Hailey turned 1!

Hailey celebrated her first birthday! We went to Build a Bear--she was getting pretty jealous of everyone else's special friends. She loved her little dog right away. She is so sweet tempered and really enjoys meeting people and animals and basically is happy to have new experiences. This is really different for me after having 2 kids that really were pretty much uninterested in anyone besides me.

The new experience that she didn't love was mushing her cake! Being the baby in our family, she gets a lot of help with eating and drinking. Getting her own hands gooey trying to feed herself was a surprise. Once she figured out that it was frosting, she did actually eat some, but first she cried and pouted and generally looked disgusted at the whole experience.

Presents were more to her liking. In the past she's been pretty happy to let Abby open hers, but not anymore! Abby was kind of disappointed. We are looking forward to celebrating her 3 1/2 birthday on June 23! Thanks to Uncle Paul for the good idea--our almost Christmas baby doesn't even remember that she had a birthday!

What

What

I can roll over!

In spite of a week of sickness, including breathing treatments, Hailey cannot be held back from growth. Last night I left her on her back after changing her and went to get something from the bathroom. Surprise! When I returned, she was on her tummy--definitely not her favorite spot, but once she figures out that it's the way to get around, I think she's going to like it...

Halloween

We had a fun Halloween-lots of candy! We went to a "Trick or Trunk" on Thursday night at church, and then trick-or-treated with friends on Friday night.

Rachel went as Minnie Mouse-a last minute costume, borrowed from Abby. She still thinks she may be too old to go trick-or-treating, but the candy is too much to resist!

Ian was sure that he would be batman, so sure, that we found him a costume back in September. Take a look at the picture--definitely not batman! He wears these things so often, you could hardly call it dressing up, but apparently no one noticed, because they all gave him candy.

Abby picked out this pink unicorn costume. I worried that she too, would change her mind before Halloween (she ripped off the tags, the minute we got home). She wore it happily for about 2 miles worth of trick-or-treating.

We found a pink unicorn costume that fit Hailey. This may be the only year that she doesn't have an opinion, so we decided it would be fun for them to match. (Also, it relieved me of the mental challenge of coming up with a creative and cute costume, and saved Hailey from being...a soccer player!)

Happy Halloween to all of you! Thanks for checking our blog, even though I am not so good at updating it lately. Miss you and love you,

Kerry

Halloween

New things

Hailey got this cool little seat to try out. She loves being so tall in it. She thought it was especially cool when she got to sit in it on the counter while I was doing the dishes. (Yes, totally against every safety warning on the box. Luckily she was fine.) She is doing a little better this month with the evening fussiness. This is my totally subjective opinion. Shawn disagrees.

We both love that she is sleeping through the night nearly every night and even seems to be able to sleep in a bit on weekends when the house is quiet. She loves her crib, so it's great that the nearly new bedding she inherited from Abby is finally being appreciated. (Abby still sleeps in our bed and actually thinks of it as hers. The bunk bed we purchased for Ian and her is definitely "Ian's bed".)

We had the first cold enough day in October for Abby to wear her new vest. I thought you might also like to see her hair tamed in piggy tails. She calls it "two ponies" and chooses this hairstyle most days. (I secretly miss her wild, untamed curls.)

Abby is becoming less shy all the time. She strikes up conversations with check out ladies and people from church even. She occasionally decides mid-sentance that she didn't really want to talk so much and then says, "Mom, I'm tired..." and ducks behind my legs. "I'm tired" seems to be code for "Get me out of here!" Last week, she even asked to go to the nursery, but I had to keep her out because of a major runny nose!