Pre-birthday party fun

Hailey's birthday party wasn't until late on Saturday afternoon, 3:00 pm.  So we decide to let her open the presents from us, Grandmom and Grandmother before her party.  I'm all about getting as many miles as possible for birthdays!  After chocolate chip pancakes, we opened presents. 

Grandmom helping open presents.

She got the hang of it, no problem.

As some of you may remember a previous post regarding Hailey's love for shoes, we got her a box of 6 pairs of dress up shoes.  All of which were mini high heals!  She loved them.  She was a little wobbly at first but got the hang of it.  Here she is playing with her new coloring thing-a-ma-gig, wearing her new shoes.

Deciding which ones she wants to try on next.

That's right people, hot pink feather boa high heals for my 2 year old!!!  I was a little concerned after I saw the "variety" of shoes what they may imply however I was reminded that they are just for dressing up and playing.  Thankfully she doesn't love them so much that it's a battle to get her out of them.  She's easily distracted these days. 

4th of July

First off, can I just tell you how proud I am of myself for posting something the same month in which it occurred!!!  Yeah me.

Moving on.  For the 4th of July this year we went to the wonderful city of Buda, TX to check out a concert and some fireworks.  Some friends of ours are very good friends with one of the musicians performing so we go to hang out back stage.  The best of this for me was that there was a porta-potty with no line!!!  What pregnant woman wouldn't be excited about that!  Knowing that we wanted to stay until the fireworks, which were not for several hours, we brought lots of snacks and toys to entertain little miss. 

Chasing bubbles back stage.

Snack time.

Checkin' out the bands with daddy.

and more snacks...

We had some other friends meet up with us before the fireworks show.  They had all sorts of stuff going on at the park so we moved our "camp" to an area by the playground to yet again buy us more time while waiting for the fireworks.  We played at the playground and even went for a little train ride.  My very good friend of mine, Kori, was a trooper and rode this itty bitty train around the playground with us.  Thanks Kori!!  We had the boys take pictures but it was getting dark and well...they're no photographers.  Hailey's bedtime is 8:00...the fireworks were not scheduled to begin until 9:45!!!  She did pretty well while we waited.  I brought every light up toy she owned to try to tide her over.  She lasted about 2 minutes into the 10 minute show.  That's right, 10 minutes!!!!  We hung out all afternoon and evening in the heat and ended up sitting in traffic longer than we did watching fireworks.  Oh well, it was still a good time.  Not sure that we will do it again next year though.

"Payin'"

Several weeks ago we went to Dallas to visit my grandmother for her birthday.  It was the a week or two before her 102nd birthday!!  We wanted to see her before I got too big and uncomfortable, (too late) to travel.  It was a great trip and always fun to see the fam.  We left Sunday to head back.  Hailey slept almost the entire way.  So of course when we got home she was wound up.  I was relaxing on the couch when I hear some commotion going on in the corner by all of her toys.  And this is what I see...

She pulled every single book and toy out of the basket and climbed in.  When I giggled and asked what she was doing, her response was "payin'".  How can you argue with that.  Play away kid, play away!

Cowgirl

Baby Girl #2

I generally don't post without pictures.  I just assume people are only coming here to look at pictures of Hailey or perhaps a funny tale here and there.  But I feel it necessary to start talking about Hailey's little sister that is cookin' away. I will be 30 weeks this week.  We have a ton of sonogram pictures buuut that would require me to scan them in.  I feel lucky at this point to be catching up on posting. 

For those of you with more than one little one, did you all wait until much later to get everything done or is it just me?  I finally went to pay for the furniture yesterday.  The funny thing is, I was hoping it would be about 2 weeks or so before it would ready for us to pick it up...oh no.. it's in stock now.  Normally that would be great but we have no where to put it yet!  Our guest room will be the baby's room and Hailey's birthday is this weekend.  We're waiting until after this weekend to move everything out so my mom has somewhere to sleep while she's here.  Then we still have to paint!  I'm starting to stress a little.  We also don't have a name yet.  The first time was hard but now you have the challenge of making sure the names go together too.  Everything is coming along fine but I am starting to feel the nesting urge and can't nest because we have "stuff" in the way of my nesting! 

Oh, I have also decided to take on about 3-4 crafty projects in the midst of everything else.  I found some fabric that I just fell in love with for the bedding.  I kept looking online for sets and couldn't find anything I liked as much as the fabrics.  So I found a seamstress to make the bedding.  Well she wanted to charge more than I was willing to spend so I decided to have her make the bumper and I'll make the bed skirt.  Then while I was looking on line for "how to make a bed skirt" I found a ton of other super cute ideas that I have set in my head that I will be making.  My project list now has: bed skirt, crib sheet, contoured changing pad cover, possibly curtains, (hoping to find something out of the box that works with the colors though), burp cloths AND a very detailed art project for the wall.  Oh, and if I have enough time an adorable initial pillow. You know, once we decide on a name.  I guess there's one upside to not having a name picked out yet.  Now, I can't promise anyone that this list will be complete prior to sweet baby girl #2 making her arrival but that sure would make me feel better. 

Enough rambling for today.  I'll try to some how post some sonograms pictures of Hailey's little sister soon.  Thanks for listening.  I feel better now. 

Watermelon

If you follow this blog at all you will begin to notice a pattern and that's the fact that I have a very hard time picking "just a few" pictures.  I take a ton of pictures trying to capture just the right moment and then think they are all cute.  That being said, here are a lot of pictures of watermelon.  That's right, watermelon.

It was a Sunday afternoon and Stephen decided to build a garden.  It was very hot that day but we wanted to all be together so we got Hailey's little wadding pool out and I cut up some watermelon.  This was her 2nd experience with watermelon, the first being at the beach with Wyatt, so I wasn't sure how she would take to it.  It was really hot though and she wasn't drinking her water. Well I didn't have to worry about her dehydrating...she LOVED every bit of it. 

Notice her red cheeks.  She would eat straight down the middle so it covered her face! 

Such a little lady. 

Piece #2

Hailey was not the only one that loved the watermelon.  Decker was the beneficiary of a few stray pieces and he was sold!  Notice him licking his lips hoping Hailey drops another piece. 

Shoes!!

Hailey is into shoes right now. She is not picky about what shoes she puts on, she just wants to walk around in someones shoes all the time.  The first picture is of her in Stephen's Crocs!  Then before "school" one morning in my heels.  When I have friends over, she will grab their shoes and try to walk around in them too.  It's too funny.  Her birthday is Saturday so I think I may need to get her a few pairs of dress up shoes. What do you think?

Graduation party

Stephen's cousin graduated high school at the beginning of June.  He will be heading to my alma mater, Texas State.  He had a graduation party at his grandparents house.  They had a ton of wonderful food!!!  They also had a cute little high chair for Hailey to eat in. 

Stephen's parent's were there which thrilled Hailey to know end.  She loves her Memaw and Papa but especially her Papa.  We were all eating at the table when Hailey decided she wanted to go outside and "pay" and she wanted her Papa to take her.  "Come on Papa".  So we told her she had to wait until Papa was done eating, then they could go outside.

Waiting patiently...

Finally outside!!!

They had the biggest hibiscus plant/tree I've ever seen, (it's behind Hailey on the right) that was in full bloom.  It was beautiful!!

Strolling around the backyard with Papa and Memaw.

Nap time.

The other day I went to check on Hailey during her nap time and this is what I found.  This is the reason this child is still in her crib.  She would end up on the floor even with a toddler rail!!

Big girl table

Around the end of May we got Hailey a big girl table or as she calls it her, "little table".   Here is a picture of her first meal at her little table with a little friend of hers.

CHEESE!!

1st trip to the beach, part 2

So the last post was day one... I know, I know... a little long winded.  On to our second day, which is when we actually went to the beach.  Hailey was not a fan at first  She wanted me to carry her from our little set up to the water and then back again.  That got old real quick.  She finally got use to it and had a blast. 

She loved her hat and didn't want to take it off either!!  I thought that one was going to be a fight but thankfully it wasn't and her little eyes were covered by her big floppy hat.

The kids loved the birds too.  We were eating lunch and throwing crackers out to the birds so of course they just swarmed around us.  Well the kids thought they'd try to "feed the birds".  The only problem with this is that their little throwing distance isn't that great.  They would all but drop the cracker right in front of us which would bring the entire flock to our feet. 

When we got home that evening we decided to take a little sunset cruise to look at all of the beautiful houses along the bay. 

Bath time fun. Hailey was beyond tired at this point and wanted nothing to do with bathing!!!

Our last day there.  Hailey in her daddy's sunglasses lookin' too cool for school!

1st trip to the beach, part 1

For my birthday weekend, mid-May, we met a dear friend of mine and her family at their bay house in Rockport.  Kate and I have been great friends since college and I love that we have kiddos around the same ages.  She got about a year head start.  She has two boys, Wyatt and Weston.  Wyatt will be 3 in September and Weston will be 1 in September so our kids will be a year apart on both ends.  

Be prepared for picture overload.  I have a hard time choosing which pictures to include soooo I just put them all in there.  A picture's worth a thousand words...if that's the case, here's a million words. 

 We drove down there on Friday night so we could have all day on Saturday and Sunday.  Well when we woke up Saturday morning it was POURING.  I'm not sure if you can tell how dark it is in the glass behind Hailey but it was raining hard.  Thankfully we were prepared.  Kate seems to have found the largest box of crayons known to man.  So the kids colored while we made breakfast. 

After quite some time of being cooped up in the house, we decided to go out on the porch while it continued to rain.  Hailey has never really like watermelon before but I think I was just doing it all wrong.  I always cut it up in little pieces rather than leaving the rind on.  Well since Wyatt was eating like this she decided to give it a go. 

She wasn't real sure "how" to eat this.  At one point I saw her trying to take a bite out of the green rind which was followed by a scrunched face and a "yucky".

This picture was really just to show the cool contraption that Weston is sitting in.  For all you moms out there, check this out.  It's a "high-chair" that just slips over any chair and is cloth so you can just fold it up and go!!! Genius!!!  Most of our family lives in other cities so we were always packing up Hailey's high-chair to take it with us.

Look at that sweet face.  Patiently waiting for his lunch in his little harness. 

So the front and back porch were both pretty big.  The best part was that the back porch was completely enclosed with a gate.  The kids loved playing back here. 

We had to get Hailey her own bucket of water.  Wyatt had a little fishing lure, no hook of course, that looked like a fish in a bucket of water.  Well let's just say it was challenging for both of them to get their little hands in there to play.

Later on that day, yes the same day that it stormed, the boys went fishing while the girls layed out by the pool and the kids napped.  I don't have any pictures but we were out there an hour and I got the worst sunburn I've ever had in my entire life!!  It was so bad that I couldn't walk the next day because the skin on my legs was so tight.  It was awful!  Anyways, this was just right outside the gate of the condo patio. 

The place had a pool too that the kids had a blast in.   Before we left Austin, we got Hailey her 1st life jacket.  She loved it.  We couldn't get her out of it without a fight.  She would drop to the ground anytime we tried to take it off of her.  Safety first!!! 

The boys were successful at catching dinner!  Don't ask me what this is... all I know is it was dinner.