15 Month Doctor's Visit

Today Hayden had her 15 month appointment. Her body has finally decided to quit dropping lines on the weight growth chart. She weighs 19 pounds 8 ounces and is following the second major growth curve line down from the "average" one. She it still refusing to eat pretty much any kind of meat, so the doctor told me to give her an oral vitamin. So, we started that today. She had that instead of eating her lunch! Hayden got 2 shots today and hated every moment of it. She is 30 1/4 inches tall. So thank the Lord, Hayden continues to grow and develop as she should. She'll have her next visit in a few months.

Here is what Jeremy and I gave Hayden for Christmas this year. She can rock and bounce at the same time, and there is no fear of falling out!

Merry Christmas Daddy!

Here is what Hayden and I got Jeremy for Christmas...an 11 week old black lab puppy! He named him Grady and he's such a good puppy. Ever since Hershey passed away about 3 months ago Jeremy has been wanting another dog, so Christmas was the perfect time to get him one.

Howat Family

Today, right before September left, we took a few family pictures. The weather has been like this the entire time we have been down here....in the 80's!! It's been great. We will be sad to leave tomorrow afternoon, but we can always look forward to those summer weeks spent in the Florida sun with the whole family!

Christmas Cookie Tradition

For as long as I can remember we baked sugar cookies together right around Christmas. Since we were all together in Florida this Christmas we decided to get to baking!
September and I mixed the cookie dough the day after Christmas and we baked the cookies yesterday.

Johnny was the butter boy...he was in charge of buttering all of the cookie sheets before we put the cookies on them.

We made sugar and gingerbread cookies.

September was in charge of rolling out and cutting all of the gingerbread dough. As you can see, she took her job very seriously.

I used the new KitchenAid mixer to mix up the cookie dough and the icing. It worked perfectly!

Hayden woke up from her nap just in time to have a little taste of the icing with daddy.
Pappy and Johnny waited anxiously as I mixed the coloring in the icing.
Once we started icing the cookies it got quite competitive between Johnny and Jeremy.

Christmas with Grandma

Grandma Milko and Aunt September both flew in this past weekend to celebrate Christmas. Grandma brought this cool singing and dancing dog stocking. Hayden got such a huge kick out of it.

She loved digging into her stocking to see what Grandma and Pap gave her.

They brought her lots of cool big girl outfits and pajamas. They definitely know her style and I can't wait until she can fit into her 18 month clothes!

Hayden had a great weekend with Grandma....thanks for the great birthday present Pap!

Ross Family Christmas

We met with the Ross family this Sunday in order to celebrate Christmas. Here's our family Christmas picture for 2007.

Pictures at Pop and Grandma's House

Here are some pictures that Jeff took over the past few Wednesdays while Hayden was over. They put her in this white smock dress and snapped away.

This isn't Santa!

Hayden and I met some ladies from the church at Chick-fil-A today before we went Christmas shopping for a family. There was a huge cow there dressed up in a Santa outfit. Hayden loved the cow until it was time for him to hold her....as you can see.

Mommy to the rescue!

Dinner Conversation

I taped a little conversation that Hayden and I were having over dinner. It's starts out with her calling Ruth (Roow). Ruth is a goat that Jan and Jeff have at their house. She is constantly asking me "What's that (wazaa)?" She also says: daddy (da)-most of the time she really does say daddy but not that night, uh oh (uhuh), bye bye (ba ba), bowl (boow), ball (ba), and of course Elmo (lala).

Sometimes when she is saying Roo she cracks up laughing. She does that because before I began taping her I would laugh hysterically when she called for Roo-just because her mouth is so cute when she does it. So, she decided that when she would call for Roo she needed to laugh too.

Baby Number 2

We had an ultrasound today and got to see the heartbeat. The baby is 8 weeks and 2 days old today and healthy! Praise the Lord.

The due date is July 20th.....1 day after our wedding anniversary!

I Get So Emotional....

Be on the lookout for the new 2007 Holiday Publix Commercial. I saw it for the first time this morning and cried my eyes out....in a good way. I have tried to find it on the Internet so that I can post it for all of you to see, but I couldn't find it. Get your Kleenex!!

Floor Cleaner

Here is Hayden cleaning up the Cheerios that mommy spilled. It took us a few shots to catch her in action. What a silly little girl.

Got Milk?

When we're finished with our milk jugs we rinse them out and put them by the trash can for recycling. Hayden love to play with them when they are on the floor. Here she is trying to get some milk out on one of the jugs.

Still can't seem to get any milk!

Happy Birthday Daddy

Yesterday it was Jeremy's birthday....the big 29! We did a lot of relaxing, because that's what he wanted to do. He wanted me to make him is E'clair cake for the big day. Here we are singing "Happy Birthday". Hayden even tried to sing with me.

Spring Has Sprung!?!?!

It sounds crazy, but it is about 75 degrees outside today! Thank goodness I am a little behind and haven't put Hayden's summer clothes away yet. I guess part of me just knew that this warm weather would be coming in the dead of winter!

Daddy was out on the porch unloading some firewood and Hayden decided that she wanted to help. She's not sure what she's doing, but she saw daddy doing this same thing so it must be right!

Christmas Pictures

We have tried to take Christmas pictures of Hayden twice. The first time it ended in tears...as you can see.

It seemed like she did everything BUT smile for the camera like I wanted her to.

Today we bought her some tights and shoes and tried for round two if the Christmas pictures.
At least she was smiling today!
She was very interested in the presents.
And eventually we got a good Christmas shot!!!

Look Who's Walking!

Hayden decided that tonight was the night! We started out playing the "Up Down" game with Hayden and it went from there. First you will see a few falls, we had to include them because they were so funny. Then you'll see her walk to daddy then mommy. And last you will see her walk right to her toy like she has been walking for months! I guess she knew that it was the "finale" on this video so she wanted to do something spectacular and unexpected. Not only did she walk to her toy, but she wanted to finish with a bang so she dropped her ball in her dinosaur toy just likes she's supposed to!! Also, watch how much attention she pays to the camera...what a little actress!

Christmas Penguin

Yesterday I got out a few Christmas decorations. While I was going through the boxes I found this penguin that Grandma and Pap got Hayden last year. Hayden just loves it this year!

I dressed her in her camo outfit yesterday in honor of daddy, since he shot a buck! Yahoo for daddy-not so good for the buck though.

Elf Yourself!

John and Jessica gave us the idea to do this when they sent a video of themselves. Thanks guys! Click on the link below. Enjoy!!

Elf Yourself Video

So Sleepy....

At first, Hayden didn't want to go down for her nap. Then, when I peeked in I saw her sitting up swaying back and forth with her eyes closed. This is how I found her a few minutes later! Asleep sitting up-what a crazy girl!

It's Official!

Our house is officially FOR SALE as of yesterday afternoon. We are praying that it will sell quickly so that we can move further out in the country and build a house. Rolling hills, less traffic, peaceful little town here we come!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here is Hayden in her Thanksgiving/fall outfit that Uncle Matt and Aunt Jamie bought her for her birthday.

Look at how much Hayden has changed in a year! This was her last Thanksgiving...

We had Jeremy's big family Thanksgiving last night at his grandmother's house. Everything was so good! So today we're cooking a big Thanksgiving meal for the three of us. It's the first time I've done a turkey so I am excited. My mom always cooked a big meal for our immediate family and it's a tradition that I would like to continue for our family. I have a few years to get all of the recipes perfected before the kids actually have an opinion about how the food tastes!

Here is Hayden in one of mommy's aprons (daddy brought it back from Zimbabwe). She is all ready to help out in the kitchen!