Tumwater Tree Lighting

Tonight we decided to do a fun family outing...the City of Tumwater Tree lighting Festival! We listened to the high school chior sing beautiful Christmas carols, had some warm coffee and watched the tree get lit up! It was actually pretty fun, even though cold! We bundled Hayden up in her snow suit & hat and as soon as we got her out of the stroller, she was as happy as could be! It started to snow as we were there and Santa came on his fire truck!!

FINALLY!!

My Camera doesn't take the best night pics...but you can get the hint! We finally got the rest of the christmas lights up on the house! With it getting dark so early, Jeremy made me wait until the weekend when he was home before I went climbing up the ladder and on the roof! Already had a little accident just getting them down in the garage...learned my lesson and despite my impatience, I waited until he was home to help me! :) Looks pretty good I think!

Nic's Bachelorette Party!

Last weekend was Nicole's final fling...before her ring! ;) Sadly, it's taken this long for me to re-group and get back to normal after a night of drinking! I have definitely lost my tolerance, but had fun nonetheless! We started the night at Brewery City Pizza for dinner (& drinks!), then went to the hotel to settle in. We then hit Pints & Quarts, where nic decided we all needed to take shots! :( After that, we cabbed it back to O'Blarney's (bar within walking, or shall I say stumbling distance to the hotel). The most memorable part of the night had to be walking Nic back to the hotel. Mom (the sober one!!) and I attempted to walk her "home" but with shoes and drunkeness...we took a tumble (or three!) Just before the last fall, we convinced nic to take off her clunky shoes. With mom's hands full of purses/shoes/etc., when we all fell again, she caught herself with her face. She had a huge goose-egg on her cheekbone, some serious parking-lot rash and a cut on the bridge of her nose. Once we were safe and sound in the hotel, we determined she needed stitches, as it never stopped bleeding! SO, off to the ER for hours for Mom! :) Three stitches later, a bag of ice and she's as good as new! :) I'd post pics, but she'd kill me! Here's a few of the festivities!

Hayden's 9 months old today!

And I'm 28 years old today! :( I never had any issues with each coming birthday in the past, but for some reason, 28 has done a number on me. I'm just totally resigned to it and am sad...time sure flies. Anyways...the reason for this post was to be Hayden's 9 month updates!!

I swear that this month was my favorite now! ;) She is doing and learning so many cute things!! She makes me smile every day and I would do anything to make her happy! :)

For some reason, our pediatrician doesn't do 9 month well checks (just fine by me, since it's out of pocket and she doesn't need any immunizations). But, she went in a few weeks ago for an ear infection and weighed 20 pounds even and was 27 inches. She is still in a size 3 diaper and mostly 9 month clothes, depending on brand. She still has the same four teeth, but you can see her upper centrals (#e & f) just under the gums! No wonder she's been biting everything (& everyone!) in sight!

Milestones:

• Standing very well and cruising along and between furniture (she'll walk sooner than later I think!)


• She is standing unassisted for a few seconds before she realizes it and then falls over!
  
• She is so very careful when she gets down from a standing position!


• She finally figured out that the traditional crawl is much faster than the belly crawl!


• She would rather feed herself than get anything from a spoon, which is oh so fun for mommy! She's eating all sorts of table food and loved cranberry sauce during thanksgiving dinner!
  
• She is very vocal lately...all sorts of words!


• She is quite the mimic now...she snorted at me so I did it back and then all day she would look at me and snort. Once I did it back to her, she'd bust up laughing!


• Speaking of laughing, she thinks it's hilarious when we sneeze or cough...but especially funny when mijo coughs. Weirdo!
  
• Because coughing is now funny...she does a great fake cough all day long!


• She's started to do stuff on command, like wave bye-bye, high fives, etc. And lately has started doing the point (more like puts her arm out and points her hand (not finger) towards something or someone)
• She reaches up to us now to pick her up! :)
  
• She knows the word NO but still pretends to not understand! And really really wants to get into the plants and into stuff on top of tables
  
• She's outgrown the rubber ducky bath tub and is now taking big-girl tubs!

Thats all I can think of now...I'm sure she is doing a ton of other stuff that I forgot! :) She's super cute and I'm not biased at all! ;)

Here's a bunch of pics from the last month:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2010606&l=06d24&id=1356115959

A few of my favs:

Nic's Bridal Shower

Last weekend, Mom, Shaina & I hosted a bridal shower for our bride-to-be Nicole. It was a lot of work and planning, but everything came together very well. Our theme was Mexican Beach (since her and brock will wed on the beach in Cozumel Mexico) and we used the turquiose color from her invites, along with brown and silver since it's fall. The decor turned out beautiful, and the food was very tasty - despite my cookies that were supposed to be shaped like wedding cakes looking like blobs! :( We had a great turn-out, Nic got a lot of really nice gifts and we all had a good time. Nicole's friends from high school welcomed her to the "wife-club" with a handful of pregnancy tests! :) Hayden even got to see here boyfriend Jimmy and the two of them helped Auntie Nic open pressies! Congrats Nicole...VIVA LA MEXICO!!

Family Pics

Today we had our family pictures taken for our christmas cards (expect one in the mail soon!) Hayden kept sticking her tongue out every time she'd smile! Not the best pictures, but good enough! It was actually affordable when you don't have all good pics to choose from!


https://www.searsphotos.com/?shareid=S206512671lCH24DD85PT

1st Ear infection!

Last weekend, Hayden started not finishing her bottles, not napping very well and was so hard to get down to sleep. She'd wake up as soon as we laid her down, which was unusual for her. Usually we can just lay her down drowsy and she'll go right to sleep. I started thinking she had an ear infection, but the daycare ladies said she seemed fine, maybe teething a little. I had made her an appointment already and considered cancelling it because she seemed a lot better the last few days, but kept it just to be sure. Sure enough...she has an ear infection in her right ear and her left has a lot of fluid! This is Hayden's first ear infection, but she seems to be doing okay. She's been her happy silly self, just not eating or sleeping as well as she usually does. She is taking benedryl every 8 hours to dry up her head and then if she still seems fussy, she'll start on antibiotics. Hopefully the benedryl will work and she wont need the antibiotics!

On a side note, they weighed her at the dr today and she's 20 pounds 11 ounces!! She's at the 95th percentile for weight! :) My little miss piggy!

Here's a few cute pics to get you by! We were waiting for the dr to come in. Hayden ripped her shoe off and decided to taste it! :)

Swimming!

We decided that since Hayden never really experienced the lake or pool this summer (too young, water too cold, etc) that we should get her used to the pool before we go to mexico (where we plan on spending many hours lounging at the pool!)!! At our local YMCA, they have open swim on the weekend afternoons so we took Hayden today for her first time! She was very apprehenisve at first and had a deathgrip on us, but after a few minutes, she started to loosen up. She eventually was kicking, splashing and trying to jump (like she does on our laps!) in the water. She had a blast!! We're going to try to go every weekend that we can before our trip, that way she's thoroughly ready for pool time!!

my favorite picture!

I forgot to add my favorite pictures that I took on Saturday (Hayden's 8 month birthday!)

** 8 MONTHS! **

Hayden is 8 months old today!!

I think as every month passes by, I say "this is my favorite month", but they just keep getting better and better! :) She is so much fun and my mind spins with how miraculous life is! It is the greatest blessing to watch our little girl blossom into a little person month by month. It is as if you can almost see her little brain growing and working! CRAZY!!

Our little (not so little) girl is probably pushing 20 pounds, has four teeth (#d, g, o & p; or lower centrals and upper laterals for those who don't know dental speak!) She is in a size 3 diaper...although may be moving up sooner than later and is wearing mostly 9 month clothes, with a few 12 month ones depending on the brand. And she's about outgrown the infant car seat. We just purchased a new bigger car seat that will hopefully last a few years!

As for milestones she's hit through month 7:

• She belly crawls/creeps still (pretty fast too) and is starting to figure out the conventional forward crawl
• She pulls to stand on everything (and anyone!) Every morning and after every nap, we find her standing in her crib talking to herself or anything that'll listen.
• She's starting to cruise along furniture but she's still pretty slow
• She walks assisted holding our hands
• She loves to climb mijo's stairs (which go up to our bed) and is starting to figure out the real stairs too!
• She is self-feeding very well! She would rather feed herself than be spoon-fed or eat bottles! Her pincher grasp is developing very fast...and loves to pick up cheerios or anything else we put on her tray to eat! She would eat only cheerios if we let her!
• She can say mama, dada, and all sorts of blah-blah's but I don't think she knows the meaning behind them (tear!)
• She is starting to clap her hands together! YAY! And starting to wave at people, but mostly just at Mijo (trying to get his attention to play with her maybe??)
• She is just starting to try stage-3 foods and pretty much likes everything except green beans (although she'll eat the real thing, just not the pureed baby food ones...can you blame her!?)
• She cries when we take something away from her that she wanted, when we walk out of the room or we try to make her finish her bottles! She is a very opinionated little girl!!
• She HATES the vacuum...it used to help her sleep, but now she screams when I try to vacuum!
• Mijo is still her best friend, and now that she's eating a lot more at her highchair (and snacking sometimes in the exersaucer) he's not usually too far behind...ready to clean up anything and EVERYthing that usually lands on the floor! She giggles when he licks her hand or her cheerio and then proceeds to put it in her mouth!! Guess I can't protect her from those germs! Mijo is even starting to play tag and fetch a little with her. It is super cute to see how excited she gets when he pays attention to her!
  

That's about all I can think of for now! :) Our Halloween was pretty low key last night. Hayden wore her cute halloween shirt all day when she ran errands with me and then we changed into her costume: glow-in-the-dark skeleton jammies for the trick-or-treaters. Her costume was quite the oxymoron as she's no where near skeletal! :) We only had 10 or so trick-or-treaters (which leaves me with WAY too much candy to eat!) but Hayden enjoyed answering the door and seeing all the costumes. Then to bed she went and Jeremy & I turned off all the lights and hid out in the family room! ;)