Decorating the Christmas Tree

After dinner we decided to decorate our Christmas tree. So, I made some hot chocolate with mini marshmallows and we got started.

After Hayden would take a drink of her hot chocolate she would say, "Hayden like chocolate."

Hayden wanted to help daddy put the angel on top of the tree until she realized it involved her being held up high in the air. So, this is Hayden helping daddy.

Here she is reaching to put one of the ornaments on one of the branches.

This is Hayden's tree. She helped decorate this one too and it's even in her room! And yes, Hayden is resting her arm on the window ledge just like a model would. Layne has a smaller one with silver bells on it in her room.

All done! This is a fake tree that we "inherited" from Jeff and Jan when they left for Kenya...thanks-we think it's beautiful and maintenance free!

Poor Layne missed all the fun because she was taking a nap. Maybe next year!

The Daily Grind

Here is some footage of our day today. Our day involved playing on the activity mat, going to the playground, running on the track, playing in the exersaucer, and laughing among other things.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Hand Print Turkey

I had Hayden do two of these hand print turkeys yesterday. One for us to keep and we brought the other one to Great Grandma last night when we all got together for our Thanksgiving feast.

Performance

Here is Hayden preforming on her "stage". She's a nut. There is some video of Layne in here too.

Our Little Clothing Model

When Hayden got up from her nap this afternoon she walked out with her hand in her pockets. This is her serious pose. Really, it's because she just woke up and it still a little out of it.

Now, she's waking up!

Roll Over Tutorial

Hayden hears me working with Layne on rolling over so she wants to help out too. Here she is encouraging Layne with a little pat on the back.

Now she is giving Layne a little "You can do it" pep talk. This coming from a girl who did the inch worm across the floor when I asked her if she could show Layne how to roll over. She didn't even know what it was!

I think they are just taking a little chat break here. You know, catching up on the latest girl talk.

Still chatting......you know how girls can be!

Still no rolling over during the day time. It's only happening at night.

Singing....sort of

When I was little I sang a little tune that went like this "Salt(sung in a low note) Pepper (sung in a high note) salt pepper salt pepper" over and over again. Well, Hayden makes up little songs too. Today she decided to sing about batteries.

Becca's Baby Shower

Here is the mommy to be concentrating on one of the shower games. What a cute little pregnant lady!

Another shower game was everyone had to guess what kind of candy bar was melted in each diaper. Nasty but so cute and creative at the same time. Here is Jamie showing off her dirty diaper.

Hayden came to the shower with me (Layne stayed at home with daddy). She just blended right in and didn't cause any problems. Here she is giving her buddy Abby kisses.

The candle that Hayden has was one of the prizes. The lady that won it gave it to Hayden to smell and play with. Hayden walked around the room at least 5 times to make sure that everyone got a whiff of the vanilla scent. She would just hold it up to people's noses until they smelled it or made a comment.

Here is Becca trying to figure out what the heck kind of candy is in that diaper.

Crib Time!

Hayden and I went into Layne's room to get her out of her crib and Hayden wanted to join her! She said she remembers sleeping in that crib when she was little, but who knows.

Layne has rolled over, from tummy to back, twice this past week. But, she does it in her crib at night so we don't see it! I just wake up because she starts to cry since she doesn't like to sleep on her back. We'll see her do it one of these days soon I bet. Also, Layne has that pink fleece blanket in her crib because she is a HUGE drooler.

Getting Sick?

Hayden has been up and down all day today. At some points today she was running and laughing and other times she was wining complaining that her tummy or head hurt. She fell asleep on the couch while I was doing some work on the lap top today. Daddy got the boppy and blanket to make sure she was nice and comfortable.

All Crammed In
This is how Hayden watches TV in our bedroom sometimes. What a nut.

Becca's Baby Shower

Two friends and I are having a baby shower for Rebecca. It is Winnie the Pooh and Friends themed. So, here are the cookies that I made as favors for all of the guests. Lots of Poohs and lots of fun!

Here they are all wrapped up and ready to go!

Here is the cake. It is a chocolate cake with cookies and cream filling. It's covered in fondant. The polka dots are fondant too. The shower invitation had polka dots like this on it, so I incorporated it into the cake. There is a little sleeping baby on top made out of gum paste. The blocks behind the baby spell out "baby".

Here is the finished cake with all of the Winnie the Pooh characters. They are made out of fondant. Fun stuff!!

BooBoos

This is the aftermath of three shots. Poor little one. She cried when she got the shots, but as soon as they were done she quit crying. What a tough cookie!

Here is a picture of the strawberry thing I was talking about earlier today.

This give you an idea of where on her back it is and how small it is.

4 Month Doctor's Appointment

Well, Layne had her 4 month visit today. We waited in the waiting room for an hour and a half! The total visit was 2 1/2 hours long. Dr. Jattan is the only doctor in the office for now and they are swamped! We really like her a lot, or we would be looking for another office that didn't have such a long wait. Thankfully, both girls were very good the entire time. Hayden ended up getting a flu shot-she has to go back in a month and get another one. Here are Layne's stats: Height 25 1/4 inches (normal), head circumference 40 1/2 cm (normal), and weight 12 pounds 6 ounces (a little below normal). The doctor is not concerned about the weight at all. Hayden weighed 13 pounds at 4 months....so she is tinier than Hayden now!! She ended up getting 3 shots and an oral vaccine. She did well with it all though. Layne also has a strawberry hemangiomas on her lower back. You can click on the term to get more info. But basically it is a birthmark that will grow until she's around a year and then it will slowly go away! I will take a picture of it for you once Layne wakes up from her nap.....it's been a long morning.

Disco Elf Dance

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Baby Head Bands!

I don't want to offend anyone that puts these cute little elastic bands on their baby girl's head...so I hope you aren't offended! We got some of these cute little elastic bands as hand me downs from people. We never used them when Hayden was a baby, but recently she found them in the "hair accessories" drawer in her bathroom. So now we like to play with them.

And of course Hayden can't have one without Layne wearing one too! I guess I just don't understand the purpose of them. Is it to keep hair out of their face-probably not, in most cases, since most babies don't have that much hair. Maybe it's so that everyone will know that it's a girl since most babies look like boys. Who knows?

Here are the girls together in their crazy silly head bands!

4 Months Old!

Miss Layne is 4 months old today. She has her 4 month check up on Wednesday morning. I will fill you in on how that goes later in the week. Layne is just such a happy little baby. She isn't laughing yet, but it's coming soon-I just know it. She is always smiling and cooing. She is such a good napper and night time sleeper. She doesn't even really cry or fuss when she goes down for a nap. We don't really use the binkie anymore either! A scheduled baby is a happy baby. I have learned that with both of my girls! Some people say that the girls look "just alike" and others say that she looks like a mini Jeremy-nobody is saying that she looks like me though. Big shocker! People are now saying that Hayden looks like me though, so we will see what Layne looks like in a couple years! Happy 4 month birthday precious baby!

Noah's Ark Little People Toy

Hayden just loves her new Little People toy that Whitney bought her yesterday. She pairs up all the animals, talks to "nona" (Noah), and piles them all in the boat.

Thanks Whitney!

Little Boy Blue

Each month Hayden "learns" a new nursery rhyme. This month is Little Boy Blue. Hayden brought this home on Thursday. Check out her name! I'm sure she did not do this on her own, but it looks like she helped out some. Pretty cool stuff.

Lunch at Chick-fil-A

Darn Dora the Explorer!
It was such a great plan....in theory! We were going to meet my friend Whitney out near the mall and have lunch then we were off to the mall to see Dora! I had been talking to Hayden about it all week and the full page color newspaper add was posted on the freezer door right at Hayden's height so she could see it every day! I got the girls all ready to go and I made sure to pack up the camera AND video camera in order to capture this wonderful childhood memory. We got to Chick-fil-A at noon and the plan was going perfectly. The chick-fil-A near the mall even has a little play area complete with a huge slide-perfect! We ate lunch in peace and quiet because Layne was being a perfect little baby. Then I took Hayden to the play area. She went down the slide once. As she came down she appeared to be terrified, but sure enough she went right back up the steps! Well, it turns out that the slide did indeed terrify her because she wouldn't come down again. She was out of sight stuck up in the plastic tubing. For all I knew there was some other kid up there tormenting her! That really could have been the case because the first time that she was up in the plastic tube area she was bossing some boy around that was twice her age and size. All I kept hearing was Hayden scream "No....Go!"....that little pistol! One of the tactics I used to try and bribe her down was, "Ok Hayden, come down the slide so we can go and see Dora. Don't you want to see Dora!?" It was a no go. If talk of seeing Dora couldn't get her down that slide nothing could! Well, some lady overheard me say something about Dora and she was quick to tell me that they had just come from the mall and the line was all the way to Dillars. That didn't mean anything to me though, I don't have the mall floor plan memorized! So I continued to try and coax Hayden to come out of the play area. Thankfully some random guy when up the twisty stairs and through some of the tubes to retrieve her-she had been up there for about 10 minutes. So, I quickly put her shoes on and we headed to the mall. We went in the Kohl's entrance because that's where Dora was. When we got to the front of Kohl's there were these black felt curtain things hanging up (kind of like the Wizard of Oz), Dora and Diego balloons everywhere, and Dora music playing. We were so excited to finally be there, we started to look around for Dora and Diego and quickly realized that they were hidden behind the curtains! You could not even see them until it was your turn to go behind the curtain! What!? So, we decided to walk back to find the end of the line...... The dang line went from one end of the mall to the other and then started to wrap around the other side of the railing. I felt so terrible because Hayden had been looking forward to this day for a week now, and it wasn't going to happen. We would have been in the line for 3 or 4 hours I bet. I was desperately trying to think of something we could do that would be as cool to Hayden as seeing Dora in real life. So, we walked the mall looking for replacements....Santa-yeah, he was there and there was NO line for him but too expensive....play area with a huge plastic band aid-yeah, it was there but packed full of kids whose parents weren't willing to wait in the Dora line either, Build a Bear Workshop-no, she has so many stuffed animals alread. So, we headed to Toys R Us because Whit wanted to buy Hayden a toy because she felt so bad! She got Hayden an awesome Little People Noah's Ark toy. What a stinking day-it's not a good feeling disappointing your child. It all started out as such a great plan.....in theory!

Get Out!
Somehow her pants magically came off during nap time yesterday!

Here's a funny story for you. It all started yesterday afternoon during nap time for Hayden. I was going to read her a story before her nap so I took my shoes off, climbed up her steps, and sat in bed with Hayden to read her a story. After I finished the story I climbed down the steps and left her room. About 45 minutes later I heard a lot of thumping in the hallway. I thought that it was Jeremy coming down the hallway into the family room (where I was). When he didn't show up I decided to walk down the hallway and see what was going on.....

As I walked down the hallway I noticed my old tennis shoes in the hallway. So, I walked into our bedroom/office and asked Jerm if he had gone in Hayden's room, got my shoes, and threw them in the hall. He had no idea what I was talking about. So, I peaked in Hayden's room and there she was sitting up in her bed smiling from ear to ear. The little rascal had woken up, gotten out of bed, picked up my shoes, threw them in the hallway, closed her door, and climbed back into bed! When I asked her about it she sure did let me have it for leaving my shoes in HER room!



Here are the girls just hanging out yesterday morning. It seems like in every picture Layne has her fingers in her mouth!

The Night Before Christmas

I read Hayden this book before nap time today. She told me that she wanted to keep it in her bed so that she could read it to her babies. When I passed her room about 20 minutes later this is what I saw.

She was sound asleep with the book propped up!

She fooled me!

New Cell Phones All Around

Mommy and Daddy got their Christmas gifts for each other today! We got each other new FREE cell phones. It was time to upgrade since our 2 year contract was up. So, since money is tight, we decided to give them as gifts to one another this year. That means that Hayden got my old pink Razer as a play phone.

The first person that she said she was calling was Deedee!

Layne must think it's Christmas too since she is getting to play with all of these new-to-her toys!

And of course Hayden had to show Layne how things are done!

And as soon as I picked Layne up look who crawled underneath the toy to play with it!!