Hayden turns 1!

Our precious nephew, Hayden, also known as the Giant Man Baby, turned the big O-N-E year old today. One year ago, we traveled to Harrison with our almost-1-year old to meet the new addition to our family. Sara Kate was teething or something and was a little fussy and super clingy to mommy that night so she certainly didn't want me to have anything to do with the new little, er, big guy (well over 8 lbs at birth!!).

But a year later, she's slightly more tolerant of me holding him (and I mean slightly!). If I am holding him, she wants to be held also. If he is in Meme's lap, she wants to be in Meme's lap too. Unless she is preoccupied with her most favorite cousin ever, Hannah, then she's fine with us messing with him. Also, she will give him hugs and kisses when we tell her to. I can only imagine one day she will say 'I can do that because I'm older than you,' but on March 31-April 7 he can say 'No you're not older than me, we're the same age.' :-)
So happy 1st birthday to sweet Hayden...the most laid back and serious baby ever (minus Sara Kate's friend baby Landry who is also about to celebrate her 1st birthday and is equally serious all the time). Your Uncle Chris and Aunt Kristen are so happy to be around so we can watch you grow up!! Happy 1st buddy!
Best picture EVER!!! HAHA!!!!! This is how old I am! Or this is what I think of all your stupid camera's! Ha!
And this one is just funny...Chris snapped all the crazy family members with the cell phones watching him with his cake. This picture would include his mother, his Aunt Kristen, his Aunt Emily, his Amaw (Jason's mom), cousin Tinley (they're 1 week apart), and his great grandpa.
And the best present ever (at least it was obvious he thought so!!)! Unfortunately, Chris and I didn't have the thought to get him something cool like that...we got him clothes (albeit cute clothes!) like his mother said he needed!! :-)
And I can't leave out the girls, Sara Kate and Hannah, because of course, they're too precious for words when they're together!!!

1st Easter Egg Hunt!

This weekend Sara Kate participated in her very first Easter egg hunt!! It was at our church, and we have been practicing this past week by 'hiding' plastic eggs in the living room and having her find them and put them in her basket. She was a pro right from the first time we tried it, and it was a fun game to play this week. They had the nursery age kids 'finding' eggs on the front lawn of the church...by finding I mean picking them up because they were just scattered all over the place! But what do you expect with kids ages 18 month to 3 (mostly around the age of 2)! We got outside and what's the first thing Sara Kate wanted to do? Climb the steps!!! That girl is nuts about steps!

*Note, I was going to be 'that momma' who dressed my precious baby girl in an adorable spring smocked dress (because she has to be adorable wherever she goes and it was her FIRST Easter egg hunt) but I'm glad I didn't because sure enough, she got Cheetos down her front during lunch. Nice. :-)

We finally got her off the steps and onto the lawn with her friends and she did great!

And here's my FAVORITE picture of the day...she can be such a ham!!!

Here's our attempt at a family picture...Sara Kate wanted no part of that seeing as how we were sitting on the front steps!

And one more picture to share from our day, Sara Kate and her friend Clara who is 2 months older than her. It's so cute seeing her interact with her friends!

Easter is 2 weeks from today, and that means Sara Kate turns 2 in exactly 2 weeks! Eeeek!! :-)

The rest of our weekend was spent doing pretty low key stuff...playing, playing, and more playing!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Fixing Hair

I've mentioned it in Sara Kate's monthly blog posts before and it's obvious in some pictures, but my sweet girls hair is slowly growing. It's extremely blonde like her daddy's was when he was a baby, and it has a good bit of natural curl in it like her mama's does, especially in humidity.

When she was born, I couldn't wait to put big bows on headbands on her head and when I finally found some and started her 'collection,' she had a bow/headband on every chance I got. Picture time? Bow! Run to the store? Bow! Church? Bow! School? Bow! Even when she got to the age where she started pulling them off, I still kept putting them on because I was determined that my sweet girl was going to wear big bows! Shortly after Christmas, the headbands started looking a little funny because of the mullet that was growing in the back, and I switched to the little bows to pull the front hair back with (not that she has hair long enough to fall in her face, it's just a cute thing to do).

And she does really well keeping them in. She even wants a bow first thing in the morning and at bedtime! "Where's my bow?" is what she likes to say.

Sometimes her teachers fix her hair at school. Not exactly what I would do but she's content to let them and it is somewhat cute (but NOT cute on picture day, which happened recently...different story for a different day).

One night a couple weeks ago I had my hair in a pony tail and she wanted me to fix her hair like mommy's. So we went to the bathroom and I attempted it...and of course, we had to have the bow.

But last night was a first. Sara Kate wanted to 'fix' MOMMY's hair! My hair was in a pony tail and she pulled the band out and went to work! It was funny, adorable, and a little painful all at the same time. But she was so proud when she would get it 'fixed.' Sweet girl left a big knotty mess, but it was a cute little memory to make.

St Patrick's Day Weekend

Let me start by saying that I'm trying out a new program to make photo collages so we can show off pictures from the weekend. I feel like I always have tons of pictures that I want to share (because they're all so cute, ha!), but I feel like sometimes my posts get bogged down with pictures (which I'm sure the grandparents don't mind, ha!!). So I'm trying out Smilebox, and I made a couple photo collages for pictures from Saturday and Sunday. Chris took some awesome pictures of the Sara Kate, Hannah, and Hayden Saturday night and I tested my photo skills this afternoon with his big fancy camera. Of course, the quality won't be the best on these little collages since they get resized down when I save them so I may have to repost a full size one here and there at a later date. :-)

Now onto our weekend!

Our weekend was very low key, which was just lovely!! We have had WONDERFUL spring weather all weekend (and all week!) so we've spent plenty of time outside. It seems we have started a little Friday night tradition as of late. Chris has been having regular gig's on Friday nights...anybody need a musician?! :-)...so Sara Kate and I have been having regular Friday Face Time chats with my parents! She knows we get to video chat when I get the iPad out and she has an 'audience' to play, sing songs, read books, etc. And my parents are just content to sit and watch her do her thing. Saturday morning I slept in (lovely!!!), Chris played computer, and Sara Kate played in her bed for a long time. It just amazes me that she is so content to just sit there and hang out with her stuffed animals and books. And she uses her crib as her own personal trampoline, ha! When she got up, she went right to the pantry and picked out exactly what she wanted for breakfast, which was a Cheerios milk-n-cereal bar. She's becoming so opinionated and that just makes her seem like such a big girl.
Since it was St. Patrick's Day, we dressed in our green! Green zebra plus pink polka dots equals adorableness. :-) I'll go ahead and say that Sara Kate's dress came from 'I Live By Faith Boutique' on Facebook. A few weeks ago a dress like this in similar colors was posted, I asked if she could do green zebra print with pink polka dot trim, and she did for a great price. Even better is that she lives just down the road from us and even stopped by the house to drop off the dress. Now that's service! :-) Think I'm going to get her to make a cute little zebra and Razorback red dress for the fall! Go check out her page!
Anyway, we went and ran a few errands and came back to the house for nap time before heading to Meme and Poppa's for the night!
Jenny, Jason, and the kids were in town, and the wonderful spring weather lended itself perfectly to grilling and playing outdoors! Sara Kate and Hannah were back to being joined at the hip, with Sara Kate copying EVERYTHING Hannah did. Hayden is now walking and he did his best to keep up with the girls, even though he was a little under the weather. So here's collage #1, an outdoor photo shoot Chris took of the kids, plus a couple pictures from my iPhone. We had a great time at Meme and Poppa's and appreciate the invitation for dinner and hanging out with family.
Today we had a full day at church, came home for lunch and nap time, Chris mowed the back yard, we played outside while Chris smoked/grilled ribs for dinner (yum!!), and it's not pictured, but Sara Kate read and stacked almost all her books this evening (that child loves books!). Here's photo collage #2 of our Sunday with pictures from my iPhone and my attempt at photographing with the big camera...in no particular order, playing piano at church with daddy (during rehearsal time), sharing a donut with Poppa at church, playing outside, sharing Mac-n-Cheese with the dogs during lunch, watching daddy mow the yard through the window, and a post nap picture (which I thought was so cute because she was still so out of it). Oh, and this afternoon Sara Kate wore her first short set of the season. Too cute!
Hope everyone had a great St Patrick's Day and a great weekend!

23 Months!

Sara Kate, you are 23 months old!! Only one more month until you are 2 years old!! What have you been up to?

You have learned this month that the month stickers are stickers and you like to play with them!! You know they peel off and will stick back on!
- You are doing so good at school! You are learning so much. You trace letters and numbers, practice writing your name, do other worksheets, you play outside, you have song time, you have reading time, you are a good helper and help clean up at the end of the day...overall, your school day is great, and we can tell you are learning and thriving. Also, your separation anxiety has gotten so much better in the last couple of weeks. You are doing GREAT about walking into your class like a big girl and not getting upset when I leave you! It makes it easier for me to leave when you are happy and in a good mood! One more thing to note is that you are doing great about not using your pacifier at all while you're at school, not even at nap time!
Something I want to remember is when you are finished getting dressed for school in the mornings, you stand up and say 'smile' because you know it's time for me to take your picture. You don't always look at me (sometimes you look down or away from me) but sometimes you smile perfectly for me!
- Most days, you love to eat! You get excited when I wake you up and you get to eat your Poptart. You get excited when we get home from school and you get to have a snack. You get excited when we tell you to 'go get a bib' or 'it's time to eat.' Also, you're doing really great about eating what we give you. Some of your favorite foods include cheese, sandwiches, turkey, yogurt, apple sauce, crackers, bananas, grapes, spaghetti, chicken, chili, eggs, Veggie Straws, Poptarts, Fruit & Grain cereal bars, graham crackers, and pizza. Unfortunately, you aren't very adventurous when it comes to trying new things.
- You are a great sleeper! You go to bed between 8-8:30 at night and during the week you have been waking up right before I come to get you up, around 6:45-7:00. On the weekends you can sleep until 8 or so, but you are content to play in your bed until 9 or later! I put a couple books in your bed and you will just hang out in your bed and read and play. I also put a couple books in your bed for after nap time.
- You LOVE animals!! You love to pet the dogs and cat. You love on them and give them hugs and kisses...it's very sweet. All your books that have animals (which is most of them), you love to all the animals kisses. You like to give your stuffed animals kisses, too. You had school pictures last week with a live bunny and you were the only one in your class that would hold the bunny.
- You are very into mimicking right now. You will repeat anything we ask you to say, you will mimic any face or expression we make, you will watch and copy everything daddy does while we eat dinner or you copy how mommy puts on her make up (for example). When you start imitating faces or expressions it cracks us up and we laugh and that makes you bust out into an adorable laugh.
- It seems that you have a mouth full of teeth, at least that's what other people have noticed lately! You have your 4 top teeth, your 4 bottom teeth, your top and bottom 2 year molars, and your top I-teeth have broken the skin and are coming in slowly. We're still waiting on the bottom I-teeth, though.
- You talk all the time!!! Some of the words you say on a regular basis include: mama, dada, dog, cat, duck, Poppa, Meme, bubble, paper, my, me, bib, bow, ball, my bow, my bib, my ball, my book, more, bath, bird, bumble bee, milk, apple juice, water, bite, eye, mouth, nose, ear, teeth, hair, belly, that, what's that, where did it go, where's my mom, out, one, I love you, all done, go, no, yes/yeah, car, hi, bye-bye, Elmo, snack, drink, stop, get out, tickle, baby, smile, movie, pacifier (which you actually have your own word for...pe-pa), one, two, three, tree, please, thank you, up above (from Twinkle Twinkle Little Star)...I've added to the list from last month, but I'm sure I am forgetting some. You say new words every day!
- Some of your favorite things include books (You LOVE books! I hear you 'reading' to yourself and it's just precious!), blocks, any ball (you like to say my ball!), being outside, you love animals, you love to eat, you love Elmo, you love your best friend Grayson, you love going to Meme's house (and you even grab your bag sometimes in the evening, say 'bye-bye,' and when we ask where you are going you say 'to Meme's and Poppa's'...very cute), you like getting on the iPad and having Face Time with Gran & Pop(pa), you love putting a bow in your hair (and you say my bow!), you love to jump, you love to climb stairs and furniture, you love coloring and sitting at your little table, you love to be silly, and you absolutely LOVE music (it warms my heart to hear you humming songs to yourself, which you do all the time).
- Your personality comes through more and more every day. You are VERY determined, thoughtful, very sweet and loving, funny, you can be shy at times but you open up and adapt quickly if we are with you, most of the time you are very friendly, and you are becoming very opinionated (you like to pick out your jammies and if I don't get the right ones you get upset)!
- You can have a bit of an attitude at time if things don't go exactly your way. You will pull hair and hit when you get frustrated with us so we have started doing 'time out.' We sit in front of your closet and make you sit there for a few minutes, then we make you say sorry and give hugs and kisses. Thankfully you don't have bad behavior at school and act out like that (I asked your teachers!!).
- Because of the season change, you are wearing size 24 month clothes and you actually need size 24 month shirts for length in the torso! You still wear your size 18 month jeans and dresses. You can still wear your size 18 month jammies, but we have a bunch of size 24 month stuff borrowed from cousin Hannah so you're wearing some 24 month jammies even though they are too big.
- You are wearing size 4 diaper.
- You are wearing size 5 shoes. Thankfully, your foot growth corresponded with the season change!
- I absolutely cannot believe you are about to be 2 years old! We love to see your beautiful smile and your beautiful blue eyes, your hair is getting so long and has quite a bit of curl in it (daddy loves that!), and we love to hear your cute little laugh. You are so precious to us and we love you so much!