollers and tray in the bath tub when all of the sudden there was a naked little Hailee in the bathtub with the rollers. I asked her why she was naked and in the bath. She responded "Mom, we need to get the paint off me too." Of course...what was I thinking. So we got her all cleaned up and in her pajamas by the time to pick up Todd. I am really enjoying the color we are painting the bathroom, it already looks bigger to me. We are just lacking the second coat and touch ups now. Maybe tomorrow we'll have our bathroom back to normal.

The other funny thing that happened tonight was Kristy called and when Hailee was on the phone, Kristy asked her to tell her about ballet. Instead of explaining it she decided to just show her. She started doing all of her new things she's been learning at ballet. Not the most effective when you are on the phone, maybe we need to get video conferencing.

First fairly big snow storm...

Sunday Morning outside our front door. From the pictures it does look quite beautiful, now if we would just get snow that was warm instead of cold, life would be perfect.

Yesterday BYU had a home football game, but since the forecast ward rain/snow mix and cold and Todd had lots of mid-term/finals projects things to do we decided not to go. I know, what kind of BYU fan am I. I am a rather stay home and cheer than get cold and wet kind of a fan. Todd was doing homework so I didn't really feel like taking Hailee by myself. Instead we had a lovely time getting the bathroom prepped for paint, and start a few sewing projects. I couldn't paint the bathroom when BYU was playing because I wanted to watch the game, so I started sewing a bed skirt for my bed.

I was right in staying home the game looked cold and miserable on the TV. It began with an ice/rain mix and ended in a snow storm. I've sat through games like that before so I've already had that experience. Hailee was so excited when it started to snow. She said "Oh mom this is the best day ever." I wish I could share her enthusiasm for the snow. Friday was in the upper 60's here and personally I prefer that kind of fall weather.

N: "Hailee can you turn around so I can take your picture?"
H: "But mom I'm suppose to be watching the snow."
N: "I know but it will just be quick."
H: (turns around one second and gives me a quick, hurry up face)
N: (click) "Thank you Hailee."
H: "Mom do you think we can go play in the snow."
N: "It's kind of late and it's cold outside."
H: "I can wear my coat and my snow pants and my boots."

I honestly don't know where she comes from. She loves the snow and I really don't like being out in the cold.

You can kind of see from this picture what the BYU game was like. By the end of the game you couldn't see that the field was green, it was completely white. I think Hailee and I made the right choice by staying home.

How many more minutes...

Thursday when we were shopping at Target Hailee found that the new Charlie and Lola disk 6 was out. She was so excited. So we got it and I was hoping to save it for Thanksgiving when we were driving or maybe for Christmas. We had several other errands to run and things to do so I was hoping she would forget about it. She did wait until the next day to ask me if she could watch it. I did distract her long enough to get her thinking about other things. I was a little surprised she remembered. Now every day since she has been asking me about her new Charlie and Lola DVD. Today after telling her I didn't know where it was, which was partially true I couldn't remember if I had put it away in my closet or the hall closet, she got very concerned. "Oh mom, what are we going to do. We need to find my Charlie and Lola DVD. Dad have you seen my new Charlie and Lola DVD. It's about Christmas, have you seen it....." and on and on. I decided I shouldn't torment my child anymore. As soon as I pulled it out she was so excited. There really is nothing cuter than seeing your child so excited. She sat down on the couch and said "Oh mom this is the best day ever." Funny enough is the first episode is about Lola counting down the minutes to Christmas. Just as Hailee was counting down the minutes until she got to watch it.

The other funny Hailee story from this week is a few days ago she was in the bath. I usually let her play for a while in the bath, but for some reason this day I was in a hurry. I don't remember what was going on, but as I was trying to get her out. She said "but mom, it's not time to get out yet, I don't have those bumps yet." She was talking about goosebumps. Usually I wash her and her hair and then just let her play until she calls me. She usually doesn't get out of the bath until she is cold. What a funny little girl.